Evened up!

Well, I feel a lot better now, although I thought for a minute I was going to cry on the bar. Todd Jones has to be the shakiest closer in AL postseason history. I would have left Rogers in myself, which is what I've learned from all my experience managing in the bigs.

Basically, the Tigers played pretty well, and the Cardinals didn't play well until the ninth. The one thing Detroit can improve upon is getting runners home. They stranded five runners in two innings - getting a key hit in either inning would have blown the game open and got them even deeper into the Cardinals' pen.

Oh well, at least the Series is even. A nothing-to-lose Game 3 on Tuesday facing the Cardinals' ace, and I bet that's how Leyland puts it to his team. We'll see if the oddsmakers still favor the Tigers.

coolstandings.com is back to picking the Tigers by quite a bit. After Game 1, the Cards had a slight edge, but now, the three most likely scenarios favor Detroit. (It's worth noting that they have the odds about 3 to 1 that the Series will come back to Comerica.)

In 1990, Detroit had home-court advantage in the NBA Finals, but split the first two games with Portland. Much was made about the fact that the Pistons hadn't won there in something like 17 years (although it was only 14 games or so - at one point, I guess you didn't necessarily play home-and-home against every team in the other conference), and some people were predicting a three-game sweep to end the series. Well, they were right ... but it was the Pistons who took three, not the Blazers.

I'm not saying the Tigers will win three in St. Louis.

But I wouldn't bet against it.