NEW YORK — All the months of preparation, all the millions of dollars, all the hopes of the New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers come down to this: Ivan Nova vs. Doug Fister for a berth in the AL Championship Series.
Just three months ago, one had been demoted to the minor leagues and the other was languishing with a 3-12 record for last-place Seattle.
“Obviously it’s not something I foresaw going on,” Fister said Wednesday, about 15 hours after the Yankees stretched the first-round series to the limit with a 10-1 rout in Detroit.
On the first off-day of a series interrupted by rain in New York last weekend, there was a cloudless blue sky over Yankee Stadium. But both teams decided not to work out ahead of tonight’s Game 5, which determines who will play defending AL champion Texas for a berth in the World Series.
“Tomorrow, I got the most important game in my life,” Nova said, later adding: “I don’t see the reason to feel pressure. It’s another game. Of course, it’s the most important game of the season now.”
Both teams originally planned to use their aces twice in the series, but those plans went down the drain when rain caused Friday’s opener to be suspended after 1 1/2 innings and pushed back New York’s CC Sabathia and Detroit’s Justin Verlander to Game 3.
Just 24, Nova signed with the Yankees in 2004 and was stuck in Single-A four years later when the Yankees allowed him to be plucked away by San Diego in the winter-meeting draft. He didn’t last long with the Padres, who returned him to New York near the end of spring training in 2009.
Nova started to move up the system that year, and by 2010, he made his big-league debut. Following the retirement of Andy Pettitte last winter, Nova earned the No. 4 slot in the rotation during spring training behind Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Phil Hughes, and by the end of the regular season moved up to second because of Burnett’s inconsistency and Hughes’ injuries. But when Hughes came off the disabled list July 3, the Yankees sent Nova to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. They brought him back 27 days later.
Nova, 16-4, led major-league rookies in wins and had a 3.70 ERA.
