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It’s hard to believe, with all the snow we’ve gotten here in the Northeast, that spring training is just a few weeks away. As a fan of the New York Yankees, this hasn’t been the best of offseasons, so I would like nothing more than to fast forward to mid-February to see how the team is going to answer all of the questions that haunt them right now.

Before we get to February though, here is the first segment of posts regarding the direction of the Yankees, both on and off the field. I will pose questions that need to be answered before the season begins, starting with what I believe to be the most important question that still needs to be addressed.

1. What is going on with the rotation?

Almost all offseason, many have wondered what the Yankees are planning on doing with the No. 4 and No. 5 spots in the starting rotation, in the wake of Cliff Lee signing with Philadelphia, and Andy Pettitte acting like he’s not playing in 2011. What people really ought to be wondering about is the status of the Yankees rotation as a whole, because it’s not pretty.

To me, the Yankees starting rotation is an obvious weakness. CC Sabathia is the only pitcher in the rotation who can be counted on for 200 injury free innings. He is the clear ace of the staff, and should contend for the AL Cy Young award, yet again.

2010 AL All-Star Phil Hughes provided the Yankees with hope. He won 18 games last season and he threw a career-high 176.1 innings last year. However, he threw just 86 innings in 2009 and before last year he hadn’t topped 120 innings since throwing 146 way back in 2006, when he split time between Single A and Double A. A big jump in innings pitched from one year to the next can sometimes lead to injuries, or ineffectiveness, and Hughes has a bit of an injury history already.

Speaking of injuries, one of the knocks on A.J. Burnett when he signed with the Yankees prior to the 2009 season was that he was injury-prone. He’s now had three straight seasons with at least 33 starts.

So, a glass-half-full kind of person would believe that Burnett has turned a corner and is a healthy, durable pitcher as he enters his mid-30s. A glass-half-empty person would believe that Burnett, following a career-worst 2010 season (10-15, 5.26 ERA), will be on the disabled list a few times in 2011. I fall in the durable veteran pitcher camp when it comes to Burnett, but his lack of consistency is a huge problem for the Yankees.

Healthy or not, they don’t know what to expect from Burnett.

So, the Yankees rotation, as of right now, consists of one pitcher they can truly count on (Sabathia), two spots that are completely up for grabs (No. 4 and No. 5 spots), and two pitchers with question marks (Hughes and Burnett).

This is not a World Series caliber starting rotation, to say the least.

Coming soon: Question two in the series.

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In a continuing effort to shore up their starting rotation and bullpen, the New York Yankees inked Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes, and Boone Logan to one-year deals, thus avoiding salary arbitration with the trio of young hurlers, according to MLB.com.

Hughes, who earned $447,000 last season, agreed to a deal worth $2.7 million after coming off his best year in the majors.

The 24-year-old Hughes finished fourth in the American League in wins (18), becoming the youngest Yankees right-hander to win at least 18 games in the regular season since 1965 (Mel Stottlemyre).

Although his second half outings were increasingly dubious, Hughes was selected to his first All-Star team and set career highs in wins, strikeouts (146), and innings pitched (176.1) in 29 starts.

Meanwhile, Chamberlain, working exclusively out of the bullpen last season, was signed to a deal worth $1.4 million, an increase of over $900,000 from his salary in 2010 ($487,975).

Chamberlain finished third in the American League in holds (26) and posted a record of 3-4, with an ERA of 4.40, in a team-high 73 appearances.

With Andy Pettitte giving them the “Brett Favre Treatment,” the Yankees may flirt with the possibility of inserting Chamberlain, who turns 26 this year, into the starting rotation, but the current plan is to keep him in the bullpen.

New York’s fourth successful attempt at circumventing salary arbitration this offseason consisted of inking left-handed reliever Logan to a one-year, $1.2 million contract.

In 51 relief appearances for the Bronx Bombers last season, Logan was 2-0 with an ERA of 2.93 and 13 holds.

After acquiring him in a trade with the Atlanta Braves, the Yankees avoided arbitration with Logan last year, his first year of eligibility, by signing him to a deal worth $590,000.

And, for the majority of the season, the 26-year-old Logan was the only left-hander in the Yankees bullpen.

