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Sports See other Sports Articles Title: Costly error ends Tigers' season ST. LOUIS -- A season that began with pitchers fielding practice in February, among other things, will end with everyone anticipating PFP next year. In between, the best pitching staff in baseball gave the team quite a ride. Hours after Tigers manager Jim Leyland hoped aloud that his team wouldn't extend their record for pitchers' errors in a World Series, the problem arose again at a time the Tigers couldn't afford it. Justin Verlander's throw wide of third base in the fourth inning allowed Jeff Weaver's comebacker to score the tying run and put the go-ahead tally in position to score, sending the Tigers home with a 4-2 loss in Game 5. The upset of all upset seasons, an unlikely rise from 119 losses three years ago to the American League pennant, ended with Detroit on the other end of the upset. After the Tigers entered the Fall Classic suddenly favored to capture their first world championship since 1984, they fell to an NL champion that won just 83 games in the regular season but found momentum at just the right time. Though the Tigers insisted they had put Thursday night's Game 4 upset behind them as they readied for a must-win contest, the trend of defensive miscues from the mound was something they couldn't seem to shake. For the second straight night, it was an attempt to advance the runners that prompted it. Verlander struggled to find home-plate umpire John Hirschbeck's strike zone early, throwing two wild pitches, walking the bases loaded in the first inning and coming within a pitch of walking in a run. He escaped when shortstop Carlos Guillen charged up the middle for Ronnie Belliard's ground ball and threw him out to end the threat. Verlander settled down from there -- at least throwing the ball to the plate. Yadier Molina hit a leadoff single in the second and advanced to third with two outs, when David Eckstein's ground ball down the third-base line forced a diving stop but errant throw from Brandon Inge. A two-run home run from Sean Casey, his second homer in as many nights, briefly put Detroit ahead in the fourth before the miscue arrived. It happened after back-to-back one-out singles from Molina and So Taguchi put runners at first and second for Weaver, the former Tigers ace who has resurrected his career in St. Louis. This time, his damage came at the plate, when he slapped a one-hopper back to the mound. Verlander fielded it cleanly, looked immediately to third base for the force out on the lead runner, and fired to the outfield side of Inge. It was nearly identical to the throw Joel Zumaya tried in Game 3. In came Molina while Taguchi moved to third, where Eckstein's grounder to short drove him in and gave St. Louis a lead it wouldn't relinquish. Only one of the three runs scored off Verlander in six innings of work were earned. For that matter, eight of the 22 runs the Cardinals scored in the Series were unearned as a result of five errors from Tigers pitching, which otherwise received relatively effective work from its starters. Detroit became the first team to commit an error in each of the first five games of a World Series since the 1979 Pirates. The flip side of the unearned tallies was the opportunistic offense from the Cardinals, mirroring a trait the Tigers used to get this far. Weaver managed to shut that down from his end once he regained the lead, retiring 12 of Detroit's next 14 batters while pushing his strikeout total to nine on the night.
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#4. To: Brian S (#0)
Sorry the Cards beat your team Brian. I am proud of them anyway, they did good. Here is a video that should bring you a chuckle or two anyway. ;-) Careful when you monkey around with tiger cubs.
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