With a Game 1 victory, the Detroit Tigers now turn to Justin Verlander

OAKLAND – The Detroit Tigers are 24 hours into their postseason, they’re a win in, on the road, and the ball goes to Justin Verlander, the 30-year-old former MVP and Cy Young Award winner, and this is when a ballclub begins to feel the wind on its numbers. <<CLICK HERE>>

The Tigers howled, and whooped, and who knows what else late Friday night here, after they’d beaten the Oakland A’s by a 3-2 score, struck out 16 of them, generally kept the O.co Coliseum rowdies sitting on their vuvuzelas, and then perhaps overheard their closer, Joaquin Benoit, observe, “I feel like we’re already on the verge of the World Series again.”

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In Justin Verlander, the Tigers have a No. 2 starter who is a former MVP and Cy Young award winner. (AP Photo)

It all sounds pretty good, as long as you overlook the fact Miguel Cabrera doesn’t ever look comfortable, not in the field and not in the batter’s box. And that the Tigers won the first two games of last year’s division series and still had to play a Game 5 in this very venue, which ended fine for them because Verlander took the postseason on his narrow and capable shoulders and threw a four-hitter. As much as any, in part because theNew York Yankees were in no shape to put up a fight, that was the game that pushed the Tigers into the World Series.

Big game. Loud arena. October chill. Verlander. Sounds like the Tigers.

Right?

Except Game 1 came and went, and the guy who was huffing 97-mph fastballs past the A’s was Max Scherzer, who stepped out of Verlander’s shadow, won 21 games, had a WHIP under 1, and became The Guy. Which left Verlander as the Game 2 starter, because, hey, it happens, he wasn’t as good as Scherzer. Verlander had spent the season falling out of and back into his mechanics, which is a heckuva thing for a pitcher who was pretty close to perfect for at least two seasons and maybe more.

It’s not that Verlander wasn’t good. He was. He’s right there with many of the No. 2’s in the postseason, better than most, not as good as others, still Verlander and still not quite. And that’s why Saturday night’s game here – Verlander vs. rookie Sonny Gray – looks less like a pushover and more like a curiosity. Gray has 10 mostly excellent starts in the big leagues. Verlander, well, we can’t be sure exactly. <<CLICK HERE>>