The LoHud Yankees Blog

Congratulations to the Yankees, who won a first-round series for the first time in five years and are on their way to an ALCS showdown with the Angels. Back with the scene from the clubhouse shortly.

UPDATE, 11:30 p.m.: The scene in the clubhouse was joyous but hardly over-the-top. There was plenty of Champagne and beer and jumping around, but the Yankees were clearly treating this as only the beginning. “This is the first step of what we hope to be many,” CC Sabathia said, his blue goggles sitting on top of his head. “We’re hoping to have a few more of these.”

In addition to Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and Jose Molina were among the Yankees wearing protective eye-wear. Nick Swisher actually stepped out of the celebration for a minute to put some goggles on, then said, “I’m ready!” and went back into the mix with a bottle.

A cavalry of players went charging into a back room to get Jorge Posada soaked, and a few of them chanted “Hip Hip Jorge!” as they went. Posada stumbled out into the main room dripping wet. “A year ago, I was sitting around not feeling very good,” Posada said. “This is a little different.”

Lots of audio and more scenes from the clubhouse to come.

UPDATE, 11:39 p.m.: Andy Pettitte was asked if, after missing the playoffs last season and becoming a free agent, he thought he’d ever have a playoff moment with the Yankees again. “As soon as they signed C.C. and A.J., that’s what I thought,” he said. “That’s why I wanted to come back here. I knew if we had those two horses and if you could add me with them — and hopefully I could stay healthy — I felt like we could get to the postseason. That was the whole point of me coming back, of me signing the contract that I did to come back here is for this.”

UPDATE, 9:13 p.m.: Yanks are nine outs away from the ALCS. That deserves a new thread, no?

UPDATE, 9:14 p.m.: Pettitte finishes with a swinging strikeout. What a night: 6 1/3, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K. That’s big-game Andy. Joba on now.

UPDATE, 9:17 p.m.: Just putting this out there: Pettitte was at 81 pitches. If Joba-to-Hughes-to-Mo works fine, nobody says anything. If it doesn’t …

UPDATE, 9:20 p.m.: Not a good start. Young doubles to the gap, and Twins MVP (of this series) Brendan Harris is up now. Phil Coke just got up in a hurry in the pen.

UPDATE, 9:23 p.m.: I’m sure Rodriguez likes having Teixeira hitting ahead of him in the lineup, but he must also like throwing to him at first base. That was a nice scoop at the bag.

UPDATE, 9:28 p.m.: And Joba gets out of it. It wasn’t pretty, but he got the job done. Hughes for three, Mo for three and it’s Game 1 on Friday at the Stadium.

UPDATE, 9:30 p.m.: Announced crowd of 54,735 at the Dome tonight. Matt Guerrier on for the Twins now.

UPDATE, 9:41 p.m.:

UPDATE, 9:47 p.m.: No need to wait any longer. Rivera for the last four outs.

UPDATE, 9:51 p.m.: You can set your watch to it: Mo busts someone in, weak grounder to first, inning over.

UPDATE, 10:29 p.m.: Two outs away and some dude just ran on the field, sprinted right past the mound and out into center field, where he tried to climb the blue baggie fence (he was unsuccessful). How cool is Mariano Rivera? He just sort of looked at the guy as he ran past. No flinch, no nothing. Threw a few warm-up pitches as the guy was “escorted” off by the cops and he’s ready to get back to work.

YANKEES
Jeter SS
Damon LF
Teixeira 1B
Rodriguez 3B
Matsui DH
Posada C
Cano 2B
Swisher RF
Cabrera CF

Pitching: LHP Andy Pettitte (14-8, 4.16 ERA regular season)

TWINS
Span CF
Cabrera SS
Mauer C
Cuddyer 1B
Kubel RF
Young LF
Harris 3B
Morales DH
Punto 2B

Pitching: RHP Carl Pavano (14-12, 5.10 ERA regular season)

TIME/TV: 7:07 p.m., TBS

WEATHER: Pretty terrible. Temps in the 30s, sporadic snow showers and biting wind chill. Good thing the Twins have a roof on the Dome made out of this stuff.

STATE OF THE STRIPES: Sweep-ish. The Yankees are up 2-0 in the best-of-five series and are one win away from the ALCS. The Twins came into the postseason as the hottest team, but the Yankees have cooled them off in two different ways: With a gem from CC Sabathia in Game 1 and an 11-inning thriller in Game 2.

