Nope.
Pirates 11, Tigers 6
Justin Verlander (25 GS, 158.2 IP, 4.76 ERA, 4.07 FIP, 2.1 fWAR) threw one inning. His shoulder is hurt. Justin Miller and the defense made it worse. So did baserunning. They made a faux-comeback, but not really. I won’t make you relive it. Robbie Ray (3 GS, 15.1 IP, 4.70 ERA, 3.98 FIP, 0.2 fWAR) goes Tuesday.
The Moment: That glorious half inning when the team was winning.
New English D 
Theoretical question: Would it have been rational, say around the twelfth inning in the 19-inning doozy, for Ausmus et al. to throw the game? (I assume one could do a statistical run of the cost of a loss versus the cost of pitching/bullpen decimation, but I don’t know statistics that well…maybe I’m wrong.) Would there be any penalty if, say, he threw the game and word got out? Given the performance of this DET-PIT game, I kept thinking that:’Why didn’t just throw that game?!?’
Would Dombrowski ever ‘John Smoltz’ (new verb here) Verlander?
In fear of jinxing it, from deep in Royals territory here in Nebraska, the Royals always do a fantastical run this time of year. Then, come September…. But the Tigers looked SAD (in multiple senses of the word) yesterday.
Sorry for all the questions, and thanks!
The basic idea, throwing the 19 inning game to preserve the pen for the next few days makes some sense, but the reality is that you don’t know if it’s gonna be one more inning or ten more innings. What I might have done is go to a position player earlier in the process, but giving up the game at that point when you have the option of calling up your AAA relievers for the next day doesn’t seem needed.
I doubt it, but it might make sense if this is a serious injury and he could use the time to ease back into things.
I’m not worried about the Royals being good, I’m worried about the Tigers burning through their cushion