Tigers keep proving doubters wrong as they beat Yankees to advance to the ALCS

HUGS FOR EVERYONE

Great job Kurt. Such a satisfying victory from so many perspectives.

Mark Lemke 1991 World Series. Playoff heroes are not always the big names. Mark Lemke, all 35 pounds of him for 2nd base with the Braves in the 90s and he was a machine in the post season. Never doubt anyone at this time of the year, those role players end up being legends.

At the beginning of the season, I had the Tigers pegged 3rd in the division. Even at the all-star break I still had them at 2. It feels good to be wrong, it feels good for them to have redemption.

Really well done, Kurt.

He wrote books about the Tigers, including a whole novel on the 1984 season. This read reminded me a lot of him.

Just finally got home and watched the game tonight. Wife’s a little pissed off…but she’ll get over it. :)

Congratulations on beating the Yankees. It’s always fun to watch the Yankees lose, and it was an awesome game. Good luck guys. Here’s to an awesome ALCS.

Maybe I should post pictures of its progress.

Is Scherzer good to go for Sunday, or will it be Porcello?

Partially due to the celebratory whiskey….but mostly because of these Tigers that have done what I thought was almost impossible.

We wrecked the Yankees in the Bronx in a deciding game. This moment is one I’ll tell my grandkids about.

Seeing them take an early lead and then spend the entire game holding on to the precipice desperately for dear life. YIKES!

I don’t even know what I was saying on twitter because I was forcing myself to tweet anything just so I had to uncross my fingers. I know from experience keeping my fingers crossed for three straight hours will make them useless for work the next day and I need them.

WHAT A GAME. WOW.

That this team just does not quit. They figured it would be a blowout loss just like game 4. #morons #gloating

I haven’t had that much emotional unrest during a game since #163 in ’09. There were a lot of things that could have gone differently and resulted in a loss, but things went out way. I was impressed with the resolve of the pitching staff when they were in pressure situations. I was also impressed that Leyland thought to bring in Scherzer. This was, in my opinion, one of the best moves of the series. When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. He has pitched from the ’pen before, he had a great game against the Yanks in #2, he was rested and needed some side work anyhow. I felt totally in control of that game while Scherzer was in there (it was the only time all night to be honest).

I woke up at 3:30 a.m. and had to convince myself that the Tigers won game 5 and I did not just dream it before I could fall back asleep.

With everybody dousing him with champagne and then the reporter finally getting doused as well.

I’m sick of hearing about how the Yankees lost and the Yankees offseason questions. Give us a little credit, will ya?

It’s all about the “Yankee collapse” and not the great night of work by Fister, or Benoit battling through a rough inning, or Don Kelly, or any of that, I’m glad we’re well shot of this horrible team.

http://www.pinstripealley.com/2011/10/7/2474948/judge-on-162-games-not-5-feet

The bottom line is that the Tigers are still playing baseball. That’s enough for me.

“They won it, just the way everybody in Detroit thought they would. They won it, in a way nobody thought they could.”

(And no, that’s not from memory. I have a Gibby-autographed copy of that front page hanging in my office at work.)

Who beats the Yankees 3-2 at Yankee Stadium? Who holds that lineup hitless with runners in scoring position? Who lets the Yankees load the bases twice with one out and gets away with a single run? I expected this game to be a slugfest, and I was terribly, terribly wrong.1

Respect to Leyland, who proved that less can be more with managing — especially when the other guy is flailing around in panic. I was struck throughout the whole series how Leyland was actually acting looser and happier than he did through the entire regular season. I have to believe that filtered down to the team, which never looked or acted particularly tense outside of the first bit of the Game 1 rainout. The Yankees, however, looked like they’d been tased then embalmed for much of Game 5 as Girardi pulled his phone-a-friend antics to the bullpen every five minutes.

Awesome, awesome, historic win. The Tigers continue their streak of never having lost a postseason series to the Yankees2 and we’re down to being one of the last four teams still playing baseball. I said yesterday before the game that if you’d told me in April that the Tigers were going to win the division by 15 games and Verlander was going to win the Cy Young, I’d have considered the season successful regardless of what happened in the playoffs. Beating the Yankees in five in the Bronx is sweet, sweet icing on the cake and there’s still more dessert to come.

1 – Well, it was a slugfest for Don Kelly at least. I’d pay good money for video of Rogo’s reaction to that one.
2 – Small sample sizes be damned.

I was reminded of Napoleon Bonaparte’s famous rule: “Never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake.” Leyland didn’t start jacking around with pinch hitters to face new relievers or anything like that, he just kept rolling his guys out and made his standard defensive substitutions right around when we expected them. Only goofy things he did were running Scherzer out there in relief1 instead of the other middle relief gascan options and having Benoit go two innings. We joke sometimes about Leyland’s National League instincts to go all TLR on substitutions and play matchups, but he resisted the siren song of the bench and bullpen about as much as could possibly be expected last night.

Hell, if the Yankees had won, Girardi would have had a fragged group of pitchers for Game 1 and no way to use CC three times in a seven-game series. I know you manage for the win you need and not the potential games to come, but I really didn’t understand some of his decisions last night.

1 – Did anybody else catch the shot of the bullpen where there were guys starting to warm up and Brad Penny briefly stood up? I screamed so loud I may have bruised a tonsil.

And yes I’ve probably got a George Cantor book hanging around somewhere. I grew up reading the Freep sports section when it was filled with all-stars and even Mitch Albom wrote sports at a high level.

They just mind talking about them, or anyone else who isn’t the Yankees. Thank the Lord we’re done with the TBS crew. Everything they said was about the Yankees. They talked up Curtis Granderson’s MVP prospects just about every time he was up to bat, but mentioned that Cabrera’s in the running only once. This despite the fact that Cabrera is obviously a stronger candidate based on performance this year.

When the Tigers were up, it was all about what the Yankee pitcher was going to do or had to do. When the Yankees were up, it was all about the batter, not the Tiger pitcher. Tigers were only mentioned when absolutely necessary to the narrative of the Yankees succeeding or failing – except for the fact that we won the announcers hardly noticed we were there.

I actually like a lot of the Yankee players and don’t even really hate the franchise the way a lot of baseball fans do – probably because they’re not in our division anymore so our prospects for making the playoffs aren’t perpetually thwarted by them. Granderson and Jeter in particular are pretty likeable. Grandy would still be a fan favorite if he were still here, and if Jeter had been playing all these years with the Old English D on his uniform I have no doubt he’d be a legend in Detroit.

It would be nice if the announcers could at least give some airtime to Cabrera, Peralta, Scherzer, Fister, Ordonez (who IMO we should find a way to play all game every game – he is raking right now) etc. The Tigers deserve some hype too, is all I’m saying. Verlander gets his share, but the rest of them are treated like afterthoughts.

Me want to cry.

That’s why I come here. And post like these are more than enough for me.

Like 8 or 830ish?

Just wanted to say congratulations. From this side of the fence can say anything more than the better team won. Would love to give some better insightful analysis than that, but some times you can boil it down very succintly. Please don’t take this as arrogance but it was impressive to see a team come into the Bronx Zoo and take a decisive game. That says a lot of your playersand coaches. Don’t fear anyone because I think this is a team that can play with anyone.

As for this blog, I haven’t posted before as I just joined for this series, but I must say that for the most part I have read classy, knowledable posts (well a few jabs as well but c’mon that’s to be expected). I had been told Detroit is a good sports town and from my perspective it looks like it.

Good luck the rest of the way.