DETROIT (AP) — Fifty years ago http://www.astrosfanproshop.com/authentic-justin-verlander-jersey , a on the way to a World Series victory.Matthew Boyd took his turn Saturday night, albeit in a less important game, as the Tigers beat the Cardinals 4-3.On the day the Tigers celebrated their 1968 championship — aided by Mickey Lolich defeating the Cardinals three times in the World Series — Boyd pitched one of the best games of his career.He struck out a career-high 11 and allowed only one hit in the first seven innings. His night ended after a homer and a walk to start the eighth, but Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire was still impressed.“He pitched his tail off,” Gardenhire said. “That’s a team in a pennant race, and he might have had his best outing of the season. I just wish he could have gone all nine.”Boyd was willing — he lobbied Gardenhire to stay in — but he didn’t want to be compared to Lolich, who threw three complete games to earn MVP honors in the ’68 Series.“You can’t even mention me in the same breath as Mickey Lolich,” Boyd said. “Everyone that’s around this team knows what he did for this franchise and this city. It was incredible just to see him in the clubhouse today.”In the end, Boyd didn’t even get the win. The Tigers led 3-1 with two outs in the top of the ninth, but Marcell Ozuna hit a two-run homer off Shane Greene (4-6) to tie the game. It was Ozuna’s 18th homer and third in two days.It was the second day in a row the teams went into the bottom of the ninth tied at 3. Victor Reyes scored the winning run Friday to prevent extra innings, and then did the same thing Saturday.Reyes led off and reached second on first baseman Matt Carpenter’s fielding error. Bud Norris (3-5) walked Jeimer Candelario, and both runners moved up on Jim Adduci’s sacrifice bunt.The Cardinals intentionally walked Nicholas Castellanos to load the bases for Victor Martinez with one out, but Norris bounced the next pitch and Reyes scored easily.“That’s a tough one to swallow,” Norris said. “We’ve been fighting all year, and we won’t give in Brian McCann Jersey , but that was tough.”The Cardinals, who entered with a one-game lead for the second National League wild card, have lost five of seven. The Tigers have won four straight.“Ozuna gets us a big, two-out, two-run homer to tie the game and give us the momentum, and then we get walked off,” St. Louis manager Mike Shildt said.Cardinals starter Jack Flaherty yielded three runs on four hits and four walks in five innings. He struck out six.After Boyd struck out the side in the first, the Tigers scored twice in the bottom of the inning. Two walks and a single loaded the bases with none out, and Candelario scored on a wild pitch. Victor Martinez made it 2-0 with a sacrifice fly, but Flaherty struck out the next two batters.Boyd fanned nine in the first four innings, and the Tigers gave him another run in the fourth. With two outs and a full count, Reyes broke from first and was able to score on Candelario’s bloop single to center.Harrison Bader nearly got the Cardinals on the board in the fifth, but Mikie Mahtook made a running leap into the left-field fence to rob him of a home run. Bader is usually on the other end of such plays — according to MLB Statcast, he leads the majors with seven 5-star catches.“I knew I was in trouble as soon as I released the pitch,” Boyd said. “I can’t even tell you how good it felt to look back and see a guy making a freakish athletic play like that.”Paul DeJong led off the eighth with his 17th homer http://www.astrosfanproshop.com/authentic-justin-verlander-jersey , cutting Detroit’s lead to 3-1.TRAINER’S ROOMCardinals: RHP Michael Wacha was scratched from Friday night’s Triple-A rehab start with soreness in his left oblique.BIG NIGHT FOR BOYDBoyd’s 11 strikeouts were the most by a Tigers pitcher in any game against the Cardinals, including their three World Series matchups. Lolich, who received a standing ovation during the pregame festivities, had nine in Game 2 in 1968, and David Price matched that mark in a 2015 interleague game.GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONThe teams wore throwback jerseys as part of Detroit’s celebration of its 1968 World Series victory over St. Louis, but they had to fudge things a bit. The Tigers haven’t changed the design of their home jersey in the last 50 years, so they wore replicas of their 1968 road jerseys — a plain black “Detroit” on a gray uniform.UP NEXTThe teams finish their three-game series Sunday afternoon, with Detroit RHP