Extremely painful loss in Boston.
Mirror image. Massface RT @ProductiveOuts: The thrill of victory. The agony of those feet. pic.twitter.com/jN0typDoBL
— Detroit4lyfe (@Detroit4lyfe) October 14, 2013
I can't say the way it played out wasn't predictable, though. For as good as the bullpen was on Saturday, it was equally bad on Sunday. Leyland's a genius! No, Leyland sucks now! Hah. When you give Big Papi a chance to come up with a big hit, he seems to always come through in the memorable spots.
Leyland went to his closer, Joaquin Benoit, in the 8th with 2 outs and the bases loaded to face the "clutch" Ortiz. I covered my eyes and feared for the worst. Benoit, who has had weird random bouts with giving up home runs, grooved one and Ortiz punished it to tie the game at 5-5.
The Tigers' Game 2 fate was sealed at that point. I immediately thought back to Valverde's 4-run 9th inning on the road against the Yankees in Game 1 of the 2012 ALCS for some hope, but I couldn't imagine a repeat scenario in which the Tigers would shake it off and win it in the 9th or extra innings. Grand salamis are especially deflating. The storylines that had to be rewritten — Big Papi (!) and not one but two miracle Boston sports comeback wins on the day — were too good. Boston strong indeed, says 30,000 columns I won't read on Monday. Shut it down; let's go home.
We knew this was going to be a classic series, one way or the other. The clean sweep is off the table, but there's a chance for sweeping three in Detroit now. Let's hope it doesn't have to go back to Boston next weekend
See you Tuesday.
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