Phillies' season rides on the arm of preternaturally calm ace Lee
PHILADELPHIA -- Earlier this week, Jamie Moyer was lamenting that nobody just sits around and talks about baseball anymore. So Jamie Moyer, 46 years old and now in his 23rd season and without much else to do since he is not on the Phillies' World Series roster, decided that he would sit around and talk baseball. And so that is what he did during the Phillies off-day last Friday. Talk. About pitching in general -- how to throw a slider, why cutters can be effective without hurting your arm and the difference between being a pitcher and a thrower -- and about Cliff Lee in particular.
How he was as much a fan of Lee's as an opponent as he is as a teammate ("When he faced him, I hoped I wasn't pitching so I could just watch"), about why Lee is so tough to hit ("He just comes at you, and at you, and at you") and finally, whether he truly is as calm as the catatonic state he has shown the world this postseason would suggest. "It's almost like there's no heartbeat. It's like a flatline -- sssss" hissed Moyer, sweeping his arm straight out in front of him.
Moyer was exaggerating, but not by much. This is, after all, the same pitcher who was so good in Game 1 of the World Series that neither the Yankees offense nor New York's notorious rush hour traffic that nearly caused him to miss his start could unnerve him. But as it turns out, Moyer's flatline gesture is an apt description of the rest of his team as Lee prepares to take the mound at Citizen's Bank Park on Monday evening in Game 5. The Phillies, who now trail 3 games to 1 after a heartbreaking loss in Game 4, are not dead yet but they barely have a pulse, and the man who will be asked to jumpstart them back to life in this Series is Lee.
To date in this postseason, Lee has given the Phillies everything they could have asked, but he did not demand to give them the one thing they didn't dare ask: that he take the ball in Game 4. Lee said he would pitch whenever called upon, and manager Charlie Manuel said after Game 4 that even had Lee insisted he get the start, they would not have changed their plan to go with Joe Blanton, owing to Lee's non-existent track record on three days' rest. But it is clear that the Phillies gambled and lost in bypassing Lee for the much more mediocre Blanton.
How effective Lee would have been is debatable, but what isn't is that once it was decided that asking him to pitch on short rest for the first time in his career was not a good idea, the Phillies were placed in a virtual must-win situation in Game 4. They didn't win, and now the Phillies must find a way to win three consecutive games in this Series knowing that they will only have the man who has unquestionably been the game's hottest pitcher in the postseason on the mound to start one of them.
On Monday, the Phillies will need yet another stellar performance from Lee, much as he has given them in each of his four previous postseason starts, to ensure that a parade up the Canyon of Heroes isn't the only baseball-related activity in New York this week. To do so, he must silence a recently rampaging Yankees offense that has finally awakened over the past two days, all the while knowing that behind him is a suddenly shaky bullpen. In short, Lee is all that is standing between the Phillies and the death of their season.
It is telling, perhaps, that even as they sit comfortably with a 3-1 lead, the Yankees are being as aggressive with their best pitchers as the Phillies have been passive with theirs. Despite having the luxury of giving A.J. Burnett and Andy Pettitte the chance to pitch with extra rest in this postseason, manager Joe Girardi is going for the kill on Monday night by starting Burnett in Game 5, much to the pitcher's delight. "Without sounding too confident, I liked when I did it in the past," said Burnett, who is 4-0 with a 2.33 ERA in four such starts, none of which have occurred since 2008. "I felt great when I did it in the past. There's something about going on three days, it's hard to overthrow, it's hard to overdo it. I loved it."
Rather than trying to deflect the magnitude of the moment, Burnett is embracing it. "I think [in the ALCS] I was a little too calm and tried to slow down too much," he said. "A pitcher like me has to go out with a little more emotion." Later, he added, "I'd lie if I said I wasn't going to go home and think about it all night. I'm not going to take it as just one ordinary game or another start. It's the World Series Game 5 and I'm the starter. That's what it's all about."
That is in telling contrast to the toned-down approach offered by Lee, who this postseason has been as tough to hit on the mound as he has been to get to know off it. Displaying the same preternatural calmness that has been his calling card all of his career, Lee refused to give in to the sense that this latest "Most Important Game Ever" is at all different from the hundreds of games that have come before it. After trying to explain for five minutes how he will not change his approach or his thinking to suit this game, he finally gave up. "To me, it's the same as every other game," he said. "I mean, I don't know how much more clear I can be about that. It's still the same game."
