Game 66 Recap

[WE data via FanGraphs]

When the seventh inning began, the game was still in reach for the Yankees with the score sitting at 3-1. Andy Pettitte was facing Carlos Ruiz - who hadn't had a hit since last year's World Series, I believe - and gave up a double to start the inning. Wilson Valdez bunted Chooch over to third and Pettitte walked Shane Victorino (already 2-3 with a homer and another hard hit ball on the night) to get to Chase Utley. Andy proceeded to walk him as well to load the bases.

The game looked to be spiraling out of control for Pettitte and the Yanks but Placido Polanco hit a weak grounder to first that, unlike the one in fourth inning on Tuesday night, Mark Teixeira threw home to get the force. Ryan Howard then came to the plate and after starting him out with a ball, Pettitte got him to foul off a curve, then a change before striking him out swinging on a cutter down and in.

Pettitte and Cervelli both let out fistpumps after they wriggled out of the jam and for a moment it felt like the Yankees were about to come back. The offense, aside from Robinson Cano, had been largely dormant to that point, but the optimist in my thought they could pull together a rally and salvage a series victory.

Brett Gardner led off the bottom of the seventh and took four pitches, two of them balls and two of them strikes. He then fouled back three straight before ripping a line drive almost directly at Ryan Howard. Francisco Cervelli then worked another excellent at bat, running the count full before pulling a rocket down the left field line that only missed the foul pole by a couple of feet. He ultimately hit a sharp grounder to third that Placido Polanco snared and threw to first for the out. And it was all downhill from there. Kendrick fell behind Ramiro Pena 3-0 but got him to ground out to end the inning.

Both teams went down 1-2-3 in the eighth and Joba Chamberlain took the hill to start the ninth. He gave up a double, and single and a walk and was pulled from the game before he could record an out. Damaso Marte was next and allowed two walks and two sac flies but was removed despite left hander Raul Ibanez due up and the Yanks already down five runs. Chan Ho Park was summoned but only fanned the flames, allowing an RBI double to Ibanez. The Yanks only got out of the inning because Ibanez may or may not have been hit by a ball off the bat of Ben Francisco in the process of advancing to third.

All told, the Phils plated four runs in the ninth, and what was an insurmountable deficit heading into the frame was now essentially impossible to overcome. The Yanks went down in order anyway to complete the loss and give the Phillies the series victory.

After winning the first game of this set, the Yanks' offense in particular spit the bit in the final two. They managed only seven baserunners last night and six tonight, for a grand total of four runs - half of them driven in by Cano. That's just not enough support to give your pitching staff.

The second installment of the Subway Series starts tomorrow night and the Yanks welcome the Mets to the Bronx this time and Javy Vazquez squares off against Hisanori Takahashi.

Game 66: Old Man

Andy Pettitte takes the mound tonight for the first time since last Friday and he finds himself a year older, having completed his thirty eighth revolution of the sun on Tuesday. Originally, Pettitte was to square off against Jamie Moyer tonight, but the Phillies decided to shuffle their rotation earlier in the week, starting Moyer last night and pushing Kyle Kendrick to tonight.

That of course robs us of a whole host of paint by number story lines for the game, as at some point since his return to the Bronx more than three years ago, the veteran Pettitte has officially graduated to crafty lefty status, and veteran lefties don't come any craftier than the 47 year old Moyer.

Tempting as the Pettitte-Moyer comparisons may be, in truth the two have little in common other than their handedness and their relatively advanced ages. Pettitte reached the Majors as a 23 year old and virtually immediately presented himself as a front of the rotation workhorse. Moyer debuted at the same age, but scuttled through six seasons, four organizations, and several stints as a minor leaguer (including the majority of 1991, the entirety of 1992, and the start of 1993), before finally establishing himself as a 30 year old number five starter on the 1993 Orioles. As a point of comparison, by age 30 Pettitte had logged nearly 1,500 Major League innings and appeared in five World Series.

But as two of the three oldest starting pitchers in Major League Baseball and two of the three with more 3000 career innings pitched, the comparisons are inevitable. And as Pettitte's late career renaissance produces his best season in at least five years and a likely All-Star appearance, it's tempting to look at Moyer and see a guy who made his only All-Star appearance and had arguably his best season at age 40 in 2003 and has won 101 games since.

Of course, Pettitte's pitching arsenal is a little flashier than Moyer's slow-slower-slowest fastball, cutter, change routine, but it's tempting to look at Pettitte's repeated Houdini acts in pitching himself into and out of jams over the past few years and wonder why he couldn't continue to pull it off for another five or eight years. But considering that he's seriously contemplated retirement in each of the previous four off-seasons, a Moyer-esque forties just doesn't seem to be in the cards for Pettitte.

Be that as it may, of far greater to concern to Pettitte and the Yankees tonight is the rubber game against the Phillies. After improbably knocking around Roy Halladay on Tuesday night, the combination of a clunker from A.J. Burnett and Moyer's best Gandalf the White routine last night left the series tied at one. It seems as if Pettitte finds himself in more than his share of these rubber games, but he hasn't pitched a true rubber game since the season's opening series. He tossed six innings of one run ball in Boston that night, but didn't factor in the decision as the Yanks won in extra innings. He last start before that came at Yankee Stadium, in Game Six of the World Series, when he closed out the Phillies. Here's hoping he can pitch a lot like Moyer last night, stymie the Phillie bats, and close out a successful series against them once again.

Old man look at my life
I'm a lot like you were
Old man look at my life
I'm a lot like you were

[Song Notes: From his 1972 album Harvest, Neil Young wrote "Old Man" as a tribute to the old rancher who take care of his Broken Arrow Ranch in northern California. The studio recording featured both James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt]

-Lineups-

Yankees:
Alex Rodriguez is in the lineup for the second straight night and remains the DH. After catching for just the second time in a month, Jorge Posada gets the night off.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Brett Gardner LF
Francisco Cervelli C
Ramiro Pena 3B

LHP Andy Pettitte

Phillies:

Shane Victorino CF
Chase Utley 2B
Placido Polanco 3B
Ryan Howard 1B
Jayson Werth RF
Raul Ibanez LF
Ben Francisco DH
Carlos Ruiz C
Wilson Valdez SS

RHP Kyle Kendrick

Game 65: Slow Train Coming

I'm not sure what's more mindboggling, the fact that Jamie Moyer is still pitching in the Major Leagues at age 47 or that, ever since they've been tracking with PitchFX, his fastball has been clocked at speeds roughly between A.J. Burnett's curveball and slider.

In a lot of ways, Moyer is the inverse of what Burnett used to be. When he was with the Marlins, Burnett used to throw hard for the sake of throwing hard and lighting up the radar gun, strike a lot of guys out but also walk a ton of them too. He was a young, tall, menacing presence on the mound for a team in Southern Florida. Meanwhile, Moyer was already well over a decade into his MLB career, an average-sized and easy-going type, pitching in the opposite corner of the country, left handed, throwing in the low 80's and just trying to hit his spots.

