With Phil Coke finishing, Tigers beat Yankees 2-1, take 3-0 lead in ALCS

For Al Beaton of Bless You Boys, while Verlander’s excellence continues to amaze, it is unexpected success of Phil Coke in a shutdown role that has Tigers fans talking:

Game 4 will begin at 8 p.m. ET Wednesday and will be aired on TBS.

New York had chances on Monday, including in the ninth inning when they advanced the tying run to second base, but the offense was once again unable to come through. Now, they find themselves in a difficult hole, needing to win four straight games to avoid elimination. The term “must-win” gets used too often in sports, as Andrew Mearns of Pinstriped Bible noted, but that is exactly what New York now faces.

The comeback attempt begins Wednesday in Game 4 with first pitch scheduled for 8 p.m. ET. The game will be televised on TBS.

At least the path is clear for the Yankees. They just have to win their next four games. They had a winning streak of four games or longer seven times during the regular season. So it’s still possible for them to claw and scratch and fight their way back against the Tigers.

It’s a real clear path, alright. Not a lot of ambiguity in that one.

Thanks to the Yankees’ bullpen and Eduardo Nunez’s ninth-inning home run, the Yanks were able to put a real scare into the Tigers in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series. But with two Yankees aboard in the top of the ninth inning, lefty reliever Phil Coke struck out Raúl Ibañez to seal the Tigers’ 2-1 victory, and push the Yankees to the brink of elimination.

With Verlander working on a two-hit shutout, Nuñez led off with a line-drive home run after a long battle. Verlander then retired Brett Gardner, but he’d thrown 132 pitches and manager Jim Leyland decided that was enough.

Leading off the ninth inning against Justin Verlander -- who was working on a two-hit shutout -- Eduardo Nunez fouled off seven pitches before getting a pitch he could really handle and doing ... this:

That made it 2-1, Tigers. Jim Leyland walked to the mound, had a short chat with Verlander, and went back to the dugout.

So here we go to the ninth, with Verlander looking to put the Yankees in a hole from which very, very, very few teams have ever escaped.

Verlander is at 101 pitches through seven innings, and he’s struck out three without a walk. The Yankees have a few hard-hit balls on the night, but things aren’t really going the Bombers’ way right now.

Nobody cares about strikeouts when you’re throwing a one-hitter.

Jim Leyland responded with a pinch hitter, righty-hitting Avisail Garcia. And the move paid off big when Garcia lined a single into center field to load the bases.

According to Craig Sager on the TBS broadcast, the prognosis is a herniated lumbar disk, which is pretty freaky. According to the Internet, which has never failed me before, the condition is described as when ...

... the inner contents of a disc (the nucleus pulposus) leak out of a tear of the annulus fibrosis of the discTreatment can be non-surgical according to this journal article, and as for a return for Hughes ...

But in the fourth, Hughes first gave up a run and, just moments, was forced to retire from the game.

Phelps had all the time he wanted to warm up, threw three straight balls to Peralta, but finally got his man on a fly to deep center field.

Verlander’s thrown 54 pitches through four innings, and is on track to pitch for just about as long as he likes.

That’s kind of the headline that Yankees fans feared. I guess it could be worse; it could be 12 pitches, or it could be 27 pitches and nine strikeouts. But no runners the first time through the order, combined with a modicum of pitches thrown, is pretty much the worst-case scenario for a game against Verlander. You know he’s good for 130 tonight, and that would be around the 12th inning at this pace.

The good news is that Phil Hughes is matching Verlander inning for scoreless inning, albeit not quite with the same grace. Hughes allowed just a single through the first two innings, but he got in a little trouble in the bottom of the third. With one out, Austin Jackson hit a single to right. Quintin Berry bunted him over for the second out of the inning, which is ... kind of bizarre. It was one of those quasi-sacrifices, though, where he was trying for a hit at the same time, so it wasn’t that bizarre.

Leaving aside the pitch count, so far so good. Hughes has thrown 29 pitches -- also a fine figure! -- but there’s been just one feline baserunner; as long as Hughes is matching Verlander on the scoreboard, there is yet hope for the Yankees. Remember, it’s baseball: Anything can happen and nothing is predestined.

We’re heading to the third inning, and Game 3 remains scoreless.

Are you a Yankees fan feeling nervous about your team facing Justin Verlander in what’s not-literally-a-must-win-but-pretty-much-a-must-win game? I don’t blame you. Verlander is mighty intimidating.

But he’s not invincible. I mean, he’s immortal, but he’s not quite perfect. And if you want to look back at the games in which he’s lost to the Yankees, here you go:

And we’re off!

1. Brett Gardner* - LF

The June 3 game was a day game; the August 7 game at night, and so you might think that since Tuesday’s game is a night game, that might help the Tigers -- except that Hughes had a much better ERA in 2012 night games (3.59 in 21 starts) than in day games (5.59 ERA in 11 starts).

When: Tuesday, Oct. 16 at 8 p.m. ET on TBS

The Tigers have a commanding two-game lead in the ALCS, and they have done that without a start from their ace, Justin Verlander.