Doug Karsch: How Quickly We Forget
The Doom and Gloomers are out in full force going into tonight's game 5. The Tigers looked awful in Game 4. But that's baseball – think about the difference between winning Game 4 and losing. Miguel Cabrera scalds a ball at Jeter – right into his glove and the Yankees get a base hit on a dribbled-chopper that hits the cut-out in front of Wilson Betemit and goes from foul to fair. Austin Jackson takes a better route to a ball than Curtis Granderson … but Granderson is "rewarded" with a hero-worship-inducing catch and Jackson comes up inches short.
There are games like that in baseball.
And tonight Doug Fister tries to overcome all this momentum the Yankees have and somehow find a way to win. The pitcher who was arguably better than Verlander in September seems to inspire very little faith in the fan base.
Let's turn the clock back, all of two weeks – ancient history. The Tigers looked terrible in a 6-1 loss at Oakland – the next day Doug Fister beat the Athletics 3-1 – going eight innings and allowing just 3 hits. Four days later, the Tigers played their worst game in September losing at Kansas City 10-2 – and the next day was the Scherzer/Fister split start and Fister got the win as the Tigers beat KC 6-3.
And now the Tigers have played their worst game of the short post season. Maybe evidence suggests that Fister is the perfect guy to stop this hemorrhage brought by Tuesday nights Yankee blasting
