After a grueling five-game first round series against the
Orioles, the Yankees had to report to their ballpark the very next night to
open the ALCS against the visiting Detroit Tigers. With the Tigers knocking off
the A’s in Oakland two nights previously, the visiting team had the luxury of a
day off while the team with the best record in the AL, the Yankees, had no time
to rest from the divisional round.
Despite the scheduling gaff, the Yankees had the Tigers
right where they wanted them. With Justin Verlander having to pitch Game 5 of
the divisional series, he wouldn’t be available until Game 3 against the
Yankees, so the Yankees would have the first two games at home against two
Tiger pitchers not named Justin Verlander. In addition, with Detroit knocking
the Yankees out of the playoffs in 2006 and last season in 2011, revenge had to
be fresh on the Bombers mind. The only question that remained was, “Will the
Yankees finally be able to wake up with their bats?” With 2012 MVP and
Triple-Crown winner Miguel Cabrera in the middle of the Tiger lineup, the Yanks
were going to need to score more runs that the pathetic showing they barely
slipped by the Orioles with.
The reason the Yankees wanted Andy Pettitte and his 19
postseason victories back in pinstripes was for games like this in which the
Yanks needed to jump ahead in the series before the Verlander monster appears.
With CC Sabathia already used from his decisive Game 5
against the Orioles, manager Joe Girardi went to the other lefty to get things
started. After throwing a scoreless first inning, Pettitte sat on the bench and
watched the offense continue to waste opportunities. With two outs, the Yankees
managed to load the bases against Doug Fister and looked prime to put some runs
on the board early. The struggling Alex Rodriguez came to the plate, and with
the home crowd behind him trying to get his bat to wake up, he lined a grounder
which sure looked like was going to be a 2-run single, but instead Tiger shortstop
Jhonny Peralta made a diving grab and got the force out at second base. It only
got worse an inning later, again with two outs and the bases loaded, Cano was
at the plate. Cano would smoke a grounder
up the middle which also had 2-run single written all over it, but the
ball hit off the pitcher’s mound, then off the pitcher’s glove, to the waiting
hands of Peralta who snatched the ball in mid-air and threw a non-hustling Cano
out at first. The Yankees were inventing all new ways to not score.
Both starting pitchers kept the zeroes on the board and the
Yankee offense wasn’t able to put any rallies together from there. Pettitte’s
pitch count was rising and the Tigers finally got to him in the top of the 6th.
Former Yankee prospect Austin Jackson lead off the inning with a triple. With
one out Pettitte walked the dangerous Miguel Cabrera and choose to go after the
left-handed hitting Prince Fielder. Instead of a big strikeout or doubleplay,
Fielder singled up the middle to bring the first run of the series across the
plate. With Cabrera now at second, Delmon Young, who hurt the Yankees with some
big homers in last year’s playoffs, knocked in the 2012 MVP with a double and
the Tigers now had a 2-0 lead.
Andy Pettitte had to leave after one-out in the 7th
inning with a 2-0 deficit and no help from the offense whatsoever. The
Yankee-killer Delmon Young struck again, this time of Pettitte’s replacement
Derek Lowe who served up a solo homer to left for a 3-0 Tigers lead. The Tigers
added another run to make it 4-0, and although he struggled in the divisional
series and it wasn’t a save situation, Jim Leyland allowed Jose Valverde to
pitch the bottom of the 9th, and this turned out to be the most
exciting bottom half of an inning the Yankees would experience throughout their
entire 2012 playoff run.
Valverde and his over-the-top celebratory antics have
bothered Yankee players and fans for a number of years, what better way to
stick it to him during a crucial playoff save. Russell Martin led off the
inning with a simple single and took second base on defensive
indifference. Then the Seattle import
Ichiro Suzuki lined a 2-run homer to right to cut the Tiger lead in half at
4-2.
The Yankees couldn’t put it away in the 9th, so
they needed to go to a bullpen that was taxed from Games 3 and 4 from the
Orioles series. The best chance for the Yankees came in the bottom of the 10th.
