Greetings and Salutations folks, Jay from “On The Sportslines” here with another Yankee Playoff Blog Post. The headline says it all. Another year, another post-season, another Yankee series win against the Twins. I know that Yankee fans are whooping it up over at 161st and River after tonight’s 6-1 win completed a 3-game sweep, but remember kids, this is just step one. Getting past the Twinkies shouldn’t surprise anyone. Even those Talking Heads who in response to the Yankees late-season swoon (8-11 heading into the playoffs) kept tossing out this little negative chestnut: “The Yankees have never advanced as the Wild Card.” Shouldn’t have been surprised. Guys, you know that stat goes out the window when the Yankees play the Twins in the first round. It doesn’t matter if the Yankees are the #1 seed or the Wild Card, the Yankees ALWAYS beat the Twins. They are now 12-2 since 2003 with 9 straight wins over the boys from the Twin Cities. Props to Twins Manager Ron Gardenhire for being a classy guy during his post-game interview with TBS reporter Craig Sager and showing his sense of humor telling Sartorial Sages that he’s still trying to find out where the TBS man buys his unique suits.
A playoff sweep gets you two things: a champagne shower in your lockerroom and a chance to get some extra rest while your potential opponents have to keep playing (Rangers couldn’t close out the Rays in their game 3, losing 6-3). Okay, there is a third thing – you can rearrange your rotation if needs be. Chances are the Yankees won’t, but it will be interesting to see if they follow last year’s blueprint and only go with 3 starters in every series. Game 1 of the ALCS won’t be till Friday.
If they do, Phil Hughes removed any doubts as to his spot as the third man. All the kid did in his first post-season start was throw 7 shutout innings, striking out 6, allowing only 4 hits on 99 pitches – 67 for strikes – earning the W in a series clincher. Welcome back First Half Phil.
The Yankee offense decided to play from out front for the first time in this series, putting up 6 runs highlighted by a 3 run fourth inning that knocked Twins starter Brian Duensing out of the game. Not to pat myself on the back here, but I kinda called this with my reference to the fact that he couldn’t get past the 5th inning against the Yankees in the 2009 ALDS. But I digress. Marcus Thames provided the big blow, crushing a homer to right field with Robison Cano aboard. Thames has provided big bops all year, especially against lefties – 9 of his 12 HRs came against southpaws. But Thames had plenty of help from his mates as for the second straight game they banged out 12 hits. Brett Gardner was the only one to take and O-fer, but his sac fly drove in one of the 6 runs.
By the time Hughes turned the game over to the Yankee bullpen he had a 6-0 lead. Now I guess Kerry Woods must have thought that the folks at The Stadium and at home were starting to snooze because he felt compelled to insert a little drama into tonight’s proceedings and making me looking a little foolish for saying that he seemed to have the 8th inning locked down. Wood allowed a run on 3 hits plus a walk, only managing to get 1 out in the process. His implosion forced Joe Girardi to turn to Boone Logan to get out Jason Kubel followed by David Robertson coming in to take care of Delmon Young and get the Yankees out of the inning without any further damage. That Mariano Rivera would come in the nail down the series clincher was a foregone conclusion. 12 pitches was all it took. Game, set, match Bronx Bombers who get to continue defending their title.
So what did we learn in this sweep? We learned that the Yankees 8-11 stumble into the playoffs didn’t mean squat. That getting guys rested and healthy for the playoffs meant more than winning the division. Yes, I know, every Yankee to a man said of course they wanted to win the AL East and have home field throughout the playoffs. I’m sure they meant it. But like I said in my first post, the Yankees have that intangible that no other team in the playoffs has: they KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that they can beat ANYONE, anywhere, anytime. Thus they don’t care about whose field they play on. But again, I digress. Back to lessons learned. We learned that the Yankees offense can do the job with runners in scoring position, going 9-25 (.360) in this series. We learned that the Yankees starting pitching very much resembles last year’s. We also learned that it’s a good thing that bullpen has some solid depth in front of the greates post-season closer in baseball history.
It’s almost as if the entire team flipped a collective switch the minute the post-season started. It’s as if they suddenly remembered “Oh that’s right, we’re the Yankees and it’s October. Time to start playing REAL baseball.” That attitude and the lessons learned from the sweep of the Twins will come in handy against either the Rangers or the Rays. The first step was easy, but like the Navy SEALS say “The only easy day was yesterday”. Come Friday the level of difficulty goes up. See you then.
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