Third to first

• Count Verlander as another Jose Abreu admirer, after Abreu took Verlander deep in the first inning of Tuesday's contest.

"I was pretty impressed with him," said Verlander. "Not many guys go to dead center here. I made a mistake and he made me pay."

• Dunn was amused by Detroit reliever Phil Coke's quote about the "incidental two-seamer" he threw on 0-2 that produced Dunn's titanic ninth-inning homer Tuesday night. Coke called it incidental because Dunn hit it so hard that it almost caused an incident by injuring someone in the outfield seats.

"That's very witty," Dunn said. "I don't know Phil Coke very much. I can tell you right now I like him, because that's a good one. That's one of the better ones I've heard."