Still, their level of performance was pretty similar. From 1999-2005, Burnett had an ERA+ of 111. Moyer? 110. They both struck out about twice as many as they walked, but Burnett was giving out four free passes per nine innings while Moyer was allowing just 2.2. Their WHIPs during that span were a very similar 1.284 and 1.258.

Before last Friday, Moyer and Burnett each had six wins and ERAs under 4.00 on the season. However, Moyer got absolutely hammered in Fenway, allowing nine runs in 1+ IP and raising his ERA a full run in the process.

Burnett hasn't exactly had a smooth go of it as of late, either. He's given up 13 runs in his past three starts against Cleveland, Toronto and Baltimore and hasn't turned in a so-called quality outing in over a month (the five shutout innings he threw in the rain-delayed affair against the Twins not withstading). After sporting an ERA under 2.00 through his first six starts, Burnett has tallied a 5.61 mark over his next seven, raising his overall tally to a much-higher-but-still-respectable 3.86. The lefty-heavy Phillies lineup - as anemic as it has been lately - isn't likely to provide much of a relief for A.J.

The same could be said for the Yankee hitters in relation to Moyer. The Bombers tagged Roy Halladay for three homers and six runs last night but are going to be seeing a wildly different look from the crafty lefty on the hill this evening. Look out boys, the slow (and slower) train is coming.

They say loose your inhibitions, follow your own ambitions
They talk about a life of brotherly love,

show me someone who knows how to live it,
There's slow, slow train coming up around the bend.

[Song Notes: Matt here with the song notes. "Slow Train Coming" is a Bob Dylan song, and was the title track to his controversial 1979 album of the same name. The album was Dylan's first release since announcing his conversion as a Born Again Christian, and most of the songs on the album have some element of spirituality to them. The above performance comes from the North Mississippi Allstars at the 2007 Newport Folk Festival.

As Jay detailed last year, it was at Newport where Dylan became embroiled in the first major controversy of his career, as he played his notorious first electric set at the 1965 Festival. The 2007 Festival was also distinctively un-folk, as the NMA set was sandwiched after the John Butler Trio, and before Gov't Mule and the Allman Brothers Band. Perhaps as a nod to the non-traditional line up that year, but certainly as a nod to Dylan, NMA wove a mini-Dylan set into their performance that day, playing Dylan's "Masters of War", "Oxford Town", and "Slow Train Coming"

I was at that show, and if I recall correctly, I was standing just to the right of the guy filming it (and no, I am not of the shirtless hippy dancers in the video). This was the second of seven NMA shows I saw in a ten day period that summer, and it was a very cool trip. Newport was great - right on the water, excellent views, a great line up. That was also the day Alex Rodriguez hit his 500th career HR.]

-Lineups-

Yankees: A-Rod comin', yo. After five games out of the lineup, A-Rod's groin or thigh or whatever injury has apparently healed up enough for him to return. He'll be eased back into action with an appearance at DH as Jorge Posada tries catching after being removed a bit early from Sunday's game. Kevin Russo is playing third base and hitting eighth but this is the closest the Yanks line up has been to Opening Day form in quite some time.

Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Jorge Posada C
Curtis Granderson CF
Kevin Russo 3B
Brett Gardner LF

Phillies:

Victorino CF
Polanco 3B
Utley 2B
Howard 1B
Werth RF
Ibanez LF

Dobbs, DH
Schneider C
Valdez SS

Game 64: I Don't Need No Doctor

When the Yankees and Phillies opened last year's World Series at Yankee Stadium, the pitching match up featured both clubs' aces, as CC Sabathia faced Cliff Lee. If you were to believe the rumors leading up to last year's trade deadline however, there was a good chance that Doc Halladay would have been the Game One pitcher for one of those two teams.

On July 7th last year, FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal floated a weather balloon about the Blue Jays shopping Roy Halladay, and the rumor mill instantaneously kicked into overdrive. Almost immediately the defending champion Phillies were pegged as the most likely landing spot, with the Yankees considered another strong match. As the July 31st deadline approached the Phillies continually balked at Toronto's asking price and instead moved to Plan B, scoring Cliff Lee from the Indians for a lesser package. Meanwhile, neither the Yankees nor the Red Sox blinked in a divisional game of chicken, and Halladay woke up on August 1st as Toronto property.

Toronto G.M. J.P. Ricciardi probably overplayed his hand in hanging onto Halladay. When he was dismissed following the season, Alex Anthopoulos took over and he immediately began shopping the Blue Jays' most valuable asset. On December 16th, Anthopoulos unloaded Doc, sending him to Philadelphia in a complex and confusing four team trade that netted Toronto virtually the same package Philadelphia had refused to move five months earlier. As part of the deal, Philly shipped Lee to Seattle.

So while Doc Halladay will take Lee's place in opposing Sabathia in tonight's interleague series opener, Lee once again finds himself sitting atop the auction block. He's been outstanding after spending the first month of the season on the DL, and with Seattle sporting the Majors' third worst record and Lee being a free agent at season's end, he's assured to be traded for the third time in a year by the time the July 31st deadline rolls around.

Predictably, the Yankees are once rumored as a prime landing spot for the prize of the trade market. And it just doesn't add up to me. Last year, there was a demonstrable need for a pitcher like Roy Halladay. Joba Chamberlain was struggling and facing an innings cap. Chien-Ming Wang was ineffective and out for the season following shoulder surgery. Sergio Mitre was plain ineffective. And even at that, the Yankees found the price for a year and two months of Roy Halladay to be too steep.

The Yankees are facing no such issues right now. Their starting rotation is arguably the best in baseball. Yes Javier Vazquez struggled early on, and yes Phil Hughes will face some innings restrictions later this year (albeit less restrictive than Chamberlain's last year), but one through five I'll take my chances with the current rotation. So why would the Yankees surrender a similar package now when the need is much less and when the target in question is under contract for only three months more?

Cliff Lee is amongst the game's best pitchers and he'll make a fine prize for someone by the end of July. While numerous Yankee fans have been salivating over his impending free agency since before this season even began, there just isn't the need for him now nor the justification for paying the likely asking price. The Yankees decided they didn't need Doc at last year's deadline, and they passed on him again when he was up for bid in the off-season. I'm hopeful they'll repeat that decision when it comes to Cliff Lee at this year's deadline. The Yankees know what's ailing them, and at present, it's not starting pitching.

