76-66 this season

It is a rematch of a game that happened a couple of Sunday nights ago. Mr. Kate Upton -is he still dating her? – against young Chris Sale. At stake, a share of first place or getting things back to the way they were before this series started. There were opportunities for the Sox to make it better for themselves, but they failed.

Tonight, Robin is sending out the following guys to prevent sharing their favorite toy:

Alejandro De Aza LF, Youk 3B, Dewayne Wise CF, The King 1B, Alex Rios RF, AJ Pierzynski C, The Cuban Tank DH, The Cuban Missile SS, Bacon 2B.

Chris Sale will look to pick up his 17th win of the season. Chris is 8-0 in his last nine starts at the Cell. So that bodes quite well for tonight.

His last start was a bit erratic in the early going. However, he did settle down and ended up picking up the win against the PITAs last weekend. When he last saw the Tigers, he was pretty good. Unfortunately, the Tigers hitters were just a little bit better. He ended up losing the battle to JV at Comerica.

75-67 this season

Jim Leyland is sending out the following guys in search of getting a share of first place:

Austin Jackson CF, Omar Infanta 2B, Miguel Cabrera 3B, Prince Fielder 1B, Delmon Young DH, Jhonny Peralta SS, Avisail Garcia LF, Brennan Boesch RF, Gerald Laird C.

Justin Verlanderwill start for the Tigers tonight. Justin had a not so great start in his last game against the Angels this past weekend. That game also ended his streak of going at least 100 pitches that dated back to forever. He also had a bad start recently against the PITA Royals who touched him up pretty badly. Unfortunately, in between bad outings, he saw the Sox and was back to typical JV form.

If the pattern continues, tonight could be a rough go. After all, Justin is 12-1 with a 2.23 ERA since June 2009. The last time he lost to the Sox was July 15, 2011 where he gave up five runs, four of which were earned. Tonight would be a great night to see the JV who pitched before June 2009.

*Notes: Unless there has to be a playoff matchup between these two teams, they will not see each other again until July of next season! (WHAT UP SCHEDULING GODS?????) Brennan Boesch is the only lefty to hit a home run off Chris Sale. He has done it twice.