Justin Verlander did nothing to hurt his position as a competitor for both the Cy Young and MVP today. In shutting down the punchless A's he pitched eight shutout innings allowing three hits, three walks and K'ing six. Jose Valverde and his gyrations closed it out for his 46th save in 46 attempts. The A's hits came from Scott Sizemore (go figure), Coco Crisp and David DeJesus - all were singles.
The game which lasted 2:56 seemed a lot shorter, perhaps because nothing much happened. The Tigers only managed three runs, a solo home run by Austin Jackson in the top of the sixth, a run-scoring double by Brandon Inge in the eighth, and a successful suicide squeeze by Ramon Santiago in the top of the ninth.
Despite not really allowing too much to the Tigers the A's used five pitchers. Chris Carter went 0-for-3 with three strikeouts giving us lots of hope for 2012. Not much to say after a game like this, so I won't say too much.
The end is near... thankfully...