Kuzul

The 2010 ALCS taught us a very important lesson: Homegrown talent wins championships. The Texas Rangers are finally seeing the maximum performance expected by many of their young players when they were drafted.

Homegrown players do not even need to play for your team for a long time to have a lasting impact on your franchise’s success. General managers can trade top homegrown talent for superstars at the trade deadline; that can make the difference in the post season.

Justin Smoak, a Rangers top prospect, was the centerpiece in the Cliff Lee trade, which has turned out to be one of the best midseason acquisitions ever.

The Yankees know how to win with homegrown talent. Their dynasty of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s was built on great homegrown talent like Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera.

The Yankees need to revert back to that format, because the best way to build a perennial winner is to build it yourself, and not reach out to outside sources, such as free agency.

Now we will look at several reasons why the Yankees need to copy their strategy from the early 1990’s if they want to build another Yankee dynasty.

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Just a day removed from the Yankees elimination, it isn’t hard to find a disappointed New Yorker. The beloved Yankees are done for the year, and their dreams of a second consecutive world championship are diminished.

As many love to do, we can sit here and talk about what could have happened and what should have happened. We can talk about the mistakes the Yankees made; we can talk about the Yankees lack of luck; we can talk, and talk and talk.

Or, we can put things in perspective, and come to the realization that Yankee fans are lucky enough and we are lucky as it is to have the chance to enjoy baseball.

The Yankees have been to the World Series 40 times in their existence. The Rangers, when the 2010 World Series begins, will have been there once. My point? It’s okay for another team to win for a change.

In the past 16 seasons, the Yankees have made the postseason 15 times. They won the World Series last year, and won it three straight times in the late nineties. The farthest the Rangers made it in the last 16 years is where they are right now. Once again, it’s not a bad thing for another team to be in the World Series.

History aside, why are Yankees fans disappointed? Even with a late season collapse, the Yankees won 95 games, and made it to the sixth game of the American League Championship series.

Yankee fans consider that a failure, while Nationals fans prey for a .400 winning percentage in the regular season.

Yankees fans are lucky, and there is no reason to be disappointed. This was a great season, without many injuries or problems in the clubhouse. Not to mention that the Yankees will likely be back in the postseason next year, and many years to follow.

Furthermore, it’s not a bad thing for Major League Baseball to host an American League Champion that isn’t the Yankees for a change. Too much of anything can be very harmful, and it’s a pleasant change of pace to see a motivated, talented team such as the Rangers in the World Series. 

And, of course, Yankee fan or not, you should never be disappointed when your team does not succeed. Sports are meant to be fun, and any sorrow that is created as a result of sports is unnecessary.

Yes, the Yankees lost, but the sun will rise tomorrow, and everyone’s lives will go along, unharmed.

NY Fans: you have it better than anyone, so try not to complain. Baseball fans: your right to watch, enjoy, and root for your team is precious enough, and it’s a victory for us all.

To read more thoughts and analysis, check out my blog. You can also send me an e-mail, follow me on Twitter, and check out more at jesskcoleman.com.

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A mark of a great team is its ability to overcome adversity to achieve success. The 2010 Philadelphia Phillies have surely faced an ample portion of challenges this season with a disabled list transaction report that reads like an MLB “Who’s Who” list. 

The team has already proved to be tremendously resilient by turning a 48-46 midseason record into the best record in baseball (97-65) with a remarkable 49-19 finish.

While many were contemplating writing off the season as a year of bad fortune, the entire Phillies organization remained resolute in their capabilities and optimistic for a successful outcome. No one panicked, no one baled. 

After trailing the Atlanta Braves by seven games just a couple months earlier, the Phillies won the NL Eastern Division going away. Their season ending tally of 97 wins and a rare as Halley’s Comet NL All-Star game victory gave them home field advantage throughout the postseason.  

With the “Big Three” anchoring perhaps the best lineup in baseball, oddsmakers pegged them as the favorites to win it all heading into the October tourney that spills into November for each league’s best team.

Although they looked a little rusty in spots, the Phillies quickly dispensed the Cincinnati Reds 3-0 in the NLDS. As further validation to the oddsmakers, the “Big Three” produced a historic no-hitter in the opener and a brilliant five-hit shutout in the series clincher. 

The team’s next destination was a third consecutive trip to the NLCS, this time to face the upstart San Francisco Giants. 

