ALCS Preview

Eight games are in the books in the American League playoffs for 2010 and two teams have been eliminated. Friday night, the Minnesota Twins will visit the Tampa Bay Rays in the first game of the…

Wait, what?

The Rangers at the Yankees?

Yes, apparently my wonderful predictions could not have been more wrong in the first round of the AL playoffs. Cliff Lee pitched exactly like the Rangers wanted him to when they traded for him a few months ago and sure enough, when the chips were down on the table, the Rangers won just one of three games in which Lee did not start. However, they won both games the left hander started and he is closer and closer to a huge payday this offseason.

In the other series, the Yankees have the Twins number and there is no other way to say it. In the wildcard era (since 1995), the Twins and Yankees have played in the first round of the playoffs four times and have won all four series while posting a 12-2 record.

Now the two face off and at face value, the advantage is firmly in the Yankees corner and the reasons aren’t so much for home/road splits or key players or anything of that sort. Many people hate to talk about “intangibles” but whatever they are, the Yankees have them. They play the game the right way and while they may not do anything great, they do everything well.

BY THE NUMBERS

The Yankees outscored the Twins 17-7 and had a slash line of .314/.351/.865 in the sweep while allowing the Twins a slash line of just .216/.280/.330 and two of those three games were on the road for the Yankees.

CC Sabathia pitched decently in game 1 (6.0-5-4-3-3-5), Andy Pettitte pitched very well in game 2 (7.0-5-2-2-1-4), and Phil Hughes pitched brilliantly in game 3 (7.0-4-0-0-1-6), answering some of the biggest questions about this team coming into the postseason. On top of that, their bullpen pitched 7.0 innings and gave up just 1 run on 7 hits.

On the other side, the Rangers won the first series in the wildcard era where every game was won by the road team (so much for home field advantage). The fact that makes that tidbit so unusual is the fact that the Rangers had the second worst road record (39-42) of any playoff team and all they did was win three games against a team that went 49-32 at home. So are they afraid of the new Yankee Stadium and the Yankees 52-29 home record? I seriously doubt it.

The Rangers had a slash line of .253/.283/.437 while they allowed the Rays a .215/.270/.355 slash line. The number that jumps out at me the most is that they had just a .283 on-base percentage and scored just 21 runs in five games but their starting pitching was superb. CJ Wilson, Colby Lewis, and Tommy Hunter combined to pitch 15.1 innings and allowed just two earned runs on 10 hits while posting a K/BB ratio of 19:7. Then there’s Cliff Lee. So given that their starters posted an ERA of 1.15, how did they not sweep the Rays? Mostly because their bullpen had a 5.27 ERA in 13.2 innings.

X-FACTORS

For the Rangers, their success in this series will be measured not by what Cliff Lee can do but rather by what everyone else can do. He is tentatively scheduled to start game 3 at home in front of what will surely be a rambunctious crowd in Arlington and then potentially game 7 in front of the hostile New York fans. Will CJ Wilson (6.1-2-0-0-2-7) be able to duplicate his success against the Yankees in game 1 of the series in the Bronx? Will Josh Hamilton be able to bounce back from a disappointing division series (.111/.200/.111)? Will Neftali Feliz pitch like he did in the regular season (2.73 ERA, 0.88 WHIP) or like he did in his first two career playoff games (1.1-2-1-1-3-2)?

For the Yankees, Mark Teixeira went 4-13 with a home run, Marcus Thames was 2-7 with a home run, Nick Swisher was 4-12 with a home run, and the trio of Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, and Jorge Posada hit a pedestrian .278 with no extra base hits. Robinson Cano continued his solid season, going 4-12 in the division series and Lance Berkman provided a spark off the bench, going 2-4 with a home run and a double in the Yankees 5-2 game 2 victory.

The biggest x-factor though is Curtis Granderson. In September and October this season, Granderson had a slash line of .263/.362/.596 and hit 9 home runs in 99 at-bats. In the division series against the Twins, he played very well, hitting .455 (5-11) with a double, a triple, 3 RBI, and more importantly, just one strikeout.

When you add all of that up, it looks like a very deep and dangerous line-up, especially when guys named Rodriguez, Posada, and Jeter haven’t made any serious contributions yet. One of the biggest factors for the Yankees success will be how well their line-up as a whole performs. Last year in the World Series, it was mostly Hideki Matsui’s heroics that made up for a relatively lackluster effort from the rest of batting order.

The other x-factor in my opinion is the AJ Burnett. This season he had five starts with a game score of 70 or better and he had five starts with a GS under 20. In last year’s ALCS and World Series, Burnett was solid to brilliant in two starts on 7 days rest (GS of 61 against the Angels and 72 against the Phillies in the World Series) and downright bad in two starts on short rest (32 against the Angels and 22 against the Phillies). Is some of that due to the fact that it was the second time both teams saw him in a series? Probably, but I think it’s safe to say that on short rest, AJ Burnett is a liability and given how he’s pitched this season, he’s no better than a 4th or 5th starter right now. If they Yankees can steal a win with him on the mound, they will consider themselves lucky.

THE VERDICT

Right now, these are the projected starters for the ALCS (with the home team in parentheses):

Game 1 (NY): CJ Wilson vs. CC Sabathia
Game 2 (NY): Colby Lewis vs. Phil Hughes
Game 3 (TEX): Andy Pettitte vs. Cliff Lee
Game 4 (TEX): AJ Burnett vs. Tommy Hunter

After that, the match-ups for games 1-3 can repeat with all pitchers throwing on regular rest. Based on how they fared this season, the Yankees have an advantage in games 1 and 4 while the Rangers have the advantage in game 3. That leaves a critical game 2 start between Colby Lewis and Phil Hughes. If the Yankees win, they could be looking at a 2-0 advantage going to Texas and potentially have Sabathia back on the mound in Texas with a 3-1 series lead. If the Rangers win that game and steal a game in New York, it will be tied going home for the Rangers and could be tied at 2 going into the final 3 games. If that happens, all signs point to an Andy Pettitte-Cliff Lee showdown in game 7 in Yankee Stadium.

Alas, just 8 of 30 LCS match-ups have gone the distance in the wild card era and this will not be #9.

YANKEES 4, RANGERS 2