I post this update from the News just because my father used to work there, and I’ve heard many, many strange stories about the place and the one before it.

DETROIT — Today’s Detroit Tigers game has prompted officials with 36th District Court to close the court at 2 p.m. Traffic is expected to be heavy downtown and parking spots are at a premium as well. The game begins at 4:30 p.m.

If you don’t check the Tigers’ homepage religiously, you might have missed out on the fact Placido Polanco and Carlos Guillen have stories today.

First, Carlos. In a diary entry, he writes about his adventures at first base, his experience playing there at the World Baseball Classic for Venezuela, and the differences of the position.

Of course, the difference between the positions is the angles. At first base, it’s important to be on time to the base when the hitter hits a ground ball somewhere in the infield. To me, it’s easy. I don’t feel it’s too hard. My regular position, shortstop, is hard. When you play shortstop, you can play everywhere.

And Polly has a feature story written about him.

“Tough at-bats,” Polanco said, trying to explain his remarkable success against a tough pitching staff. “Not giving up any at-bats, you know, except that last one, no, I’m just kidding. If you have tough at-bats, you can make it hard on any pitcher.”

Per Freep:

“Major League Baseball took many factors into consideration in making its decision on Friday’s game times, primarily the weather in both League Championship Series cities. With the weather forecast in Detroit a major concern, MLB felt that moving the game at Comerica Park to 4:30 p.m. provided the best window for the game to be played in its entirety,” said Richard Levin, spokesperson for Major League Baseball.

This actually works out perfect for me, I actually get to watch most of the game, I didn’t see much of either ALDS game at Comerica Park.

USA Today updates on Joel Zumaya, who apparently is suffering from a wrist injury and worries whether he’ll be able to throw again in the ALCS.

I’m just taking it day-to-day, but it’s sore,” Zumaya said. “It’s the second time I’ve had this. It’s a little worrisome.

“I’m a big factor on this team, but I couldn’t pitch with it. That’s all I have to say.”

The weather in Detroit this weekend?

Well, it might look a bit like this from quite a few hours north in the Upper Peninsula tonight.

And yes, that’s even a bit unusual mid-October here, too.

The national media was asking Alexis Who? when Jim Leyland put the lefty in the DH spot. We Tigers fans who know Alexis Gomez is. So we were asking Alexis WHY? In Jim We Trust? Maybe. Gomez had a home run and four RBIs, Todd Jones gave us a heart attack, and the Tigers won, 8-5.

Ian Browne at the ALCS MLBlog sure didn’t know who Gomez is.

My first game-related thought of the day is this: Who the heck is Alexis Gomez? He is the Tigers DH tonight. I honestly had never heard of him until about 20 minutes ago, when I checked out the lineup. Does this make me a less informed baseball person than i try to think of myself as?

As a service: Gomez is that guy who was with the club for awhile earlier in the year, then his greatness was twice sent down to AAA to help the eventual International League champion Toledo Mud Hens. Get to know him quick, he’ll probably dip back to anonymity by Friday night. That’s just the way things work for the Tigers. Different night, different hero.

Of course, Gomez wasn’t alone in his heroics. Placido Polanco is making himself into a real October menace. If anyone wants to debate why Detroit slid to 19-31 in the final 50 games, I believe the argument starts and ends with Polanco’s injury. As key as Granderson is to this lineup, Polanco is, too. And of course, Craigdoneitagain! Monroe had a nice play in the outfield and did fine at the plate. All that, and Neifi Perez was starting and hitting in the 2-spot. Wow.

To note, Joel Zumaya did not pitch tonight. In his press conference, Leyland said Zumaya had tightness in his forearm, like earlier in the year. A few days rest is what Zumaya had then. I don’t think this is a big deal. Hope not anyway.

Justin Verlander… well, he got a lot of praise for his play against the Yankees even though he just didn’t look that good. Some people not familiar with him probably wonder what the big deal is the way he pitched tonight. He got out of it with four runs, but it wasn’t real pretty. Sure, at times, it was really great. I think he’s just wearing down. What really matters is that he’s pitched twice in the playoffs, and the Tigers have won both games.

As for the bullpen, the Tigers threw six strikeouts in a row, one by Jason Grilli, three by Fernando Rodney and one by Jones. Yes, Jones. Oakland showed a bit of power and some scrappiness in staying in the game after falling behind, 7-3. And that was with Frank Thomas laying a goose egg. In the ninth, the A’s loaded the bases with two outs on Todd Jones. I think everyone in the ballpark — and Leyland admitted this — kept envisioning a grand slam and a 1-1 split. But Thomas came up short. He’s yet to get a hit in the two playoff games against the Tigers. I think the A’s might have blown their best shot to stay in the series.

And so Detroit returns to the cold confines of Comerica Park with a 2-0 lead in the ALCS. That’s not insurmountable in its own right. But right about now, it looks like the Tigers are not going let this series even get back to the west coast. I’m starting to get that team-of-destiny feeling. I keep trying to push it away for fear of disappointment. But it’s there. This is getting pretty fun.

As a serious side note, it was nice to see all the Cory Lidle jersies being worn or hung on the walls of the Coliseum in honor of his life in this very sad situation. He played for the A’s in 2001 and 2002. As Fox pointed this out, there was a little bit of magic and the A’s batter at the time homered. As a Tigers fan, you don’t like to see them give up a run. But I thought it was still kind of a touching. It was a night when you’re pretty sure everyone in the nation is rooting for the A’s to win. But, no one asked to be in this situation. You gotta support your guys, even as your heart goes out to the team across the field.

John Lowe of the Detroit Free Press is reporting first baseman Sean Casey has a torn muscle and will receive treatment and a later re-evaluation.

There was not yet word on what the new lineup will look like.

The lineup according to Jason Beck

1. Granderson, CF
2. Perez, SS
3. Polanco, 2B
4. Ordonez, RF
5. Guillen, SS
6. Rodriguez, C
7. Monroe, LF
8. Gomez, DH
9. Inge, 3B

From Danny Knobler: 1) Sean Casey might be lost for the postseason. 2)

Leyland said he regards Perez and Ramon Santiago as his two top options at short, and Perez has better numbers against Esteban Loaiza. He said would consider using Omar Infante at short later in the series, if the Tigers are struggling offensively. As to why Polanco is batting third, Leyland said he’s best able to deal with hitting there.

I have nothing against Neifi Perez personally. But why in the world is he batting second and Alexis Gomez is DHing? Does Jim Leyland not realize this game counts? Beck says it’s for the lefty-righty matchup. But Thames hit right-handers fine. Why are we rehashing problems from last month? *sigh* BLECH!

The Tigers got on Barry Zito early for five runs and knocked him out in the fourth inning. Nate Robertson pitched five innings of shutout baseball. They weren’t the most uneventful of innings, but the runs column still read 0 when Fernando Rodney came into the game. The A’s scored before the night was over, but Detroit won, 5-1.

The worry is Sean Casey’s status. The first baseman pulled up lame after a hit and appears to have injured his calf. Initial reports were a spasm and it was iced, but I’ll update more when I know more. Carlos Guillen moved to first, and Ramon Santiago played shortstop. That’s what I expected to happen. We hope Casey is able to continue to contribute. He’s a good story, you hate to see anything bad happen.

–UPDATE: Jim Leyland said Casey won’t play Wednesday, but might be available Friday. So it’s not season-ending at least. Leyland added Casey probably won’t play if the weather is cold.

–UPDATE: Casey said on FSN it felt like he was hit with a bat. That’s not a good sign. He thinks he’ll have an MRI in the morning to find out more.

UPDATE– There’s some reading on the Freep’s blog,too.

Brandon Inge got out of his slump with a homer to put the Tigers on the board, but what really helped was working three walks off of Zito. The impatient Tigers took what Zito gave them. That probably surprises some people, but actually, they’re just continuing on what they did against New York. (Where was this in August in September, who knows!)

The big factor for the Tigers, especially with so many baserunners allowed, was defense. The Tigers forced Oakland to ground into four double plays, all inning enders. The A’s left eight on base. (Although actually, the Tigers left 11). I’ll have to find how many were in scoring position, but Oakland seems to have left more.

–UPDATE: FSN reports it’s 0-12 for the A’s with runners in scoring position, 3-10 for the Tigers

Robertson also helped his own cause in the fourth inning when the A’s put runners on second and third, but Robertson got a trio of strikeouts. In the field, Oakland seemed to struggle at times, not really A’s baseball from what I could tell. I really want both teams to play their best in this series. Of course, I”ll take a Tigers win any way I can take it.

And this was a big win, no doubt about it. To take a game from Zito, the ace, the game most people gave Oakland as automatic, is a big step toward the Tigers moving on to the World Series.

More updates later.

Final thought for the night: Seriously, don’t write Oakland off after one game. I’ve read some opinions, writers and normal folk alike, and it would be a mistake to see this as an easy series. Oakland is a team that can get very good, very quick. I don’t care what they did in the past. That doesn’t matter. There are exactly two players from the playoff failures: Zito and Chavez. (Strangely, or not, neither played real great). So those years mean nothing.

Now, what the Tigers did was a huge step. No doubt about it, it’s a positive start and it’s okay to start believing in the next round. Just don’t set yourself up that Oakland is going to roll over, because I expect them to be mad at the way they played and a lot better with their back against the wall–and it is. Should the Tigers survive that, then, yes, you can really start to get happy. It’s not the key game in the series for the Tigers, just for the A’s. But it’s going to be a nice indicator.

You may have noticed this video at Deadspin. But the new Tigers blog Roar of 2006 posted it yesterday afternoon. So credit where credit is due. I put it here myself in case you missed it at the other two. It’s a must watch.

Athletics Nation disagreed with me at times and agreed at others and came to the same conclusion: Who really knows.

This is once again a really tough call.  But if there is any differentiator, I think the A’s ability to work a pitcher and the Tigers lack of patience will pay dividends for the A’s in the end.  One thing is for sure, this should be a low scoring series with the quality of pitching on the mound.

The truth is that whoever winds up coming out of this series will be a big favorite against the Cards or Mets.  This series will likely decide the 2006 World Champion, so buckle up and hold on tight.