Twin Killing
With the A's second improbable win in the Metrodome, it becomes all but certain that the Yankees will be playing them shortly, provided they continue to put away the Tigers. is this good luck or bad? Actually a pretty interesting calibration.
If the Twins go down, the Yankees' pitching, the weakest part of the team, will have dodged the stronger offensive team. The run of Mauer, Cuddyer, Morneau, Hunter, is alot more potent than anything the A's have to offer. The A's have only one hitter, Payton,over 300, in their line-up and only one other person, Kendall, who is even close (and he is pretty punchless). Thomas has been great, a giambi type without quite the OBP, but there is really noone else that is at all scary, which means you can and should be pitching around him ina way you can't with an Ortiz. Swisher's got power but he's a 245 hitter who doesn't walk all that much, Chavez has been dreadful in every respect atthe plate, and neither Ellis, nor Kotsay nor Scuttaro can hit as well, for average or power, as alex gonzalez for Boston--they are all more along the lines of Alex Cora.
Additionally, the A's park does not provide its team with the same home field advantage as the Metrodome. Remember the A's lost the 5th game there in 2004 against the Sox, they lost the fifth game there in 2000 against the Yankees and they lost games 3 and 4 there to the Yankees in 2001. Being so odd, so loud, having artificial turf, etc. the Metrodome takes much more getting used to and is much more tailored to the kinds of teams the Twins build. The A's park is, except for its spaciousness and those deep foul territories, pretty generic.
On the flip side, the A's have deeper pitching than the Twins or the Yankees. If they manage a sweep, they will have kept rich Hardin fresh for the ALCS and that could be a problem. Their bullpen however is neither as deep nor as formidable as the Twins. They have a really good set-up man and a good but overrated closer. they have no shutdown men in the 6th and 7th to compare with a Reyes or a Rinclon or a Crain. The Yankees may be able to work their signature offensive strategy to better effect against the A's. Haren has been really bad for the last month, as has blanton (no longer in the rotation), but the Yankees have never hit Haren well. On the other hand, they have owned Zito and they are typically very good against a control pitcher like Loaiza. he's been getting everyone out in the 2nd half this year, but I am confident the yankees can handle him. so figurung they won't hit the H and H boys, will hit zito and Loaiza, and should be able to keep the a's relatively in check, I see a 6 to 7 game series either way.
Watching the A's-Twins, and I have seen both games, I have to say the A's have impressed me less with their talents than the Twins have impressed me with their inability ot hadle the playoff pressure at home, something I would never have imagined from them. In game one Castillo ran them right out of an early rally that might well ahve proven decisive. They could have given Santana an early lead and I have to believe that would have made him tougher and more careful. Today, the great CF Torri Hunter made played a routine single into an inside the park home run that won the game. Unbelievable!
Speaking of which I am a connosieur of bad baseball announcing. I collect egregious moments, replay them in my head, memorialize them for myself. Today, I heard a real doozy. It's the top of the seventh, 2 out, a man on first and Mark Kotsay at the plate. He hits, as I said, a sharp liner to center, a stock issue single, which would not have even tempted the runner, Ellis I believe, to test Hunter's arm by going to third. I don't know what possessed Hunter to try for the spectacular play, but he had to move a pretty good way to his right and instead of rounding the approach off to make sure he got behind the ball, he took the shortest distance between two points, which in the case was the most acute angle, so that when he failed to reach the spot where it landed, he had no way of preventing the ball from rocketing across the turf to the center field wall. not suspecting that Hunter would try such a reckless maneuver, the right-fielder was slow to back-up, allowing Kotsay to round the bases. Two runs scored to make it 4-2 in a game where every tally hiterto had been a nail biter. Well, the TV crew shows the play from every possible angle, tries to imagine what Hunter was thinking, speculates, not unintelligently, that he might have forgotten there were two outs, making a putout on the ball less urgent, and then inevitably describing how bad he must feel. As they wrapped up the play by play guy and the shitteater (Rick Sutcliffe) turn to Eric Karros for a last word of inside baseball player insight, an oxymoron I like to call jock-ocular-ity, and he proclaims, with all the orotund gravity he can muster, "Torri Hunter made a play that could prove quite detrimental to his team." Gee, you think! I beleive Karros was so impressed with himself for saying the word detrimental that he might have confused that with actually saying something. Even Sutcliffe was stunned into silence by this piece of vacuity. Did you hear about the color guy who was so stupid the other color guys noticed?
