Tigers vs. Rangers: Cabrera’s Double Gives Detroit 2-1 Lead

Colby Lewis was rolling along.

He gave up that game-tying home run to Victor Martinez in the fourth, but everything seemed copacetic again as Lewis got Ryan Raburn on a long foul and Andy Dirks on a short fly. But then Austin Jackson singled, and so did Ramon Santiago, with Jackson scooting to third base.

That brought up Miguel Cabrera, with a possibly less-than-100-percent Victor Martinez on deck. Up in the booth, Tim McCarver was screaming for an intentional walk. No, first base wasn’t open but second base was, and for McCarver that was close enough.

Ron Washington and Colby Lewis were having none of it, and Lewis got ahead of Cabrera quickly, 0-and-2.

There’s a reason why Miguel Cabrera won a batting title this season: He’s really good at batting. Lewis’s next pitch, a fastball, got too much of the plate and Cabrera lined it into the right-fielder corner for an RBI double, Santiago stopping at third base.

That did bring up Martinez, who regardless of his current percent did draw a walk to load the bases.

Big inning coming, right? Ah, but let us not forget that Don Kelly is the Tigers’ No. 5 hitter in this game. There are a lot of things that Don Kelly can do, but batting No. 5 in a postseason game probably isn’t something he should do.

Easy for me to say, because I just saw Don Kelly hit a soft grounder to Beltre, who played a little staring game with Cabrera before finally retreating to third base and touching the base.

Heading into the sixth, it’s now Tigers 2, Rangers 1. And Doug Fister’s out there again.