2011 ALCS: Rangers Win American League Pennant For Second Year In A Row

Game 1, ALCS: C.J. Wilson, 4⅔ IP, 2 R (W)

Game 2, ALCS: Derek Holland, 2⅔ IP, 3 R (W)

Game 3, ALCS: Colby Lewis, 5⅔ IP, 4 R (L)

Game 4, ALCS: Matt Harrison, 5 IP, 2 R (W)

Game 5, ALCS: C.J. Wilson, 6 IP, 6 R (L)

Game 6, ALCS: Derek Holland, 4⅔ IP, 4 R (W)

The Texas Rangers are going to the World Series. After 172 games, they’re the one team out of 14 in the American League that is still playing. Yet in ten playoff games, the Rangers haven’t had a starting pitcher pitch into the seventh inning. Only twice have they had a starter record an out in the sixth inning.

The Tigers still have a long way to go. If they want to get to the World Series, they’ll have to win two straight games in Texas, where the Rangers haven’t lost two straight in a couple of months.

But the ball hit the bag and popped three feet over Beltre’s head. Would it have been a double play? It was Cabrera running, mind you, and he runs like he’s trying to shoplift an anvil. It almost certainly would have been no one on and two outs. Instead the hit went for a double to score Rayburn, break a 2-2 tie, and put a runner in scoring position with no one out. What should have been rallycide was instead hot rally action.

Where should we start?

Semi.

In Game 3 of the ALCS, Victor Martinez injured himself on a swing that resulted in a home run, bringing on a home run trot that made Kirk Gibson’s famous trip around the bases from 1988 look speedy. While it looked like Martinez would be removed from the game, he stuck with it, and afterward said, “The only way I won’t play tomorrow is if I wake up and I’m dead.”

You could say Martinez has watched a few too many George Romero flicks if he thinks he’s going to both wake up and be dead (or he just really loves Dave Mustaine), but his point remains: you can’t stop this guy from being in the lineup, short of removing a limb from use. He has missed 151 games in a career that goes back to 2003. While that may sound like a lot, considering he is (1) a catcher and (2) has suffered 26 injuries in his career, it’s not. Given 66 of those 151 games were lost to elbow surgery, that’s impressive -- without that, it’s more like three days lost per injury, despite having things like broken toes and a broken thumb that he caught through -- and produced with -- in 2010 while in Boston. In addition to the muscle injury he suffered last night in his side, he is dealing with yet another big toe struck by a foul ball, as well as a sore knee.

Problem: three batters into Tuesday night’s Game 3, the Tigers were already behind by a run, and the Rangers didn’t have any outs. Three consecutive singles - including a weak roller and a blooper - put Texas in the lead, and silenced the Comerica Park crowd before it could even really get energized.

I don’t know if falling behind early in unlucky fashion is more or less inauspicious than falling behind early in convincing fashion, but it was most definitely an inauspicious start, given that the Tigers have had trouble scoring runs all month.

If the Tigers had been prescient, they’d have figured out what Marc Normandin did in his profile of Lewis last year -- that he had begun to come back from all the surgeries. Instead, they unceremoniously dumped him at the end of the 2006 season, and within a year he had bounced through three more organizations before being released in December 2007.

At 28 and with his MLB career apparently over, Lewis signed with the Hiroshima Carp of Nippon Professional Baseball, the Japanese major leagues. There, he resurrected his baseball life with two good years with the Carp, including leading his league in strikeouts in both 2008 and 2009. This got the attention of the Rangers, who signed him to a two-year, $5 million contract with a $3.25 million option for 201.

Just not if Jim Leyland can help it.

That’s only four relief pitchers, though, and you need more than four.

Which pitcher would you rather have going forward? Hell, I don’t know. Sounds like something worth looking into! Here’s a comparison of the two pitchers in a select few categories:

Minor-league performance

Scherzer used to be the standard hard-throwing, hard-missing prospect, but his career walk rate has gone down every year in the majors. His strikeout rate has too, tough, which might mean the increased control came at a price of relying on his fielders more. Don’t see a problem with a flyball pitcher saying, “Here you go, Delmon and Magglio: Run ‘em down.” Nope.

