Game 2 of the division series between the Tigers and Athletics is Sunday at 12:07 p.m. Detroit time – or 9:07 a.m. back in Oakland.
With a night game Saturday, it will be a quick turnaround for everyone.
“I think the postseason – doesn’t really matter – you’re going to be fired up for any game whatever time it’s at,” said left-hander Tommy Milone, the Game 2 starter for the A’s. “Just go out there and pitch your game and take it from there.”
Milone will try to reverse a trend from the regular season in which he pitched much better at home. Milone’s ERA was 2.74 at Oakland and 4.83 on the road.
“We feel comfortable wherever he pitches,” manager Bob Melvin said. “I think this ballpark is a lot like ours and it’s fairly big – use a big part of the ballpark and pretty deep to center field and the gaps here.”
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REDS SOLO CUP: Sitting on a table near the back of the visitor’s clubhouse at AT&T Park is a 2-foot high gold and silver trophy cup – a mini Stanley Cup of sorts that Cincinnati has used for motivation this season.
To capture the cup, the Reds have to win each individual series they play.
So far the idea has worked pretty well. Cincinnati won nine of its final 15 series to pull away and win the NL Central for the second time in three years.
“It’s kind of a symbol of winning each series,” Reds catcher Ryan Hanigan said. “We carry it around with us, we drink out of it. It’s just something to keep us loose. We haven’t lost too many so it’s been working for us and we’re going to keep riding it.”
The cup began showing up around midseason, though no one is quite certain who originally came up with the idea. Outfielder Ryan Ludwick gets the most credit, but all of Cincinnati’s players take part in naming the trophy for every series. They called it the Cheddar Cup in Milwaukee and the Friar Cup in San Diego.
“It could be the Windy City Cup if you’re in Chicago, it could be the Golden Gate Cup if you’re out here (in San Francisco),” said pitcher Bronson Arroyo, the Reds’ Game 2 starter. “We toss some ideas around and somebody sticks with one.”
Cincinnati rode the cup to 29 series victories during the regular season. If the Reds can have similar success in the playoffs, they could end up with two more trophies.
For now, they’re content sticking with the one they have.
“Baseball is such a long game, it’s much easier to focus on the task at hand if you can take it in small snapshots of three games,” Arroyo said. “We hope it doesn’t die a first-rounder.”
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MOTOWN MEMORIES: Melvin began his career with the Tigers, playing 41 games for them in 1985. That was his only season with Detroit, but the former catcher still has vivid memories of his first home game.
“There was a buzz at Tiger Stadium that was unlike no other and putting on the white uniform with the English D and walking into Tiger Stadium with the people right on top of you,” Melvin said. “I remember Kirk Gibson got hit in the mouth by a pitch … was bleeding all over the place. Stitched him up right there.”
Melvin would end up playing with seven major league teams, including San Francisco, Baltimore, Kansas City, Boston, the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox.
This is his second postseason trip as a manager. He took Arizona to the NL championship series in 2007.
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DID IT RATE?: Major League Baseball’s first wild-card, winner-take-all playoff games averaged a 3.7 overnight rating on TBS.
The St. Louis Cardinals’ 6-3 win at Atlanta on Friday averaged a 3.3 overnight rating from the 56 metered markets and the Baltimore Orioles’ 5-1 victory at Texas in the late game averaged a 4.1 overnight.
Last year, TBS and TNT averaged a 3.3 overnight rating and a 2.7 national rating for 19 division series games.
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