Tigers vs. Orioles: Game 1 Time, TV Info, Live Stream and More

Game 1 of the American League Division Series features the playoff-tested, battle-hardened American League Central champion Detroit Tigers looking to get over the postseason hump against the powerful lineup and formidable pitching staff of the American League East champion Baltimore Orioles. 

The Tigers are no strangers to October. This year marks the fourth-straight time they have won their division. The previous three years have seen Detroit advance to at least the American League Championship Series, with a World Series appearance in 2012, but no titles to show for it. 

Just as they did in 2012, the Orioles proved all their preseason prognostications wrong. While the Yankees and Red Sox get more national coverage for obvious reasons, Buck Showalter continues to prove his genius by being an exquisite in-game tactician and having a lineup that led baseball with 211 home runs. 

It's all going to make for an interesting series to watch. For now, we've got all the information you need to prepare for Game 1 at Camden Yards. 

Where: Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, Maryland

When: Thursday, October 2

Start Time: 5:30 p.m. ET

Watch: TBS

Live Stream: MLB Postseason TV (Requires $4.99 subscription)

Team	Pitcher	IP	ERA	WHIP	HR	K-BB
Detroit Tigers	Max Scherzer	220.1	3.15	1.175	18	252-63
Baltimore Orioles	Chris Tillman	207.1	3.34	1.230	21	150-66

Game Preview

Paul Sancya/Associated Press

There are few teams more fascinating in Major League Baseball than the Detroit Tigers because we always assume they should be better than their record indicates. Credit the front office for building a team that's had postseason success, but it hasn't been in the 88-93 win range for the last three years. 

When you look at a roster that over the last four years has featured names like Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez, Max Scherzer, Anibal Sanchez, David Price, Prince Fielder, Jhonny Peralta, Austin Jackson and Doug Fister, you would think they should run away in the Central division. 

That hasn't happened for various reasons, but the biggest one is a bullpen that never comes together the way general manager Dave Dombrowski expects. An excellent case in point is Joe Nathan, who signed a two-year deal with Detroit last winter. He had a 2.09 ERA and 4.31 strikeout-to-walk ratio in two years with Texas, then posts a 4.81 ERA and 1.86 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 2014. 

Relievers are a notoriously volatile group, so Nathan's decline wasn't a huge surprise. He's 39 years old and there are only so many bullets in the chamber before things start falling apart. 

Another hallmark of Detroit's run of success has been bad defense, which didn't change in 2014 despite getting Miguel Cabrera off third base because Nick Castellanos turned out to be a worse defender at the hot corner. 

According to Jay Jaffe of Sports Illustrated, there were a lot of terrible individual defensive performances for the Tigers in 2014:

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Run prevention was not Detroit's strong suit; the team's 4.35 runs allowed per game ranked 10th in the AL, and even with Cabrera back at first base after playing third base the previous two years while Prince Fielder was around, its .672 Defensive Efficiency ranked second-to-last in the league. Of course, that has a whole lot more to do with new third baseman Nick Castellanos (-30 Defensive Runs Saved), the loss of glove whiz shortstop Jose Iglesias to shin splints and the lousy outfield defense of Hunter (-18 DRS) and Rajai Davis (-11 DRS) than it does with Cabrera.

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It's a good thing, then, that Detroit's starting pitchers finished fourth in innings pitched (1,007) and tied for fifth in strikeouts (859). The more innings you get from starters, the less you have to rely on the bullpen, and strikeouts mean the defense doesn't have to do as much work. 

The Tigers will turn to their best pitcher, 2013 AL Cy Young winner Max Scherzer, in Game 1. He finished third in the league with 259 strikeouts, trailing teammate David Price and Cleveland's Corey Kluber. 

Upon being named the starter for Game 1, Scherzer provided the usual stock answers to Jason Beck of MLB.com about how he will approach this moment:

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Every pitch in the playoffs is crucial. It's so huge … so whatever game I do get into, I just know you have to be at your best. You have to bring your A-game. There is no other way to script it, because the moment you give these guys an inch, they hit it a mile. It only counts even more in the playoffs.

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Also of note for the Tigers is the decline of Cabrera. He's still a great hitter, one of the best in baseball, but a .313/.371/.524 line with 25 home runs is a below-average season for this particular hitter. The good news is Martinez more than picked up the slack with his best year (.335/.409/.565, 32 home runs) and J.D. Martinez emerged from the spring training scrap heap to hit the most surprising .315/.358/.553 in baseball. 

Whatever power the Tigers can get out of their lineup will be necessary because no team is more adept at hitting the long ball than Baltimore. Showalter's group was the only one to break the 200-homer barrier this season, including Nelson Cruz's MLB-leading 40. 

Patrick Semansky/Associated Press

In the postseason, you have to hit home runs to wins games. Kansas City was able to steal seven bases en route to a win in the Wild Card Game, but that is the exception instead of the rule. Teams like the Orioles are more traditional World Series contenders because they can get that three-run homer when needed. 

The Orioles also hold the advantage over the Tigers in two key areas that we've already touched on: bullpen and defense. Baltimore ranks second overall in FanGraphs' defensive value and third in defensive runs saved; Detroit ranks 26th and 28th in those categories. 

Managing a bullpen is Showalter's strength, as he has proven time and again with the Orioles, and he's not afraid to use it. The only playoff team with more relief innings this season is the Los Angeles Angels. 

ESPN's Tim Kurkjian also made a great point about what makes Baltimore's bullpen so effective in his preview for the series:

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Darren O'Day, Tommy Hunter, Andrew Miller, Brad Brach, T.J. McFarland and Brian Matusz, among others, come from all sorts of arm angles and have all sorts of velocity. When you can follow a big left-hander such as Miller (in 20 innings pitched with the Orioles, he has issued four walks while having 34 strikeouts) with submarining right-hander O'Day (1.70 ERA), that pen is a nightmare for an opposing team. And no one matches up better than Showalter.

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We tend to take for granted what it's like for a hitter to adjust their eyes and approach against pitchers with different arm angles, but it does play a huge role in what makes Baltimore's relievers so effective. Showalter also knows how to exploit platoon matchups, so expect to see him making changes at the first sign of trouble. 

That 'pen will be needed a lot because the Orioles lack a rotation that will hit you with the same power as the one for Detroit. Chris Tillman is a solid starter who makes a lot of quality starts and eats innings, but hitters are going to put the ball in play against him. 

It's a testament to how good Baltimore's team defense is that the starting rotation finished 24th in strikeouts (732), yet 12th in batting average against (.251). 

The Tigers are the sexier team because of the names on their roster, but there's a reason the Orioles won 96 games in the regular season. Don't call it an upset if Buck's boys end up in the American League Championship Series. 

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