Somewhat surprisingly, that trip found them in a 3-1 hole after four games and facing the possibility of a winter of wondering what could have been. The Phillies were on the brink of elimination.  

It has turned into a potential microcosm of their whole season.  Of course, for that to happen, the Phillies would need to battle back to win the NLCS.  

On Thursday night, the Phillies took one large step in that direction. A 4-2 victory over two-time defending Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum in enemy territory kept them alive and restored home field advantage. 

Somewhat fitting to their seasonal journey, the Phillies’ ace of aces, Roy Halladay suffered a groin pull early in the contest and clearly did not display his typical dominating stuff. Also, fittingly, he battled his way through to maintain a narrow 3-2 lead after six innings.

And, perhaps keeping with the script, Jimmy Rollins finally seemed to shake off a lingering hamstring injury that has compromised his running ability through the playoffs. In the seventh inning, seeing J Roll steal second and third base had to hearten his teammates and Phillies fans alike. 

The bullpen came up big with some of its best work all season over the final three innings. Additionally, Jayson Werth provided a huge insurance run with an opposite field homer in the ninth. 

Earlier in the game, Werth gunned down Phillies nemesis Cody Ross at third with a Dave Parkeresque frozen rope from right. Besides helping Halladay escape a jam, the play may have taken a little edge off Cody’s magic over the Phillies.  

Of course, two more large challenges remain if the Phillies want to be the first National League team in 66 years to appear in three consecutive World Series. 

Tonight, Roy Oswalt takes the hill in hope of advancing the team to Game 7. A revved-up Citizen’s Bank Park crowd will be there to offer ample encouragement. 

Should the Phillies win, 2008 postseason hero Cole Hamels is waiting in the wings for Sunday. By then, the electricity at “The Bank” might be enough to power the entire tri-state area.

Meanwhile, Cliff Lee and the Texas Rangers will be looking on, awaiting their 2010 World Series opponent. 

The stage is set.  Opportunity knocks for the Phillies to show their true greatness. 

After fighting their way through adversity all season, a similar course in the postseason would provide further evidence that this is truly a great team. Coming back from a 3-1 NLCS deficit to prevail would only serve to enhance the argument. 

It won’t be easy facing a Giants team with its own talented pitching staff and a seemingly unending arsenal of interchangeable parts. Importantly, they also possess a belief that they can win.  

With due respect to the Giants, the Phillies also possess that same belief. This Phillies team is, in fact, a truly special club—and this weekend could go a long way towards demonstrating that further.

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I think it finally sunk in for me right around the time Josh Hamilton was explaining to a live television audience how God allows him to hit baseballs far.

The Yankees were done. Dead. Finito. Their quest to repeat as world champions had come to an abrupt end in, of all places, the land of Friday Night Lights.

How did we get here?

No sport approaches baseball in the personal connection fostered between fan and team. For three hours a day, six to seven months a year, you’re along for a ride with more twists and turns than a Swisher-approved episode of Gossip Girls. If you devour all the Internet content, read the newspapers, listen to talk radio or write a dopey blog, you go in even deeper.

And then just like that, with nine innings, a few bad pitches, and a handful of listless at-bats, it’s all over. It’s a genuinely painful shift in reality, hard for your girlfriend to understand, but even more difficult to come to grips with yourself.

You shouldn’t care this much. And yet, you do.

The 6-1 loss in Game 6 served as a microcosm for how the Yankees buried themselves in the first place: Bad starting pitching, porous middle relief, and an offense stuck in a perpetual stoned haze.

Make no mistake, the Rangers very much deserved the pennant. The Yankees knocked them down in Game 1 and they had the guts to pop right back up. When the Rangers returned the favor in Game 2, the Yankees never seemed to recover. In retrospect, it’s a minor miracle the series lasted six games.

What’s frustrating as a Yankees fan is that you knew this team had the potential to perform far better than it did. They just fell flat at the worst time.

That’s what makes the postseason such a different animal than the six months of baseball that precedes it. Fall into a funk in July, and you have plenty of time to straighten yourself out. Fall into a funk in October, you’re going home.

I think what made Game 6 especially painful was that there was a collective belief amongst fans that the Yankees would find a way to get the series to Pettitte vs. Lee for the whole damn thing. It would have been a great matchup, and certainly would have made for fine baseball theater.

