Tigers Can’t Seem to Beat the Royals

The Detroit Tigers know they are playing Tuesday no matter what happens today.

That’s why Tigers Manager Jim Leyland isn’t going to dwell on Saturday’s 9-6 loss to the Kansas City Royals. He was even able to joke about the Tigers missing a chance to clinch the AL Central.

“This is over with, you can’t bring this game back. I’m not going to be disappointed long,” Leyland said. “I guess everybody knows that I was accurate on things this year, I said it was going to go down to the wire.”

Detroit would have wrapped up the division with a win after the Chicago White Sox beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-3, earlier in the day, cutting the Tigers’ magic number to one. Detroit ends the regular season today against the Royals.

“No one is going to have a problem getting up for this game,” Sean Casey said. “It’s to win the division. I think the guys will be excited. It’s what we’ve been shooting for all year.”

With a win or Twins loss today, Detroit will take the AL Central and host Oakland for the start of the division series and Minnesota will be the wild card and open on the road against the New York Yankees.

However, if the Twins win and the Tigers lose, Minnesota will take the division and host the A’s and Detroit will go to New York.

After a 1 1/2 -hour rain delay at the start Saturday night, Kansas City sent 12 batters to the plate in a seven-run first inning.

Todd Wellemeyer (1-2) gave up one run in four innings of relief, and Jimmy Gobble got the last three outs for his second save in three chances this season.

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ROUNDUP

Chicago 6, at Minnesota 3: The Twins missed another chance to move ahead in the division race as Jon Garland took a shutout into the ninth inning and Tadahito Iguchi had a homer among his three hits and three RBIs for the White Sox. Michael Cuddyer’s three-run homer in the ninth was the end for Garland, but a sellout crowd of 46,219, the biggest since the home opener, left disappointed.

Baltimore 5, at Boston 4: Kevin Millar’s two-run single in the ninth inning lifted the Orioles to the win and ended their nine-game losing streak at Fenway Park.

Toronto 6, at New York 5: Alex Rios hit a go-ahead, two-run triple against T.J. Beam and Toronto rallied from a 4-1 deficit to win.

at Seattle 3, Texas 1: Adrian Beltre homered twice and Felix Hernandez pitched seven strong innings for the Mariners.

at Cleveland 6, Tampa Bay 1: Jake Westbrook gave up one run in seven innings and Casey Blake hit two homers to help hand the Devil Rays their 100th loss.