ALCS – Tigers go 4-0 over Yankees into World Series
Detroit Tigers have had a strange season, and when I say strange, I mean consistently inconsistent.
As spring training began the Tigers were expected to breeze through their weak AL Central division, especially when winter moves meant they had added the best free agent hitter on the market to compliment the best hitter in the game and the best pitcher in the game.
That recipe has cooked up a World Series date with either the San Francisco Giants or the world champion Cardinals – whom they lost to in the 2006 fall classic – but it wasn’t a simple journey.
In this post season Detroit has played as we expected them to all year long, but perhaps this roster is set up not to be overly successful during a 162 game season but damn right brutal come the play-offs.
They have at their disposal the best starting rotation to represent this league for some time, and Max Scherzer completed an ALCS sweep of the Yankees with an 8-1 victory, giving up just one run in 5 2/3 innings.
The Tigers ran through the lifeless Yankees, those New Yorkers with the $200million payroll, led by Cy Young and MVP winner Justin Verlander who has, wait for it, a 0.74 ERA in this post season.
The ace of the staff has won all three of his play-off starts this year but for all his accomplishments, he wants that ring. Jim Leyland wants that ring. They all do.
Detroit will be favourites for the Series, simply because they have a rotation blowing away hitters in October.
The Tigers are going to learn from their mistakes of six years ago. After that particular heartache, they didn’t reach the play-offs again until 2011. The signs are very similar too, because like this winter, the Tigers had five or six days to wait until their opponents were decided after their Championship Series win.
Such was the job they did on the slumping Yankees – not to take anything away from the roaring Tigers – they have several days to prepare for the biggest series of their lives. In 2006, the situation was identical, and perhaps it led to a lacklustre feeling in the camp and thus they went down all too easily against St. Louis last time out.
Verlander was a rookie back in ’06, and he has certainly grown up since then. He is a winner and will take the ball for Game One. Detroit overcame the White Sox late in September, and then beat the magical Athletics in five games. The Yankees were next, and if you knock off the pinstripes you have defeated the symbol that represents baseball around the world.
So here they are. The wait is nearly over, and this time Leyland has kept his players extra sharp in order to be ready when Verlander takes the signal from his catcher for the first pitch of the 2012 show. It has been a good year for baseball, but Detroit won’t be nodding at that sentiment if they fall at the final hurdle again.
Make no mistake, they are the favourites. It is high time they showed why they are the best team in baseball.
