Oakland Athletics starter Jharel Cotton was scratched moments before the first pitch after suffering a groin strain.
His last-minute replacement? A young pitcher named Raul Alcantara who had allowed 15 earned runs in 11 innings this year.
Perhaps predictably, Alcantara looked like a different pitcher Monday night while his teammates jumped all over Buck Farmer early in a 8-3 victory over the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park.
Farmer was knocked out in the third inning after giving up five runs (four earned).
The Tigers picked up two in the fifth on RBI doubles by JaCoby Jones and Ian Kinsler; they added their third run on Kinsler's solo homer in the seventh.
Tigers reliever Jeff Ferrell was struck in the back of the head by a hard line drive off the bat of Ryon Healy in the eighth inning.
The ball hit the side or back of his head and bounced all the way past first base down the foul line.
Ferrell never left his feet but started running toward the dugout, where he was met by two athletic trainers and quickly escorted off the field.
Tigers right fielder Nicholas Castellanos remains red-hot. He had a double and two singles on Monday, extending his career-long hitting streak to 15 games.
Farmer?s night went the way of his statistical splits: This season, he has been good on the road and bad at home. The A?s pushed one run across in the first inning and opened the game up in the fourth when Matt Olson continued his hot hitting by smashing a two-run home run to deep right-centerfield.
The A?s scored five runs off Buck Farmer in just 2 2/3 innings and built an early 7-0 lead. It's the 29th time this season, and the 13th since the trade deadline, the Tigers' starting pitcher hasn't made it through four innings.
He came into this start with an abysmal 11.30 ERA at home, with opponents hitting .328 with a 1.004 OPS. On the road, his ERA is 3.43 with a .215 opponent?s average and .650 OPS. It makes no logical sense, but there he was Monday, in trouble from the start.
https://www.mlb.com/gameday/athleti...347#game_state=final,game_tab=box,game=492347
Boxscore.
ROARS:
Ian Kinsler: A pair of hits and a pair of RBI from the Tigers? second baseman, who has played better in the second half.
Ian Kinsler has 10 HR and 17 RBI in Aug-Sept.
In April-May-June-July he had 9 HR and 21 RBI.
Nick Castellanos: Make it 15 games in a row for Castellanos, who had three hits on the night.
Victor Alcantara: The rest of the pitching staff was bad, but Alcantara threw a pair of scoreless innings.
HISSES:
The pitching staff (non-Alcantara version): It was bad.
Bad luck: It was good to see that Ferrell was okay after this.
STATS AND INFO:
The Tigers? loss was their 88th of the season. They are one game ?behind? the Chicago White Sox in the loss column for the No. 3 overall pick in 2018. Chicago begins a series with the NL West champion Houston Astros on Tuesday.
The closest team behind Detroit in the MLB draft standings is the New York Mets, who have 85 losses on the season. The Cincinnati Reds have 84 losses.