Playoff Baseball

Incorrect. He struggled early in the 2nd half, but he did quite well "down the stretch" including the 1-game playoff.

I think he would have, considering how poorly the Yankees were hitting that night. In fact, I'd venture to guess he would've pitched a complete game shutout.

Rodney was actually more effective than Nathan this year. Nathan has been an awful post-season pitcher (choker? I don't know). But then again, I don't think Rodney would've been a factor, since JV would've gone the distance. I think the series would be 2-1 or 1-2 right now if the Tigers played the Yankees.

 

I can't believe we're still talking about Detroit, but here goes about this "far" superiority:

DET's P? 4.34 ERA, 1.42 WHIP, SPs won .528%, .263 BAA.
MIN? 4.50 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, SPs won .534%, BAA .272

Fairly even, maybe a nod to DET. But far superior? Hardly. But as has been pointed out ad nasuem, DET's P wasn't good enough to get to the dance, so it's rather moot to talk about how it would fare against NYY.

His BAA went up slightly, but his ERA actually dipped a bit as he went 5-2 from Aug 1 on. He actually had better 2nd half numbers than his first half numbers.

And let's all remember one thing: DET would still have been managed by Jim Leyland in the playoffs. The same skipper who tanked this team in the dog days of summer would surely have done so in the early days of fall. MIN ran out of steam in the playoffs. DET ran out of steam by Labor Day. That's the main difference between the two teams.

True that the Humphrey bag has seen it's last baseball game. We now welcome sub-freezing baseball to the Twin Cities. Should be fun to watch the balls have to be put in a microwave between innings the first six weeks of the season.

It'll be the cold conditions. The fact that the Twins park favored hitters/pitchers/guys whose last name begins with a vowel, or favors anyone not wearing a D on their hat. :laugh:

 

Rodney was very effective....at putting the Twins in the playoffs :tongue3:

Can't blame him for that. That was Leyland's fault.

 

Why don't you compare Detroit's top 3 starters (you know, the ones who actually pitch in a short series) with Minnesota's top 3? That's where the big difference lies. Basically, we had Verlander who was capable of shutting down the Yankees in 2 games, and Minnesota did not.

You mean like what happened in 2006 when the Twins made the W.S. and the Tigers, who had run out of steam, got swept in the ALDS? Ooops, looks like that theory goes out the window based on actual happenings.

 

Andy,
The only problem with what you're saying is that the Tigers lost to Minnesota who were then swept by the Yankees. Maybe they were better on paper but they couldn't translate it.

woulda... coulda... shoulda...

sorry, my rays got whipped badly in the last WS... we shoulda won :BangHead:

 

Most likely, the Yankees hitters were off. Certainly not because they were facing any tough pitchers.

1 blown save by Rodney, 5 by Nathan. While Nathan is overall a better pitcher than Rodney (in the regular season, at least - he's been awful in the post-season), Nathan for some reason probably cost his team more losses in 2009 than Rodney did his. Luck? Probably. But in that sense, Rodney was more effective in the W-L column in 2009.

 

Bottom line, I'm not saying Detroit would've beat the Yankees for sure. If they played a 5-game series 100 times, Detroit might win 20 of them. Minnesota would only win about 10, though.

 

I don't blame the ump for missing that call - at 90 MPH that would tough for any ump to see clearly. I just chalk it up to the typical Twins good luck over the typical Tigers bad luck. If Inge were less agile, it would have hit him solid. So in this case, his athleticism was a detriment.

I don't think it's ridiculous at all. It may be wrong, but it's not ridiculous to say the Yankees had an off night or were slumping at the plate. Blackburn and Pavano are not shut-down pitchers.

Bottom line, I was right when I predicted a Yankees sweep, and that's all that matters to me. I loved every minute of it. I even loved the bad call on Mauer's double - it barely put a dent in making up for the years of good fortune they've had due to their ridiculous (yes, ridiculous) stadium.

 

We aren't talking about 2006. We're talking this seaons's collapse by the Tigers and how the Twins ran them down without a key player. '06 saw the Tigers cough up a hair ball, no doubt. Not as big of a collapse as this year though. On Sept 7 of this year, the Tigers were up 7. In 2006, they were up 5. Still, neither lead is a lead a good team loses. But the similarities end there. I firmly believe the Tigers were the better team in that WS and that the eventual WS champ was one of the weakest in recent memory. The Twins and Tigers both could've/should've beaten the Cards. The moral of that story? We can talk about probabilities, eventualities, and what ifs all day long. But the results stand.

I said I thought all along that one option could be that the Twins would just fall flat, and that they did. After NY came back and won game 2, I don't think anyone with a brain thought the Twinkies would peel off three straight to win the series. I did predict that the Twins would win the series and I was wrong. You predicted against the Twins (which you would do if they were playing the Al Qaeda All-Stars). We all love how consistent you are in your Twins bias. No stat is untwistable in your love of the Tigers and hatred of the Twins, and that's admirable. :thumbsup:

 

2006 was the bigger collapse, because the Tigers played much worse down the stretch, comparatively, than they had all year. The '09 Tigers played about the same all year - about a .530 club. Look at their Sept. record - it wasn't all that different than their other months. The '06 Tigers were 10.5 games up on Aug. 7th, and the Twins played well, but it was due more to the Tigers not playing well. 2009 had more to do with the Twins going 16-4, while the Tigers went 10-10. But what made this '09 collapse tougher was no wild card to fall back on.

 

Poor, poor Tigers. They are sooooooo good but they lost the season series to what we are told is a "lesser" team and lost a tiebreak game to the same "lesser" team.

I guess we are to believe that the Tigers are sooooo good they could just whoop everybody if it wasn't for the fact that they can't beat this "lesser" team.

 

I think they would have been a better "playoff" team than the Twins, just like they were the better playoff team in 2006 when the Twins won the Central by a game, but the Tigers went to the W.S. I don't know why that's so hard to understand.

To be honest, neither team was all that good 2009. In 2006, both teams were good separated by a game. In 2009, both teams were slightly above average separated by a game.

BTW, you keep bringing up the one-game playoff, as if that were the end all be all of the whole season. I'm just impressed the Tigers took it to 12 innings in the Dome where the Twins usually dominate. Had the game been on a neutral site or in Detroit, we would've seen a different result.

 

Because you are such a die-hard homer for the Tigers.

But I sympathize with you. I've been there and bought the t-shirt for my favorite sports teams at times as well.

 

You're right, Andy. The '09 Tigers had a slightly better record down the stretch than the '06 Tigers did. This year you have to give the Twins some credit for running down the Tigers. Well...you don't and won't :laugh:

Correct. I thought I made that point earlier, but maybe I did not. Which is why I don't think either team would've fared all that well in the playoffs. Like I said, I think anything can happen in a five game series and I picked the Twins to make it past the Yankees because the Yankees had not really been tested in a while, while I thought the Twinkies could continue their pull. I'm glad in a way that NYY and LAA will square off because I think those two teams are the best two AL teams in the playoffs.

Det went 7-11 against MIN, so I don't think it's just one game.

I personally think Texas would've done better in the playoffs than MIN or DET.

 

The big advantage for the Yankees is they have home field advantage. Of course with the way the ball flies out in the new Yankee Stadium, the Phillies might hit a few that way as well.

I'll go with the Phillies in 5 games. Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, Pedro Martinez (two lefties and a Yankee killer). Just hope Lidge doesn't give up the lead in the end of the games.