Miguel Cabrera knew the Yankees weren’t dead until Alex Rodriguez struck out to end the game.
“They have a bunch of Hall-of-Famers over there,” Cabrera said after the Tigers held on to beat the Yankees 3-2 in Game 5 of the ALDS to advance to play the Rangers in the ALCS. “They can do anything.”
Not quite, but they made it interesting.
PHOTOS: ALDS GAME 5: TIGERS 3, YANKEES 2
After limiting the damage from a pair of bases loaded situations earlier in the game, the Tigers thought it might be for naught when Derek Jeter lofted a fly ball to right with two out in the eighth and Brett Gardner on first as the tying run.
Joaquin Benoit saw Don Kelly backing up toward the wall in right and didn’t have a good feeling.
“I said, ‘Don’t go, don’t get out,’ ” Benoit said after the escape and then the victory. “It’s a small field in right field. Normally, he can hit the ball that way and it goes out. Today wasn’t his day.”
And it wasn’t the Yankees day, either.
They lost the series despite limiting Cabrera to a .200 average.
“They [were] very careful to me,” Cabrera said. “I think they forgot about the other guys we have.”
Last night, back-to-back homers from Kelly and Delmon Young hurt in the first and the Tigers never surrendered the lead.
“The Yankees are always the team to beat from the first day of the season,” Benoit said. “Every out is tough in that lineup and then they kept loading the bases.”
They did that against Benoit in the seventh but scored just once.
“When it gets like that and the Yankee Stadium fans get into it, it’s hard,” Benoit said. “A lot of times they beat you in that situation. But today, we beat them.”
General manager Dave Dombrowski said he often watches the videos the Yankees play on the scoreboard about their winning tradition.
“It’s hard not to see them, but this time, I didn’t watch,” Dombrowski said. “So even when we got out of some of those situations with the bases loaded, I didn’t feel great. They’re so dangerous. The New York Yankees are the premier franchise in sports. Anytime you beat them, it has extra-special meaning.”
And manager Jim Leyland admitted it was sweeter than beating some other teams.
“The Yankees are so good I’d be lying if I said it didn’t give me a little extra satisfaction to be able to do it here in the fifth game,” Leyland said. “I don’t mean that disrespectfully. I mean that respectfully.”