Sept. 30, 1977 – Tigers 5, Yankees 2
- Sal Maiorana
- Sep 30, 2017
- 2 min read
NEW YORK – The Yankees weren’t getting nervous, but for the second night in a row, the champagne remained locked away because they couldn’t clinch the division title.
In Boston, the Red Sox stayed alive while simultaneously eliminating the Orioles with an 11-10 victory, so Don Zimmer’s team pulled within two games with two left to play. Obviously, two Yankee losses and two Boston wins would mean a special one-game playoff would be needed to decide the winner.
“There’s still nothing we can do about the Yankees,” said Zimmer. “We’ll have to try to win Saturday and Sunday and hope for the best.”
“We can win tomorrow, definitely,” Billy Martin said, though he wasn’t quite as happy as he was in his office two nights earlier when the Yankees were riding a six-game winning streak and had just clinched a tie.
The Tigers began the night 13 games below .500, and with Ron Guidry on the mound, it almost seemed like a foregone conclusion that the bubbly would be flowing. Instead, Guidry was rocked for 10 hits and five runs as he suffered his first loss since Aug. 3.
Tito Fuentes had a RBI triple and then scored on a groundout by Rusty Staub in the third for an early 2-0 lead, and after the Yankees tied it in the fourth, Staub came through with a game-deciding two-run single in the fifth. When Guidry gave up a RBI single to Steve Kemp in the sixth, Martin yanked him and Sparky Lyle blanked the Tigers the rest of the way. However, Detroit starter John Hiller refused to buckle. He allowed only three hits over the final four innings.
Meanwhile, during the game, Reggie Jackson and Lou Piniella had words in the dugout, and while it was more of a misunderstanding, it illuminated the tension that was present with the division still undecided.
Piniella came off the field after the Tigers batted in the third and yelled at his teammates, “C’mon, let’s get going.” Jackson, as paranoid and sensitive as a pro athlete could be, thought Piniella was yelling at him, and he reportedly said, “I’m tired of hearing that shit. I know you’re talking to me.”
Piniella was later asked about the incident, and he said, “I wasn’t talking to anybody in particular. I was talking to all the guys, trying to get us going. I wasn’t the only one yelling. Hell, I wouldn’t say anything to him because I know it would start trouble.”
Jackson was asked to comment and he said, “Go ask Lou, he has all the answers.”
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