The Detroit Tigers will try to salvage a victory from what has thus far been a dreadful series against the Boston Red Sox.
The Tigers have pretty well squandered any momentum they had after last weekend's three-game sweep of the Minnesota Twins. They have dropped the first three games of the four-game swing through Boston, falling 5.5 games back of AL Central-leading Chicago and 4.0 games back of Cleveland.
Max Scherzer will take one of the league's stranger stat lines to the hill Thursday. Scherzer, 4-3, has MLB's best strikeout rate at 12.0 per nine innings, but also an inflated 5.67 ERA. While rain-shortened, his last outing was representative of the season as a whole: 5.1 innings, nine strikeouts and three earned runs.
The Red Sox will start Josh Beckett, who is 4-4 with a 4.15 ERA.
First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 Eastern.
For more on the Detroit Tigers, check out Bless You Boys. You can also head over to SB Nation's main MLB hub at Baseball Nation, or at SB Nation's YouTube channel: