Tagged: David Wright

3 key and avoidable screwups that cost the AL

The streak is over. The NL finally found a way to win, blah blah blah. The AL didnt help its case much last night, and speculations can be made all day over what Girardi and Manuel did or didnt do. However, the following three things DID happen, and ended up costing the AL.

1-Joe Mauer makes a baserunning mistake they teach you not to do in little league.

5th inning. Robinson Cano just hit a sac fly to put the AL up 1-0. Joe Mauer is on 2nd, 1 out. Carl Crawford hits a groundball to short, and Mauer takes it upon himself to go for 3rd, right in front of Hanley Ramirez! Ramirez easily nails him at 3rd for the 2nd out.
What professional baseball player pulls a stunt like that? You go AFTER Ramirez throws to 1st, then you wouldve scored on the Torii Hunter fly ball.

 

2-Elvis Andrus stole 2nd, then caught off the bag.

Jeter led off the 6th the only way he could, he got a hit. Then in comes Andrus to run for him. He takes 2nd as Konerko strikes out, but he came in to 2nd too fast and slid himself right off the base. Brandon Phillips catches him a mile off the bag and applies the tag. Josh Hamilton then hits a single that wouldve scored the speedy Andrus. Big Floppi strikes out to end the inning.

 

(For those counting, thats now at least 2 runs the AL lost out on…but was there a way to prevent the NL runs?)

 

3-Matt Thornton (how the hell is he an all star?) walks the bases loaded despite being ahead in the count 0-2.

7th inning. Runners on the corners, 2 outs. Marlon Byrd steps up to the plate against Thornton. The count quickly goes to 0-2. One more strike and the AL can breathe easy. Thornton then decides hes gonna get Byrd to chase some high heat.
Ball one.
Ok, so, lets try something new. BUT NO! Thronton trys to get Byrd to chase another high fastball!
Ball two.
Alright. Byrd clearly isnt fooled. Go to a new pitch? Nope! Lets try the same pitch AGAIN!
Ball three. Full count.
Thornton finally decides to try a different location. Down and away, and Byrd isnt swinging.
Ball four. Bases loaded. McCann steps up and the rest is history.

 

Honerable mentions go out to Joe Girardi for leaving David Ortiz to run the bases in the 9th, Joe Mauer for that terrible throw to 2nd that ended up in center field, and David Wright for not taking 3rd on the beforementioned Mauer throw.

 

Despite the above, im not that bitter. This just means the Yankees wont need 6/7 games to win the world series at home this year.

Buckle up

This is your captain speaking. Thank you for choosing Yankee Airlines for this flight to the ALCS. We will be departing shortly from the Bronx and will be making a brief stop in Minneapolis for some bubbly before finally arriving at the LCS. Our estimated time of flight should be around 3 games. Enjoy the ride.

Yankees. Twins. ALDS. Game 1. Won’t this be fun?

I always imagined the Yankees, Twins and Tigers as a game of rock, paper, scissors. Yankees beat Twins, Twins beat Tigers, Tigers beat Yankees. Now that Detroits out of the equasion, its only natural to assume the Yankees will roll on. But its never that easy.

Twins are comming in with a fire under them, but the Yankees have won all 7 meetings this year. The Yankees were also pretty much perfect against the Indians in 2007 and look what happened there. New York has never lost a playoff game at the Metrodome. Never. 4-0 all time, so Twins will lose homefield advantage even though it was a madhouse there last night against Detroit.

My playoff tourrets are ready, getting a brief warmup watching the Packers wage an unwinnable war on MNF at the Metrodome…which has doubled my resolve to want to see the Yankees destroy the Twins there. Funny how the same building can be the ultimate homefield advantage for one home team, and not for another (at least against the Yankees)

I’ll say it again, Johan Santana was the reason the Twins could ever beat the Yankees in the playoffs before, and with him now home, the Twins are in hot water.
Its amazing, Santana won game 1 in both 03 and 04, and all the Twins needed to do was win 1 of the following 3 games so Santana could at least pitch game 5, but they couldnt get it done.

My only gripe is TBS will probably do nothing but talk about Mauer’s MVP campaign and how important he was to the Twins this year…and probably about how he should apply for sainthood…

This is the most one sided matchup in all the playoffs. With the exception of starting catcher, the Yankees are better in every way, even team chemistry, so dont let those Yankee haters tell you the Yankees will lose.

The Twins have major momentum, but they’re heading head first for a brick wall in New York, and even David Wright’s helmet won’t be enough to protect them.