The ball will find you. It always does. Usually, that saying is intended to be cautionary, warning that someone with inferior defensive skills or playing out of position will eventually have to prove his merit and field the ball.
But at the end of the Texas Rangers' Game 6 victory over the Detroit Tigers in the ALCS, the ball found its way to the player who took his postseason struggles and smacked them all over Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.
Who else should have made that final catch but Michael Young(notes)?
Even though the Rangers were winning games, taking 2-0 and 3-1 series leads, Young was a black hole in the middle of their lineup. Sandwiched between Josh Hamilton(notes) and Adrian Beltre(notes), in the batting order that just keeps on going was Young, who seemed to be killing big innings for his team by not getting hits.
In the first four games of the ALCS, Young was 2-for-17 with one RBI. In the ALDS against the Tampa Bay Rays, he hit 2-for-15. The question hovered over the Rangers as the series progressed. How can Ron Washington keep batting Young at cleanup? But he stood his ground, sticking by the guy who hit .338 during the season, drove in 106 runs, and led the majors with 213 hits.
Young finally justified his manager's faith in him by breaking out when his team, ballpark and fanbase were ready for a clinching victory. He showed signs of working out of his slump with two hits and an RBI in Game 5. He was catching up to that outside fastball that he was late on earlier in the series. He was turning on the inside pitches that previously tied him up.
In Game 6, it all finally clicked back into place for Young. With Tigers pitcher Max Scherzer(notes) reeling in the third inning, Young threw a body blow with a two-run double that tied the score at 2-2. As the Rangers batted around in an explosive nine-run inning, Young came up again and hit yet another two-run double, this time to right field.
Two doubles and four RBI in one inning. Young made up for his postseason slump in two at-bats. In doing so, he became the first player in LCS history to get multiple extra-base hits in the same inning.
But Young wasn't done yet. Against Brad Penny(notes) — the Tigers' equivalent of a white flag — he crushed a home run to dead center field. It was the punctuation mark (an exclamation point) on a game in which the longest-serving Ranger gave his team that last boost toward a second straight American League championship and World Series berth.
Not that he would've had any reason to do so, but Young didn't have to carry that American League championship trophy sheepishly during the Rangers' postgame celebration. But I'm willing to bet he felt a lot better about hoisting that prize over his head after doing his part to win it.
If Young came into this postseason seeking redemption, he certainly found it on Saturday night.
