Yankees need a New York miracle tonight

Monday, October 18, 2010

Mike Parente, GoLocalProv Sports Editor

Never in my lifetime of watching baseball could I remember a time when the road team grabbed the coveted split in the first two games of a best-of-seven series and still headed home facing what seemed like an insurmountable uphill climb.

Leave it to this year’s New York Yankees – this expensive group of underachieving, yet well-groomed, misfits – to defy traditional baseball logic.

The Yankees are back in the Bronx for tonight’s third game of the American League Championship Series knotted at one game apiece with the Texas Rangers, yet it’s hard to feel optimistic about their chances given what they dealt with in Game 2 and what they’re about to deal with in the next few hours.

After mounting a monumental comeback in the series’ opener – the Yankees rallied for a 6-5 win despite trailing by five runs in the seventh inning – New York had a chance to choke the life out of Texas with young phenom Phil Hughes on the mound for Game 2 Saturday afternoon. Not only did Hughes pitch his worst game of the season (seven earned runs on 10 hits in just four innings), he managed to pitch the third-worst game in Yankee playoff history, according to statistics dug up by a group of nerds living in their mothers’ basements.

As I stated in Friday’s series’ preview, the Yankees needed to take both games in Texas in order to have a shot. Instead, the Rangers send ace Cliff Lee to the mound tonight with a solid chance of grabbing a 2-1 lead. And if they do that, they get to tee off on head-case A.J. Burnett in Game 4. In less than 48 hours, the Yankees could be on the brink of elimination if they don’t pull off a miracle tonight against Lee, who has allowed just two earned runs over 16 innings in the postseason and has yet to walk a batter while striking out 21.

Twenty-one strikeouts, zero walks – that’s Bob Gibson firepower with Greg Maddux command. The Yankees have a deep lineup capable of making opposing pitchers sweat, but unless Mark Teixeira finds his way off the side of the milk carton (0-for-8 in the LCS) and Alex Rodriguez regains his power (no extra-base hits yet in the postseason), the Yankees won’t put up much of a fight against Lee. Robinson Cano has been tremendous, batting .556 with a pair of home runs, but he won’t get a single pitch to hit the rest of this series until someone else in this lineup produces.

Look it at from a mental standpoint, too: The Rangers basically kicked the crap out of two of the Yankees’ top three starters (C.C. Sabathia and Hughes) and only lost the series’ opener due to a freakish implosion by their bullpen. As they proved in Game 2, they’ll win more often than not if the Yankees continue to spot them a five-run lead.

Andy Pettitte is as good a postseason pitcher as we’ve ever seen, but the Rangers can relax tonight knowing they probably don’t need to put a crooked number on the board because they have their ace on the mound. Two or three runs might be enough.

As bad as the Yankees’ starters have been in the playoffs – and they’ve been downright horrendous, particularly Sabathia, who was last year’s postseason hero – it’s time the offense pick up the slack. The Yankees have only scored first once in their five playoff games. A starting pitcher needs to be able to make a mistake without feeling like every pitch could cost him the game, but the Yankees haven’t given their starters that luxury because their offense typically doesn’t wake up from its coma until the fourth or fifth inning.

These late-inning heroics make for awesome highlight footage, but constantly living on the edge is not conducive to winning a world title. The Yankees won’t be able to ride the Miracle Train down the Canyon of Heroes, no matter what their recent track record indicates. Strong starting pitching, timely hitting and a dominant bullpen is what wins in October, and scoring first every now and then wouldn’t hurt either.

Saturday’s loss was indefensible on a number of levels. Jorge Posada proved once again why he shouldn’t catch another game at the big-league level ever again, attempting to throw out Josh Hamilton stealing second base in the bottom of the first inning while the runner on third broke for home. Posada’s mental gaffe gave the Rangers a quick 1-0 lead, which erased any hangover they might have had from Friday’s demoralizing loss, and wasted an otherwise solid inning by Hughes, who actually struck out the side despite all the nonsense.

The third game of a series that’s tied at 1-1 hardly qualifies as “do-or-die,” but the Yankees are in a unique predicament based on the fact Texas had to save its ace for Game 3 because it needed to use Lee twice in order to beat Tampa in the Division Series.

Think back to 1999 when the Yankees played the Red Sox in the ALCS. Boston had to bring Pedro Martinez out of the bullpen to beat Cleveland in Game 5 of the ALDS. As a result, he couldn’t pitch until Game 3 at Fenway Park. All the Sox had to do was split in New York and they would’ve had the edge heading home, but the Yankees swiped both games and remained in the driver’s seat despite getting clobbered in Game 3. They wound up winning the series in five games, and Martinez pitched just once.

The Rangers basically did what the Red Sox couldn’t do 11 years ago; they got the split, and now they’ve got their ace on hill with a chance to put the Yankees in a chokehold. Tonight, we’ll find out if these Yankees still have the heart of a champion.