Tigers take a bite out of Yanks!

Detroit's improbable season continues... The Tigers snuck past New York in Game2 to excite Tiger fans for their first home playoff game in many years. No disappointment... Kenny Rogers was intensely focused and shutout the mighty Yankees 6-0. The Tigers are one win away from advancing to the ALCS with the Oakland A's who dispatched the Twins earlier in the day.

New York's impressive lineup was stymied again by Tiger pitching. A-Rod has had a miserable series so far. Actually, the only bat in the Yankee lineup since Game 1 has been Jeter's.. and he has even cooled off from that Fabulous 5 for 5. Tip your hat to the Tigers, it's very impressive to watch. Game 4 should be awesome.

Woah! Nellie!

Or should I say Whoah! JD! Where are you going? What are you thinking 1st to home?? It better be over the fence.

A sad day for the Dodgers as they turn into the Brooklyn bums in Shea Stadium. Nobody out in the top half of the second with Kent and JD Drew on the bases, rookie Russell Martin rifles a shot to right field, for some reason Kent hesitates... and the worm turned. A perfect relay not only plugs Kent at home but JD Drew!! Whoah! Who is the traffic cop at third base!?

As it usually proves to be the case.. those lost runs were the difference in the game. The Dodgers end up scoring just one run in the inning and the Mets had life. They came back in the fourth with two solo homeruns by Carlos Delgado (4-5 on the day) and Cliff Floyd. Both homeruns were on 2-1 counts. .hitters counts.. must be some Rick Down teaching in that dugout. Better yet. .Delgado goes oppo! Superb hitting by the Mets.

And then it was Mr. Wright to the rescue. The Mets went up 4-1 in the bottom of the 6th on another outstanding at bat by David Wright. The guy just continues to thrive in the NY Met lineup. Wright's double to the opposite field knocked in two and knocked out Derek Lowe.

The Dodgers.. not a team that has quit in the stretch.. score 3 runs to answer the challenge in the top half of the seventh. In a typical Dodger inning, Anderson leads off with a drag bunt single.. and they get a little help from Jose Valentin making a bad decision on a grounder by Betemit. Valentin attempted to get the lead runner on a tough spin and throw move. The ball was errant and the Dodgers had an inning cooking. Rafael Furcal cashed in one on a sharp single to make it 4-2 and a clutch double by Nomar down the Left field line tied the game at 4!

But.. for some inexplicable reason Grady Little went out of the norm and brought in Brad Penny in the bottom of the inning. Penny was tarnished for sure.. walking Reyes and putting the rabbit on the bases. A 1 out walk to Beltran and a sharp hit by Carlos Delgado put the mets up for good at 5-4. David Wright followed with another opposite field hit.. a soft one that dropped and drove in the Mets final run to make it 6-4.

Again, the Dodgers bowed their necks but couldn't get that big hit from Nomar as he struck out to end the game. A 6-5 Thriller and a good start to probably the most entertaining of the series' so far.

Kotsay saves the Day!

Marquis pitching lasted four innings between two top notch starters. Loaiza was a little shaky with two outs.. allowing the Twins to mount a little offense on a couple of occasions. He was able to snuff out the scares each time.

A's batters staked him to a 2-0 lead in the fifth when Scutaro started a rally. Then in the Twins' half of the 6th two incredible at bats by Cuddyer and Morneau tied the game for the home team with back to back blasts! Cuddyer worked a beautiful count to 3-2 and deposited a Loaiza pitch into the Left Field stands and deep. Morneau followed with a monster blast to the upper deck in Right field.

But with two outs in 7th inning Kotsay hit a sinking drive to center that Twins center fielder Tori Hunter misplayed. Thinking he could snag the liner to end the inning.. the ball died and dropped to the left of the sliding Hunter, rolling all the way to the wall. Kotsay motored around for an inside the park homer and the deciding runs. The A's went on to win it 5-2.

Ironically, exactly four years ago to the day Ray Durham (then with the A's)also hit an inside the parker against the Twins in Minnesota. It's a crazy game.

Padres lose, Tigers Trounced

Jake Peavy looked tremendous for the first 3 innings, he was precise with his spots... impeccable even. That is...Until Piazza misplayed a foul ball off the bat of Pujols that would have retired the PhatMan. From that moment on.. it was like waking up the sleeping Giant.

The Cards, who looked so sleepy down the stretch, suddenly awoke with one swing of Albert Pujols' bat... Bang! The alarm clock has sounded. Pujols slammed a two run blast off of Peavy to start the train rolling and it never stopped. Nothing San Diego could do about it. The Cards just rode the wave of emotion.. did everything right and walked away with a 5-1 win to take Game 1.

It's funny, I knew from the moment Piazza dropped that ball that he had made a mistake. It wasn't an easy play .. mind you, but.. he's the leader.. he should have caught it. When the leader of one team allows the leader of the other a second chance.. .. .. well, you saw what happened. Pujols was so locked in. He is a joy to watch in those situations, such superb concentration. For all you young players out there, he wasn't trying to hit a home run. His concentration was simply to hit the ball pure. He had just missed the previous pitch and it almost cost him his at bat.. so he locked in a little more in his mind and thought about nothing but hitting the ball pure. Voila! Ding Dong! Home Run. It really is awesome to watch him. I hope you pay attention to that in the next few Cards games.