I don't need no doctor
'Cause I know what's ailing me
I don't need no doctor, no, no
'Cause I know what's ailing me

[Song Notes: Originally recorded by Ray Charles, performances of this song by Charles are hard to come by, as we found when I tried to use it in a post about David Robertson last year. The version here comes from Humble Pie, the band with which Peter Frampton first rose to prominence. This performance comes from 1971, shortly after Frampton left the band. It's been covered by several other artists through the years, including blog favorite Gov't Mule, who began using it as a coda to another Humble Pie tune, "30 Days in the Hole".

It was also recorded by John Scofield on That's What I Say, his 2005 tribute album to Charles. I would have used a Scofield version here, which is very true to the original, except the Sco version prominently features John Mayer and I just couldn't bring myself to embed that here].

-Lineups-

Yankees:
Alex Rodriguez is once again out of the lineup, but is available to pinch hit and figures to return tomorrow. Jorge Posada returns to DHing after catching Sunday. Sergio Mitre has been placed on the DL with an oblique injury; Boone Logan has been recalled.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Jorge Posada DH
Brett Gardner LF
Francisco Cervelli C
Ramiro Pena 3B

LHP CC Sabathia

Phillies:

Shane Victorino CF
Chase Utley 2B
Placido Polanco 3B
Ryan Howard 1B
Jayson Werth RF
Raul Ibanez LF
Ben Francisco DH
Juan Castro DH
Carlos Ruiz C

Past World Series Rematches

2010 marks the fourteenth season of interleague play, and the seventh time in those fourteen years that the Yankees are the reigning American League champions. When the Yankees and Phillies start their three game interleague series tonight, it'll be the fifth time in those seven years that the Yankees face their opponent from the previous Fall Classic.

In 1997, the inaugural year of interleague play, the Yankees hosted Atlanta from June 30th through July 2nd. Just as they had in the previous year's World Series, the Braves took two of the three games played in the Bronx. All three games were pitchers' duels, with the Braves taking games two and three with scores of 3-1 and 2-0 respectively, while the lone Yankee win was a ten inning 1-0 victory in the opener.

Three years later the two clubs met in Atlanta, in a rematch of the 1999 World Series. This time the Yanks took the series, winning two of the three games. This series was far more offensive than the 1997 rematch, as each of the three games matched or exceeded the seven total runs from '97 series. The Yanks took the opener 5-2, dropped the middle 7-11, and took the rubber match 7-6.

The six Subway Series games between the Yankees and Mets in 2001 were one more than number of games the teams played in the 2000 World Series. The Yankees took the first two at Shea in mid-June before dropping the series finale. Two and half weeks later, they met again at Yankee Stadium. Once again the Yanks took the opener, then dropped the middle game, before winning the series finale.

2002 was the last time the Yankees played an interleague series against the previous year's World Series opponent, as they hosted the Diamondbacks from June 10th through 12th. In the series opener, New York did what they couldn't do the previous fall: beat Randy Johnson. The Big Unit surrendered five runs through seven and two thirds, two of them coming on the home run hit by Marcus Thames in his first Major League at bat. The Yankees won again the following day, behind the pitching of David Wells, who had walked away from a handshake deal with the Snakes to rejoin the Yankees the previous off-season. The Dbacks avoided the sweep in the finale, as Byung-Hun Kim exacted some measure of redemption, pitching two scoreless innings for the save and fanning Bernie Williams, Jason Giambi, and Jorge Posada in working a flawless eighth inning.

Over those four years, the Yankees went 9-6 in interleague World Series rematches, scoring 65 runs and allowing 62. They dropped two of three to Philadelphia in an interleague series last Memorial Day weekend, but are 11-10 overall against Philly in seven interleague series.

Baseball Loses Another HoFer

Less than forty eight hours after the passing of Ernie Harwell, baseball has lost another Hall of Famer, as former Phillies ace Robin Roberts died this morning at 83.

At just 23 years old, Roberts was already in his third Big League season when he had a breakout year for the 1950 Phillies. The Whiz Kids emerged atop a tight N.L. Pennant race, thanks in no small part to Roberts starting three times in the season's final five days (h/t BLS). Roberts started and won the clincher against the Dodgers on the season's final day, going the full 10 innings and allowing just one run.

The Phillies went on to be swept by the Yankees in the World Series, a meeting we recapped in two parts prior to last year's Fall Classic. Due to his heavy workload down the stretch, Roberts was unavailable to start the opener, but came back to start Game Two, yet another start on short rest. In a forgotten pitcher's duel, both Roberts and the Yankees' Allie Reynolds held their opponents to a single run through nine. Roberts finally buckled in the tenth, allowing a solo shot to Joe DiMaggio. Two days later, Roberts returned with an inning of scoreless relief, but it was too late, as the Yankees swept the series.

That 1950 season served as a springboard for Roberts, who remained one of the NL's top starters for the remainder of decade. He led the NL in wins every year from 1952 through '55, starts from '50 through '55, complete games from '52 through '56, innings pitched from '51 through '55, and strikeouts in '53 and '54. He was an All-Star from 1950 through '56, and in the days before the Cy Young Award, finished in the top seven in MVP voting five times.

Roberts began to decline in the late fifties, and after a dreadful 1961 season, the Phillies sold him to the Yankees. Roberts pitched well for the Yankees in Spring Training, but the team elected to go with the rookie Jim Bouton rather than the 35 year old Roberts. He never appeared in a game for the Yanks and was granted his release in May. He immediately latched on with the Orioles, and enjoyed a bit of a career renaissance, lasting five more seasons with the O's, Astros, and Cubs. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1976.

The Phillies retired Roberts' number 36 during a Spring Training game in 1962, while Roberts was with the Yankees. It was the first number retired by the Phillies and the first time in history an active player's number was retired by his former team. The Phillies will remember Roberts for the remainder of this season with a commemorative patch on their jersey and by hanging his uniform in the dugout during games.

Friday Afternoon Link Party

How convenient, I only sleep with supermodels...

The Steinbrenners aren't the only ones with Yankee affiliations involved with thoroughbred horse racing. Joe Torre owns a horse called Homeboykris (I'm guessing he didn't name it) that has a good chance of running in the Kentucky Derby.

Over at the NYT bats blog, Sean Forman took a look at marathon games that used lots of pitchers (the Mets/Cardinals epic had 19, the second most since 1952).

Tonight, NYY Stadium Insider and Bronx Goblin are putting together a outing at Finnerty's on 2nd Ave between 13th ad 14th for the Yankees game. They've got some excellent specials so if you are in the city tonight and don't have plans, check it out.

Although the series with the A's is over, it's still worth checking out this piece by Jack Curry about Billy Beane and the expectations in Oakland.

Via BBTF, a 12 year old girl from Plant City, Florida threw back to back perfect games in Little League (yes, against the boys). Chelsea Baker primarily relies on her fastball now, but also learned a knuckleball from fellow Plant City resident Joe Niekro before he passed away in 2006. The knuckler could be her ticket to making it to the higher levels of the game, a la Eri Yoshida.

