Extended time off culprit?
DETROIT – Some Tigers acknowledged that their week off hurt them on Saturday night in Game 1 of the World Series and others preferred the “no excuses” route, saying “we just took some good swings and missed,” as Craig Monroe put it. But Detroit looked sloppy in its 7-2 loss to the Cardinals at Comerica Park and winning the A.L. pennant so early might have been a factor.
The Tigers nearly matched their number of hits – four – with their number of errors – three. The overanxious Tiger hitters, perhaps showing that the idle period hurt their timing, put the first or second pitch into play 14 times in 33 plate appearances. St. Louis starter Anthony Reyes retired 17 straight Tigers from the first to the seventh inning.
“I’m sure it hurt a little bit,” said third baseman Brandon Inge, who made two errors on the same play in the sixth. “It seemed like we were one step behind. The intensity wasn’t quite there. I imagine that’s what it was from.
“We had a week off and it seemed like we were a little stale.”
“I think if you lose a game like that you open yourselves up to everybody speculating that the layoff hurt and maybe it did,” reliever Todd Jones added. “But I’m not taking anything away from Reyes. He pitched his tail off.”
And, Jones said, the Cardinals silenced the crowd when they rallied from an early 1-0 deficit. “(Scott) Rolen hits that home run to tie it and (Albert) Pujols, that alien over there – he’s pretty good, by the way – hits another and takes the crowd right out of it.”
Justin Verlander started the sixth-inning blunder-fest with a errant pickoff throw with Pujols on first. Inge erred twice when he threw wildly to the plate trying to nail Jim Edmonds, who broke from third at the crack of the bat, and then got in Rolen’s way for interference when Rolen tried to score. Some Tigers thought Rolen plowed into Inge on purpose, Inge said.
The three errors in one inning tied the World Series record for most miscues in one frame. It had been done seven times previously, the last one by the Indians in Game 3 of the 1997 Series against Jim Leyland’s Marlins. Inge is the third player to make two errors in one inning, joining Harry Steinfeldt of the 1910 Cubs and Doug DeCinces of the 1979 Orioles.
“We didn’t play well,” Leyland said. “We didn’t swing the bats well. Overall we just didn’t give a good performance.”
Notes
Detroit’s Kenny Rogers, who pitches today, pitched 15 scoreless innings in the playoffs, going 2-0. … Verlander has allowed five homers in three postseason starts. … Reyes’ string of setting down 17 straight batters was the longest in a World Series game since Cincinnati’s Jose Rijo retired 20 in a row in Game 4 against Oakland in 1990.