Bud Norris outdueling David Price and other Tiger tales

The Detroit Tigers were my pick to win the American League pennant for a couple of reasons, but I think it mostly had to do with David Price. The allure of the big deadline deal was too much for me, and I followed its scent as if it were a windowsill pie. No one stopped to tell me just how bad their bullpen is, but that was a minor concern. Right? Right?

It wasn’t the thermonuclear ‘pen that got the Tigers in Game 3 of the American League Division Series. It was a conspiracy of awful, bad luck and bad breaks acting in concert with offensive impotence, and it led to the Tigers -- possibly the preseason favorites to win the pennant, if not the World Series -- have to spend another offseason wondering how open that window really is.

They’ll have to spend tonight wondering why the universe is laughing at them.

Oh, that might read like hyperbole, but consider:

The Tigers are supposed to be a defensively challenged team. That’s their schtick. They got the reputation when Miguel Cabrera was stumbling around third base and Delmon Young was dizzy in left. They held onto the reputation with Nick Castellanos strange-gloving at the hot corner and Cabrera at first.

Then they get to the playoffs, and look who in the heck is playing left field against them:

OH, COME ON. That’s Delmon Young turning a single into a double, giving the Tigers the advantage they needed.

Except for the ...

Oh, the bad calls. Delmon’s boner didn’t hurt the Orioles because with a runner on third and two outs, this call was upheld:

The call wasn’t confirmed, necessarily. It was just too close to overturn. Looking at the frame-by-frame evidence, though, there’s just no way.

There is no way that Steve Pearce secured the ball in his glove before Andrew Romine touched the bag. The err-on-the-side-of-caution restraint during replay is understandable and often admirable, but there’s no way Romine was out. That play cost the Tigers a run and ended the inning.

In the following inning, Jonathan Schoop tackled Don Kelly, who made a unbelievably dumb baserunning mistake, and there was no call.

Ah, shades of the 2013 World Series, but in reverse. That’s when we learned the rule reads:

Schoop was attempting to make the tag for the duration of the play. Therefore, there’s no obstruction. It seems stupid. It is stupid. But look at the rule. Find the loophole. It isn’t there. The Tigers would end up with runners on second and third in the inning, strongly suggesting that Kelly could have scored at some point. They came up empty.

If you want to know how the universe is laughing at the Tigers, look at the pitching matchup, then look at the result.

David Price is a Cy Young winner, one of the brightest stars in the game. The Tigers had to subtract valuable parts from their lineup and rotation, and that’s before you include the fascinating Willy Adames. When the A’s made their trade for Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel, the Tigers boasted that they did it because of them. When the Tigers traded for Price, the A’s boasted that they did that because of them. The dust settled, and both teams were mutually assured a slice of destruction. The trades didn’t make a lick of difference in the playoffs.

On the other side, the Orioles were starting Bud Norris, possibly the most underwhelming deadline acquisition in recent memory. When the Orioles traded for him at the 2013 deadline, they were 5½ games out of first and trailing two teams in the wild card. They got Norris because they needed to do something/anything. He started nine games of middling quality. When Norris showed up in Florida the next February, there were probably Orioles coaches saying, “Oh! Right! That guy’s still here.”

Yet it was Norris out-dueling Price. If the baseball gods exist, there’s probably a hierarchy, similar to the Greek or Roman setup. In that pantheon, there’s the God of Deadline Acquisitions. This was his doing. He’s a dick. Do not cross him. Do not boast around him.

Alex Avila took another foul tip off his mask, clearly affecting his balance and well-being. He left the game and, considering his past history with concussions, it would be a minor coup to see him catching again. Did I frame this as a way to describe the way the universe was laughing at them? I didn’t say it was a friendly, inviting laugh. It’s mean. It’s mean as hell.

There’s certainly a worthwhile reaction to write about the unlikely Orioles, who lost three their four best position players -- three! -- and did nothing but improve and improve and get all the way to the American League Championship Series for the first time since 1997. Even with their best players healthy, they were a consensus fourth-place team, at best. Without three of their very best -- and with a flop of a Ubaldo Jimenez deal, to boot --they should have been the Astros. They should have been the Rangers. Instead, they’re four wins from the World Series.

For me, though, the story is about the Tigers. How quickly they fell. How hard they had to fight to keep the Central lead. Where they might be going without Max Scherzer and/or Victor Martinez, with Miguel Cabrera another year older and Justin Verlander an enigma wrapped in a riddle and covered with evaporating fastball. Two bullpen failings and a close, hard fought loss in which everything went against them. That’s how quickly a 162-game season can end.

It’s more than a little unfair. Baseball usually is.