Was reviewing the '06 Tigers WS loss to the Cards. There were just three (3) players on each team who did the most damage offensively in Rolen, Molina, and Series MVP Eckstein for StL, and Casey, Inge, and Guillen for DET. Casey was the player who had the most hits (9) rbis (5) and tied CMo for most homers with 2. Cards hit only 2 homers in 5 games, and had only four (4) more hits total (36) than the Tigers, who themselves had only one (1) XBH less than the Cards with 13. Obviously the Cards who scored twice as many runs (22) than the Tigers, were far more successful @ bunching their walks and hits together. Posting re:BBs StL walked 23x to DET's 8!
Goats for the Tigers were Pudge who went 3 for 19 with a double, an RBI, a RS, 0BB, and 3 Ks, Grandy who went 3 for 19 with a double, an RBI, a RS, a BB and Ked 7x (most in Series), CMo who went 3 for 20 but all were XBH, being a double and 2 solo homers, 2 RBIs, 3 RS, a BB, and 5Ks, ALCS Game 4 hero Ordonez who went 2 for 19 (both singles) 0 RBIs, 2RS, 1BB and 4Ks....and last, but least, ALCS MVP Polanco who went ZERO (0) for 17 with 0 RBIs 0 RS, 1BB and 1K.
2x SP Justin Verlander (RoY) was roughed up for 10 runs on 12 hits (7 earned) 5 walks and 12 Ks in 11 IP for a WHIP of 1.545. In contrast, Game 2 winning SP Kenny Rogers gave up only 2 hits 3 walks and 5 Ks in 8 IP for a WHIP of 0.625.
As an aside, I recall that on the night that the Tigers lost Game 5 and the WS to the Cardinals, ESPN's sports messageboards had been very mysteriously unavailable for most members on that day and were not fully restored for posting activity until the following morning. We Tigers fan members were very fortunately spared the vast majority of trolling that would have ensued on our board as a result.
