If the Tigers score in three-fifths of their innings this season off of pitchers like CC Sabathia, they'll do just fiiiine.
Austin Jackson led the fifth off with his first hit of the season -- a strong sign for the young hitter who struck out in his first two at bats against Sabathia. Will Rhymes then attempted to sacrifice Jackson over to second, but Cano dropped the toss from Teixeira, rendering Rhymes SAFE and giving the Tigers two men on with no outs for the meat of the order.
Ordonez, who hit the ball hard in his first two at bats, tried for a seeing-eye single to left in his third, but it was slow enough for Jeter to catch up to and pull off his patented, pretty-looking stab-turn-and-throw play. He got Rhymes at second for the fielder's choice. Jackson was able to get over to third, setting up Cabrera for his first real RBI opportunity of the season.
Cabrera cashed in on the first pitch, hitting a sac-fly to center field and scoring Jackson. Sabathia then got V-Mart on his 91st pitch of the game to end the inning.
In the bottom half, Verlander got a little help from the unlikeliest of sources, Ryan Raburn, and then made the rest of the inning look super easy. Raburn made a tremendous diving grab to help Verlander get the leading lady of the inning. Verlander then struck out Gardner and got Jeter to ground out to short to end the inning.
Verlander is cruising now, retiring his last eight hitters, and at six strikeouts through five innings.