Just another feather in his cap.

Tigers 6, Royals 5

Doug Fister (25 GS, 161.1 IP, 3.63 ERA, 3.28 FIP, 3.5 WAR) didn’t dominate during his 6.1 innings, but he held the Royals to 3 runs with 6 strikeouts and 2 walks and pitched around one of the worst calls you’ll see this year by the entire umpiring crew. With Getz on first, Escobar clearly fouled a pitch off – so clearly that Pena made no effort to go pick it up – but the umpire made no such call and allowed Getz to advance to third before Fister retrieved the baseball. Needless to say, Jim Leyland got himself kicked out, but less needless to say, so did the mild mannered Pena. Fister turned the game over to Smyly who allowed an equalizer to Perez, but was quickly bailed out by a Fielder bomb that punctuated his big night. Calling on Veras for the 8th proved problematic, as he allowed the tying run to score before escaping a big jam thanks to Fielder putting a delicate part of his body in the path of the baseball. In the 9th, Aaron Crow had to face Miguel Cabrera. I’m pretty sure you can imagine how that went for Crow, as he hung his head as he strolled into the dugout after giving up the walkoff bomb. The win takes the Tigers 21 games over the .500 mark and sets them up to take the series on Sunday behind Max Scherzer (24 GS, 164.1 IP, 2.85 ERA, 2.69 FIP, 4.9 WAR).

The Moment: Miguel Cabrera sends everybody home.