Tigers on wrong side of pair of reviews
Ausmus loses challenge of HBP; Ventura wins review of trapped ball
CHICAGO -- Tigers manager Brad Ausmus was hoping MLB's replay system would afford him a rare baserunner against White Sox starter Chris Sale on Thursday night, but to no avail.
With the Tigers leading, 1-0, to start the seventh, Sale bounced an 0-2 pitch in the batter's box near Victor Martinez. Ausmus came out to challenge, thinking the ball possibly hit Martinez, who stumbled out of the box as he tried to avoid the pitch.
After a review of four minutes and 50 seconds, the call stood. Martinez then fouled out to right on a nice sliding grab by Dayan Viciedo.
"Yeah, it was [a long time]," Sale said. "It's part of the game. You have to adjust and you have to do what you got to do to stay loose and not put too much emphasis on sitting around for a long time. They made that rule for a reason, to get things right, and sometimes it plays in your favor and sometimes it doesn't. Just try not to put too much emphasis on it and hit the ground rolling."
In the ninth, another replay challenge went against the Tigers. Adam Dunn lined a ball to left-center that Rajai Davis appeared to make a sliding catch on.
White Sox manager Robin Ventura challenged the ruling, which was overturned. The call ultimately didn't matter, as Max Scherzer retired the next two batters to close out his first career complete game, a three-hit shutout.