Oakland Athletics starter A.J. Griffin was never going to stay perfect for his entire MLB career. But he made his first loss something really extravagant, as the Detroit whomped on the A's in a 12-2 loss to open the three-game series.
The A's actually got on the board first, as Brandon Moss hit a two-out RBI single in the top of the first inning. The Tigers evened things up in the bottom of the inning on a sacrifice fly from MVP candidate Miguel Cabrera. In the bottom of the second, the Tigers took the lead on a solo homer from Jhonny Peralta and never looked back.
Early on, it appeared the story of the game would be Max Scherzer leaving the game after two innings with shoulder fatigue, but the Tiger offense made that a distant memory -- at least for the moment.
Cabrera homered in the third inning to push the Detroit lead to 3-1 and Prince Fielder hit a two-run shot in the fifth to make it 5-1. A pair of RBI doubles in the sixth inning from Austin Jackson and Quintin Berry put Detroit up by seven runs and effectively put the game out of reach.
Yoenis Cespedes was able to drive in Josh Reddick with a hard-hit single in the seventh inning, but Cabrera more than eliminated the deficit with a grand slam in the bottom of the eighth. It was Cabrera's second home run of the game and his 40th of the season.
Griffin gave up five runs on eight hits and a walk in 5.2 innings of work. The A's will try to even up the series on Wednesday.
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