Print those playoff tickets? Almost
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- September
- 12
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We here at the blog would like to bid a fond farewell to the Seattle Mariners, who have lost 15 of their last 17 games and now sit six games behind the Yankees for the wild card.
It’s now down to the Yankees (82-62) and the Tigers (79-67). If the Yankees go just a pedestrian 9-9 the rest of the way, they would finish with 91 wins. The Tigers would have to go 12-4 to tie.
With five games left against Toronto, six against Baltimore and three against Tampa Bay, the Yankeees are in a position to finish with at least 93 wins.
Of greater interest, perhaps, is which team ends up with the second-best record in the AL and earns the right to play the Yankees. Anaheim is 85-59 and Cleveland 85-60.
Yankee fans should be rooting for Cleveland given that the Yankees were 6-0 against the Tribe this season and outscored them 49-17. No, the Yankees didn’t face C.C. Sabathia. But he’s 1-7, 7.13 in eight career starts against the Yankees.
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on Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 at 2:17 am by Peter Abraham.
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Chad Jennings
Sam Borden
Josh Thomson
This is all assuming that Boston ends up with the best record, right? Wildcard plays the highest non-division seed?
GO INDIANS!!!!
Yankees are built for post the season. I’m waiting to see if “the Joba rules “will change.It will be intresting
wow i didn’t know the history there between C.C. and NYY. any particular reason?
I don’t want to hear about a pitchers prior performance against the Yankees when it comes to the playoffs. Kenny Rogers(even with that substance) still gives me nightmares.
That being said, GO INDIANS!
I sure as heck would want to play them in the first round, let the Angels and BoSox kill each other.
Go Indians indeed. The Angels always play us well. I’d rather face Boston in the first round.
interesting fact- Sabathia has never thrown more than 210 innings in a season and has averaged roughly 195 innings through his first 7 ML seasons or so. There is no doubt that at 27, he is physically in his prime. But if you figure he will throw an additional 20-30 innings (avg 7 innings over 3-4 starts) to the 220 he has thrown already that puts him at 240-250. These waters are untested for him. There has to be a question as to how effective he is going to be come october in cold weather, high pressure situations.
mel-
this is the case if Boston is the first or second seed. If they were to fall to the third seed, then we would face the first seed (Halos or Indians).
But better yet, we take the divison and with the league’s best record, making us the first seed.
Just get in the playoffs. Ten years ago I heard plenty of people call WFAN saying it was a good thing the Yankees were finishing second. That way they would get the Indians instead of Seattle and two starts by the Big Unit. So what happened? The Yankees got beat by the tribe and the Orioles put a load of hurting on the Big Unit.
What do Sabathia’s 8 starts in the past against completely different Yankee teams have to do with anything?
Jim,
I agree with you. Last year everyone wanted the slumping Tigers in the first round.
Did a little more research and Sabathia’s last start against the Yankees was in 2004, and at a quick glance it looks like the 7+ ERA is largely the product of a 1 IP, 6 R performance back in 2001.
As much as we would like to believe history has something to do with the present, it never guarantees results in baseball. Let’s just rooting for the Yanks to play well and let the chips fall where they may. The team that is playing well will be the last one standing.
GO YANKS!
OOPS, that’s “KEEP rooting!”
Be careful what you wish for.
You can’t root for a certain team.
Lats yr we rooted for Detroit over Minny. How did that work out?
Anaheim, Cleveland
who cares? They are both good
i think the players dont care who they play . of course as fans we can take a step back and say , well the angels have ass-raped us every year under torre , couple that with being 6-0 vs. the tribe . again i say the yanks match-up against any team in mlb but the angels . anything can happen once a team gets in .
this team would have been so much better off if they had just fired Torre, fired Cashman, DFA’ed Vizcaino, sent Cano back to AAA, traded Abreu and Damon for pennies on the dollar, released Giambi, and DFA’ed Farnsworth.
I realize you’re joking, but I still hold Torre responisble for blowing the 2003 WS and 2004 ALCS.
I agree with Claire & Jim. Be very careful what you root for.
also, i believe the indians haven’t faced Wang all season, if you want to say that neither team faced each others #1 starters
I second the motion: Do not root to play any particular team; it will bite you in the end.
