Leave it to a guy who has stunk beyond belief at the plate in every postseason he's been part of to do just as bad in the field when its needed. This is his walk year and let him go right out the door.
The Tigers looked poised to blow this one. Valverde still is not off the hook though. The Tigers are going to have to rethink that bullpen situation because Valverde is not cutting it in the closer role.
This team over and over demonstrated it can't hit in the clutch. It lucked out because the long ball showed up to give them just enough to tie but that is not going to win you ball games when you can't deliver solid fundamental baseball in key situations that are being gift-wrapped for you and when they had a chance to win, they came up empty again and it hurt them big time. And that has been the maddening thing about this team all year long, because if they had any sense of how to play solid baseball, they would have won over 100 games (it took them until July just to win a game they *didn't* hit a home run in!)
The thing that's really bad for Girardi is he deactivated his spare infielder Nunez to have an extra pitcher this series and now he's going to have got get Nunez activated which means making Jeter ineligible for the rest of the series (which is probably a moot point anyway, because I have never seen Jeter hurt that much except for the time in Toronto in 2003 when the catcher collided with him at third base and put him in the hospital).
A loss like this is devastating on all levels, especially with a game to play in just 14 hours from now. A simple 4-0 loss would have been "just Game 1" but this kind of game as you get further into the postseason is a momentum setter on many levels and I see the Tigers primed to run with it. Again, I give their offense credit for coming up with the big moments they needed. Their lineup clearly is better in the fundamental areas.
The biggest thing that sucked was the loss of Jeter. Second worst Valverde's continued inability to close out games and Leland's inept 9th inning management. Sparky would have pulled Valverde right away, especially with Dotel and Albequrque in the pen.
I can understand your frustration with your closer, Gary. He's clearly not good, but the rest of your bullpen did the job quite well and Leyland should not take a stance of deference to Valverde in key situations.
And we're about ready to go. The outcome determines whether last night devastated the Yankees or inspired them. If the Tigers win, I can't envision the Yankees coming back.
