I predict that the Marlins will be a great value bet. They can’t be that big an underdog to win four out of seven games from this Yankee team. They’ve been outplaying the Yankees for four months, and other than the bullpen situation, they match up well with the Bombers. Whatever the odds end up being, they’ll be way out of line.
I also predict that whichever teams gets to three wins, with a three-run lead and one out in the eighth inning, is just asking for trouble.
This is a much closer series than the reputations of the two teams would have you believe. It’s tempting to pick the Marlins just on the basis of the edge they have hitting the ball into the Yankee defense’s holes. That’s worth a lot of runs, and more to a team that goes first-to-third and second-to-home a lot.
However, the Yankees, unlike the Giants and Cubs, are almost certain to not lose a game they lead in the seventh inning. Nelson and Rivera are going to shorten these games to six-inning affairs. The Marlins’ great postseason has been built on overcoming bad starts and beating opposition bullpens. That’s not going to work this time.
If the last three weeks have taught us anything, it’s that the baseball postseason is the greatest sports theatre in the world. We’ve seen almost every form of drama the game can provide, from game-winning home runs to stunning pitching duels to comebacks from one foot, two hands and most of a head in the grave.
Yesterday, we saw the Red Sox jump out to a 4-1 lead against a pitcher they shouldn’t hit, then watched that edge disappear a half-hour later. On the road, deep into the recesses of their pitching staff, fighting wind and cold and history, the Sox could have called it a season and no one would have been surprised. They didn’t, and thanks to some help from the twin weaknesses of the Yankees–defense and every non-cyborg reliever–they’ll get the Game Seven they came to New York to play.
The Cubs, who could have curled up and died when Miguel Cabrera put them down 3-0 in the first inning, battled back to tie the game and then take the lead. I don’t care that they lost: a team that lacks some blessed intangible doesn’t even get that far, not after the events of Tuesday night.
The Marlins weren’t supposed to contend, weren’t supposed to win the Wild Card, weren’t supposed to beat the Giants, weren’t supposed to even come back to Chicago after being down 3-1 Saturday night… and their biggest problem this morning is that they’ll have to wait until tonight to make their flight plans for the World Series. Well, that and finding a good hangover cure.
Lately, I’ve been doing my writing late at night, with the day’s games fresh in my head. For this one, though, I had to put a night of sleep between me and what transpired. I’ve seen a lot of baseball in my 32 years, but the way last night’s game turned was as sudden and as shocking as anything I’ve ever seen in baseball.
I could point to Game Six of last year’s World Series, or Game Four of the 1996 Series, but those comebacks happened over a period of innings. Game Six in 1986 might be the best parallel. Just like the Red Sox, the Cubs went from a few outs away from the World Series to dead in the water in just a few minutes, and I never saw it coming. Heck, as I look over my notes, there’s this gem:
It would appear I was wrong about Mark Prior.
I was. For six innings, Prior was the same awesome pitcher he’d been since coming off the disabled list in July, workload be damned. His command was a little off at times, but he wasn’t giving up solid contact, and his velocity was good. There was some degradation in both areas beginning in the seventh inning, and that would become important in the eighth, but I had no idea it would lead to what we saw.
If you were a Yankee fan looking for a sign that Game Four was going to go differently than Game One did, Alfonso Soriano leading it off with a walk wasn’t a bad one. Unfortunately, Soriano’s was just about the last good plate appearance the Yankees had all game. As in Game One–and for that matter, as in most games this postseason–the Yankees treated their outs like the mashed potatoes at a Vegas buffet: eat all you want, someone will refill the tray. There was no refill, though; 27 outs later, the Red Sox had tied the ALCS at two games apiece.
This isn’t the same team that scored 877 runs during the season. The Yankees are drawing about one fewer walk per game, which doesn’t mean much in a four-game sample. The quality of their at-bats has fallen through the floor, however. With the exception of Bernie Williams, Yankee hitters have been jumping at the ball the whole series. They’re exhibiting no patience, especially with runners on base, throwing away at-bat after at-bat after at-bat. Look at the way they’re swinging: they’re out in front of everything and trying to hit every ball out of the park. It’s exactly the opposite of how they got here in the first place.
Right now, the Red Sox are playing better baseball than the Yankees are. They’re hitting for power and their pitchers are exploiting the Yankees’ sudden need to be the Cubs. The Sox won last night’s game not with the sacred little things, but with the big things: home runs, good starting pitching, dominant relief.
