Detroit Tigers lose to Kansas City Royals 8-9 – MLB Update
Detroit Tigers lost to the Kansas City Royals 8-9 in a thrilling encounter at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri in the opening game of their three match series of the 2012 Major League Baseball regular season.
Tigers will be extremely disappointed with the result of the game. Had they won the game, Detroit would have closed the gap between themselves and Chicago White Sox to just two games on the American League Central Division standings table.
Jim Leyland and company definitely have an edge over their opponents. They have given far more consistent results than the Royals and it will be interesting to see if they can bounce back in Game 2 to keep their playoffs hopes alive.
Starting pitcher Justin Verlander had a poor time on the mound as he gave up 12 hits and eight runs in five plus innings in his worst start of the season. Verlander helped Tigers win the AL Central title last season but he has not live up to the expectations
this year. He will be looking to turn things around on his next start to build on some much needed confidence.
"Clearly, I wasn't good enough," Verlander said after giving a season high eight runs. "I missed on location a little bit, but not necessarily up. Most of the hard-hit balls they hit were in that first inning because I missed on location. I felt from there
forward I made some pretty good pitches and let them put the ball in play in the right spots."
"It was one of those starts where we put together a good first inning and a good second inning and kind of held on from there,” Ned Yost said in a post game interview.
Andy Dirks doubled to deep centre in the first inning to put Tigers on the board. Delmon Young also made the most scoring opportunities as he hit a two run home-run to extend the lead to 3-0 but the Tigers were unable to take advantage of early momentum
as the Royals came back from behind to snatch an incredible win.
The Royals will be happy with their performance as they managed to take a decent victory over the mighty Detroit Tigers.
Tags: