Burning Questions: World Series Game 1

Note: During the playoffs, Monday Morning Manager will be answering Burning Questions. The morning after every Tigers playoff game, come back here for MMM's answers to the questions that many  of you have about the previous night's game. Today's BQ addresses Game 1 of the World Series.


"Legends are Born in October" is how the tag line goes. Looks like we have our first one of this World Series in Pablo Sandoval, huh?
Anytime your company includes ONLY Babe Ruth, Reggie Jackson and Albert Pujols, you're in rarified air. Sandoval's three-homer game in a World Series has now occurred in consecutive years, but prior to that it happened in 1926 and 1928 (Ruth) and 1977 (Jackson).  That's it. No one saw this one coming, from a dude who hit just 12 home runs all year. But Kung Fu Panda now has six homers in the postseason. Craziness.

How does Sandoval get on top of an 0-2 fastball from Justin Verlander and smack it 411 feet over the center field fence?
MMM hates to quote Fox's Tim McCarver, but he will. "I don't know," which is what McCarver said when Joe Buck asked the same question. The answer, MMM guesses, is "That's baseball." Until Sandoval's homer, Verlander had not given up a four-bagger on an 0-2 pitch all season. Again, craziness.

After just one game, who from the Giants has your shorts bunched in a knot?
Wow, such imagery. MMM already thinks Angel Pagan is annoying, and Marco Scutaro is giving MMM ghoulish nightmares of past pedestrian players like Brian Doyle (1978) and Gene Tenace (1972), who turned into World Series legends. Tim Lincecum looked like his old, Cy Young self. And what is that silly salute that Pagan and other Giants players do? That's got to go, too.

Game 1 was all Giants, obviously. Care to guess why?
Verlander was due for a postseason stinker, and he had it last night. An ominous sign was the Tigers leaving men on first and second in the first inning, when they got those runners there with only one out. But when Prince Fielder, perhaps too anxious, popped up on the first pitch, MMM squirmed.

Aside from that, the Giants had it all going: the breaks, their bats, the crowd, Sandoval's historic night. MMM doesn't buy into the "too much rest" theory. The Tigers just got beat like a drum, period. That happens sometimes, you know.

Speaking of Verlander, what happened? And his career World Series ERA is now 7.20 and his record 0-3.
He labored like he hasn't labored in weeks. Again, not a time factor; he pitched on just one more day's rest than normal. He just couldn't finish hitters, especially the "relentless" (another McCarver word) Scutaro. Verlander got two strikes on a lot of hitters, but to the Giants' credit, they fought off a lot of good pitches and elevated his pitch count. That's why Jim Leyland pinch hit for JV after just four innings (and 98 pitches) of work.

As for his WS numbers, they're only based on 15 innings. And two of those starts came when he was a 23-year-old rookie.

So the Tigers didn't look rusty to you?
Not really. They have typically struggled with lefty junkballers like Barry Zito, and last night was no exception. All everyone talked about was what Verlander was going to do to the poor Giants hitters. But nobody cared to mention that Zito is the kind of pitcher that typically gives the Tigers fits. We're talking about a team (Tigers) that routinely makes Bruce Chen look like Steve Carlton.

Anything positive you can give us?
MMM is hoping that the Giants blew their wad of superlative performances and lucky breaks (read: Pagan's double that caromed off the third base bag, which started a two-out, three-run rally in the third inning) in one game. MMM doesn't see Game 2 as being anything like Game 1. The Tigers have a game under their belts and should have a better showing tonight.

Must win tonight?
No. But Game 3 will be, obviously, if the Tigers go home down 0-2. Certainly a win in Game 2 will calm everyone's nerves and make Game 1 that much easier to forget, because last night's game was, indeed, forgettable if you're a Tigers fan. Sooner or later the Tigers will have to win a game on the Bay if they're to be world champs. MMM would like to see it come sooner than later, but let's not get into "must win" mode already. There's enough pressure here.

One last question: Game 2's Giants starter, Madison Bumgarner, has earned the first half of his surname in the postseason: 0-2 with an 11.25 ERA. What does this mean?
That Bumgarner will eat the Tigers' lunch. MMM is only partly kidding. Seems these kinds of dudes give the Tigers all sorts of problems. So many times bad numbers for the opposing pitcher have equaled masterful pitching performances against Detroit. And Bumgarner is another Chen-like guy. This won't be a picnic, but MMM foresees a Game 2 win by the Tigers and a 1-1 Series heading to Detroit.

A predicted win? This is going on the Internets, you know.
So doesn't that make it automatically true?

Come back here tomorrow for BQ after World Series Game 2!!