Holt
Once again, it’s the Evil Empire versus the scrappy Midwesterners.
Except this time, baseball’s corn-fed boys aren’t quite as scrappy and can be – dare I say it – an intimidating force of their own.
This Twins lineup isn’t based on Nick Punto and his understudies; it has Jim Thome and his 589 home runs and a free-swinging Delmon Young that actually makes contact now.
The Yankees lineup is, well, the Yankees lineup. New York better hope Derek Jeter busts out of his season-long slump, because Mr. November might not get the chance to repeat if he keeps being an easy out atop the batting order. Jorge Posada can’t catch every day and Francisco Cervelli produces as well in the lineup as when not in it. There are holes in this edition of the Yankees.
And when Carsten Cheeseburger Sabathia takes the mound in Minnesota’s first outdoor playoff game since Tony, the Killer and Carew ran the show, New York better hope he’s a winner. Andy Pettitte has pitched all of 2/3 an inning since returning from the DL and how much does anyone trust Phil Hughes in what could potentially be – gasp – an elimination game?
Minnesota has AL comeback player of the year Francisco Liriano starting, and with his Slider of Death ?, he can be every bit as dominant as the big (big) guy in pinstripes. Carl Pavano has revived his career and behind those two, some lefty named Brian Duensing quietly went 10-3 in one half season of starting.
New York still has the greatest closer of all time in Mo Rivera, but as bullpens go, quantity of quality outweighs a legacy. The Twins only need six or seven innings of starting pitching before turning it over to Jesse Crain and the closer trio of Brian Fuentes, Jon Rauch and Matt Capps.
Chalk one up for Minnie and Paulie; the Twins are beating the Yankees this year.
Sure, history says New York should have no problem with Minnesota. But you have to get the monkey off your back at some point – no streak lasts forever, unless you’re a Cubs fan. Minnesota finally has a big boy payroll and now it gets to prove it’s a big boy ballclub by beating those Bronx Bombers.
Fiammetta
I could be an obnoxious “Coastie” and begin my portion of thisPCPwith some line like this:
It’s October, so you know what that means – another Yankees World Series.
Or, I could begin with something like this…
Just as they have 27 times before, it’s time for the Yankees to resume their rightful place atop the baseball world. Did I mention they have 27 World Series? That’s a lot, right? Is it? What do you think? I think it’s a lot.
Or…
Forget about pitching. Forget about the age of most of our key players. Forget everything…except that we have baseball’s best offense. Yankees sweep the Twins.
That makes me sound silly, though. So I’ll begin more rationally (that’s a subjective word).
I sincerely believe the Yankees win theirALDSseries against the Twins. Here’s why.
Game 1 has CC Sabathia squaring off against the Twins’ Francisco Liriano. Great matchup, two of the best aces kicking off the postseason well rested and coming off solid seasons. CC led the AL in wins with 21, posted the AL’s seventh-bestERAat 3.18, finished with the AL’s tenth-bestWHIPof 1.19 and struck out 187 batters, good for 6th in theAL.
Liriano, meanwhile, won 14 games, was 14th in the AL with a 3.62ERA, 23rd with a 1.26WHIPand fifth with 201 strikeouts. Trying to keep all my bias aside, I really think the Yankees take advantage of CC’s postseason experience (1.98ERAin five starts in last year’s playoffs) and produce just enough offense off Liriano to begin the series with a W.
From there, the Yanks have two of the next three at home and only need two to clinch the series. Andy Pettitte’s the Game 2 starter at Target Field, and goes up against a former Yankee favorite in Carl Pavano. Both had solid seasons (Pettitte’s was injury-shortened), but again, I’m going with the Yanks. I hate to sound like a biased Yankee fan (no I don’t), but I just can’t ignore Pettitie’s 249 innings of postseason experience, especially juxtaposed (word of the day, even used it in the football feature!) with Pavano’s 26.
Game 3 is where I see the Twinnies picking up a W. For whatever reason – maybe it’s that the Yankees again screwed with a pitcher by implementing a seemingly arbitrary innings limit – I see Brian Duensing outpitching Phil Hughes in the first game in New York. Then, it’s CC’s turn again in Game 4, and that’s where the Yanks clinch.
Wow, 400 words and all I did was screw around and talk about the Yankees’ pitching. I promise you, I did actually watch the team this year. And besides, you don’t really need to hear more about the Majors’ best offense, do you?
Editor’s note: The print version of this PCP has the Yankees only winning 26 World Series. Late nights in the office and no coffee is a bad combination. We apologize for the error.