Start Spreading The News

Update 12:53: For tonight, I'm just a fan. Matt will be here in a second with his take. There will be plenty of time to recap tomorrow. Just some quick thoughts:

• Congrats to Hideki Matsui. With the three separate 2 RBI hits he had tonight - a homer, single and a double - tied the record for most RBIs in a World Series game previously in possession of Bobby Richardson (Game 3 in 1960) and supplanted his legacy with an incredible effort in the biggest game of his MLB career.

• How appropriate that Mariano Rivera (with the greatest non-save of his career), Derek Jeter (with three hits and two runs scored) and Andy Pettitte (benefactor of the official decision) all played major roles in the clinching victory.
  
  
• How about Damaso Marte, who threw six pitches and got two strikeouts against the Phillies' 3 & 4 hittters?
  
  
• Sorry to Mike Mussina who found the worst possible 8 years to be a Yankee. (h/t Mike)
  
  
• And last but not certainly least, good for A-Rod. He carried the Yanks to the World Series and made his hits count when they got there.

Thanks a lot for reading this season. Feel free to commiserate in the comments.

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?

Why Did Bobby Richardson Win The WS MVP in 1960?

Given the lack of newsworthy items yesterday, one of the hotter topics of conversation in the baseball blogosphere was whether or not Chase Utley should win the World Series MVP even if the Phillies lose. I linked to Dan Levy's post at the Sporting Blog last night but wanted to take a closer look at the idea today.

We're only 5 games into the Fall Classic and Utley has already smacked 5 home runs - 2 in each of the Phillies wins. He's hitting .333/.429/1.222 in front of Ryan Howard, whose OPS isn't much higher than Utley's OBP. There's little question that Utley's has had the best World Series so far. Cliff Lee singlehandedly won Game 1 but was mediocre in Game 5. A-Rod has had 6 huge, tide-turning RBIs but a meager batting line otherwise. Mariano Rivera's most important innings have yet to be pitched. Utley's showing comes with no asterisk.

As Levy points out, the only other player to win the World Series MVP from a losing team was also a second baseman - Bobby Richardson of the 1960 Yankees. In the first 11 years that the World Series MVP was awarded, Richardson was the only position player to win the award. It was an unlikely honor perfectly fit for one of the most improbable World Series ever played.

The Yankees outscored the Pirates 55-27 in that 7 game series. They out-hit them 91-60, out-homered them 10-4 and had a team ERA twice as low (3.54 to 7.11). But nonetheless, the Yanks lost on Bill Mazeroski's walkoff home run, still the only one in a Game 7 in World Series history.

Richardson's performance was pretty spectacular. He had a batting line of .367/.387/.667 which included a grand slam, 2 triples and 12 runs batted in. But he wasn't even the best offensive player on his own team. Mickey Mantle hit .400/.545/.800 with three homers and drove in 11 runs. By all accounts, Richardson was an excellent defensive second baseman, but Mantle was a legendary defender in center field and a much more recognizable figure at the time.

Richardson was in only his second year as the Yankees' primary 2B and Mantle had just made his 10th consecutive All-Star team. For regular season awards like Gold Gloves and MVPs, voters usually lean towards established stars over one year flukes (see: Zobrist, Ben), but that doesn't seem to be the case with World Series MVPs. In recent years, for example, writers have chose guys like David Eckstein (2006), Troy Glaus (2002) and Scott Brosius (1998); scrappy underdogs (slightly above average baseball players) who saved their best for the big stage.

The timing of the RBIs in the 1960 Series was a major contributing factor to the result of the voting. All but one of Richardson's 12 RBIs came in Yankees' victories. It's hard to stand out offensively when your team wins 3 games by an average of nearly 12 runs, but that's exactly what Richardson did when he drive in 6 runs in a 10-0 victory in Game 3. By comparison, Mantle blended in by knocking in five in the 16-3 domination in Game 2 and two on top of Richardson's 6 in Game 3. He added 2 more in Game 5, which the Yankees won 12-0 and two more in Game 7, which they ultimately lost.

But the reason that Richardson won the MVP over a more worthy teammate isn't the reason that it's still cited today. That's happened plenty of times (Eckstein in '06, Manny in '04, Livan Hernandez in '97, Darrell Porter in 1982, Bucky Dent '78 to name a few) It's because he won it on the losing team.

