ALDS Game 1: Guess I Planted

When the Twins beat the Tigers last night, it ensured that there would be at least one team in the AL side of the playoff bracket that the Yankees had beaten in the postseason more recently than they had lost to.

Coincidentally, that was also the last postseason series that A-Rod had played in before being labeled a hopeless choke artist. He hit .421/.476/.737 in those four games back in 2004 and drove in three runs including one on a game-tying ground rule double in the 12th inning of Game 2 off of Joe Nathan. That happened at the Old Stadium but Alex will be looking to start anew across the street this evening.

At about 6:07, CC Sabathia will stride towards the mound and deliver the first postseason pitch ever thrown at the New Yankee Stadium. He will be trying to conquer some playoff demons of his own. The last non-regular season quality start he had in October was back in 2001.

In his four postseason outings since then, he's given up 20 ER and 27 hits in 19 IP while walking 17 and striking out 19. The lack of command is the most alarming trend for a pitcher who walks about 3 men per 9 IP in the regular season. Right or wrong, his season will be judged in large part by what he does from here on out. But both he and A-Rod can get that monkey off their backs with a good performance; the sooner the better.

The Twins send Brian Duensing to the mound tonight. You don't often see a team have to send an emergency starter to the mound in Game 1 of a playoff series, but that's exactly what's going down tonight. Deunsing is from Omaha and was actually a teammate of Joba Chamberlain's at the University of Nebraska.

He was drafted in the 3rd round of the 2005 draft (84th overall) and unlike his former teammate gradually worked his way up through the minor leagues, finally making his debut with the Twins this year. In addition to 15 relief appearances, Deunsing made 9 starts for the Twins, going 5-1 with a 2.73 ERA in 52.2 IP. Eight of those 9 starts came after August 22nd, so the sample might be small, but it's pretty recent. He's not a big "three true outcomes" kind of a guy since he doesn't walk or strikeout many and doesn't yield many home runs.

Amazingly, Duensing has never even been to New York City before. Welcome to the Big Apple, kid. Now here's the ball. You've only gotta hurl it against the best home run hitting team the Yankees have ever assembled with major gusts of wind whipping out towards the outfield in an already tight ballpark against a former Cy Young winner with an exhausted defense behind you.

Even given Sabathia's previous postseason struggles, and Deunsing's success in the starting role, it seems like deck is stacked towards the Yankees in a big way. If must-win Game 1, can actually exist, I think we are looking at it.

Coming off the 12th inning win last night, the Twins aren't going to be well rested. They're starting a rookie pitcher in what will be his 10th major league start. They crushed the Twins in the season series 7-0, although that didn't work out do well against the Indians back in '07. By virtue of having the best record in the AL, they earned the right to take on the weakest team coming into the playoffs and start on their homefield. Now it's time to take advantage.

Let's go Yanks.

Hungry for the union,
And so we kept on,
Singing and working, fighting 'til we got it,
And this is the big union song I guess I hear.

Union song, union battled,
All added up, won us all what we got now,
Union song, union battled,
All added up, won us all what we got now.

Thanks, But That Would Be A Complete Waste Of A Roster Spot...

Good morning, Fackers. Last night, a suddenly contrite and shockingly self-actualized Joba Chamberlain told reporters that he would "fold towels" if that's what it took to win with the Yankees during the postseason.

Aside from the towel quote that Sam Borden transcribed in his post, here is another exchange that caught my ear from the audio he provided.

Joba: You know, I didn't have fastball command at all. It could have been a lot worse than it was but it was just lack of fastball command from the get-go... Mechanics-wise, I wasn't great. My delivery wasn't great and the delivery affects your command in every aspect.

Kim Jones: You were so good your last time out. How do you explain the inconsistency?

Joba: If I had an explanation, I could probably fix, you know, quicker than things go. That's part of this game and that's why people go in and do bullpen work and look at watch video and figure out what you can do better.

