dcat: What's not to like? We swept them, we came from behind in every game, and we eked out a couple of one-run games -- character testing stuff. But we are not Yankee fans, so we also know that it is far, far, far too early to gloat. Winning is nice, sweeping is better, and obviously this was the best possible outcome (although in the two games since there has been quite a hangover with two losses to the Jays). Still, I'd like us to keep putting distance between us and them, because we both know that they will make a run. I hate them with every essence of my being, but that does not make me unaware of what they are capable of accomplishing. And of course we face them again this weekend, and my guess is that they will be ready to get rid of some of that bad taste. Plus, after Dice-K plunking Jeter and A-Rod I suspect that some of the guys on the Sox will be tasting dust and feeling bruises, which should be good for the intensity of the proceedings. I think maybe a special Friday edition of Dirty Water will be in order.
Thunderstick: Well, I don't think we can catagorize the last week for the Sox as anything other than a resounding success. There are some things to nitpick at, but we'll save those for a bit later. In the end, in the last week we've seen the Sox complete a sweep of Anaheim on Patriots Day, go 2 for 3 in Toronto with a win in a game that Halladay started and then sweep the Yanks to post a 12-5 record, the best in baseball [as of Monday].
Don't want to get into too much of what happened in each series, but there are some pretty nice things--first and foremost is the pitching situation. Now one concern from this past weekend was that the Sox were set up perfectly with Schill, Beckett and Dice going against Pettite and two dudes who the Sox should hammer. It was a bit unsettling to see the Yanks have so much success off our three starting pitchers. The Sox did trail in all three games. But we saw some serious guts from our starters. Beckett really settled down after the first two innings and DiceK just kept battling. As such, they still got deep into the games and at least for right now, the back end of the things looks good with Okajima, Donnelley and Pap. That's what looks great right now for the Sox--even when the top 4 starters struggle to find their good stuff, they are able to get through 6-7 innings to keep the pen fresh. ESPN showed last night that going into the game last night the Sox pen had pitched the fewest innings of any team in baseball and was 1st in ERA and 2nd in opponents' batting average. Those two things aren't coincidental--you win games and get deep into games, you can go with your good pen guys to close games up. So I love what I'm seeing there. Especially as it relates to Pap, Okajima and Donnelly. We saw from about 97-2003 that those Yanks and Sox teams would put on some great battles, but the one big difference in those teams that led to the Yanks winning 4 titles and the Sox losing in the playoffs was that the back end of the Yanks rotation was also solid, first with Wetteland and Rivera and then with Nelson, Stanton and Rivera. Pap looks to be doing his best mid-career Rivera impression right now and if Okajima, Donnelley and eventually Timlin (once he gets back up to health) can do that, the 7-9th innings are going to look pretty formidable for opposing teams. I always remember thinking how the Sox had to score runs early against those Yanks teams because once you hit the 7th the game was pretty much done if you didn't have the lead. It'd be nice to be the team in that position.
The other nice thing from the past few days was that we are now seeing production from the entire lineup. The bottom third that we were so concerned about has seen a bit of a resurgence with Tek swinging the bat again and Coco playing pretty well. Cora came through with some huge hits, so it'll be interesting to see how they split time between him and Dusty who is clearly struggling. For the most part (the first two games with Toronto not withstanding), since the start of that Angels series, the Sox have been much more patient at the plate and are getting pitchers out early. It saved them against Halladay in the last game against Toronto and it worked well this weekend, particularly on Sat and Sun when they got two inexperienced guys out early and got to work on an overworked NY pen.
For as nice as the pitching was set up this past weekend, it's not this weekend---I guess we'll see Dice on Friday, Wake on Saturday and Tavarez on Sunday and from what I understand, Wang will be pitching on Sunday, so that's not a matchup that favors us at all. I'd love to go 2 of 3 in NY and go from there. From what I saw this weekend, despite their current 8-9 record, the Yanks will be there all season. We won three games, but they were close, and that was with all their starting pitching on the shelf and with Posada and Matsui playing little or no role. Clearly this will be the storyline to follow this season and may well determine the AL East title: Can the Yanks' starters stay healthy? Pettite and Mussina are pretty old, but they don't have a lot of room for error if those guys go down. Right now the bullpen is taxed. I think it's foolish to write off Rivera yet, but at the same time, every blown save makes you wonder if he's over the hill. But right now the Yanks are beat up and we are largely healthy only missing Lester right now, so it's important to get a 5-7 game lead over NY while we can because you know once they are at full strength, they will go on one of those 16-3 runs and we need to be able to withstand that. A good start to that would be 3 of 4 against Tor/Bal and 2 of 3 over NY.
dcat: Obviously the Thunderstick wrote all of that before the last two ugly nights, but he is pretty well spot-on otherwise. But someone has to say the most important thing to keep in mind: The Yankees Suck.
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