DON’T PETT THE ANIMALS: Andy Pettitte is making his 36th postseason start tonight, which means the veteran lefty has basically pitched one full season in October during his career. His numbers? 14-9, 3.96 ERA. His regular-season averages? 17-10, 3.91 ERA. In other words, he’s one of the best at making the biggest games seem just like every other. Pettitte also owns the Twins – the last time he lost a game to Minnesota was April 30, 2001.

A-PLUS FOR A-ROD: Alex Rodriguez seems to have forgotten whatever it was that plagued him in previous Octobers, busting out for five RBI in the first two games of the series including his “Yankee Moment” in Game 2 when he crushed a two-run homer in the ninth inning to tie the game. A-Rod is 4-for-8 in the series.

FLIP THAT HOUSE: Playing in the Dome is supposed to be a big advantage for the Twins but the Yankees seem more at home there than Minny does. The Twins have lost seven straight home playoff games, four of which were to the Yankees during the 2003 and 2004 first rounds.

QUIET LUMBER: Despite being up 2-0, the Yankees haven’t gotten much production from the vaunted lineup. Other than A-Rod and Derek Jeter, no Yankee regular is hitting over .300 in the series. Mark Teixiera and Jorge Posada have two hits in the ALDS; Nick Swisher, Melky Cabrera, Hideki Matsui, Robinson Cano and Johnny Damon all have just one.

CRAZY CARL: In case you hadn’t heard, former Yankee Carl Pavano is standing between the Yankees and the second round. Pavano occasionally played – I use the term loosely – for the Yankees from 2005-08, then signed with Cleveland this year and was traded to the Twins at the deadline. Assuming he doesn’t suffer a debilitating hangnail early, he could do some damage against the Yankees: In two starts against them this season, he allowed just four runs in 13 1/3 combined innings.

IF THERE WERE WALK-TO-THE-PLATE MUSIC IN REAL LIFE, TODAY’S WOULD BE: Dance N Sweep by Elephant Man. (You can hate the music, but how can you hate the title?)

Chad Jennings and I are in the house, and we’ll be back with much, much, much more later on.

UPDATE, 4:04 p.m.: Chad here. Sam and I watched the top of the Red Sox ninth at the hotel, then got to the Metrodome in time to see the Angels win it. Girardi talks to the media in 15 minutes. More updates after that session.

UPDATE, 4:31 p.m.: Not much out of the Girardi press briefing, as expected. He talked about the team’s defense, about watching the end of the Red Sox game and about how other closers’ struggles so far this postseason makes him appreciate Mariano Rivera even more. Audio coming in a moment.

UPDATE, 4:41 p.m.: Here’s the audio from Girardi. By the way, all updates tonight are time stamped with New York (not local) times, mostly because that’s what’s on my computer and it’s hard for me to remember to subtract an hour every time. No offense, Central Time Zoners.

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UPDATE, 4:55 p.m.: Just for fun, here’s the Yankees vs. Pavano and the Twins vs. Pettitte.

What jumps out? Not much, other than to look for some offense from the top of the Yankees order tonight. If Jeter and Damon continue to have success against Pavano, A-Rod and Teixeira should have plenty of chances for some more big hits.

In terms of the Twins, there are several who have hit Pettitte well (albeit in limited at-bats). Harris has had a big series already, and he clearly doesn’t mind facing Pettitte. Same with Delmon Young.

UPDATE, 5:01 p.m.: From his session with the beat writers, Joe Girardi’s take on the Angels: “Their lineup is very good. Up and down their lineup, guys have become more patient in their lineup. They have power, they have speed, they can score runs in so many different ways. Their starting rotation is good, it’s balanced. A couple of lefties, a couple of righties. Their bullpen has done a good job. I just think they’re a complete team, and they create problems for teams with their team speed. They really do. We have to prepare for it, and the thing with their team speed is, I don’t think you can let it rattle you. That’s what we have to talk about, because they’re going to run.”

UPDATE, 5:08 p.m.: Twins are coming off the field and several Yankees are already out stretching. They’ll start hitting shortly. In other news, the Twins press box staff left TBS on all the TVs after the Angels-Red Sox game ended, so we’re getting “Road Trip” in here which, even without the sound on, is still pretty funny. Bonus trivia: Several scenes in “Road Trip” were filmed at Emory University, official Division III school of the LoHud Yankees Blog (Mizzou is the official Division I school, thanks to Chad).

