Jim Leyland showed once again that managers just don’t get it. The Tigers played a key game against Cleveland today, as they are 1 game behind the White Sox with the makeup game with the Sox tomorrow. A win today would have kept them a game behind going into the Sox game, with a chance to tie for first.
The Tigers led 6-5 going into the 9th inning, and had runners on first and third, with one out in the ninth. Since the Tigers had Cabrera and Fielder due up, Leyland let Cabrera hit and didn’t squeeze. He failed to realize that in this situation, you have to score one run and not play for a big inning, for two reasons. One, there is a big difference going into the bottom of the ninth up 2 runs vs. being up one run. The other reason is that if you don’t score, the other team’s chance of scoring goes up significantly due to the momentum change of not letting a runner on third with less than two outs score. Leyland doesn’t squeeze, Cabrera strikes out, the Tigers don’t score, and the Indians score twice in the bottom of the ninth to win the game and give the Tigers a heartbreaking loss going into the critical Sox game. The Sox come into the game with momentum, having swept the Twins, and the Tigers could have come in with the same momentum, having swept Cleveland (instead of coming in off a heartbreaking loss), had Leyland understood the situation.
Wow! You capitalized Sox. You are maturing.