When the Tigers fell behind the A’s two games to one in the series, they knew they’d need either Max Scherzer or Justin Verlander to pitch well if they were to advance. As it turned out, they needed them both — Scherzer recorded some critical outs in Game 4, and then Verlander recorded a lot more of them in Game 5, starting in what would’ve been Scherzer’s place. For eight innings on Thursday, Verlander was virtually unhittable, removing any would-be suspense from a potentially suspenseful game. At times on Tuesday, the A’s would’ve figured this would be Scherzer’s start, if necessary. At times on Tuesday, the A’s would’ve figured they’d have Thursday off. It was in Game 4 that the A’s were in position to lock this series up. In Game 5, they never really stood a chance.

The question coming in was whether the Tigers or A’s would emerge from this triumphant. The question in the middle innings became whether the A’s would so much as get a runner on base. Nobody reached until Josh Reddick’s walk in the bottom of the sixth. Nobody got a hit until Yoenis Cespedes‘ single in the bottom of the seventh. There wasn’t suspense until the game’s final batter, and by then Verlander had been removed. On October 6, 2012, Coco Crisp led off Game 1 of the ALDS with a home run against Verlander. He hasn’t given up another postseason run to the A’s in four starts, whiffing 43. It’s an all-time record, and it’s active, pending the future.

For eight innings, Verlander mowed the A’s down. With one swing of the bat, he was given all the run support he’d need. After Verlander was gone, the A’s couldn’t seize their one final chance. This was a Game 5 decided by three separate fastballs.

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One of the weird things you just get used to when you’re a hockey fan is the vague, non-informative reportage of injuries, especially around playoff time. If a guy has a broken foot, it’s a lower-body injury. If a guy sustained a concussion, it’s an upper-body injury. No one ever goes into specifics until a playoff run is over, nominally so as not to give the other team some kind of advantage. If a guy’s playing through pain, you don’t want the other team targeting his sore spots, after all. Once a team is eliminated, or wins the Stanley Cup, everything comes out, and everyone admits what they’ve been dealing with. By the end, nobody’s healthy.

Tony Paul’s suspicion is that, whenever the Tigers are done playing baseball, everyone will come clean about what’s going on with Miguel Cabrera. It’s no secret that Cabrera’s playing hurt, and we’ve all heard about his litany of aches and pains, but we might not have a true understanding of how bad things have gotten. I don’t know, that’s speculation, but Cabrera most certainly doesn’t look like himself. He most certainly didn’t look like himself — or perform like himself — in September, as nagging pains mounted. The Tigers, like everyone, are more than just one player, and they’ve still got a shot at a title, but they’d have a better shot with a healthy Cabrera, a Cabrera who doesn’t presently exist.

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Ahead of game five, Oakland manager Bob Melvin had a tough choice to make. Both Bartolo Colon and Sonny Gray were available on full rest. And though he has indicated that Sonny Gray is his starter, what this post presupposes is: what if he hadn’t told us who was starting. Who would we choose to be his starter?

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We don’t get a lot of time with the players this time of the year. So it was very nice of Doug Fister to spend some of that precious resource talking with me about his craft late last week. His thoughts could serve well as a backdrop for the six-foot-eight bulldog’s performance in Game Four today.

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The narrative concerning Josh Donaldson has been established for the moment. He was a piece in the deal that sent Rich Harden from Oakland to Chicago in July of 2008. He was converted to third base from catcher gradually between 2009 and -12, taking up the former position in a full-time capacity at some point in 2012. Generally speaking, he demonstrated some promising offensive and defensive skills, but was never considered a top prospect. Then, in 2013, he produced an MVP-type season.

That Donaldson outperformed expectations is a fact. How he did so, though — like, in what skills precisely he demonstrated improvement and to what degree he demonstrated it — this sort of thing merits further consideration, I’ll suggest.

To begin that further consideration, we start with following — namely, a collection of projections for Donaldson entering the 2013 season. While the methodology for calculating each of them is different, the principles informing all four are roughly the same, including some combination of past performance, allowance for the player’s current place along the aging curve, defensive ability, etc.

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On May 7th, Jarrod Parker woke up with a pain in his neck. He’d been dealing with it for a while, and it had a lot do with his 7.34 ERA and the fact that he was giving up more than two home runs per nine innings. Those dark days are long since gone, but it was the low point for Oakland’s Game Three starter.

On Saturday before Game Two, Oakland manager Bob Melvin addressed those struggles and identified how that injury most hindered Parker. Even if that injury is in his rear view mirror, learning more about it might provide viewers something to watch for in the early going in Game Three.

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The game stories might end up being about Stephen Vogt and that’s fine. He got the big walk-off hit and he hasn’t been celebrated much so far in his baseball career. But, as with many big moments, the seeds that resulted in that wild finish were sown much earlier in the day.

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The postseason is off to a great start, with both National League Division Series tied at one game apiece. Later today, the Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland Athletics will attempt to even their respective series. Barroom trivia aficionados may be interested to learn that the postseason has never started with all four series split at one game apiece. There is a roughly 25 percent chance of that happening today and if it does, TBS will have another fun fact to share in the next pregame show.

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Starting opposite Max Scherzer in Oakland tonight is going to be Bartolo Colon. That sentence doesn’t sound as crazy as it might’ve before — by this point, we’ve grown re-accustomed to Colon being a starter and pitching effectively. One of the best ERAs in baseball, he had. It’s not that the Colon story isn’t amazing anymore. It is amazing, that he’s back and healthy and pitching like he is in the way that he is. But we appreciate change better than we appreciate stability, and Colon isn’t changing. He pitches like he’s 40, going on 29.

Beyond his size and story, there’s something extreme about Colon: he throws almost exclusively fastballs. Susan Slusser just wrote it up well, and though Colon does have other pitches, and though Colon does have different fastballs, it’s still extraordinarily rare to see a starter with so little speed and break variation. Given his repertoire and ability to locate, Colon is our closest approximation to a starter version of Mariano Rivera. There’s something else too, though, if you dig a little deeper. Another statistical extremity, that’s a result of his approach, as I suppose is always the case.

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Every pitcher is a work in progress, it seems. They get to the park and they figure out what’s working that day and they adjust. But, on some level at least, the hard part is in the rear view mirror for Sonny Gray. The work he put into his mechanics in 2012 is done, and now he’s more tinkering than overhauling. In advance of Saturday’s Game Two start, we talked about his arsenal and changes, both big and small.

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