A thing of beauty.

Tigers 2, Phillies 1

In life, it’s so rare that something lives up to the hype but I’m confident in saying this duel between Cole Hamels and Doug Fister (21 GS, 135 IP, 3.67 ERA, 3.31 FIP, 2.9 WAR) did. Hamels’ only blemish was a 2 run double he allowed to Avila in the 5th and Fister allowed just a single unearned run in the 3rd. Fister gave the Tigers a brilliant effort, going 8 innings and allowing just 3 hits and 1 walk to go with his 6 strikeouts. It was everything a great Fister start should be. He was efficient, he got ground balls, and he made hitters look silly with tons of movement on the fastball and a curve about which you could write poetry. After today’s start, Fister is now 3rd in MLB in ground ball percentage and 7th in the league in walk percentage. Both teams also treated us to some great defense to put the cherry on top of the sundae that was this game, including some solid work by Santiago and a doozy of a grab by Nix in RF for the Phils. The win pushes the Tigers to 57-45 and they will avoid Cliff Lee on Saturday due to an injury. The Tigers will send Max Scherzer (20 GS, 137.2 IP, 3.14 ERA, 2.81 FIP, 4.0 WAR) to the mound to face his replacement.

The Moment: Fister gets a standing ovation after retiring 13 of the final 14 batters he faced.