But just as they had all season, the Yankees zigged when you thought they would zag. Predicting anything with them was impossible. Maybe this was the only way it made sense in the end.

We all know that Colby Lewis is little more than an above-average pitcher. Superstars don’t usually do two-year tours in Japan unless they’re Jessie & The Rippers.

And yet, Lewis beat the Yankees twice in the ALCS, the second time with relative ease. It was the type of performance the Yankees hoped they were going to get out of Phil Hughes.

This isn’t Hughes’ fault—at least not his alone. He had long since obliterated his personal high for innings pitched in a season, and was clearly running on fumes in the end. And remember, he was only put in this position of responsibility because A.J. Burnett forgot how to pitch.

Is it disappointing that Hughes was unable to make The Leap? I suppose, especially when you factor in the expectations that have followed him since he was 20 years old. But ultimately, this failure was a team effort.

The Yankees broke down in all phases of the game. Were the Rangers really that much better? That’s certainly debatable, but there’s no questioning who was the better team over six games.

Even so, media types will paint this outcome as some type of grand upset, David slaying the mighty Goliath. That A-Rod made the final out, the man the Rangers once gave $252 million to save their franchise, only enhances that angle.

I get that. The general populace needs a team to hate in every major sport. In the NFL, it’s the Cowboys. In college hoops, it’s Duke. In the NBA, it’s become the Heat. In the NHL, it’s…um…you know, that one team with all the skates.

The Yankees are obviously that team in baseball. How could it be anyone else?

Being a fan of the team everyone else hates is more fun than you might think. ESPN’s Bill Simmons has said that rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for the dealer in black jack.

That’s fine with me. The dealer does get taken from time to time, just like what happened to the Yankees on Friday. But ultimately, these type of things are only temporary.

Don’t you know the house always wins?

Stray thoughts:

• I’ll get into this in the next couple of days, but the Core Four enters the offseason at a crossroads. Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera are all free agents. Jorge Posada has one year left on his deal. If I had to guess, I’d say they’ll all be back next year. But 2011 may be the end of the line for the unit as complete group.

• Did the Yankees put up some ghastly numbers in this series or what? They hit .217 as a team and had an ERA of 6.58. With runners in scoring position they were 5-for-41 (.151). They were outscored 38-19. I’ll ask you again, how in Josh Hamilton’s savior’s name did this series get to a sixth game?

• David Robertson, you let me down son. All season, I thought of Robertson as a difference-maker come playoff time. Instead, he fell flat on his face. The two-run homer he allowed to Cruz was the real knockout blow on the season. You could see the Yankees emotionally check out after that.

• Like it or not, the Yankees will try to work out a deal for Joe Girardi and his binder to return in 2011. What other option do they have (don’t say Torre, don’t say Torre, don’t say Torre…)?

• More (potential) bad news for Yankee fans: Say the Rangers win it all, and Cliff Lee does his Cliff Lee thing two more times, winning the World Series MVP in the process. Very feasible, right? Now tell me how the Rangers will allow Lee walk as a free agent? I think they pony up the dough and he stays.

• Lastly, I want to thank everyone who has been reading River & Sunset during the postseason and all season. The blog has really made strides in ’10, and like the Yankees, we plan on getting better in the offseason and beyond.

Dan Hanzus writes the Yankees blog River & Sunset and can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

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Let me start by saying congratulations to the Texas Rangers.

The Rangers are the ALCS Champions and well deserve to be just that after winning Game 6 against the New York Yankees, 6-1.

It is a first World Series appearance for the Texas Rangers organization. Texas will face either the Philadelphia Phillies or the San Francisco Giants, who are still battling it out in the NLCS.

After dominating the Minnesota Twins in the ALDS, the Yankees had eight days off till the ALCS started down in Texas.

The Yankees could have won this series, but you have to play baseball in order to win.

Let’s look at the three factors, hitting, pitching and managing for the Yankees in the postseason to figure out what happened:

1) Hitting, a word that became unfamiliar to the Yankee batters. If you do not score runs, you will not win ball games. Maybe if a team had Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, The Freak or CC Sabathia in the same rotation, you could afford not to hit, but even that Cy Young foursome would lose a game or two.

A-Rod continued his horrible 2010 postseason, coming into Game 6 with three hits in 17 at-bats, with a .176 batting average. Last year, A-Rod hit six home runs, batting a .365 over 15 postseason games. His slump was a HUGE problem and reason the Yankees struggled so much.

