close
close

first Drop

Com TW NOw News 2024

    • Detroit Tigers lured Guardians into their game of chaos. ALDS is over
    news

    Detroit Tigers lured Guardians into their game of chaos. ALDS is over

    Vaseline Posted on

    play

    I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I’m wondering who you want the Detroit Tigers to face in the American League Championship Series? Yankees or Royals?

    Because this series is over. After the Tigers took a 2-1 lead in the division series with a 3-0 victory over Cleveland in front of 44,885 rabid fans at Comerica Park on Wednesday, one thing is very clear: the Tigers will not lose at home to the Guardians on Thursday. at game 4.

    And even if the Guardians somehow learn how not to boot the ball, walk consecutive Tigers hitters, strand all eight runners in scoring position and then get baffled at the plate by rookie pitchers like Keider Montero and Brant Hurter, they are not beating. Tarik Skubal in Game 5 in Cleveland on Saturday.

    So do everyone a favor, Tigers. Don’t blow this up. Because you can’t screw this up. Not for this team.

    Put the Guardians out of their misery and end it at home. Start “Don’t Stop Believin’” one last time in this series so we can reflect on how many days this team will return to the World Series for the first time since 2012.

    To see? I told you I wasn’t getting ahead of myself by talking about a World Series game – even though I love the Padres, and not just so I can eat fish tacos while covering the games in the fantastic Gaslamp Quarter in San Diego.

    The third game of a series is often the most consequential, and that was certainly true on Wednesday when the Tigers showed the Guardians as a team with no more moves to make.

    It happened when Cleveland’s Stephen Vogt, a candidate for AL manager of the year, tried to counter the Tigers’ pitching chaos by creating some of his own hitting chaos with favorable matchups using pinch- hitters in the second and third inning.

    But Vogt’s version of chaos backfired when right-handed batters Jhonkensy Noel and David Fry failed to get a hit off Hurter, a lefty, with runners in scoring position.

    “So we thought this was the chance to take our chances,” said Vogt, “both with Noel and Fry in the background. Those were high-leverage situations, an opportunity for us to get the match, and we just couldn’t get through.

    The Guardians’ desperation gives the Tigers an advantage

    Having failed to get through, the Guardians have now failed to score a run in their past 20 innings. If you think they were desperate coming into Game 3, wait until they face the elimination game on Thursday.

    The biggest key to Vogt’s decision to pinch-hit so early was that it forced him to play a game he’s not used to playing. It forced him into AJ Hinch’s game.

    “We’ve been doing this for a few months,” Hinch said. “So our guys responded positively and did a fantastic job of getting up, getting ready and getting their hitters out almost perfectly, in terms of getting into situations and rushing the strike zone and doing their part to put pressure on them to continue with innings. ”

    Players in the Tigers clubhouse called their manager a magician for the way he uses his pitching staff. Hinch actually looked like a magician, pulling coins from behind Vogt’s ear while his slack-jawed counterpart looked in amazement at the result.

    “We prepare very much for these situations,” Vogt said, defending his aggressive pinch-hitting strategy. “Nothing that happened today surprised us. We were all prepared for it. We took our chances when we had a chance to make some runs, make a few bets and then not come through.”

    Yes. While one manager gets blackjack after blackjack, the other quietly goes bankrupt on every hand and wonders when the casino criminals will come and throw him out.

    The Tigers don’t have much power on offense, so Hinch and his players know they don’t have an endless supply of chips to waste. But their bets are calculated and paid out at exactly the right time.

    Riley Greene, coming off a 2-for-15 postseason slump, got his first postseason RBI with a soft single up the middle in the first inning. They got another in the third on Matt Vierling’s sacrifice fly.

    They added their final run in the sixth inning with two key hits. Rookie Colt Keith ended an 0-for-11 slump with a hard-hit single and scored when Spencer Torkelson ended his 0-for-14 slump with a double.

    “Yeah, just grind, stay in the fight and just keep going,” Torkelson said of his approach during the slump. “It really is. In play-offs you don’t get caught up in the numbers. You just try to win baseball games, and we did that.”

    Tigers continue to play under pressure

    Another thing that shouldn’t be forgotten are all the fundamentals the Tigers have leaned on, like smart baserunning and solid, if not spectacular, defense. Trey Sweeney’s throwing error in the third inning was the Tigers’ first in five postseason games.

    But Vierling made up for that rare fielding error with the game’s defensive play in the seventh inning as he returned to his recreational basketball days at Notre Dame. With two outs and runners on first and second base, Fry hit a 100 mph screamer down the third base line.

    With speedy Steven Kwan on first base, Fry’s hit could have resulted in two runs. But Vierling, who said he could dunk in college and is pretty sure he still can, defied gravity to jump, make the stab and hold Cleveland scoreless.

    Now the Tigers are one win away from the ALCS. They know. They know what’s at stake on Thursday night.

    “Like we’re all human,” Torkelson said. “So we can hear the sound. We know how close we are. But it just goes back to one pitch at a time, one out at a time.”

    It’s been the Tigers’ approach all season, and certainly since Aug. 11 and into the postseason.

    “So that’s what worked,” Torkelson said. “So if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

    That’s easy for Torkelson and the Tigers to say. As for the Guardians? There aren’t enough repairers in the world right now to help them.

    Contact Carlos Monarrez: [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.

    Vaseline
    View all posts

    You Might Also Like