Mo' town

OAKLAND, Calif. – Joel Zumaya says he even impresses himself sometimes when he rears back and delivers the hottest of heat, the kind of triple-digit fastball that makes everyone – including his teammates, including Zumaya – snap their heads to the scoreboard's radar gun reading to see what was too fast to see.

So there he was four games ago with the Detroit Tigers, who had been slumping forever and clinging to their first-half dominance and what meager confidence might remain and holding a lead in the face of the teeth of the vaunted New York Yankees lineup. Zumaya was so jacked on adrenaline he dang near threw his arm off.

"I hit 103 (mph) three times against (Jason) Giambi," the Detroit reliever said. "I shock myself sometimes."

He shocked his whole team, really. Shocked them out of whatever prolonged funk had turned them from 40 games above .500 to wild-card underdog that was supposed to be swept by the Yankees. But Zumaya kept hitting 103 mph and various Yankees kept swinging at air. Since that very moment, no one has hit the Tigers and no Tiger has stopped hitting.

Detroit defeated the Oakland Athletics 5-1 in the American League Championship Series opener on Tuesday. The Tigers marched into McAfee Coliseum the same way they marched over the Yankees in a complete performance that defied the conventional wisdom.

This was the game Detroit was supposed to concede, what with A's ace Barry Zito bending curveballs. This certainly wasn't the game where the Tigers' hitters would grow "Moneyball" patient and run Zito out in the fourth, with five earned runs, his shortest outing since April.

But these are the Tigers, freshly awoken after Zumaya's 103s, after the three-in-a-row run over the Yankees. These are the Tigers who were once the best team in the majors this season, only to slow and fade to the point that no one could even fathom that no team would be playing better baseball right now.

"I think coming down the stretch of our season, I think we were putting a little bit too much pressure on ourselves and we weren't playing good baseball at that point," said Brandon Inge, who broke out of a slump Tuesday with a 3-for-3 night including a home run. "Now we get into the postseason and when you get out on that field there's just such a sense of focus and adrenaline rush.

"I think we're really concentrating on every single pitch, every at-bat. I think we were lacking that down the stretch."

They sure aren't lacking that now.

The Tigers have allowed just seven runs in their last four games. They've scored 23. They now have home-field advantage in the ALCS and get to trot out ace Justin Verlander, Kenny Rogers and Jeremy Bonderman.

Baseball is a game where fortunes can change in a heartbeat, so Detroit shouldn't plan the victory parade quite yet. But for the fourth consecutive game, the Tigers got pitching, hitting, fielding and big plays at critical times, such as in the fourth inning when starter Nate Robertson struck out the side with men on second and third base and the game still in doubt.

It is quite possible that the Tigers are the least appreciated, most doubted, really good team in recent baseball history. Their late-season skid is the main reason, so they only have themselves to blame. But still, the lack of attention on these guys is stunning.

After humiliating the Yankees, the Tigers got to watch as the national media trained all of its focus and attention on … the Yankees. And they are acutely aware that Wednesday's Game 2 will be shown to about five homes outside of Michigan and Northern California, Fox preferring to beam the NLCS to America.

Not that the Tigers seem to care. Grumpy old Jim Leyland tends to make them neither too high, nor too low. Right now they’re just confident, sensing they’ve recaptured the magic of the first half of the season.

A team which needed that Game 2 against New York and needed those Zumaya fastballs to believe they belonged in the playoffs now believes it is back.

"Every team in baseball has slumps," said Zumaya, who worked the speed gun up to 103 mph again in a scoreless eighth inning against Oakland. "Every team breaks out of them. And right now I think we are breaking out of it."

Maybe no one else realizes it. Maybe no one else is paying attention. Maybe the latest plot twists in the Yankees' soap opera will swallow up all the attention.

But these are the Tigers, red hot once again, red hot at the most opportune time, just laying in the weeds.

"We are going to be real tough for teams," Zumaya said. "Real tough."