It’s not as if the rest of the Yankees were much help anyway. Swisher’s batting average was .194 and Teixeira (pre-injury) was even worse, hitting .148 in the postseason. Both regular season sluggers lost their swagger completely for the second postseason in a row.

2) Shockingly, the pitching was second to the hitting, because if you can’t score runs, the game is over no matter who is on the mound. Otherwise, the pitching was almost as terrible as the batting, following the ALDS where the pitching was phenomenal.

Sabathia got the job done winning both his ALCS starts, even though he grinded in both games against Texas. CC is an ace and that is why he gets the title. Sabathia had an ERA of 5.63 over 16 innings and struck-out 15 batters. The Yankees won all three games CC started, which is the only stat that matters in the post season.

As usual, Pettitte came through enormously posting a 2.57 ERA over 14 innings, striking out nine and only allowing one walk in his two postseason starts. He was 1-1 because Cliff Lee beat him in Game 4, but once again, the Yankees didn’t hit and back-up Pettitte’s performance.

The bullpen of Kerry Wood, Mariano Rivera and Joba Chamberlain all did a solid job. Robertson and Mitre were a mess, shocker. Robertson is usually a go-to-middle reliever because he has been so successful the last two years, but Mitre should never be allowed in Yankee Stadium again.

Girardi needs to go see a shrink in the offseason for the separation issues he seems to have with Mitre, who he coached as a Florida Marlin. Whatever it is, nobody wants to ever see Mitre on the mound again.

The starting pitching in the ALCS was not as dominate as the ALDS at all. Blame it on the eight days off between games or maybe Joe Girardi’s managing calls, but the starters looked rattled. Sometimes it got painful to watch as a fan because you know how good they can be or usually are.

Pitching posted a record of 5-4, with a 5.01 ERA, giving up 44 earned runs, 32 walks and 63 strikeouts during the 2010 postseason. Those numbers will not get you though the postseason, Yankees or not.

3) Skipper Joe Girardi had New York fans questioning—excuse me, criticizing—his every move over the last two weeks. When any sports team loses, the manager or coach always gets blamed, but in all essence, Girardi is a good manager. The Yankees won the World Series in 2009 and made it to the ALCS this season.

The only move Girardi made that made absolutely no sense happened in Game 6 of the ALCS. Hughes was the starter, and though it was not the smoothest performance, he had held the Rangers to one earned run through the fourth inning. He walked Josh Hamilton for the second time, which I would have done too.

Vladimir Guerrero was up next and the aging DH is still a risk but not even close in comparison to Hamilton. Vald knocked the ball over Granderson’s head for a double and two runs score. I hoped Girardi would let Hughes get the last out to finish the fifth inning, but knew that was a pipe dream when it comes to Girardi.  

Guerrero’s hit only made the score 3-1, which is still manageable. Hughes had been throwing a lot of pitches, but he held the Rangers and that is his job. The bigger mistake was when he replaced Hughes with Dave Robertson instead of Kerry Wood.

Robertson had struggled all postseason, and it would seem only logical to put your best reliever out there to hold the score. Instead. by the time Robertson got the one out needed to end the inning. he had allowed a home run and three earned runs, leaving the score 6-1 entering the sixth inning. It drove me nuts that Girardi pulled Hughes, but to put in Robertson was irrational and just plain out stupid.

Well, now the Yankees and their fans will watch another team be crowned World Champions. It sucks to lose, but a true Champion would come back ready to win even more in 2011.

Overall, great season once again for my New York Yankees and can’t wait for next season.

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Four days ago, I would have said Joe Girardi. Actually, I would have shouted it. I thought he had made one of the biggest blunders in managing history.

It was Game 4 and A.J. Burnett was on the mound and he actually had a lead. The Yanks were up 3-2 in the top of the sixth inning and Nelson Cruz was standing on second base. He had wisely tagged on a deep fly ball out by Ian Kinsler.

Burnett only needed one more out to escape a mildly stressful inning and he had only thrown about 96 pitches at that point. With David Murphy coming to the plate, I’m really not all that worried. In fact, I don’t think anyone is all that worried.

But Girardi looked at the matchups, saw first base open, and gave Murphy a free pass to the lonely base so Burnett could face Rangers catcher Bengie Molina. The sad thing was I knew exactly what was coming next.

