Incredibly, after the Phillies’ win over the Yankees in Game 5, what we seem to have here in the World Series is two managers desperately attempting to help the other team win.
Baseball
Putting it bluntly: Philly’s repeat talk not just smoke and mirrors
The Yankees are one of the most talented teams I’ve seen in a long time – as well they should be. They already had the best leadoff hitter, closer, and arguably the best hitter in baseball, and they spent a cool $425 mil to add the top two free-agent starters and the best free-agent position player on the market. That is what you call economy in motion.
What I’ve been surprised about is their ability to come together as a cohesive unit. Their chemistry appears better than I’ve seen from a Yankees team in years. I doubt Jeter truly likes personalities like Nick Swisher and A.J. Burnett, but I’m sure he’s learned to love the loosening-up affect they’ve had on the clubhouse, what with all the pies in the face and whatnot.
But they’re about to run into a Phillies team that is even more cohesive, that makes more sense, that has more of an identity. And that has just as much talent. Here are the factors I see affecting the World Series, which I believe will be a very close affair.
Defending champs have not yet nearly had their Phil of success
I sold the Phillies short this year mainly because I think it’s so hard to repeat in baseball. It hasn’t happened since the Torre Yankees about 10 years ago, and then before that the Blue Jays of the early ‘90s. Three separate teams repeated in the ‘70s, but that’s back in the early stages of free agency when it was far easier to hold onto a good team once you’ve built one.
But I underestimated the Phillies – anticipating their demise at the hands of the red-hot Rockies in the divisional round – and I really shouldn’t have.
Rockies’ loss means unfair overshadowing of Fowl play
Since the Rockies blew a late lead and lost to the Phillies on Monday night, the play Dexter Fowler made when he leaped over Chase Utley to get to second base will be overshadowed, but I wanted to make sure to give it a proper tribute here.
Stat freaks be damned: SportsAngle endorses Teixeira for AL MVP
Now most of you have dismissed this before you even read it. I’d be lucky to get any of you back. To paraphrase my man Billy Hoyle, I’m going to write it anyway.
Holliday & Manny – The antihero gets the jump on the would-be hero
All right, so my World Series pick has already busted. How was I to know that Matt Holliday would destroy any momentum his team had by dropping a ball I could have caught in left field?
Though the Cardinals and their fans – who gave Holliday a rousing ovation before Game 3 tonight – forgave the outfielder for his error, you can pinpoint that as the exact moment the wind went out of their sails. If he catches that ball, they come home tied at a game apiece with Joel Pineiro, who’d been solid all year, against Vicente Padilla.
Instead, they come home with no momentum, shell-shocked from a horrible defeat. If they won Game 3, they go back to Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright on short rest, and you’d feel good about it, but by then it was such an incredible uphill climb, as demonstrated by the lack of fight they showed in a 5-1 defeat.
So I hate to say it, but the Cardinals can look directly at Holliday for their loss in this series. Momentum is such a big part of baseball, and they had none left, while the Dodgers had tons.
Predicting the playoffs: Redbirds’ moxie over Rally Monkey
After the Twins’ phenomenal victory over the Tigers tonight, the playoff field is set. Though I mostly tend to talk about other sports on this site, truth be told, I watch a pretty decent amount of baseball, so I’ll give this a go. Remember, if you use anything I say here to gamble with, may the lord take mercy on you.
Remembering how Piazza showed us all how to overcome
I write this sentence as I ride by the skyline in Weehawken, and even after eight years, I look at the void in lower Manhattan and still can’t believe it.
Eight years ago today was an unbelievable time for the New York area, though you don’t need me to tell you that. Everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news. I was at home in New Jersey when my father called to tell me to put on CNN – and also to look outside, since we used to have a view of the Twin Towers from our back porch.
What I remember most about what went on around here was the way people came together. For an act that was designed to rip people apart, I find that it actually brought people together. The outpouring of goodwill from people in this area was remarkable. The atmosphere was such that everyone had to band together. For a time, we were all brothers.
New helmet to protect players from pitches thrown at ‘ludicrous speed’
After taking a Matt Cain fastball to the head that put him on the disabled list for the first time in his career, David Wright returned to action against the Rockies on Tuesday with a new helmet that supposedly would protect his head better from fastballs.
And which made him look like Dark Helmet from Spaceballs.
I noticed it immediately, and then the Mets announcers echoed the observation a few innings later. This thing is enormous! Wright joked that everyone on both teams were laughing at him, but I mean, they were. Has David Wright’s helmet truly gone from suck to blow?
Listen, we’re all about safety here. A 97-mph fastball to the head could have killed Wright, and players need all the protection they can get.
But here’s the thing, to perform well in sports, you have to feel cool. And to feel cool, you have to look cool. Don’t believe me? Ask Redskins running back Clinton Portis, when he was fined by the NFL for wearing, of all things, red socks:
If you’re not looking sweet, you really can’t play too sweet.
Thank you, Clinton. So I would implore the good people at Rawlings to get their act together here. Surely you can make an effective helmet that doesn’t look like my dude is wearing a VW Bug on his head. I mean, this is going to be mandatory in the Minors next year. We can’t have all these prospects falling over because their heads are suddenly too big for their bodies.
Until then though, we need Wright to keep using this monstrosity. His head’s just too valuable to have goons like Cain scrambling his brains. In other words…
We can’t stop! It’s too dangerous!
Santana’s Final Destination demonstrates hard truth of pitching contracts
Other sources – like Baseball Prospectus – have started to pick up on our idea of the Mets’ season being like a horror movie. Being that we are horror movie historians of sorts, we’ve specified the movie Final Destination as a direct parallel. And following with that theme, whatever demonic force has targeted the Mets claimed Johan Santana’s valuable left elbow and Oliver Perez’s somewhat less valuable right knee this week.
Sidebar: If there’s anyone out there who thought 150-year-old malcontent Gary Sheffield would outlast Santana, much less Wright, Beltran and Reyes, he or she should promptly begin playing the horses.
Regardless, neither Santana and Perez will pitch again this season, bringing to an end a series of injuries that veered into the land of the occult.
However, these two most recent maladies, particularly that of Santana, brings to attention a couple of shortcomings of the Mets’ organizational strategy.
- Pitchers are too risky to make big-money investments in.
- There is great monetary value in a successful scouting department and farm system.