Major League Baseball

Burden falls on Verlander to pitch gem in Game 2

Published Oct. 2, 2014 10:45 p.m. ET

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BALTIMORE -- Justin Verlander has an opportunity to make everyone forget about his less than stellar regular season. 

Unfortunately, the Tigers desperately need a vintage Verlander performance if they are going to get back in this series against the Baltimore Orioles.

After a 12-3 shellacking in Game 1 in which Max Scherzer took the loss and the Tigers bullpen was exposed once again, Verlander has to find a way to pitch the way he did his last two outings of the season and in the last two playoffs.

Verlander pitched deep into each of his last two regular-season starts (7 1/3 and 8 innings), allowing just one earned one in each.

The first of those was against the Kansas City Royals, the other against the Chicago White Sox.

"Some of the adjustments I made started to take hold ... and (I) just felt more comfortable out there on the mound and started locating my pitches better," Verlander said before Thursday's Game 1. "Definitely started feeling better toward the end of the season."

The Orioles are known for hitting home runs and Nelson Cruz hit a two-run shot in the first inning, igniting the home crowd and his team.

Although the Tigers were able to tie it with homers from Victor Martinez and J.D. Martinez, the Orioles re-took the lead in the second inning and never lost it again.

"I just left too many pitches up, that's the way it goes," Scherzer said. "This is a great hitting ballclub and when you give them (the Orioles) a chance to extend their arms, man, they can really hit it. I gotta find a way to keep the ball down. I wasn't quite able to do that and I paid for it."

The Orioles led 4-3 after J.J. Hardy hit a homer off Scherzer in the seventh and Miguel Cabrera hit one in the top of the eighth.

But in the bottom of the eighth, Tigers manager Brad Ausmus took Scherzer out after Alejandro De Aza doubled with one out.

Joba Chamberlain came in and got Adam Jones to hit a groundball to shortstop Andrew Romine, which he misplayed for an error that scored De Aza.

"I'm not going to be happy about it," Romine said. "Nobody's going to be about making errors. I'm obviously upset that I did."

The floodgates then burst open. 

Chamberlain couldn't get out of it without further damage, nor could Joakim Soria, nor could Phil Coke.

"Romine's been so good for us all year and it happens," Chamberlain said. "They just continued to put good at-bats together and kept scoring runs."

Said Romine: "It seemed like they couldn't get out. No matter what pitch we threw, even if it was a good pitch, they were still hitting it into places where we couldn't get somebody there."

It was a stark contrast to the Orioles bullpen.

After driving Orioles starter Chris Tillman out of the game, the Tigers couldn't get much going against former Tiger Andrew Miller, Darren O'Day, Zach Britton and Tommy Hunter.

Only O'Day allowed a run.

"When you have more than one good relief pitcher, you can do that," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said of using his relievers in somewhat different roles.

Since the Tigers were not able to get a shutdown outing from Scherzer or their relievers, it now falls to Verlander, who had a 2.22 ERA and 0.39 ERA in the last two playoff runs.

With a 12:07 p.m. ET start, the Tigers won't have much time to dwell on the loss.

"Once it's over, it's over, whether we won or lost," Chamberlain said. "That's just the way this game works, especially in the playoffs, especially knowing we got a quick turnaround. So obviously we got a guy that has been there, has been really good in the playoffs."

The Orioles had a 50-31 record at home during the regular season and the orange-clad crazies were loud from the start of Game 1. 

If Verlander doesn't throw a gem against the Orioles in Game 2, it could end up being a long and painful offseason for the Tigers.

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