Menu

Orioles-Yankees series

MLB Playoffs: Baltimore & St. Louis Bounce Back

, , , , ,

Two teams with very different recent pedigrees—the St. Louis Cardinals & the Baltimore Orioles stared death in the face on Monday—at least for all practical purposes—as they took the field for Game 2 of their respective Game 2s in the Division Series of the MLB playoffs, and each came up with a win for the home crowd that knotted things up at a game apiece. Let’s look back on the keys to Monday’s games, and ahead to Tuesday…

Baltimore 3 NY Yanks 2: It was the reverse of Sunday night’s opener, a game where New York made a couple key baserunning mistakes, but still managed to win. On Monday it was Baltimore who cost themselves two runs due to plays on the bases.

One of them came on defense right out of the box. Rightfielder Chris Davis had Ichiro Suzuki gunned at the plate with room to spare. Ichiro eluded the tag of Oriole catcher Matt Wieters, overran home plate and then dove back just ahead of Wieters to get his hand. You can actually make a pretty good case that this was less a Wieters mistake, then a tremendous effort by Suzuki, in getting his hand up and over the tag to touch home plate.

The second was an inexcusable error by Baltimore’s J.J. Hardy. With runners on first and second and two outs, Adam Jones grounded a ball in the hole. It went off the glove of Derek Jeter (it would have been an infield hit in either case and was scored as such) and trickled into left field. Hardy, looking over his shoulder, thought Jeter had gotten the ball and held at third when he could have scored easily. TBS commentators John Smoltz and Cal Ripken each made excuses for Hardy. They all sounded reasonable except for one problem—the third-base coach was in plain view cranking his arm like a windmill!!!

Like Mark Teixeira dogging it out of the box in Game 1 and costing himself a key double, Hardy is not alone in this mistake. It seems every player in MLB has decided base coaches are superfluous ornaments these days. This video needs to be sent to youth baseball coaches around the country.

Since Baltimore won the game I suppose I should talk about some things they did well. It starts with Wei-Yin Chen, who worked into the seventh inning and gave up just two runs. Chen survived a shaky first when he needed a line-drive double play that preceded the play by Ichiro noted above. And he got himself out of a bases-loaded one-out jam in the fourth.

Otherwise Chen, making his first postseason start, outdueled grizzled October veteran Andy Pettite. The Yankee lefthander pitched well, but had a bout of sudden loss of command in the third, and was touched for a crucial run in the sixth. Pettite still delivered a 7 IP/3 ER night that would be enough to win most games. The night ended with a big relief for Baltimore fans, quite literally, as Jim Johnson set the side down without incident in the ninth. After Johnson’s erratic close in the wild-card win over Texas and his Game 1 meltdown, the Orioles needed some assurance that their closer wasn’t losing it.

St. Louis 12 Washington 4: It was shades of postseasons past for two players. After Washington had grabbed a 1-0 lead and put a little pressure on the Cardinals, David Freese stepped up and delivered an RBI double to quickly tie it back up and restore some order. The 2011 postseason hero has hit well in both games of this series. Then Carlos Beltran conjured up shades of 2004 when he was in a Houston Astros uniform and utterly dominated the National League playoffs, including against these Cardinals, even if St. Louis did ultimately win a seven-game NLCS. Beltran went deep twice and helped keep the Nats at bay in the later innings.

St. Louis, as the twelve runs indicate, got contributions up and down the lineup, including three hits from Allen Craig and an unlikely home run from Daniel Descalco. It was necessary, because the St. Louis middle relief was a little shaky. Mike Matheny had a quick hook, pulling Jaime Garcia after he gave up the second-inning run and going to Lance Lynn. But the Nats touched Lynn for home runs by Adam LaRoche and Ryan Zimmerman, and later on in the game Edwin Mujica also surrendered a run.

What the Cardinals did get was a clean inning from Mitchell Boggs, the setup man who had struggled in the early postseason games and that’s something to give them a sigh of relief.

TUESDAY’S GAMES

TBS begins doubleheader action at 5:30 PM ET, with San Francisco-Cincinnati & Detroit-Oakland going back-to-back. The Reds and Tigers have the chance to clinch berths in the League Championship Series round that will start this weekend.

