Detroit Tigers Clips Tuesday, April 17, 2012 Detroit Free Press Detroit Tigers 3, Kansas City 2: Victory, at last, for Justin Verlander (Lowe) Playlist: What music motivates your Tiger? (Byrne) On a night of complete drama, Tigers' Justin Verlander really was Cy Young (Lowe) Austin Jackson gets things started vs. Royals the right way (Lowe) Tigers 3, Royals 2: Notes, quotes from Monday's win over Royals (Lowe) Drew Smyly supporters traveling to Kansas City (Lowe) Tigers broadcaster Jim Price to miss Kansas City series with infection (Lowe) Detroit Tigers 3, Kansas City 2: Justin Verlander hurls complete game in Tigers' win (Fenech) Justin Verlander fastball saves choking man in new commercial (Jahnke) Justin Verlander seeks finishing touch tonight vs. Royals (Windsor) The Detroit News Tigers ace Justin Verlander fans nine, wraps up first win (Gage) Tiger’s center fielder Austin Jackson is faster to first base, too (Gage) Brandon Inge, Justin Verlander star for Tigers in victory over Royals (Gage) Tigers' Doug Fister throws off mound (Gage) No second guessing, Tigers' Ramon Santiago quietly does his job (Henning) MLive.com MLive.com MLB Power Rankings, Week 2: Detroit Tigers lose top spot to Texas Rangers (Schmehl) Justin Verlander gives Detroit Tigers teammate Brandon Inge credit for victory (Iott) Detroit Tigers ace Justin Verlander on gutsy ninth: 'I had some demons to exorcise' (Iott) Justin Verlander strikes out nine, Brandon Inge hits two-run homer for Detroit Tigers in 3-2 win (Iott) Ex-Tiger Curtis Granderson honors Detroit Tigers fan on Virginia Tech shooting anniversary (Schmehl) Detroit Tigers' Doug Fister feels 'pretty good' after throwing 10 pitches off mound (Iott) Detroit Tigers' Justin Verlander takes mound, Brandon Inge makes season debut at second base (Schmehl) Royals start series against Detroit Tigers with pair of left-handed starters, depleted bullpen (Iott) Detroit Tigers' Jim Leyland: Those who doubt White Sox 'know nothing about baseball' (Iott) Inside the Detroit Tigers: Four-game series with Rangers should make for interesting weekend (Iott) MLB.com Verlander hangs on for complete-game win (Falkoff) Jackson bringing action to Tigers' offense (Falkoff) Laird, Dotel to receive rings on Sunday (Falkoff) Fister throws on Monday with no setbacks (Falkoff) Nighttime is the right time for Leyland (Falkoff) Smyly, Chen both seeking season's first win (Roberts) Associated Press Verlander goes the distance in win over Royals (Staff) ESPN.com Verlander still greatest show on earth (Schoenfield) Verlander brings heat, crowns Royals (Staff) CBSSports.com Justin Verlander's 131st pitch was 100 miles per hour (Snyder) Daily Transactions 2 Detroit Tigers 3, Kansas City 2: Victory, at last, for Justin Verlander Ace throws 131 pitches in complete game April 17, 2012 By John Lowe / Detroit Free Press KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- After the eighth inning Monday night, Justin Verlander had thrown 104 pitches. He had a two-run lead. He told Tigers manager Jim Leyland he felt fine. Leyland said he dispatched Verlander back to the mound for the ninth with these words: "It's your game. You're going to walk off a winner or a loser." With two out in the ninth, Verlander walked Mitch Maier to send the potential tying run to second. Verlander's pitch count had climbed to 125, one of his highest ever. Leyland went to the mound. Verlander said his manager told him, "You're going to get me fired" -- for letting his ace throw so many pitches. Six pitches later -- including one that hit a batter to load the bases -- Verlander unleashed his 131st pitch of the night. It was a 100 m.p.h. fastball. On a 2-2 count, Alex Gordon took it for the game-ending strike three. After this 3-2 win -- his first of the season after the season a year ago -- Verlander issued this statement that should free Leyland of any worry about his job: "I had plenty left in the tank." Verlander said this after he finished within one pitch of his career high. Just as Leyland stuck with Verlander for the ninth, he has stuck with Brandon Inge for this season. He has installed Inge as the second baseman against left-handed pitching, and on this night, Inge took a high fifth- inning pitch from left-hander Danny Duffy and hit the tie-breaking, game-winning, two-run homer. "Great -- fantastic -- I couldn't be happier," Verlander said of Inge. "No matter what the situation, he's going to give you everything he's possibly got to win a game." In Verlander's last start, he also took a two-run lead to the ninth, then gave up four runs in the inning and lost to Tampa Bay. "That's another hurdle he's climbed now," Leyland said. "I think he'll know how to close them out