UPDATE, 5:13 p.m.: In case you’re wondering, Girardi said C.C. Sabathia is going through his daily routine as if there will be a Game 4 tomorrow. I’m sure you assumed that to be the case, but confirmation is a good thing. Maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies (the lessons of Shawshank Redemption can be applied to every situation). Apparently it’s the movie hour here at LoHud.

(Capital H in LoHud. Lessons learned from Sam Borden.)

UPDATE, 6:31 p.m.: That’s Robinson Cano throwing to Jorge Posada during batting practice, and that’s Johnny Damon signing for the crowd above the Yankees dugout.

UPDATE, 6:39 p.m.: Nice ovation for Joe Mauer who was just announced as the AL batting champion. Mauer tipped his cap and the crowd responded by chanting “MVP” several times.

UPDATE, 6:56 p.m.: Here’s hoping the new Target Field has updated scoreboard technology; the “big screen” here is only slightly larger than the TVs hanging from the ceiling of the Yankee Stadium home clubhouse and the pre-game stats they were giving included the “Yankees leaders” in “games played” during this ALDS. In case you’re wondering, it’s a tie between “everyone” with 2.

UPDATE, 7:07 p.m.: Say what you want about the Twins, but TC the Bear is cool, though I rank him behind Billy the Marlin, as well as almost anyone from the ZOOperstars, who are fantastic.

UPDATE, 7:10 p.m.: And we’re off. It’s 39 degrees outside and 68 inside the Dome. Pavano is one batter in and isn’t hurt yet. Just keeping you posted.

UPDATE, 7:25 p.m.: Two K’s for Pavano, who gets A-Rod swinging over that splitter/change that Flaherty talked about earlier.

UPDATE, 7:31 p.m.: Not a lot of good-looking swings off Pavano so far and the crowd in here is juiced.

UPDATE, 7:42 p.m.: Well, it’s clearly Pavano’s night — if he was wearing a Yankees uniform, that shard of Cano’s bat would have probably lodged in his windpipe.

UPDATE, 7:45 p.m.: Whoops. Swish thought it was ball four. Back in the box and it’s suddenly strike three instead. Four K’s in eight batters for Pavano.

UPDATE, 7:47 p.m.: And the nightmare is over – there will be no perfect game by Carl Pavano tonight. Second time through the order will be interesting; Pavano isn’t generally the kind of pitcher who can overpower a team.

UPDATE, 7:56 p.m.: Pettitte is trading punches (pitches?) with Pavano and showing his playoff mettle. You’d think the Yankees would be able to break through on Pavano at some point. Laying off that splitter/change would be a good way to start.

UPDATE, 8:04 p.m.: If George Steinbrenner were still George Steinbrenner, he’d be yelling at someone about how the Yankees were silly to let a warrior like Pavano go.

UPDATE, 8:13 p.m.: Just what everyone predicted: a pitcher’s duel. Eleven of the first 25 hitters in this game have struck out.

UPDATE, 8:20 p.m.: Hideki Matsui never broke for second and Pavano danced out of the fifth inning with an unassisted double play at first base. The good news for the Yankees is that Robinson Cano hit the ball hard and so did Jorge Posada, but an actual run would be nice.

UPDATE, 8:26 p.m.: Another heads-up play from Swisher there to get the force at second. Couple of hard hit balls off Pettitte but no damage done so far.

UPDATE, 8:35 p.m.: Can’t blame the Twins fans for booing a call along the foul line, but that one was clearly fair. Chance for Damon to give the Yanks a lead here.

UPDATE, 8:37 p.m.: Not so much. Pavano freezes Damon with a 91 mph fastball that tails right across the plate. Now it’s right back on Pettitte to match the zero.

UPDATE, 8:48 p.m.: Tough spot right here for Andy – two on, two out and the best hitter in the league at the plate. One run is a lot in this game.

UPDATE, 8:49 p.m.: That didn’t take long. Mauer goes the other way and it’s 1-0 Twins. The “MVP!” chants are bouncing off the baggie. Pettitte’s got to bear down and keep it right here. Robertson is up in the pen.

UPDATE, 8:52 p.m.: High heat gets Pettitte out of it, and he screams in frustration as he walks off. He knows that one run looks huge right now.

