The hometown hero and reigning pitching phenom, Mets right-hander Matt Harvey, was in a first inning mess: first and second, no one out and Detroit’s reigning Triple Crown winning MVP Miguel Cabrera coming to the plate.
“I knew I had to buckle down,” said Harvey, who struck out Cabrera with a 2-2 slider.
But that was one at-bat for Cabrera.
“A pitch you make and get him out with, you can’t get him out with the next at-bat,” said Texas closer Joe Nathan.
So when Arizona’s Patrick Corbin faced Cabrera in the fourth, he went with a 1-2 slider. Cabrera doubled in the right-center gap and eventually scored the All-Star Game’s first run — the first by the American League since the fourth inning of 2011 — on a sac fly by Toronto’s Jose Bautista in the AL’s eventual 3-0 victory.
“I feel like sometimes, he knows what’s coming,” Chicago’s Chris Sale said of Cabrera.
Sale had that feeling last week in Detroit when he recalled success he had against Cabrera. So he went with the pitch again. It promptly landed in the right-center seats.
“He’s the best in the game,” Sale said. “That was a backdoor slider that he took the other way. Impressive. Guys said, ‘Man, he’s just good.’ ”
Cabrera put up pre-All-Star numbers that most would crave in a complete season: 30 homers, 95 RBI, a .365 average, 43 points better than nearest AL chaser Mike Trout.
“If you ask me who’s the best, I’m going to say him,” Trout said of Cabrera. “The numbers are there every year.”
Cabrera’s numbers include a Hall of Fame-worthy .321 lifetime average. He insists stats are nice, but winning overrides all. Still, don’t suggest he doesn’t care about stats, because they are a means to an end.
“People get it wrong,” Cabrera said. “We care about the stats, but we can’t give it too much attention. You’ve got to worry about how you feel at the plate, about getting on base. That’s the way you win games.Last year, I didn’t think about winning a Triple Crown, so I have to think the same way this year.”
Don’t think. Just get on base or drive pitcher’s pitches 400-plus feet.
“He’s unbelievable,” said Seattle’s Felix Hernandez. “He adjusts to everything. Give him a good pitch, he fights it off. Make a mistake, he hits a homer.”
Cabrera just shrugged about the whole adjustment thing. Watch and learn, he said. Simple.
“I watch sequences, see how they pitch,” he said. “You have to know how they pitch, what they like to pitch. That gives you an idea of what’s going to happen,” Cabrera said. “Everybody says I adjust. I do adjust with every pitch. That feels good to hear. It means they know I’m working hard to get better.”
Tigers teammate Torii Hunter said amid all that work lurks a giant Teddy bear.
“He’s awesome,” Hunter said. “This guy doesn’t know he’s a Triple Crown winner or MVP. He walks around and has fun. He talks to the vendor, he talks to the janitor. He hugs everybody. MMA wrestling in the clubhouse. He’s having fun, making us laugh, cracking jokes. He has that energy every day.”
Along with the stats.