DETROIT — It may not be time to bet the over in how many ALCS games remain, but there are significant signs the two best hitters on the Tigers and Red Sox are poised to put on power shows.
While Tiger starters Anibal Sanchez and Max Scherzer dominated in Games 1 and 2 and Jon Lester was sharp for the Red Sox in Game 1, Miguel Cabrera and David Ortiz flexed their muscles Sunday night at Fenway Park when the Red Sox pulled out a scintillating, 6-5, win to even the best-of-seven series, 1-1.
Game 3 is Tuesday when Justin Verlander, arguably the best pitcher left in the postseason, starts for the Tigers and John Lackey goes for the Red Sox.
Hampered by several lower-body injuries late in the regular season and in the ALDS against the A’s, Cabrera homered Sunday and scorched a ball to deep center that was caught. Ortiz was hitless in six ALCS at-bats until delivering the latest clutch hit of his career — a game-tying eighth-inning grand slam of Detroit closer Joaquin Benoit.
“He is looking pretty good. He didn’t look like he was limping. He might be getting stronger,’’ Torii Hunter said of Cabrera, who moved around at third Sunday night better than he has in weeks. “He is the best hitter on the planet. It feels good to see him get his legs back.’’
What else can be said about Ortiz?
Four outs away from his team dropping into a 2-0 ditch, Ortiz delivered his 15th postseason homer.
“David is one of those guys who is born for those magic moments,’’ said Tigers manager Jim Leyland, whose club failed to take a 2-0 lead.
Throughout the Tigers clubhouse there was an admission that blowing a four-run lead in the eighth stung. However, Hunter put it in perspective.
“Before the series we are going into Fenway and the Red Sox are the best team in the American League and have the best fans in the game, I think taking one [game] we would have been sitting pretty,’’ Hunter said. “We had an opportunity to take two and that hurts. One would have sufficed. It hurts, we could have had two, no doubt about it. But we will take one.’’
The Red Sox won’t find Verlander any easier to solve than Sanchez and Scherzer, who allowed one run, two hits and fanned 25 in 13 innings across the first two games.
While Verlander’s 2013 included a pedestrian 13-12 record and he gave up four runs, seven hits and walked three in five innings against the Red Sox on June 23 in a Tigers’ 7-5 victory that didn’t go to him, lately he has been every bit of the $20 million pitcher.
In Verlander’s six September starts he was 1-2 with a 2.27 ERA. In two starts against the A’s in the ALDS the right-hander was 1-0 and didn’t allow a run in 15 innings. It was his eight shutout frames in Game 5 that carried the Tigers into the ALCS.
“Obviously, he is a great pitcher but you pitch at this time of the year you are not going to go against anybody that’s not pretty good,’’ said Lackey, who beat the Rays in the second game of the ALDS despite giving up four runs and seven hits in 5 1/3 innings.
The names of the starting pitchers on each team are hard to ignore, but with Cabrera moving better and Ortiz being himself the chances of muscles being flexed increases.