Yanks have home field advantage but give edge to Phillies
Published Wednesday October 28th, 2009
They're the best two teams money can buy. So that guarantees plenty of star power in this year's World Series beginning tonight.
The fact the teams are located about 60 miles apart down the New Jersey Turnpike, have rabid fan followings with little regard for the other side, and have the highest paid players in the game adds plenty of intrigue to a matchup that really is a pick 'em, despite what the experts in Reno, Nevada are saying.
Betting line lists the American League champion New York Yankees as heavy two-to-one favourites to beat the National League's Philadelphia Phillies, although it's the Phillies who have had the greater post-season success in recent years.
Geez, seems to me, didn't they win the World Series as recently as last season?
For Fredericton fans, they've got pinch-hitter extraordinaire, Matt Stairs, still swinging a power bat on occasion.
Matt's 41 now, and this is probably his last hurrah. But what a way to end what has been a workmanlike career, the potential of wearing not one but two World Series rings.
More distinqiushed players than he have never played in a World Series much less win one. So Matt will have memories for a lifetime when all is said and done.
There's a lot to like about this Philadelphia team, over and above the favourite son being on the roster.
They are the defending champions, so they've proven to themselves they can get it done when it matters the most. People talk about the gripping pressure-cooker that is playing under the spotlight of a World Series. When you're playing in media-giant markets such as New York and Philadelphia, the focus is even more intense. It can become a big-time head game. Phils winning last season alleviates some of those doubts.
And so does having a loosey-goosey manager like Charlie Manuel, who is a good ol' boy everybody loves for his bumpkin-like mannerisms.
They've got one of the league's best players in Chase Utley. They've got a consistent 45 HR and 140 RBI man in first baseman Ryan Howard, who's been swinging a hot bat in the post-season, and a hell-for-leather shortstop Jimmy Rollins, a former MVP who perhaps holds the key to this team's fortunes in this year's Fall Classic. If he can get on and disrupt things on the bases, that provides a momentum boost for the guys in red.
Guys you might not hear much about but have been golden in the post season are outfielders Shane Victorino and Jayson Werth, who is crucial in providing a righthanded power bat hitting behind lefties Utley and Howard, and catcher Carlos Ruiz, who brings plenty of energy to the mix. Renowned as a no-nonsense handler of pitchers, he's also developed a home-run stroke of late. And he could likely be hitting in the ninth hole tonight.
When the pitching fell off a bit earlier this season, the Phillies as a big-market club, went out and acquired the Cy Young Award winner from the previous year, Cliff Lee, and voila, he became the ace of the staff. He starts tonight.
Game 2 starter could very well be another late-season pickup, Pedro Martinez. Is there a bigger big-game pitcher who relishes the spotlight more than he? Cole Hamels was the ace of the staff in last year's run. The bullpen has been much maligned after closer Brad Lidge's breakout season a year ago. But Lidge seems to have regained some of his swagger. And the rest of the pen led by Ryan Madson and Chan Ho Park was good enough to get by the Rockies and Dodgers. What's one more series?
Symptomatic of the economics of today's game, Lee's opponent on the hill tonight, CC Sabathia, won the Cy Young Award a year before Lee. What makes that odd, you ask? Both did their Cy Young Award pitching with the Cleveland Indians. Ouch, if you're an Indians fan. Didn't they just change managers after finishing dead last in their division?
Sabathia won 19 games under the microscope of pitching in New York after signing that $160M contract. He was named MVP of the Yankees' six-game win over the Angels in the AL championship series, and has evolved into the kind of personality that has worked well with this Yankees' group. He's the stud pitcher and everybody knows it. But if he loses Game 1, well, that changes the dynamics in a big way.
No telling what you're going to get with A.J. Burnett, a career .500 pitcher with good stuff who found a way to win 18 games with the Blue Jays in 2008 and reaped the rewards with an $80M contract with the Yanks. He's a head-case of the worst order, who won just 13 games on a ball club that won over 100 games. Andy Pettitte is Mr. Reliable but he, too, is capable of blowing hot and cold. Who else is there?
Mariano Rivera is without peer in the bullpen, and he gives the Yankees a solid edge there. But he can't pitch two winnings every game. Joba Chamberlain is every bit as flaky as Burnett. Phil Hughes seems to have lost an edge. Dave Robertson might be the best of the rest. And where was he all season?
Yanks won 103 games because they've got great players in their everybody lineup, as might be expected with the game's highest payroll. Mark Teixeira signed for just under $200M to play first and hit third in the lineup, and while he didn't do much against the Angels, he's been a consistent 100-plus RBI man so he can hit with people on base. But he's never played in a World Series.
At $300M, Alex Rodriguez has been the mega-underachiever in post-season play up until this year. He's hit over .400 and feeling good about himself, so A-Rod no doubt will be a major factor. But this is his first World Series, too, and he does have a history of letting his emotions impact his play under pressure-cooker situations. He says he's never been more relaxed. Well, we'll see.
Derek Jeter is a legitimate MVP candidate and sets the table as well as anybody in the game, and don't under-estimate the impact of Johnny Damon, the helter-skelter free swinger who might very well be playing for another contract in New York. Catcher Jorge Posada was never a great defensive catcher even in his heyday and now coming off shoulder surgery, that opens the way for a guy like Rollins to have considerable impact. Posada retains a big bat from both sides of the plate. So he can be an offensive force. As can second baseman Robinson Cano, who tends to blow hot and cold both in the field and at the plate.
Yanks do have home-field advantage, and they've been the most successful franchise in the history of the game. But they haven't won a title since 2000, and last season didn't even make the post-season with the game's highest payroll.
Let's go Phillies. Now only if they could start the games at 7 o'clock.
David Ritchie can be contacted at ritchie.david@dailygleaner.com or at 458-6484.
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