Major League Baseball
BOXSCORE | RECAP
Detroit 6, Minnesota 4
When: 4:05 PM ET, Saturday, September 29, 2012
Where: Target Field, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Temperature: 80°
Umpires: Home - Wally Bell, 1B - Jim Wolf, 2B - Ted Barrett, 3B - Ron Kulpa
Attendance: 32839


Tigers 6, Twins 4: Miguel Cabrera continued his pursuit of the Triple Crown by belting his 43rd homer and Justin Verlander tossed seven sizzling innings as visiting Detroit toppled Minnesota.

Prince Fielder launched his 29th homer off starter P.J. Walters (2-5) and Andy Dirks also went deep for the American League Central-leading Tigers, who increased their lead to two games ahead of Chicago. The White Sox dropped a 10-4 decision to Tampa Bay on Saturday.

After going 0-for-3 with a pair of strikeouts, Cabrera greeted former Tigers reliever Casey Fien in the eighth inning with a line-drive homer that barely cleared the wall in left field. Cabrera, who tied Texas' Josh Hamilton in homers, leads the American League with 136 RBIs and a .327 batting average.

Verlander (17-8) won his fourth straight start after scattering four hits and fanning eight.

Ryan Doumit went deep for the second straight game with a grand slam in the eighth inning, but Jose Valverde closed the door in the ninth for his 33rd save.

GAME NOTEBOOK: Walters suffered the hard-luck loss after yielding two runs on four hits in five innings. ... Minnesota's Joe Mauer went 0-for-3 with a pair of walks to drop his batting average to .320. ... Detroit has won nine of the 17 meetings between the AL Central rivals this season.

Top Game Performances
Starting Pitchers
Detroit   Minnesota
Justin Verlander Player P.J. Walters
Win W/L Loss
7.0 IP 5.0
8 Strikeouts 5
4 Hits 4
0.00 ERA 3.60
Hitting
Detroit   Minnesota
Andy Dirks Player Trevor Plouffe
2 Hits 2
1 RBI 0
1 HR 0
5 TB 3
.500 Avg .500
Team Stats Summary
 
Team Hits HR TB Avg LOB K RBI BB SB Errors
Detroit 8 3 18 .222 9 9 6 2 3 1
Minnesota 6 1 10 .176 22 10 4 6 1 1