Yankees win.
A.J. Burnett left the field last night in the bottom of seventh inning last night, his face showing focus and determination, as he had fought the Phillies to every batter and pinned them down for one barely earned run on four scattered hits. This was nothing short of a clutch showing for the unpredictable two-man. The line will show nine strikeouts (including four to RBI-monster Ryan Howard) and two walks (one of them issued intentionally to Chase Utley).
Pedro Martinez left the field grinning at the raucous Bronx crowd in the the seventh inning, but any good card player would surmise that the smile was a tell. The Yanks got to him good.
Burnett started off right, pounding a first-pitch strike to his first eleven batters with a knife-edged fastball. The Phils scored in… (more…)
Highly Influential Pitching Great Tossed Aside; Yanks Win
Cliff Lee Is A Machine
Yankees lose.
CC Sabathia put in a noble effort, but Cliff Lee was unstoppable last night. There is no way to understate the feat of dominance exerted by last year’s AL Cy Young pitching for the reigning champions. It was a nine-inning masterpiece, a scattering of six hits and one late run versus ten strikeouts. Lee riveted 3-4-5 to the wall, striking Tex and Posada out two times apiece and ARod thrice. Only Derek Jeter seemed to maintain poise at the plate, rocketing a double down the right field line in his second at-bat and singling twice, finally coming around to score on an error in the ninth and averting the formalized embarassment of a shutout.
It was clear early on the Sabathia didn’t have his stuff, but as usual, the big lefty battled… (more…)
Yankees Take Stock; Lock and Load
It’s a turnpike series! Expect lousy weather. It’s the worse time of the year for baseball in the Northeast, half-warm, half-cold, windy, and soggy. Kids, thank Bud! Saving grace here is that the teams are seperated by just a three-hour busride up and down I-95, which, one would think, should make start times logical and reasonable to the fan. We’ll see about that.
What gives the Yankees the edge, if there is one, against the awesome Phillies? Throughout the playoffs, the Yanks held good-hitting opposition to less than three runs per game. This is critical. The starters, led by ALCS MVP CC Sabathia, had a combined ERA of 2.55 while working an average of 6 2/3 innings per start and striking out 7 batters per 9 innings. These numbers are distorted by a bad first… (more…)
Yankees Take the First Pennant at the New Yankee Stadium
Yankees win.
World Series Schedule.
Tomorrow: series preview.
Go Yanks!
Sorry for the dropout fellas. Everything’s OK. Won’t be around much tonight. Go Yanks!!!!
Yanks Reach for the Pennant Tonight
To review:
Posada is a prick.
Swisher ain’t hittin’.
Tex ain’t hittin’.
ARod = on fire.
Jeter = Jeter.
CC is worth every penny.
A.J. wants more pie.
Girardi’s Binder Overruns Third Base, Misses Cutoff, Blows Game, Yankees Lose
Yankees lose.
Joe Girardi’s four-inch five-ring binder (probably the WB Mason Turbo Pro Manager model, which he upgraded from the Supervisor Standard “Whistle ‘Em Dead!” Clipboard for the playoff run), chock full of graphs, charts, data, and tables, couldn’t quite compute the fact that David Robertson was positively dealing in the 11th. So he yanked him with two outs. In return, Alfredo Aceves, who is NOT a power pitcher, came in and subsequently lost the game. Evidently, Joe G. is of the little league bent, and everyone has to play, don’t they?
Again, as in game 2, Girardi failed to use the millions of Yankeedollars worth of toys at his disposal to any effect. After Hideki Matsui led off the eighth with a walk,… (more…)
Yanks Outlast Angels, Up 2-0
Yankees win, up 2-0. Next game is today at 4:13, Pettitte vs. Weaver.
The Angels attempts to claim victory over the Yankees this weekend reminds me of a great short story.
Now, the stormy Northeast is in the rearview mirror temporarily, and the Angels couldn’t be more thankful. If it isn’t the cold ground stunting the bounce of the ground ball and affecting the fielder’s tracking of the bounce, the heavy air blowing fly balls into spiraling trajectories, and the bite of the wind and rain blearying eyes and stiffening muscles, it’s the cumulative effect on all this causing mental mistakes – like attempting a double-play on a slow bouncer in the first base hole when common sense and situational baseball dictates otherwise.
CC Freezes Angels, Yanks Up 1-0
Yankees win.
Nothing short of “dominating” can adequately describe CC Sabathia’s performance last night. When you lock Bobby Abreu up for the “backwards K” not once but twice in a game, you got your stuff. Derek Jeter started it out right with a line drive single to right. Johnny Damon followed with a dunker to right and took second on an errant throw. John Lackey – who threw better than his line would indicate – struck Tex out swinging. ARod sac-flied to center to score Jeter. Matsui “drove” in Damon on a popup to short that Chone Figgins and Manny Aybar couldn’t decide on, the ball plunking in front of Aybar. This game was a game of who blinked first, and the Angels blinked often and blearily… (more…)
2009 ALCS Preview: Fire and Ice
Yankees vs. Angels. East vs. West. Playoff rookie vs. playoff veteran. Cold rain vs. Warm sun. Sluggers vs. Runners.
Yankees in seven.
Phillies win.
Phillies Defeat Rockies, Biggest Markets in the Playoff Mix
Phillies win.
The LCS sets up to be strictly East Coast vs. West Coast, with Phillies at Dodgers matching up on Thursday and Angels at Yankees queued up for Friday.
Must-see TV indeed, as these teams comprise four of the top five home draws in baseball (St. Louis being the fifth) which is a mighty coincidence given the state of the economy and its impact on baseball patronage. Last I heard, attendance overall came in -6.8%, quite a bit worse than forecasted back in March. The bullshit official story from Bud Selig was that the decrease was driven by a reduction in capacity in the NY venues; this would REALLY have at most accounted for only minus 1% in the total year-over-year variance, give like attendance… (more…)
Yankees Sweep Twins, Secure ALDS
Yankees win. Team advances to ALCS (begins Friday).
The Twins finally ran out of luck, and ran into the playoff buzzsaw that is Andy Pettitte, who is now the most highly-seasoned postseason starter in history.
Postseason stats are what you’d expect of a three-game sweep. The starters gave up just three earned runs in nineteen innings, while the staff as a whole struck out 34 Twins in 29 IPs. Mariano Rivera had seven K’s himself, in three and a third. Alex Rodriguez, as first called out right here by Jrz, earns series MVP honors and not just with garish numbers – he was, simply stated, clutch.
Although the Yankees made a few mistakes, the most garish being an overcharged Brett Gardner running third base on contact with… (more…)