Lee can deflect the pressure all he wants, but he is smart enough to know that it is not just any other game. The Phillies' season rides on his left arm, and if ever there were a time for Lee to be nervous, this is it. With the way Lee has pitched of late, the Phillies will have to be considered favorites in Game 5. But there is some concern. The Yankees have accumulated 15 runs, 17 hits and eight walks in their past 15 innings at the plate. They have rediscovered their patience and plate discipline, have gotten a pair of enormous hits from Alex Rodriguez and have begun to bunch hits and runs together. They have now scored multiple runs five times in the past two games, after failing to do so at all in Games 1 and 2.
It is a situation reminiscent of 1993, when the Phillies entered Game 5 of the World Series trailing an American League East powerhouse 3 games to 1, coming off a disheartening Game 4 loss and asking their ace to keep their season alive. Then, it was Curt Schilling, who before he was a blogger -- even before there were blogs -- was an October savior that predated bloody socks with Boston or dynamic duos in the desert. In that critical World Series game 16 years ago, Schilling delivered an epic performance, shutting out the defending world champion Blue Jays on just five hits, one day after they had scored 15 runs. That he did so in an amazing 148 pitches -- the highest single-game total in the World Series in more than two decades -- only added to its impressiveness. "I knew this team would go to Toronto based on what I did," Schilling said that night.
The same holds true for Lee on Monday. The Yankees are going back to New York in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. The only question now is if the Phillies will be joining them.
(c) 2009 Time Inc. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.
Hunter: 'We didn't play Angels-style baseball'
NEW YORK --- Baseball fans didn't get to see much of the real Los Angeles Angels in the American League Championship Series.
Oh, they might have caught some glimpses while the New York Yankees methodically dispatched them four games to two, securing their first trip to the World Series since 2003 with Sunday night's 5-2 victory at Yankee Stadium.
ALCS GAME 6: Yankees advance to World Series
But that was not nearly enough for the Angels to overcome the exploits of series MVP CC Sabathia, Alex Rodriguez, et al.
Whether it was because of the fits and starts built into the postseason schedule, and exacerbated by Saturday's rainout, the Angels were not offering that excuse.
The Yankees could have been just as responsible for disrupting their game, holding them to a .300 on-base percentage in the ALCS and squelching their running game.
But this was clearly not Angels baseball, and before the game manager Mike Scioscia expressed his displeasure with playing only eight games since the season ended Oct. 4.
"It does have an impact," Scioscia said of the irregular schedule, mostly dictated by television. "I don't know if it has an impact so much on who wins and loses, but it has an impact on the quality of play. And I think that's very, very important to the integrity of our game.
"Eight games in 21 days is something you never expect in a baseball season."
Neither do you expect the club that led the majors with a .297 average with runners in scoring position to hit .229 in those situations in the ALCS.
Or the second-highest scoring team in baseball averaging 3.2 runs, more than two below its regular-season output.
Or the third-best fielding team in the league committing eight errors in the series, by far the most of any team in the whole postseason.
"We didn't play Angels-style baseball," center fielder Torii Hunter said. "We might have played one game, two games, the Angels way. We just kind of got away from that and they capitalized on all our mistakes."
Los Angeles made physical and mental mistakes, uncharacteristic for a club that prides itself on execution.
With the Angels down 3-2 in the eighth, second baseman Howie Kendrick (fielding error) and reliever Scott Kazmir (throwing error) botched easy back-to-back bunts.
Before that, Vladimir Guerrero was inexplicably caught off first base on a short but easy fly to right, and he also trotted to first on a ball three in the top of the eighth inning before being apprised of the count. And Angels pitchers combined to give the Yankees nine walks.
The Angels did show a feisty side. In that same at-bat, Guerrero singled to right to drive in a run, closing the visitors' deficit to 3-2. It was the first earned run Yankees closer Mariano Rivera allowed at home in the postseason since Oct. 26, 2000, and it broke a streak of 36⅔ scoreless innings.
Ultimately those instances were too few and far between.
"Their pitchers threw great," said leadoff man Chone Figgins, who batted .130 in the series. "They kept us from playing the game we wanted to play, which is getting on and running. Their pitchers didn't miss too many spots.
"They just had the right mojo going on both sides of the ball."
(c) 2009 USA TODAY.
Baseball Recruiting Class Tabbed No. 15 by Baseball America
LEXINGTON, Ky. -- After securing the third-best recruiting class in college baseball a year ago, Baseball America has ranked the 2010 Kentucky baseball class No. 15 in the nation, it was announced Tuesday afternoon.
Kentucky's recruiting class was ranked No. 6 in the NCAA by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper on Sept. 17, giving UK a consensus top-15 recruiting class for the second consecutive season. In head coach Gary Henderson's first year at the helm of the program in 2009, he secured the third-best class, as ranked by Baseball America, in the NCAA, a new program best.
