No Kidding: Tigers Can Prove Valverde Right
Jose Valverde might have been joking -- at least he said he was -- but Rick Porcello and his Detroit teammates have a chance Tuesday to make him right, too.
A tie-breaking seventh-inning home run by Delmon Young plus some stout pitching by Justin Verlander and Valverde gave Detroit a 5-4 victory over New York and a 2-1 lead over the Yankees in their best-of-five AL Division Championship series.
Valverde made some headlines and some notebooks with his postgame comment after Sunday's 5-3 Detroit win that "it's over already. (Justin) Verlander has it tomorrow. The next day we have the celebration in Detroit. They have a good team, but I think that's it for them."
Valverde told at least one wave of reporters it was all tongue-in-cheek -- and he is a notorious kidder -- but the "just joking" comment got lost as he kept repeating himself to different groups of the media.
"I think when you read all the stories about it," manager Jim Leyland said, "he admitted it was tongue-in-cheek when he said It. I would hate to think the New York Yankees or the Detroit Tigers need any bulletin board stuff to get fired up at this time of year."
Talking doesn't get it done.
But Valverde dodged some rubber bullets on his way to his first save of this postseason and 50th without a failure this year. He issued a one-out walk and a two-out walk before striking out Derek Jeter to end the game.
Porcello will pitch for Detroit in its first crack at a close-out win. A.J. Burnett goes for New York.
The key to watch for from Porcello is groundball outs. If he's getting grounders, he'll have a chance.
Key No. 2 is left-handed hitters. New York's lineup is loaded with lefties, and they hit .300 against Porcello this season.
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