Lynne Sladky/Associated Press
As general manager of the Detroit Tigers, Dave Dombrowski has been willing to take chances on trades.
BOSTON — The Boston Red Sox did what they had to do on Sunday, the only way they could have done it. They evened the American League Championship Series with a 6-5 comeback victory over the Detroit Tigers' bullpen. They cannot solve the Tigers' rotation.
In two games, the Red Sox have 2 hits and 25 strikeouts in 13 innings against Detroit starters. And they have not even faced Justin Verlander, who starts Game 3 on Tuesday at Comerica Park.
The Tigers drafted Verlander in the first round in 2004, their consolation prize for losing 119 games the year before. The rest of this playoff rotation came in trades by General Manager Dave Dombrowski.
"I think it's remarkable, to be honest with you," Tigers Manager Jim Leyland said. "He's very thorough, he believes in his people, his scouts' opinions, and he makes tough decisions, and he's very good at it. It's a pretty good rotation; when you've got 60 percent of that by trades, that's impressive."
None of the other teams in baseball's final four has more than one playoff starter acquired through a trade. The Tigers have three. Their fifth starter, the homegrown Rick Porcello, lost in relief on Sunday.
Even after their World Series appearance in 2006, and a transformative trade for Miguel Cabrera in 2007, the Tigers quickly grew stale. Dombrowski went to work, acquiring Max Scherzer before the 2010 season, Doug Fister during the 2011 season and Anibal Sanchez last summer.
The result is a rotation that led the league in victories innings, strikeouts and earned run average (3.44) in the regular season, and thoroughly dominated the Red Sox over the weekend.
Sanchez struck out 12 and allowed no hits in six innings to win Game 1 on Saturday. Scherzer carried a no-hitter into the sixth in Game 2 on Sunday, fanning 13 in seven innings before the bullpen blew the game. Five relievers were charged with runs, with four coming on David Ortiz's grand slam off Joaquin Benoit.
Dombrowski, perhaps, could have built a stronger bullpen. But if starting pitching matters most in the long haul — and it does — he could not have done a better job.
Dombrowski, 57, started his career with the Chicago White Sox in 1978. As a young executive, he saw his boss, Roland Hemond, trade pitcher LaMarr Hoyt to San Diego one year after Hoyt had won a Cy Young Award. Reaction in Chicago was harsh, but the deal brought Ozzie Guillen, who held down shortstop for 13 years.
"You always have to remember," Dombrowski said Hemond had told him, "when you're the general manager and you trade the known for the unknown, you're going to get criticized. You just have to be prepared for it. It's part of the job."
Scherzer was not quite an unknown in December 2009, but he had made only 37 starts for the Arizona Diamondbacks, with a 9-15 record. Dombrowski traded two players who had just been All-Stars — center fielder Curtis Granderson and starter Edwin Jackson — in a three-way deal with Arizona and the Yankees for Scherzer, relievers Phil Coke and Daniel Schlereth and Austin Jackson, a center fielder who had never played in the majors.
"No question Granderson was a very good player, and Jackson pitched well for us, too," Dombrowski said. "But we needed more depth in talent, and young talent."
The Tigers had passed on Scherzer in the first round of the 2006 draft, taking another college pitcher, Andrew Miller, who became a centerpiece of their trade with the Marlins for Cabrera. But they had scouted Scherzer extensively, and did not believe his herky-jerky delivery would cause injury problems, as some teams feared.
Scherzer — who learned of the trade via text messages from friends, and confirmed it by watching ESPN — said he had smoothed his mechanics over the years. He makes sure he pauses just before he comes set and breaks his hands by his chest as his leg comes down.
Scherzer said it had helped his rhythm, allowing him to command four pitches. He strikes out hitters at the same rate he did with Arizona, but allows fewer hits and walks. He went 21-3 this season with a 2.90 E.R.A. and the WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched) at 0.97 in the league.
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