Filed under: baseball, world series | Tags: A.J Burnett, alex rodriguez, Arod, c.c. sabathia, Chase Utley, cliff lee, Derek Jeter, Pedro Martinez, Phillies, Philly, World Series, Yankees, Yanks
The 1st game of the world series is over. Yankees down 1-0. They lost by a score of 6-1. The big bats that they had through out their AL series went up in smoke. Arod looked like the Arod of old. But more than that Cliff Lee was lights out. The Mussina curve was on. He just couldn’t be hit.
In Game 2, which is gonna be Thursday, is pinning Pedro against Burnett. For A.J. Burnett’s first playoff he hasn’t shown to much. If he pitched like this when the Marlins went to the World Series they would have lost but luckily he wasn’t. Now his slate is wiped clean and he can start over with this World Series. Pedro is an old yet proven pitcher. He has only pitched one game this postseason but it looked like the Pedro of old. This will be a true test to see if Pedro can pitch on the grand stand.
The Yankees need the bats to come alive. It can’t be just one player. Last night Jeter seemed to always be on base but no one could knock him in. Tonight, if the Yankees want to win, need to work together and not just as single individuals.
Filed under: Playoff, baseball | Tags: Yankees, World Series, Phillies, i-95, alex rodriguez, mark teixera, batting average, 2009 world series, on base percentage, ba, oba, c.c. sabathia, cliff lee, cole hamels, andy pettite, J.A Happ, Joe Blanton, A.J Burnett, Mariano Rivera, Brad Lidge, Pedro Martinez
Instead of having a west coast battle it is an east coast battle along I-95. The world series is going to put the bat heavy Yankees against a strong Phillies team. The Yankees have yet to score less than 4 runs a game. The only problem is when the opponent scores more than 4 the Yankees lose. With the Phillies being a really strong road team it will depend on how strong the home strong Yankees can be. For the first matchup it will put Cliff Lee against C.C. Sabathia. Neither pitcher has given up more than one earned run a game in the post season. There is no clear indicator of who the better pitcher is in post season.
On the Philly side they have beaten both teams by only losing one game. Every time they won they scored at least 5 runs and the one time they lost the score was 5-4 rockies. In the Dodgers series it went to 5 games and the only game they lost the score was 2-1. Every other game was the Phillies scoring again 5 runs.
With the Yankees I feel their overall pitching is better. Their starting pitcher have only allowed big games twice in the whole playoffs. One by Burnett where the team allowed 7 runs 6 of which were by Burnett and Pettite. When Pettite pitched where allowed for 3 runs in 6.1 innings and the team allowed 5 in 10.2 innings which isn’t horrible. Whereas the Phillies have let teams score at least 4 runs 6 times in the playoffs.
The thing about the Yankees is that they have relied heavily on Arod. The thing is this year he has delivered however in years past it has been a cluster of Yankees that help the team win. For the Yankees Arod is leading statistically in every category contrary to the Phillies who have a different batter leading in every category. On the Phllies team after Ryan Howard there are 2 guys right behind him with 10 and 9 rbis. On the Yankees after Arod the next most rbis is 5. Now that could be because Arod just hits everyone in but really the problem is that nobody is hitting big this postseason for the Yanks.
If the Yanks want to win the world series it is going to take more than just Arod. Teixera who is hitting .205 is going to have to come up big. While the Yankees are hitting as a team .262, .001 better than the Phillies but the Phillies have 4 guys that are hitting over .300 and they are including pitchers as hitters. However the oba of the yankees is a .359 compared to .363 of the Phillies. These two teams are very close but with the pitchers being slightly better for the Yankees I am going to favor them.
Filed under: Playoff, baseball | Tags: Angels, Arod, clutch hitting, i-95, Jason Werth, Phillies, Ryan Howard, Shane Victorino, Yankees
With the NLCS coming to a close and the dodgers losing the I-5 series isn’t going to happen. As awesome as it could have been it won’t happen this year. The dodgers worked the count better but the phillies were the ones that scored. Jason Werth delivered some crucial hits this series. Getting 3 home runs but when he isn’t hitting homeruns he is back in the dugout. Ryan Howard had an rbi in every game except the last one proving to be a strong force in the philly stronghold. But a player I would like to bring up as possibly the mvp of the nlcs is Shane Victorino. With a .368 Ba for the team and getting multi hit games in 3 of the 5 games he was a batter. It’s hard to say the pitching was good when in only 2 games you could say that the pitchers pitched well games 2 and 3 besides those games they gave up at least 4 runs. Ultimately it came down to how well the hitters could hit and not the pitchers pitch.
Secondly why it will probably be an I-95 series is because the Yankees are 3-1 and with A-rod hitting as many homeruns this post season as in all his post seasons combined the Yankees best hitter is finally hitting how a 33 million player should hit. This post season Arod is hitting .407 with an rbi and a hit in every game. Paired with 5 home runs he is unstoppable. Arod has as many hits as rbis also. With him in their lineup it is hard to see the Yankees losing 3 more games.
This postseason the Yankees haven’t scored less than 4 runs a game, and teams have only scored more than 4 runs against the Yankees once and that is the only time a team has beat them. The pitching is stellar and the hitting is just as good. If the Angels wish to beat the Yankees the hitters are going to have to score more than 4 and the pitching is going to have to stop A-rod.
Filed under: Playoff, baseball | Tags: Angels, Playoffs, Postseason, Yankees
The Yankees really proved something so far this series and that is clutch hitting. The one thing that worries me is that the Yankees had two very close games at home. Yankee stadium is a very tough stadium to play in. Now that the Yankees are going to Angels stadium the rally monkeys are coming out. The Yankees are 2-0 now and going away. Unless their clutch hitting continues away then they will be coming back to NY 2-3.
