Game 2 of the Tigers-Yankees series has been postponed Wednesday night due to rain. The action will pick up again tomorrow, Thursday, afternoon at 1pm ET.
Justin Verlander (0-0) will take the hill for the visiting Tigers while Mike Mussiana (0-0) looks to give the Yankees a 2-0 series lead before the series shifts to Detroit on Friday night.
Yankees lead series 1-0.
This was a huge win for New York on so many levels. Of course starting off a five game series with a win is always big, but especially since the Mets have so many pitching issues right now. Pedro Martinez and El Duque Hernandez will probably miss the entire postseason due to injury, so that forced the Mets to start John Maine, who made his postseason debut. The 25-year-old Maine wasn’t overly impressive by any means, but he held the Dodgers to only one run on six hits in 4.1 innings of work.
Maine got a huge lift in the second inning after a rare play at home netted a double play. Maine surrendered an opposite field hit to Russell Martin with Jeff Kent and J.D. Drew already on base. Kent got a late jump and Drew practically was in his hip pocket running behind him. The ball careened off the bottom of the wall in right field where Shawn Green was able to field it cleanly and throw a strike to relay man Jose Valentin at second base. Valentin spun around and threw a one-hopper to catcher Paul Lo Duca at home plate. Lo Duca had plenty of time to tag Kent for an out, but then turned around to show the home plate umpire that he still had the ball. Almost a second later, Lo Duca noticed that Drew was still running and spun back around in time to nail him for the double play. Maine eventually gave up a run that inning before getting out of the jam, but the damage could have been much worse.
Carlos Delgado waited almost an eternity (14 seasons to be exact) to make his postseason debut and he didn’t disappoint. Delgado homered to center in the forth inning to tie the score at 1-1 and then singled in a go-ahead run in the seventh to give New York a 5-4 lead. Delgado finished 4 for 5 at the plate with two RBI and two runs scored.
LA put together 11 hits, but they were scattered and that left the Dodgers to play catch up for virtually the entire game after netting an early 1-0 lead. Despite being tagged for three runs in two innings, Guillermo Mota (1-0) got the win while Brad Penny (0-1) took the loss for LA.
Game two is Thursday night and will feature Hong Chih Kuo (0-0) vs. Tom Glavine (0-0).
Well, so much for my ‘Twins in 4’ prediction. In 18 innings of post-season baseball, Minnesota has not led once. The two runs they scored today came from two huge blasts from Michael Cuddyer and Justin Morneau, who hit the biggest fly ball I’ve ever seen. But that only tied the game, and then Torii Hunter – perennial Gold Glove candidate Torii Hunter – made an error in judgment that can only be considered Cub-like. With one on and two outs, Hunter dove for a sinking fly ball from Mark Kotsay, which skipped past him and rolled all the way to the wall. Kotsay, who has pretty decent wheels, circled the bases for an inside the park home run. Ow.
Here’s how listless the Twins have been: they didn’t even put a runner on base with less than two outs until the tail end of the game. That makes it really hard to manufacture runs when you don’t have any outs to give. The Twins now have to send Brad Radke, who’s pitched only once since August 25, to the mound and save their season. Geez, I bet the White Sox would have put up more of a fight than this.
Game 3: Brad Radke (12-9, 4.31) vs. Danny Haren (14-13, 4.12)
All the Tigers fans who were worried about Detroit’s collapse at the tail end of the season saw their nightmare brought to life in the Brox. The feel good season for the Detroit Tigers isn’t over yet, but reality is quickly setting in as far as World Series aspirations for Motown.
What a night for Derek Jeter – 5 for 5, three runs scored, one RBI, two doubles and a solo blast in the bottom of the eighth that put the final nail in the coffin for the Yankees. His 5 for 5 mark tied a postseason record for most hits in a single playoff game. Jeter also made a backhanded play in the hole to turn a key double play in the second inning to keep the Tigers scoreless at the time. You take what Jeter did tonight and compare it to Alex Rodriguez’s numbers (1 for 4, no RBI or runs scored) and people wonder why the Yankees faithful (although sometimes brutal, yes) get all over A-Rod and praise Jeter. Jeter is absolutely clutch in the playoffs. Another Yankee that had a huge night was Bobby Abreu who knocked in four runs and had two hits. New York had a solid lineup before adding Abreu at midseason – now that lineup is just plain deadly.
If I were a Tigers fan, here is my biggest worry: Chien-Ming Wang didn’t even have great stuff Tuesday night. The Tigers get 11 hits, but only manage four runs and now face the task in trying to beat Mike Mussina tomorrow night. Although, Detroit will send its ace in Justin Verlander to the hill to face Mussina, so at least the Tigers will have confidence that Verlander will keep them in the ballgame.
Game 2 Pitching Match up: Justin Verlander (0-0) vs. Mike Mussina (0-0).
When I broke down the playoff teams for Bullz-Eye, I said the following about San Diego when detailing their weaknesses: “If Jake Peavy gets pounded – and that’s happened to him quite a few times this year – the offense is not built to mount a large comeback.” There you have it, proof positive that Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa reads Bullz-Eye.
Here’s how bad San Diego is at catching up: when Albert Pujols hit that bomb in the fourth inning (which was only a two-run shot), the game already seemed out of reach for the Padres. And sure enough, those two runs are all the Cardinals would need, though they tacked on three more for good measure. San Diego did give LaRussa a brief scare in the seventh, when they loaded the bases with one out. But Mark Bellhorn struck out, of course, and Todd Walker was robbed by Ronnie Belliard in short right field to end the inning.
San Diego has now dropped seven straight games to St. Louis in the playoffs, but that may change on Thursday when they face human pitching machine Jeff Weaver. Then again, the Padres are trotting out 76-year-old David Wells, so…
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