Pitching To Or Walking Cabrera Can Burn You
Some days you get hurt whether you pitch to Miguel Cabrera or not.
With first base open, two out in the third inning with Detroit leading, 1-0, Seattle elected to pitch to walk Cabrera and he ripped a low ball to left for an RBI single.
So the next time Cabrera batted, in the fifth with a man on first and one out and the Tigers leading, 2-1, the Mariners chose to walk Detroit's cleanup hitter. That didn't work either.
Jhonny Peralta popped out to second but then Brennan Boesch grounded a low 1-2 curve to right for an RBI single.
Detroit held on to its lead and took a 3-2 victory to finish a trip to Oakland and Seattle with a 4-3 record, matching last season's total of winning trips, one.
Cabrera has been walked intentionally three times this season after getting 32 on-purpose passes last season. It's a trendy thing to do and probably a wise one.
Boesch and Cabrera were batting .350 through the first six games of the trip, with the rest of the team batting only .184.
Manager Jim Leyland played Ryan Raburn at second base for the second time on the trip and said he will continue to do so against left-handed pitching, as long as Will Rhymes isn't hitting.
This allows Leyland to get all of his outfielders into the lineup at the same time.
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