It's a match-up between the two best teams in the American League, there is no argument there. If you watched baseball all season long, you can see these two teams on their way towards a collision course named the
2013 American League Championship Series. Both teams ranked 1 & 2 in pretty much every offensive category, and pitching categories. In the pitching department, let's don't beat around the bush, the Tigers definitely have the better rotation, but the Red Sox have the toughest bullpen. The Red Sox hitters are probably more consistent 1-9, every player grinds out at-bats --
Shane Victorino's addition to this team was a brilliant move, he's always been a great on-base player dating back to the Phillies' glory years, especially during the 2007-2009 period -- adding him to a team that is well known for stretching at-bats in studs like
Dustin Pedroia and
David Ortiz has paid dividends.
It has been no secret what the Tigers' arms can do, but their lineup has hit some cold spells due primarily to the
Miguel Cabrera's oblique injury that dramatically got worse since the very end of August -- It also doesn't help that Austin Jackson has struggled by striking out over a dozen times in the playoffs as well, something you don't want to see out of your table-setter.
In Game 1,
Anibal Sanchez pitched excellent and did what was asked of him, he stayed out of trouble & racked up 12 K's in 6 innings -- pitching a no-no through all six innings, but his pitch count would lead to the unpredictable bullpen to keep it going, they stepped up to the task that night, not allowing their first hit until one out in the bottom of the ninth. Sanchez racked up his 12 K's, by confusing the Red Sox hitters, who have not seen Sanchez before -- despite the fan base's cries over umpire
Joe West's strike-zone, look at the replays, the check-swings went around, and most of the calls were right on; they were simply over-matched.
Jon Lester pitched a great game, trying to give his team an opportunity to win.
Game 2 will go down as a oddity for us Tiger fans, never have I ever seen a team in all of my time loving baseball, a team dominate another team, only to watch the bottom fall out. I unfortunately had to work that night, when I was gathering my last few things before heading off to work. I watched Miguel send one over the Green Monster, and watched my boys put up a 5-0 lead. The Fenway faithful were stunned & quiet, the 5-0 lead, looked more like a 10-0 lead. On my way to work in the car, I listened as Boston finally scored -- but I was not worried; there are many times in baseball where you sense the vibe that this one is in the bag. The game in many ways, was in the bag.
I got to work, place the radio at the backroom break-table, put it on a lower volume than I would for a close game, and went about my business like a normal work night. I was mopping the lobby, thinking of how great it's going to be, to be up 2-0 in the series with the dominating Verlander on the mound in Detroit -- how crazy is that?! Who knew? You see, before the series I felt this series would go the distance, just like I knew Oakland would push it to five games again -- to think otherwise, is to disrespect the Boston Red Sox, who still have a few of those guys from the 2007 World Championship team. They know how to win, and you know it's going to be even tougher than Oakland. So you can understand the sudden excitement of jumping up a possible 3-0, worse comes to worse, we are up 2-0, and they get one back, no big deal, we still have an edge. I go back briefly, and I listen to the radio announcers mention the game is entering the bottom of the eighth and that Boston still trails 5-1 -- so I went back to my business, I can almost taste the victory, I felt like a Tiger literally licking it's chops. At this point, I think I looked at the clock and it was 11:40, maybe 11:45 pm. I go back to work and about 20 minutes later, I ran some garbages out with a coworker, and knowing that it should be near the end of the game, I decide to go check on the game.
While I rounded the corner, I started hearing all this commotion from my radio, and I could hear the Fenway faithful suddenly loud, and then I heard the Tigers' radio announcers
Dan Dickerson (play-by-play) and former Tiger catcher
Jim Price announce "What a comeback victory for the Boston Red Sox...". At first, I wasn't sure if I was hearing some flashback clip of Red Sox lore in 2004 or 2007, and they continued to say something on the lines of "They even the series up a game apiece with Detroit", and then that's when the shocking revelation hit -- it was strange, I felt like I was literally teleported into some weird alternate reality, but no it really happened. The truck guy showed up with all the food for the store, and he was beaming "So, did we win?!" -- apparently, he wasn't listening to the radio, and I had to catch him up -- "No Way?!? We had that one", my brother called sometime after that.
