By JOE LAPOINTE
The phrase “elephant in the room” applies to serious issues unspoken but well-understood. Big Prince Fielder might not be elephantine, but he’s been quite the dancing bear at both first base and home plate in recent days.
Although rarely criticized, Fielder has struggled terribly. Hard to know which is worse: Fielder’s fielding or his hitting.
He’s a big reason the Tigers trail the Red Sox, 2 games to 1, in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series that resumes with Game 4 in Comerica Park on Wednesday night.
In that Fielder is paid well to hit home runs and drive in runs, consider first those statistics. Following Detroit’s 1-0 defeat in Game 3 Tuesday, Fielder has 0 home runs and 0 runs batted in through eight playoff games this fall.
Those two numbers are close to those of Austin Jackson, the leadoff man who is taking more than his share of blame now that the critics have turned away from manager Jim Leyland and his bullpen decisions. Jackson, also homerless, leads Fielder in RBIs, 1-0.
In the eighth inning on Tuesday, in the game’s decisive moment, Fielder struck out on three pitches with two men on base and two men out and his side down by one run. On the last pitch against Koji Vehara, Fielder swung and missed at a ball that was ankle-high at best.
“I struck out,” Fielder told both Detroit newspapers. “It’s the post-season. There’s supposed to be pressure.”
Showing Strains
The homegrown cleanup hitter seems to be feeling it. Fielder was just as ineffective in last fall’s World Series, when he drove in no runs and batted .071 as the Tigers were swept by San Francisco. He drove in one run in the ALCS victory over the Yankees.
Back to Tuesday and a Fielder fielding mishap in the fifth inning. He failed to glove a bounced throw by shortstop Jhonny Peralta, who tried for a spectacular play on an infield hit by Jonny Gomes that broke up Justin Verlander’s no-hitter.
Had the ball stayed in Fielder’s glove, the inning would have ended, the no-hitter still there. No damage followed but it was worse in the ninth inning of Game 2 at Fenway Park Sunday night, which began at 5-5.
In that one, Fielder failed to block a wide, bouncing throw by shortstop Jose Iglesias. Although Iglesias got the error, Fielder could have prevented Gomes from landing on second, in scoring position.
Next, Fielder dropped a catchable foul pop by Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Things collapsed from there and the Red Sox took a 6-5 victory in a game the Tigers once led by 5-0.
Fielder’s play Tuesday was as depressing as the deeply overcast gray skies for the late-afternoon start. On a Fort Street sidewalk downtown, a defiant Olde English “D” banner flapped from a high pole in a chilly breeze.
The Tiger Nation, so to speak, tried to shrug off, rationalize or brood over David Ortiz, whose eighth-inning grand slam tied Game 2 for the Sox at 5-5. But, outside of Michigan and its extended diaspora, few baseball fans were gloomy about what has become a terrific series.
Losing pitcher Verlander called the teams “two heavyweights” and said “If you can’t appreciate this, you can’t appreciate baseball.”
He’s got that right. In what is perhaps the post-steroid era, the pitching just keeps getting better. Imagine two top-hitting clubs playing two 1-0 games in the first three (including the Tigers’ victory in Game 1).
One of Tuesday’s best scenes was of Boston pitcher John Lackey trying to change the mind of manager John Farrell when Farrell came out to remove him in the seventh inning. Lackey has challenged managers before, but few pitchers do it in this era.
It was much more common in the 1960s, when pitching dominated and starters expected to go nine innings. Baseball’s equilibrium seems to be returning, even though 1-0 games take an hour longer than they used to.
Timid Approach by Fielder
Game 2 was lengthened when Torii Hunter, the Tigers’ right fielder, flipped over the Fenway fence Sunday in pursuit of Big Papi’s slam. Hunter landed on his head in hard dirt so heavily that Sox relief pitchers stopped celebrating to wave for Tigers’ medics.
It is all marvelous drama for the national television audience watching two bedrock franchises. Perhaps Fielder, in his lumbering way, is giving the same effort as Hunter, although it sure did not seem that way when he timidly approached the Fenway fence and fans Sunday for his dropped popup.
Still, his biggest flaw so far is his failure to bring the lumber to back up the ailing Miguel Cabrera. As Verlander gingerly put it Tuesday evening, “To give my team a chance to win today, I would have to throw up all zeroes.”
Finally, it is hard to leave without at least a mention of the second-inning power failure that delayed the game for slightly longer than “60 Minutes” gave to its “Poor, Old, Sad Detroit” feature last Sunday on CBS.
Metaphors of electricity are hard to resist for slumping sluggers like Fielder in a bankrupt city which can’t always ignite its streetlights. Continuing power failures for Fielder and friends will make it, as the players say, “lights out” for the Tigers and “party over” for their fans.