On to the Tigers. What Happened? Well, sadly they have a mountain to climb and it just got steeper with ice on the sides and a strong head wind. Derek Jeter, Five for Fabulous Five, is an amazing post season player. Already the all-time leader in Post Season hits, Jeter put on a show for the Yankee crowd last night. He hit to left, he hit to right, he hit to center.. Oh, he hit one OVER center :-)

Derek Jeter may be one of the best players to have played the game. Surround him with the cast that makes up the NY Yankees and it is very difficult to see them getting beat. Of course, it happens .. I mean, they weren't undefeated this year by any means. But, in these short series match ups.. what a line up.

About the only thing you had to scratch your head about was a move by Torre in taking out Wang with such a quick hook. Wang pitched very well. You have to tip your hat to the Tigers line up for not laying down after the Yanks jumped out to a 5-0 lead. They clawed back into it.. but Abreu, Jeter and company were too much to handle. Game 1 is history and it looks like the Tigers might be history as well.

It Hurts soooo Good!

Holy Premonition Bat Man! Maybe I should listen to myself a little more closely :-)

I do believe I said something like "Can you say Frank Thomas?" Yea, well I be you can hear that name all over the state of Minnesota right now.. and my bet is it is precursed with at least one expletive and followed by a couple more.

The man that was signed for a half million (+ incentives.. he reached every one by the way and earned about 3.8m for his year) was worth his weight in gold today! Thomas led off the second and ninth innings with solo home runs and supported a beautiful pitching performance by Barry Zito. Houston Street mopped up in the ninth and .. that was that!

Oakland takes a 1-0 lead in the series.

Post Season Upon Us

Wow! What an awesome year of baseball we were blessed with in 2006.
We had a little bit of everything there. Heck, we even got a no-hitter and a few flirts with others... including a near no-hitter vs the powerful NY Yankees offense. Yea, it really was a great, great year for baseball. Don't even think about the mud that flew.. just look at the shiny new version in front of us: Its The Post Season!

Lets take a look here, hmmmm.. A's vs Twins. Well, if you look back at my blogs you can see I didn't pick either to get there. I had the Mariners in the West and was certain that the White Sox and Tigers would make it from the Central. The White Sox dropped like a soggy wet one and the Tigers clawed and scratched their way through a very tough end of the season to end up as AL Wild Card reps. The Mariners.. well, never mind. :-)

Who do I like here? The A's are just sneaky. They have bigger bats then you think they do.. can you say Frank Thomas? And their arms are strong as well. I kind of like them... except for the fact that they open in Minnesota and have to face a formidable pitching staff in the Twins' staff... not to mention a studly offense led by AL Batting Champ Joe Mauer (Yea, same guy from Mauer QuickSwing - Awesome product by the way.. you should check it out here). I think I have to lean toward the home field advantage. It's there for a reason and when it comes to playoffs it may be the one thing that makes a difference in a team moving on. The Twins are tough at home winning 2/3 of their games there for the season. It stands to reason they will do well in a short series.

Tigers vs Yankees .. well, as much as I love my man Don Slaught and am excited for him and the Tigers to get to the playoffs, it would have been so much better to face the A's!! Losing the Division has really placed them in the Hornets nest in NY. The Bronx Bombers are awfully tough in the post season. Soooo much experience. Soooo much talent. Soooo much Jeter and Giambi and Sheffield and A-Rod and Johnson and Mussina and Johnson and.. and.. and... you get my drift.

The Tigers had a really tough ending to an incredible year. I think part of it could be the young arms having pitched more innings than in their past. The playoffs could infuse some Desire in the youth of the Tigers, and they do have great leadership in Pudge Rodriquez. But, they would simply have to play a superb series and have tremendous pitching to come out on top vs the Yankees.

As for the Yanks, well.. despite the fact that I recognized a lack of unity at the very beginning of the year (which did exist by the way).. they have gelled in the second half. With Matsui back they take on a completely different look and his bat compliments the rest of the lineup so very well.. it will be a Yankee win in this series. I can't see the Tigers getting past them, unfortunately.

Dodgers vs NY Mets. Well, I was pretty sure the Dodgers were going to make it. They had themselves a helluva year.. up and down and back up again when it counted. Their young players really stepped up all year. Adding Marlon Anderson late in the year was a superb move my Grady Little. They will give the Mets all they wanted and more. Coming off a tremendous sweep at the close of the regular season to make the playoffs.. they are on a great roll now. They showed earlier in the year how they were able to prolong winning streaks. I think if they can split in NY in the opening two games.. they will win this series. Even though I love my buddy Rick Down and the Mets look incredibly awesome on paper, they are on a downward slide and it may be difficult to reverse it... even if it is the post season. But.. time will tell and either way this one shakes out I'll be happy. If the Mets win.. I'll root for my man Rick to get his ring. He deserves it. Hell, he deserves a shot at one of the vacant managerial jobs coming up. The man is a winner.. check his record here if you don't believe me.

And.. you know, just looking at that lineup.. it's hard to believe they could lose. Wright, Reyes, Delgado, LoDuca, Beltran, Floyd, Green.. The Dodgers will need to continue to ride the wave to beat this team. But.. like I said, either way.. this may be the best of the 5 game sets we get to watch.

Cards vs Padres. Maybe not the most intriguing of the matchups to start the playoffs. The Cards are limping badly and the Padres are rolling. They played very well down the stretch to snatch the West. I like the Padres here. Again, home field advantage is huge and the Cards are coming in wounded and wondering if they can win. Piazza has the Padres on a charge and I think the pitching will be good enough to quiet the bats of St Loo (not even a whisper at the end of the season). It will be fun to watch Phat Albert though, he is an incredible hitter. If nothing else you have to hope to watch him in a clutch situation. He is so focused and steady, there is alot to learn here.. just by watching.

Anyway, that's my two cents. Enjoy the Playoffs.. they should be Fan Tastic!