UK ranks sixth in the talent-laden Southeastern Conference, with Florida (No. 1), Mississippi State (No. 8), Ole Miss (No. 12), Vanderbilt (No. 13) and Tennessee (No. 14) ranking ahead of UK in the conference. In the Collegiate Baseball rankings from Sept. 17, UK checked in as the third-best class in the SEC, behind LSU and No. 1 Florida.
Henderson and recruiting coordinator Brad Bohannon brought 13 newcomers to campus, including five players drafted in the 2009 MLB Draft. UK will add nine freshmen and four transfers for the 2010 season.
Luke Maile, the top high school player in the state of Kentucky, highlights the class along with Jordan Cooper, the top pitcher in Tennessee. Maile, a native of Crestview Hills, Ky., was drafted in the 43rd round of the 2009 MLB Draft by the Boston Red Sox. As the catcher for Covington Catholic, Maile set every offensive school record, with the lone exception of at bats. As a senior, the first-team high school All-America selection by MaxPreps.com hit .514 with 12 home runs.
Cooper, a 17th-round pick of the Pittsburg Pirates in 2009, was rated as the fifth-best overall draft prospect in Tennessee by Baseball America entering the draft. Cooper, a 6-foot-3, 205-pounder, was also named the 81st-best high school prospect in the nation by Baseball America. In 2009, Cooper posted a 7-1 record and a 1.47 ERA, striking out 81 in 47 innings.
The Wildcats will also welcome 2008 Freshman All-America shortstop Taylor Black, who transferred from Charleston Southern and Spartanburg Methodist. Fellow transfers Lance Ray (OF/1B), Kyle Jackson (RHP) and Joe Devine (RHP) are also immediate impact players. Black, a 6-foot-1, 180-pound middle infielder, was named a Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American in 2008 at Charleston Southern, hitting .333 (58-for-174) with 17 doubles, five homers and 34 RBI. With the departure of All-SEC shortstop Chris Wade, Black could be an immediate impact player in the center of the UK defense.
Talented prospects Sam Kidd (RHP/OF), Jon Carlson (LHP), Taylor Rogers (LHP), Michael Thomas (C), Tyler Townsend (INF) and Walter Wijas (RHP) add to the depth of the class. Kidd, a native of Hartford, Ky., was a 39th-round MLB draft pick by the Phillies, following an all-state season as a senior at Ohio County High School. Rogers, a 6-foot-3 left-hander, was a 37th-round MLB draft pick of the Orioles after totaling a 5-2 record and a 1.98 ERA in 2009, striking out 82 in 53 innings.
UK also adds freshman outfielder Brian Adams, a 6-foot-4, 210-pound athlete out of Gainesville, Ga. Adams was recruited to UK as a wide receiver for the football team and will play both sports at Kentucky. Timed as fast a 4.4 seconds in the 40-yard dash, Adams was a 45th-round MLB draft pick of the Cincinnati Reds. A dual-threat quarterback in high school, Adams was rated as the nation's No. 55 quarterback by Scout.com and is redshirting the 2009 UK football season.
The Wildcats return a veteran-laden team in 2010, including two of the top starting pitchers in college baseball, senior lefty James Paxton and sophomore right-hander Alex Meyer. Paxton, a first-round MLB Draft pick in 2009, became the highest drafted college player to return to school. Offensively, UK returns first-team All-SEC infielder Chris Bisson, who led UK in average (.360), at bats (222), runs (49), hits (80), triples (three), RBI (52) and walks (20). Sophomores Chad Wright (.343, 4 HR, 23 RBI, 10-12 SB), Braden Kapteyn (.319, 4 HR, 27 RBI), Cory Farris (.310, 2 HR, 16 RBI) and Andy Burns (.287, 7 HR, 33 RBI) will be counted on to carry the offensive load. UK also returns catcher Marcus Nidiffer (.312, 10 HR, 32 RBI), utility player Gunner Glad (.303, 9 HR, 38 RBI) and four-year starting center fielder Keenan Wiley (.251, 4 HR, 24 RBI, 11-12 SB).
2009 RECRUITING CLASS RANKINGS
1. Florida
2. Stanford
3. Arizona State
4. Texas Christian
5. Cal State Fullerton
6. Texas
7. North Carolina
8. Mississippi State
9. Virginia
10. Central Florida
11. North Carolina State
12. Mississippi
13. Vanderbilt
14. Tennessee
15. KENTUCKY
16. Oklahoma
17. Miami
18. Michigan
19. UCLA
20. Clemson
21. Rice
22. Oregon State
23. Missouri
24. Oregon
25. Louisville
* SEC teams in bold.
(c) 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.
Fox, TBS hope for long, exciting major league baseball playoff series
Fox and TBS, about to carry baseball's American League Championship Series and National League Championship Series, have one big rooting interest: each series going the full seven games.
