Kuzul

I apologize for this post coming out so late, but with a late New York Jets game last night and a busy day at work, I really didn’t have much time to write.

That being said, I thought Game 4 of the Atlanta Braves-San Francisco Giants NLDS was a pretty awesome game.

For that matter, I thought every game in this series was pretty amazing. Four games and each game decided by one run. I take that any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

That is some serious nail-biting time if you are a fan of either of these teams. I don’t have any rooting interest in either of these teams, and I was nervous in all four games.

Unfortunately for the Braves, they came up on the short end of the stick in three of those games. The Giants once again won 3-2 in Game 4 to send them to their first NLCS since 2002 and send Bobby Cox into retirement.

This game was like all the rest in this series: tightly contested, solid pitching by both teams and one or two plays that really decided things.

The Braves had a 1-0 lead going into the top of the sixth, and Derek Lowe was just dealing. I have followed Lowe for 14 years, and for the first five innings I have never seen him as good.

His slider was ridiculous, and he hadn’t allowed a hit in 5.1 innings. That is until Cody Ross came to the plate. Lowe threw a rare flat slider, and Ross sent it into the left field bleachers.

It’s amazing who become heroes in the postseason. One of the main reasons Ross is even on the Giants is because they wanted to keep him away from the San Diego Padres. If the Padres don’t show interest in Ross, then there is a very good chance he never becomes a Giant.

In the bottom of the sixth, the Braves came right back as Brian McCann ripped a HR to give the Braves a 2-1 lead. But just like in Game 3, the Braves couldn’t hold the lead.

The Giants scored two runs in the seventh thanks to a couple of walks, a couple infield singles by Buster Posey and Juan Uribe and another timely hit by Ross.

Of course, the biggest decisions of the game was the decision by Cox to leave Lowe in the game with two on and one out in the sixth. The classic second-guess says that Cox should have pulled Lowe and let Peter Moylan face Pat Burrell.

I believed at the time and still do even knowing the results that Cox was correct in sticking with Lowe. Lowe to that point still only had allowed two hits, the Giants weren’t hitting the ball hard against him and Burrell was 0-for-2 coming into that AB.

People want to compare that situation to the Grady Little and Pedro Martinez situation in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS, which is complete nonsense. The two situations were completely different.

The New York Yankees started to knock Martinez around pretty good that inning, and it was clear he was spent. Lowe was still dealing, and the Braves needed a ground ball in that situation, and who better to throw a worm burner than DLowe?

The Giants went into the ninth with a 3-2 lead, and Brian Wilson closed the door. Albeit it wasn’t pretty, he got the job done.

Here are some other observations from Game 4…

Madison Bumgarner was clearly pumped for this game. He averaged 91 mph on his fastball throughout the season but averaged 93 last night.

His adrenaline should have cost him because he was leaving a lot of balls up in the zone early. If the Braves weren’t so inept on offense, it could have hurt him.

Note to Brian Wilson: YOU THROW 97 MPH—STOP NIBBLING!

The Giants seem like this hodgepodge of players, but when you watch them on a day in and day out basis, they really play well as a team.

Classy move by the Giants saluting Cox at the end of the game.

Wilson might have gotten the “save” last night, but the real save should have gone to Santiago Casilla. He struck out two and allowed just one baserunner in 1.2 innings of work. Despite looking like he drank five Red Bulls prior to coming out to the mound, he did a phenomenal job of holding the Braves in check.

The Giants’ starters finished with a 0.93 ERA in this series.

The Giants will now play the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLCS, and Game 1 will be Saturday night in Philadelphia. Roy Halladay vs. Tim Lincecum is must watch TV.

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg

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Lost in all the hubbub of baseball’s postseason was that Major League Baseball announced their Comeback Players of the Year award last week. Let’s see who won this award in both the American League and National League…

National League

My Prediction: Tim Hudson

2010 NL Comeback Player of the Year: Tim Hudson

After starting only 29 games combined the previous two years, Hudson came back strong in 2010. He went 17-9 and pitched a 2.83 ERA, which was his lowest since 2003 (2.70).

