My travel to Philadelphia precluded me both from commenting on Game Two of the Yankees’ series, which they lost 5-3, and from seeing any of Thursday’s playoff action, a bit of a shock to the system given the two baseball-saturated days I had enjoyed before that. Some random bullet points about the postseason thus far:
Sadly, the Yankees did give the Angels extra outs on Wednesday night as they made three errors on infield grounders. Cano, who had already driven in the game’s first run, made an error in the bottom of the second inning, dropping a feed from Derek Jeter that wasn’t particularly well-executed on the Captain’s end, preventing an inning-ending forceout. Fortunately, the Yanks got out of that one batter later when Steve Finley grounded to Cano for a routine putout.
The second error was more damaging. With the Yanks leading 2-1, Orlando Cabrera chopped a ball to third base to lead off the bottom of the sixth. It was a routine play, but it glanced off the top of Alex Rodriguez’s glove, E-5. Though Wang got two outs on the next four pitches, Cabrera advanced to second on the second out, a grounder to third by Vlad Guerrero. Bengie Molina delivered an RBI single to centerfield, and the game was tied.
The third error was the coup de grâce. With Juan Rivera having already reached on an infield single, Finley laid down a sacrifice bunt that Wang fielded. Wang’s a very nimble glove man, but his throw pulled Cano, who was covering first, off the bag, and Finley was safe on the error. Another sac bunt moved the runners over to second and third. Chone Figgins lifted a soft fly ball to centerfield; as shallow as it was I was still surprised Rivera didn’t run on Bernie Williams’ arm, which is as weak as David Spade’s repertoire of jokes. No matter. Cabrera then drove in both runs with a single to center to give the Angels a 4-2 lead from which they never looked back.
Those two errors thus added up to three unearned runs off of Wang, who still had thrown only 85 pitches when Joe Torre gave him the hook after Cabrera’s hit. He deserved better.
• In marked contrast to the Yankees, the Angels brought the leather. Third baseman Chone Figgins had a beautiful play in the fifth. With two outs and Jason Giambi at third base and the score still 2-0, Hideki Matsui hit a line drive towards leftfield. Figgins made a fantastic diving, backhanded stop, then recovered with a strong one-hop throw that nailed Matsui to close the inning.
Starting pitcher John Lackey had two key defensive plays. In the first he speared a Jason Giambi comebacker while avoiding getting speared himself by the shards of Giambi’s shattered bat. In the sixth he covered first base on a Jorge Posada grounder to Darin Erstad, dropping to one knee to catch Erstad’s flip.
Lackey’s an ugly sumbitch, though, a real mouthbreather who could break a camera lens. Yikes.
• Again Mike Scioscia went with his veterans at Casey Kotchman’s expense. Garret Anderson took his second straight 0-for-4, but DH Juan Rivera, who should be playing leftfield, had a big night with that key infield single and a solo homer that put the Angels on the board in the fifth. Rivera has four of the Angels’ 13 hits thus far in the series.
But the bat that’s hurt the Yankees the most is Molina’s. Along with his game-tying single, Molina tacked on a solo homer off of Al Leiter in the eighth to extend the lead to 5-2. It was his second blast in as many nights.
Time was that Molina was a terrible hitter; back in 2002 he hit .245/.274 /.322 for the World Champions. He’s shown a great deal of improvement since then, and hit .295/.336/.446 on the year, with a .196 Positional Marginal Lineup Value rate, which means he contibuted .196 runs per game more than an average catcher would to an otherwise league-average lineup, fourth-best in the AL. Jorge Posada came in fifth at .180 PLMVr in what for him was an off year with the bat.
• The forecast here in New York City calls for rain over the next five days, which could make playing both Games Three and Four of the series tricky. The biggest hazard is for a Randy Johnson start to get washed away, something that would seriously dent their chances in the series. It’s going to be nervewracking to see what the umpires end up doing; I’d rather they hold off on starting the game if possible so as not to interrupt it once it begins, as any mid-game delay is what’s likely to cause the most trouble. for the 42-year-old.
• Elsewhere in the playoffs, the Red Sox find themselves playing an elimination game Friday afternoon. Matt Clement got destroyed in Game One, giving up five runs in the first inning and eight through just 3.1 innings, including three homers. The White Sox hit five in all that day, two by A.J. Pierzynski including a three-run shot in the first. Scott Podsednik, who didn’t hit a single homer during 568 regular-season plate appearances and slugged just .349, also added a three-run shot as Chicago won a 14-2 laugher.