Now, being able to pencil Young’s name back in the lineup, surely, is a big lift for the Tigers. Young slugged .458 with Detroit during the season after coming over in a trade; against the Yankees in the Division Series, he went 6-for-19 with three home runs. From Detroit’s perspective, Young is an important bat, so it’s important to have him back.

Two things, though. For one, he’s Delmon Young. Let’s not make too much of what this guy brings to the table. This season, he posted a .302 OBP. Over the past three seasons, he’s posted a .316 OBP, and a 104 OPS+. He is some approximation of an average hitter, and when you include the fact that he’s pretty poor in the field, the overall package - at 100 percent - is mediocre.

The move isn’t that surprising because the Tigers had an acute need in the outfield, and even Delmon Young at 75% or so was more palatable than the alternatives. But the move is still somewhat unexpected because oblique strains are pernicious things that don’t seem to go away easily.

Oddly, that’s one of only two positions he did not play this season as he became, almost literally, a man for all positions for the American League Central’s champions.

Even his name, Don Kelly, speaks of anonymity. If you were going to invent a generic utility player, you’d call him “Don Kelly”. Except you don’t have to invent him, because he already exists. His baseball-reference page is sponsored by a CPA firm. All Kelly would need are some glasses and he could play that role, too.

Six weeks ago, there were four Tiger outfielders of note.

Now, in the Tigers’ greatest hour of need, there are three.

That headline would have been a big deal in 2006. Now? Not so much, though it should be noted that with Delmon Young out, the Tigers are running low on outfielders. Magglio Ordonez suffered an ankle injury, and according to Danny Knobler:

Tigers lose Magglio for rest of postseason. Ankle.Ordonez hasn’t had a great year, but with Brennan Boesch and Young both out, there aren’t a lot of outfield options now, especially against left-handed pitchers. The injury leaves Andy Dirks, Ryan Rayburn, and Don Kelly as the active outfielders on the roster other than Austin Jackson. Picking two corner outfielders from that group is painful.

Game 1 of the American League Championship Series didn’t seem to have a shape until almost exactly the middle of the game; to be precise, when there were two outs in the top of the fifth inning. At that point, there was simply no telling that the Rangers could beat the Tigers, 3-2.

This is probably the right spot to mention that Verlander seemed to be getting squeezed by the plate umpire Tim Welke ... but that C.J. Wilson was getting squeezed, too. And Wilson, for a while at least, didn’t seem to let it bother him.

The Tigers were counting on all of those things not to happen. Instead, they all happened, yet Detroit was clearly one of the strongest teams in the league. The Rangers entered the season with similar question marks. They had:

Offense

The above list of bullet points mentions declines for several Tigers players, but they were all made up for, and how, by increased production from their catcher and shortstop.

The Tigers apparently decided Young needed at least one game off, but there’s nothing stopping him from adding him back onto the roster later in the series if he’s deemed ready.

If they do so, it’d likely come at the expense of Worth. Sure, it’d make Worth ineligible to play in the World Series, but we’re talking about a guy who barely had as many at-bats (39) as he did games played (30) for the Tigers this year. No huge loss — he was never expected to be needed in the first place. So until the Tigers actually announce that Young’s status took a turn for the worse and he’s unlikely to play, don’t read too much into his current status on the roster.

Worth, a 26-year-old infield utility man, appeared in 30 games this season for Detroit as he posted a .270 batting average in 37 plate appearances. He’d been keeping active in Lakeland, Fla., since being left off of the original postseason roster.

Head2Head explores a series matchup by visualizing both teams’ strengths and weaknesses across all facets of the game. Click below for a closer look!

The 2011 ALCS gets underway on Saturday as the Detroit Tigers, fresh off a Game 5 win over the New York Yankees, head to Texas to meet the Rangers. Texas was the only team to not stretch its division series to five games, taking care of the Tampa Bay Rays in four games and earning an extra bit of rest in the process.

Fox has the broadcast rights to the ALCS and will have Saturday night’s broadcast, with first pitch set for 8:05 p.m. EDT.