Three is a magic number.

Kenny Rogers will never have to pay for a meal in Detroit again. His performance in game 3 was simply dominating. The stat line speaks for itself

7 2/3 innings, 5 hits, 0 runs, 2 walks, 8 strikeouts. Yankee batters 0-8 with RISP.

But the way he did it was unreal. 8 K's against Murderers Row version 2.0. In the fifth and seventh inning he gave up lead off doubles to Matsui and Posada respectively. In the 5th he struck out Williams and Cano, and got Damon to ground out to short to end the inning with Matsui stranded at second. Great, but he was even better in the seventh. with Posada on second he got Matsui to ground out, which advanced Posada to third with one out. Rogers stuck out Williams (who was hitting .353 with 2HRs career vs. Rogers) again, and then a Cano ground out to end the inning. He came out in the 8th and was breaking 90 mph while nearing his 100th pitch. He was one Jeter foul tip away from striking out the side, ended up walking him, and was pulled for Zumaya after getting Abreu to go down swinging. No inning was longer than four batters.

The first playoff game at Comerica Park, and the first playoff game in Detroit since 1987, had the crowd raucous. I have never heard a better baseball crowd than the one tonight. The upper deck was rocking, literally. You could feel the vibration of the noise making the floor sway a little bit. The crowd was up and cheering every two strike count after the fifth inning. The only other crowd that I have been to that was loud was game 7 of the Pistons-Magic series in 2003. Detroit jumped out to a 20-8 lead and the roof was torn off. Now the mission is to win game 4 so there can be more playoff experiences at the CoPa.

Come back for the Game 4 live blog tomorrow.