In the first inning of Tuesday night’s ALDS Game 4, Yankees starter A.J. Burnett was on the ropes. He’d walked the bases loaded and with two out Don Kelly ripped what appeared to be a liner over Curtis Granderson’s head in centerfield. (Lord knows we still love Grandy in Detroit, but his reaction to that ball might’ve been one of the reasons the Tigers were willing to deal him in 2009.)

Unfortunately for Kelly and the Tigers, Granderson recovered and made a leaping grab that definitely saved the game for the Yankees and perhaps the series.

It was the second game in a row the Tigers had loaded the bases in the early innings with a chance to blow the game wide open. At least in Game 3 Miguel Cabrera plated a run when he grounded into a double play.

How many times this season have we seen the Tigers load the bases only to come away empty handed?

For the past six months I asked that question only rhetorically. Thanks to some horrific relief work in the eighth, I had time (and good reason to) visit Baseball-Reference.com’s Play Index to get the definitive answer.

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ESPN highlights available here.

The Score: Yankees 10 – Tigers 1

The Gist: Compared to what most experts predicted, A.J. Burnett tossed a spotless game against the Tigers. He walked the bases loaded in the first inning and nearly saw the game slip away early when Don Kelly laced a ball to center that Curtis Granderson nearly misplayed into a bases-clearing triple. Instead, Grandy made the catch to end the inning. Except for a Victor Martinez solo shot in the sixth which made the score 2-1, the Tigers were stymied. Rick Porcello struck out five and walked just one but wasn’t good enough. The Tigers bullpen? Don’t ask.

The Quote: “This is not 2006.” – Jim Leyland

The Stat: 32.34 – The combined ERA of Al Alburquerque, Phil Coke and Daniel Schlereth in Game 5.

Up Next: ALDS Game 5 – Thursday: Tigers vs. Yankees @ Yankee Stadium | 8 p.m. ET | On the air: TBS/AM 1270 and 97.1 FM

Doug Fister vs. Ivan Nova

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Five years ago this week, the Tigers sent a young, often frustrating righthander to the mound in the fourth game of the American League Division Series.

With a win, no sure thing with the unpredictable starter, the Tigers would eliminate the Yankees and move on to the American League Championship Series against the Oakland A’s.

Twenty-three-year-old Jeremy Bonderman was the Tigers’ starter that chilly Saturday afternoon and he faced righty Jaret Wright, who’d gone 11-7 witha 4.49 ERA in 30 appearances (27 starts) for New York.

Tigers fans didn’t want to seem overconfident, but compared to the Yankee starters in the series’ first three games (Chien-Ming Wang, Mike Mussina and Randy Johnson) Wright seemed like a notch above batting-practice quality.

That day, the Tigers staked Bonderman to a 3-0, second-inning lead on home runs by Magglio Ordonez and Craig Monroe. They tacked on five more runs by the end of the sixth. (Detroit chased Wright with two outs in the third after he’d surrendered four runs on five hits.) The late Cory
Lidle allowed three runs in his inning-and-a-third of work.

But at the start of the day, all eyes were on Bonderman. Could he handle the big stage, an elimination game against a New York lineup that Jim Leyland dubbed “Murderer’s Row and then Cano” and prevent a trip back to the Bronx for a decisive Game 5?

Could he ever.

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ESPN highlights available here.

The Score: Tigers 5 – Yankees 4

The Gist: Justin Verlander struck out 12 over eight remarkable innings and Ramon Santiago, Brandon Inge and Don Kelly delivered key hits to give the Tigers a 4-2 lead. Delmon Young crushed the first pitch he saw from Yankees reliever Rafael Soriano and gave the Tigers a 5-4 win. One more win and the Tigers clinch a spot in the American League Championship Series.

The Quote: “I’ve worked my tail off since [2006], and I feel like every year I’ve been ready for this. And this is why I work so hard. There’s no point in holding anything back now.” – Verlander

The Stat: 12 – The number of Jose Valverde’s 19 pitches that were called balls.

Up Next:

Tuesday: Tigers vs. Yankees @ Comerica Park | 8:37 p.m. ET | On the air: TBS/AM 1270 and 97.1 FM

Rick Porcello (14-9, 4.75 ERA) vs. A.J. Burnett (11-11, 5.15 ERA)

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I did not enjoy that game one bit. In fact, I hated every moment of it, starting with Derek Jeter‘s first-pitch single. Talk about a buzzkill. Then it only got worse:

• Curtis Granderson‘s RBI double.
• Gerry Davis‘s minuscule strike zone.
• Justin Verlander’s shaky start.
• CC Sabathia tantalizing the Tigers and coaxing them onto inning-ending or soul-crushing double plays.

