Oakland, Calif. — Steadily, you see a pitcher gaining in style and skill. You sense that Michael Fulmer’s mound maturity is jogging just behind the fury of his pitches, particularly when he has the fastball-slider-change-up combination he was unleashing against the Athletics Friday night at Oakland Coliseum.
Fulmer, all of 24, and barely a month into his second full season in the big leagues, darn near tortured the A’s in a 7-2 Tigers victory that suggested Fulmer is building nicely on his 2016 debut that earned him a Rookie of the Year trophy.
He struck out nine.