Where Hudson excelled was throwing groundballs. Hudson led the majors in Groundball Percentage with 64 percent of his pitches resulting in worm burners. Hudson was always a groundball pitcher with that heavy sinker he throws, but this year he mastered it.

American League

My Prediction: Francisco Liriano

2010 AL Comeback Player of the Year: Francisco Liriano

Sooner or later, Liriano was going to figure things out and 2010 was the year. Liriano became the ace of the Minnesota Twins pitching staff as he went 14-10 with a 3.62 ERA. His low win total and average ERA don’t do Liriano justice as he was pretty dominant in 2010.

Liriano’s 9.44 K/9 ranked fifth in baseball and his 6.0 WAR ranked eighth amongst all pitchers in 2010. Liriano is a tremendous talent and at the age of 27 should be coming into his prime.

Congratulations to Hudson and Liriano on two fantastic seasons.

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg

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When Philadelphia Phillies’ LHP Cole Hamels took the mound in the 2009 postseason, he looked like a guy that had lost all confidence in himself. Hamels took the mound last night against the Cincinnati Reds the complete opposite of that guy in 2009.

Hamels pitched a complete game shutout against the Reds as the Phillies won 2-0 to sweep the Reds 3-0 in their best-of-five NLDS. This is the third straight year that the Phillies will advance to the NLCS.

Hamels in this game was just flat out awesome! There is no other way to describe it. His fastball was popping (average of 92 and high of 95) and his change-up was lethal.

Hamels threw his change-up 33 times last night and 26 of them were thrown for strikes. Impressive. What might have been more impressive was that Red hitters swung and missed at 36 percent of those change-ups.

That a look at his strike zone plot on change-ups via Pitchfx…

The change-ups are in yellow. As he can see, he pounded the lower half of the zone with those change-ups. Very rarely did he miss up in the zone and that’s when a pitcher can get hurt.

Hamels overall struck out nine, didn’t walk a batter, and gave up just five hits in the 119 pitch effort. Hamels is now 6-3 in his postseason career. He is the second pitcher to win six postseason games before turning 27 years old. The other is Jim Palmer.

Here are some other observations from this game…

The biggest play of this game might have occurred in the bottom of the first. After Drew Stubbs led off the game with a single, Brandon Phillips hit a rare mistake from Hamels into the left center field gap that Shane Victorino ran down for the first out.

If that ball gets by Victorino, the game is tied at one and Phillips is standing on third with nobody out.

Johnny Cueto was very good in this game and will be overshadowed by Hamels’ performance. After a rocky first, he settled down and pitched five very solid innings. The only reason he didn’t pitch deeper into the game was because with the Reds desperate for offense, he was pinch-hit for in the fifth.

Note to Dusty Baker: If you are going to pinch-hit for your pitcher, can someone other than Miguel Cairo do it? He’s an automatic out.

Homer Bailey was very good for two innings. I thought he was going to give the Reds a Sid Fernandez-like Game 7 of the 1986 World Series performance to keep his team in the game and spark the team offensively, but it just never happened.

Quick 2011 prediction: Bailey wins 15 plus games for the Reds next year.

If the Phillies are going to beat either the Braves or Giants in the next round, Jayson Werth and Jimmy Rollins are going to have to wake up. Combined they hit .129 in the three games with no extra base hits.

Scott Rolen might have played his worst three-game stretch defensively ever. Outside one or two plays, he looked terrible all series.

Reds fans chanting “Cheat-er, cheat-er” when Chase Utley came to the plate was fantastic.

Though I am sure they didn’t think it was so great when he launched one to right center to give the Phillies a 2-0 lead.

Regardless if the Braves and Giants series closes out Monday night or Wednesday, Game 1 of the NLCS will start Saturday in Philadelphia.

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg

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I know the New York Yankees—Minnesota Twins series was a dud, but other than that series, this postseason so far has been fantastic. And the San Francisco Giants—Atlanta Braves series has been really fantastic.

