Major League Baseball

Tigers try to gain ground against Indians in doubleheader (Jul 01, 2017)

Published Jun. 30, 2017 8:38 p.m. ET

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AP

DETROIT -- J.D. Martinez believes a big weekend for the Detroit Tigers would provide some payback for what the Cleveland Indians did to them last season.

The Tigers missed the playoffs in large part because of a 4-14 record against their American League Central rival. Detroit currently finds itself desperately trying to get back in the division race and it can make up two games in one day on Saturday.

The Tigers and Indians play a day-night doubleheader at Comerica Park. The second game is a makeup of a May 4 postponement.

The series this weekend was reduced to three games by a postponement on Friday. That game will be made up as part of day-night doubleheader on Sept. 1.

Detroit (35-43) trails first-place Cleveland (42-36) by seven games.

"Any time you're playing a team in your own division that's ahead of you, it's a good opportunity to make up ground," said Martinez, the Tigers' right fielder. "That's kind of what Cleveland did to us last year. Every time we would play them, we were close and they'd put it to us. All of a sudden, we were four games out again. Then we're playing good, playing good, we play them again and they'd put us right back down. It's time for us to kind of return the favor a little bit."

The Tigers have had the upper hand in head-to-head matchups this season, going 4-2 in two previous series.

Detroit's sense of urgency is high, as many of its veterans could be dealt if a turnaround doesn't come quickly. Martinez, a free agent at the end of the season, tops the list of players likely to be traded.

"We've been talking about it the last month," Martinez said of the media coverage of a possible selloff. "There's so much that can happen before July 31st. Yeah, we're down. Yeah, our record's not that great. But our division isn't that strong this year."

The scheduled starters for Friday's game will now start the day game on Saturday. Indians right-hander Josh Tomlin (4-9, 6.09 ERA) will oppose Tigers right-hander Anibal Sanchez (0-0, 6.75 ERA), who will be making his third start since a four-game stint with Triple-A Toledo.

Cleveland right-hander Carlos Carrasco (8-3, 3.67 ERA) will start the second game against Detroit right-hander Jordan Zimmermann (5-5, 5.53 ERA).

Tomlin, one of the league's premier control pitchers, walked a season-high three batters in his last outing, a 4-0 loss to Minnesota on Sunday. His streak of 45 straight starts walking two or fewer batters ended.

He's 6-6 with a 5.32 ERA in 14 career outings against Detroit.

"That was probably his toughest outing of the year as far as throwing the ball where he wanted to," Cleveland pitching coach Mickey Callaway said of Tomlin's start against Minnesota. "Obviously, when you have a 40-something game stretch where you walk two (or less), eventually you're going to walk (another) one, especially when it's the longest streak in the history of the team. It just so happened he probably wasn't on top of his game that night."

Sanchez is 4-7 with a 4.74 ERA in 15 career outings against the Indians.

Zimmermann has faced the Indians twice in his career, going 0-1 with a 13.50 ERA. Carrasco is 7-7 with a 4.65 ERA in 16 career starts against the Tigers.

Carrasco is coming off one of his roughest starts of the season. He pitched a season-low 3 1/3 innings against Texas and matched his career high with eight earned runs allowed.

Carrasco never recovered after Shin-Soo Choo's leadoff double.

"I just didn't see him go ahead and throw with the conviction that he had thrown with most of the year," Callaway said. "I don't know if it was the double on the first pitch of the game that kind of got him out of whack. But he just didn't attack with the same stuff we had been seeing and that's a huge key for Carlos. I think he'd admit that.

"We talked a little bit about it. I know he wants to go out there tomorrow and prove that's not the pitcher he is."

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