The pressure today would have to be a little more on Cincinnati. The initial plan to push Johnny Cueto back to today after his back spasms forced a quick departure in Game 1 have been scrapped. Homer Bailey pitches instead, and Cueto’s status for a potential Game 4 is still up in the air. I don’t know that the Reds want this series to stretch on with their ace’s ability to pitch undetermined on a day-to-day basis. San Francisco puts its season in the hands of Ryan Vogelsong, after a somewhat curious decision to burn up Tim Lincecum in a lost cause in long relief on Sunday.

Detroit can play with the assurance that Justin Verlander lies in wait for Game 5, even if Oakland wins these next two games, but because the A’s are at home, this is another spot where there’s some pressure on the leading team to close this out quickly. Anibal Sanchez will take the first shot at doing that, and Max Scherzer would pitch tomorrow. If Oakland wins these games—certainly realistic on their homefield, the Tigers might have Verlander, but there would be considerable pressure on Detroit if this series is still going on Thursday.

In short, let’s not put Cincinnati and Detroit into the LCS too quickly. Things can change in hurry in the postseason, especially a best-of-five, and each team should play tonight with a desire to finish things off ASAP.

St.Louis-Washington & Baltimore-NY Yanks will travel today, as they go to the nation’s capital and the Big Apple to resume play on Wednesday

MLB Playoffs: The Road Teams Are Rolling

, , , , ,

So much for the concern about the letting the lower-seeded teams play the first two games of the Division Series at home, a setup that presumably favored underdogs getting out to 2-0 series leads before having to take their act on the road. While it worked that way for Detroit, the rest of the series—indeed, the entire playoffs, including Friday’s wild-card games—have been marked by road winners. Let’s recap Sunday in the MLB playoffs and look ahead to the two game set for Monday night…

Washington 3 St. Louis 2: Can we officially say that Cardinal setup man Mitchell Boggs is a train wreck this October? He was the reliever was in meltdown mode on Friday before the disputed infield fly call in Atlanta bailed him out. Now on Sunday he comes in with a 2-1 lead and promptly surrenders the lead, as the Nationals steal a road win.

The St. Louis bats were quiet all day, except for David Freese’s two hits. The Cards let Gio Gonzales off the hook in the third after the Washington ace walked the bases loaded, but St. Loo only got two runs. Then in the seventh, with the bases loaded, no outs and a chance to get some insurance, they instead get nothing, with Yadier Molina hitting into a double play.

Cincinnati 9 San Francisco 0: As the score indicates, the Reds beat the Giants every way you can imagine. They got on the board with the long ball when Ryan Ludwick went deep in the second inning. Then in the fourth they peppered San Francisco starter with four singles that produced three runs. The game was broken open in the eighth on an array of balls powered into the gap. And the pitching? Bronson Arroyo was perfect through four and threw seven innings of one-hit ball.

NY Yanks 7 Baltimore 2: C.C. Sabathia came up very big for New York and Jim Johnson came up very small for Baltimore. The Yankee ace went 8.2 IP and threw 120 pitches, while the Oriole closer came on in the ninth inning of a 2-2 game and a chance to get his team six more outs if only he could take care of business. Instead, Johnson gave up a leadoff home run to Russell Martin, four more runs followed and a taut night of baseball at Camden Yards turned into a rout.

New York has to be thankful for the result, because their own baserunning mistakes cost them. In the top of the first, the game opened with a Derek Jeter single and an RBI double by Ichiro Suzuki. Then Ichiro inexplicably tried to steal third and was cut down. What was the point of even risking letting Baltimore starter Jason Hammel of the hook before he’d proven he could get anyone out. Then in the fourth, a potential big inning ended when Mark Teixeira hit a ball high off the wall, but was thrown out at second.

Replays showed Teixeira did what most big leaguers do these days and dogged it about three-quarters of the way down the first-base line. The out was the second of the inning and cost the Yanks a chance to have second and third with no outs. Baltimore wasn’t on the attack as much, but for eight innings were much cleaner until their closer just didn’t have it.