Michael Fulmer (3-10, 4.57) facing John Gant (6-5, 3.10). NEW YORK (AP) — The World Series was baseball 2018 in a microcosm.Half the 44 runs scored by the champion Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers came across the plate on home runs. That’s the second-highest percentage in baseball history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, behind only last year’s 57.4 percent.There were 109 strikeouts and 76 hits, a 1.43 ratio that was the second-highest behind 1.48 in 2012. That followed the first regular season in major league history with more strikeouts than hits and with the lowest overall batting average since 1972 — the year before the start of the designated hitter.Discussion of possible rule changes to increase action will dominate the offseason, along with speculation about a free agent market that includes Bryce Harper, Manny Machado and Josh Donaldson Tyler Clippard Jersey , and possibly David Price and Clayton Kershaw if they opt out of their contracts.“What we try to do is pay attention over the course of the season,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said last week, “think about what we’ve learned during the postseason and see whether we may need to make some change in response to what we’re seeing.”Analytics have transformed the sport, from offense-suffocating shifts to shortening starting pitchers’ time on the mound and constantly rotating relievers from the major leagues to the minors in order to have an array of fresh bullpen arms each game.“I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about whether analytics are a good thing or a bad thing, and the reason for that is they are a real thing,” Manfred said. “We have them. They’re going to continue to use them. There’s nothing you can do to stop people from thinking about the game, however the heck it is they want to think about the game.”Discussion will start next week, when general managers meet in Carlsbad, California. Owners gather Nov. 14-15 in Atlanta, and the major offseason get-together will be the winter meetings at Las Vegas from Dec. 10-13.Manfred and players’ association head Tony Clark already have been talking — they appeared together at a World Series news conference last weekend, which would have been unimaginable a year ago given the tension between management and players.Both sides are concerned about a 4 percent attendance drop that left the major league average below 30,000 for the first time since 2003. Six ballparks set their record lows and 17 of 30 experienced drops, partly because of historically bad weather that caused 54 postponements, the most since 1989.Management wanted to introduce a pitch clock at the major league level in an effort to speed the pace of games but players refused to agree, and Major League Baseball backed off a threat to impose one over the union’s objections. Instead http://www.astrosfanproshop.com/authentic-justin-verlander-jersey , a more modest change restricted the amount of mound visits by players and coaches without pitching changes.The average time of a nine-inning game dropped to 3 hours, 44 seconds during the regular season from 3:05:11 for last season, and mound visits without pitching changes fell to 4.01 from 7.41.That was swift compared with October. Nine-inning games averaged 3:30 in the World Series, up from 3:16 last year, and 3:35 throughout the postseason, an increase from 3:29.And that was with a drop on mound conferences, which fell to an average of 6.6 in the postseason from 11.2 and to 6.4 in the World Series from 19.0.Talk on rule changes will be conducted as the union watches free-agent negotiations unfold. Last offseason had an unusually slow market that led to player anger. Among the 166 players who exercised the right to become free agents after the World Series, exactly half of the 140 agreements reached were finalized after the start of spring training workouts on Feb. 14.Late deals did make a difference: Boston agreed Feb. 19 to a $110 million, five-year contract with J.D. Martinez, who went on the lead the major leagues with 130 RBIs and homered Sunday night as the Red Sox won Game 5 to finish their fourth World Series title in 15 seasons.The first 145 free agents hit the market Monday, and about 30 more may follow this week depending on option decisions. Bidding figures to be more vigorous this offseason because of higher quality among the free agents. But analytics have directed many teams to be more reticent about lengthy deals with older players, which could lead to renewed tension.