I know Don Zimmer has become this cuddly-cute baseball icon, especially in New York, but the man ran across the field and took a swing at the opposing starting pitcher. Martinez, in an impossible situation with a 72-year-old man bearing down on him, did the best he could to deflect Zimmer’s blow without taking aggressive action. Unfortunately for Martinez, he pushed Zimmer to the ground in the process, which made him look like a bully.
Of all the inexcuable behavior that occurred Saturday afternoon, Zimmer’s actions were the most out of line. The Yankees’ milked the situation by having Zimmer taken to the hospital in an ambulance. I know they said he was dizzy and had a pulled muscle, but it looked for all the world like a publicity stunt designed to make Martinez and the Red Sox look as bad as possible.
I’m not excusing anyone, but take the individual names off of the page and just describe what happened: a coach ran across the field and tried to punch the other team’s starting pitcher. Just because the coach has been in baseball since before chewing tobacco and the pitcher was a jerk who might well have deserved to be decked doesn’t change the fundamental fact that the act was so far out of line as to be absurd. The situation could have been so much worse; it’s entirely possible that Martinez could have hurt himself dodging the blow, in which case you would have had the Sox’ ace taken out of the game by the Yankees’ bench coach.
In a game that could have been lost many times, Dusty Baker did all the right things to win.
That line may not ring true, given how strenuously I criticized Baker in Thursday’s column and in a number of others this year. All of those criticisms still hold, which doesn’t change the fact that Baker made the right decisions Friday to help the Cubs take a 2-1 lead in the NLCS.
The biggest thing Baker did was use his best pitchers in the biggest situations. In the 11th inning, nursing a one-run lead, Baker rode Mike Remlinger through a series of Marlin hitters who hammer left-handers rather than go to the inferior right-handers left in his pen. Baker not only correctly overrode platoon considerations, but left the closer myth behind as well, choosing the guy with one save in three years ahead of former closers Antonio Alfonseca and Dave Veres.
In the wake of the A’s’ loss to the Red Sox in the Division Series, the fourth straight year in which they’ve bowed out in the first round, there’s been a maelstrom of psychoanalysis, criticism, and…oh, what’s a good Chris Kahrl word?…foofaral! Yes, there’s been foofaral a-plenty as talking heads, and some thinking ones, try to explain four straight series losses. Many of the rationalizations are flat-out wrong, even counterfactual. There’s still a popular notion that the A’s are a "sabermetric" team, following the walks-and-power, damn-the-defense approach that defined them back in the late 1990s. Actually, the A’s are a pitching-and-defense team, have been for two years now, and were especially so this year with the addition of Chris Singleton and the commitment to Mark Ellis at second base. Accusations that the A’s lose in the postseason because they can’t play defense are patently absurd. The A’s prevent runs far, far better than they score them. What they don’t do is score enough runs; in fact, the Red Sox triumph over the A’s should be see as a validation of troglodyte baseball. The Sox are much better offensively and don’t have a real good defensive team outside of a few players. They won, so where is all the praise for that approach? (I’ll leave it to the reader to discern where these facts intersect with the media’s preconceived notions.)
Judging from my Inbox, I’m supposed to be upset because Fox dictated to MLB that the two LCS games last night would be played simultaneously, with one shown on the cable channel FX. I might have ranted about it a couple of years ago, but to be honest, this is a minor, understandable move. Afternoon baseball games during the week don’t draw very good ratings and are difficult for fans in broad swaths of the nation to see. Even motivated fans on the west coast who might be able to shake free from work to catch a 5 p.m. start are pretty much screwed by a game at 1 p.m.
A lot of the frustration over various scheduling decisions is justifiable, because the decisions are driven primarily by television and often run counter to logic. However, neither Fox nor MLB can do anything about the fact that the continental United States spans four time zones. None of the solutions will placate everyone, so the one that allows the widest possible audience to watch the games is acceptable. Rest assured that if a similar conflict occurs next Wednesday, Game Six of the Red Sox/Yankees series will be played at 4 p.m. Eastern, clearing the night for the Cubs/Marlins Game Seven.
As it turns out, the Cubs solved yesterday’s problem by about 6:15 Pacific time, pushing ahead of the Marlins 5-0 after two innings. Brad Penny didn’t have much command and Sammy Sosa punished him for it with a three-run bomb to an el station somewhere in the Loop. Everything after that, including two Alex Gonzalez home runs (see? I told you he’d be a great player some day!), was gravy.