a little better from now on." Verlander said: "I had some demons to exorcise. I wanted that thing. I wanted the ball. I wanted to go back out there and shut those guys down." Verlander was asked what he thought when Leyland told him, "You're going to get me fired." "That's just the way he is," Verlander said. "He's relaxed. He might be panicking on the inside, but he never shows it." Verlander won 24 times last season. This season, he's had to make three starts -- in which he gave up a combined one run before the ninth inning -- to get his first win. "A lot of those last year came pretty easy," he said. "I just fell into a few of them. I've always known it's not that easy to win a major-league baseball game. That's why I was cautious this off-season in telling everybody, 'My goal is to be a better pitcher, not to have better numbers.' I know I might pitch better and not have more wins and have a lower ERA." But perhaps none will be harder than this one. Perhaps that's what Verlander meant when he said he told Leyland after the game: "Sorry for getting your blood pressure up. Now that that's out of the way, the rest will be easy." 3 Playlist: What music motivates your Tiger? April 17, 2012 By Steve Byrne / Detroit Free Press Searching for the music that the Detroit Tigers use for motivation? The Free Press has your bases covered. The arrival of the baseball season brought some new sounds to Comerica Park — the songs that players chose to blast over the park’s loudspeakers to announce their arrival at the plate or the mound. We’ve built many of their choices into easy-to-listen-to playlists on YouTube and the music-listening service Spotify, so you can check out the tunes that make the Tigers tick. Looked at as a whole, the selections cross a wide swath of popular music, from the Puerto Rican reggaeton choices of shortstop Jhonny Peralta to the country music of Ryan Raburn and the hip-hop and hard rock favored by many of the team’s stars. As Tigers promotions director Eli Bayless put it, the eclectic batch of songs speaks “directly to the wonderful diversity of the players on our team.” Bayless says, in most cases, players will use a song or two for the entire season. “It’s safe to say that many of our players take their music selections just as seriously as many of our fans when they select music for working out at the gym, riding their bike or getting in their daily run,” Bayless says. “The right music selections can certainly influence your state of mind in a very positive way.” Note to playlist listeners: Because of song-availability issues, the YouTube and Spotify playlists are not identical, and they do not include every song in the list below. Note #2: Only snippets of the songs are played at Comerica Park. In some cases, the full versions contain explicit language or adult themes. We haven’t included many of those songs in the playlists we’ve created, but listeners should still be aware that there are potential language issues here. Tigers' theme songs Alex Avila: Black Keys, “I Got Mine” Prince Fielder: Kendrick Lamar featuring Gunplay, “Cartoon & Cereal” Austin Jackson: Young Jeezy, “Ballin’”; Ace Hood, “Hustle Hard” Brennan Boesch: AWOLNation, “Sail”; Drake, “We’ll Be Fine” Delmon Young: Rick Ross, “King of Diamonds” Max Scherzer: T.I. featuring Eminem, “That’s All She Wrote” Miguel Cabrera: Jay-Z & Kanye West, “N***** In Paris”; Pusha T featuring Kevin Cossom, “Feeling Myself” Rick Porcello: Curtis Stigers & the Forest Rangers, “This Life” (theme from “Sons of Anarchy”) Don Kelly: Kings of Leon, “Use Somebody” Jhonny Peralta: Don Omar featuring Lucenzo, “Danza Kuduro”; Alexis & Fido, “Energia” Ryan Raburn: Jason Aldean, “She’s Country”; Jason Aldean, “Hicktown” Phil Coke: Nickelback, “Burn it to the Ground” Daniel Schlereth: Korn, “Earache My Eye”; Metallica (live with San Francisco Symphony), “Minus Human”; Pantera, “Where You Come From” Jose Valverde: Metallica, “The End of the Line” Justin Verlander: Eminem featuring Nate Dogg, “Till I Collapse” 4 On a night of complete drama, Tigers' Justin Verlander really was Cy Young April 17, 2012 By John Lowe / Detroit Free Press KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Cy Young started 815 games. He completed 749. In his era, in the early days of baseball, the starter was expected to finish what he started. Young and his contemporaries like Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson would have seen nothing unusual in what Justin Verlander did at Kauffman Stadium Monday night. And Verlander, the defending winner of the award bearing Young’s name, showed again that perhaps pitch count is an irrelevant statistic with him because indeed his tank might be bottomless.