Carson Cistulli previews a host of games scheduled for this weekend at FanGraphs.

In honor of Earth Day yesterday, Steve Slowinski from DRays Bay collected a few ways that you can enjoy baseball more sustainably. My personal suggestion: don't start drinking hard liquor until the third inning.

Remember when the umpires weren't granting hitters time in the Yanks vs. Red Sox series earlier this year? Well they did it to the Rays too and Joe Maddon isn't happy.

Max Marchi ran down platoon splits by pitch type over at the Hardball Times.

The musically-named AAA affiliate of the Brewers - the Nashville Sound - is having Roy Orbison Night tonight. "The first 1.000 fans through the turnstiles will receive free Roy sunglasses and a case of unrequited heartache". (h/t Iracane on GReader)

Another explanation of Bill James disease, this time from the excellent Rogue's Baseball Index.

Late Monday night, Meech from The Fightins put out a call for help, asking if anyone had DVR'd the Phillies game on ESPN. The reason? There was some accidental nudity on the broadcast (obviously NSFW because of the bewbs).

Speaking of the Phils, Roy Halladay is off to an almost identical start to the one that Cliff Lee had for them last year, Bill Baer of Crashburn Alley takes a closer look at Doc.

Dave Allen at FanGraphs looks at how Ben Sheets shifts on the rubber and throws his pitches to right handed and left handed batters from distinctly different spots. There was a Yankee reliever who used this approach in the past couple years but I can't recall who it is now.

Over at the Hardball Times, Pat Andriola did a good job of rounding up some opinions on Bryce Harper's supposed character issues. Dave Cameron, Tom Tango, Rob Neyer and Keith Law all weigh in on Kevin Goldstein's initial take.

This is non-baseball, but the Giants selected pass rushing defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul with the 15th pick of the NFL Draft last night and are apparently not going to be trading Osi Umenyiora. Is Jerry Reese saying this to salvage some trade value for Osi? Is this like the Yankees stocking their farm system with catching prospects or Matt Millen habitually picked wide receivers for the Lions. Obviously somewhere in between, but the Giants now have 5 good defensive ends. It doesn't take a geometer to figure out that's probably a bit excessive.

Hang in there. Only a couple hours left.

Did Philly Really Need Roy Halladay?

Yesterday one of the biggest, most complex, and - to me at least - confusing trades of the past several years was finally completed. The Phillies sent Cliff Lee, who they acquired at last summer's deadline for a package of prospects after they and Toronto couldn't agree on a package for Roy Halladay, to the Mariners for a package of prospects. Philly then sent a package of their own prospects - one nearly identical to the one they balked at less than five months ago - to Toronto for Roy Halladay and $6M. Then, Toronto took one of the minor leaguers they received from Philly, Michael Taylor, and flipped him to Oakland for Brett Wallace, who was the centerpiece of the package Oakland received for Matt Holiday just five days before Philly pulled the trigger on the first Cliff Lee deal. Got all that?

What confuses me isn't keeping all the players and parties straight. It's that I can't figure out what Philly is thinking here. Don't get me wrong, the Phillies hauled in the unquestioned best player amongst the nine on the move in this deal. But I don't get why they're willing to pay virtually the same price for Halladay now that they refused to pay in July, and to do it for a half a year less of his services.

Further, I can't figure out why they would pay that cost now, essentially decimating their farm system, to make an incremental upgrade from a top ten pitcher in Cliff Lee to a top five pitcher in Halladay, especially when they were universally lauded for making a smart deal for Lee when the Halladay price was too high five months ago. Lee is more than a year younger, has 1,060 fewer professional innings on his odometer, is half as expensive as Halladay in 2010, and they had to commit a $20M per year extension to Halladay that will carry him through his age 36 or age 37 season.

But let's back up the train a bit. In July, Toronto was apparently asking Philadelphia for J.A. Happ, Dominic Brown, and Kyle Drabek - son of former Yankee pitcher Doug Drabek. The Phils continually balked at that request, deeming Drabek untouchable and were willing to offer Carlos Carrasco instead. When a Halladay deal couldn't be reached Philly turned to Cleveland, and were able to bring in Lee for Carrasco, Jason Donald, Jason Knapp, and Lou Marson. The Lee trade allowed them to keep all the proposed chips from the Halladay deal but cost them their number 2, 3, 4, and 10 prospects according to Baseball America.

Less than five months later Philly chose to make the deal for Halladay, surrendering Drabek, as well as Michael Taylor in place of Brown and Travis D'Arnaud in place of Happ. In surrending this package they give up their number 5, 6, and 7 prospects, but did get to keep their top prospect in Brown, as well as Happ, who has proven himself capable of pitching at the Major League level.

In order to afford Halladay, and to restock their beleaguered farm system, Philly then shipped the younger, less used, less expensive Lee to the Mariners for Phillippe Aumont, Tyson Gillies, and Juan Ramirez. Aumont ranked as Seattle's third best prospect, Ramirez as their fifth. Gillies didn't rank, though he did profile as their system's top base runner and best outfield arm.

Then just for good measure, Toronto flipped Taylor to Oakland for third baseman Brett Wallace. Hypothetically, if not for the Halladay deal, Philly could have made the same trade with Oakland and received Wallace, which in turn may have prevented them from committing three years and $19M to 34 year old - and declining - Placido Polanco, who has made just 43 appearances at the hot corner over the past seven seasons. Making that hypothetical trade and saving the Polanco money might have allowed them to use that money and the money they'll be paying Halladay towards an extension for Lee.

I don't know that this was bad a series of trades for Philadelphia, but I'm unsure that they were necessary. I suppose the regime change in Toronto had something to do with it. And I suppose Seattle's apparent willingness to go all in for 2010 played a role in the decisions as well. But it boils down to Philly trading seven of their top ten prospects, and six of their top seven, to get Halladay, two of Seattle's top ten prospects, a third Seattle prospect, and $6M - or enough to cover slightly more than 75% of the 2010 salary difference between Halladay and Lee.

Now not all prospects are the same and not all systems are created equal. Perhaps the package Philly received from Seattle is comparable to what they gave up for Lee in the first place. But it doesn't appear to be. Instead, they've given up seven of their own guys - guys who they drafted and developed and know very well - to get a pitcher who's only slightly better than the one they gave had and three other prospects about whom they don't know nearly as much. It just doesn't add up to me.

Some Shameless Self-Promotion

Our friend at Simon on Sports has been conducting a feature called "Blogging the Offseason" in which he asks a blogger from each team ten or so questions about the issues facing their respective organizations this winter.

