For the second time this post-season, Raoul Ibanez has delivered a 9th inning, game-tying HR, this time a two-run blast with 2 outs. Ibanez joins Joe Morgan (1983), Dave Winfield (1992) and Julio Franco (2001) as the only players aged 40+ with HRs in two games in the same post-season. With three HRs total, Ibanez stands alone among the over-40 crowd for the most HRs in a single post-season. Ibanez also stands alone among all players, with 3 HRs in the 9th inning or later in a single post-season.
For the second time in as many appearances, Tiger closer Jose Valverde failed to protect a 9th inning lead, this time giving up a 4-run advantage on twin two-run HRs by Ibanez and Ichiro. This is the 3rd time in Valverde’s post-season career allowing 3 or more runs in an appearance, tied for second all-time among relievers, trailing only Jeff Nelson with four such games. Valverde’s career post-season ERA now stands at 8.79.
Tigers score two in the twelfth off rookie David Phelps, the last man in the Yankee bullpen. Derek Jeter goes down and has to leave the game with what is now identified as a fractured ankle. No more Yankee magic in the home 12th. Tigers take the opener, with Delmon Young the unlikely hero with a HR and 3 RBI, including the game-winning tally.
Leyland has got to face facts and move Alburquerque into the closer spot now. Valverde is leaving as a free agent after the season anyways so what’s the downside?
Looks like Ibanez just became the second player in history to hit 3+ postseason home runs in the 9th inning or later that either tied the game or gave his team the lead. Johnny Bench also had 3 such home runs (in 3 separate postseasons).
Halloween’s early in Detroit. Armando Benitez has been dressing up like Jose Valverde all month.
Jeter is gone for the year. Fractured ankle. Should be ready to go in time for spring training.
For you “what if” fans – if Ibanez doesn’t hit that HR tonight, then Jeter is still in the lineup for game 2 and beyond. But, seems like that ankle was just waiting to give out, if not tonight then sometime soon. Sure didn’t look like anything unusual on the play Jeter went down.
Looks like Pete Rose tossed a little bad karma Jeter’s way…….
Doug, you like the quizzes, so here’s one. Who said the following words?
“Fractured, hell, the damn thing’s broken!”
Jay Hanna Dizzy Dean
Correctamundo Voomo!
I tried to enter a two-word comment (Dizzy Dean) and I was told it was too short. Does one of the two words just need to be long?
Must be Voomo, because it accepted my two-word comment. Even though correctamundo isn’t a “real” word, I guess it was long enough to slip by the computer gods. Either that or it’s because you’re so far out in the woods that the computer gods are messing with ya.
Looking at brWAR for the regular season, Valverde was about Detroit’s 6th most valuable relief pitcher. The TBS commentators were saying how Leyland kept Valverde as the closer because of his loyalty. In his book on managers, Bill James says that Casey Stengel did show this type of loyalty. He might have a pitcher go 17-5 one year and be out of the rotation before the middle of the next year. His loyalty was to all the players who tried hard all the time and was expressed by judging talent correctly and putting the best team on the field as much as possible.
Did Girardi assign How Green was my Valley for all the Yankee hitters?
Leyland said that he considered having Dotel face Ibanez but that the numbers did not look good for that matchup either. Pretty certain at this point that they need to go to bullpen by committee, and Leyland says he will make an announcement regarding his plans at the pre-game conference today.
On the plus side for the Tigers, Coke, Dotel and Smyly were all very good, which saved the day in the end. Coke threw 15 strikes out of 16 pitches and did not make a mistake to Cano in the seventh when the latter fouled off seven straight pitches. And Dotel getting Martin and Jeter with Gardner on third in the 10th–well that was the game right there.
My guess is that Leyland is going to keep Dotel in reserve now, for potential closing situations.
Jeter’s injury and Chipper’s retirement remind us that nothing is forever. Enjoy great players when you can, and respect their efforts.
Most World Series Starts at Shortstop (OPS in those games in parens):
1. Phil Rizzuto 52 starts (.650 OPS)
2. Pee Wee Reese 44 (.695)
3. Derek Jeter 38 (.832)
4. Tony Kubek 30 (.510)
5. Frank Crosetti 28 (.543)
6. Everett Scott 27 (.357)
7. Art Fletcher 25 (.440)
8. Dave Bancroft 24 (.403)
T9. Bill Russell 23 (.612) and Marty Marion 23 (.679)
Just over one in every four World Series starts at short has been by one of these ten guys.
