DETROIT — Ryan Pressly looked uncomfortable on the mound Wednesday night, at one point shaking his arm, and another time rotating his hips.
Trainer Tony Leo and manager Paul Molitor went out to check on him, but Pressly said the problem wasn't his arm, and wasn't a big deal.
"He said he was cramping in the back a little bit, so he was trying to stretch it out," Molitor said after the game. "But it was nothing."
Pressly, second in the American League in appearances with 35, retired all three hitters he faced, extrending his streak of scoreless outings against the Tigers to 10 straight, totaling 9 2/3 innings.
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Jose Berrios threw 98 pitches on Wednesday, his lowest pitch count since being knocked out after just 5 1/3 innings in Anaheim on May 10. But Molitor said he wasn't tempted to allow Berrios to go back out for the seventh inning on Wednesday, not after he pitched out of significant trouble in the third, fifth and sixth innings.
The Tigers put runners on second and third with one out in the third, but Berrios struck out Nick Castellanos and Jaime Candelario to end that threat. He loaded the bases with two outs in the fifth, but retired Victor Martinez on a grounder to first base to wiggle out of that. And a leadoff single and a ground-rule double put the go-ahead runs in scoring position to open the sixth, but he got two quick strikeouts against Grayson Greiner and Jose Iglesias, then got Victor Reyes to fly out.
"He knows that it's the next pitch [that's important] a lot better than he used to, and that you can't change circumstances once they happen," Molitor said. "To get out of those jams, especially that second-and-third, [was] just trying to make the next pitch as best he can."
