SAN DIEGO - Sometime soon, a baseball will be getting a prominent spot among the trophies on Justin Verlanders mantle. Its the ball he hit up the middle for a single in the second inning Saturday night, the one that will forever shut up his teammates. Verlander had the first two hits of his career and recovered from throwing 31 pitches in the first inning to pitch seven strong innings and lead the Detroit Tigers to a 6-2 victory over the San Diego Padres on Saturday night. "It felt great. Its been a long time and I can finally get all these guys off my back ...," Verlander said. Verlander had been 0 for 26 with 15 strikeouts in his career when he stepped in against Ian Kennedy in the second inning and singled up the middle. When the ball came back to Kennedy, he tossed it to a ball boy near the Padres dugout. Home plate umpire Seth Buckminster motioned for the ball boy to throw it to the Tigers dugout. "I think the Padres and probably Ian didnt know that I had never had a hit," Verlander said. "Its been nine years in the big leagues now. They probably werent thinking about that but I sure as heck was. I was watching that ball like a hawk." The last time Verlander had a hit? "High school. Its been a long time," he said. "I guess I have no more leverage," catcher Alex Avila said. "Were all happy for him. It was fun to watch." Verlander cited a list of times when he came close to getting a hit. "I think its kind of been an anomaly that I havent had one yet," he said. "I feel like Ive probably hit five or six hard that have been caught." Verlander singled to right in the fourth, although he had to hustle to avoid being thrown out by Chris Denorfia. "I hit it pretty hard, too. It was a bang-bang play but I beat it out, thank goodness," said Verlander, who eventually scored on Torii Hunters two-run single. The sight of Verlander (1-1) on the mound at Petco Park was another reminder of how the Padres flubbed the top pick in the June 2004 amateur draft. Not wanting to pay a big signing bonus, the team passed on players such as Jered Weaver, Stephen Drew and Verlander in favour of local shortstop Matt Bush. Bush, who signed for $3 million, never reached the big leagues and had numerous off-field problems. In December 2012, he was sentenced to four years and three months in a Florida prison for a drunken driving hit-and-run crash. Verlander was taken by the Tigers with the second pick. He has thrown two no-hitters and came within two outs of a third, won the AL MVP and Cy Young Award in 2011, was voted AL Rookie of the Year in 2006 and is a six-time All-Star. Verlander allowed two runs and eight hits, struck out eight and walked one. He improved to 2-0 against the Padres, having also beaten them at Petco Park in 2008. "Hes a guy who obviously has that power arm when he needs to," San Diegos Yonder Alonso said. "He works his way into the game and if he feels like hes in trouble, hes going to attack. He made some good pitches but we just missed a lot of guys on base." The Tigers had plenty of offence one night after being held to one hit by Andrew Cashner in a 6-0 loss. Austin Jackson hit a two-run double one batter after Miguel Cabrera was intentionally walked to load the bases in the ninth; Hunter, who missed the previous two games with a bruised left knee, hit a two-run single; and Cabrera and Ian Kinsler each had an RBI double. Rajai Davis scored three runs. San Diego got its runs on Jedd Gyorkos sacrifice fly and Yasmani Grandals RBI single. Kennedy (1-2) allowed four runs and eight hits in six innings. He struck out seven and walked one. NOTES: A candidate in the Padres in-season contest to find a new public address announcer committed a big flub in the first inning. As Cabrera, the two-time AL MVP, walked to the plate, he was announced as Austin Jackson. Cabrera turned and looked up at the booth. Frank Anthony, the Padres PA announcer since Petco Park opened in 2004, was fired in January so the team could hold open tryouts as part of the 10th anniversary of Petco Park. ... The series concludes Sunday when reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (0-0, 1.20 ERA) is scheduled to face Tyson Ross (0-2, 4.35). cheap jerseys . -- D. J. Williams finally has his packing strategy down. Cheap Jerseys USA . Never caused problems. Never raised a ruckus. Never got sick or hurt while frolicking in the fields of Claiborne Farm in Paris, Ky. http://www.overallcheapjerseys.com/ . 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If there is one club built to handle an off-field controversy, its the Bill Belichick era Patriots. Even if New Englands offence stumbles a bit out of the gate, their defence can help them stay in games, especially in the AFC East with the Buffalo Bills and New York Jets in the first two weeks. Authentic China NFL jerseys . A Swiss Federal Tribunal ruling published Friday said that FIFAs disputes panel and the Court of Arbitration for Sport correctly imposed the sanction for Nantes enticing Guinea forward Ismael Bangoura to break his contract with Dubai club Al Nasr in January 2012.Sebastian Coe has rejected claims that London 2012 may have been the dirtiest Olympic Games in history. Coe went on the offensive after another week of doping scandals rocked the Olympic movement.The International Olympic Committee announced on Thursday that 23 athletes who competed in London have tested positive from 265 retested samples. That is top of over 30 previous failed tests from competitors who had been caught either during the Games or since. The high percentage of apparent doping offences sparked suggestions on Friday that London was rife with cheating, but Coe denies that is the case.Lord Coe, now the president of world athletics governing body the IAAF, served as the London 2012 organising committee chairman. Lord Sebastian Coe denies 2012 was the dirtiest Games The former middle-distance track star claims in the Sunday Telegraph that at the time of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, where he competed and won 1500m gold, technology was prehistoric and says many athletes would pick and base their schedules on the athletics circuit in large part on the avoidance of testing.The IOC has said its reanalysis programme is ongoing, with the possibility of more results in the weeks to come.Coe wrote in his newspaper column: It would be delusional to say the London Games was in the words of many yesterday dirtier than Games before.He added: The message from Friday was not only, or eeven actually, about interpreting trends.ddddddddddddThe big message was for athletes to recognise that just because they may be ahead of the testing technology at a particular moment in their career, it does not mean they can lie easily in their beds until excitable grandchildren pore over Olympic medals in their dotage.They will be caught. They will then have the discomfort of explaining to those grandchildren why they no longer possess those medals. More is being done to catch cheats than ever before. Anti-doping test samples We will not stop collecting data, sharing information, building profiles, developing testing techniques or calling out and prosecuting cheats in our efforts to protect and promote clean sport. The Rio 2016 Games will be cleaner for it. That should be the story.The new findings cover five different sports and six international federations, and were all based on intelligence-gathering that began in August 2015.Russia has said eight of its athletes are among the 23 to have tested positive on reanalysis.All athletes found to have infringed the anti-doping rules will be banned from competing at the Rio Olympics this summer. Also See: 23 positive after London retests Eight Russians fail retests Sharapova in Olympic squad GB may get 2008 medal boost ' ' '