All it took was one pitch and the Yankees’ lead was gone. A three-run blast by Molina gave Texas a two-run lead and I was absolutely livid. Why not pitch to Murphy? I don’t even know who that guy is? Why are the Yankees just giving him first base? What has he ever done?

I know Molina because he had been red hot during the division series against the Tampa Bay Rays, was already batting a thousand against Burnett in Game 4, and had already hit three career postseason home runs against the Yankees.

But as the series went on, I started to realize that Girardi had to over-manage because he no longer had faith in anyone else on that team. This is a team that would have been swept had Brett Gardner decided to run through the bag on a slow roller in Game 1 instead of diving headfirst to beat the throw.

If a headfirst slide by Brett Gardner is what this team needed to be inspired than that’s just comical.

But the Yankees were just bad. With the exception of Robinson Cano, one wild inning in Game 1, and the quintessential “we’d rather win this series at home in front of our fans” game, the Yankees were just bad.

Let’s start with first basemen Mark Teixeira. I’m starting with him because I think his story is a microcosm of this entire series. He was 0-13 in the ALCS before hitting a weak grounder to third with runners on first and second and no outs in Game 4, straining his hamstring and exiting the postseason.

His body literally gave up him. He even said as much in the post-game interview. Amazing. Maybe you should get a few hits first before you start saying your body gave up on you. Just a thought. 

Next, Alex Rodriguez. He watched strike three cross home plate in Game 6 and recorded the final out of the 2010 Yankee season. He didn’t even swing the bat. And why should he? He’s got an offseason of spending massive amounts of money ahead of him. I wouldn’t have swung either.

Now, this next guy concerns me because I can’t say anything bad about him but boy, do I want to. He also struck out to end the eighth inning in Game 6 and he looked really bad doing it. He did one of those weird half-swings that said, “Uh, I kind of want to hit it but I also kind of want to spend a massive amount of money in the offseason and I want that to start ASAP.”

Of course, I’m talking about Derek Jeter. What to do with him? He’s old. He no longer has any late-game heroics left in him. His range at shortstop is noticeably diminished. And he’s a free agent.

If there were a way to pay him to still be the Yankee captain, but not let him anywhere near the baseball field, I’d be okay with that.

Now here are some names along with some awful ALCS stats. Nick Swisher, 2-for-22. Marcus Thames, 2-for-16. Phil Hughes 11.42 ERA. David Robertson, 20.25 ERA.

The Yankees went 8-for-50 with runners in scoring position. Swisher went 0-for-7. Teixeira went 0-for-4 and we can only assume that second number would have been higher had his body decided to keep going.

This is what Joe Girardi was working with. And this is why he has a binder full of charts and graphs and color-coded decision-making laminates, because he manages a roster full of guys who would rather be spending massive amounts of money in the offseason.

Why wouldn’t he look for a better matchup for Burnett? He clearly needed the help, with his regular season ERA a hefty 5.26, and his win-loss record weighted on the wrong end.

At first glance, Girardi’s moves looked like over-managing but they were really just signs of panic. He was overcompensating for a team he knew was out of gas.

People will probably put a lot of the blame on Girardi but he was the only one actually trying to win.

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By Tyler Ward

The Texas Rangers are moving on to their first World Series. Their opponent, though, we are still waiting to find out if it’ll be the Phillies or Giants. But, for now, it’s the Rangers’ time. They will be appearing in their first World Series, even though they just won their first postseason series earlier this month when they defeated the Tampa Bay Rays.

In a pitching matchup that featured Colby Lewis and Phil Hughes, only one would do well. And that was Lewis. The pitcher, who was added to the roster earlier this year after spending two years in Japan, threw a spectacular game.

Lewis pitched eight strong innings, surrendering three hits and one earned run. He also walked three batters and struck out seven.

Hughes, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. The young pitcher managed to only pitch 4.2 innings, giving up four earned runs and four hits. He also walked four, struck out three, and had a crazy wild pitch.

The Rangers got off to a good start in the first inning when Vladimir Guerrero got the first of his three RBI. He was able to ground out to second, but Elvis Andrus scored on the play to give the Rangers a 1-0 advantage.

