The Major League Baseball postseason is underway and after the Dodgers and Cardinals took early leads in their series on Thursday, the Detroit Tigers will visit Oakland to play the Athletics for the start of their American League Division Series for Game 1 on Friday night.
The series opens with the Tigers starting Max Scherzer, while the Athletics will be throwing Bartolo Colon for Game 1. Scherzer comes into the game after going 21-3 this season and it is very likely that he will be taking home the American League Cy Young award. Game 1 will kick off on TBS at 9:37 pm after the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Atlanta Braves and then Game 2 will pick up on Saturday night on TBS as well with the game starting after 9 pm.
The Saturday night game in Oakland will push the Oakland Raiders game the following day into the evening, as the Coliseum needs time to change over. The A's and the Raiders are the only team that still splits a stadium between an NFL and MLB team and the series will head to Detroit for Game 3 on Monday and that game will be on TBS or the MLB Network.
The series has two more games on the schedule if necessary in Game 4, which will also be in Detroit, while Game 5 if necessary will switch back to Oakland for the deciding matchup. The two teams played last season in the playoffs with the Tigers pulling through and making it to the World Series, but they were swept out by the San Francisco Giants in four games. The Athletics are looking to get to their first World Series in quite some time and in their last six playoffs appearances, they only made it to the ALCS once and GM Billy Beane will be looking for a deep run this time around.
According to ESPN.com, Scherzer has been solid in the playoffs with a 2-1 career record and the report says that the two teams will be playing each other in the playoffs for the fourth time, including last season's matchup. The Athletics have been a dangerous team all season and they won the season series 4-3 while outscoring the Tigers by two runs.
The biggest issue for the Tigers will be the health of Miguel Cabrera and manager Jim Leyland said that he is playing through pain, something that he has been dealing with all season and if he can't play to his usual potential, that could be trouble for the Tigers. Detroit was able to stay consistent while Cabrera was injured and he ended up finishing the season with a .348 average with 44 HRs and 137 RBIs.