Detroit 5 Oakland 4: On the one hand, you can say that because Oakland has the next three at home, there’s reason to think they can turn this series around if they just pick up one win and put some pressure on Detroit. On the other hand…Game 2 of this series was tailor-made for Oakland. While Detroit got good work from Doug Fister (7 IP/2 ER) and four hits combined from Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder, Oakland starter Tommy Milone had a 6 IP/1 ER line, and the hits to Detroit’s big guns were all singles.

It meant a battle of the bullpens, which is the spot where the A’s needed to get this series. And when Josh Reddick got inconsistent Tiger setup man Joaquin Benoit for a two-run shot in the eighth, they had a 4-3 lead and could turn to the lights-out tandem of Ryan Cook and Grant Balfour to tie up the series. But Cook put runners on second and third, and then when he had two outs and looked set to preserve the lead, the setup man uncorked a wild pitch to tie the game, and Detroit then beat Balfour for the winning run in the ninth.

MONDAY’S SCHEDULE

The Cincinnati-San Francisco & Detroit-Oakland series will travel today, with the Reds going home and the Tigers going west, each with 2-0 series leads. Both will resume on Wednesday.

TBS will carry a doubleheader today starting at 4:30 PM ET, beginning with St. Louis hosting Washington, and then the Yankees-Orioles resuming hostilities in Baltimore.

The Cards throw Jaime Garcia in an attempt to even up the series and give Chris Carpenter a shot in the crucial Game 3, the spot in the rotation where the Nationals might miss Stephen Strasburg. Yesterday’s starter, Gonzalez, might win the Cy Young Award and today’s pitcher, Jordan Zimmerman is an ace in his own right. I think homefield is less consequential than pitching matchups, and while Washington can happy with a split on the road, St. Louis could also live with a split of the Gonzalez-Zimmerman games.

A similar dynamic exists in Baltimore, where the Orioles couldn’t be too upset with a split of two games facing Sabathia and tonight’s starter Andy Pettite. What Baltimore’s going to need is a big-time effort from Wei-Yin Chen, their most consistent starter through the season, but inconsistent in September until a nice finishing outing in Tampa Bay.

And Buck Showalter has to be concerned that Johnson’s Game 1 meltdown is not an isolated incident—the closer loaded up the bases on Friday in Texas before finishing it off and barely survived a couple situations against New York in a key series back in September.

MLB Weekend Schedule: Yanks-Orioles Drama Builds

, , , , ,

We’ve talked about the Baltimore Orioles more often than most media outlets here at TheSportsNotebook during the season. Not only is that a byproduct of my having lived in Charm City from 2008-11, but the fact that somebody needed to talk about the Orioles and at least examine why they were winning instead of casually assuming the winning would stop. Now the rest of the media is on the bandwagon, and they’ll get a lot of TV coverage for a four-game weekend series with the New York Yankees that started last night in dramatic fashion.

The elephant in the room for the Yankees right now is their starting pitching on any night that C.C. Sabathia or Hiroki Kuroda aren’t the listed pitcher and David Phelps was rocked off the mound quickly in Camden Yards. Then the moment everyone was waiting for happened—the Yankees rallied with five runs in the eighth inning to tie the game 6-6 against Pedro Strop, the incredibly talented relief pitchiner who looked exactly like a young kid tossed into a pennant race against Cano, Jeter, Ichiro & Co.

But a funny thing happened on the way to what seemed New York’s inevitable back-breaking win. The Birds crushed three home runs in the bottom of the inning, won anyway 10-6 and pulled back into first place. Now the AL East race is tied, the stage is set for the next three days and Tampa Bay is lurking two games back with a big series of their own at home against Texas.

New York has not won a series since late August, and that was against Cleveland. Phil Hughes, who’s got the talent, but also the consistency problem, gets the ball tonight to try and keep his team in first place. Freddy Garcia, the veteran at the other extreme of the spectrum goes on Sunday afternoon. Baltimore counters with steady Wei-Yin Chen, veteran Joe Saunders who’s fresh off taking a perfect game deep into a game at Toronto and then Zach Britton in the finale, who’s a more extreme version of Hughes, both good and bad.

