The 2006 World Series was a surprise...in more ways than one. The 2006 World Series brought a National League team which had consistently been knockin' on the door, but the American League entry was a big surprise... the Detroit Tigers had not contended for anything in a long lonnnng time, but this season was different! The surprise team of the century meets a somewhat substandard St. Louis Cardinal club... the Cards had been an NL power the last few years, but really struggled to win a weak division in '06... the Tigers roared through the first 3/4 of their season only to stumble in the last month. BUT they righted themselves in the playoffs, beating the heavily favored Yankees and sweeping the A's. St. Louis took care of San Diego and the Mets on their way to the classic with good pitching from Cris Carpenter, Jeff Supan and ex-Tiger Jeff Weaver. Coming out of the much more powerful American League, it was thought that the Tigers would have little trouble with the Cards... one pundit even picked the "Tigers in three." But... that would not be the case:  Game 1 at Detroit- St. Louis 7 Detroit 2- Rookie Anthony Reyes outduels rookie Justin Verlander- Home runs by Luis Pujols, Scott Rolen and Craig Monroe. St.Louis leads 2006 World Series 1-0.
World Series Wrapup: No doubt the pitcher errors really cost the Tigers, but it seems that maybe they weren't quite ready to play on the big stage. Aside from Sean Casey with 2 homers and .529, Carlos Guillen at .353... and 2 homers by Craig Monroe, the offense was pretty much non-existent- 11 runs in 5 games ain't gonna get it done. The pitching was really not that bad except for the fielding which went along with it. Kenny Rogers pitched a gem that Todd Jones almost ruined, but in his typical fashion, he ended up saving it... and giving the state of Michigan another heart attack! ...but it still was FUN... and totally unexpected. The streets of Motown were alive - something we thought we might never see again - people were out and enjoying Comerica Park and the area around it... just a great scene for an area that really needed it! And not too many hearts were really broken... with this good young pitching, we can look forward to more pennant runs and hopefully more Fall Classics- what would be the fun in winning it all right now? What would there be to look forward to? .... well I guess we would have taken it! Perhaps the Tigers were too young... too inexperienced. Perhaps the pressure of playing on the big stage finally caught up with them - hard to say- they handled things so well against the Yankees and Athletics, but it could be argued that, since expectations were low at that point, there was no pressure. Maybe playing the role of the heavy favorite finally caught up to them... or maybe St. Louis was just a better team? - Nah!
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