Scherzer Pitches Tigers Past A's in Opener OAKLAND, Calif. - Max Scherzer, an easygoing Missourian with a cruel arsenal of pitches, cut down the Oakland Athletics on Friday, leading the Detroit Tigers to a 3-2 victory in the opening game of their American League division series. Taking the mound after his teammates scored three runs off Oakland's ace, Bartolo Colon, in the first inning, Scherzer dominated for most of his seven innings, allowing three hits and striking out 11. A Yoenis Cespedes two-run homer in the bottom of the seventh revived a dormant capacity crowd at O.co Coliseum, but Detroit reliever Joaquin Benoit sent fans home hushed by striking out all three Oakland batters in the ninth - including Cespedes - to earn the save. Together, Scherzer, Drew Smyly and Benoit struck out 16 Oakland batters, an A's postseason record. "Scherzer was locked in all night," Detroit Manager Jim Leyland said. He was awful determined. He was thrilled to get Game 1. I think it meant a lot to him, even though he said it didn't matter which game he pitched. And I think he responded like we expected him to respond. Scherzer, 29, was the All-Star Game starter for the American League and will presumably win the league's Cy Young Award, with a 21-3 regular-season record and a 2.90 earned run average. He had 240 strikeouts in 2141/3 innings, elevating himself over Justin Verlander to become the Tigers" ace by adding a curveball to his repertory of fastballs and changeups. "I've always struggled against left-handed hitters, and I thought adding the curveball to my mix would make me a better pitcher," Scherzer, a right-hander, said the day before Game 1. And the more I've gotten a feel for it, it gives me the ability to throw three different pitches to left-handers. Oakland played the percentages Friday by stocking its batting order with left-handers. But the only hit Scherzer allowed in the first six innings was a second-inning triple by Cespedes, who bats right-handed. Cespedes got the third hit off Scherzer, too, following a single by Brandon Moss with a home run hit deep into the left-field bleachers. That gave temporary hope to the home crowd. But after a visit to the mound from Leyland - "He told me he was all right, and that was good enough for me," Leyland said - Scherzer got three more outs on a mix of pitches, then handed the final two innings to the bullpen. Scherzer's right eye is blue, his left eye is brown, and he speaks with a slight smile. "The crowd was roaring, everyone was on their feet," he said. And to get those outs was big because I was then able to pass it on to the rest of the pen. Oakland had uncovered more than 12,000 seats in the third deck, usually hidden under tarps, lifting the announced attendance to 48,401 and the potential decibel level by a third, too. It was the largest home crowd for an A's game since a 2004 regular-season game against the cross-bay San Francisco Giants. The A's and the Tigers are meeting in a best-of-five division series for the second season in a row. Colon missed the series last year because he was serving a 50-game suspension for testing positive for an excessive level of testosterone. The A's re-signed him for this season, paying him $3 million, and at 40, he became the oldest pitcher to start a postseason game for Oakland. Colon, 18-6 with a 2.65 E.R.A. during the season, had not allowed three earned runs in a game since Aug. 13. In his last six starts, he had allowed a total of five earned runs. But Austin Jackson opened Friday's game with a double down the right-field line, and he scored on Miguel Cabrera's single. Torii Hunter, hit by a Colon pitch, scored on a double-play ball hit by Prince Fielder. Victor Martinez followed with a double and scored the third run on Alex Avila's single. "He got out of sync," Oakland Manager Bob Melvin said of Colon. You saw balls up in the zone, which you normally don't see from him. Hits a batter. So it took him an inning to get back into his rhythm. Colon did not allow another run over six innings. He was helped in the sixth by a pinpoint throw from right fielder Josh Reddick to catcher Stephen Vogt, who tagged out Martinez as he was trying to score from second on a single. Scherzer and the Tigers already had all the cushion they needed in a game that called to mind Scherzer's start against the A's in last year's divisional series. In Game 4 in Oakland, he pitched into the sixth inning, leaving with a 2-1 lead after allowing just three hits and an unearned run while striking out eight. But in that game, the A's came back after Scherzer left, scoring three times in the bottom of the ninth to win, 4-3, and send the series to a deciding fifth game, in which Verlander pitched a shutout. Verlander, who in 2011 was the A.L."s Cy Young Award winner and most valuable player, is scheduled to pitch Game 2 on Saturday night. Oakland will start the rookie Sonny Gray, a daunting assignment in a series that will head to Detroit for Game 3 - and Game 4, if necessary. Last year, the Tigers advanced to the World Series, losing to the Giants. The A's, despite making the playoffs seven times in the past 14 years, have won just one playoff series since 1992.