Iván Rodriguez and Plácido Polanco got cold

If you didn't know any better, if you didn't notice the "Detroit" stenciled in script across the fronts of their jerseys, then you'd believe you'd stepped into a time machine, pressed the "rewind" button, and landed back in the middle of the last series, the National League Championship Series.
Now the names on the backs of the jerseys are "Granderson" and "Rodriguez" and "Polanco," but they wear the same puzzled expressions of the men who stood in this same visitors' clubhouse just over a week ago, the one with "Wright" and "Valentin" and "Green" on their backs. All of them doing as the past tenants of this room did. All believing they're "right there," all believing they're "not that far away."
"You have to keep getting good at-bats, and if you do, then you have to believe eventually it will pay off," Ivan Rodriguez said last night, after he and his Tigers teammates were completely shut down by Chris Carpenter and the Cardinals, 5-0, allowing St. Louis to seize a 2-1 lead in the World Series. "That's what we're telling ourselves now. I know that's what I'm telling myself."
It was more than a little eerie that Rodriguez was sitting in front of the same locker that David Wright occupied during the Mets' season-altering three-game stay here at Busch Stadium during the NLCS.
What was truly spooky was listening to the words that came out, as if they were extensions of the same thoughts Wright had as he struggled to find himself against a Cardinals staff that kept him, and the Mets' explosive offense, reasonably well muffled all series long.
But even the Mets weren't in as deep a funk as these Tigers find themselves. Carpenter is a great pitcher. Sometimes, you're going to run into that kind of buzz-saw, the way the Tigers did last night. Sometimes you'll manage only three hits across nine innings. Sometimes, you'll get absolutely nothing from the first six hitters in your batting order, who combine to go 0-for-20 with five strikeouts against the odds-on favorite to win a second straight Cy Young Award