But then the Tigers suddenly had the look of a classic playoff team, specifically the look of a team on which role players and guys hitting in the bottom third of the order make enormous contributions. And I started hating this game a little less.

Brandon Inge? All season long we waited for him to deliver when it mattered – even in relatively meaningless game in late April. And Monday night, he did.

Ramon Santiago on the other hand has delivered in seemingly every game he’s played in 2011. Early in the game he was the only one who produced and finished the game with two clutch hits and a pair of RBI. This was particularly good timing on Santiago’s part because Victor Martinez had a rare 0-for-4 night.

Then there’s Don Kelly with a drag bunt so deftly placed that it would’ve made Rod Carew proud. The run he scored was huge.

Delmon Young saw all of 10 pitches in his three plate appearances, but he sent the 10th that he crushed to break the seventh-inning, 4-4 tie.

The story of the night, of course was Verlander, who delivered a tour de force on a night when everyone expected him too. His eight-inning, 12-strikeout performance, for all its brilliance and dominance, had its share of dance-with-the-devil moments – so how about that seventh inning disaster with two outs?

I’m not sure what to say about Jose Valverde. He’s become a creepy combination of Fernando Rodney, Todd Jones and Aurelio Lopez. I’ll put it this way: it sure would be nice if the Tigers were staked to a cushy lead on Tuesday night so Phil Coke or even Joaquin Benoit could close it out.

Despite all of that, I hated every minute of this game. But if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to watch it again on my iPad.

For reasons I can’t explain, I’ve been listening to baseball talk on SiriusXM for most of the day. The prevailing wisdom is that the Tigers will win tonight, with the experts saying that the pressure facing CC Sabathia is more fierce than what Justin Verlander has to deal with. It has little to do with Sabathia and significantly more to do with the Yankees’ Game 4 starter, A.J. Burnett.

I think the pressure is equal for both pitchers and both teams. After all, it’s game 3.

Of course, no one could resist talking about Jose Valverde’s tongue-in-cheek/foot-in-mouth “it’s over” declaration after Game 2. It seems, though, that none of the shows’ hosts or callers bothered to read below the headline. You know, the part where Valverde shouted: “I’m joking, guys.”

I know these shows have to talk about something and running with the juicier (though incomplete) story certainly helps them fill airtimem, it doesn’t make the hosts look very sharp.

As Jim Leyland said this afternoon: “It was in jest, but the Yankees don’t need anythinig to fire them up. This isn’t a high school rivalry.”

• Did you know the Yankees are facing a Central Division opponent in the ALDS for the fifth straight year? They went 22-14 (.611) against the AL Central this season.

• According to the Free Press, Comerica Park is only one of two AL stadiums in which the Yankees have a losing record.

• Elias Sports Bureau reports that tonigh’ts gamemarks the first time a pitcher will start both Game 1 and Game 3 during a post-season series since San Diego’s Kevin Brown did so on Sept. 29 and Oct. 3, 1998 versus Houston. The last American League pitcher to do so was Oakland’s Dave Stewart during the World Series versus San Francisco in 1989.

• ESPN’s Jim Bowden posted his keys to the game for each series. Here’s his advice for Cabrera:

For as well as Cabrera is swinging the bat, he continues to play too far off first base. What ends up happening is that he goes for balls that are routine for the second baseman, and the pitcher is forced to cover first on what should be a routine 4-3 play. Cabrera must start playing closer to the first base bag and let his second baseman, whether it’s Ryan Raburn or Ramon Santiago, make the play.

• Speaking of Miguel Cabrera, Jerry Crasnick wrote a nice profile of the Tigers first baseman:

“Not to take anything away from guys in the past for the Tigers, because I have more respect for them than anyone,” Inge said. “But you can make a case, if he finishes out his contract and keeps hitting like this, that he’s the best Tiger ever. Heck, he might be now.”

That seems like hyperbole, when you consider that the Tigers’ illustrious history includes such icons as Ty Cobb, Al Kaline, Greenberg and Gehringer. Then you watch Miguel Cabrera hit, and consider that he’s only 28 years old. And suddenly the notion doesn’t seem so far-fetched anymore.

• Happy Birthday to Eric Munson (34), Junior Felix (44), Steve Foucault (62) and Chuck Scrivener (64).

• On this date in 1968, in Game Two of the World Series, Mickey Lolich ties the Series at one game apiece. He pitches a six-hitter and hits his first career home run to defeat the Cardinals, 8-1.

Finally, Happy 62 Birthday to Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac.