Mitch Albom: Tigers come through big-time in Big Apple
freep.com
Oct. 7, 2011
NEW YORK -- October ain't over.
It takes a lot to stare down Yankee Stadium, but the Tigers just did it. It takes a lot to knock out CC Sabathia twice in a week, but the Tigers just did it. Doug Fister -- not even with the team in late July -- just did it. Delmon Young, who arrived even later than Fister, just did it. Don Kelly, who has seen more baseball stops than a Louisville Slugger shipping container, just did it.
From top to bottom, on a dry, cool New York night, the guys from Detroit just did it -- without their certain Cy Young winner Justin Verlander ever taking off his jacket. They are moving on to Texas to play for the American League pennant, leaving behind the bewildered New York Yankees, the team with the league's best record, the team that racked up 10 runs the previous game, the team that this morning is looking at its game plan, scratching its head and saying, "Why didn't that work?"
It didn't work because you can't plan a baseball game; you just have to play it. While the Yankees had a strategy of "hold 'em down until we get to our best relief pitchers," the Tigers came out and, well, pitched and hit and ran and fielded. That's not easy to do on an elimination night -- not overthink things. But with the calm, easy confidence of their white-haired manager, Jim Leyland, who picked up a new suit earlier in the day -- he called it "a humdinger" -- they just did it.
Tigers 3, Yankees 2.
Humdinger, indeed.
So many scary moments
They did it with confident pitching. Fister, in the dregs with Seattle just over two months ago, continued his amazing second act with five solid innings, no moment bigger than the bottom of the fourth, bases loaded, Alex Rodriguez dancing off third, Nick Swisher off second, Jorge Posada off first -- and the hottest hitter on the Yankees, Brett Gardner, at the plate with a 3-2 count.
It takes a lot to stare that down.
Fister did it. He delivered his pitch without hurry, without nerves, without consideration of the moment ...
... pop foul by Gardner, inning over.
Humdinger.
They did it with another bases-loaded nailbiter: bottom of the seventh, Joaquin Benoit in relief, unable to reach a dribbler by Robinson Cano (let's just say it; he whiffed on it) yet escaping big trouble by striking out Rodriguez and Swisher to strand three Yankees baserunners.
They did it with hard smacks early -- and early was as important as hard.
Here was Kelly, out of the Pittsburgh suburbs, the human equivalent of the yellow school bus that stops every block. Undrafted out of high school, he played college ball in downtown Pittsburgh, chinned up to Low-A, Middle-A, High-A, Double-A, Triple-A, only reached the majors at age 27, then hit the minors again.
"He's the 25th guy on the team, I guess," Leyland said before the game, "but I wouldn't rather have another 25th guy."
Why? For moments like this: top of the first, biggest game he'd ever played in, staring down the ghosts of every clutch moment in Yankees pinstripe history. What, him worry? He took the first pitch he saw and rocked it to the rightfield seats, not even close, and he strode around the bases in perfect baseball form, as if he'd done it a million times before -- which he had, in his dreams.
That moment was followed by Young, who pummeled the very next pitch into the leftfield stands for his third home run of the series -- a Tigers record for a playoff. Last Friday, here in this stadium, Young opened the Detroit series scoring with a first-inning homer. Here he was, doing it again. Young is yet another example of Tigers karma, acquired less than two months ago, given up on by the Twins, he proved Detroit's most reliable slugger in this series -- and that's on a roster with Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez.
And if Curtis Granderson's first-inning heroics in Game 4 set the tone for the rest of that game, Young clobbering Ivan Nova in the first might have done the same Thursday night.
"It's big to get out in front early here," Kelly told TBS right after the game. "It was unbelievable."
Humdinger.
Two different approaches
Game 5's are always nerve-racking, full of second-guessing and hair-pulling. Leyland proved insightful when he said before the game that it might be a good thing to play a series finale on the road. "You have so much hype at home, build up about it, the fans are so excited ..."
Who needs that? Just play. Thursday was a tale of two approaches. The Tigers tried their fifth different lineup in as many games, while the Yankees didn't change a batter.
On the other hand, the Tigers stayed with their starter, Fister, until the sixth inning, while the Yankees bullpen looked like a subway station platform. Starter Nova, the rookie, lasted two innings before being pulled because, as Joe Girardi told TBS during the game, he "tightened up," apparently in the forearm. New pitcher in the third, Phil Hughes. New pitcher in the fourth, Boone Logan. New pitcher and reigning superstar Sabathia in the fifth.
The philosophy seemed apparent. There were two pots of gold waiting at the end of the Yankees' rainbow -- Rafael Soriano and Mariano Rivera -- and if New York could hold down the Tigers long enough to get to them, they would somehow ice Detroit inside a box, and the Yankees' bats would win it.
It's a risky approach, because before you get to the ice box, a lot of meaty New York plans can spoil.
And guess who just melted all those plans?
October ain't over.
The final outs
So the Tigers move on. They play for the pennant for the first time since they won it in 2006. As in that year, they get there by beating the Yankees. And there were several signature moments Thursday when you sort of felt this would go Detroit's way. The two home runs for sure. Fister escaping the fourth for sure. The moment when Sabathia left the mound looking nothing more than mortal -- 1 1/3 innings, one run allowed, a couple walks -- and there was barely a burst of noise in the stadium.
Max Scherzer (Oh, yeah! Remember him?) delivering fine work again in Yankee Stadium (this time in relief), that was a moment. Benoit getting out of that near-disaster with two huge strikeouts and only one run surrendered. Huge moment there. And the bottom of the eighth, Derek Jeter walloping a Benoit pitch to the rightfield wall, before Kelly -- there's Kelly again! -- pulling it in for the third out.
And of course, the final out, Jose Valverde, the master closer, continuing his perfection, mowing down Granderson, Cano and finally Rodriguez -- strike three, swinging! -- to send the Tigers racing out to the mound in a glorious leaping mass, the kind of moment that makes all kids want to play sports in the first place.
It's not easy to stare down everything that goes into a Game 5 on the road -- or all that came before it in this series: from the washout in Game 1 that forever changed the pitching, to the weird 7 1/2-inning thingamajig in second the Game 1, to Cabrera's power in Game 2, to Verlander's strikeout binge in Game 3 to Granderson's acrobat show in Game 4.
This was a seven-day baseball movie that had a little of everything and a lot of something specials. The Tigers had a few more of those at the end. They held the mighty Yankees to two runs in Yankee Stadium when it mattered most. And they just bedazzled the biggest city in the country to move on to the second-biggest state.
Leyland told this to the media in his office before the game: "We're going proud wherever we go tonight. That's the way I look at. We'll be a little prouder if we're going to Texas, but we'll be proud if we're going back to Detroit."
October ain't over.
And they'll be doing both.
Contact Mitch Albom: 313-223-4581 or malbom@freepress.com . Catch "The Mitch Albom Show" 5-7 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760). Also catch "Monday Sports Albom" 7-8 p.m. Mondays on WJR. To read his recent columns, go to www.freep.com/mitch. |
