Go back to February, when muscles were just stretching out, backs limbering up, balls first flying off of bats under the sun in Florida and Arizona. Find someone, back in spring training, who had the matchup that will come Tuesday night, when the American League Championship Series begins here, Detroit vs. Oakland, perennial loser against playoff bust.
Yet when the afternoon sun shone across McAfee Coliseum Monday afternoon, balls flew off the bats of those teams, the only ones in the AL left standing. The Minnesota Twins, the team that stormed from behind to take a division title from the Tigers? Gone, swept away by the Athletics' precision and pitching. The New York Yankees, with all the glitz and glamour? Gone, dismissed by the Tigers in four games, the last three decidedly to Detroit.
"And then we just had to come back and listen to what went wrong with the Yankees," Detroit right-hander Nate Robertson said, "instead of what went right with the Tigers."
It is with that level of obscurity that Robertson, Detroit's Game 1 starter, and the rest of the Tigers and the Athletics will take to the field Tuesday night. Neither of these teams has a batting champ, a 40-homer guy, anyone who draws the swirl of Alex Rodriguez or generates the buzz of Albert Pujols.
"That team," Athletics slugger Frank Thomas said of the Tigers, "has been, I guess, the biggest surprise and the team that shocked the world so far."
Yet consider the baseball world shocked by this matchup, period. It's almost as if the departure of the Yankees — what with the consternation over Manager Joe Torre's future and the failures of Rodriguez, who got one hit for every $252 million in his contract during the ALDS — looms over this series. And all the participants here can do about that is smile.
"If you look at that team," Thomas said of the Yankees, "it wasn't a team that played together all year long. They didn't have that camaraderie, that chemistry that's part of a clubhouse like ours."
It is the natural fallback for teams that reach this point to discuss how well they get along, how the joking in the clubhouse is better than it has ever been. "We're like a family," Athletics first baseman Nick Swisher said. Oakland Manager Ken Macha boasted that when he arrived in the clubhouse for a division series game last week in Minnesota just before 8 a.m., preparing for a game that would start just after noon, "As we're walking down the hallway, the music was already going."
So if a certain carefree demeanor characterizes these teams, there is a more significant similarity. It has little to do with offense, because the Tigers are free-swingers, ranking second in the AL in strikeouts, and the Athletics pride themselves in working counts and taking pitches.
Rather, the similarity is on the mound. Not, so much, in Tuesday's matchup, which pits the only Tiger to lose in the ALDS, Robertson (13-13, 3.84 ERA this year), against veteran lefty Barry Zito, who will make his seventh postseason start for Oakland and who dominated the Twins last week with eight innings of one-run ball.
Rather, from rotation to bullpen, these teams are here because of their pitching staffs as a whole. Detroit led all of baseball in ERA (3.84); Oakland was fourth in the AL. They struck out the same number of batters over 162 games — 1,003. The Athletics allowed one homer per game (162 total); the Tigers allowed two fewer, two of the three best totals in the AL. Each has a veteran journeyman — Oakland's Esteban Loaiza, Detroit's Kenny Rogers — who has provided stability. Each has a precocious youngster in the pen — Detroit's Joel Zumaya, Oakland's Huston Street — who is pitching in the playoffs before most players have graduated from Class AA.
"If they make their pitches, and we make our pitches," Macha said, "this is going to be a tight, low-scoring series."
Which all fits in well with a favorite saying of Detroit Manager Jim Leyland, one he repeated Monday when asked about his team's surge of momentum coming off the victory over the Yankees.
"Momentum," Leyland said, "is as good as your next day's pitcher."
Which is one reason Leyland doesn't want to hear about the Tigers' supposed offensive advantage. Though right fielder Magglio Ordoñez and catcher Ivan Rodriguez are likely the most recognizable faces in the lineup, the Tigers are dangerous because of players such as shortstop Carlos Guillen, who hit .320 during the season and .571 in the ALDS, and Sean Casey, the first baseman acquired in a midseason trade with Pittsburgh who has helped provide balance by providing a left-handed bat. Detroit clubbed 203 homers this year, third-most in the AL, without a 30-homer man. Six Tigers had 19 or more home runs.
Other than the powerful Thomas, the Athletics make their reputation — one that was amplified in a flawlessly played division series — by doing every single thing correctly. They hit the opposite way, draw tough walks, bunt the ball, come through with key hits.
"Most importantly, they play the game the way it's supposed to be played," Leyland said, "and they play it with an added amount of enthusiasm."
So beginning Tuesday, forget who isn't here, the Yankees and the Twins and the Sox — both White and Red. They're not coming back. Introducing the only two teams who can represent the AL in the World Series — Detroit and Oakland, the Tigers and the A's.
"Both teams are going to come out with confidence," Leyland said. "Both teams have reason to be confident. Both teams had very good regular seasons. Both teams are going to be ready to play.
"I don't think there's an advantage to either team."