Price, Tigers lose; AL Central lead down to 1/2 game

MINNEAPOLIS - In baseball, an elite starting pitcher is known as a "horse." In that vein, the Tigers seemed to have a strong exacta going to the post Wednesday night.

David Price, one of the top starters in the American League over the last several seasons, was starting for the Tigers against the Twins. Chris Sale, the top left-handed starter in the A.L. this season, was pitching for the White Sox against the Royals.

Neither horse came through for the Tigers. Price and Sale each gave up five runs and lost.

The Twins beat the Tigers and Price, 8-4, at Target Field.

The Royals battered Sale for two homers in his five innings and beat the White Sox, 6-2.

Kansas City pulled within a half-game of the Tigers in the A.L. Central heading into the team's three-game series at Kauffman Stadium this weekend. Each team is off today, and then Justin Verlander faces Royals left-hander Jason Vargas in the series opener Friday night.

Good news, maybe: The Tigers are 11-5 against the Royals this season.

Bad news, definitely: The Tigers are 7-8 against the Twins this season.

Bad news, maybe: The Tigers close the season next with a four-game series against the Twins at Comerica Park.

Price gave up three runs in the first inning, never seemed to find his true groove, and departed after he allowed the tying double on a liner by Danny Salazar with two out in the sixth. Brian Dozier greeted Al Alburquerque with the go-ahead triple on a booming drive off the fence in left-center.

Rookie Kyle Ryan took over to face Joe Mauer in a left-left match-up. Mauer looped a single over third to score Dozier and make it 6-4.

That made three straight Twins hitters, each facing a different pitcher, who had delivered a two-out RBI hit _ a market the Tigers had cornered earlier in the game.

The Tigers tried to reply in the top of the seventh, then had their most ill-timed misadventure on the bases since Prince Fielder got trapped between third and home in the final A.L. championship series game last year in Boston.

Torii Hunter singled with one out in the seventh and stopped at third on Cabrera's one-out double to deep right-center. It didn't make sense to send Hunter home because Victor Martinez and J.D. Martinez were coming up.

With the infield back, Victor Martinez sent a grounder to Mauer at first. Hunter went back to third _ and Cabrera broke for third. So when Mauer stepped on the bag, Hunter was on third, and Cabrera was trapped between second and third. Mauer threw to shortstop Eduardo Nunez, who immediately tagged out Cabrera, who isn't running well and didn't attempt to get in a rundown. That ended the inning and left J.D. Martinez on deck.

The eighth inning was also galling. After Martinez singled, Nick Castellanos flied to the track in right in a bid for the tying homer. Pinch hitter Tyler Collins singled Martinez to third. Manager Brad Ausmus then did some maneuvering and got a match-up: upon entering the game, left-hander Brian Duensing faced right-handed pinch-hitter Eugenio Suarez.

On 1-2, Suarez took strike three.

Right-hander Michael Tonkin relieved, and Rajai Davis _ after he bunted foul _ grounded to second. Why not lefty Don Kelly against Tonkin? Well, perhaps because Kelly is 1-for-22 as a pinch-hitter since the start of last season.

With those disconnects in the seventh and eighth, the Tigers still hadn't scored since the second inning.

Then Minnesota added two runs in its eighth.

The Tigers had a pair of two-out RBI singles in the first off right-hander Kyle Gibson. They got a two-out RBI single and two-out RBI double from Cabrera in the second. Then Gibson retired them in order in three of his remaining four innings.

Given the 4-3 lead for the bottom of the second, Price blanked Minnesota and held the one-run lead over the next four innings as his pitch count soared. He got a couple of fine plays on grounders by second baseman Ian Kinsler and another by shortstop Andrew Romine. After four innings, Price had thrown 89 pitches. He finished at 112 for his 5 2/3 innings.

Price is 5-for-9 in quality starts for the Tigers. Only once has he made back-to-back quality starts for them. He didn't resemble the pitcher who entered the game with 33 walks and an A.L.-high 250 strikeouts. On Wednesday, he walked there to match his season high, and he fanned five.

In his two starts for Tampa Bay against the Twins this season, he had one walk and 21 strikeouts.

The Tigers became the second division leader to lose a rubber game on the grounds of the last-place team in their division. The Dodgers suffered that fate at Colorado, and emphatically. Their defeats in Denver the last two days were by the scores of 10-4 and 16-2.

John Lowe writes for the Detroit Free Press, a Gannett property.