Today, he's covering the World Series participants and talked to Meech from The Fightins and Mike from River Ave. Blues. Last and probably least, he asked some know-nothing from another Yankees blog to chip in with his two cents.

In other news, the folks over at the always funny It Is High, It Is Far, It is... Caught are conducting a poll to determine the Yankee Blog of the Decade. For one reason or another, despite only existing for about a year, we are actually in third place. If you are so inclined, head over to the left hand margin of their site and show your support. Since you can select multiple blogs, be sure to kick some votes towards RAB and IIATMS as well since they are severely underrepresented as of right now. By the time you're done, the weekend will almost be here.

This Never Would Have Happened If Posada Was Driving

The only way this could be a better metaphor for Game 5 of the World Series is if it happened in front of McFadden's (h/t BBTF):

"[Molina] was heading north on River Road with two other passengers to pick up his belongings at the stadium when he smelled something burning," said Edgewater Fire Chief Joe Chevalier. "When he saw smoke, he pulled over at the Mariner and someone from the marina came over with an extinguisher but it was no use."

Shortly after, Chevalier arrived on the scene to find the SUV fully engulfed in flames just inside the entrance to the Edgewater Mariner.

Let's try that again:

"[Molina] was [starting in Game 5 of the World Series] for [the Yankees] to pick up [their 27th Championship] at [Citizen's Bank Park] when he smelled something burning," said [Yankees pitching coach Dave Eiland]. "When he saw smoke, he [made a mound visit] and someone from the [dugout] came over with an extinguisher but it was no use."

Shortly after, [Joe Girardi] arrived on the scene to find [A.J. Burnett] fully engulfed in flames just inside the entrance to the [third inning].

In the latter scenario, it would have been Chase Utley that started the blaze.

Game Six In Three And A Half Minutes

The clinching game of the World Series as you've never seen it before (h/t Bronx Banter):

This was shot and compiled by photographer Robert Caplin and here is what he had to do to put it together:

This was probably one of the most tiring and time-consuming processes I've undertaken with still-photography. I arrived at Yankees Stadium around 3PM prior to the game and began scouting out locations for the time-lapse. The process itself took many hours and required me to rush around the monstrous stadium - scaling the upper decks, zipping back and forth from the outfield to the infield, and inside and out. Finally, I arrived home around 1:30AM and began downloading to my computer the 125GB (12,000 images) of RAW footage I'd collected.

After properly organizing all the files, I set my computer to stitch and render all the still images together in a low-resolution format just so I could see if the time-lapse actually worked. Exhausted, I finally got to bed around 5:30 AM while my computer rendered the files down. Given that the time-lapse consisted only of still images and not video, the files were 3-4 times the size of HD video! Needless to say, my computer spent a good chunk of time rendering all the data.

The next morning, I woke up early to check out what I'd shot, and was truly excited by what I saw; the already visually interesting images came to life in a surreal way.

Surreal, indeed. The game is already preserved through video (the TV broadcast) and still images (taken by the countless other photographers in attendance) but thankfully Caplin took the time and effort to capture the events of that night in a unique (and pretty awesome) way.


Mr. Caplin was also kind enough to answer some questions about the process for us via email:

FY: What inspired you to try something that was so time-consuming and ambitious (and hit or miss)?

Caplin: I've been a photographer for the NY Times and other clients for 5 years and I've realized what makes photography stand apart from the rest is trying something different. I was in a unique situation where I had no obligations, so if I failed, it wouldn't have been the biggest deal, and I'd still have had a learning experience.


FY: Was this the first live event you attempted to do this at?

Caplin: This was my first live event attempt.


FY: What is the piece of music that you used called? Is there a reason you chose that one specifically?

Caplin: It's Chopin's Waltz #5, I chose it because I felt it worked perfectly with the pace of the time-lapse. I also felt the classical nature of the music would be widely accepted by viewers. Last thing I'd want to do is turn off the audience by music choice.


FY: How did you pick the places that you set up? Was the foot traffic a problem?

Caplin: I chose on the fly where to place the cameras... I tried to find locations that werent too in the way, at the same time trying to find cool compositions and angles that showed a lot of moving parts.


FY: How many memory cards did you go through?

Caplin: I went through 7 8GB cards and 2 16GB cards.

Thanks a million for answering our questions, Robert.

You can find more of Mr. Caplin's work (much of which is New York City-centric) at his blog.

The Coronation

The Yankees had been tortured by the own high expectations for 9 long years. Not by the supposed "Championship or Bust" mantra that for the most part is wildly overplayed, as much as their actions as a franchise. Even if they had pretended like they didn't care that much about winning, it would have been painfully apparent that they did.

Since 2000, the Yankees have spent over $1.5B on player's salaries, let alone the amount paid to coaches, training staff, front office personnel, scouts, minor league operations and countless other employees singularly dedicated to assembling the best baseball team possible. And last night, it's seemed like it was all worth it.

If the last nine years have taught us anything, it's that you can't buy championships (despite the common Yankee-hater refrain). You can certainly try. You can buy extended streaks of regular season success. You can come pretty close to buying a playoff berth. But you still have to run the gauntlet of a three-tiered playoff system which was a lot harder than it seemed back when Paul O'Neill, Tino Martinez, David Cone, Bernie Williams & Co. were still wearing Pinstripes.

This year, it seemed easy again.

The Yankees cruised through the second half of the season, didn't face elimination once in the playoffs, and the Phillies didn't have the tying run on base at any point after the third inning last night. After Damaso Marte impossibly mowed down Chase Utley to end the 7th inning and Ryan Howard to begin the 8th with 2 strikeouts six pitches, we could relax and savor the moment.

Last night was a coronation of the a team who, despite what Jimmy Rollins wants you to think, was the best team in baseball for most of this year by a considerable margin. It was validation of the last 9 years of aggressive free agent spending and high-upside drafting.

It was a celebration for Hideki Matsui and A-Rod and Sabathia and Burnett and Cano who will never have the fact that they haven't won a World Series held against them again. And probably just as sweet for the guys who played supplemental roles and ended up in the right place at the right time. It was a culmination for Jeter, Pettitte, Posada and Rivera who amazingly won a 5th title together 9 years after their last. This is as good as it gets.

We were all in vastly different places in our lives 9 years ago. I was a 16 year old kid who was a Yankee fan but didn't really know that much about baseball. I couldn't have told you what OPS meant or who Bill James was. The Yankees had just won 4 out of 5 years and if you had listed the players the Yanks were going to acquire and told me it would take until now to win again, I would have thought you were batshit insane.

But it did take that long. Which makes it that much sweeter.

World Series Game 6: Bring It On Home

Tonight the World Series shifts back to Yankee Stadium. This was a position that pretty much any Yankee fan would have signed up for when the season began, at any point during the season, when the playoffs began, at any point during the playoffs, when the World Series began or anytime before the Yankees won Games 1, 2, 3 or possibly 4. To paraphrase Louis C.K., "How quickly the World owes us something that we didn't know was going to exist 3 days ago".

