It Couldn't Get Any Sweeter
than to nail the porky Messiah, with his bloody sock stigmata, to the cross tomorrow. It would go a long way toward sending Boston off to cry in their chowder and talk about next year.
But the Yanks are going to have to be smart enough to alter their strategy at the plate. Schilling does know enough to throw strikes early in the count and if you try and be patient with him, you can find yourself having to hit the splitter behind in the count. You have to take strike one away from him. The more lefties the better--better batting avg. (by 13 pts.), better on obp (roughly the same), better slugging %. All in all 35 pt. better OPS. If I were filling out the line-up card, I'd seriously consider DHing Aaron Guil and risking Giambi at first.
But the Yanks are going to have to be smart enough to alter their strategy at the plate. Schilling does know enough to throw strikes early in the count and if you try and be patient with him, you can find yourself having to hit the splitter behind in the count. You have to take strike one away from him. The more lefties the better--better batting avg. (by 13 pts.), better on obp (roughly the same), better slugging %. All in all 35 pt. better OPS. If I were filling out the line-up card, I'd seriously consider DHing Aaron Guil and risking Giambi at first.
posted by joe valente | 2:09 AM
2 Comments:
I may be wrong in my assessment of AROD, but I don't think I'm going all that easy on him. My analysis suggests that, properly surrounded, he can be salvaged as a good RBI role player--a kind of glorified Gorman Thomas or a gloveless Graig Nettles--but not as a superstar.
I hate to hear that Yankees success depends on slow Joe passing a test. Actually, the Yanks didn't lose focus, desire, energy or hustle in the ACLS until after they lost games 4 and 5 at Fenway, the correlates of the remaining games here. They lost both of those games quite late, one in extras, and almost entirely owing to the failures of a long overworked bullpen. If any bullpen is overworked this time it's Boston's. I think Beam has thrown as much as anyone for the Yanks. It's interesting to consider that if the Yanks had played all that badly in games 4 and 5 in the ACLS, had gotten blown out, they would not have given Boston the kind of momentum 2 cardiac victories afford and they just might have gone on to win in NY.
In any event, I do think the day and a half break lessens the advantage Boston otherwise has from possessing more versatile moving parts: Kapler/Ramirez in left; Kapler/Crisp in center; Hinske/Pena in right; Lowell/Youkillis at 3rd; Cora/Gonzalez at short; Cora/Loretta at 2nd; Youkillis/Hinske at first; Lopez/Mirabelli in equal doses at catcher. They've subbed alot more liberally and would benefit more from the Yankees exhaustion were this a day game.
One more point of difference with the ACLS. It doesn't matter if you're up 3 in a championsip series, you remain under pressure to close it out, because you've won nothing unless you do. And that pressure increases dramatically with each subsequent game you lose. Once you're down three you have no reasonable chance of winning and no pressure to do so. The Yankees have already won this series no matter what happens; they are not under any greater pressure than an ordinary Y/S affair, perhaps less. The Sox still have a season to salvage. They are under tremendous pressure to win both of the last 2, in the knowledge that having done so they will remain in a hole. So psychically, the comparisons to the ACLS don't really apply that strongly.
On the other hand, just as a matter of the odds, the Sox should win the next 2 games. They are after all roughly as good as this deeply flawed Yankees team. Here the ACLS comparison does come into play. The Yankees were not quite as good as the Red Sox that year: I expected them to lose in 6 or 7. What was shocking was merely the sequence. The Yankees and Sox are pretty even in their strengths and dysfunctions this year. I expected a 3-2 split to the Sox in this series. What will have been surprising, should it turn out 3-2 Yanks, will be less the outcome than the manner and sequence.
But keep a good thought. The Yankees can cool off by half, score 6 or 7 instead of thirteen, and still win this game. Stranger things have already happened.
Game time has at last arrived. This one could be the nail in the coffin.
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