History Repeats Itself (So Far)
What do the ALDS, ALCS, and World Series have in common? The Yankees dropped the first game of each. Last night's 3-2 loss to the Marlins didn't surprise me terribly. Wells was pitching off only 3 days rest. Pettitte will only be pitching off 3 days rest tonight too, but he's 9 years younger than Wells. He also was shaky his last outing, which will hopefully drive him to perform tonight.
I don't understand why Torre put Soriano back in the leadoff spot last night. He wisely left Giambi batting 7th. Why did he move Soriano back up? What you want in a leadoff hitter is someone who gets on base. Regularly. That does not describe Soriano. I don't care how many leadoff homeruns he's had. That's nice, but I'd rather have a batter who draws walks and hits singles regularly to pave the way for Derek Jeter. As much as I didn't like Knoblauch, that is why he was such a good leadoff man. He didn't hit for power, but he got on base.
And why is Williams still batting clean-up? He's not hitting for power these days. Yeah, he hit one homerun last night. His first of the post-season. I doubt he's going to repeat. Why not put Matsui there? That man is hitting a helluva lot of doubles.
Well, tonight's another game. I'm not making any predictions. If this year's ALCS and NLCS taught us anything, it is the truth of Yogi Berra's old adage - "It ain't over till it's over." That and the fact that the Cubs and Red Sox can be counted on to let their fans down consistently.
Go Yankees!
Comments
Ok, a bit of a misnomer, since I'm not making any predictions, thus the Greek doesn't quite fit.
I do offer the following analysis on your entry. David Wells pitched fine last night on three days rest. He helped to get the pitching staff back on track by going deep. I'm more worried about Pettitte going on three days rest and coming off a shaky start.
Soriano should be dropped to 9th in the order and Jeter moved to lead off. Unless you want to move Posado up to clean-up, Bernie should stay there. Having a switch hitter at the clean-up spot is a luxury as it makes it more difficult for the opposing manager to match up by bringing righty or lefty specialists out of the bullpen.
Posted by: Jon the Greek | October 19, 2003 05:31 PM
Go Marlins!
(Actuallly, I'm not a baseball fan and don't really care but I do live in Florida so I consider Marlin cheering obligatory.)
Posted by: Kathy K | October 19, 2003 08:03 PM