4/27-4/29 - The most important series of the year, PT II

[AutomatedTeller]

Yankees vs. Red Sox, in yankee stadium.

Friday: Matsuzaka vs Pettitte
Saturday: Wakefield vs Karstens
Sunday: Tavarez vs Wang

Seems to me that the probable key to this series is the friday night game.
- Tavarez vs. Wang is about as lopsided a game as you can imagine.
- Sox lit up Karstens, the Yankees traditionally can't hit Wakefield well, and Wake is pitching well, so that's an advantage to the Sox.


My guess:

10% chance Yankees sweep.
50% chance Yankees take 2 out of 3.
30% chance Sox take 2 out of 3.
10% chance Sox sweep

I think friday is about a tossup, and I think the Yankees have a bigger advantage on sunday than the Sox have on saturday.

[Zen653]

Unfortunately, I see the Yankees winning 2 out of 3, maybe 3 out of 3. I'd be shocked if the Red Sox won more than the Saturday game.

Andy Pettitte has a sub-2 ERA and is one of the best pitchers in baseball right now. He dominated against the Red Sox at Fenway and we only won that game because the Yankee bullpen couldn't hold a sizeable lead. I don't anticipate Torre making the same mistake twice and prematurely removing his ace lefthander. Especially not with a tired Yankee bullpen that needs to see a starter go 8 or 9 innings. The key to winning this game will be running up Pettite's pitch count so that we can force the Yankees to take him out early. Plus you have to think that the Yankees will pull out all the stops to win this one, after getting swept at Fenway last week and dropping 6 games in a row. To make matters even worse, Matsui and Posada should both be back in the lineup.

I expect Matsuzaka to crumble under the bright lights and hostile atmosphere of Yankee Stadium. He gave up 6 earned runs the last time out, and he'll probably be even worse this time around because of the deeper lineup and the foreign atmosphere. So I'm afraid that this game has massacre written all over it. The only way we win is if we get nasty and start plunking their hitters. Eventually, we'd force Pettitte to retaliate which would get him thrown out, thereby allowing us to light up the bullpen.

On Saturday, I think it's a toss-up. Wakefield wasn't so hot against the Blue Jays in his last outing, and Karstens will be pitching for a hungry home crowd. This looks like it could be one of those 11-9 slopfests. Let's hope that our hitters score Wakefield some runs. If they don't, we'll likely get swept.

Sunday's game looks like Wang all the way. Tavarez will probably be out of the game by the 4th inning. I don't know why we're even bothering to start him on Sunday. We'd arguably be better off with anyone from our Pawtucket rotation (Lester, Hansack, Gabbard, Pauley, Alvarez, etc.)

I see Tavarez spotting the Yankees several runs in the first few innings, with Wang shutting us down, and the Yankee bullpen giving up a few meaningless runs towards the end. Once again, our best chance to win this game is to start a brawl early and get Wang ejected. If we had a "win at all costs" manager like Ron Gardenhire, Ozzie Guillen or Jim Leyland, I bet that would be the strategy for this series. With Francona, we'll probably take our lumps. Even if we lose all three games, we'll still be ahead of the Yankees in the standings.

I really hope I'm wrong about this series.

[AutomatedTeller]

well, I can easily see the yankees taking 2 out of 3, but I think you are unneccesarily pessimistic about wakefield vs karstens. karstens is legitimately bad, and while wakefield got beat up a bit last time, it's not like he's a rookie or anything.

[AutomatedTeller]

Red Sox

1. Julio Lugo, SS
2. Kevin Youkilis, 1B
3. David Ortiz, DH
4. Manny Ramirez, LF
5. J.D. Drew, RF
6. Mike Lowell, 3B
7. Jason Varitek, C
8. Coco Crisp, CF
9. Dustin Pedroia, 2B

SP - Daisuke Matsuzaka (2-2, 4.00 ERA)

Yankees

1. Johnny Damon, CF
2. Derek Jeter, SS
3. Bobby Abreu, RF
4. Alex Rodriguez, 3B
5. Jason Giambi, DH
6. Hideki Matsui, LF
7. Jorge Posada, C
8. Robinson Cano, 2B
9. Doug Mientkiewicz, 1B

SP - Andy Pettitte (1-0, 1.78 ERA)

[Drury77]

Little bit of a pitcher's duel going on between Dice K and Pettitte.

[Drury77]

YOUK!!!!!!!!! 2 Run Homer

[Drury77]

Damon on first, Jeter up, Jeter grounds the ball to Lugo, and he bobbles the ball - everyone safe - Right now looming as a potentially costly error

But then Abreu grounds the ball back to Lugo, and he nails the start of the inning ending double play.

[Drury77]

Dice K in his first jam, Bottom of the 4th, bases juiced, no outs, Posada up

[Drury77]

Posada bloop singles to right field, A rod scores

[Drury77]

Dice K strikes out Cano, bases still juiced

[Drury77]

Doug M pops up to Lowell 2 outs

[Jim Potable]

3-2 on Damon, two away, bases loaded. A bloop to right. Two score.

(I don't like the slow call strikes by the home ump Runge.)

[AutomatedTeller]

Well, that sucked. Damon drives in 2 with a little nothing that drops in front of drew.

3 RBI's on two balls that just were hit where the fielder weren't - nothing smoked.

[Drury77]

Freakin Damon, full count, and he bloops it to left feild, enabling two runs to score giving the Yanks the lead 3-2

[Drury77]

RBI single for Jeter, with Drew getting a crappy error