Tigers Rally and Even Series

A funny thing happened to the Detroit Tigers on the way to oblivion. And a frightening thing happened to the New York Yankees on the way to their perceived destination.

This American League Division Series is competitive after all, the Tigers tying it with a 4-3 victory in Game 2 at Yankee Stadium on Thursday afternoon. The Yankees came into this series with a locomotive’s momentum, but they ran head-on into the Tigers’ strength, those electric young arms.

And they’ll be seeing them again.

“I hope in my heart that everybody realizes we are a playoff team,” Tigers Manager Jim Leyland said. “I hope we at least proved that today. I hope at least everybody believes that we’re worthy of being in the playoffs, because I’m not sure everybody believed that.”

The Tigers, in the playoffs for the first time since 1987, won 95 games but squandered a big midsummer lead in the AL Central and ended up making it as the wild card, coming in with a 19-31 record in the final weeks.

“We got out of here with a split, but our work is certainly not done because the Yankees are a ferocious team,” closer Todd Jones said.

“But we earned some street cred today.”

Now a Yankees advance to the ALCS and beyond can no longer be considered inexorable. They flew to Detroit, site of Game 3 tonight and Game 4 on Saturday, muttering about the triple-digit fastballs they swung at and missed, and the need to win one to push the series back to Yankee Stadium for Game 5.

Randy Johnson, who will be trying to pitch with a back injury, is starting what is now a pivotal game tonight. Veteran Kenny Rogers goes for the Tigers.

“Mistakes, missed opportunities, those things are magnified in the playoffs,” said Mike Mussina, who couldn’t hold a 3-1 lead provided by Johnny Damon’s fourth-inning, three-run homer. “So now it’s a three-game series.”

There are different circumstances, a different opponent, a different Yankees team, but it looked like more of the familiar postseason frustration of recent years. They went one for eight with runners in scoring position, grounded into two double plays, left seven runners on base and struck out nine times, including three by Alex Rodriguez. They let Justin Verlander, the Tigers’ hard-throwing but erratic rookie, hang around for 5 1/3 innings, then Leyland abruptly took him out with a 1-and-1 count on Robinson Cano.

Once the game was in the hands of the bullpen, left-hander Jamie Walker got Cano to hit into a double play to get out of the sixth and rookie Joel Zumaya, the shadows creeping and his fastball peaking at 102 mph, blew the Yankees away in the seventh and eighth, striking out three of the five he faced. Nor could the Yankees produce a rally against closer Jones in the ninth.

“Nobody said this was going to be easy,” said Gary Sheffield, part of an unproductive day from the middle of the order.

“They’ve got a quality team. You want to drive in runs every time you go out there, but it ain’t going to happen. Sometimes you’ve got to give the pitcher credit.”

Damon’s three-run homer was the only clutch hit of the day. But with Mussina pitching, it had the potential to be enough.

Mussina, though, gave up runs in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings and lost the game. Former Yankees prospect Marcus Thames doubled leading off the fifth and scored on Curtis Granderson’s sacrifice fly. Carlos Guillen homered on a 2-and-0 pitch in the sixth to tie the score, and in the seventh, Thames singled, moved up on a passed ball, went to third on Brandon Inge’s bunt and scored on Granderson’s triple.

“I didn’t walk anybody, but I got into some bad counts, and you can’t keep doing that against a good team,” Mussina said.

“Every time they had a chance to score, they scored, and we missed a lot of chances to score.”

Hideki Matsui led off the ninth with a single against Jones, who then started the next three hitters off 0-and-2. He struck out Jorge Posada and got Cano and Damon on soft fly balls.

“It was hard to see,” Damon said. “With the shadows, [Zumaya’s] 102 mph looked like 120 and Todd Jones’ 92 looked like 105, but you have to find a way to hit. You put a good swing on it.”