The Tigers Win the Pennant

That was easy.

After taking four straight games from the New York Yankees, the Detroit Tigers are World Series bound and look to capture their first title since 1984. They will take on the San Francisco Giants, who rebounded from a 3-1 deficit in the NLCS and are gunning for their second championship in three years.

Detroit won on the strength of exceptional performances from their starting pitchers Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Doug Fister and Anibal Sanchez, who combined to allow two earned runs in 27 and a third innings (a 0.66 ERA!). The bullpen was shaky, but aside from its Game 1 meltdown pitched quite well. ALCS MVP Delmon Young paced the offense, but hardly alone. Miguel Cabrera, Austin Jackson, Jhonny Peralta and Avisail Garcia swung hot bats, too.

The Yankees, who posted the best record in the American League this year, never even held a lead, for Steinbrenner's sake. They failed to show up. It was like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, except the aliens only stole the New York Yankees. The oldest roster in baseball looked like it had run out of gas.

The Yankees hadn't been skunked in a best-of-7 series since 1976, when the Big Red Machine cruised to their second consecutive championship by dominating Billy Martin's Yankee squad, a humiliation that prompted George Steinbrenner to dig into his pockets and sign Reggie Jackson. New York also rolled a donut in the 1963 Fall Classic against the Dodgers, when they scored four runs total off Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and co. Before that, you'd have to go all the way back to 1922, back when the original Yankee Stadium was still under construction, forcing the Giants and their little brothers to share the Polo Grounds.

The mighty Yankees scored all of six runs in the series, four of which were generated during their extra-inning Game 1 defeat. The bats went into hibernation mode, bearing no resemblance to the high-powered offense that set a franchise record with 245 home runs during the regular season and paced the American League in long balls, OBP, SLG, and total bases. Tigers pitching neutralized the Bronx Bombers, holding them scoreless in 33 of 36 innings and limiting their hitters to .157/.224/.264 triple slash stats.

The entire Yankee offense, sans Raul Ibanez and Ichiro Suzuki, went AWOL. Check these series numbers and try not to cringe:

Robinson Cano: 1-for-18 with no walks
Eric Chavez: 0-for-8 with four strikeouts
Brett Gardner: 0-for-8
Curtis Granderson: 0-for-11 with seven strikeouts
Russell Martin: 2-for-14 with no walks
Alex Rodriguez: 1-for-9 no walks
Nick Swisher: 3-for-12 with five strikeouts
Mark Teixeira: 3-for-15 with no RBI

Not even a healthy Derek Jeter could have turned that team around.

Culminating with an 8-1 drubbing in Game 4. New York managed just two hits, a Swisher double and Eduardo Nunez triple, as Max Scherzer silenced their bats. Detroit hammered CC Sabathia for eleven hits and six runs (five earned) , handing him the second loss of his otherwise stellar postseason track record with the Bombers. By the time Joe Girardi replaced him with Cody Eppley in the fourth inning, the game was already over.  In all, Detroit pounded out 16 hits, four of which cleared the fences,

Detroit has had New York's number in the postseason lately, ending the Yankees' season in three of the past seven playoffs. The Tigers whipped them in the 2006 ALDS, outlasted them in the division series last year and dominated them this season. But while everyone focuses on how poorly the Yankees played, what seems to be forgotten is that Detroit has a roster loaded with top shelf talent. They have the best pitcher (Justin Verlander) and hitter (Miguel Cabrera) in baseball. They have Prince Fielder, one of the game's top sluggers, and Austin Jackson, perhaps the most underrated player today. Top to bottom, the lineup can inflict damage, and the rotation is surprisingly deep.

I like their chances against San Francisco in the World Series, which starts tomorrow night with a rested Verlander on the bump.

A-Rod Due for Big Game

Rodriguez needs to come up big tonight, or else (FoxSports)

After much speculation and hoopla over where Yankees manager Joe Girardi would slot Alex Rodriguez in the batting order tonight, it turns out #13 will once again take his hacks as the team's number three hitter.

No surprise there. Girardi is a veteran's manager who likes to maintain the status quo and he doesn't want to ruffle the feathers of his highest paid player.  Unlike Joe Maddon and Bobby Valentine, he doesn't shake things up just for the sake of shaking things up.  He prefers the Terry Francona approach; just pencil the names in and let the players do their thing. However, many fans were calling for him to take action and drop his struggling third baseman in the batting order.  Rodriguez frustrated the Yankee faithful by going 1-for-9 with five strikeouts in Baltimore during the first two games. Even a longtime Rodriguez defender/apologist like myself can see that he looks overmatched right now, that he can't catch up to the fastball or make consistent contact on breaking pitches.  Girardi said he was open to the idea of rearranging his the lineup for Game 3, but decided to hold his ground.

I think he made the right call. A good manager has confidence in his players and sticks with them through thick and thin.  He does what he thinks is best for the team without caving in to the pressure from fans and media. I think Girardi also understands the implications of making a move like that at this stage in the season. Dropping Rodriguez in the order, or even benching him in favor of Eric Chavez, would feel like a panic move when the series is merely tied at one game apiece.  It would incite a media firestorm and signal desperation.  When Joe Torre dropped Rodriguez to sixth, then eighth during the '06 Division Series versus Detroit, it backfired.  A-Rod went 1-for-15, New York lost in four games and Rodriguez never forgave his skipper for humiliating him.  Girardi knows the Yankees won 95 games during the regular season with A-Rod hitting third in many of them. The strategy worked for 162 games, so why wouldn't it work now? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

It certainly looks like Rodriguez's swing is broke though, doesn't it? He's mired in one of his patented postseason funks, much like the one that dogged him in 2005, '06, and '07.  He hasn't gone yard in the playoffs since Halloween night, 2009, a span of 87 plate appearances.  Since helping the Bombers win the title that fall, he's 10-for-59 with 17 strikeouts in 16 games while batting .169/.282/.203. Granted, Rodriguez is not the superstar he once was, but that level of production from a middle-of-the-order bat is simply unacceptable, even for a 37 year-old with diminishing power. Needless to say, A-Rod has been long overdue, and he needs to find a way to contribute something from the batter's box tonight.  A sac fly, a timely base hit, a walk to start a rally. Something. Anything. Because if he comes up empty again, and the Yankees lose, then Girardi will have no choice but to make a change for Game 4.

Rodriguez is still an above average player.  Now is the time to prove it.