SPORTS

Tigers' Cabrera drives in 1,500th run

Chris McCosky
The Detroit News
Detroit Tigers' Miguel Cabrera celebrates in the dugout after scoring on a single by Nick Castellanos during the third inning.

Miguel Cabrera reached a major milestone Friday night when he drove in two runs with a single in the seventh inning against the Chicago White Sox.

The hit, which gave the Tigers a 7-5 lead, also gave Cabrera his 1,500th and 1,501st RBIs.

According to ESPN Stats and Info, Cabrera becomes the eighth player in MLB history to reach the 400 home run and 1500 RBI milestone in the first 14 seasons of his playing career, joining the ranks of Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Albert Pujols, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Jeff Bagwell and Hank Aaron.

Cabrera came in having produced four hits in his last seven at-bats and having hit the ball hard in his last six at-bats.

He is showing clear signs of breaking out of a mini post-All Star game funk in which he went 2-for-20.

Cabrera was asked if he took any solace in the fact that he was barreling up a lot of balls, even though he wasn’t getting a lot to show for it?

“You want to do your job,” he said. “Everybody is always talking bad, always see bad comments and stuff. You have to out there and try to do your job. That’s it.”

Ausmus said Thursday he could sense Cabrera was about to break out.

“He looked good in batting practice,” Ausmus said. “It looked like his swing was easy again. It didn’t look like there was a lot of effort and he took it right into the game.”

Cabrera said this is as healthy as he’s been in the second half of the season in three years.

“This game’s about results, you know,” he said. “But yeah, I feel better. I know I can say this or that, but I say I still have to go out there and try to do my job. This is the first year I can say I feel good after the break. I want to be healthy.”