There is some precedent for giving the MVP to a player on the losing team of a postseason series. There were Mike Scott for the Astros in the '86 NLCS and Jeffrey Leonard for the Giants in '87 for example. It's happened once in the NBA Finals, once in the Super Bowl and five times in the Stanley Cup Finals. It just hasn't happened in the World Series since 1960.

It should have in 2002 when Barry Bonds had an OPS of 1.994, more than 1.100 higher than the winner, Troy Glaus. The fact that he was Barry Bonds certainly didn't help, but Glaus did drive in the tying and go-ahead runs on a double off of Rob Nen to force a Game 7.

But back to Richardson. Perhaps there is a simpler explanation as to why he is the only World Series MVP out of 53 to come from a losing team. The writers thought they were picking a guy from the winning team.

According to Mike Emeigh over at Baseball Think Factory (post #39), World Series MVP ballots had to be turned in before the beginning of the 8th inning of Game 7. Well, at the end of the 7th inning, the Yankees were leading 5-4. They had turned a 0-4 deficit into a 5-4 lead in the 5th & 6th innings and appeared to be in line for the victory.

But they didn't win. The Yanks expanded their lead to 7-4 in the top of the 8th, but gave up 5 runs to the Pirates in the bottom half. It might not have happened if a grounder that hit shortstop Tony Kubek squarely in the throat took a more predictable hop and ended up as a double play. However, the Pirates rallied to take the lead 9-7. The Yanks plated two in the 9th inning to barely stay alive, with Richardson scoring the 8th run.

It was their last breath, however, as the first batter Ralph Terry faced in the bottom of the 9th was Bill Mazeroski.

As another poster at BBTF (#43) argued, it doesn't really matter that the 1960 World Series MVP vote might (or might not) have been skewed by a procedural issue. The precedent for the writers select a an MVP from the losing team exists and it's unlikely that the people voting on this year's award know or care about that.

Does Chase Utley deserve to win the MVP at this point? Yes, in terms of value to his team, he probably does, although WPA thinks otherwise. But there are still games left to be played and there are a couple of Yankees who, if they factor directly into a victory, have a good chance to take it from Utley. But if push comes to shove, I'll give Utley the MVP in exchange for the Yankees' title. Deal?

For Your Listening Pleasure

Here is Jonah Keri on "something called Dave Dameshek's" podcast. It's a a few minutes of circumcision talk, and about 40 more of breaking down what's left of the World Series. Dameshek is a little insufferable but Jonah is good enough to make you forget that.

After a day off, the boys at On The DL are back at it after a day off. They talk about Game 6, Gus Johnson's questionable description of Chris Johnson's speed, Steven Colbert's decision to sponsor US Speedskating and the current seasons of Mad Men and Dexter.

Go. Listen. But come back around 3:00 for the post I've been working on all day about Chase Utley, Bobby Richardson and the 1960 World Series. It's not like anything else you've read on the subject. I promise.

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".

Lessons In Advanced Hindsight, With Mike Lupica

Good morning, Fackers. I think most rational people understand that one of the fundamental concepts of decision making is that you have to make your choice based on the information which was available at the time. Of course, Mike Lupica doesn't fall under the umbrella of "most rational people".

You surely know Lupica from his columns in the Daily News, his Matt Christopher-esque children's sports books, or as the wildly-gesturing smarmy douche on The Sports Reporters who sits on the edge of his seat partially because he feels that he's far too important to be seated in a semi-circle and partially because if he leaned back, his feet wouldn't touch the ground.

Anyway, in today's Daily News, Mike conveniently smothers Joe Girardi's decision to use only his three best starters in the World Series in a thick coating of hindsight, two days after any other course of action could have been chosen:

Joe Girardi knows the deal as well as he knows his way out to the mound. He's right about using only three starters in the postseason if the Yankees win, tonight or tomorrow night.

I love how Lupica sets up the scenario by saying "Girardi knows the deal". Yeah, he knows that if the Yankees lose, he's going to get second guessed by assholes like Lupica who were so convinced that the Yankees should throw Chad Gaudin in Philly that they... didn't write a word about it despite having a column in a newspaper dedicated to writing about sports.

He's right if Andy Pettitte does the job in Game 6 on three days' rest that A.J. Burnett didn't do Monday night. Or he's right if this thing plays all the way out and CC Sabathia carries everybody across the finish line. Girardi just better be right about three days' rest for these guys after being up three games to one.

