--RHP Edwin Jackson floundered in the fourth inning and struggled in the sixth Thursday in his first mediocre start this season. Jackson had trouble getting his fastball inside the strike zone, and his slider location was poor. He gave up eight hits, but some of them were the result of the hard Anaheim infield. Control had not been a problem for Jackson, but Thursday he walked in two runs in the fourth. The Tigers also were charged with four errors on the night.
--1B Miguel Cabrera had been in a self-induced mini-slump over the last couple of games, mostly due to expanding his strike zone. Cabrera has been swinging at pitches just off the strike zone whereas previously he had confined himself to going after pitches inside the zone. Thursday he chopped a high single to third to drive in a run and looked to be laying off bad pitches again. --RHP Justin Verlander was plagued by the big inning twice Wednesday night as he continues to struggle to put his sometimes dominating skills together on a consistent basis. "We're trying to avoid the one inning where things kind of snowball a little bit," pitching coach Rick Knapp said before Verlander allowed three runs in the first on a home run and three runs in the fifth. The Los Angeles Angels wisely slapped Verlander's outside fastballs to the opposite field and jumped on his fastballs down the middle of the plate. He seems to be getting too many pitches in the heart of the plate. Foul balls and two 30-pitch innings combined to push his pitch count to 100 and force him from the game after the fifth inning.
BY THE NUMBERS: 179 -- Career home run totals of both Hank Aaron and 1B Miguel Cabrera on their 26th birthdays. Cabrera turned 26 on April 18.
QUOTE TO NOTE: "I had a great career. Some people call it a year; I call it a career. My career is still going on. Because of writers and fans, that's why." -- Mark 'The Bird' Fidrych, 54, who suffocated to death April 13 when his clothing got caught in an auxiliary drive shaft while he was working under his 10-wheel dump truck, in a 2001 interview. Fidrych went 19-9 and was Rookie of the Year for the Tigers in 1976 but won just 10 more games due to what later was diagnosed as a torn rotator cuff.