If the Twins go down, the Yankees' pitching, the weakest part of the team, will have dodged the stronger offensive team. The run of Mauer, Cuddyer, Morneau, Hunter, is alot more potent than anything the A's have to offer. The A's have only one hitter, Payton,over 300, in their line-up and only one other person, Kendall, who is even close (and he is pretty punchless). Thomas has been great, a giambi type without quite the OBP, but there is really noone else that is at all scary, which means you can and should be pitching around him ina way you can't with an Ortiz. Swisher's got power but he's a 245 hitter who doesn't walk all that much, Chavez has been dreadful in every respect atthe plate, and neither Ellis, nor Kotsay nor Scuttaro can hit as well, for average or power, as alex gonzalez for Boston--they are all more along the lines of Alex Cora.
Additionally, the A's park does not provide its team with the same home field advantage as the Metrodome. Remember the A's lost the 5th game there in 2004 against the Sox, they lost the fifth game there in 2000 against the Yankees and they lost games 3 and 4 there to the Yankees in 2001. Being so odd, so loud, having artificial turf, etc. the Metrodome takes much more getting used to and is much more tailored to the kinds of teams the Twins build. The A's park is, except for its spaciousness and those deep foul territories, pretty generic.
On the flip side, the A's have deeper pitching than the Twins or the Yankees. If they manage a sweep, they will have kept rich Hardin fresh for the ALCS and that could be a problem. Their bullpen however is neither as deep nor as formidable as the Twins. They have a really good set-up man and a good but overrated closer. they have no shutdown men in the 6th and 7th to compare with a Reyes or a Rinclon or a Crain. The Yankees may be able to work their signature offensive strategy to better effect against the A's. Haren has been really bad for the last month, as has blanton (no longer in the rotation), but the Yankees have never hit Haren well. On the other hand, they have owned Zito and they are typically very good against a control pitcher like Loaiza. he's been getting everyone out in the 2nd half this year, but I am confident the yankees can handle him. so figurung they won't hit the H and H boys, will hit zito and Loaiza, and should be able to keep the a's relatively in check, I see a 6 to 7 game series either way.
Watching the A's-Twins, and I have seen both games, I have to say the A's have impressed me less with their talents than the Twins have impressed me with their inability ot hadle the playoff pressure at home, something I would never have imagined from them. In game one Castillo ran them right out of an early rally that might well ahve proven decisive. They could have given Santana an early lead and I have to believe that would have made him tougher and more careful. Today, the great CF Torri Hunter made played a routine single into an inside the park home run that won the game. Unbelievable!
Speaking of which I am a connosieur of bad baseball announcing. I collect egregious moments, replay them in my head, memorialize them for myself. Today, I heard a real doozy. It's the top of the seventh, 2 out, a man on first and Mark Kotsay at the plate. He hits, as I said, a sharp liner to center, a stock issue single, which would not have even tempted the runner, Ellis I believe, to test Hunter's arm by going to third. I don't know what possessed Hunter to try for the spectacular play, but he had to move a pretty good way to his right and instead of rounding the approach off to make sure he got behind the ball, he took the shortest distance between two points, which in the case was the most acute angle, so that when he failed to reach the spot where it landed, he had no way of preventing the ball from rocketing across the turf to the center field wall. not suspecting that Hunter would try such a reckless maneuver, the right-fielder was slow to back-up, allowing Kotsay to round the bases. Two runs scored to make it 4-2 in a game where every tally hiterto had been a nail biter. Well, the TV crew shows the play from every possible angle, tries to imagine what Hunter was thinking, speculates, not unintelligently, that he might have forgotten there were two outs, making a putout on the ball less urgent, and then inevitably describing how bad he must feel. As they wrapped up the play by play guy and the shitteater (Rick Sutcliffe) turn to Eric Karros for a last word of inside baseball player insight, an oxymoron I like to call jock-ocular-ity, and he proclaims, with all the orotund gravity he can muster, "Torri Hunter made a play that could prove quite detrimental to his team." Gee, you think! I beleive Karros was so impressed with himself for saying the word detrimental that he might have confused that with actually saying something. Even Sutcliffe was stunned into silence by this piece of vacuity. Did you hear about the color guy who was so stupid the other color guys noticed?
posted by joe valente | 3:30 PM
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