So was Charlie Manuel right for holding Cliff Lee back to give him his normal rest even though he gave up 5 earned runs because the Phillies won Game 5? Of course! What did you want to judge the outcome based on his "performance" or "availability in a possible Game 7"? Fools.

Because if the Yankees blow this Series, if the Phillies come all the way back, then Yankee fans are going to wonder how the Yankees could spend $206 million on baseball players and not have enough left under the bed to buy a reliable fourth starter.

No, Mike, they're not. That's what they'd be wondering if the Yankees missed the playoffs. Like they did last year. When they spent $209M.

The Yankees have had a payroll over $184M since 2004 and that year none of the 4 guys who started more than 20 games for them had an ERA under 4. In 2005, their 4th starter was either Jaret Wright or Kevin Brown who both had ERAs over 6 and they needed Aaron Small and Shawn Chacon to patch together their rotation. The following year it was Cory Lidle. In 2007, it was Roger Clemens and we all remember how well that worked out in the playoffs!

You have to be a special kind of stupid to wait until the team is one win away from their first World Series in 9 years to start complaining about their lack of a #4 starter.

Oh by the way, the reason they don't have a #4 starter isn't because they "didn't have enough money left under the bed". It's because Chien Ming Wang, who had been their best pitcher over the previous three years, suddenly decided to suck. And Joba Chamberlain, who everyone wanted to go back to the bullpen (including Lupica, obviously), is back in the bullpen.

They will wonder at the same time about how much they think they could get for a copy of "The Joba Rules" on eBay about now.

How much are your books selling for on eBay, Mike? Let me check. One dollar.

There are still a lot of smart, passionate, grudge-holding Yankee fans who want to talk about all the pitching mistakes that Joe Torre made when the Red Sox started to come back on the Yankees in 2004. But when Torre came home in that American League Championship Series, the way Girardi's Yankees come home now, here were Torre's starters:

Jon Lieber, Game 6.

Kevin Brown, Game 7.

Right, so why are you complaining about the rotation this year?

Josh Beckett went on three days' rest in Game 6 of the 2003 Series, Marlins against the Yankees. Everybody screamed that Jack McKeon was making a huge mistake, that he should wait and pitch Beckett on full rest in Game 7 if it came to that. The Marlins manager went all in with Beckett and he pitched one of the most dominating close-out games in the history of the World Series.

He made McKeon right because he won.

Mike Lupica's decision making rubric: Win = Right, Lose = Wrong.

So Mike Lupica's son is dribbling down the court in a CYO game two minutes into the game and decides to fire up a short from half court. It goes in. From the stands, Mike yells "GREAT DECISION, BUDDY!"

Mike Lupica is playing in a poker tournament. Someone raises in front of him. He looks down at the 2 of hearts & the 4 of clubs and pushes all in. His opponent calls with pocket aces but the board reads 3-5-6-K-8. Mike sees that he made a straight and screams "I OUTPLAYED YOU!"

The best decisions are the ones that are most likely to succeed if the scenario is played out over and over again. And guess what. Feeding Chad Gaudin - who lefties have hit .293/.389/.433 off in his career - to the Phillies in Citizens Bank Park isn't one of those decisions.

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.

How Not To Conduct An Interview, By Mark Grace

On the Bats Blog at the New York Times, Richard Sandomir points out something that never ceases to annoy me about the postgame interviews conducted by network reporters:

Fox needs a question coach for Mark Grace. One of the failings of many sideline/stadium reporters is that they do not jot down good, solid, clear questions to ask the stars of a game.

There usually isn’t much time to prepare, but coming up with three pertinent thoughts to frame as questions, or as leading statements, shouldn’t be as hard as a nervous Grace made it when he interviewed Jimmy Rollins after the Phillies’ 8-6 win against the Yankees in Game 5 of the World Series on Monday.

Sandomir uses Grace as an example and transcribes some example from last night, but you could easily switch his name with Kim Jones, Ken Rosenthal or countless other reporters. (Here's a clip of the Rosenthal & Grace interviews from last night). It seems as though, in the cutthroat world of TV journalism, interviewers are constantly trying use their queries to display how smart they are as opposed to asking questions that lead to good responses.

Since the best baseball players - the ones most likely to be interview after the game - are interviewed so frequently during the season, they answer the questions - or in many cases weak leading statements - with relative ease. The player knows what the interviewer is getting at and usually obliges them with the type of vague and vapid answer they think they are looking for.