In Game 1, we saw an all-time pitching performance from Tim Lincecum. In Game 2, we saw the Braves comeback on the Giants’ bullpen after the Giants took a 4-0 lead. And in Game 3, we saw a range of emotions in the final two innings like we haven’t seen in a very long time.

With the Giants holding a 1-0 lead going into the bottom of the eighth, Alex Gonzalez led off the inning with a single up the middle off of Jonathan Sanchez. Sanchez was pretty much unhittable up to that point (more on him later), and this single was a big break through.

After Brooks Conrad (more on him later too) failed to move the runner over, Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy decided that he would rather have Sergio Romo face Eric Hinske rather than Sanchez face Troy Glaus, who was announced as the pinch-hitter.

Sanchez was up to 105 pitches at that point, and I am not sure why Bochy didn’t stick with him. Sanchez threw more than 105 pitches 12 times during the season, so this wasn’t going to be foreign territory for him.

At that point all the Braves were able to muster were two measly singles. They showed no signs of figuring out Sanchez, and Glaus hasn’t been productive in three months.

Bochy went with Romo and boy did he pay for it. On a 2-2 pitch, Hinske roped a low tracer down the right field line that just barely went over the fence and just barely stayed fair. The pitch from Romo was supposed to be a Frisbee-like slider that was supposed to break down and in to the lefty, but it flattened out and hung right in the middle of the plate for Hinske.

Hinske flew around the bases with his hands raised and Turner Field was rocking. It was a pretty awesome sight, and just like that, the Braves had a 2-1 lead.

Without Billy Wagner, Bobby Cox went with Craig Kimbrel to close out the game. Kimbrel got Cody Ross to pop out to second and then the key AB of the game took place.

Travis Ishikawa hit for Romo and after falling behind 1-2 on the count, he worked a walk. That AB was the key to the inning and to the game. There is no way Kimbrel can walk Ishikawa in that spot.

Andres Torres struck out on a slider that seemed to go around the plate. Freddy Sanchez then singled up the middle (I’ll talk about this AB in a few) and then after Cox pulled Kimbrel, Aubrey Huff singled off of Mike Dunn to score Ishikawa.

Cox went to his third reliever of the inning and brought in Peter Moylan to face Buster Posey. Posey hit a routine grounder to second that went through Conrad’s legs to give the Giants a 3-2 lead. It was Conrad’s third error of the game and according to ESPN, it was the first time a non-throwing fielding error led to the go-ahead run in the ninth or later in a postseason game since the Bill Buckner game in 1986.

That is pretty amazing.

Brian Wilson came in and shut the door in the ninth and the Giants now have a 2-1 series lead. This was a relatively mundane game until the bottom of the eighth came knocking.

Here are some other observations from this game…

I don’t care if the Braves have to bring back Mark Lemke, there is no way they can keep running Conrad out there. He is terrible. Put Diory Hernandez out there.

Sanchez was the story until the wild eighth and ninth inning happened. He struck out 11 over 7.1 innings of work, and his slider was shades of Steve Carlton. Out of his 11 K’s, 10 of them were on the slider.

Tim Hudson was also very good in this game. After his marathon first inning, I didn’t think there was a chance he would make it past the fifth. He ended up going seven.

Can someone explain to me why Torres tried to steal third in that first inning? I didn’t understand it at the time because Torres on third wasn’t going to make a difference in the inning. He would have scored on a single regardless. Terrible play.

Can someone also explain to me why Cox pinch ran for Brian McCann with David Ross in the ninth? A catcher pinch running for a catcher? Why take your best hitter out of the lineup to gain a fraction if that of a speed advantage.

The pitch sequence to Sanchez in the ninth was horrific. The guy couldn’t catch up to Kimbrel’s fastball to save his life and McCann calls for a slider? That’s inexcusable.

The pitch Jason Heyward struck out on in the bottom of the ninth was about five inches outside. Terrible call in that spot.

