Cabrera and Verlander help Tigers top A's 6-2

"If I didn't have this on, I might as well go home," Leyland said.

The Tigers improved their chances of sticking around beyond the regular season when Miguel Cabrera homered, Omar Infante drove in three runs and Justin Verlander pitched six scoreless innings to help them beat the Oakland Athletics 6-2 on Wednesday night.

The Royals later helped out with a 3-0 win over the White Sox that trimmed their lead to two games over Detroit in the AL Central with 14 games remaining.

The Tigers have won two straight over the A's — and 28 of their last 36 games at home.

"We played a couple good games against one of the hottest teams in all of baseball," Leyland said. "That's pretty good."

Oakland, clinging to an AL wild-card spot, has dropped three straight and might have had a costly loss on the mound because Brett Anderson (4-2) left the game after two-plus innings with a strained right oblique.

"He's getting an MRI right now," A's manager Bob Melvin said. "So, we won't know anything until he gets back."

Melvin plans to pitch Dan Strally in Anderson's spot in the rotation if he can't make his next start.

The A's forced Justin Verlander (15-8) to throw 122 pitches and that ended his night. He allowed five hits and three walks while striking out five.

"It was a grind," Verlander said.

Octavio Dotel struck out two in a perfect seventh. Joaquin Benoit had two strikeouts in the eighth. Jose Valverde closed the game in a non-save situation, entering with a six-run lead, and was booed after giving up two-out RBI singles to Cliff Pennington and Stephen Drew.

Detroit played some small ball to take a 3-0 lead in the third.

Andy Dirks and Gerald Laird started the inning with bunt singles and advanced on Austin Jackson's groundout. Infante followed with a double down the left-field line to put the Tigers up 2-0.

"Those were two perfect bunts or they would have been outs," Melvin said.

Infante's groundout in the eighth inning gave the Tigers a six-run lead.

After walking Cabrera intentionally and giving Prince Fielder a free pass on four pitches to load the bases, Anderson was injured while pitching to Delmon Young. Anderson fell forward and landed awkwardly after throwing his 48th pitch. Oakland trainer Nick Paparesta and Melvin talked with Anderson briefly on the field before deciding to take him out of the game.