Nevertheless it's feels like a bit of a let down to be in this position after taking three straight from the Phillies and having the tying run at the plate in the 9th inning of Game 5. Going to sleep Sunday night and then sitting through an off day filled with rehashing and second guessing and going to sleep again last night and waiting another 12-13-14 hours after you got up this morning was pretty excruciating. But that's almost over now.

There's a good chance that the Yankees are going to do something tonight that you're going to remember for as long as you live. There's also a decent chance that the Phillies are going to ruin our plans and take hundreds of years off our collective lives with a Game 7. Either way, don't forget that we are in a better position than fans of any other team in baseball right now. Twenty-eight teams have already packed up their lockers for the season and the other one not named "The Yankees" is starting Pedro Martinez tonight and praying their season doesn't end before they get a shot at the World Series.

Martinez wasn't great in Game 2, but he was a lot better than most (objective) people expected him to be. Had Charlie Manuel pulled him at the beginning of the 6th inning like most armchair skippers would have, Pedro would have had more strikeouts (8) than baserunners (7). Had Hideki Matsui not taken his 9 iron to a 1-2 curveball with two outs in the 6th, it might have been even better than that.

Pedro has had an unbelievable career and has put up statistics that would be remarkable even if they weren't accumulated during one of the greatest offensive eras of all-time. It's very possible that we see his very last outing this evening; only fitting that would be on the biggest of stages: At Yankee Stadium, in a possible deciding game of the World Series against the best offense in baseball. Will Pedro squeeze one more memorable performance out of his magic right arm? I sure hope not, but I wouldn't bet against it.

For the third time in his career, Andy Pettitte takes the mound in Game 6 of a World Series. Neither of those turned out particularly well, but as they say, the third time is a charm. Ben K. at River Ave. Blues examined all 4 of the Game 6's Pettitte has started in his career (World Series or ALCS) and the results aren't too inspiring, save for the most recent one.

If you are the superstitious type, which we all are at this point in the postseason to some extent, this next part probably won't provide you with much comfort. Pettitte has started two World Series-clinching games, but both have been on the road: Game 4 at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego in 1998 and Game 5 at Shea Stadium in 2000. But who better to be the first to do it at the New Yankee Stadium?

Also at River Ave. Blues today, Mike broke down how Pettitte rebounded from the high stress starts he has made this season so as to guess how he might fare on short rest tonight. Andy's numbers are pretty close to his season marks, so that should be of some comfort to those like me who are somewhat nervous about a 37 year old on three days rest.

So here were are. Back in the Bronx and back on the doorstep of baseball glory; hopefully only 17 half innings away from the ultimate prize. A whole season of observation and dedication and subsequent analysis - and nine more of waiting - all piled up behind us, ready to be expunged with elation.

Come on boys, it's time to bring it on home.

Let's go Yanks.

Baby, baby
I'm gonna bring it on home to you.
I've got my ticket, I've got that load.
Got up, gone higher, all aboard.
Take my seat, right way back.
Watch this train roll down the track.
I'm gonna bring it on home, bring it on home to you.
Watch out, watch out, man move.
Try to tell you baby, what you tryin' to do?

Too Bad I'm Not A Parent...

Or else I could teach my children the virtues of hating the Yankees (h/t Joe P):

My mom, Michele, is one of the nicest people in the world (I'm admittedly a bit biased, but this is true). She finds the good in everyone. Well, just about everyone. She cannot stand the New York Yankees! This does not make my mom unique. Throughout the Major League Baseball playoffs, I have encountered only one person who wants the Yankees to win the World Series.

With an tiny niche fanbase like the one the Yankees have, I find this statement to be totally believable.

The Yankees have the highest payroll every year. This year their payroll is nearly 50% higher than the 2nd highest payroll (the New York Mets)! They play in a stadium built two years ago [sic] for more than one billion dollars. During the offseason, the Yankees signed C.C. Sabbathia [sic], A.J. Burnett, and Marx [sic] Teixeira for nearly half a billion dollars in long-term contracts. It's clear that rooting for the Yankees is roughly the same as cheering for the bully down the street to bloody another nose.

Except that bully hasn't won a fight in 9 years. It's clear that picking on a pop psychology piece for baseball inaccuracies is like picking on a baseball piece for trying to use pop psychology. But that doesn't make it any less enjoyable.

But how should we tell our children to hate the Yankees?

"I hate the Yankees" does little to teach our children lessons about hope, persistence, and teamwork. We ought to focus on the positive characteristics of the underdog, rather than the negative qualities about the evil Yankees. Below are five suggestions for what parents can say to kids about the Yankees while staying away from negativity:

Get your notepads ready:

1) "The Twins never quit, even though they don't have the same amount of money to spend on players as the Yankees." (a message about doing the best with what one has)

Or about making excuses.

3) "Even though the Yankees make a lot of money, watch their players. They hustle, encourage each other, and play great baseball. To win, a team must hit, field, and pitch better than their opponent." (a message that money doesn't get hits, and that substance wins over style)

Except the players on the Yankees make a lot of money because they play great baseball, not despite the fact.

4) "Notice how focused all of the players in the World Series are on each play." (a message about concentration, and how all players can work on this skill)

"But not the Yankees who are only calculating how much money they are making with each passing out".

5) If all else fails, remind your kids that the Phillies won the World Series in 2008 and that the Yankees have not won a championship since 2000.

An important lesson in sportsmanship: It's not whether you win or lose... it's whether you win or lose.

Please, folks, educate your children about the virtues of hating the Yankees. Their fragile little brains can't handle the realities of "free agency", the "size of the market they play in", or " the desire to win being more important than making profit on a sports franchise".

The Last Off Night Before The Offseason

First and foremost, huge congrats to a good friend of the blog, Craig Calcaterra.

After graduating from Blogspot to The Hardball Times and leveraging that into a part-time gig at NBC Sports, the Shyster is quitting his day job and moving to NBC Sports full-time. Like many others, I found Shysterball through Rob Neyer and have enjoyed his work for a long time. A while back, I used him as an example of the kind of blogger we would benefit by paying a small monthly fee to, in order free him from the legal world and make his content even better. Fortunately for us, NBC has agreed to foot that bill, so Craig gets the cash and we get the pleasure of reading a talented full-time writer for free.

So from one bald baseball blogger to another, well done, sir.

=====

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled linkaround.

Barring any sort of foul weather, this will be the last off night of the season. Of course, off nights will be in no short supply soon enough, but this is the last one where we are going to have anything immediate to look forward to for a very long time.