UPDATE, 9:01 p.m.: Direct quote from Chad: “Alex Rodriguez hit a postseason HR in a game in which Carl Pavano was throwing a shutout. It’s just a weird, weird game.” Couldn’t agree more. Whatever, it’s 1-1 and the crowd – save for a brief “steroid” chant – has gone quiet. Joba up in the pen.

UPDATE, 9:04 p.m.: And Posada goes deep to make it – all of a sudden – a one-run Yankees lead. Two opposite field homers, one crushed (A-Rod’s) and one that just barely got over the wall (Posada’s). Joba to Hughes to Mariano?

UPDATE, 9:06 p.m.: By the way, A-Rod has a career-high six RBI in this playoff series. The most he’s ever had in a whole postseason is eight, and that was in 11 games in 2004.

Former Yankee and current YES Network analyst John Flaherty has agreed to break down the pitching match-up for every Yankees postseason game exclusively on the LoHud Yankees blog. Here’s his take on the Game 3 starters:

YANKEES: LHP Andy Pettitte (14-8, 4.16 ERA regular season)

WHAT’S HE THROW?: “Cut-fastball, sinking fastball, change-up, curveball”

STRENGTHS: “He’s done a great job of pitching to both sides of the plate this year and he’s throwing more change-ups and curveballs to keep hitters honest. I think he’s a more complete pitcher than he was a few years ago. It used to be that if you were a hitter, you could look for that pitch down-and-in and know it was coming eventually; now, look for how Pettitte works both sides of plate. You can’t say he’s re-invented himself, but he’s really tweaked some of his approach and it’s working for him.”

WEAKNESSES: “I think he’s got to be better with his location now than he did early in his career. Years ago, he could say, ‘here it is, see what you can do with it.’ Now, if he makes a mistake in the middle, it’s going to get hit and get hit hard. In terms of tonight, specifically, the only thing that would be a concern to me would be a week in between starts. That means there could be some rust and he’ll probably be taking some extra pitches in the bullpen to try and take care of it.”

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TWINS: RHP Carl Pavano (14-12, 5.10 ERA regular season)

WHAT’S HE THROW?: “Two seam fastball, backdoor slider and sort of a split/change-up”

STRENGTHS: “He’s got a nice two-seam fastball that he works down and away to hitters and he’s a big man so he creates a nice downhill angle when he’s got himself right. That can make it hard for hitters to pick up the ball, and he also hides it well with his front which makes it more difficult.”

WEAKNESSES: “When you face him and you look at him, you think ‘this guy is going to be bringing it’ in terms of velocity but it doesn’t come out of his hand like that. He doesn’t blow you away at all. … I also think all the extra baggage that’s going to go into it, he’s going to take that out to the mound with him. I think this is going to be a little bit too much for him, a must-win, all the Yankee stuff – it’s going to be overwhelming.”

———–

EDGE: “I think the Yankees have to leave the emotions aside in this game – whatever they think about Pavano, it’s got to be only about getting the job done today. In terms of the actual match-up, I give a big edge to Pettitte. I’ll take Andy Pettitte in a playoff game any day.”

Andy Pettitte has been-there, done-that for the Yankees in the postseason and one more win from him today will send the Yankees into the ALCS. Chad Jennings has the story.

Carl Pavano has already spent time on the DL with “sore buttocks” but the Yankees need to avoid the urge to kick him in the … well, you know. Point is, they can’t let their emotions get the best of them, like they have at least once before in a big playoff game.

For more on that, check out my column which includes this priceless quote from Jorge Posada: “I don’t think there was hatred (of Pavano); we just rolled our eyes at him.”

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It may be a football Sunday but we’ve got plenty of baseball talk here all day. “Flash Points” will be up in a few hours and then the game post closer to 3 p.m. with first pitch scheduled for a little after 7 on the East Coast. Keep checking in.

It’s not the full list like we were given when the Yankees were home, but here are the important times that were released this afternoon. (Times are local/Eastern)

3:25/4:25 p.m. Twins Batting Practice

4:30/5:30 p.m. Yankees Batting Practice

6:07/7:07 p.m. First Pitch

It’s not everything, but it’s what we have.

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Also, I was going through my notes and such from Friday’s game and found Nick Swisher’s explanation of that fourth-inning play when he threw out Carlos Gomez at second base to keep a run from scoring. That play was huge at the time, but wound up lost in the excitement of extra innings. Since it’s an off day and there’s not much else going on, here’s Swisher…

“I kind of caught him out of the corner of my eye,” he said. “He’s so fast, I don’t think he knew if he was going to be able to stop or not. I kind of saw him slip and fall and Jeet just happened to be standing there right on the bag. I just tried to throw as hard as I could.”

