Justin Verlander and Detroit Tigers ready to face New York Yankees in ALCS Game 1 – MLB Update
Justin Verlander and Detroit Tigers had very little time to savour their five game American League Division Series victory over the Oakland Athletics. Jim Leyland and company are now preparing themselves for the best of seven games series against the New
York Yankees in a rematch of last year’s playoffs.
''We don't want to be satisfied,'' general manager Dave Dombrowski said after Detroit eliminated Oakland 6-0. ''Now we're there. But we've been there before. Now we want that next step. We want eight more wins.''
In some ways, the Tigers find themselves in a familiar territory. They beat the Yankees in the five game ALDS last year, only to lose to the Texas Rangers in the American League Championship Series. However, Tigers are looking more determined than ever before.
They have also packed their hitting line-up with some of the best batters in Major League Baseball.
''We still felt like we were going to win. We didn't care who was pitching,'' Oakland manager Bob Melvin said. ''He went out there and pitched probably one of the better games of his career at a big time. There's not much, at times, you can do about that
when a guy like that with that much ability goes out and pitches as well as he did.''
Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder have given some impressive performances this year and surely they will be looking to play their part to give Tigers an easy win over New York. Only hours after they completed a deserving 3-2 series victory against Oakland,
the Tigers were set to fly out to New York for Game 1 of ALCS.
Doug Fister, who has looked in terrific form over the last couple of months, will be taking on Yankees’ veteran starting pitcher Andy Pettitte on Sunday.
Verlander displayed some top quality throwing skills in Game 5 of ALDS as he pitched nine shut-out innings to lay the foundation of the Tigers’ victory. Detroit has not won the World Series title for the last 28-years and it will be interesting to see if
Verlander, Max Scherzer and Fister can live up to the expectations to end that drought.
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