The Cleveland Indians and Detroit Tigers are playing on the MLB schedule on Thursday afternoon and the baseball game comes live from Comerica Park and will be streaming from the MLB.com main website starting at 1:08 pm ET and Justin Verlander will be on the mound for the home team against Danny Salazar for the Tribe.
Verlander comes in looking to continue the Tigers' dominance at home this season and they are currently leading the AL Central with the best record, even though they don't have the most wins. The division looks like it will be much tougher to win this year than last year, as the Cleveland Indians are coming off of a playoff appearance, the Royals are coming into the serason after having their first winning record in a decade and both the Minnesota Twins and Chicago White Sox have been much improved in the early goings of the season and even if that doesn't keep up, it should make things markedly more interesting.
Verlander comes back after signing a seven-year, $180 million before last season and he was 13-12 with a 3.46 ERA last year and will be looking to bounce back this season. So far this year he has a 2.57 ERA and is 1-1 over his two starts and he had his best start so far against the Padres, letting in just two runs and striking out eight in seven innings against San Diego. Miguel Cabrera has been off to a slow start, but manager Brad Ausmus knows he doesn't need to worry about his slugger this early in the season and now they are looking to get back on track after losing five of the past seven games.
The team started the season 4-0 before faltering a bit and now that Cabrera comes in after putting in two RBIs in the loss to Cleveland, he could be getting hot at the right time. The Tigers come into the game after a loss to the Indians and they will start up a series at home against the LA Angels on Friday after the series finale here on Thursday and that game will have Jered Weaver pitching against Drew Smyly in the matchup.
The Tigers come into the game at 29th in runs scored, but they are ninth in batting average and 14th in slugging and they are looking to get their bats hot as they push into the end of the month. The team is ranked 10th in ERA and WHIP this season and they have six quality starts and they are looking for Verlander to get things going against the Indians on Thursday.
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