Oct. 4, 2009

Neither Tigers nor Twins ready to go home

By Danny Knobler | CBSSports.com Senior Writer
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DETROIT -- The Twins are the "never say die" team, because they were the ones doing the chasing.

The Tigers are the team in the midst of an epic collapse, because they were the ones being chased.

We celebrate the Twins, because of their comeback. We scoff at the Tigers, because they had chance after chance to finish it off and -- so far -- they haven't.

Justin Verlander, who wins on Sunday, could pitch Friday if the Tigers win. (AP)

For three straight days, when the Tigers needed a win or two to clinch a playoff spot, the Tigers lost. Then on Sunday, when the Tigers finally got to a game where a loss could have ended their season, they won.

"I'm not ready to go home yet," third baseman Brandon Inge declared, after the Tigers beat the White Sox 5-3, and while the Twins were well on their way to a 13-4 win over the Royals.

The Tigers aren't ready to go home. The Twins aren't ready to go home. So now we all head to Minnesota, where what's either the craziest or the worst of all the division races will finally end on Tuesday.

The Twins get credit for getting this far. The Tigers don't, because they led this mediocre division by seven games with 26 games to play, and they still led by three games with four games to play.

Even Tigers manager Jim Leyland, over the weekend, said "if we don't win, shame on us."

Sunday, Leyland's tune was a little different, and so was his players'.

"We are in first place after 162 games," Leyland declared. "And I think that's more than most people here expected."

"We put ourselves in a situation where we could afford to not play well and still be in this thing," said ace starter Justin Verlander, who saved the Tigers again Sunday. "And we are still in it. We've got a chance -- a good chance."

Verlander won the Tigers' must-win game Sunday, just as he beat the Twins last Tuesday night in a game that had that must-win feel. The Tigers look back at those two games, and also at one other game that had a must-win feel, the final game on their last visit to the Metrodome.

They won that one, too.

"They're all must-win," catcher Gerald Laird. "But there were games that were really turning points, and we won. We're 3 for 3 in those -- and now we've got one more.

"We've got a chance to go to the postseason. We've just got to win one more game."

They won't have Verlander pitching for them on Tuesday, but they will have 20-year-old Rick Porcello, who actually pitched better than Verlander in last Tuesday's day-night doubleheader (6 1/3 innings, 1 run).

The Tigers are so confident in Porcello that there was talk that he would have started Game 1 of the playoffs Wednesday at Yankee Stadium, had the Tigers clinched a spot Sunday.

"He's just a special kid," Leyland said last week.

And yet he is a kid, about to pitch in a game unlike any he's ever seen before, in an atmosphere unlike any he's ever played in.

"He's not going to be scared," Leyland predicted.

The Tigers didn't look scared in their clubhouse before the games they lost Thursday, Friday and Saturday. They looked nothing like the collapsing Mets looked on the final weekend last year.

Was it different Sunday, when they'd shifted from "win and celebrate" to "lose and go home"?

Hard to tell, even for them. Leyland said no. Inge said yes.

"It felt like everyone was having fun in the dugout," he said. "I think [earlier in the week], a lot of guys were letting the media pressure get to them."

Jason Kubel's six RBI keep the Twins from going home. (AP)

"It's pretty much a foregone conclusion," Verlander said as he walked through the clubhouse. "What's everyone waiting around for?"

Because the Tigers needed Verlander to pitch Sunday, his next start will either be in Friday's Game 2 in New York, or next spring. The fact that the Tigers had to use Verlander Sunday, and that they'll have to use Porcello and the Twins will have to use Scott Baker Tuesday, and the fact that Tuesday's winning team will have to fly immediately to New York and likely play Wednesday, will all be seen as Yankee advantages heading into the playoffs.

The Yankees have spent the last two weeks, or maybe the last two months, calculating all those advantages and disadvantages. The Tigers and Twins have spent almost every minute of that time calculating how to get in.

They're not in yet, not either one of them. But they're on equal footing in the standings through 162, and now they seem to be on more equal footing as far as feeling they've already accomplished something, just by getting to this point.

"We've been in first place since May, and I think that's a credit to us," Leyland said. "They've played extremely well to get back in it. That's a credit to them.

"People can say we should have won it earlier, and maybe we should have. But here we are -- and I'm very proud of it."

About 700 miles to the West, where the Twins were celebrating the (not-yet) closing of the Metrodome, you could imagine Ron Gardenhire saying the exact same thing.

Suddenly, after 162 games, the Tigers and Twins will finally be in the same place.