If the series goes 7 games, the Yankees will have played 16 games in 32 days since the end of the regular season. As Joel Sherman points out today, the Yankees didn't have their 16th day off during the regular season until after their 147th game. And that includes the All-Star break. It's obviously not the intention of Major League Baseball to ween us off our dependence on the game with the spacing of the schedule (that would be to make as much money as possible) but it's kind that it works out that way.

It's official, Andy Pettitte will start Game 6. That's not much of surprise but the fact that Joe Girardi is apparently toying with the idea of starting Jerry Hairston Jr. in RF certainly is.

Guess who disagrees with the decision to start Burnett on 3 days rest? I'm not going to print his name because he's an admitted compulsive self-Googler.

A list of World Series contributions measured in WPA. Could there possibly be a batter more valuable than Chase Utley? Yes and another Yankee isn't far behind. (via Joe P.)

Rob Neyer wonders if the Yankees' desire to get younger means we're seeing last of Hideki Matsui in Pinstripes. David Pinto speculates that the Yankees might let go of Matsui and Johnny Damon in favor of signing Matt Holliday.

Am I the only one fundamentally opposed to Matt Holliday? I was not high on his prospects at the beginning of this year, and if you'll recall, he wasn't all that great in 400 PAs in Oakland before getting dealt to St. Louis. Yankee Stadium is certainly a hitter's park but he has hit 77% of his career home runs between the left foul pole and center field. That's not where you're going find the easy taters in the Bronx. Oh and Scott Boras is his agent. No thanks.

Dan Levy at the Sporting Blog looks at Chase Utley's chances of winning the World Series MVP if the Phillies lose. Follow the discussion over here. Sean Forman (also of Baseball-Reference) writes a piece for the Bats Blog dissecting Utley's place in World Series history from several different angles.

It looks like Shane Victorino is going to start in Game 6 after his Paul Pierce moment last night. Props to commenter Steve who gave Shane a new nickname today "The cryin' Hawaiian." Jack Moore at FanGraphs tries to determine how much it would hurt (no pun intended!) the Phillies if he had to sit out.

Not an article, but just wanted to point out that Cliff Lee's postseason ERA is no longer lower than Mariano Rivera's and probably never will be again. Ha.

Brett Myers was totally joking with Cole Hamels about saying he quit. I, however, refuse to retract the response I wrote for Hamels earlier.

And finally, on the lighter side of things, Joe Posnanski continues his ABC series which I hope will go on as long as there are mindbendingly stupid advertisements for shitty light beer being shoved down our throats.

Clash Of The Cretins

I didn't know there was a "Daily Show Sports Team", but this is awesome. (h/t Big League Stew)


I'm not sure what they had to tell those people to get them to do so much dumb shit in front of camera (presumably) for free, but it's probably the same kind of spiel that gets girls to take their shirts off for "Girls Gone Wild" or people to interact with Sasha Baron Cohen for Ali G., Bruno or Borat. Apparently it applies to sports as well.

Step 1: Assemble a camera crew. Step 2: Travel to the parking lots of the nearest professional sports arena (preferably football). Step 3: Say you are taping for some sort of a TV show/news program/documentary and, Step 4: Ask a bunch of drunken, idiotic sports fans how much they hate the opposing team. Magic!

Come to think of it, couple this with what we learned in the last post and a small amount of venture capital, and I think we'd have enough content to keep this site running through the end of football season.

We Didn't Think It Would Be That Easy, Did We?

Good morning, Fackers. That's not one of you on the left with your head down, is it? If it is, we'll just assume that the glass of white wine is there because your girlfriend got up to go to the bathroom. Either way, cheer up. It was a tough loss but let's just take a deep breath.

It's funny how no one picked the Yankees to sweep this series (well, except Iracane) but we still feel like they should win every time they play, isn't it?

The same thing happened against the Angels in the ALCS. We nodded along with all the predictions saying how the series could be "one for the ages" and knew the Halos were a formidable foe, but were still shocked when Vlad Guerrero hit that homer off of Andy Pettitte and when Nick Swisher popped out to end Game 5 (another miserable A.J. Burnett outing with an unlikely comeback) against Brian Fuentes. Similarly, we applauded the notion that the Fall Classic featured the two best teams in baseball and assumed it would be a great series. Unfortunately, for the series to be great, both teams have to lose some games.

Did anyone assume that we were going to take all three games in Philly? I highly doubt it, but after the Bombers took the first two, our expectations completely changed.

After the top half of the first inning, it was easy to imagine Cliff Lee finally realizing that he was human and A.J. Burnett pitching well enough to beat him. Even when Derek Jeter came to the plate in the 9th, it was hard not to picture him poking a hit through the infield and bringing the go-ahead run to the plate with no one out.

Unfortunately, both of those fantasies were squashed almost immediately by a homer off the bat of Chase Utley and a double play turned by he and Jimmy Rollins, respectively.

As for Burnett, he threw 56 pitches and exactly half of them were strikes. He faced 15 batters but retired only 6. He walked twice as many men (4) as he struck out (2). IIATMS ran down the gory details of his outing via pitch f/x. Judging by the charts, it becomes even more apparent that Burnett had all the accuracy and precision of a greased up fire hose.

There will surely be the temptation to point to the fact that he only had three days of rest as the reason his command was so poor but we've seen this plenty of times from Burnett on 4 and even 5 days of rest. In fact, we just saw it early in Game 5 in Anaheim. As much as we don't want to realize it, his dominant performance in Game 2 of the series was about as likely as his meltdown in Game 5.

But the Yankees knew what they signed up for when they inked Burnett to that $82.5M deal: Incredible stuff with so-so command. If they wanted a guy who they thought could be consistently average all the time, they would have went after Derek Lowe instead. So we take the good with the bad and move on.

World Series Game 5: So Close, So Far Away

For the first time in almost one month, the Yankees will play three games on three consecutive days. We've become so used to having to wait in between games that what is the standard during the regular season - the three game series - now feels a little strange.

Those last three straight games were of course the final trio of the regular season down in Tampa Bay. Since then, the Yanks have played just 13 times in 29 days. They've won 10 of those games but the end goal at the beginning of the season and especially since the end of the regular season has been to snag that 11th victory that has evaded them for nine long years.

After last night's thrilling victory, the Yankees are one win away from the winning the World Series. Twenty seven outs away from their 27th Championship. Unfortunately for them, in addition to getting those outs from the Phillies, they also have to score some runs in a game started by Cliff Lee, the most dominant force thus far in October (and into November).

Charlie Manuel made the decision to hold back Lee from a Game 4 start to make sure he was well-rested. In exchange for that extra rest, Lee has been entrusted with forcing a Game 6 back in New York. The Phillies' ace said he wasn't nervous when he started Game 1 and certainly didn't act like it, but we'll see if that same nonchalance is there when his team's season is hanging in the balance.

