Friday, November 2, 2007

How Did The Yankees Make The Post-Season?

Seriously, our starting pitcher on Opening Day was Pavano. Our big sign was Kei Igawa -- a disaster from the start and I said so. Why pay $50 mil for a guy you HOPE will be a number five starter rather than $100 mil on a guy you think could be an ace but would still be great if he's your number three? And of course Roger Clemens won six games despite all the babying in the world. Really, how the heck did we make it to the post-season with that pitching? Who gets the credit? Torre? A-Rod? The spark of Andy Pettitte, who was great all season? Wang's 19 wins? The team? They never should have made the post-season with that pitching and it is always pitching that will kill you when you get there. You aren't going to score ten runs in the post-season games, which is why big bats are far less important than big arms. We were lucky to get there and if we'd faced Boston I'm certain they would have kicked our ass. But we're going to be better next year.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's not that hard to make the postseason when you score 900 and something runs and have Wang and Pettitte and Rivera to maintain some semblance of a pitching staff.

That staff had better improve next year cause the runs scored are going to decrease quite a bit.

Michael in New York said...

Two starting pitchers do not equal a solid rotation. And of course Pettitte got no run support in the first half. I don't think a team w three disastrous pitchers -- Pavano, Clemens, Igawa -- and Mussina makes it easy to get to the post-season. That's why they NEEDED to score 900_ runs and barely made it anyway.

Anonymous said...

The difference between the Yankees and the second highest scoring AL team was 87 runs. That is absolutely amazing.

And they didn't barely make the playoffs...they won the Wild Card by 6 games and finished two games behind Boston and Cleveland for the best record in baseball. I think people need to realize how potent this offense was, because along with Wang, Pettitte, and the young pitchers at the end -- it carried them to a pretty damn good season. Too bad those 54 home runs and 156 RBIs are going to be pretty hard to replace.