Valiant Tigers too banged up to keep pace

DETROIT

Gassed and goofy don't usually combine to create baseball champions. And as valiant as the Tigers have performed this month, those two undesirable qualities leave them on the verge of elimination from this exciting American League Championship Series.

The Tigers suffered a 7-3, 11-inning loss to the Rangers in Game 4 Wednesday night, falling behind by a precarious 3-1 count in games, because too many key players are banged up and exhausted and because they made too many questionable decisions. Now they look to their ace, Cy Young favorite Justin Verlander, to keep their season alive.

"That's one of the best games I've been involved with," veteran Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "It just didn't go our way."

The odds were against Leyland's group, a reality that became apparent in the eighth inning when Texas manager Ron Washington opted to intentionally walk Miguel Cabrera with the bases empty and one out in a 3-3 game. Washington might as well have screamed his message: We don't think your other guys can beat us.

"It almost came back and bit me," Washington said afterward, as the ailing Victor Martinez (strained intercostal muscle on his right side) advanced Cabrera to third with a single to right and the also ailing Delmon Young (strained oblique muscle) lofted a fly ball to right. Nelson Cruz caught it and unleashed a great throw home, where Mike Napoli tagged out the painfully slow Cabrera.

Leyland defended his third-base coach Gene Lamont for sending Cabrera, and no objection here on that one. After that, though, the gritty, grindy Tigers lost their mojo.

When a pitch from Texas' Scott Feldman brushed Detroit's Austin Jackson with one out in the 11th, giving the Tigers a free baserunner, Jackson decided to try to steal second, though getting on base put the dangerous Cabrera in line to hit in the inning. Napoli nailed Jackson and Ryan Raburn struck out, leaving Cabrera on deck.

Jackson ran on his own, Leyland said, but the manager added, "I agreed with it 100 percent."

Leyland then allowed his closer Jose Valverde to take the mound for the 11th, Valverde's fifth inning of work in three days. When Josh Hamilton led off with a double and Michael Young struck out, the Tigers issued a free pass to the hurting Adrian Beltre to go after Napoli. The move backfired. Napoli hit a tiebreaking single to centerfield, and Cruz followed with a three-run homer, his second extra-inning blast in three days.

"You're just trying to set up a double play," Leyland said, "I didn't want Beltre and Napoli both to hit against [Valverde]. As it turned out, [Napoli] got a base hit."

It didn't make sense for the home team to put a runner on, increasing the chance of a multi-run inning, which is what happened. Especially when, in Leyland's words, Valverde and setup man Joaquin Benoit "are both running on fumes and heart right now."

The Tigers already have had a successful season, running away with the AL Central title and eliminating the Yankees in the ALDS. They've hardly embarrassed themselves in this competitive battle with Texas.

Yet the Rangers clearly field the deeper, healthier roster as they sit one game away from becoming the AL's first repeat pennant winner since the 1998-2001 Yankees. So the Tigers can't afford to make myriad tactical errors.

"You wouldn't rather have anybody out there other than Justin Verlander," Leyland said, looking ahead to Game 5, and who knows? A Verlander complete game, a day off and maybe the Tigers feel refreshed.

In this city that Joe Louis called home for many years, however, the Tigers look punch drunk against a superior foe.