Curtis Granderson, who has been invisible for weeks, managed to work a walk and
was lifted for pinch-running Brett Gardner. As he’s supposed to, Gardner stole
second, and the Yankees were set up with Gardner in scoring position at second,
and Russell Martin at the plate, only needing a single to end the dramatic
affair. Martin couldn’t get the job done, Derek Jeter behind him failed too and
the game stayed tied.
It was the 12th inning when all went wrong for
Derek Jeter and the Yankees, and it was probably at this moment that the Yanks
lost the series. Girardi was forced to send the rookie David Phelps on the
mound to keep the Tigers at bay. Cabrera led off the inning with a walk, and
after one out, Delmon Young lined a shot to right which looked like Nick
Swisher had a beat on, but Swisher mistimed his sliding catch attempt and the
ball fell in for a double. Cabrera had scored and Detroit had their lead back.
Then Jhonny Peralta, who killed the Yankees with his glove
earlier in the night, hit a weak infield grounder to the shortstop hole. Derek
Jeter, trying to make the play, got his feet twisted up and while trying to field
the ball and ended up breaking his ankle. What was left of the Yankee Stadium
crowd was in utter silence and from the body language of Jeter’s teammates,
Detroit might’ve well just have been declared the ALCS winner right there. The
Tigers brought another run home in the inning to give them a 6-4 cushion. There
would be no more Yankee magic in the bottom of the 12th, the bats
went down in order with the Stadium practically empty by the end of Game 1.
After a short night’s sleep, both teams were back at it
again for an afternoon match up of Game 2 which would pin Anibal Sanchez
against Hiroki Kuroda. For the first time in Jeter’s major league career, he
was out of the Yankee lineup for a playoff game and would miss the remainder of
the playoff with his broken ankle.
Though the rest of the team looked defeated since Jeter went
down, Hiroki Kuroda took to the mound and pitched his heart out against a
dangerous Tigers lineup. In fact, Kuroda would go to the 6th inning
with a perfect game in hand, before Peralta led off with a single. The Yankee
offense was again a no-show and the crowd was growing tiresome of the
lackluster efforts by the likes of Robinson Cano, Nick Swisher, Alex Rodriguez,
and Curtis Granderson.
Yankee Stadium for Game 2 also saw a less-than-sell-out
crowd for a playoff game and the hometown fans were more interested in booing
their players than anything else, with good reason. The Yankee bats struggled
to put anything together that even resembled a scoring threat. The Tigers
finally got to Kuroda in the 7th and scored on a Delmon Young
fielder’s choice. The next inning, the Tigers put two more runs on the board
from RBI singled and Kuroda was down 3-0 unjustly and was out of the game after
8.2 innings of inspiring work. Although a save situation, Jim Leyland left the
battered and bruised Jose Valverde in the bullpen and let former Yankee Phil
Coke finish off the lifeless current Yankees for the lame 3-0 victory.
Down 2-0 to the Tigers and heading into the freezing
Comerica Park against hard-throwing ace Justin Verlander, Yankees manager Joe
Girardi shook up the lineup in attempt to squeeze some runs out of his comatose
squad.
The struggling Nick Swisher, a former fan-favorite who now
the Yankee faithful blamed Jeter’s
injury on when he miss-played Delmon Young’s line drive double in the 12th
inning of Game 1, was relegated to the bench and instead Ichiro would start in
rightfield. Brett Gardner, barely able to swing a bat since coming back from
his shoulder/elbow injury that kept him out for most of 2012, was put in left.
The problematic fielding, but quick footed, Eduardo Nunez started at short. The
biggest headline grabber was Girardi not starting Alex Rodriguez at third, but
going with Eric Chavez instead, who hadn’t much better recently either.
The enigmatic Phil Hughes was given the ball for Game 3 with
the Yankees entire season riding on his unpredictable shoulders. Down 3-0, the
Yankees would be as good as gone for 2012. Earlier in the regular season,
Hughes had pitched against Verlander and won the game 6-2 in a complete game
performance. Months later, Hughes wouldn’t be able to duplicate his effort. With
the game stuck at 0-0 in the bottom of the 4th, Hughes allowed a
solo homerun to Delmon Young to start the inning. The next batter, Andy Dirks,
walked and something seemed wrong with Hughes’ back. The
doughy-around-the-waist Yankee righty couldn’t continue and needed to be
replaced by the young David Phelps.
Quintin Berry begun the Tigers 5th with a
grounder to third base, where Eric Chavez, A-Rod’s Game 3 replacement, bobbled
the ball and allowed Berry to reach on an error. Berry would later score in the
inning on a Cabrera double and the Tigers were sitting pretty with a 2-0 lead
with no fight from the Yankee bats. Although Verlander was throwing up zeros on
the board, he wasn’t exactly sharp and left many pitches in the heart of the
strikezone. Luckily for him, the Yankee bats were still struggling and they
couldn’t do much with his mistakes other than foul them off. The Tigers threatened
in the 6th inning with a bases loaded opportunity and only one out
with Miguel Cabrera primed to put the game away. In a nail-biting showdown,
Boone Logan was able to entice a hard-hit grounder to Chavez (who didn’t boot
it this time) and he was able to turn the inning-ending doubleplay. It seemed
as if it could’ve been a turning point to inspire the Yankee bats, but they
would go another two innings without any runs. Verlander stayed in to start the
9th inning with the 2-0 lead, which seemed like 10-0 the way the
Yankees offense wasn’t scoring.
Eduardo Nunez, a Girardi replacement for Game
3, provided another slight glimmer of success in an otherwise dull series for
the Yanks when he battled Verlander with a 1-2 count. The young Yankee hooked a
hanger from Verlander over the leftfield wall and gave his team some life with
the score now 2-1 Tigers. Justin Verlander got the next out, but with a high pitch
count, Leyland decided to go to Phil Coke to finish the game (with still no
confidence in Valverde). Coke was able to get Ichiro out for the second out,
but Mark Teixeira kept the Yankees alive with a single to center. Jayson Nix
game in to run for Teixeira and he would make it to second when Robinson Cano
finally showed up in the series and hit a single of his own to left. With the
tying run at second base and the go-ahead run at first, it was Raul Ibanez, the
Yankees’ most clutch hitter of late, with a chance to bring the Bombers back
from the dead. The lefty-on-lefty match up was exciting, and ended up in the
win column for Phil Coke who brought Comerica Park to a roar by striking out
Ibanez to end the game. It would be Coke’s second save of the series to get
Verlander the win. With the Tigers up in the series 3-0 and the Yankees showing
no sign of life, they shouldn’t have bothered playing Game 4, but everyone had
to go through the motions.
Mother Nature actually gave the Yankees a small break when
heavy rains forced Game 4 to be moved back one-day later, but it would only
delay the inevitable.
Nick Swisher got his right field job back, but A-Rod and Nix
were still on the bench for the start. CC Sabathia saved the Yankees hide in
Game 5 against the Orioles with a dominating complete game performance, but
apparently he used all his bullets for that start because he had absolutely
nothing against the Tigers in Game 4. After already giving up a run in the 1st
and the 3rd to put the Yankees in a 2-0 hole against Matt Scherzer
and his pitch-count going through the roof, Sabathia was officially knocked out
in the 4th inning after two 2-run homers surrendered to Miguel
Cabrera and Jhonny Peralta. Down 6-0 Girardi lifted Sabathia after only going
3.2 innings in a pitiful way to end a season.
The Yankees lone run came in the 6th from a Nick
Swisher double that scored Nunez, but Detroit got the run back in the 7th
from an Austin Jackson homer off of Derek Lowe, and then did one better with
another Peralta homer, a solo shot this time, off of David Robertson to push
the Tiger lead to 8-1 and there was the ballgame.
For the second consecutive year, the Tigers had eliminated
the Yankees from the playoffs, but with this time the Yankee bats showing no
fight at all except the one little outburst in the bottom of the 9th
of Game 1 when they stormed back from a 4-0 deficit. The Yankees, who had to
fight to the very last day of the season to capture the AL East crown against
the surging Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays, and had wowed Yankee fans all
season long with the long ball, simply had no hitting gas left in the tank when all was
said and done.
All that is left is an aging roster filled with expensive sluggers
who can’t make a dent once it comes playoff time........