Justin Verlander threw his career-high fifth complete game of the season last night and Miguel Cabrera homered in back-to-back innings to lead the Tigers to a 5-to-1 win over the Twins at Comerica Park. Verlander improved to 9-and-5 with a 4-hitter that included seven strikeouts and now has a total of 19 career complete games. Cabrera  belted a solo homer in the sixth and then closed out the scoring an inning later.   

Cabrera also doubled in the first and scored on Prince Fielder's  two-run double. The Tigers will go for a split of this four-game series this afternoon after stopping Minnesota’s 5-game winning streak.  Last night’s contest was delayed 2-and-a-half hours at the start by rain. Temperatures cooled off considerably after the strong storms went through. It was around 100 degrees when the game was supposed to start at seven o’clock but it was 78 degrees when the official first pitch was thrown. Rick Porcello will start today for Detroit in search of his third victory in-a-row. The Tigers needed to win last night to remain four and a half games behind the Central Division leading White Sox, who got a walk-off rbi single from recently acquired Kevin Youkilis in the bottom of the tenth to beat the Texas Rangers 5-to-4.

The Chicago Cubs won for the seventh time in 9 games last night with a 5-to-1 victory at Atlanta.