There’s no mystery behind why the Yanks are slip-sliding in the standings and it’s because the starting pitching is hardly a matchup advantage, even against an Oriole staff that’s been questioned all year. Furthermore, Derek Jeter is the only hitter who seems to be locked in right now, while Baltimore is watching  Nick Markakis swing a hot bat and Mark Reynolds on a massive tear that’s seen him hit 12 home runs in a month, including eight straight games and including a pair last night.

One team that has no pitching issues whatsoever is Tampa Bay, who is the most recent team to win a series against New York. The Rays are two back of the co-leaders and if they can win their home series with Texas, the Rays naturally stand to be within at least one game of whoemver loses the O’s-Yanks battle in the race for the wild-card. Desmond Jennings, B.J. Upton and Ben Zobrist are all hot and David Price is set to go Saturday, as he seeks some redemption for when the Rangers pounded him a week and a half ago down in Arlington.

The other showdown series this weekend is on the other coast and in the other league, where the Dodgers-Giants go at it in San Francisco. All the pressure is on Los Angeles here. They missed a chance to close the 4.5 game margin this week when they dropped two of three to San Diego while San Fran was doing the same to Arizona. The Dodgers are getting some good hitting from a new player, but it’s not any of the big names they got at the deadline or in the deal with Boston—it’s Luis Cruz, the shortstop who came up and has a .409 on-base percentage and .517 slugging percentage in the last month. Frisco is treading water a bit right now, but Buster Posey and Brandon Belt are both locked in at the plate and if they even pick up one win at home they’d still be in command of the division on Monday morning.

Other notable weekend action…

The Los Angeles Angels got what they needed this week. Not only did they sweep Oakland and move to within 2.5 games of their division rival for the last wild-card spot, but the Halos did it with great pitching from Zack Greinke and Dan Haren, and the lineup is producing up and down the order. Now they get a visit from Detroit, with each team just outside the playoff picture. The Tigers had a disappointing early week, losing a pair of one-run games to Cleveland and slipping a game back of Chicago in the AL Central. We’re at the point in the season where it’s not to much to think the Angels-Tigers games in Anaheim are elimination battles, at least far as the wild-card goes.

Detroit would still be in it to catch the White Sox, who won two of three from Minnesota and play Cleveland on the weekend—but the ChiSox loss to Minnesota came by an 18-9 score and that’s hardly comforting work from your pitching staff. Oakland goes to Seattle, hardly an easy series and the A’s two best hitters, Josh Reddick and Yoenis Cespedes are both slumping.

Over in the National League, St. Louis plays host to Milwaukee. The Brewers are quietly playing good baseball and after sweeping Pittsburgh last weekend, would surely love even more to stick it to the division rivals who ousted them from last year’s NLCS. The Cards send Kyle Lohse to the hill tonight, but Adam Wainwright is not on the weekend docket, so a series win for the road underdog is within realistic reach. The Pirates get the Cubs at home and trail the race for the last wild-card by a game and a half.

Atlanta enjoyed a big week. Getting three of four from Colorado doesn’t seem like a big deal on the surface, but it was set up to a disaster—the Braves only scored one run in each of the last two games, but Mike Minor and Tim Hudson stepped up on the mound and delivered 1-0 wins. While Atlanta is a distant 7.5 games back of Washington, they’ve opened up some breathing room for a wild-card berth, leading by five games and a soft schedule in September.

Washington, Cincinnati and Texas are the three teams that are rolling. We’ll debate the merits of shutting down Stephen Strasburg for October, but the Nats’ lead in the NL East is sufficient that it won’t matter before then. Cincy may have lost a series to Philadelphia this weekend, but are plus-eight in the Central and more focused on getting Joey Votto back in the swing of things for October. Texas isn’t quite as home free yet, with the lead over Oakland at 5.5 games, but the Rangers have won six straight series, including a pair of four-game sets mixed in there and they’re still holding a 4-5 game lead after this weekend in Tampa, they’ll have survived their toughest schedule run left.