Road teams sweep rare DH
DETROIT >> Tarik Skubal was planning to head to the mound for the day's first pitch. Then he realized the Detroit Tigers were the visiting team at Comerica Park and Oakland's Frankie Montas would be on the rubber.
"Thank God someone mentioned it before the game, because I almost ran out there for the top of the first inning," Skubal said. "Montas and I would have both been on the mound. It was weird, but that's baseball."
Skubal led the Tigers to a 6-0 win in the opener of a unique doubleheader Tuesday caused by Major League Baseball's lockout. With the Athletics as the visiting team in the second game, 25-year-old Adrian Martinez pitched 5 1/3 scoreless innings to win his major league debut, a 4-1 Oakland victory.
In a matchup of lastplace teams, Detroit ended a 27-inning scoreless streak in the opener. Oakland then won for the second time in 12 games and sent the Tigers to their seventh loss in eight games.
Miguel Cabrera singled in the ninth inning of the second game, tying Wade Boggs for 30th with 3,010 hits.
Skubal allowed three hits in seven innings, struck out five and walked three. Jonathan Schoop homered and scored twice on a day he raised his batting average from .139 to .157.
Under MLB's original schedule announced last year, Detroit was to have played three games at Oakland from April 4-6 in its second series of the season. But the first week was postponed by the lockout, and MLB rescheduled one of the games as part of a doubleheader at Comerica Park while keeping Oakland as the home team. The other games are to be played as a doubleheader at the Oakland Coliseum on July 21, what was to have been an off-day during the All-Star break.
Detroit wore its white home uniforms despite batting first, while the A's wore green tops and gray pants. The Tigers reverted to the home team in the second game.
In the first game, Montas allowed four runs, six hits and three walks in 6 1/3 innings.
Derek Hill's sacrifice fly with the bases loaded ended Detroit's scoreless streak in the fifth inning, and Robbie Grossman beat out a potential double-play grounder as Willi Castro scored.
Schoop homered to make it 3-0 in the sixth, and Jeimer Candelario hit a three-run double in the seventh off Kirby Snead.
In the second game, Alex Faedo gave up two runs and four hits over five innings in his second major leage start. Jed Lowrie hit a sacrifice fly in the fourth and Kevin Smith had an RBI single. Cristian Pache added an RBI single in the seventh and Luis Barrera a sacrifice fly in the ninth.