Mark Grudzielanek made an early run at being this series’ Jose Cruz Jr. with two poor efforts in the ninth inning, one mental, one physical. On the first, when he bobbled a Luis Castillo ground ball and never did tag Juan Pierre, I don’t understand why he didn’t throw to second base for the force play. He had to know he’d blown the tag–great call by Fieldin Culbreth–and in that situation you must get one out. Not doing so was critical, because there’s a huge difference between two outs and two on, and one out and three on. The next play didn’t get the attention, but it highlighted the Cubs’ main problem coming into this series. Ivan Rodriguez hit a line drive past Grudzielanek that, had he just fallen down from where he stood, he might have caught and at least would have kept in the infield. The Cubs don’t play defense well. It hurt them last night, and it’s going to haunt them in every game of this series. Speaking of Rodriguez, when do you think word will get out that he can hit fastballs up and on the outside edge? Someone, somewhere, may wish to try a different approach. That, or kryptonite.
Much will be made of the fact that this is the fourth straight season in which the A’s lost in the Division Series, all of them in the final game. They’ve lost nine straight games in which they had a chance to eliminate their opponent, the kind of fact that can become an epitaph. I’m reluctant to make the leap from that fact to an indictment of the players’ character, however, because these are successful people who, like all of us, are more than our work. The rush to brand the A’s with all kinds of labels that assail their collective character is wrong. As you read what will be an avalanche of stories that glorify the Red Sox players and make the A’s out to be chokers, remember that it’s all media nonsense. The outcome of a baseball game, a series, or even multiple trips to the playoffs don’t define a man’s character, good or bad. The A’s lost because they played baseball poorly at the wrong times. Is their baserunning a problem? It would seem so, but remember that this A’s team allowed the fewest runs in the league and scored the sixth-fewest. They played a lot of close games, and if their baserunning was such a problem, it would stand to reason that it would have shown up in their record. The A’s didn’t just do this to themselves, however. They also lost because the Red Sox played good baseball.
If the shot of Ugueth Urbina tackling Ivan Rodriguez as Rodriguez holds up a baseball in triumph isn’t on the front page of Sports Illustrated and every other sports publication next week, just fire all the editors. That was one of the single greatest pictures I’ve ever seen in sports, an amazing display of joy. Just remembering that whole sequence gives me chills as I sit here and write about it 12 hours later…the arc of the baseball looping into left field, as J.T. Snow tries to find second gear…Jeff Conine getting rid of the ball quickly…Rich Aurilia desperately waving Snow to the inside of home plate…the collision…Rodriguez tumbling back, gripping the baseball…Snow dropping his head to the plate in disappointment…Urbina diving onto his teammate… I’m not sure Rodriguez still isn’t holding that baseball. He may show up with it in his hand on Tuesday. Heck, he may show up with it at his Hall of Fame induction.
The Giants deserved to lose.
I haven’t written that kind of condemnation more than a couple of times in my life, but I have also never meant it more. The Giants played brutal baseball Friday afternoon, making poor decisions, executing routine plays poorly, and showing a complete inability to have good at-bats in game-critical situations.
In the wake of the loss, the focus is on Jose Cruz Jr., whose Little League drop of a fly ball in the 11th inning started the Marlins’ game-winning rally. When I think of Cruz, though, I think of his at-bat in the top of the inning. The Marlins intentionally walked Neifi Perez to load the bases–no, I couldn’t believe it, myself–and bring up Cruz down with the Marlins down 3-2 with one out. Cruz’s mandate in that situation was clear: find a way to bring in an insurance run. He was facing Braden Looper, whose command had been shaky from the first batter he faced, and whose only out had been recorded on a sacrifice. Given the matchups and the skills of the players involved, it seemed certain that the Giants would add to their lead.
Cruz hacked away at the first pitch and missed, then took a 1-1 cookie–the Giants took more hanging breaking balls in this game than I thought imaginable–to fall behind before chopping a grounder to Derrek Lee, who calmly got the force at home. J.T. Snow then grounded to second, ending the rally. Twenty minutes later, bedlam ensured when a winning run that perhaps should have been a tying run crossed home plate.
