Yankees Game 3 Recap

The Tigers continued their dominance over the Yankees in this series to win Game 3 and take a 3-0 lead in this best-of-7 series. The series is all but over for Yankees as they need to win 4 games in a row in order to come back, and this has only happened one other time in MLB history by the 2004 Boston Red Sox against the Yankees.

Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander was not unhittable as he had been earlier in the playoffs with 22 strikeouts before the game tonight. Most people figured, the pitcher who had the most strikeouts was facing the team who strikes out almost every time up, that Verlander would eclipse 10 K's again. Not tonight, the Yankees put the bat on the ball but everything they "hit" were just slow ground balls and lazy pop flies. Verlander only had 3 strikeouts on the day and gave up 1 run on 3 hits thanks to an Eduardo Nunez homer in the 9th.

Now even though Verlander only struck out 3 guys and the Yankees made contact, Verlander still totally dominated the game. The Yankees couldn't get anything going and didn't get more than one guy on base until the 9th inning. Ichiro Suzuki was the only person to get on base before the 9th and he was only one with a hit, he had two of them, until the 9th as well.

The turning point in this game was the error made on a hard hit ground ball to Eric Chavez in the 5th inning. Any time a baserunner gets on in front of Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, and Delmon Young, it is never a good thing, especially if it is an error. The baserunner that got on as a result of the error, Quintin Berry, scored on a RBI double by Cabrera later in the inning. This run was the deciding one as the Yankees did manage to score in the 9th.

One Last Thing: The Yankees got another good collective pitching performance by everyone that came in tonight, the offense just wasn't enough again. CC Sabathia will get the ball tomorrow, and even though I fully expect him to pitch deep into the game, I don't think the hitting will pick him up. Today was the last hope for New York to get back into the series and they didn't show up. I think tomorrow will be the end of the season, and I can't believe that the Tigers would ever sweep the Yankees.