Preferably with lots of pitching changes and extra innings creating breaks to squeeze in more ads.
But short of such a harmonic convergence, Major League Baseball's postseason looks promising. While ratings generally increase the longer a playoff series lasts -- in any sport -- TBS had 13 first-round games, down from 15 last year. Its average game rating -- 3.1% of U.S. TV households -- was up 11% from 2008.
With the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Angels, Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies in LCS action, MLB hometown TV markets total 14% of U.S. households.
Scheduling might help with the other 86%. With a stretched-out postseason -- the World Series could end three weeks before Thanksgiving with Game 7 scheduled for Nov. 5 -- there's room for nearly all LCS games in East Coast prime-time slots, starting about 8 p.m. The two exceptions: Fox's Angels-Yankees game Friday gets that prime-time perch after TBS' 4:07 p.m. ET Phillies-Dodgers game; the series will swap those time slots Monday.
MLB -- whose two lowest-rated World Series came in the last three years -- could use buzz. TBS, says executive producer Jeff Behnke, will do its part by deploying a cable-cam to zip along foul lines pursuing balls in flight as well as use what he says is the slowest slow-motion camera, which TBS better not include with its checked luggage. Says Behnke: "There's only one in the U.S."
(c) 2009 USA TODAY.
Yankees decide they will start playoffs early
NEW YORK --- The New York Yankees announced Wednesday they will start their Major League Baseball first-round playoff series on Wednesday against the winner of the Detroit Tigers-Minnesota Twins tie-breaker game.
The move means the Tigers-Twins winner will have less than 24 hours from the finish Tuesday in Minneapolis to get to New York and get onto the field at Yankee Stadium for the first pitch in the American League first-round series.
The Yankees led the league, and all of Major League Baseball, in victories and as a result had the right to choose whether they would start their best-of-five first-round series on Wednesday or Thursday,
New York officials could have waited until one hour after the Tigers and Twins played to announce the choice but instead made the expected pick early.
As a result, the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Angels will begin their opening-round series on Thursday while the Yankees and their rivals have an off day.
(c) 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
Bobby Valentine calls Mets' season a 'tragedy;' doesn't say if he would want to return as manager
WASHINGTON --- Bobby Valentine didn't follow American baseball closely while managing in Japan this summer. But he saw and read enough to know how miserable the Mets' season has been.
In a conference call with reporters Tuesday to announce his return to ESPN as an MLB analyst, Valentine said he was "disappointed and upset" to see the Mets' season unravel the way it did.
"I followed it from afar and I have some friends there that I shared tears with because I think it's been a tragedy," said Valentine, who managed the Mets from 1996 to 2002. "It's been disappointment after disappointment and I don't think that anybody could have fixed it as the season was going on. And as soon as it seemed like things were getting better, they seemed to get worse. That's what it looked like from afar."
Valentine, 59, spent the last six years managing the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan's Pacific League. He will work as an analyst for ESPN during the upcoming playoffs. Beyond that, his future is unclear.
Valentine said "it's fair to assume" there is a provision in his ESPN contract that would allow him to leave for a managerial job, but said he is "totally committed" to his job at the network.
He sidestepped a question about whether he would be open to returning to the Mets at some point, but Valentine did say what he would be looking for in any potential managerial opening.
"It would be about the people I would be working with," he said. "I've come far enough and done things often enough that the everyday grind of a major-league season has got to be aided by the working relationship you have with the people around you."
(c) 2009 New Jersey On-Line LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Dodgers name top Minor Leaguers
LOS ANGELES -- After posting solid seasons in the Minors, left-hander Scott Elbert and shortstop Dee Gordon were named the Dodgers' Branch Rickey Minor League Pitcher and Player of the Year, respectively.
Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti made the announcement on Monday.
Elbert earned the honor by going 4-4 with a 3.84 ERA in a combined 20 appearances (18 starts) at Double-A Chattanooga and Triple-A Albuquerque. He struck out 125 batters and walked 44 in 96 innings.
Elbert was selected to play in the Southern League All-Star Game, but he didn't play because he was called up to Triple-A.
Elbert is on his fourth stint with the Dodgers after getting recalled on Aug. 31. He is 2-0 with a 5.29 ERA in 13 appearances this season.
Gordon, 21, also was named the Midwest League Prospect of the Year and league co-MVP with Class A Great Lakes teammate Kyle Russell.
Gordon led the league with 73 steals and 12 triples. He finished second in hits (162) and runs (96).
Gordon was selected as a starter for the Midwest League All-Star Game. He also was on the league's postseason All-Star team.
Elbert and Gordon will be honored in a pregame ceremony during the final home series of the season, when the Dodgers host the Colorado Rockies from Oct. 2-4.
(c) 2001-2009 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved.
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