In my ALCS preview, I thought the Texas Rangers would beat the Detroit Tigers because of the underbelly of their bullpen and they would get offensive contributions from players who struggled in the first round. Both were on display Saturday night in Texas.

The Rangers defeated the Tigers 3-2 Saturday night in large part to Mike Gonzalez and Alexi Ogando getting through the fifth, sixth, and seventh, and a Nelson Cruz home run in the bottom of the fourth off of Justin Verlander to give the Rangers a 3-0 lead at the time. The Rangers now lead the best-of-seven series 1-0.

There were two story lines to this game: The rain and the relative ineffectiveness of Verlander.

Verlander wasn’t his usual dominant self Saturday night. His fastball didn’t seem to have its usual pop and he was getting aggravated on the mound because he thought he was getting squeezed by the home plate umpire.

Verlander allowed five hits, three runs, and threw 82 pitches in just four innings of work. His big mistake came to Cruz in the fourth.

On an 2-0 pitch, Verlander threw a cookie over the plate that Cruz turned on. 396 ft later, the Rangers had a 3-0 lead.

Then the rains came. This game was delayed twice for a total of an hour and 50 minutes, which I thought benefited the Rangers.

The Tigers don’t have the depth in their bullpen that the Rangers do. And that depth was on display Saturday night.

After C.J. Wilson didn’t come out after the second rain delay, Gonzalez got a huge out when Alex Avila grounded weakly to second.

From there, Ogando was absolutely nasty. Two innings, no hits, and three K’s. He’s the middle inning bridge the Tigers don’t have.

Here are some other observations from this game…

Magglio Ordonez‘s double play with the bases loaded in the first was huge. They had Wilson on the ropes early, but let him off the hook with that double play.

In my ALCS preview, I thought David Murphy would have a big series. He drove in the first run of the game with a triple to right center.

Victor Martinez is going to need to start doing something this postseason. Without Delmon Young, the Tigers’ lineup looks pretty weak. He went 0-for-3 last night and with runners on second and third in the fifth, he grounded back to the pitcher. Terrible.

Neftali Feliz was virtually unhittable. Wilson Betemit didn’t stand a chance against him.

How about Darren Oliver looking sharp in the eighth? You don’t see that too often.

This postseason hasn’t been Joe Torre‘s finest moment. The rainout in New York was a disaster and there’s no way you can have a rain delay, restart the game, and then have another rain delay 13 minutes later. That was a joke.

Game 2 has been rained out and will be played Monday in Texas.

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By The Baseball Index