We all know that Lee has been all but invincible this postseason, but it's worth looking at his stats with his dominant Game 1 performance factored in: 33 IP, 2 ER, 20 H, 3 BB, 30K, 0 HR, an 0.54 ERA, a WHIP of .690 and an opponents' line of .171/.192/.214.

One thing that the Yankees have going for them is that it would be awfully tough for him to be as good as he was in Game 1. A complete game with no earned runs, six hits, no walks and 10 strikeouts is about as good as it gets against this line up. And the fact that they have seen him recently should help them anticipate some of his tendencies. On the other hand, this time the bottom of the order will consist of Brett Gardner, Jose Molina and A.J. Burnett, at least at first.

Another thing the Yankees have going for them is A.J. Burnett. The owner of the best starting pitching performance for the Yankees in this World Series, Burnett will be making a start on short rest for the first time in the postseason and only the fourth time in his career in general.

In Game 2 against the Phillies, Burnett was outstanding, throwing seven innings of one run ball while striking out 9 and allowing only 6 baserunners. Mariano Rivera threw two innings in relief that night to hold the Phillies to one run total, but it remains to be seen if Girardi will feel comfortable asking Mo for two innings should the need arise. Likely, Burnett will need to be every bit as good to beat Cliff Lee and the Phillies.

The Yanks are tantalizingly close to a World Series victory. But the toughest game they are going to face will be tonight. Burnett's last start was at home as opposed to the unfriendly confines of Citizens Bank Park. And this time he'll be hitting behind his personal catcher, Jose Molina.

Should the Series head back to New York, the Yankees will have to wait two days to start a 37 year old Andy Pettitte on short rest in Game 6. This one isn't over. Not by a long shot.

Let's go Yanks.

(This song doesn't have any lyrics, but if you listen to the main theme that Derek Trucks repeats on his guitar as a chorus of sorts, it sounds like the title of the tune)

Rob Neyer, Phillies Fans Talk About Game 4

Following through on my promise to link any time Rob Neyer talked about the Yankees on a radio appearance/podcast, I present to you this.

Some takeaways: Neyer...

• Throws a bit of cold water of the discussion for A-Rod as World Series MVP.
  
  
• Says he actually felt bad for Brad Lidge and reminds us of this.
  
  
• Thinks that Cliff Lee should have started in Game 4, but identifies Charlie Manuel's decision to send him out for the 9th inning in Game 1 as the original mistake.
  
  
• Argues that Cole Hamels' season wasn't as bad as it looked but wouldn't be opposed to starting J.A. Happ in Game 7, if necessary.

In other podcasting news, our friends at On The DL admirably continued with their show this morning despite the tough loss last night. They're Phillies fans, and they won't sell you their World Series tickets but check it out anyway.

Update 1:30: Here's some more multimedia, courtesy of NBC Sports:

Joe Nathan, Brian Fuentes... Brad Lidge

Along their way to the World Series the Yankees - or more accurately, Alex Rodriguez - bested both opposing closers put in front of them on the way to crucial wins in both the ALDS and ALCS. In Game 2 against Minnesota, A-Rod launched a game-tying 2 run shot in the bottom of the 9th inning off Joe Nathan in a game the Yanks won in the 11th. In the bottom of the 11th in Game 2 against the Angels, with Freddy Guzman and Brett Gardner batting behind him and the count 0-2, A-Rod served a shot over the short porch in right to tie the game at 3. The Yanks finally nailed that one down in the 13th.

Tonight, the game was on the road so it wasn't Game 2, extra innings weren't necessary, it wasn't a home run, and it didn't tie the game, but the at bat that changed the lead again came down to A-Rod and the other team's closer - this time Brad Lidge.

Two batters into the inning, it seemed highly unlikely that A-Rod would get a chance to bat against Lidge. The pitcher's spot was due up first in the bottom of the 9th and Charlie Manuel had opted not to double switch to begin the inning, thereby limiting Lidge to three outs of work. The way it turned out, nobody needed to pitch the 10th inning for the Phillies anyway.

The Yankees' pitchers' spot was due to bat first in the top of the 9th and Hideki Matsui was called on to pinch hit. As the best hitter on the bench and with two home runs in the last two games, Matsui was the obvious choice, but popped out to short for the first out. Up next, Derek Jeter worked the count to 3-2 but struck out swinging on a nasty slider just below his knees. Down to their last out of the inning, the Yankees needed Johnny Damon to get on base to keep their hopes alive or snatching the lead alive, lest the Phillies come to the plate in the bottom of the 9th needing only one run to steal a win in the ballgame and change the complexion of the series entirely.

Damon took three balls and fouled off five pitches from Lidge before he got one he could put some good lumber on. It was a fastball on the outside part of the plate that he served into left field for a single. Now Mark Teixeira represented the Yankees best hope to take the lead. On the first pitch of the at bat, Damon took of running for second base. The throw from Carlos Ruiz wasn't in time. Since the Phillies were playing a huge infield shift for Teixeira, third baseman Pedro Feliz was the one who was there to receive the ball.

Feliz caught the throw well in front of the bag and as he turned around towards the pitcher's mound, Damon inexplicably popped up from second base, and took off running for third, just out of the reach of Feliz. Since the camera had a tight shot of second base, I wasn't thinking about the shift and thought he was about to be caught in a run down, ending the Yankees chances in the inning. But as the camera panned out, it was apparent that no one was covering third base and Damon got there easily. Perhaps the fact that Feliz wasn't used handling the throw to second base had something to do with it, but to Damon's credit, he took full advantage of that error with a play demonstrating a keen sense of baseball awareness.

Two pitches later, Brad Lidge hit Mark Teixeira on the right elbow, bringing A-Rod to the plate with men on first and third. He took the first pitch for a strike. Perhaps it was the chance that the runner on third could score on a wild pitch that made Lidge reluctant to throw his best pitch - the slider - but he dealt A-Rod another fastball. It wasn't a bad location - right on the inside part of the plate where "the book" says to pitch him - but A-Rod turned on it, hooking a double down into the corner in left field, scoring the go-ahead run in Damon with ease and putting runners on 2nd and third for Jorge Posada.

Jorgie's at bat seems like a footnote in hindsight, but he poked a 2-2 fastball from Lidge into left field, scoring Teix and A-Rod to give the Yanks some much needed insurance runs. He was tagged out trying to advance to second, but the damage was already done.

In stark contrast to Lidge, Mariano Rivera came in for the bottom of the 9th inning and mowed down pinch hitter Matt Stairs, Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino in 8 pitches.

There were obviously many other important moments that led up to the top of the 9th inning - many of them frustrating - but we'll have plenty of time to rehash those in the morning. For now, just enjoy this, and in the words of Joe DiMaggio, "Thank God for making [Mariano Rivera] a Yankee".