Tigers-White Sox postponed

Verlander, the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner and MVP who has won 12 of his previous 13 decisions against the White Sox, will now go against the Indians in Cleveland on Friday night. Doug Fister will start Monday afternoon at U.S. Cellular Field.

Sixteen-game winner Sale gets the nod Friday in Minnesota with the White Sox turning to Gavin Floyd on Monday.

The game was called Thursday night after a little more than an hour's delay — it wasn't raining at the time of the scheduled first pitch — and neither pitcher warmed up.

"I think both sides, you don't want to start the game and waste those guys pitching. That was a concern," Chicago manager Robin Ventura said.

"It was supposed to rain all night. We wanted to play. Both sides wanted to play," he added, "but unless we put a roof over it ."

Monday was scheduled as the final day off of the regular season for both teams, so now they'll turn around and come back to Chicago for a single game.

Now, no rest in the stretch.

The White Sox leave town briefly with a one-game lead. They won the opener against the Tigers on Monday night to build their lead to three games before Detroit captured the next two behind the pitching of Fister and Max Scherzer.

Detroit has dominated the season series 12-5 and has won 9 of the last 10. Manager Jim Leyland said the Tigers haven't been able to get a lead and hold it, despite their head-to-head success. The Tigers last held sole possession of first place on July 23.

"We've played them tough. The thing we haven't done up to this point, hopefully we will, when they've slipped a little bit, we haven't taken advantage of it," Leyland said.