10 Exciting Days Left
WEEI broadcasting over the internet is about as good as it gets. Last night I was in my hotel room in NY watching the Yankee game on the YES network and listening to Teddy on WEEI. The cars are lining up for the Tobin Bridge. That is the first thing. The second thing is I am more interested in the next 10 days of baseball than I can ever remember. I am not joking. It is as good as it gets with anxiety. The Yanks/Sox, Cleveland/White Sox, Angels/Oakland. Everyone is pretty sue the wild card will not come from the West, but other than that, anything could happen in the next 10 days. I am not as interested in the NL Wild Card so I’ll leave that alone for now. I am almost giddy with excitement about the next week and a half.
So, here is the deal for the next week leading up to the Yankees/Red Sox showdown at Fenway.
The Yanks play 3 against Toronto and 4 against Baltimore. The Red Sox have 3 against Baltimore and 4 against Toronto.
Baltimore – The Yanks are 8-6 against Baltimore and the Sox are 7-8. Neither number means anything because most of the wins for Baltimore came early in the year when they were good. They are a huge mess now and the latest Palmeiro fiasco has them in a deep nosedive. Both the Yanks and Sox should completely dominate and I am glad the Yanks have 4 against.
Toronto – This team scares me. They are out of the race so they will probably play some of their young guys who can cause trouble. The Yanks are 10-5 against them this year and the Red Sox are 5-9. Toronto plays the Sox well and the Sox have 4 against them. This should cause some concern for the Red Sox.
Overall, I like the Yanks chance of course since I am a huge Yankee fan. The Sox are a mess. They had to sit through an off day thinking about the debacle on Wednesday. They are banged up, both physically and mentally, and are limping into the final 10 days of the year. While spirits are high in NY, I can’t remember a worse overall feeling in Boston than what is there right now. The Yanks starting pitching is starting to click, with bad hitting teams left to play. Middle relief for the Yanks is suspect so that is a concern. The Sox starting pitching and middle relief are in trouble. But more importantly, their closer situation is a huge concern. If I were them, I would put that young kid from St. John’s in as closer and hope to ride him out for the final six weeks of what is hopefully their season. Not the best solution but the options are pretty limited. Hitting for the Sox is fine and other than a down turn last week, they should be fine for the rest of the year. But as we all know, hitting wins games. And no one is going anywhere without good middle and closing pitching.
With Hanson, the kids from St. John’s, here is my reasoning. With young pitchers with no big league experience but a ton of promise, there are few things that could happen.
1 – They perform up to expectations like K Rod and are the key to winning it all (Angels).
2 – The hitters in the league have never seen them so they do great for a short period of time. For the long run, hitters finally figure them out and they are done. This could be fine for the Red Sox because they only have 1 or 5 weeks left, depending on if they make the post season.
3 – The pitcher gets brought up too early, fails under the pressure and gets hit hard. They hurt the team and hurt their future (confidence) and are done.
4 – The pitcher gets brought up too early, does a good job but over pitches and hurts their arm while doing it. Fine for the short term but will hurt the long term prospect of Hanson helping out the Sox for the next few years.
Talk to you in a few days when the Yanks extend their lead by a couple of games.