The Detroit Tigers and Oakland Athletics will start their American League Divsiion Series on Friday night in the Bay Area and after the Los Angeels Dodgers and the Atlanta Braves play their gme, the ALDS series will start with Game 1 at O.co Coliseum in California with Max Scherzer and Bartolo Colon on the mound.
The Tigers are coming into the series after winning the American League central and now the team will take on the American League west winners on Friday night. The series will pick up on Saturday night at 9 pm for the second game and that matchup will push the Oakland Raiders game against the San Diego Chargers into a night game, as these two team are the only ones that still share a stadium in the MLB and the NFL. The Tigers are coming into the series as one of the most consistent offenses in the league and the Athletics have been very consistent as well.
Check here for streaming coverage of the game or for more from Sports World Report on the Athletics and the Tigers ALDS series.
The Tigers come into the series as the second best scoring team in the league with nearly 800 runs and the team ranked first in batting average in baseball with over a .280 clip. The team ranks second in the league in on base and slugging percentage and the team will have Scherzer on the mound and he is likely the Cy Young winner after going 21-3 and he will be countered by Colon, who has a previous Cy Young win in his career. The Tigers will throw Justin Verlander on Saturday in game 2 and then the series will pick up in Detroit.
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Game 3 of the series will be on Monday and the next game will be on Tuesday, while the fifth game of the series will be on Thursday if necessary will be played. The Oakland A's are coming into the series with one of the best teams they have constructed, with names like Josh Donaldson and others playing very well as the playoffs start. The team put away the Texas Rangers with a fantastic stretch and the team comes into the series with an offensive outburst, as they ranked fourth in the league in runs and 14th in batting average while being in the top ten in slugging and on base percentage.
Miguel Cabrera comes into the series banged up and while he is injured, he finished the season with a nearly .350 average with 44 home runs and 137 RBIs and the series could hinge on how much he is able to play and how healthy he is. The Athletics are looking to get into the ALCS for the second time in the past six tries and Billy Beane is ready to finally make it to the World Series and the team will need to beat a team in the Tigers that was able to defeat them last season in the postseason.
The Tigers and Athletics are coming into the series after being fairly even head to head this season, as the A's won four of the seven games against Detroit, while the two teams have been fairly even, scoring about the same amount of runs against each other with the Tigers scoring 40 and the Athletics scoring 42. Oakland is coming into the series hitting .285 against the Tigers and Detroit will come into the ALDS with a solid pitching staff, as Scherzer will win the Cy Young, while they have Justin Verlander, Anibal Sanchez and Doug Fister for the best rotation in the AL.
