Detroit Tigers (18-13) at New York Yankees (20-13)

When: 7:05 p.m. Friday.

Where: Yankee Stadium in New York.

TV: Bally Sports Detroit.

Radio: WXYT-FM (97.1). (Tigers radio affiliates).

Probable pitchers: Tigers RHP Reese Olson (0-4, 3.18 ERA) vs. Yankees RHP Marcus Stroman (2-1, 3.69 ERA).

• Box score

Tigers lineup: TBA

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Game notes: It’s another matchup of wild-card contenders as the Tigers — who own the American League’s third WC spot thanks to Boston’s loss to San Francisco on Thursday — visit the Yankees — who dropped into the top WC spot after losing three of four to AL East-leading Baltimore this week — for a three-game set.

The Yanks have started strong (aside from their issues with the O’s) on the backs of a rotation whose ERA (3.25) entered Thursday No. 4 in the AL. Tonight’s starter, 10-year veteran Marcus Stroman — who signed a two-year, $37 million contract over the winter — has arguably been New York’s least effective starter. The 3.69 ERA is solid, but he has had his issues both in the zone — 30 hits, including five home runs, in 31⅔ innings — and outside it (15 walks and two hit-by-pitches), for a 1.421 WHIP that’s 42^nd among the 46 American Leaguers qualified for the ERA title. He carries a career 3.25 ERA against the Tigers into tonight’s start … but he hasn’t faced the Old English “D” since 2019.

The Tigers, meanwhile, will send Reese Olson to the mound; the second-year starter has a sterling 3.18 that would be in the AL’s top 20 if he had enough innings to qualify for the leaderboard (which he should after tonight’s start). He’s done it by limiting the big hits by opposing batters; of his 26 safeties allowed in 28⅓ innings, just six have been for extra bases, and none for home runs. Olson is coming off one of the best games of his career, in which he held the Royals to three hits over seven innings while racking up eight strikeouts on April 26.

The Yankees offense he’ll face is far from the Bronx Bombers of old, but they can do some damage, with a 4.75 runs-per-game average that’s fifth in the AL and 40 homers, good for second. That’s despite having just two players with OPSes over .800: Alex Verdugo (.805) … and Juan Soto (1.030 following his 2-for-4 performance that featured a triple on Thursday). Soto, in his final year before free agency, has shown the blend of power — six doubles and eight homers — and patience — an MLB-high 26 walks in 148 plate appearances — that should earn him the sport’s second-highest contract (or No. 1, if you don’t count the deferred money Shohei Ohtani is receiving from the Dodgers) this winter.

The Tigers’ offense, meanwhile, is the little engine that could, with a 4.10-run average that’s in the bottom half of the league, albeit close to the AL average (4.21). They’ve got two batters with OPSes above .800: Mark Canha (.888) and Riley Greene (.906) — Greene isn’t far behind Soto, with seven homers and 23 walks in 133 plate appearances.

After today’s series opener, the Tigers and Yankees meet again in the Bronx for a Saturday matinee with Casey Mize on the mound for the Tigers, and then on Sunday with Tarik Skubal looking to boost his Cy Young candidacy.

TIGERS NEWSLETTER: Detroit Tigers newsletter: Tarik Skubal tops AL Cy Young contenders after dominant April

Live updates

For updates from and around the diamond, check it out on X.

Contact Ryan Ford at rford@freepress.com. Follow him on X (which used to be Twitter, y’know?) @theford. Read more on the Detroit Tigers and sign up for our Tigers newsletter.  

For some, basketball is just a fun sport to play. But for others, it’s a ticket to a better future. 

Several Michigan high school athletes have already signed up to play college basketball next year. But before that time comes, a few of them will get the chance to play against each other. 

Dreamz Two Reality, an independent recruiting platform for student athletes in Michigan, will host its first All-American basketball game at 4 p.m. this Saturday, May 4, at Detroit Catholic Central High School in Novi. Dreamz Two Reality owner and founder Roy Jackson joined The Metro on Thursday to discuss the game and what it could mean for the students.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Jackson says he played basketball professionally overseas for seven years and is thinking about the next generation of hoopers. 

“I always want to give back to the kids because I know how hard it is nowadays,” Jackson said. “And I got a lot of kids hitting me up all over the Midwest. And I’m just like, let me just create a platform that had been missing for a while, that would give kids the opportunity to display their talent.”

For players, Jackson says, it can be hard to get the attention of basketball programs.

“Michigan, we got talent, and I feel like it needs to be displayed,” he said. “We got 14 Division One Signees that didn’t make it to the Jordan Brand [Classic] or the McDonald’s All American, but they still are all Americans. And I’m like, I’m from Michigan, so let me bring this platform here. Two, three, four years from now you never know how big you might get.” 

Use the media player above to hear the full interview with Dreamz Two Reality Basketball owner and founder Roy Jackson.

More headlines from The Metro on May 2, 2024: 

• If you’re not a fan of trillions of flying bugs, you’ll probably want to avoid parts of Michigan this year. A wave of cicadas are expected to emerge this spring across Illinois, Missouri and southern parts of Michigan. To teach us more about the emerging cicada broods, we were joined by Hannah Burrack, professor and chair of the Department of Entomology at Michigan State University. 
• A new version of the popular board game Settlers of Catan, “Catan: New Energies,” introduces energy production and pollution into the gameplay. NPR’s Nate Rott spoke with journalist Emily Kwong about the new board game, which hits shelves this summer.
• This Saturday at Hamtramck’s Book Suey, urban planner and commentator Idrees Mutahr will be giving a talk on how the Detroit economy influenced the thinking and writing of celebrated journalist and urbanist Jane Jacobs. Mutahr joined the show to talk about the event.
• Gov. Gretchen Whitmer recently announced a new initiative aimed at training 5,000 new infrastructure workers by 2030, using a portion of federal funding coming to the state. To help us understand the goals of the new initiative, Brookings Metro Fellow Joe Kane joined the show.
• From 2008 to 2015, Michigan had tax incentives for commercials, television, and movie production. Major studio pictures like the Transformers films and “Batman v Superman” were shot here. But Republicans – with the help of then-governor Rick Snyder – stopped providing the incentives, citing a lack of return on the investment. Now, with Democrats in control in Lansing, the Michigan Film Industry Association (MFIA) hopes to revive the tax credits. Bill Latka, board member on the MFIA’s legislative action committee, spoke with WDET’s Russ McNamara about those efforts.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 11 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.