Don’t look now but the Detroit Tigers and Oakland Athletics are playing in the ALDS decisive game five. This is no deja-vu but yes, this is the EXACT same ALDS game five of 2012. Not only is it the same teams and the same number of games but it’s on the same day, Thursday! Okay so maybe it is not that crazy but still; pretty neat.
If you didn’t get the luxury to watch game four you really missed out. Grant Balfour who never has cussed a day in his life, somehow angered Victor Martinez. (This is actually a joke, if you know anything about Balfour.) Long story short the benches cleared, cooler heads prevailed and the A’s took home the dub.
Game five features the same man who beat the A’s almost exactly a year ago in this game, Justin Verlander. In game two of the ALDS Verlander dominated the A’s throwing seven strong innings of four hit, shutout baseball. Over these seven innings he struck out 11 while walking only one. As an Oakland Athletics fan you have to be somewhat worried about this matchup.
The Athletics will also have their game two starter taking the bump in Sonny Gray. He pitched eight innings of four hit baseball himself. He surrendered no runs, while striking out nine and walking two. This Vanderbilt alumn has pitched great for the A’s all season and looks to be the final piece to push them into the ALCS. Oh did I mention that he’s a rookie?
Both of these pitchers have superb stuff so the final score of this game should be relatively low. As far as offense is concerned the A’s are hoping that Coco Crisp can continue on his stellar series. To this point in the ALDS he has batted .500 with two RBIs, a stolen base and three walks. He has seven hits overall on the series, two of which are doubles and one triple. He’s also scored four runs.
If you haven’t watched any of the games you would just assume that Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder have been the catalyst of this offense but you would be mistaken. The two biggest reasons for the Tigers offensive success has come from Jhonny Peralta and Victor Martinez who have a combined batting average of .375.
The winner of this game will go on to face the beards in Boston as the Red Sox have already taken down the Tampa Bay Rays. So it all comes down to this. The veteran Tiger versus the rookie Athletic.