Oct. 11 Bob Melvin postgame interview

Q.  Obviously Justin Verlander was about as good as anybody sees him, that was your assessment, as well?

BOB MELVIN:  Pretty much.  We felt like Parker was really good, too.  They nicked him up, got a couple of pitches up, scored a couple of runs off him early.  But when Verlander gets on a roll like he was today, especially once he gets into his rhythm, you get into the middle innings and he's rolling along pretty good, it's tough to stop him.  It's like a locomotive going at a high speed.  He was tough to deal with.

Unfortunately he had really good stuff tonight and carried it all the way through tonight.

Q.  When you saw Jim Leyland walk over to you at the dugout, what did he say to you?

BOB MELVIN:  He said congratulations, you've had a heck of a year, it was the start of something good for you.  I appreciated that.  I go way back with Jim Leyland, and there's nobody in the game I have more respect for.  We congratulate them and wish them luck.  A very classy thing to do.

Q.  Just tell me what it means, I know it's hard because it happened in the last few minutes, your team obviously had this great run and talk about what the season meant to you and your teammates.

BOB MELVIN:  I think you'll reflect on it a little later.  We didn't think it was going to end today, not for a second.  We knew we were going up against a good pitcher; that didn't mean we didn't think we were going to win.  We've gone up against good pitchers this year.  And it's a bit of a shock when it finally does end.  It was a heck of a story.  It was a heck of a run for us.

But it doesn't feel any better at the end of the day when you end up going home.  It's a pretty empty feeling, but, you know, hopefully we can go farther next year.

Q.  Verlander was rolling early, really took the crowd out of the game.  Did that have an effect on you guys?

BOB MELVIN:  I don't think so.  I tell you what, our crowd was looking for just about anything, a walk, a three‑ball count.  They were looking for anything to pick us up and try to help us out, which we've seen here for the better part of the last couple of weeks, and certainly at the end of the season in the postseason.  We really appreciate it.  They stayed out there and kind of gave us a curtain call.  We really appreciate that.  It was truly the 10th man for us.