The Detroit Tigers and the Oakland Athletics are gearing up for their American League Division Series matchup on Friday night and the game will be the fourth of four games on the schedule, as they will play at 9:37 pm in California for Game 1 following the Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves game on TBS.
The Tigers will be putting Max Scherzer on the mound for the game, while the Athletics will have the husky Bartolo Colon and that should be one of the best matchups of all the games on Friday. Last season the Tigers and Athletics went to five games with the Tigers winning and now Detroit comes into the series after being no-hit to end the season by the Miami Marlins.
The schedule for the series starts on Friday night in Oakland on TBS and Game 2 of the series will pick up on Saturday night at 9 pm, which will push the Oakland Raiders to a later time on Sunday. The Coliseum needs time for a football changeover, meaning that the Raiders and Chargers now will be playing a night game. The third game of the series will shift to Detroit on Monday and will be on TBS or the MLB Network and that day will also have the third game of the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays series.
The Tigers and Athletics will play game 4 if necessary on Tuesday and that game will be on TBS as well and then game 5 will be back in Oakland on Thursday night if necessary. Scherzer went 21-3 this season and likely will be the Cy Young winner and he will be facing off against a past winner in Colon on Friday night. The Dodgers and Cardinals started off their series over the Braves and Pirates with wins and now they will take that into Game 2 on Friday.
The slate is filled with four games and all series will be officially started by Saturday, with the National League Division Series games having started on Thursday night. The Tigers come into the series with one of the best offenses in the league, but with Miguel Cabrera dealing with pain, that could be the biggest factor in the entire series. The team comes in after scoring the second most runs in baseball and the team ranked first in batting average while finishing second in both on base and slugging percentage, something Cabrera surely helped with.
The Tigers won their division for the third straight season, but if Cabrera can't play much in the playoffs, it could be tough to get past the Athletics, who have a solid offense and a solid pitching staff. Manager Jim Leyland said that Cabrera is playing with pain and that despite hitting 44 homes runs with nearly 140 RBIs and a .348 average, he is at zero for the playoffs like everyone else and will have to find a way to power through it. Cabrera said he is ready to play hard will give his best for the team each game.