ESPN has actually tried to correct this problem by hiring an interview guru named John Sawatsky to conduct seminars on the proper way to interview (sort of like the "question coach" Sandomir suggested). Here is an 8 minute radio segment and accompanying article from NPR from back in 2006 on that very subject.

Sawatsky is a full time employee in Bristol and has his own office, complete with a giant question mark on the door. Max Kellerman used to talk about the "Sawatsky Technique" on his old radio show on 1050AM in New York, but would struggle to take the advice, like he did in his botched interview with Floyd Mayweather after the Juan Manuel Marquez fight.

In the seminars, Sawatsky uses interviewers like Barbara Walters and Larry King as examples of exactly what not to do. Don't ask long-winded questions (or worse, make long-winded statements) or pose inquiries that only demand a "yes" or "no" response. Ask only one question at a time. Try to learn, not validate your own opinion. Don't try to insert yourself into the interview, because the interview isn't about you:

The best questions, argues Sawatsky, are like clean windows. “A clean window gives a perfect view. When we ask a question, we want to get a window into the source. When you put values in your questions, it’s like putting dirt on the window. It obscures the view of the lake beyond. People shouldn’t notice the question in an interview, just like they shouldn’t notice the window. They should be looking at the lake.

Makes sense, doesn't it? No one wants to hear Ken Rosenthal or Kim Jones awkwardly attempt to interject their observations on what just happened. They want to hear what the player was thinking. Typically the athletes don't really have anything interesting to say either, but maybe if the people interviewing them could put some effort into crafting questions that would provoke some thoughtful responses, that wouldn't be the case.

Quotes From Last Night: Game 5 Edition

A.J. Burnett: I just couldn't get the ball where I wanted to. Everything was up, I had no hook tonight and strike one is huge, especially against a lineup like that. You've got to get ahead and I didn't do that... It's just a matter of throwing strikes. You guys saw it — there's really no rest issue. I felt strong and felt great. I just didn't get it done... Oh, I mean, it's the worst feeling in the world. I let 25 guys down, I let the city down. Pretty much says it all.


Phil Coke: I want the ball again (in Game 6). That's the only thing I'm thinking about.


Joe Girardi: If we would have pitched today, we probably would have won. That's the bottom line — A.J. struggled today. He felt good, he just struggled today. That's something that happens in the game of baseball... Those were tack-on runs that hurt us, obviously. We ended up with six runs tonight. We still had a chance in the ninth inning to possibly come back and tie it up or take the lead, but when you look back at it, those runs hurt us.


Derek Jeter: I can't do anything about it now. I would have loved to have gotten a hit, but it's over with. We're going home with an opportunity to win, so I like the position we're in. [...] We came here and played well. We won two out of three here and now we’ve got to come back and, I don’t know what today is but two days from now — Wednesday? — come out and hope we play a good game.


Kevin Kaduk, Big League Stew: So great of Jeter to take the Series back to NY to win it in front of the fans. Now that's a captain.

Shane Victorino: Two thumbs up, everyone. That's all you need to know. No broke, no fracture.


Mark Teixeira, on the final at bat of the game: He threw a fastball away first pitch — perfect pitch, got a strike. Threw three good changeups, I swung at two. [...] Every game's a new game. I'm just trying to chip in and help us win... I think I've done a lot to help this team win (in the postseason), and I'm going to do the same (Wednesday).


Charlie Manuel: I wanted to bring Madson in. I wanted to see how he goes, and I kind of wanted to just give Lidge a break tonight if I could.


Cliff Lee: Thankfully we scored a lot of runs. As far as my availability [for a potential Game 7], I'm available.

Brett Myers, to Cole Hamels: What are you doing here? I thought you quit.

Cole Hamels, in response to Brett Myers: What are you doing here? Shouldn't you still be in jail for beating your wife in public, you fucking scumbag? [Ed Note: I made that one up.]

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.

Too Little, Too Late

For a fleeting moment in the first inning, it appeared that the Yankees might actually steal this one. Cliff Lee didn't look so invincible, giving up some sharp contact and struggling to locate his fastball. After Game 1, Cliff Lee said it had been a long time since he's been nervous playing baseball. I doubt he'd admit it, but he looked a little tense on the mound to begin the game.