New York would answer in the top of the fifth when Alex Rodriguez scored on Colby Lewis’ only mistake—a wild pitch. But, there was some controversy on the play. Lewis’ pitch clearly hit Nick Swisher in the shin, but the umpire did not see it that way. He ruled it as a wild pitch and Swisher did not reach base on the play. Rodriguez still scored on the play and the game was tied 1-1, but it wouldn’t last for long.

In the bottom of the inning, Guerrero stepped up to the plate again, slapping a double to center and scoring Mitch Moreland and Josh Hamilton on the play. After the play, Hughes was relieved by David Robertson. However, Robertson would then proceed to give up a two-run homer to Nelson Cruz, sealing the Yankees’ fate.

The blast by Cruz put the Rangers up 5-1 and that’s all they needed. Two innings later, in the seventh, Ian Kinsler hit a sacrifice fly to to left field, scoring long-time Ranger, Michael Young. As far as runs go, that was the end of it.

Neftali Feliz came into the game in the ninth, pitching a perfect inning. He would strike out Curtis Granderson and get Robinson Cano to pop up. Alex Rodriguez was the last batter of the game and Feliz struck him out to end the game. Fireworks would go off and the celebration began. 

Outfielder Josh Hamilton was named ALCS MVP after he hit four home runs in the series, tying an American League record for most home runs in the championship series. Hamilton was also intentionally walked five time, a major league record, including three times in the clinching game. A humbled Hamilton was more than happy that he helped his team reach their first World Series. 

“I don’t want to talk about myself,” Hamilton said. “I want to talk about them, because we are the reason we’re here.” 

The ALCS MVP would then go on to say, “This group’s here because they don’t know how to fail. The chemistry on the team is something like I’ve never known anywhere. All the guys love each other and we support each other. And we love the fans.”

Michael Young, the longest-tenured player on the team, was also more than happy. He was ecstatic. “The World Series is coming to Texas,” Young said. “Totally worth the wait, totally.”

Hamilton and Young weren’t the only happy people on the field. Co-owner, team president, and former Rangers great Nolan Ryan witnessed their victory from the front row—he headed onto the field after Feliz struck out Rodriguez to end the game.

Ryan was the first person to hold the ALCS trophy at the postgame celebration and the fans gave him a roaring ovation. “Our fans have waited a long time, this organization has waited a long time,” Ryan said. “This team coming out of spring training was on a mission.”

The Yankees were dominated in every aspect of the game in the series. Their run differential of minus-19 was the second-most in team history; they were minus-23 in the 2001 World Series when they lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks, their first championship, too. They allowed 37 runs in the ALCS, also the second-most in team history—they gave up 41 runs in the 2004 ALCS when they lost in seven games to the Boston Red Sox.

When it comes to sports, it’s not about which team is the best. It’s about which team plays the best, and the Rangers did that.

If there were a Game 7, Cliff Lee was expected to be the starter, but now with the Rangers’ victory, it looks like Lee will start Game 1 on Wednesday against the Phillies or Giants. The Giants currently lead the series 3-2.

The Rangers’ series win was somewhat bittersweet. The Rangers, in their only three postseason berths prior to this season, were knocked out by those very same Yankees. Now, the Rangers finally got their revenge. The Yankees and their $200 million-plus payroll could not withstand the Rangers’ pitching and hitting. There were many questions entering the postseason, including whether or not the Yankees’ pitching could hold up.

It appeared that there was validity for those questions. The Bronx Bombers’ pitching was nothing, but mediocre at best. As a team, they had an astounding 7.11 ERA for the series and frankly, that will not win games. New York will now have many questions to answer in the offseason, as they are still looking to claim their 28th World Series championship.

A disappointed Joe Girardi said after the game, “We didn’t accomplish what we set out to. And as I told my guys, this hurts. I’ve been through it as a player. I’ve been through it as a coach and now I’ve been through it as a manager. It’s not a lot of fun watching other teams celebrate. They beat us. They outhit us, they outpitched us, outplayed us and they beat us.”

With the Yankees sent home, the Rangers are now looking forward to their World Series matchup against the Phillies or Giants. Game 1 will be on Wednesday and the Rangers are hoping they can bring Texas their first championship in the team’s 50-year history.

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In their 50th season as the Washington Senators/Texas Rangers franchise, a pennant has finally been won. The Rangers knocked off the Yankees on Friday night 6-1 to take the AL flag in their own home in front of 50,000-plus crazy fans.