Asked whether he considered throwing home, Swisher said, “No. If I had a cannon like Melky or something, maybe, but not with my arm. I’ve got to be smart.”

It wasn’t surprising that the-double-that-wasn’t was still a topic during today’s workouts, with both managers giving their opinion on whether MLB should allow umpires to utilize instant replay in more situations than it is currently.

Here’s Girardi’s take: “The thing about baseball is it’s a real rhythm game … (so) if you were to start to instant replay all these plays, I think it would break the rhythm of the game, and our games all get to be four games long. I like the way they are doing it, just home run calls, those are important plays.

Here’s Gardenhire’s take: The great thing about baseball is the human elements involved, and we always want to keep it that way, not easy when you are in New York. The lines are short and it’s not easy, so there you have it. You are going to have a few. We made enough mistakes ourselves and we missed opportunities to win the game ourselves, too. It just goes that way sometimes. I think if you saw the last game against Detroit, (there was a pitch that) looked like it might have (Inge’s) jersey. That was a run, that game could have went that way, so breaks are part of it and it went against us this time.”

Here’s my take: I’m weird in that I love technology for so many things (including my iPhone) but am generally against it in sports, especially when it comes to officials. Basically, errors are part of the game for everyone … except officials? I don’t like that. And I wrote about it once before, so check that column out here if you’re interested.

UPDATE, 7:20 p.m. CST: I know my take on this is unusual and just looking at some of the comments already reminds me of the e-mails I got when that column came out. I think part of my hesitance on replay is that I don’t ever want there to be a day where there are no umpires at all because they’ve been replaced by robots or cameras or something. That would be wrong.

I also think it’d be wrong to have human umpires but have every call they make subject to some review, and I fear that when you open it up and start using replay for one thing, it’s only a matter of time before you want it for everything. And that would just be sad for baseball, I think. Whatever you may think about the “men in blue,” they’re a part of the game and should stay that way.

Bit of mild news from Twins manager Ron Gardenhire.

Minnesota third baseman Matt Tolbert is going on the disabled list after pulling his oblique last night. Brian Buscher will replace him on the Twins roster.

Tolbert and Buscher are pretty similar players: Corner outfield types who haven’t hit much in the big leagues, though Tolbert was a nice hitter the times I saw him in Triple-A. Gardenhire announced that Brendan Harris — who tripled and made a terrific defensive play after replacing Tolbert last night — will start in Tolbert’s place at third base.

It was a pretty large group that gathered around Alex Rodriguez in a Metrodome hallway this afternoon. Some wanted to know about last night’s game. Some wanted to know about facing Carl Pavano. Some wanted to know about being ahead two games to none.

Rodriguez wanted us to know that, despite the fact he was the only player interviewed outside of the clubhouse or the press conference room, this wasn’t about him.

“I think the most important thing for me is to go out and be in the mix somehow,” he said. “Get good at-bats and keep doing what I’m doing and not really worry about results.”

The highest-paid, highest-profile player in baseball wants to, “be in the mix somehow.” This is what writers and reporters are talking about when they say Rodriguez is more relaxed this postseason.

This afternoon, he talked about David Robertson (without being prompted to talk about David Robertson). He talked about Mark Teixeira (again without prompting). He said nice things about Pavano (obvously someone asked about Pavano). But Rodriguez said very little about himself.

Carl Pavano met the media this morning at the Metrodome and delivered a mostly uninteresting press conference ahead of his Game 3 start tomorrow night. When asked to reflect on his time in New York, Pavano said, “I mean, it’s tough. I mean, you know, it’s definitely a black period in my career, four years where I was kind of just treading water for awhile there, but obviously, with the way this year has gone, I have been able to go out there, and sustained health, go out there and be successful and get through the year and how everything has come full circle.”

Pavano also mentioned how good the chemistry is between him and his Twins teammates, a comment which made me laugh. His new teammtaes love him. His old teammates? They did this to him.

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Yankees are on the field working out right now. Batting practice inside an empty dome is even weirder than an empty stadium – each crack of the bat sounds like a gunshot and balls that hit the seats make a thwacking sound that echoes throughout the place.