You don't want to pitch CC Sabathia against Cliff Lee. So the Yankees found out in the first game of the Word Series, which they lost, 6-1 (trailing 2-1 on Sabathia's watch).
This is the reason why the strategy of pitching Sabathia (and others) on three days' rest appears to be working. This, in spite of the fact that starters on three days' rest are 12-36 in playoff games since 1999, according to Fox News.
But after the Yankees' win in game three, Sabathia pitched game four against the Phillies' fourth starter, ...
There was no reason to start A.J. Burnett on three days' rest in Game Five of the World Series against the Phillies.
I'm not second guessing. As I wrote after New York won Game Four to go up 3-1, sending the right-hander to the mound was an unnecessary risk.
Sure, Burnett entered with a 4-0 record and a 2.33 ERA in his career on short rest, but he hadn't been tested like that all season.
It would've been a necessary gamble if the Series was tied at two, but with three chances to close ...
The Yankees are just one win from their first World Series title since 2000. This calls for a live blog, no?
7:37 p.m. Coming to you live from the Brooklyn headquarters of River & Sunset , we begin our blog just in time for a Derek Jeter fluff piece on FOX. No word if Tim McCarver tried to destroy the master tapes prior to the telecast. 7:40 p.m. The FOX pregame team of Mark Grace (known idiot), Eric Karros (freakish forehead), Ozzie Guillen (completely unintelligible) and the Best Damn ...
> And we're back, because this has gone so well the last two times I've tried this. Stout heart! Firm belief! Cliff Lee! I might also still be drunk. > In that all important portion of the game where I'm not really watching due to being a less than totally worthless Dad, the Phils took a big early lead on the continued relentless awesomeness of Chase Utley. Has there ever been an MVP from a team that lost in five games? Chase could be the first. From ...
For anyone overwhelmed and surprised by A.J. Burnett’s early exit in Monday night’s World Series Game Five against the Phillies, here is some Earth-shattering news:
A.J. Burnett totally sucks.
I’m not sure how this fact has been ignored to such extremes that not only is it not common knowledge, but two major league baseball teams have seen fit to invest tens of millions of dollars in the notion that it is not true. Over the course of his 11 seasons in the big leagues, Burnett has occasionally succeeded in not totally ...
PHILADELPHIA—Several sources close to Alex Rodriguez report that the All-Star third baseman is planning his own parade to celebrate the New York Yankees' presupposed World Series victory over the Philadelphia Phillies.
"It's already in the works," said Rodriguez's agent Scott Boras. "We just need to figure out an appropriate compensation scale for Alex."
Boras further explained that Rodriguez plans to charge a cover to attend his parade, "a nominal fee of 25 to 35 dollars," with half-price glossy headshots for the first 50 guests.
Yankee general manager Brian Cashman initially appeared annoyed ...
As a follow-up to my recent article about Alex Rodriguez's productivity in the playoffs as a Mariner, here are some portions of an interview I did early this year with Kevin Kalal of the Tacoma Rainiers, the Mariners' AAA affiliate, in 1995. The excerpts deal with Kalal's impressions of A-Rod back then. When I asked the readers of Mariners' fan site Lookout Landing for their response to his favorable comments, they responded very negatively.
Some of them emphasized how much things had changed in 14 years, others are simply very ill-disposed ...
Johnny Damon and Alex Rodriguez provided the heroics for the Yankees in their 8-5 win Sunday night in Game Four of the 2009 World Series, but when there are heroes in the game of baseball, there also must be goats.
Unlike other sports, baseball is mostly a zero sum game.
If a pitcher gets a really big (or final) out, then the hitter didn't "come through in the clutch." If a hitter gets the big hit, such as Pedro Feliz hitting a game tying home run in the bottom of the eighth, then ...
The only thing I could think of after watching Game Four of the 2009 World Series last night, was something so obvious, that I'm surprised no one brought it up.
Haven't we seen this before from the Bronx Bombers?
Go back to Game Seven of the 2003 ALCS. The Yankees are down 5-2 in the bottom of the 8th inning to the Boston Red Sox. Pedro Martinez, up to the point of one out and nobody on base, was pitching brilliantly. That was until Derek Jeter started the rally with a double. ...
Who is a White Sox fan supposed to root for during this World Series? Do I root for the Yankees because they represent the overall strength of the American league? Or do I root against them because they’re the “Evil Empire” and represent what’s wrong with salary cap-less baseball? On the other side there’s the Phillies. Do I root for the defending champions and their fan friendly trio of Rollins, Utley, and Howard? Or do I root against the National league purely out of spite for their ...