Not perfect, but sufficient.

Tigers 6, Royals 4

Anibal Sanchez (6 GS, 37 IP, 5.11 ERA, 3.74 FIP) opened the afternoon with five perfect innings of baseball, and while the Tigers didn’t exactly play perfect baseball the entire way, they played well enough to win. Alex Avila cashed in four runs with a pair of hits and Cabrera backed him up with a two run blast to left field to push the Tigers lead to six runs. The Royals wore away with two hits and a sac fly in the 7th and then three hits and an RBI ground out in the 8th, but the lead held at 6-4 when Joakim Soria entered in the 9th. The win is their 17th of the season and allows them to split the series with the Royals before taking a day off and heading to see the Sox on Tuesday with Shane Greene (5 GS, 31.1 IP, 4.60 ERA, 3.46 FIP) on the bump.

The Moment: Avila clears the bases in the 4th.