By Matthew B. MoweryFor The Daily Tribune The Detroit Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera tags Texas Rangers’ Mitch Moreland to end the ninth inning during Game 2 of baseball’s American League championship series Monday, Oct. 10, 2011, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill) ARLINGTON, Texas — The way these two teams stranded runs, you’d think another Texas drought had begun.With only two runs — the game-tying and game-winning scores — crossing the plate in the final eight innings of Monday’s Game 2 — postponed from Sunday by the driest rainout in the history of baseball — it took a while for this one to be settled.Eleven innings, to be precise.The two teams combined to go 3-for-24 with runners in scoring position before Nelson Cruz won the game with walk-off grand slam in the 11th, giving the Rangers a 7-3 win and a 2-0 lead in the American League Championship Series.The series returns to Detroit for Games 3-5, starting Tuesday night at 8:05.“We just need to forget about the first two games, and start fresh. Go back home, start at home, and try to get the next three,” said set-up manJoaquin Benoit.The only time either team came through with a big hit before the 11th was Ryan Raburn’s three-run home run in the third inning that postedMax Scherzer to a 3-2 lead.It looked like it would be enough for a long while.Most effective of the Tigers starters in the postseason, Scherzer picked up the Tigers again, pitching solidly for six innings after a shaky first, only leaving after giving up the game-tying solo home run to Cruz to lead off the seventh.“The first couple of innings I was getting the ball up a little bit, but after that, I was able to settle in, and start throwing some goose-eggs up, and give our team a chance to score a couple runs there,” said Scherzer, who wasn’t relaxing at all with the one-run lead. “No, I was fired up. I wasn’t relaxed. I just wanted to go out there, and get the ball to Benoit in the eighth. That was my mindset.”Getting the ball to the bullpen hasn’t been a problem for either team.Getting runs against the bullpen has been an issue.The Tigers, who finished the game 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position, haven’t sniffed a run after the Rangers’ starters have left thegame.“Really, it’s been both bullpens. They shut us down again, and we — for the most part, besides that last inning — shut them down,” Raburn said. “It’s really been two great ballgames played by both those teams, and we end up losing on both of them.”The Tigers got to Rangers starter Derek Holland early, but couldn’t do anything against the Texas bullpen, which has thrown 13 scorelessinnings in this series.That set the stage for the Rangers’ game-winning rally in the 11th inning.Both teams had chances to score in extra innings, but the Rangers cashed in when Michael Young snapped an 0-for-15 skid with a leadoffsingle off Ryan Perry, and Adrian Beltre followed with a single of his own. Mike Napoli’s single fell between right fielder Andy Dirks and center fielder Austin Jackson, loading the bases for Cruz.“It was probably one of those balls that I should’ve caught, and I put Ryan (Perry) in a really tough spot. Probably hard to work his pitches the way he wanted to with a man on third,” admitted Dirks, who had Napoli’s ball tip off the end of his glove. “And that makes it a little different ballgame.”Indeed it does, when pitching to someone as fastball happy as Cruz.He ended it with one swing of the bat, a 369-foot, towering home run that glanced off the foul pole down the left-field line. According to EliasSports Bureau, it was the first walk-off grand slam in postseason history.“I think we’re just making a mistake in the right situation for him,” Benoit said. “He’s a fastball hitter, and if we keep repeating one pitch to him, and make him think we’re afraid of him, he’s going to punish us.”The Tigers should’ve punished the Rangers early.Holland walked four through the first two innings, but got out of both jams unscathed.According to ESPN Stats Info, the Tigers were the sixth team in MLB postseason history to draw four-plus walks in the first two innings, andfail to score.In the third, Cabrera led off with a double, then appeared to motor around from second on a wild pitch. The umpires convened and said thatthe ball hit Victor Martinez — on the replay from the center-field camera, it appeared to skip past his foot — making it a dead ball, and putting Cabrera back on second.Five pitches later, Raburn made it a moot point, with a 366-foot home run to left field, putting the Tigers ahead, 3-2. Jhonny Peralta followedwith a double, and Holland was done one batter later.Scherzer gave up three doubles in the first seven batters he faced, two of them by Josh Hamilton and Adrian Beltre two batters apart in the first to post the Rangers to a 2-0 lead.Scherzer would retire the next 12 batters in a row after Cruz’s leadoff double in the second. He escaped a jam in the sixth, only to get hurtwith a high fastball one batter into the seventh, however, as Cruz — the Rangers’ career leader in postseason homers and the only currentTexas hitter with a homer off Scherzer — hit a 377-foot rocket to left to tie it at 3-3.The Tigers had a chance to tie it in the ninth when Ramon Santiago blooped in a single, and Don Kelly roped a double down the right-fieldline. Third base Gene Lamont held Santiago at third on the play, given the way the ball bounced right back to Cruz in right field.The Rangers walked Cabrera intentionally, pitching instead to Victor Martinez, who popped out to short. The Rangers’ shortstop, Andrus,made it an over-the-shoulder adventure, sticking his hand in his glove before the ball got there, then pinning it against his chest for the out.“Unfortunately, yes, I saw. Nothing you can do about it,” said Martinez, who watched it, hoping it would drop. “We’re down 2-0. We have tokeep grinding it.”Not to be outdone, the Rangers wasted a ninth-inning, bases-loaded rally of their own, when David Murphy flew out to short right — too shallow to score on Raburn’s arm — then Mitch Moreland grounded into a first-to-home-to-first double play.After scoring runs in bunches with key hitting in the regular season, that has been an issue for the Tigers here in the postseason.“I don’t feel as good as Texas does right now, obviously. But we’re playing. They’ve got to win two more. We have to win four. It’s that simple. That’s pretty simple math,” manager Jim Leyland said. “We haven’t been able to get the big hit. We’ve had our opportunities.”Matthew B. Mowery covers the Tigers. Email him at and follow him on Twitter @matthewbmowery. To get postseason updates sent to your phone, text the keyword “Tigers” to 22700. Return to Paging Mode