Rogers's Turnabout Continues

And when he took the mound Sunday night, he was the same driven, emotional, untouchable cannonball who has come to be familiar to baseball fans in this, his month of redemption, as he dominated the New York Yankees and Oakland Athletics in earlier series.

At the end of each inning, having handcuffed three more batters with his assortment of modest but deceptive pitches, he was greeted in his dugout by a line of teammates with their hands outstretched, and Rogers offered up his glove hand, never his bare pitching hand, to each one.

"What he's done the last three weeks," said Tigers closer Todd Jones, "really separates him in my mind as one of the dominant and impressive pitchers I've ever played with."

By the time Rogers retired David Eckstein on a ground ball to open the top of the sixth inning, Rogers's postseason scoreless streak was up to 20 1/3 innings -- an interesting demarcation point, since one of Rogers's infamous legacies before this month was the fact that in his first 20 1/3 postseason innings, dating from 1996 to 2003, he allowed a staggering 20 earned runs.

And when he coaxed a double-play grounder from Eckstein to end the eighth, he let out a giant roar as he pivoted and headed back to the dugout for what turned out to be the final time on Sunday. When the ninth inning began, it was Jones, the closer, on the mound for the Tigers, and he nearly undid all of Rogers's wonderful work. With two outs, he gave up the Cardinals' first run, then loaded the bases -- helped by his own error on a comebacker -- before coaxing a game-ending ground ball from Yadier Molina. It was a messy save by a pitcher who has made them an art form.

"He's going to take a little [fielding] practice before he gets on the bus tonight," Tigers Manager Jim Leyland said. "That was not good."

Rogers's teammates accumulated all the runs he would need in the first inning off Cardinals starter Jeff Weaver, as about 800 feet of long drives -- Craig Monroe's solo homer to left, his fifth of the postseason, and Carlos Guillen's RBI double deep into the gap in left-center -- gave the Tigers an early 2-0 lead.

For the next seven innings, slugger Albert Pujols and the Cardinals' offense would never bring the go-ahead run to the plate against Rogers. They could barely touch him. He was brilliant, dominant, his hardened shell impenetrable, even when the television cameras got so close, zoomed in so tight, it seemed as if they were trying to bore straight to his soul.