The supposedly small-ball White Sox, who actually hit 199 homers on the year, fifth in the majors, liked the three-run plan so much that they used another one to win Wednesday’s Game Two. David Wells was sporting a 4-0 lead in the fifth inning when all hell broke loose. Two singles and a double cut the lead to 4-2 with one out, then Boston second baseman Tony Graffanino let Juan Uribe’s double-play ground ball through the five-hole, drawing inevitable though somewhat misplaced Bill Buckner comparisons. After Podsednik fouled out, Tadahito Iguchi, the White Sox 30-year-old rookie second baseman from Japan, jacked a three-run shot to give Chicago the lead. Mark Buehrle lasted seven innings, while 270-pound manchild Bobby Jenks closed out the last two innings to send Boston to the brink of elimination.
Of course, it would be premature to bury the Red Sox at this juncture, given how fresh their 3-0 comeback in last year’s ALCS should be in everybody’s memory. The Bosox are putting a brave face on this, and while it’s win-or-else time for them, I won’t believe they’re done until Jason Varitek’s severed head is being paraded around on Ozzie Guillen’s fungo bat, with Curt Schilling hogtied and roasting on a spit (I have weird visions this time of year, it’s true). I’ve been instructed to root for the Red Sox to extend the series in the interest of Mind Game sales, but I can’t really bring myself to do so. If I’m rooting for stories, it’s for a new plot, something besides Yanks-Red Sox III, that appeals to me for the ALCS.
• Several BP writers had climbed on a Padres bandwagon thanks to the Cardinals’ slow finish after clinching, Chris Carpenter’s struggles, and the off days after the first two games which would allow San Diego, which is shorthanded in the rotation, to bring back ace Jake Peavy on normal rest for Game Four.
The bandwagon crashed somewhere around the fifth inning of Tuesday’s game when Peavy, already trailing 4-0, have up a grand slam to Reggie Sanders. After the game it was revealed that Peavy had bruised a rib during the Padres’ clinching celebration last week, and that the rib likely cracked when he caught a spike on the rubber in the third inning. The Pads came back to bring the tying run to the plate with two outs in the ninth inning, but fell 8-5, but close doesn’t count, and after yesterday’s 6-2 loss, they’re staring at the place where an 82-80 division winner should rightly go in short order: home.
• I watched most of the first Astros-Braves game and was dumbfounded when Bobby Cox elected to intentionally walk Lance Berkman to set up a force play with two outs in the seventh and the Astros ahead 4-3. On deck was Morgan Ensberg, who hit .283/.388/.557 with 36 homers on the year as the centerpiece of an otherwise lousy offense. Ensberg had already driven in two runs with a single that broke a 1-1 tie in the third.
Ensberg promptly singled to left to drive in the run and expand the lead to 5-3. Cox then made another dubious decision, bringing in rookie Joey Devine to relieve starter Tim Hudson. Devine was the team’s first round pick in the 2005 draft, and he set an ignominious record by allowing grand slams in his first two big-league appearances back in August. In all, Devine threw just five innings for the Braves, but he made the playoff roster due to injury to fellow rookie Blaine Boyer and the suckitude of Danny Kolb, who started the season as the team’s closer but lost the job and finished with a 5.93 ERA.
Devine grazed Jason Lane with his second pitch; it was a cheap HBP, but it loaded the bases nonetheless. He battled Orlando Palmeiro to a 2-2 count before Palmeiro lofted a high fly ball deep to rightfield that was… caught by Jeff Francoeur at the warning track. In the end, that maneuver didn’t cost Cox, but it was still a dumb call, and his walk certainly did hurt the team. Just another example of how a manager who’s piloted his team to 14 straight playoff appearances has only one World Series ring to show for it, I guess.
• I missed all of the much-hyped John Smoltz-Roger Clemens matchup for Game Two. But nonetheless, I couldn’t help but think back to the last time the two squared off: Game Four of the 1999 World Series, a game I attended. In that one the Yanks, who came in leading the series 3-0, rallied for three runs off of Smoltz in the third inning, with Tino Martinez driving in two with a bases-loaded single. Clemens blanked the Braves for seven frames before putting a couple of men on with two outs in the eighth. He left to a thunderous ovation that literally shook the Stadium. Though one of the runs scored, the Yanks got it back in the bottom of the eighth, when Jim Leyritz pinch-hit a solo homer off of Terry Mulholland, who relieved Smoltz to start the inning. The Stadium kept shaking, and very soon 56,000 pfans were singing “New York, New York” in unison as the Yanks celebrated their second consecutive World Championship. Good times…