Speaking of Marty Marion…just how good was he? Was he deserving of the MVP in 1944? Or should it have gone to Musial? I realize he had a dWAR of 3.6 that year, but his overall WAR of 4.6 is just a shade over half of the 8.8 that Stan put up. Maybe he had some incredibly big hits as the Cards won the Pennant running away?
His nickname was Mr. Shortstop.
Richard, I read up on him a bit and saw that. I realize he was considered a defensive whiz, and I like defensive whizzes. Now, I have to wonder where the voters were in 1987 when Hawk won over the greatest defensive Wizard of a shortstop ever. Of course, that was the same year Bell won over Trammell, so I guess that answers my question about the voters in 1987.
Almost equally amazing is that except for Jeter none of those shortstops really ever have been in the discussion as belonging among the greatest ever at the position. Reese & Rizzuto were almost always considered on pretty equal terms when they were playing & along with Bancroft all were elected to the HOF by the veterans committee. Marion & Fletcher had reputations as elite defenders and Scott & Crosetti were also considered glove men first. Kubek’s reputation as a defender suffered somewhat and perhaps undeservedly so by comparisons to Rizzuto. Russell also never had much of a reputation as a glove man but was probably better than he was given credit for.
Reese and Rizzuto might have been considered equals at the time, the numbers indicate that Reese was a LOT better, 63.1 WAR to 38.1 WAR.
@8 Mike L. — Amen Brother!
Hmmm.
ESPN reports: “Right-hander Phil Hughes will follow Kuroda in Game 3, while left-hander CC Sabathia gets the ball in Game 4, regardless of how the series goes, Girardi said.”
Is Girardi seriously going to stick to that plan if the Tigers win today? I hope so, because that’s a definite recipe for going down 0-3, with the entire starting rotation available, and two home games as well, for the Tigers to win the one needed game.
Which makes today’s game something of a must-win situation for the Yankees. Something which few people would have imagined. Valverde notwithstanding, I’m really starting to like the Tigers chances here.
I am feeling so spoiled today. The number of intriguing storylines that are emerging from each individual game are equal to the amount in a typical series. Even games in which that I have little personal interest (Game 5 of St. Louis/Washington, for example) turn into unique and thrilling events. And although my hatred for the Yankees continues to burn with the heat of a thousand suns, my stomach was just as upset watching Derek Jeter being carried off the field as it was when Ibanez hit his home run. No true baseball fan would want to see that happen to one of the game’s great ambassadors. What an incredible post-season.
As someone who has nurtured high-principled anti-Yankee feelings for a lifetime (though at this late season in life, the only thing that burns like a thousand suns is my stomach after a pizza) and who has been equally a Tiger fan for the AL, I’ve found that as the day has gone on, Jeter’s injury has continued to drag down my appreciation of the postseason despite the Tigers’ recovery. In a postseason that – like last year – seems to have been written by screenwriters, this just shouldn’t have been in the script.
I get pretty annoyed with the hagiography around Jeter, his clutchitude, his steely-eyed captaincy, and etc. etc. Jeter himself is a great, great player, and a decent gentleman from most accounts I’ve ever heard. Baseball is much poorer without him participating. I really hope he comes back strong as ever next spring.
So, I live deep in the woods with no TV.
And I know nobody with a TV.
Yesterday I happened to be at a new neighbor’s house, with a group of friends.
We got to talking about the Giants, and then I mentioned that the Yankee game had started an hour ago.
The neighbor said “Oh, well we should watch it!”
!!!
A television!
A flat screen, gigantic hidden television.
With some kind of blown color tube so the picture was completely red – it looked like Yankee Stadium was using Kane’s entrance lighting (WWE reference).
So, I was pretty much a grouch for the whole game, particularly when Derek Lowe appeared in his second inning of work. I apologized for my attitude, but my friends seemed actually amused by it, which is nice. I explained that besides the brutality of watching your team not score, it was excruciating to watch idiotic decisions being made, and I really, really needed to be General Manager of my own team.
To which one of my friends asked
“What would be so great about being a General Manager?”
