Yanks in (More Than) A Sentence: Yankees 3, Phillies 1
2. I don’t care if the moves “worked,” with Hairston dinking a single to right and Jose “the Burnett Whisperer” Molina working a seven-pitch walk (his best at-bat of the season?) and picking off Werth after backhanding an errant curve. Girardi still left a few hundred points of leftylicious Posada/Swisher slugging percentage on the bench against a pitcher with significant righty/lefty splits. He is a menace, even if Jeter did apparently bunt on his own at 0-2.
3. Not to dote on this, but Girardi’s reliance on that Black Binder Of Statistical Death will cost the Yankees a game this post-season. That it hasn’t happened yet (fine, maybe it did with the Robertson/Aceves flip in Game 3 vs. the Angels) is a miracle. Hairston’s 10-for-27 lifetime stats against Pedro, which Girardi cited in giving him the start, happened in at-bats that took place before 2005. Those numbers could not be less relevant. I liked Girardi a whole bunch during the regular season: he managed the bullpen well, rested the regulars just enough, etc. He’s become a different manager in the postseason. If the Yankees win, they’ll do so despite him.
4. The lead here should really be A.J. Burnett. From where I was sitting (first row straight down the line in right field), I couldn’t judge the strike zone. But it looked like his curve had the snap it was missing in recent starts, plus he started most at-bats with a strike. Aside from the meltdown-averted third inning, he worked fast and had the body language of something other than a teenage girl handling an earthworm in biology class. That start was a perception-changer.
5. I’d have given Pedro a standing ovation if I wouldn’t have gotten shot for doing so. Again, I can’t comment specifically on his location, but he spotted his fastball masterfully between change-ups and Bugs Bunny curves. He is by a very, very wide margin my favorite non-Yankee of all time. I feel lucky to have seen him pitch more than any other visiting starter, except maybe Tim Wakefield.
6. Had the Yankees lost, the umpires would’ve needed a police escort to get out of the Bronx alive. I was 200 feet down the first-base line and even I could tell that Howard short-hopped the Damon liner. They blew the call on the back end of Utley’s double play, too. I’m generally a fan of the protections that unions provide, but I want to see baseball break the f’in umpires after this season. Three words: “accountability” and “fitness tests.”
7. The Yankees won by sluggin’ and slingin’, which is what they’ve done all season long. They have to feel good that they head to Philly tied at one game apiece after scoring only four runs in two games. The Phillies have to feel good that they’re heading home, just as they did last year, with home-field advantage in their pocket. This is already the most interesting World Series since Giants/Angels in 2002.
