DETROIT -- Thanks to her son and the Tigers' defense, Erex Simon had a great birthday Monday.
The Tigers have had great pitching in the past and also some incredible offense, but defense has always been a bit of a sore subject.
That's no longer the case.
Now pitchers like Simon and Shane Greene are benefiting from Jose Iglesias at shortstop, Ian Kinsler at second base, Anthony Gose and Rajai Davis in center field, and Yoenis Cespedes in left field.
The Tigers beat the New York Yankees, 2-1, at windy Comerica Park, in no small part because of their improved defense.
"I'm excited because my mom's birthday is today, and she asked me, 'I want you to strike out Alex Rodriguez and win the game,'" Simon said.
Simon struck out Rodriguez in the first to fulfill the first part of his mom's request.
The only run the Yankees managed to get was when Mark Teixeira hit the ball out of the ballpark leading off the second inning.
In the sixth, Jacoby Ellsbury led off with a single, but catcher James McCann gunned him down when he tried to steal second.
"I can't ask to throw it down there any better than that," McCann said.
This is the same Ellsbury who's stolen as many as 70 bases in a single season.
Immediately after that, speedster Brett Gardner hit a ball that Iglesias had to go deep into the hole to field and threw across his body accurately to get the ball on a hop to Miguel Cabrera at first.
"He made that play, and A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez) came up next and said, 'Wow, that is an unbelievable play,'" McCann said. "I asked him, 'You think you make that play in your prime?'
"He said, 'No chance.'"
Tigers manager Brad Ausmus was equally impressed.
"To make that play and get a runner like Gardner was pretty impressive," Ausmus said. "Probably the best play we've seen all season."
Simon was quite grateful.
"That helped me out a lot in that inning," Simon said. "The team helped me out a lot defensively. That was good."
The Tigers turned four double plays behind Greene in Sunday's 9-1 win over the White Sox, and Greene told reporters to go talk to the defenders, not him.
All the pitchers have been talking about how confident they feel pitching to contact.
"I just feel comfortable with those guys behind me," Simon said. "That was really nice today. I get a couple double plays to get out of the inning. It's a really fast infield we've got."
Simon did his part on defense, too, picking up a ball that could have gone foul and snapping off a quick throw to get Didi Gregorius to end the fifth, right after his teammates had turned a double play to erase a leadoff single.
But the biggest double play came right after Simon exited the game in the eighth inning.
With one out and Chase Headley at third and Gregorius at first, and Simon at 109 pitches, Ausmus brought in former Yankee Joba Chamberlain.
"He went with two hard fastballs away," McCann said. "The big goal was to try to get a double-play ball and keep the ball out of the air and see what we could get done with our defense."
Ellsbury hit the ball pretty hard, but it went to Kinsler, who turned the perfect 4-6-3, inning-ending double play.
"With those two guys up the middle, it makes things pretty easy," Chamberlain said. "So as long as you get it somewhere around them, some good things are going to happen."
The Yankees had some pretty impressive defensive plays of their own, with Ellsbury and Gardner robbing Victor Martinez and J.D. Martinez of sure hits.
But the Tigers managed to take advantage of Davis' hit, an intentional walk to Victor Martinez and singles by J.D. Martinez and Cespedes in the seventh for the narrow lead.
"You saw some of the balls that we hit, some of the plays that they made. They played a great game," J.D. Martinez said. "They played great defense. Simon was tough, so was CC.
"It was just one of those things where the better defense and the timely hitting won the game today."
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