Game 4 will be played Monday night at 8:37 PM est. The Braves will go with Derek Lowe on three days’ rest, while the Giants will counter with Madison Bumgarner.

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg

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According to Dave O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Atlanta Braves have not made a decision yet as to whether or not they will DL closer Billy Wagner. Wagner will be re-evaluated today and then the Braves will make a decision.

By Major League Baseball rule, if the Braves DL Wagner for the NLDS, he will have to miss the NLCS as well. The Braves want to be extra certain that Wagner can’t go in the NLCS before they make that decision.

Regardless if the Braves DL Wagner or not, the reality is that he won’t pitch in this series again. Bobby Cox said he would use a closer-by-committee approach, but I have to believe that Craig Kimbrel has to be the man in the ninth. He has been throwing darts in the playoffs and has struck out five in just 2.2 innings of work.

If Cox does decide to use a closer-by-committee approach, which I am not a fan of at all, he could mix and match Kimbrel and Jonny Venters late in the game. Takashi Saito could be an option as well, but he has pitched just once in the last three weeks, and he is not nearly as good of an option as Kimbrel or Venters at this point.

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg

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In my Atlanta Braves-San Francisco Giants NLDS preview, I thought the Giants bullpen would be the difference in this series. For the Giants, their bullpen was the difference in Game 2 of this series, but not in a good way.

The Giants bullpen blew a three-run lead as the Braves came back to beat San Francisco 5-4 in 11 innings. Their best-of-five series is now tied at one game apiece.

Ankiel’s HR in the 11th tied the series at 1-all

After Braves starter Tommy Hanson was relatively ineffective for four innings (five hits and four runs), the Braves turned to their bullpen to try to keep them in the game. Not only did their bullpen keep them in the game, but they really won the game for the Braves.

Mike Dunn, Peter Moylan, Jonny Venters, Craig Kimbrel, Billy Wagner, and Kyle Farnsworth held the Giants down for seven innings. The six pitchers combined to allow just five hits, no runs, one walk, and they struck out eight in those seven innings of work.

You know things are going well when Farnsworth is shutting things down.

As the Braves  bullpen was doing their part, the Giants bullpen was doing the opposite.

Entering the eighth inning with a three-run lead, Sergio Romo and Brian Wilson couldn’t hold down the fort. Derrek Lee singled to left and Brian McCann roped a single to right off Romo. And just like that, Romo was out of the game.

Bruce Bochy then went to Wilson to try to get six outs. It was the right move to bring Wilson into the game, but I really didn’t think Wilson was warmed up.

He looked stiff and his fastball was flat coming out of the gate. That flat fastball hurt Wilson and the Giants because Alex Gonzalez ripped a double to left-center and tied the game at four.

The game stayed tied at four until the top of the 11th when Rick Ankiel absolutely destroyed a pitch from Ramon Ramirez into McCovey Cove.

Here are some other observations from last night’s game…

With Billy Wagner retiring at the end of the year, the Braves might have an internal option to replace him. I think that option should be Kimbrel. He is legit.

Speaking of Wagner, the Braves win might have come at a major cost. Wagner left the game in the 10th due to an oblique injury. It didn’t look good, and I would be surprised if Wagner pitched again in this series.

The collision between Pablo Sandoval and Buster Posey was legendary. That was the definition of the “immovable object versus the irresistible force.”

The Gonzalez play at first in the second inning was a close call, but wasn’t worth Bobby Cox getting ejected for it.

Anyone else notice Matt Cain went to the stretch in the seventh inning with nobody on base? I wonder why he did that?

Jason Heyward is really struggling right now. He is 0-for-8 in two games and is five for his last 31 at the plate.

Game 3 will be Sunday afternoon and will pit Jonathan Sanchez against Tim Hudson.

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg

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Four errors, three hit batsmen, two innings where the seams came off the baseball, and one massive implosion.

That pretty much sums up the Cincinnati Reds’ performance in Game 2 of the NLDS against the Philadelphia Phillies. The Reds lost to the Phillies 7-4 and now are on the brink of elimination.

This was a game of two halves.

Before the Reds’ implosion, they actually led 4-0 in this game. They got a leadoff HR by Brandon Phillips, they capitalized on two Chase Utley errors in the second, and then got a rocket shot off of the bat of Jay Bruce to give the Reds a 3-0 lead.

Bronson Arroyo on the mound was mixing up his pitches and keeping Philly batters really off balance. I thought Arroyo was pretty good. Did he get lucky on occasion like when Jimmy Rollins ripped a one-hop line drive to Phillips, which turned into a double play? Sure, but sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.

Everything seemed to be going their way. Then the fifth inning happened.

With two outs and a runner on first, Shane Victorino hit a groundball into hole between first and second and for some odd reason, Phillips tried to smother the ball. I am not sure what he was thinking there. The ball bounced off his chest and Victorino reached.

The very next batter, Placido Polanco hit a sharp groundball to Scott Rolen, which he proceeded to boot as well. Back to back errors and the Phillies were set up with the bases loaded for Utley. If you give the Phillies extra outs, they are going to make you pay and that’s exactly what they did.

Utley ripped a single to right and the Phillies cut the deficit in half to 4-2.

If Reds fans thought that was bad, then the seventh inning was a nightmare.

After the Phillies tacked on another run in the sixth thanks to Red pitchers hitting two batters and walking two batters in the inning, Dusty Baker went to Aroldis Chapman to hold the lead. Yeah, that didn’t quite happen.

Chapman hit Utley to lead off the inning. In Chapman’s defense, it didn’t appear Utley actually got hit. Derek Jeter was vilified for faking getting hit a couple of weeks ago. I wonder if their will be the national outcry over Utley’s acting job? I am guessing no.

After striking out Ryan Howard (Howard had no chance), Jayson Werth hit a slow roller up a long third, which Rolen proceeded to throw to second. Utley was called safe and the whole dynamic of the inning changed.

Why Rolen decided to throw to second is beyond me. All his momentum was headed towards first. To try to throw across your body to nail a fast runner at second is very hard to do. Rolen would have easily gotten Werth at first.

If the dynamic of the game changed on the Rolen play, the dynamic of the series changed on the next AB.

Rollins hit a little flare to right and Bruce lost the ball in the lights. Utley scored and when Phillips dropped the relay throw, Werth scored, the Phillies took a 5-4 lead and never looked back.

Game. Set. Match.

There are some games where teams get beat and there are games where teams lose. The Reds got beat by Roy Halladay on Wednesday night. On Friday night, the Reds lost.

This loss was a disaster and really showed why the Reds are about two years away from really contending for a World Series. World Series contenders don’t lose games like that. They win games like that.

One thing lost in this game was how mediocre Roy Oswalt was for the Phillies. He really didn’t have much tonight. His fastball was flat and he couldn’t get his change or curve over for strikes.

I am sure he will be better the next time out, but he really wasn’t good in Game 2.

The Reds will be game playing in front of their home crowd for Game 3 on Sunday night, but the Phillies will find a way to pull it out in the end. World Series contenders usually do.

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg

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They say things come in threes right?

Well, things certainly came in threes on Thursday. We saw three divisional round games with three bad umpire calls that lead to three victories.

We had the Michael Young check swing incident in the Texas Rangers–Tampa Bay Rays game. We then had the missed third strike call in Lance Berkman‘s at-bat in the New York Yankees and Minnesota Twins game. Then for the hat trick, we had another blown call that led to the game’s only run in the San Francisco Giants and Atlanta Braves game.

In the bottom of the fourth, with Buster Posey on first and Pat Burrell at the plate, Posey attempted to steal second. Burrell swung and missed and Braves’ catcher Brian McCann came up firing.

It appeared that Posey was out by at least a half a step, but second base umpire Paul Emmel called him safe. Naturally in the same inning, Cody Ross singled to left on a ball that Omar Infante should have had and Posey scored.

It turned out it was the only run of the game and the Giants defeated the Braves 1-0 to take a 1-0 lead in their best-of-five NLDS. While the blown call was pivotal in this game, the story of this game was Giants ace Tim Lincecum.

After allowing a lead-off double to Infante, Lincecum settled down and pitched one of the all time great playoff games. He allowed only one more hit the rest of the game as he went distance and struck out 14.

While his fastball was very good last night, I thought it was his slider that was off the charts. He threw 20 of them and threw 16 of them for strikes. The slider to strike out McCann in the top of the first was unhittable.

I give credit to Bruce Bochy for leaving Lincecum in the game in the ninth. Many managers in that situation would have immediately gone to their closer and played it safe. The feel of the game called for Lincecum going out to take the mound in the ninth.

Of course, I am almost certain that if Lincecum allowed a runner on base, Bochy would have turned to Brian Wilson, who was warming up in the pen to end close things out.

As for the Braves, Lincecum’s dominance really exposed them offensively. Where is the offense going to come from in this series?

Bobby Cox had Alex Gonzalez batting fifth? Let me repeat that. Alex Gonzalez was batting fifth in a playoff game! He might be a nice guy, but the reality is that he hit .240 with a .291 OBP with the Braves.

If McCann or Jason Heyward don’t do damage, who is in this lineup? I have a hard time answering that question right now.

The Braves will try to get even tonight with Tommy Hanson. Game 2 is scheduled to start at 9:37 PM est.

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg

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It was Black Monday at 126th street and Roosevelt Ave.

In a much-anticipated move, the New York Mets said goodbye to GM Omar Minaya and manager Jerry Manuel on Monday. This is no surprise to anyone who has followed this team over the past couple of years.

Let’s start with Minaya first since he is mostly to blame for the Mets’ mess recently. The biggest problems with the way Minaya he ran the Mets was that he had no game plan and had no creativity.

What was the Mets’ game plan under Minaya (besides being chokers)? They had none. Were they a team built around pitching and defense? Or were they a team built around speed and power? Were they a team that was going to build through the minor league system?

They were a jack of all these trades, but a master of none.

It seemed the Mets were just a mish-mosh of talent that really was never a team. They were a team that was saddled with bad contracts and a team that always lacked any depth.

The Mets under Minaya were always very top heavy. The best example of that was the 2009 season.

Yes, the Mets had a ton of injuries that year, but that season also exposed the lack of organizational depth under Minaya. The Boston Red Sox had just as many devastating injuries in 2010 as the Mets had in 2009 and the Red Sox almost won 90 games.

The other issue with Minaya was that he always made the obvious move. If the Mets needed a closer, he would go out and get a Francisco Rodriguez, but not address any other of the teams needs or improve what they already had.

He also lacked any creativity. Where was his acquisition of a Nick Swisher-type player? How come Minaya couldn’t find a guy coming off a down year and buy low on him? He would buy high on mediocre players like Jason Bay.

The new GM coming in needs to do a couple of things right off the bat…

1. Eat the contracts of Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo. These guys represent the worst of the Minaya era and need to be released. They bring down the clubhouse and nobody wants them around.

They need to be gone at any cost.

2. Same can be said for Francisco Rodriguez. Rodriguez has about $15 million remaining on his contract when you consider his $3.5 million buyout for 2012, but after what happened this year, there is no way the Mets can bring him back.

3. Pick up the $11 million club option on Jose Reyes. I am a firm believer that Reyes will never be the player he was from 2005-2008 again, but the Mets need him to regain some trade value. It would do the new GM no good to get rid of him when his value is at an all time low.

4. Change the culture. This might be the most important. The culture around the Mets’ organization is a disaster right now.

The new GM must figure out a way to reconnect the team with it’s fanbase. In my 25 years of following New York baseball, I have never seen the Met fan as disconnected and infuriated with the organization as they are now.

It’s very bad.

Sandy Alderson, Josh Byrnes, Chicago White Sox assistant GM Rick Hahn, and former Kansas City Royals GM Allard Baird are early candidates for the GM position.

As for Jerry Manuel, he had no shot as Mets manager. Replaced a laid back manager like Willie Randolph with another laid back manager is never a good strategy.

Regardless, he was dealt a pretty bad hand in New York. But also think he didn’t command much respect from the team and just as important, the media. I don’t think anyone in New York believed he was the long-term answer as manager of the Mets.

Wally Backman, Joe Torre, and Bobby Valentine are early candidates for the Mets managerial job. However, Jeff Wilpon on the Boomer and Carton Show on WFAN said the new GM will be able to pick his guy as manager.

I don’t buy that for a second, but that’s what he said.

Whomever the new GM and manager are, they will have their hands full at least for the first year. With questions surrounding Johan Santana and the rest of the pitching staff and with a questionable roster because of some unmovable contracts, the Mets figure to be a .500 team at best next year.

Met fans need to be patient regardless of whoever the GM is. He has a lot of work to do.

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg

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When the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim finally beat the Boston Red Sox in last year’s postseason after years of getting their butts kicked, they needed to exercise their demons in dramatic fashion. They swept the Red Sox in the ALDS and did so by coming back against Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon in the ninth.

Not only did they beat him, they really pounded him into the ground. If the Minnesota Twins are finally going to beat the New York Yankees, they are going to need to do the same thing. They are going to need to walk into the lion’s den and spit into the face of the lion.

Until that happens, the Yankees will continue to beat on the Twins like they did in Game 2 of their series. The Yankees once again beat the Twins, this time by a score of 5-2, to take a 2-0 series lead in their best-of-five ALDS.

This game turned for the worse for the Twins in the top of the seventh inning.

After Orlando Hudson tied the game at two in the bottom of the sixth, Carl Pavano had to come out in the seventh and shut the Yankees down. It was a must. Pavano did anything but.

Needing a shutdown inning, Pavano walked Jorge Posada to start the inning, which was an absolute no-no. Then the Yankees-Twins karma, luck, whatever you want to call it kicked in.

On a 1-2 pitch, Pavano threw a two-seam, tailing fastball right over the inside corner to Lance Berkman. It was a strike to everyone except home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt. Berkman would have been struck out, but of course he got another chance.

You just knew that Berkman was going to do something good. That’s how it worked for the Yankees in the ’90s and last year. They get those magical breaks that they always seem to get and then they capitalize on them.

On the very next pitch, Berkman ripped a double to center, the Yankees had a 3-2 lead, and they never looked back. Classic Yankees’ postseason magic right there.

Here are some observations from Game 2…

Andy Pettitte is as automatic in the second game of series as any other pitcher in postseason history. Five hits, two runs, and just one walk over seven innings of work. The Yankees will miss him just as much as they will as Mariano Rivera when he retires.

Mauer is two-for-nine in two games for the Twins. He needs to do better than that if the Twins are going to win.

Curtis Granderson continues to rake. Three-for-four and hit four bullets. Yankees’ hitting coach Kevin Long deserves major kudos for turning Granderson around at the plate.

Berkman’s HR off of Pavano in the fifth inning to left-center field is further proof that when a lefty makes solid contact to the opposite field, it’s the sweetest swing in the game.

You could see Ron Gardenhire’s ejection after the missed called strike to Berkman coming a mile away. I would say that was more egregious than the Michael Young missed check swing in the Rays–Rangers game.

Lost in this game will be the amazing job Jon Rauch did in the top of the seventh. He came in with the bases loaded and one-out and had to face Alex Rodriguez and Robinson Cano. Rauch got A-Rod to strike out and Cano to pop out to Hudson at second. It was really an impressive outing.

Ever since Kerry Wood learned how to throw a cutter from Rivera, he looks as dominant as ever. Twins had no chance against him in the eighth.

Jason Kubel has two hits in 25 career postseason at-bats. He killed the Twins last year and he is doing the same again this year.

Game 3 will be Saturday night at 8:37 PM est.

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