Tigers top Tribe, inch closer to AL Central title

Associated Press

CLEVELAND — Justin Verlander pitched the Detroit Tigers closer to a division title and pushed the Cleveland Indians within one loss of matching a franchise record for futility with a 6-5 win on Thursday night.

Verlander struck out 11 in seven innings and Carlos Guillen had three hits and an RBI as the Tigers handed Cleveland its 11th straight loss.

With the win, Detroit moved three games ahead of the idle Minnesota Twins in the AL’s Central Division. The Tigers open a three-game series at the Chicago White Sox tonight.

The Indians haven’t dropped 11 in a row since setting a club record with 12 consecutive losses in 1931. They can match that mark Friday when Baltimore, losers of seven straight, opens a weekend series at Progressive Field.

Reds 4, Pirates 1

PITTSBURGH — President Barack Obama’s motorcade passed in view of PNC Park in the eighth inning, and military helicopters buzzed over the ballpark all day. Obviously, something big was going on in Pittsburgh.

It wasn’t the Reds-Pirates game, where a deserted ballpark matched the nearly deserted downtown only a bridge length away.

Bronson Arroyo limited Pittsburgh to one run over seven innings and the Cincinnati Reds completed their second sweep of the plummeting Pirates in less than a month, winning to push the Pirates closer to a 100-loss season.

Joey Votto had a two-run double following Drew Sutton’s RBI double and Brandon Phillips singled for his 95th RBI during a four-run third inning against Charlie Morton (4-9) as the Reds won their eighth in a row against the last-place Pirates.

At least for the Pirates’ sake, there weren’t many spectators. The paid attendance was 15,892, but the turnstile count was about 3,000 as two bad teams and the G-20 summit held down the turnout. The crowd was so small that the Pirates closed PNC Park’s upper deck for the first time since the 38,362-seat ballpark opened in 2001 and allowed fans to sit in the lower level.

Crowd? The players didn’t notice one.

At least the two teams are used to this kind of apathy. They played before even fewer spectators — an estimated 1,000 — during the first game of a day-night doubleheader in Cincinnati on Aug. 31.

The smallest turnout at PNC Park is believed to be the estimated 500 who watched an Astros-Pirates afternoon game on Sept. 28, 2006, that was delayed by heavy rain for 31‚Ñ2 hours.