The Rangers got on the board first and after the Yankees got a gift run, the Rangers put them away. Vladimir Guerrero and Nelson Cruz got the big hits they couldn’t get in Game 5 and the team’s young closer put the hammer down in the ninth.

The Yankees couldn’t hit Colby Lewis as many expected, and although Phil Hughes wasn’t terrible, he wasn’t good enough.

With the win on Friday, Cliff Lee now will be on full rest to start Game 1 of the World Series on Wednesday in either Philadelphia or San Francisco. Here’s a report card of how the Rangers won Game 6.

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While Cliff Lee of the Texas Rangers continues his somewhat surprising march toward baseball immortality, each of his subsequent dominant postseason starts helps him climb higher and higher toward the pinnacle of baseball’s Mount Olympus.

Already, after only parts of two seasons performing on baseball’s grandest stage, Lee has earned himself the right to be mentioned alongside legends of the game like Sandy Koufax, Whitey Ford and Bob Gibson, pitchers who excelled when the stakes were the highest.

As baseball fans, we constantly attempt to place our heroes within their proper historical context, by comparing them with stars of the divergent eras in the history of the game. Sure, Albert Pujols is amazing today, but how would he fare in the Polo Grounds, or against spit-ball pitchers? Could Babe Ruth possibly have crushed 714 home runs against today’s fire-balling hurlers and relief specialists? Tim Lincecum may be “The Freak,” but could his dominance withstand the expectation to throw 300 innings a year?

The comparison between Cliff Lee and Sandy Koufax becomes inevitable, as their names now sit near each other on many postseason baseball leader boards. Obviously, their shared, left-handed throwing hand makes them easy to group together, but more so, the way in which they have dominated their playoff opponents has elevated them above the rest of the field into a class of their own. After eight playoff appearances each, seven starts for Koufax, and eight for Lee, they are at a nearly identical point in their postseason careers, making the comparisons even more appropriate.

These similarities between the two dominant left-handed hurlers practically beg the question: if your team was facing a decisive Game 7 in a playoff series, who would you prefer to have starting on the hill? Cliff Lee or Sandy Koufax?

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Ryan Howard‘s biggest contributions to the Phillies so far this postseason has been his celebratory high-fives to his teammates after they get driven in by Placido Polanco . 

On the brink of elimination, Philadelphia need first basemen Ryan Howard to wake up from his eight-game slumber and re-energize a dormant Phillies’ offense. 

Since the postseason began, Howard (.276, 31 HRs, 108 RBIs) has accounted for only one of the Phillies’ 29 postseason runs, a number that must change if Charlie Manuel’s club wants to become just the eleventh team in MLB history to overcome a 3-1 series deficit.

Hobbled by an ankle injury that kept him sidelined for most of August, Howard came back strong in September for the Phillies displaying the power (seven HRs) and patience (.405 OBP, his highest of any month in ’10) that we were accustomed to. 

Despite coming into October on a hot streak, the former National League MVP  hasn’t driven in a single run during the playoffs and is hampering the Philadelphia offense because of his inability to come through at the plate with runners on base. In his 30 at-bats this postseason, Howard has struck out an inexcusable 14 times and left 12 runners stranded on the base paths in that time, despite a decent .286 average.  

Contrary to his recent slump, the 2009 NLCS MVP is usually a reliable run-producer come playoff time, notching seven home runs and 27 RBIs in just 32 postseason games before this year.

Devoid of their main power threat, the Phillies have had to rely on small-ball strategy (10 steals and six sacrifices in October thus far) and power pitching for success. 

Facing a rested and ready Jonathan Sanchez on Saturday, Howard will be counted on to pick up the pace at home against the Giants. Although he is only 3-for-14 lifetime facing Sanchez, Howard did have two hits and a walk against him in Game 2, inspiring confidence in his ability to get good wood off the lefty flame-thrower.  

The Phillies remain a veteran team, who will not go quietly this October, despite teetering on the edge of eradication.

Desperate for a win, and a World Series rematch with the Yankees, the fate of the Phillies rests in hands of Ryan Howard to pull out a Game 6 victory in Philadelphia.    

Jesse Paguaga is a regular contributor to Baseball Digest. He writes as an intern on the Bleacher Report website. Jesse writes for Gotham Baseball, along with Gotham Hoops and Gotham Gridiron. He can be reached at Paguaga@usc.edu and can be found on Facebook and on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/@jpags77

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