Tigers Can Rest After Sweeping, But Is That A Good Thing?

If the St. Louis Cardinals fail to wrap up the National League Championship Series in Game 5 tonight, making Sunday the latest the NLCS can end, the inevitable rest vs. rust questions will emerge.

The Detroit Tigers, having swept past the New York Yankees and their slumbering bats in four games, now have five days to wait and prepare for its next contest, Game 1 of the World Series on Wednesday.

If the Cards can slay the Giants tonight, then there's no debate. Both teams will have, relatively, the same amount of rest.

However, if the Cardinals are stretched to Sunday, or even a Game 7 on Monday, I'm guessing it will be tough for the Tigers, with more rest than they may need, to re-ignite against the momentum-fueled defending World Series champions, on the road in Busch Stadium, no less.

In 2006, the last time the Tigers advanced to the World Series, they had to wait six games before playing the Cardinals in Fall Classic opener. And you remember what happened to the ferocious Tigers back then, right? That's right. They were ousted in five games.

UPDATE: I thought I heard Tigers' skipper Jim Leyland say in an interview last night that his team would not stay idle "this time" while waiting for the World Series to begin. I assumed he was talking about the long layover during the 2006 series. I tried to find the actual quote this morning, but this "real world" work thing I have going on Monday-Friday started kicking my pants.

Well, I just found out, through Hardballtalk.com, that Leyland was on ESPN Radio with Mike and Mike this morning discussing plans to keep his Tigers sharp.

Leyland said:

"We actually have our instructional league team coming to Detroit and we’re going to play a couple of actual games Sunday and Monday and have a workout Saturday as well. We’re going to have our pitchers throw to hitters and we’re going to have our hitters face live pitching. So hopefully we’ll be a little more prepared this time."