![]() "Well," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said, "they pitched and played a perfect game. And yet nine years later they took one step toward Game 4, inched a little toward Justin Verlander in Game 5, and that's the best that Tuesday night would grant them. This generation of A's, it does not come back from oh-two, it blows two-oh. The play that changed everything, however, had come in the second inning. "I was trying to go under coverage," Fielder said. "It kick-starts you," Anderson said, "to make pitches and get through innings."įive innings later, Cespedes would take a sure double from Fielder in the left-center field gap. "He hit the out of that ball."Ĭrisp leapt to his feet, skipped for a moment toward the infield. Fielder stopped, turned and, in spite of himself, grinned. The rest of the stadium joined the right-field celebration. Just past first base, Fielder slowed his trot. The green and yellow and invested people in right field knew it first. The sound arrived then, too, like a gasp, like an effort to create a vacuum for this moment, so that there was only their outfielder and that ball that was trying to escape and kill their season. The glove and the ball reached the top of the fence at the same instant. He had 14 strides to that wall, 16 if the last few were choppy, allowing him to ease his momentum, gather himself for a leap and thrust his left arm above his head. Prince Fielder could only smile after watching Crisp rob him of a possible home run. It's unfortunate."Ītonement would come with three wins, nothing less. … I can't take away what happened in that game. He'd come home and tried to shove those thoughts from his head, but returned to the ballpark Monday to take extra fly balls. Two days before, he'd committed an error in Detroit, and he'd felt responsible for the loss and therefore for the A's unforgiving place in the series. He'd slid that way four pitches before, as Fielder trudged to the plate. In a big outfield, Crisp would play Prince Fielder deep and to pull. See, there's a reason A's coach Tye Waller hands out all that information before games, so the outfielders position themselves to the strengths of the batters, and to the strategy and stuff of the pitcher. Right fielder Josh Reddick believed there was a chance. His eye left the ball and found Crisp, who'd turned to his left and was on a dead run toward the fence.Īnderson turned. "I knew it was hit good," Norris said, recalling that the ball got small fast. And he went into a semi-sure trot, something between tie game and maybe not. Fielder gauged the contact, the flight, the wall. He'd hit 30 sort of like it this season, 260 in his career.
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