The only thing you should root for is to make the postseason and that is it.
Last year it was “the Yankees have the Tigers number. We beat them every game but the two that Mariano couldn’t pitch.” Personally, the fact that we are 6-0 versus a very good Cleveland team makes me very nervous.
Please stop panicking over the Angels. I have a feeling that things can be very, very different against them once THEY are deemed the “favorites” and WE are the “underdogs.”
Don’t really care who the Yanks play as long as it means ring #27!
So are talks of possibly winning the division out of the question? Seems that way here.
Scooter–Oh, hell no!
If we play to win every game, as we’re doing now, we can take the division.
Even if we don’t, barring a complete collapse, we’re playing much better baseball than the Sox…
I agree that we don’t want the Angels, but last year we dominated the Tigers and look where that got us. All the teams in the playoffs will be formidable opponents. To win the title, you have to beat the best so we should be able to beat any team in front of us.
4 games back in the loss column and 3 games against boston this weekend, I’ve not given up on the AL East and nor should anyone else. Nice to have a lead in the Wild Card race, but I’d still rather have the Division and home field advantage, both of which can still happen.
Coolstandings has the Yankees at nearly 95% likely to make the playoffs and Baseball Prospectus has them at about 91%. The odds of winning the division are in the low single digits.
My only worry is a sweep at Boston. We have not played well on the road at all this year, particularly against the elite teams.
There will be no sweep unless it’s us sweeping them. This is a different team than the one that struggled on the road earlier in the year and even at that point, we took 2/3 in Boston the last time we went up there.
Single digit odds when we’re 4 games out with 3 head-to-head left is absurd.
testing
*LATE BREAKING NOTES: WELCOME TO THUNDERDOME*
1) According to the Newark Star-Ledger, umpires may issue bean-ball warnings to each bench before the start of tonite game.
II) Sawks
*Dice-Cold (oh, that’s a good one!)*
A Japanese newspaper wrote Dice-L is engaged in “hitori zumo” – which translates to something like “sumo-wrestling himself,” (now, that’s metaphysical).
He apologized yesterday to the Japanese media, saying, “I hope to make next year’s party more cheerful,” (he turned 27 yesterday).
*DEPEND®*
Mike Lowell returns from unknown illness tonite. His ailment? “I don’t know, but he’s having activity at both ends,” said manager Terry Francona
*Pack-Man*
Schilling, who is in the final season of his contract, openly mused this week about pitching for Tampa Bay next season (no, really!!). When told, Roger Clemens broke out in laughter.
*The Untouchable*
Former FBI agent Whitey Bolger (“The Departed�) briefly surfaced in Sicily. A tip to my former friends in the FBI, he’s in a sports-bar tonite. (ps I will aceept the reward money)
*Manny Being Out*
Manny has been ruled out for the series. PHEW!!
Without their leading hitter in the line-up, the Sox are 9-6. This year, the future Hall of Famer posted slugged .392 (20 for 51) against his future team.
*Dunk’n Donut*
Leadoff batter, Julio Lugo is batting .193 (11 for 57) against the Bombers.
*III)Fight Da Power!*
Yanks enter on an 8-1 tear
Since May, the Red Sox and Yankees have met nine times – the Yanks have won all three series, going 7-2.
Wang has three of those wins.
Beckett hasn’t looked great against the Yankees – 5.49 ERA for the season.
A-Rod has five home runs against the Sox this season, including two against fashion maven, 38-Donuts.
Yanks 40-20 since the break, vs Boston’s 36-24
We’ve scored 80 runs in the past 15 games.
We have six starters batting .300 or better since the break.
9 Straight Division Titles
13 Straight Playoff Appearances
26 Championships And 39 Pennants
*Scooter*
Baby Bomber, Scooter Squirrel is still unbeaten, going 4-0 since being called up.
*Jabba ‘da Beast*
Jabba’ fastball topped out at – 94-97 mph Wed. instead of 97-100. Why – weight-room work before the game. He spoke of “heavy legs” during his second inning of work. “He looked a little loggy,” Torre said. New Rules: no lifting before gameday, “Nature-Boy.â€?
*Only Shelley Can Stop Shelly*
Shelley is doubtful for this weekend’s series. The Daily News speculates he will need off season surgery to repair his hernia.