So he did have a bad outing because the players on the other team were "great hitters" or "a couple pitches" that went wrong as he claimed in the past.

Perhaps this is only because the Royals are astoundingly bad at hitting, but more likely it's that someone with the Yankees organization finally explained to Mr. Chamberlain how the media works. They aren't your parents trying to get you to admit your shortcomings as a way to make you take responsibility for them. Reporters need to pair your performance with a reaction so they can write a story about it that conveys what happened to the fans and get the fuck out of there. That process doesn't work when you give up 7 runs and say everything is fine and dandy.

It turns out that Joba wasn't just a delusional headcase, unable to acknowledge his mistakes. He was a kid from Nebraska being forced to come to terms with his failures in front of cameras and reporters with microphones and was getting a little defensive.

Joba mostly dodged questions about about his place on the postseason roster but made clear with his offer to do the work of a clubhouse attendant that he's not going to pout about being used out of the bullpen. I personally think that he is still enough of an asset to warrant occupying a spot on the postseason roster. I'd prefer a hypothetical ALCS Game 4 start to be made by Chad Gaudin and backed by Alfredo Aceves but Joba is still a better option to pitch an inning or two out of the bullpen than Brian Bruney. Maybe this is wishful thinking, but Joba seems to find his stroke when the pressure builds; Bruney just walks a lot of guys.

Since today is an off day, it's conceivable that Girardi uses Chamberlain sometime during the last two games of the Tampa Bay series to get him an inning or two out of the 'pen if indeed they plan on bringing him along for the ALDS. It would give him 3 or 4 days of rest which should be enough to free him up for a limited number of pitches.

I'm a lot less worried about Chamberlain's role in the postseason than I was a week or two ago, though. He's going to be one the the least important players not named Eric Hinske on the postseason roster if he is even ultimately included on it. The Yanks have won 102 games this year in spite of Joba, not because of him.

Game 96: Nebraska

When the Yankees last saw Brett Anderson, he was a rookie with two Big League starts under his belt, and a record of 0-2. They touched him up for 5 runs over 5 1/3 in the game against Sabathia we mentioned in yesterday's preview and left him with a 5.89 ERA.

Since then, the 21 year old right hander has made 14 more starts, lowered his ERA to 4.25 and gone on a tear as of late. He hasn't allowed a run in his last three starts, starting with a complete game shutout in Boston on July 6th, and leaving off with 8 scoreless innings against the Angels last Sunday. I'm sure Brett's a nice kid, but it would be nice to bring him back to Earth.

Heading into the All-Star break Joba Chamberlain was coming off of three dreadful outings against the Mariners, Blue Jays and Angels. The one against the Halos was the most frustrating because he not only blew a seemingly comfortable four run run lead but did so by following up a fielding error by A-Rod by allowing a 3 run shot to Kendry Morales. However, he came out of the All-Star break strong with 6 2/3 innings of one run ball against the Tigers and earned himself his fifth victory on the season.

It's only one start, but Joe Girardi thinks the break might have helped Joba:

Girardi thought that the biggest difference in Chamberlain's return from his time in Nebraska -- when he said he spent most of the time chasing his 3-year-old son, Karter, around the family backyard -- was that he was able to repeat his delivery more consistently and get out of jams.

"I just got back to being myself," Chamberlain said. "It was fun to get away from baseball for four days. I think that was the best -- to get those four days to get my mind right and get back to having fun and the confidence and attitude I know I have."

We took a much-needed hiatus during the break, so I can kind of see where Joba is coming from. Hopefully he can carry that confidence into tonight's game and keep the Yanks rolling. In any event, look on the bright side, Joba. You're not in Nebraska anymore.

And Nebraska's so flat that I don't care,
I'll never use this map, have I made it clear,
I don't know jack, but I stay sincere,
Woah-oh my navigator's here.

And just because it's Friday (and it's in black & white), here is the Springsteen version, which Matt most likely would have chose had he wrote this post: