New York Newsday columnist Bruce Matthews suggests that if the Yankees blow this 3-1 lead to the Angels, it could be worse than blowing the 0-3 lead in the great 2004 ALCS. I disagree just because of the teams involved, but sentiment aside, he's got a point:
Last night's 7-6 loss to the Angels - who suddenly seem to have remembered that their strategy of creating havoc on the basepaths works only if they actually get on base - did more than cut the Yankees' lead in the ALCS to 3-2.
It also raises the specter of another catastrophic failure, but for this one, there would be no excuse or any consolation. You see, these Angels are not nearly as good as the 2004 Red Sox. And these Yankees are a lot better than the 2004 Yankees. At least, they're supposed to be.
The New York Times suggests the odds are against the Yankees being the fourth team with home-field advantage to blow a 3-1 lead in a best of seven series. But no team had blown a 3-0 lead before 2004:
Five other times, Jeter's Yankees have been in this position, ahead by 3-1 in the A.L.C.S. Three times, the Yankees won the series in five. Another time, they won it in six. Then there was 2004.
Every pinstriped fan knows what happened then. The Yankees won the first three games against Boston, and lost the fourth game in 12 heart-stopping innings. They lost the fifth game, too, and the last two at Yankee Stadium.
I don't think the Angels will win both games in New York, but the fact that they're making the Yankees and their fans squirm is good enough for me. And they have made it close enough to stop us from talking as if we definitively know who will face the Phillies next week.
Red Sox: They continue to lose: Assistant GM Jed Hoyer is going to be the man in San Diego, and Brad Mills (a SoxandPhil) could be the Astros manager.
Look back at 2008: The Phillies lost Game 2 of the World Series - Christine's favorite Phillies loss ever because it guaranteed the series would last five games. (We had tickets for Game 5.)
2 comments:
You make some good points. I agree that the Yankees probably won't lose 2 in a row at home, but it certainly is possible.
How in the world do you allow another team to score 6 runs in one inning.......with 2 outs? Wow. The pitching collapsed there.
Last night, I heard Sterling's call of this inning on MLB Network. Hilarious. "The greatest playoff comeback of all time." (OK, he might have qualified it with a "one of the") but it was still overly-hyped in a game they LOST!
Go Phils, Go Angels!
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