Bronx, N.Y., October 3, 2006 — A not so funny thing happened in the Yankees/Tigers tussle in Game One of the ALDS Tuesday night. As expected, Chien-Ming Wang gave the Yanks a good, not stellar start. The 12 hits Yankee bats stroked against starter Nate Robertson were about par for the bashing club’s course. Fulfilling manifold predictions, the vaunted Yankee lineup threw a crushing rally at Detroit. But totally messing with the pregame script, the Tigers responded to six straight Yankee hits that tallied five runs leading off the home third by rallying to make the series opener a battle.

After being blanked on 10 Wang tosses in the first, the visitors had threatened to take the lead the next two frames, pounding lead-off doubles in the second and third. The Yankee righty ran into a little luck in the second once he followed Magglio Ordonez’s double off the wall by walking Carlos Guillen to set up two on with none out. Clutching for an early lead, the Tigers tried a 1-0 hit-and-run, but Ivan Rodriguez swung and missed, and Jorge Posada easily pegged Ordonez out at third.

A strike out and ground out ended that threat, but ex-Yank Marcus Thames pulled an 0-2 double down the left field line leading off the third. Thames held on a Brandon Inge bouncer to short, but he scampered to third once Curtis Granderson rolled a single into short right. And now the Tigers, so bold on the bases the inning before, played it careful, with Granderson holding first until Placido Polanco smacked a 1-1 hard hopper toward the shortstop hole. Derek Jeter pounced quickly, Robbie Cano made an excellent turn, and Gary Sheffield displayed a fine first-base stretch as the Tigers were denied yet again on as pretty a 6-4-3 double play as you’ll ever see.

The Yanks, meanwhile, were retired fairly routinely around a Jeter single in the first and a hit by pitch and a Jorge Posada one-base hit in inning number two. But every batter was seeing Robertson for the second time in the third; they appeared to have solved him all at once. Johnny Damon’s roller simply slipped by Robertson, but Jeter’s liner to left center was stroked. He legged it into a double, Abreu doubled home two, and Sheffield singled to right for a 3-0 lead. Giambi topped them all by homering to right, and the Yanks were up 5-0 in an eye blink. The Tigers lefty escaped after a hard A-Rod single, but it took a long run and nice play from Ordonez on Posada’s fly down the line, and Robbie Cano hit the ball hard to end the frame on a fly to left.

The visitors had come close to breaking out on top; now they were suddenly down a big ugly number to a team that dominated them in 2006. But they showed no quit. Guillen doubled with two down in the fourth, and Craig Monroe blasted a leadoff home run to dead center leading off the fifth. With one down Inge followed with a single the other way, and after two-out doubles by Polanco and Sean Casey, Ordonez came to bat down 5-3 as the go-ahead run.

Chien-MIng Wang was a victim of his own success in this game, or so it seemed. The Tigers were aggressive on anything close, assuming the repetoire was mostly sinking fastballs, with the result that a guy who pitches his game by hitting bats rather than missing them managed to coax less called strikes from home plate ump Tim McClelland (10) than he did by getting the opposition to swing and miss (15). That’s a very high number of misses in a Wang start, leading to his higher than usual strike out total (four), all swinging. Although Wang had two 3-0 counts and walked one, his 62/31 strikes/balls ratio was just what you’d want at two strikes to each ball. The 18/9 first-pitch-strike percentage matched that exactly.

Chien-Ming coaxed one of those four strike outs against Ordonez to close the three-run fifth, and finished strong, getting four ground outs and a final punch out before Joe Torre lifted him in favor of Mike Myers with two down in the seventh. Wang still retired more on ground outs (11) than in all other ways combined, and was still throwing 96 mph when he left.

When Johnny Damon led off the home sixth with the club clinging to a 5-3 lead, he singled the other way. Captain Derek Jeter strode to the plate already 3-for-3 on the day with a double. He promptly scorched a 1-0 fastball into the left-field corner. Bobby Abreu then singled for his third and fourth rbi’s of the day, and the Yankee lead was a safer 7-3.

But the Tigers refused to quit, and battled the Yankee pen gamely. Lefty batter Curtis Granderson looked overmatched against Myers until he guessed right and drilled a homer. Scott Proctor was little better, finally getting a third out in the seventh after allowing back to back singles that, you guessed it, brought the tying run to the plate again. Kyle Farnsworth provided no comfort in the eighth, starting with six straight tosses off the plate. He got a fly out after a walk, then a called strike three. But until he threw five straight strikes to Thames before popping him to short to close the inning, 11 of his first 16 pitches missed the zone.

Fortunately the back of the Yankee pen is defended like no other, with the recenly injured Mariano Rivera manning the gates. Pounding Posada’s catcher’s glove hard, he induced an infield pop, then got a 4-6-3 dp to finish matters after a soft single.

But Mo added no saves to his unmatched postseason record this day, because by the time he took the mound, the three-run Yankee cushion had grown to 8-4. An appreciative Yankee fan crowd had greeted shortstop Jeter with cheers and “MVP!” chants as he batted in the eighth already 4-for-4 on the night. And he promptly rewarded them, blasting a 1-1 pitch to dead center for a home run. Jeter started the double play that may have turned the game, collected five of the 14 Yankee hits, scored three times and knocked in one.

You get the feeling that he’s played a few of these critical games before, huh?

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!