Ever heard the saying, "It's better to be lucky than be good?" Well, you should have, because Rod Allen says it all the time. We think this quote directly applies to Game Five, because of what will now be known as The Bounce.
Honestly, it's about damn time some luck came Detroit's way! Half the team has some kind of injury/fatigue problem, and the other half are AAA players. Kind of. And all of the games in this past series could have been won by the Tigers too. But Fate (and Nelson Cruz) intervened in the Rangers' favor.
Not this time though.
Luck aside, this has to be the proudest the three of us (and Jim Leyland, and the rest of Tiger Nation too, we bet) have been of Our Boys. Delmon Young blasting two homers with a strained oblique? V-Mart tripling with his myriad of injuries? Zombie Avila rising from the dead to back up his starter? You've got to love the effort.
And speaking of our starter, holy hell, Justin! Some may say that the amount of runs (4) wasn't good. Those people are idiots. JV did exactly what he had to do, and he threw 133 pitches. If it was a normal day, and our bullpen wasn't so worn down, Justin would have exited the game giving up 2 runs over seven innings of do-or-die ball. Those are Doug Fister-like numbers.
Also, Phil Coke? We're now in love with you. We've never seen him so pumped up or clutch, and he had the first 4+ out save since Willie Hernandez. Well done, Phil.
Now we head back to Texas. Scary, but with Scherzer and Fister (who have been as good, if not better, than Verlander in the playoffs) on the mound, we have A Chance. If we can get through Game Six, Game Seven would be slightly to our advantage, seeing as how dominant Fister has been. It's a lot of pressure, and we're still (typically) the underdogs. But we can do it. It's been done before. 1968, anyone?
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