Orioles Crush Tigers In ALDS Game 1

Ever since a cloud of midges swarmed Joba Chamberlain near the shores of Lake Erie, he has learned that he cannot control a hostile environment, only the pitches he throws within it. On Friday, it was not a swarm of insects that buzzed his ears, but a mob of howling fans, 48,058 strong, needling him with their sarcastic cheers. Once a feared and dominant reliever, Chamberlain was a pleasant sight for Orioles fans, and they let him know it. Chamberlain, once a Yankee but now a Detroit Tiger, was the first reliever out of the bullpen Thursday in an eighth inning that turned into an eight-run debacle. The fans at Camden Yards, with their little towels waving in a sea of orange overhead, were hoping for more of the same.

What they got was even better. Baltimore was ahead when Chamberlain came in Thursday, but on Friday, he started the eighth with a three-run lead to protect. He recorded the first out, but he let the next three batters reach base, and the Orioles rode another Tigers bullpen collapse to a 7-6 victory in Game 2 of their American League division series. If the games lasted only seven innings, the Tigers would be in much better shape. Instead they have allowed the Orioles to score a combined 12 runs in the eighth innings of the first two games of the series. Chamberlain was replaced by Joakim Soria, another culprit in the Game 1 meltdown. Soria walked J. J. Hardy to load the bases, and what happened next was almost predictable. Pinch-hitter Delmon Young, a former Tiger with a knack for postseason success, hit a bases-clearing double on a first-pitch slider from Soria.

“This one is on me,” Chamberlain said. “If I don’t put us in that situation, Soria won’t have to come into that situation, and obviously, this one’s on me, and I’ll wear it.” Young has played in 34 postseason games — 22 with the Tigers — and has nine home runs and 21 runs batted in. “I’ve just been fortunate,” Young said. “I could just as easily hit a line drive to the left fielder for a sacrifice fly, and he has the opportunity to get out of the inning.” But it did not happen that way. Game 3 of the best-of-five series is Sunday in Detroit, where David Price will make his postseason debut for the Tigers against Miguel Gonzalez. If Detroit is fortunate enough to have the lead in that game, it is unclear whether Manager Brad Ausmus still has the confidence to turn to Chamberlain or Soria. “I don’t know that I necessarily have an answer for that,” Ausmus said. “But if we have a lead in the eighth inning on Sunday, we’re going to have to find somebody.”

Anibal Sanchez would be a good candidate. Normally a starter, he entered Friday’s game after starter Justin Verlander was removed with a runner on base and no outs in the sixth. Sanchez threw two perfect innings, but he threw 30 pitches, and Ausmus said that was his limit, so in came Chamberlain. After Game 1, in which he did not record an out despite inducing two ground balls from the only two batters he faced, Chamberlain’s earned run average this postseason was infinity. After Game 2, it is 108.00. The Tigers’ bullpen, other than Sanchez, has allowed 10 earned runs and 8 hits in one and two-thirds innings for a 54.00 E.R.A.

Bullpen frailties are not new to the Tigers, whose championship hopes of the past have been derailed, in part, by the shortcomings of the former closer Jose Valverde. Since then, they brought in Joe Nathan to be the closer, but they have not even been able to get to him. “It’s certainly a little tough to swallow,” Ausmus said. “When you have a three-run lead going into the last couple of innings, you feel like you should get the job done. But we didn’t.”

The Tigers scored five times in the fourth, as J. D. Martinez hit a three-run homer and Nick Castellanos followed with another homer. Then, in the top of the eighth, with Detroit leading, 5-3, and Torii Hunter on third and Miguel Cabrera on second, Victor Martinez doubled to left. Hunter scored, but the lumbering Cabrera was waved home and was thrown out at the plate for the first out of the inning. Detroit would not get that seventh run. In the bottom of the eighth, with the fans howling at him, Chamberlain got an out. But then, he hit Adam Jones with a pitch, and Nelson Cruz and Steve Pearce singled. As he came off the mound, Chamberlain, the victim of that midge attack seven years ago in Cleveland when he was a Yankee, heard the roar of the crowd as he walked into the clubhouse. “It’s something you expect,” he said of the fans. “Nothing’s going to catch me off guard in this game, I can promise you that.” Soria walked Hardy, and then came Young, the most valuable player of the 2012 A.L.C.S. against the Yankees. Now, he is delivering the same big hits against Detroit. “You can’t sugarcoat it,” Hunter said. “Our backs are to the wall. Can’t go no further backwards. It’s not looking good. But we still have a pulse.”