Paper Tigers

The Yankees have now beaten the Tigers 5 out of 7 meeting this season, and by all rights could be 7 of 7 instead. I named this post Paper Tigers to take a poke at Detroit, but I believe I posted prior to the first meeting between these teams that I feel good about the Tigers renaissance. I think they are one of the clubs in the sport that should stay competetive almost every year. They are fellow members of the old guard and it seems right for them to lead the Central.

Here are the numbers on this 3 game series:


Yankees bats
.276/.360/.418 for a .778 OPS
8 doubles and 2 home runs
5/5 in stolen bases

Tigers bats
.184/.245/.378 for a .623 OPS
4 doubles and 5 home runs
0/1 in stolen bases

Yankees Starters
22 IP
2.46 ERA
0.773 WHIP
4 walks, 17 Ks

Tigers Starters
17.2 IP
4.08 ERA
1.642 WHIP
6 walks, 11 Ks

Yankees Pen
5.0 IP
5.40 ERA (all Scott Proctor's HR)
1.600 WHIP
4 walks, 4 Ks

Tigers Pen
7.1 IP
3.68 ERA
0.955 WHIP
3 walks, 4 Ks

It's pretty clear what the difference in this series was. Yankees starting pitching verus Scott Proctor's 3rd appearance in 2 days. The starters dominated Detroit. Torre's punishment of "Twice a Day" Scottie cost us a sweep. Still, it was a satisfying comback from the West Coast hangover. A-Rod's big game made it even sweeter, and the cherry on the top was the wild rant that Jim Leyland went on just prior to, and after "God Bless America". In Japan, there are no commercial breaks so the Japanese language feeds returns during the break. The NHK cameras follow whatever the announcers are discussing, and it happened that they were trained on Leyland as he started to blow his top prior to the song. He quickly snapped to attention, vibrating with silent fury throughout the song, and then snapped as soon as the last note was sung. Great stuff. Classic.

See you tomorrow. Go Yanks.