The Major League Baseball postseason is in full swing now that the National League Division Series has started up and with the Dodgers and Cardinals taking the early advantages, the American League series will start up on Friday, with the Detroit Tigers visiting the Oakland Athletics.
The series will be on TBS and the MLB Network and the first game will start up on Friday at 9:37 PM and will have Max Scherzer matching up against Bartolo Colon. Scherzer is having himself a Cy Young season and the Tigers have been one of the most impressive teams in baseball and now the A's and Tigers will have a rematch of their series from last season.
The schedule for the series starts on Friday night with the game in Oakland and then will continue on TBS again on Saturday at 9:07 p.m. and because of that game, the Oakland Raiders game on Sunday was pushed into the evening and now will be on the NFL Network. The next game will be on Monday in Detroit on TBS or the MLB Network and then if necessary game 4 will be on Tuesday followed by the final game 5 on Thursday if the series goes that long.
Last season the series went five games and the Tigers eventually won and this season is appears both teams are fairly matched up. The Tigers will have Justin Verlander go in Game 2 and the Tigers feel they have an advantage for the series with their pitching staff, while the Athletics don't mind taking the position of the underdog despite having home field advantage.
The Athletics were excellent at home this past season while winning 30 more games than they lost there and now the Tigers will try to steal at least one game there. Scherzer went 21-3 this past season and likely will win the Cy Young award and the Tigers will be relying on the strength of their pitching, as they had over 100 quality starts and along with Anibal Sanchez and Doug Fister, the rotation is very deep.
Sanchez was tops in ERA and Fister was a 14 game winner as a third starter and that will be tough to go up against. The biggest advantage for the A's is their bullpen, which is much stronger than the Tigers with Grant Balfour closing things out. The Athletics are young and loose, while the Tigers will still have to remember their disappointing World Series performance last season.
The top issue for the Tigers will be the health of Miguel Cabrera, who won the triple crown last season but ended up limping to the finish this year. Jim Leyland said he is playing through pain and that could be a huge issue for the team. The Tigers ranked first in the league in batting average and second in runs, on base and slugging percentage and their offense will need to be on to win the series.
