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Great escapes spark Verlander’s strong start, win
- Updated: June 5, 2016
DETROIT — Justin Verlander likes to emphasize the importance of the shutdown inning. When the Tigers put up a big inning, he wants to put up a scoreless one on the other side, retiring the order as quickly as possible and sending his team back to the plate.
On Sunday, Verlander and the Tigers arguably won with the shutdown inning in reverse. It wasn’t a scoreless inning after Detroit pulled ahead of the White Sox that sent them on their way to a 5-2 win and a series sweep. Instead, it was the jam Verlander escaped just before it.
Verlander actually did it twice. In the third inning, his back-to-back strikeouts of Jason Coats and Jose Abreu stranded runners at second and third and kept Detroit’s deficit at 1-0, before Miguel Cabrera doubled in Cameron Maybin to tie the game in the bottom half. Verlander found his slider when he needed to against Abreu, whose first-inning homer put Chicago in front.
“I would say I found my slider a little bit there,” Verlander said. “The fastball was kind of where I wanted it most of the day, …
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