The One That Got Away

What the *%@3, master? I stayed up to watch this b******t? Three friggin errors? That is not the imperial way. We had this game in the bag.

How do you think I feel, young Anakin? I was in the Death Star with no TV. I had to listen to Sterling and Waldman the entire way back from Coruscant. I'd rather have rats nibble off my toes than go through that again....

Tough loss last night. A very winnable game that would have put a stranglehold on the series for us. Instead of going back to New York up 2-0, they have to settle for a split. A good start to the playoffs, but not great.

I'm not going analyze the hell out of went wrong what went wrong Wednesday night. What it came down to was that the Yankees might have wanted to win, the Angels had to win. Plain and simple. And if the Yankees were going to win that game, they were going to have to beat Anaheim. Because the Angels weren't going to lose, if that makes any sense. You saw the sense of urgency with the plays they made in the field and the fact that Lackey made pitches when he had to to get out of a jam.

That game showed me several things about both teams.

1) That this Yankees team is still a little uncomfortable playing the front-runner. The late nineties teams would get a ahead and there would be no looking back. This team is still a little tentative when it comes it to putting its boot on a team's neck and finishing them off. This team seems to respond best when its back is against the wall. While it's nice to know that they'll respond when they need a win. It makes for some unnecessary drama and lots of upset stomachs and ulcers in the Empire.

2) That this Angels team isn't as good as the 2002 version. The bullpen is still very good and the starters are actually better with Bartolo Colon as the ace. But they are a very average offensive team. Yeah, they have Vlad the Impaler. But he's the only one on the team with over 20 homers and 100 RBIs. Garret Anderson is not the same silent assassin at the plate because of back problems. And this team seriously misses the power of Troy Glaus and Tim Salmon. They're faster on the basepaths. But they hardly put the fear of God in you like that Angels team could.

3)The Yankees are a better team than the Angels. I wasn't so sure about that this season. This team gave us fits. But when you look at the lineups, the only one who could, without question, start for the Yanks is Vlad. And the only reason why I give him the edge over Sheff is age. Everywhere else is either a toss up or a clear Yankee advantage. The rotation's are about even. Their bullpen is deeper but I like the back of our pen over theirs. The thing about the Angels is that they take on the persona of their skipper, they rarely beat themselves. If you want to win the game, you have to beat them because they won't give it to you. The Yanks and the Red Sox will occasionally give games away with silly errors like yesterday. The Angels don't lose games like that. You have to play nine innings of great baseball. Not six. Not seven. Not eight. Nine. That's why you have a team like that, you have to bury them Look at what they did with two outs and men on base. If we did that on a regular basis. We would have won 120 games.

I like what I saw out of Wang. He's a gamer. Maybe next time, we can get him runs.

I think Randy will give us a good start on Friday. Hopefully the rains won't disrupt the proceedings....

Time to send the Angels to baseball hell....