DETROIT -- With uncertainty looming over the Tigers' starting rotation, youngsters have delivered impressive outings on consecutive nights. Matt Boyd threw 6 1/3 innings, allowing four runs on six hits Thursday night in a 5-4 loss to the Yankees.
Boyd took a perfect game into the fifth inning, and a no-hit bid into the sixth before Rob Refsnyder broke up the no-no with a leadoff double.
Boyd's performance comes on the heels of a no-hit bid taken into the seventh inning by 22-year-old Michael Fulmer on Wednesday in Anaheim. The emergence of the two young pitchers has manager Brad Ausmus feeling better about his starting rotation, especially the back end of it.
Unlike Fulmer's outing Wednesday, Boyd's fell victim to another late-inning collapse by the Tigers.
With Anibal Sanchez set to make some bullpen appearances and Shane Greene returning from the disabled list, Ausmus said he was happy with the way Boyd and Fulmer looked the last two days.
Ausmus was not quite on high alert when Boyd gave up three hits in the sixth, but he was starting to get cautious.
"It wasn't high alert, his pitch count was down," Ausmus said. "He had thrown really well the whole game. No-hitters are few and far between, so you just assume he's going to give up a hit at some point, but he really did an excellent job. Unfortunately, we didn't put up any runs up early to help him, and we couldn't stop the bleeding."
In his third start of the season, Boyd said he liked the way his changeup felt early on, but he stayed too predictable, too long.
"I just thought they made an adjustment on my changeup, and started taking me the other way," Boyd said. "That's when I've got to make the adjustment faster, to counter that. The fact of the matter is, I didn't counter that."
Worth noting 
• The Tigers optioned reliever Kyle Ryan to Triple-A Toledo and recalled Blaine Hardy after Thursday's game. Ryan allowed one hit in two-thirds of an inning Thursday.