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Yanks Gamers/Postmortems

Perish The Thought: Yanks-Twins ALDS Gamer III

Carl Pavano faces the Yankees today at the Metrodome. Oh, what a bitter pill should the Bombers not wrap this series up this evening.

Comment away.

Lineups courtesy Sam Borden at LoHud

New York Yankees
Jeter SS
Damon LF
Teixeira 1B
Rodriguez 3B
Matsui DH
Posada C
Cano 2B
Swisher RF
Cabrera CF
Andy Pettitte LHP

Minnesota Twins
Span CF
Cabrera SS
Mauer C
Cuddyer 1B
Kubel RF
Young LF
Harris 3B
Morales DH
Punto 2B
Carl Pavano RHP

90 replies on “Perish The Thought: Yanks-Twins ALDS Gamer III”

The Yankees better start showing me some anti-Pavano sentiment this second time through the lineup.

It would also be nice to see Damon snap out of whatever this is he’s been in for over a month.

are we watching baseball, or america’s most wanted?…that’s the guy that stole $40m from the yankees…

continuing with the “umps suck” post season theme, carl should buy the guy behind home plate a big steak after the game…

I don’t know if you can call it a “big break” since it maybe, could have been a double play if Cano had come up with it.

I feel like Swisher has the most right field, within 25 feet of the foul pole, hits this year.

The Captain attempts to remind the rest of the lineup that they are indeed facing Carl Pavano. Hopefully Johnny can get it together here and we can get ourselves a nice 2 out run.

“eh? really?”
uh…yep
will the real carl pavano please stand up?…not too quickly though, you might pull a gluteous muscle…
umps do suck

The strike zone is crazy but every single pitch to Damon was somewhere in the middle of the plate.

POSADA! Now the crowd is dead silent. Do you throw Pettitte in the 7th? Or go to Hughes? Or Robertson/Aceves? Or maybe Coke for one batter? In that case why not use Pettitte?

Nick just asked me on the phone if you would let Pettitte start the bottom of the inning. I said yes if his pitch count was below 90…go hitter by hitter.
But it’s looking like Joba.

I don’t know what Joba has done to deserve the nod over Robertson, or even Aceves. I fear Girardi may make a big mistake here simply based on past season results.

Of course…after Joba’s ok showing the other night Mike is praying he comes in and strikes out the side here.
Then again, so am I.

If you use Hughes this inning, then who pitches the 8th? Or do you think Hughes should go 1.2?

Hughes can go more than one inning easily.
Joba can barely touch 97 right now. This is what his stuff looked like as a starter last year.
One more strike from Joba, then Hughes time, with Mo ready to step in at any moment.

and Melky runs with the bat. He has some really bad habits. He should have been gunning it down the first base line. It IS the playoffs.

Rob, I think it’s Gardenhire who deserves a ton of criticism. His players just don’t know how to play fundamental baseball. The Yankees could have been looking at going down 1-2 in the series, but instead they’re that much closer to winning it outright.

Can’t blame Joe for this move. Mauer and Cuddyer are their two scariest hitters right now. (though Span is just a very good player I don’t fear the power as much).
Also, Mo on a lefty is the best Odds you’re going to get.

Is Joe Nathan really that scared of A-Rod that they don’t go to their closer in what could be the last inning of their season? Sheesh.

Poor Joe Nathan. They really should’ve let him start the inning, but in either case, as I’ve said before I’m a huge Nathan fan, though not for this series. Hard not to feel for him though.
Well, let’s win the damn game and I’ll feel sorry for the guy afterwards..
Hairston pinch running for Matsui.. weird. I guess it keeps the DH alive, and Damon will come out for Gardner..

They paid Nathan the money to be in there in the 9th and you have to go back to him. it’s not like the Sox would have not gone to Papelbon again if there had been a game four.

my stomach will not ease….let’s go Mo. A strike out, and double play, vice versa….3 strike outs…three pop ups….

Why doesn’t the guy on first take second base? I mean, it would most likely just be fielder indifference anyhow..
Though maybe he’s really slow..
Go Yanks!

I guess these fielder indifferences (at least with a 3 run lead) doesn’t matter – only added 0.2% win percentage.
Let’s go Yanks. The Angels are scary, but at least we’ll both be set up..

For all the dismissal of the Twins prior to this series, they played the Yankees well all year – and lost every time regardless. They led in most if not all of the 10 games they eventually lost to the Yanks, including every game of the ALDS and every game played at the NYS in 2009.
In this series their two base-running mistakes (Young falling down rounding second in Game 2 and Punto falling down rounding 3rd in Game 3 not knowing that Jeter had in fact fielded the ball) killed them. Not at all surprisingly Jeter was in the middle of making the Twins pay for it both times.
The Cuzzi-call was horrid and really inexcusable (he was in position, it didn’t look like anything obstructed his view, and the ball was well in bounds). But I really don’t like the assumption of what would have happened after that call had it in fact gone the right way. Either you acknowledge it was a terrible call that unfairly robbed Mauer of a double and leave it at that or you assume that all else happens in that inning the way that it did – and then you have to give NY the bottom of the inning they had – Teix’s HR would have tied it with 0 outs in the bottom of the 11th. Either way, to say that the Twins were robbed of a win is just wrong. They were robbed of a double, which might have influenced who ultimately won – or might now. In the end they could not close out the Yankees with a 3-1 lead in the 9th in that game and then they could not score with bases loaded and no outs in the 11th of that game (even AFTER the call). But in a series where the Twins needed everything to break their way in order to win, their own mistakes plus the breaks of poor umpiring ensured that they would not advance.

well said IH…let me add that the yanks won with good pitching…the twins got good starting pitching in 2 of the games, but their bullpen let them down…the yanks weren’t exactly an offensive juggernaut, despite arod’s coming out…lost in the arod excitement was jeter having a nice series with the bat…tex was not so good, except for game 2, and he showed us some good timing, something good players do, with the walkoff…posada made the most of his opportunity, and matsui at least ops’d .417 thanks to a couple of walks…the rest of the offense didn’t show up…they’ve got some bat work to do if they expect to beat the angels…

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