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If you wanted to know why Max Scherzer was not able to win his 20th game of the season Tuesday night, just look at the box score.
When Torii Hunter, Miguel Cabrera (back in the lineup after missing three straight games), Prince Fielder and Victor Martinez go a combined 3-for-16 (.188) with zero RBIs, it's probably not going to be your night.
Scherzer pitched extremely well for his seven-plus innings but the Boston Red Sox (83-57) won, 2-1, because Jon Lester was just a little bit better.
The Tigers (81-58) actually had a 1-0 lead until the fifth inning.
Shortstop Jose Iglesias tormented his former team with an RBI double in the second to score Omar Infante.
Brayan Pena was thrown out at the plate trying to score, sent by third-base coach Tom Brookens.
"I'd have sent him, too," Tigers manager Jim Leyland told FOX Sports Detroit's John Keating on the post-game show. "I thought that was a great call. I really do. If there's one out or no outs, I would have had a problem, but to me, when the ball gets by the outfielder like that, make them make two good relays.
"You know he's dead by 10-15 feet if they make them, they made them. But we scored a run on that play. They made the relays and threw him out but I thought with two outs, I have absolutely no problem with that call."
Pena, not known for his speed, had another theory on why he was out by so much.
"I think if I didn't eat that many ice cream, I probably would have scored," Pena told Keating. "I blame that on the ice cream."
Scherzer wasn't blaming ice cream or Brookens, just himself for one little pitch he made to Will Middlebrooks in the fifth inning.
Scherzer hung a slider and Middlebrooks didn't miss, hitting a single that scored two.
"I pitched well, did some really good things," Scherzer told Keating. "But I got beat on one pitch. Came down to the execution on Middlebrooks, when we had a second and third situation and I hung a slider in a bad situation. That's what lost the game.
"But you can't beat yourself up sometimes over one pitch, you have to look at the whole outing. I thought as a whole, I pitched pretty well."
Lester allowed just one run on eight hits while striking out a season-high nine in seven innings.
"It was a really good game, two starting pitchers were just terrific," Leyland said. "Not many opportunities. A couple for us we couldn't quite take advantage of. Not many for them, until the end there, didn't have an opportunity to do much. Scherzer was fantastic and so was Lester."
Pena said Scherzer did enough to win.
"I think he did a tremendous job," Pena said. "He was in cruise control. It felt like he was just being Max. He was throwing the baseball down, he was mixing it up, he was keeping us in the ballgame. He gave us a chance. That's what you ask of every single one of your guys out there.
"He battled, man. He battled out there and it's one of those, sometimes you've got to tip your hat to the other guy and Lester was pretty good tonight."
Scherzer actually lowered his ERA from 2.90 to 2.88.
Although he did not get the win and was not able to tie Roger Clemens as the only pitcher to start a season 20-1, Scherzer was not too discouraged.
"I thought I was attacking the zone very well, I thought I had some good off-speed pitches and was efficient, too," Scherzer said. "I gave everybody a shot but Lester out-pitched me tonight. That's just the way it goes sometimes. That's just baseball."