Through all that, I was still optimistic, and this is the way I was looking at it --as long as our rotation stays dead-on, keeps doing what they have been doing, we can win with some timely & clutch hitting. I was also looking at the fact that our starting pitching held the Red Sox to 2 hits through 16 full innings, and that it took some ridiculous miracle for Boston to just pull-even. We have J.V. on the mound in Game 3 at home, sure this one will sting a bit, we win Game 3 & Game 2 will be just a thought.
The problem is our bats never showed up in Game 3, and Justin Verlander's one mistake, a solo-blast by
Mike Napoli proved to be the difference-maker. Our hitters looked lousy, and we lost to
John Lackey, who at times threw good pitches, was throwing a lot of junk outside that our hitters couldn't stop swinging at. Ask a Red Sox fan, you would have thought they watched
Jack Morris in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series or something. We lost that game, we had our opportunities and once again gave Verlander no run-support, which has become commonplace since the beginning of September.
Entering Game 4, Jim Leyland did something drastic that raised a few eye-brows, switching up the lineup in which Austin Jackson was moved to the bottom of the lineup (understandable), and moving Miguel Cabrera up to the second-slot, with Torii Hunter leading off (Say What?!) -- The end result, a butt-whooping on Jake Peavy, who simply didn't have it. Austin Jackson played well, the Tigers all seemed to be clicking -- the series is tied 2-2, and Leyland looks like a genius.
Throughout the series, I had to listen to Boston fans getting annoyed by Fox announcers
Joe Buck &
Tim McCarver (Sure, I agree they can be annoying... Joe Buck has gone downhill since people or Budweiser declared him a legend). Apparently, they are sick & tired of hearing about
Tigers pitching this, and
Tigers pitching that; Well, this is the deal... it's their job to mention the records that are being set at a ridiculous rate, what we are seeing here is something that will be talked about for ages, and it's time to sit back and realize you are watching an historic rotation, the best rotation (without a doubt, in my mind) since the days of the 90's Atlanta Braves. For these Boston fans, maybe they really didn't know much about our rotation, Detroit is not known to be a "media market" in the ways of Boston or New York, but we have been a dominating rotation since acquiring Doug Fister from Seattle in mid-2011, added Sanchez in 2012, Porcello even got better in the fifth spot. I will say this, great pitching is more impressive than showing the world that you can grow facial hair -- even worse, naming the beards.
So maybe it's a surprise to them, I don't know -- I do know this, to keep your viewer glued you got to spill out the incredible stats --
Do you think me or every baseball fan really wants to sit through another David Ortiz time-frame of memories for the 10,000th time? Probably not, but what he has accomplished is impressive, and with that, the stats and timelines are repeated -- Anytime they show the greatest World Series moments ever, you can count on seeing three moments for sure. Those three moments are the Carlton Fisk (1975 WS) home run, Kirk Gibson's 1988 HR off Eckersley & the ball bouncing between poor Bill Buckner's legs in the 1986 World Series. The difference in media markets is funny, you would think that most Detroit teams or any teams in general outside of New York & Boston play in a dark cave somewhere, or in Alaska?! LOL! Seriously, the 2004 NBA Finals comes to mind when the world seemed to wake-up and go, "wow this Detroit team has a great defense"; we only set an NBA record of like 6 straight games holding an opponent under 70 points -- YET! It can't be that Detroit is winning the finals, there must be something wrong with the L.A. Lakers; newsflash, those Lakers had problems all year long, and it just happened to be exposed on the national spotlight, if it wasn't for a Derek Fisher miracle shot, we would have been playing San Antonio most likely (which we would in 2005). I have gone on the defense for my Detroit teams, because I feel whenever our teams do accomplish something... it must be a fluke. If Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker & Jack Morris wore pinstripes, they would be in the Hall of Fame or getting in very soon because of that. Another example of the differences in media markets, we still hear about the New York Jets --
last time I checked they have not won anything since the days of Joe Nammath, so why do I have to hear about the stinkin' Jets every single time I turn on ESPN or sports radio! The Lions suck (I'm a Cowboys fan, if anyone was wondering, don't ask) but we don't constantly hear about them, unless they are going 0-16!
