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by joez
Share of first on the line in Tigers-White Sox finale
By Anthony Odoardi / MLB.com | 9/13/2012 2:57 AM ET
Tigers manager Jim Leyland made the accurate prediction on Tuesday that his club would either be one or three games back in the American League Central race depending on the result of Wednesday night's game against the White Sox.
Fortunately for the Tigers, it was the former, as Max Scherzer led them to an 8-6 victory to pull within one game of the division lead.
Now the Tigers will hand the ball to the reigning AL Most Valuable Player and Cy Young Award winner, Justin Verlander. And for the second time in less than two weeks, it will be Verlander vs. White Sox left-hander Chris Sale with a share of first place on the line.
"I don't think you get much more than a game of this magnitude at this time of year," said Verlander after the Sept. 2 outing, likely not expecting the same situation on Thursday.
The Tigers won that game, 4-2, to sweep the White Sox for the second straight series. Now, just like then, Verlander is coming off a start in which he was roughed up. He gave up six runs on nine hits and didn't reach 97 pitches for the first time in 80 starts, as Leyland elected to conserve him for the series finale.
The 23-year-old Sale isn't coming off a poor start, having contained the Royals to one run on five hits on Saturday, but being the starter in the thick of a pennant race isn't something he's used to, given this is his first season in the rotation. However, he sounded like a veteran as he downplayed Thursday's game.
"Whoever is pitching, whatever team you're pitching against, you just keep going, not really focus on who it is or all the hype behind it," Sale said. "I've still got to go out there and make pitches. He's good. They've got a good lineup, but they've been beaten."
They've been beaten 67 times this season, in fact, but not once by Sale. The left-hander has six losses, three of them to the Tigers, and the 12 earned runs they've scored off him are the most he's allowed to any team.
"I'm not going to sit here and dwell on the past and talk about 'what ifs,'" Sale said. "Got to focus on what we've got ahead of us."
And what the White Sox have ahead of them is a tall task. But with Sale being 8-0 and compiling an impressive 1.20 ERA in his last nine starts at U.S. Cellular Field, things could very well could lean in their favor. That, or the Tigers could prove they have the lefty's number.
“Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is.”
-- Bob Feller
Center fielder Franklin Gutierrez made a rare error on Kelly Johnson’s deep fly ball to begin the bottom of the seventh. For Gutierrez, the miscue was his first in 301 games. He had gone 846 chances without an error, an AL record for outfielders.