Ever watch a particular at-bat early in the game and know you’re seeing the pivotal moment? That’s how I felt in the third inning of yesterday’s A’s/Red Sox game. Down 5-0 after gift-wrapping four runs in the bottom of the second, the Sox picked up back-to-back doubles and a walk to cut the lead to 5-1 and place two runners aboard with one out. Todd Walker grounded to first, setting up a Barry Zito/Manny Ramirez battle. This was going to be it. Either the Sox were going to cut the lead to a manageable 5-3, with Ramirez atoning for his brutal misplay of Eric Byrnes’ second-inning fly ball and Zito displaying the inconsistency that had dogged him throughout the year, or the A’s were going to escape with a four-run lead and having turned back the Sox’s attempt to recover from the second inning. When Ramirez flied out to left, the game felt over. It was. The Sox picked up just four singles the rest of the way, with Zito abusing every hitter in the lineup by changing speeds and wielding a Shelley Long-after-"Cheers" curveball.
Sox fans, how’s that 10 p.m. start working out for you?
I had no problem with MLB giving the A’s a postseason home game at night for the first time since, well, maybe ever. That said, I do think the AL playoff structure as a whole is pretty ridiculous. The Yankees and Twins ended up with about 52 hours between the end of their first game and the beginning of their second. The A’s and Sox will have about 13 hours. That’s not fair, and it’s the direct result of letting TV considerations override common sense. You can give the A’s a night game or you can give the Yankees and Twins the off day; you can’t do both.
As so often happens with things Selig, whatever could go wrong, did. The A’s and Sox played 12 innings in a shade under five hours, ending just before 3 a.m. EDT. Worse still for Sox fans, the game ended in defeat, as Ramon Hernandez laid down a perfect two-out, bases-loaded bunt to drive home the winning run, this after the Sox had blown a ninth-inning lead.
Those who stuck it out saw an exciting ballgame. It wasn’t the much-anticipated pitchers’ duel, and it wasn’t exactly a great game, but it was exciting. Todd Walker and Erubiel Durazo traded roundhouse punches for most of the night, with each player coming up a hero against a southpaw. The two starting pitchers were off their game, combining to allow six runs on 16 hits in 13 2/3 innings of work. Pedro Martinez wasn’t himself, striking out just three batters and allowing four walks.
Gardenhire handled an awful situation well and got good performance from pitchers he probably doesn’t want to be leaning too heavily on. Now, he has a one-game lead and the certainty that he can bring back Santana in Game Four. It helped that Bernie Williams’ Corpse was on display. While much of the post-mortem seems to be focusing on Alfonso Soriano’s throw to the Fulton Fish Market on the same play, it was Corpse’s brutal misplay of a Torii Hunter single that changed the game. We go through this every year with the Yankees. Maybe it’s time to issue a public challenge of some sort, because the naked-emperor thing is getting out of hand. To hear Joe Morgan and Jon Miller–a combination I enjoy–go all Claude Rains when the Yankees display the defensive ability of Kuwait is ridiculous. It’s as if they expect service time or postseason appearances to make plays, disregarding the fact that Williams hasn’t been even an adequate center fielder in two years. He can’t throw–as evidenced on the first run of the game, when he just missed gunning down Cristian Guzman at the pitcher’s mound–and his diminished lateral range no longer makes up for a first step measured in geologic time.
The line you can’t stop reading in advance of this series is that the Yankees have dominated the Twins over the past couple of seasons, winning all 13 games between the two teams. Never mind that the Twins were winning back-to-back division titles, never mind that the Yankees didn’t get as deep into last October as the boys from the Twin Cities did: that 13-0 is the statistic on everyone’s mind right now.
Here’s the problem: it’s meaningless information. In fact, it’s actively deceptive, and using that data to form an opinion on the Division Series matchup is wrongheaded.
First of all, forget about 2002. While baseball teams have more year-to-year continuity than teams in other sports–and these two rosters have been particularly stable–the idea that games played nearly 18 months ago will somehow provide insight into ones played this week is silly.
Moreover, the last time the Yankees and Twins faced each other was on April 21, 2003. How long ago was that? Shannon Stewart was a Blue Jay. Johan Santana was imprisoned in middle relief. Matt LeCroy was a benchwarmer. Four of the seven games were started by Joe Mays and Rick Reed, neither of whom will be anywhere near the mound in this series.
The Twins who take the field tomorrow will bear little resemblance to the ones who went 0-7 against the Yankees nearly a season ago. They’re better at the plate and on the mound, and judging them as if they were that hapless bunch isn’t analysis, it’s laziness.