Anyways...
The Red Sox would go on an win Game 5. The play of the game in my eyes was when third base coach / former 84' Tiger Tom Brookens (for some odd reason) sent hobbling Miguel Cabrera from second (around third) to score, and he was a dead-out by a good ten feet -- play of the game. It sucked the air & electricity out of Comerica Park, Boston came back up the next half-inning & Mike Napoli (boy, does this guy have power?!) crushes a 445-foot HR to dead-center!
Now you heard me go on a bit about the Red Sox fan base, to show I'm fair my own Tiger fan base on numerous occasions have got be irked. First I'll start with Game 3 of the ALDS at home against Oakland, sure... we lost 1-0 in that instant classic game between Sonny Gray and Verlander. Judging from what I saw on TV, the crowd of Comerica Park appeared to be sitting on their hands, c'mon get off your asses, you're acting as if we are down 3-1! I was pretty disappointed in the fans' efforts that day, maybe even more than our team that day.
During Game 5 of the ALCS, I witnessed some of my facebook Tiger friends, making remarks such as "ANIBAL SANCHEZ SUCKS" in all caps -- I jumped all over him, with a calm head of course, but I remarked sarcastically "Yeah, you're right... he only won the A.L. ERA title, but he must suck", sure Sanchez wasn't sharp, but he was hardly the reason for our problems. This guy also use to make statements looking at the paper in the break-area at my old job, "Oh, Verlander's not pitching tonight? We're screwed" -- Gee, good to have the rest of the team's back there buddy! By the way Verlander pitched the night before in that 2011 ALCS against the Rangers, he can't pitch every night!
The Tigers tried to climb back into Game 5, but failed (like i mentioned above). On my way home, sports radio was taking calls, and a Boston fan called and cried up a storm, in fact he cut off Dana Jacobson, and started losing his cool. He was upset about there was no mention of Lackey's "great" game, and that McCarver & Buck were rooting for the Tigers since they only interviewed the Tiger pitchers between the innings (Dana called him out, and said the teams both get equal shots of the choice to get talked to or not) -- Tierney stepped in and mentioned Yankee fans used to say the same thing about McCarver & Buck, so don't give us that. He finally put the guy in his place, "dude, you are one game away from going to the World Series, and you are complaining buddy, when you should be enjoying this moment." Exactly, listening to that got me fired up, our pitching has been dominate & yet were down 3-2, and this guy is on the radio crying like a 'B'. I guess some people want it all
Now off this fan stuff, let's get down to Game 6 & possible Game 7.
For the Red Sox to advance to the World Series, they will have to get through Max Scherzer, and if they don't succeed there they will have to face Justin Verlander in Game 7. The Tigers have the same thing the 2001 World Champion Arizona Diamondbacks have going for them, their best two pitchers left for the series, and possibly the best 1-2 punch since that of Curt Schilling & Randy Johnson.
Justin Verlander has been on fire during the entire playoffs, in his three starts (his two starts in Oakland, plus one start vs Boston) he has a 1-1 record & 0.39 ERA (his one run, the Napoli HR in Game 3 of the ALCS), with 31 K's & 3 BB's in 23 innings! Max Scherzer is 2-0 in the playoffs with 26 K's.
I still feel we are destined to do the unthinkable, I felt we had to win two of the last three regardless. I felt if we won Game 5, Boston would have got Game 6 back, and then it would come down to Verlander for Game 7. We just did everything out of order, I'm not going to bend now.
Cardinals by the way, wrapped it up against the Dodgers last night, now we need to join them and host Game 1 at Comerica Park. Sure, I could be wrong and we might be going home early tonight -- or we tie it up, and force a Game 7. If I am wrong than hats off to Boston.
I could be wrong, but I've been right all post-season long.
GO TIGERS!