Derek Jeter chopped one up the middle that Chase Utley just barely got to. Johnny Damon followed by dropping a single in front of Shane Victorino. And then Lee promptly ran the count to 3-0 on Mark Teixeira. Lee was taking deep breaths. He looked like he was trying to gain his composure. It appeared as though the Yanks may have gotten to him.

Teixeira took one down the middle for strike one. He fouled off a tough pitch for strike two, but then popped out to right. As A-Rod has so many times this postseason, he stepped up and delivered in a big spot, slashing a double down the right field line that rolled all the way into the corner, scoring Damon and putting the Yankees on top 1-0.

Lee proceeded to walk Nick Swisher and Robinson Cano sliced a line to left, but it was right towards Ibanez. The Yanks didn't get all they wanted out of the inning, but it was clear that this wasn't last Wednesday. Cliff Lee could be had. Unfortunately for the Yanks, their starter could be (and was) had far easier.

A.J. Burnett got ahead of Jimmy Rollins 1-2, but Rollins fouled off three straight pitches before singling to center. On the next one, Shane Victorino squared to bunt but got hit on the hand as he was pulling away. At full speed it looked like he was offering at it, but third base umpire Jeff Nelson said he wasn't trying for it. The injury seemed to nag the center fielder for the rest of the game but he wasn't removed until the 8th inning for defensive purposes.

Now, with runners on first and second and no one out, Chase Utley swung at the first pitch he saw and cranked into the seats in right field, putting the Phillies up 3-1. Just like Burnett did against the Angels, he put the Yanks in a hole without recording an out. It would be the last lead change of the game.

The Yankees brought the tying run to the plate with one out in the top of the 3rd, but not again until the 9th. A.J. Burnett lasted just 2+ innings and gave up 5 earned runs when he was in the game but left with men on 1st & 3rd and no one out. The sixth run charged to him came when David Robertson was on the mound but D-Rob did an admirable job of squirming out of the predicament with minimal damage.

Staked to a comfortable lead, Lee began to settle in. He retired 9 out of 10 batters in a stretch beginning in the top of the 2nd inning. The Yankees scratched across a run in the 5th but still trailed by 4 scores.

Robertson was replaced by Alfredo Aceves, who pitched two scoreless frames before turning the ball over to Phil Coke. The first batter he faced was Chase Utley. Utley worked the count full, forcing Coke to put one over the plate and stroked that fastball over the wall in right once again, his 5th home run of the World Series, tying the record set by Reggie Jackson in 1977. Two batters later, Raul Ibanez took Coke deep as well, expanding the Phillies' lead to 8-2. They seemed like tack-on runs at that point, but they would come in handy later.

Cliff Lee came out to start the 8th inning and gave up a single to Johnny Damon followed by a double to Mark Teixeira. Lee was left in to face A-Rod, who mashed a double off the glove of a diving Raul Ibanez in the gap in left center. The substitution for Victorino - which the FOX camera captured Charlie Manuel executing quite clumsily - loomed large as Ben Francisco took over in center for Victorino instead of in left for Ibanez, who has limited range as a defender. Clearly, the scenario might not have played out the same way, but Francisco almost certainly would have made the play that Ibanez botched.

Lee came out of the game and Chan Ho Park got out of the inning after allowing A-Rod to score on a sac fly by Robinson Cano. Lee's final line was 7 IP, 7 H, 5 ER, 3 BB, 3K, a far cry from the untouchable force he was in game one against a far weaker line up. When the top of the 8th came to a close, the margin was trimmed to three runs.

It seemed an attainable deficit - but only briefly - in the 9th inning. Ryan Madson came on to pitch and began the inning by doing his best Brad Lidge imitation. Jorge Posada led off the frame with a double, which was followed by a single by Hidkei Matsui, placing runners on first and third and no one out for the tying run, Derek Jeter.

Jeter got ahead 2-0, took a strike, and then did nearly the worst thing possible: grounded into a double play. Posada scored from third, but the tying run was no longer at the plate. Johnny Damon battled through another tough at bat, eventually singling to center but Mark Teixeira struck out swinging on three straight change ups to end the game.

The late near-rally made it tougher to stomach, but his game was pretty much over when A.J. Burnett was yanked. Six runs in 2+ innings is a surefire way to blow a game and the two homers given up by Coke didn't end up helping much either. In the end, the Yanks just couldn't overcome Burnett's implosion. Final score 8-6 in favor of the Phillies.

If the Yankees are going to win the World Series, they're going to have to do it at home.

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)