This is the same friend who took umbrage to learning that Alex Rodriguez made 25 million dollars a year, and completely failed to understand that Major League Baseball was the last vestige of pure American Capitalism left in professional sports, and that no, MLB did not need to adopt a socialist system.
So I replied “What? It would be the American Dream. I would get to buy, sell, and trade big black men all day.”
Well, bottom of the ninth, I scraped my hope change yes we can off the floor, and said
“OKAY, LET’S GO! WE GOT VALVERDE! FOUR RUNS.”
And when Raul did his thing, I got so excited that the old black dog with no teeth by the fireplace pulled himself off his pillow and head butted me with his gigantic skull.
The point of this story is one of personal tragedy.
Fast forward.
Bottom of the tenth.
Brett Gardner on second.
Derek Jeter at the bat.
I am twelve years old.
Feet barely touching the floor……….
And at this moment, PG&E shuts down power to our entire county road, as part of a scheduled maintenance.
Power didn’t come back on until noon today.
Just found out how it all played out.
Alternate theory: Voomo passed out after the collision with the dog, and we are all now trapped within his visionquest of what life would be like had Derek Jeter never been born.
I think “Lost” ended in a similar way. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmaykBtOpcM
Now that’s what I call a readable comment!
I can relate to the living-in-the-woods-without-a-TV thing.
By the way Voomo, John has no TV either if it makes you feel any better. Murdered it a couple weeks back he did.
Even so, I’m aware that the Tigers just got
a gift run2 gift runs from the 2nd-base umpire.They would be less relevant if the Yankees could hit. Perhaps 2013 is the year they get under the luxury tax. Umpires muff calls, it’s part of the game.
Post script:
Four of the people at that party are now sick, including myself.
I’ve not been sick in three and a half years.
Moral of the story:
Stay home.
Girardi brought in Logan knowing that:
(a) Leyland would counter with Garcia, who got a hit off Logan last night; and
(b) he wasn’t going to let Logan face Cabrera if Garcia got on.
So Joe must have favored the Logan-Garcia matchup over Joba (or other RHP) vs. Berry — favored it so much that he didn’t mind burning Logan on one batter. I’m surprised by that.
Questionable call. Either Joe had faith that Logan wouldn’t let Garcia ding him again, or he was willing to trade the Garcia-Logan matchup for getting Berry out of the game? Either way, with two outs Logan was only going to be in for one batter regardless.
I have always held the 1986 post season in reverence. They wrote a book about it: “One Pitch Away” I think it was. Anyway, I think this post season will rank ahead of ’86.
I think the ad hoc nature of the scheduling helped a lot. They hit the ground running with the Wild Card game and haven’t looked back since. Barebones minimal travel days and we have been blessed with good weather. Honestly, I think it helps to have most of the marquee teams involved. That is blasphemy from an Astros fan but, hey, there is just so much Tampa Bay Rays Tropicana Field Arcade Baseball I can take in one decade.
I just cannot believe what has happened to Robinson Cano.
During the last nine games of the regular season, Cano
had 24 hits in 43 AB. I watched most of these games and
they were mostly hard hit balls.
Now during this postseason Cano is 0 for 26 and looks awful.
In fact, other than Jeter and Ibanez, the entire Yankee team
has been anemic offensively.
I know the series is not over, and yet I cannot believe how I
feel compared to the bottom of the ninth inning of game one.
Little 5- and 10-game slumps happen all year. It’s just a bad time.
Cano this year:
Aug. 11-18 — 1 for 21 in 6 starts.
July 21-30 — 8 for 40, no RBI in 9 games.
First 27 games of the year — 1 HR, 4 RBI.
FWIW, the A’s hit .194 in the first round and scored 11 runs in 5 games. That was better than the O’s, .187 with 10 runs. The Giants hit .194 and won their series.
Ibanez-Arod link, they were teammates for the A ball 1994 Appleton Foxes, when Ibanez was a primary catcher. By the end of the year ARod would be promoted 3 times and make his major league debut at age 18. Cant find any instances of Ibanez pinch hitting for ARod back then.
2 years later, 1996, may parallel this years AL MVP a lot. A 20 year old ARod exploded onto the scene leading the league in hitting, runs, total bases and put up a 9.2 WAR season, but finished 2nd in the MVP voting to big RBI guy from a playoff team with much less WAR.
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