However, this coming season, the recently acquired Pedro Feliciano will join Logan as another left-handed relief option for manager Joe Girardi.

Last month, the Yankees also avoided going to arbitration with right-handed starting pitcher Sergio Mitre by signing him to a deal worth approximately $900,000.

Click here to read the original article at SportsHaze.com.

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The Yankees recently avoided arbitration with pitchers Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain and Boone Logan, easily saving the club a lot of money. 

All three of the pitchers were signed to one-year deals with the club.

Hughes—$2.7 million

Joba—$1.4 million

Logan— $1.2 million

The latter two are good deals, but not as surprising as Hughes. To me, it would have made more sense for the Yankees to try to lock Hughes down on a multi-year deal now, before he gets even better and has more leverage to request a higher contract. Also, as of today, he is the No. 2 starter, and is therefore extremely important to the Yankee’s success. 

Signing Joba to a smaller deal like this makes a lot of sense for numerous reasons. First, you save money. Second, keeping him on the roster is not a burden, because he isn’t making a whole lot of money. Third, it makes it that much easier to trade him if the Yankees decide they want to, because there isn’t a monster price tag weighing them down. 

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The Yankees had three players who were eligible for arbitration this winter and came to an agreement with all of them today—Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain and Boone Logan—thus avoiding arbitration, according to three tweets by Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated.

Hughes gets $2.7 million and Joba gets $1.4 million. Both players were arbitration eligible for the first time and have about three years of service time under their belts. Logan agreed to a deal worth $1.2 million.

Joba earned $487,975 in 2010 and Hughes earned $447,000, so Hughes got the bigger raise. That’s due to the fact that Hughes had the better year in 2010 and is a starting pitcher.

Related Stories

• December 1, 2010 – Yankees Have 5 to Offer Arbitration Tomorrow
• October 12, 2010 – Yankees News: Simulated Game, Pitching Updates, Marte, and More
• August 30, 2010 – Yankees: Worst Rotation, Best Bullpen Last 30 Days
• March 2, 2010 – 5 Yankees Spring Training Battles

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Phil Hughes was the toast of baseball through May as he appeared nearly unhittable.  He was 6-1 over the first two months to go along with a 2.72 ERA, 1.07 WHIP and 57 strikeouts over 56.2 innings of work. 

Over the next four months, however, he was not nearly as effective.

For the entire season, he posted the following line:

18 Wins
176.1 Innings
4.19 ERA
1.25 WHIP
146 Strikeouts (7.45 K/9)
58 Walks (2.96 BB/9)
.281 BABIP

It would be easy to attribute his overall ERA as tiring down the stretch, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.  In fact, after May, Hughes failed to post a sub-4.00 ERA in any month:

• June – 5.17 (31.1 innings)
• July – 5.52 (29.1 innings)
• August – 4.22 (32.0 innings)
• September – 4.85 (26.0 innings)

It is easy to look at the wins and get distracted from the other numbers, but you would be doing yourself a major disservice.  Yes, Hughes has a significant upside in wins thanks to playing for the Yankees. 

He won 11 games over the final four months of the year, despite his struggles on the mound.  However, it is not something that we can simply count on. 

His effectiveness in general just wasn’t there.  After striking out over a batter an inning in the first two months, he fell to 6.72 K/9 over the final four months.  His ERA was at 4.91 and his WHIP was a pedestrian 1.34.

So, which is it?

For one, his home run rate was excessive towards the end of the season, at 1.59 from June on.  Yankees Stadium (where he posted a HR/9 of 1.69) or not, that number is excessive. 

Yes, his fly ball rate is on the higher side (47.4 percent for the season), but you would expect him to improve upon this number.

There is also hope in the strikeout rate, given his career minor league strikeout rate of 10.01.  Is he going to be that good?  No, but his mark over the first two months is significantly more believable then over the final four. 

With that said, the main question comes down to if Hughes can actually succeed in the AL East or not.  Let’s take a look at how he did in 2010:

• Baltimore – 2-0, 2.41 ERA over 18.2 innings
• Boston – 2-1, 3.60 ERA over 25.0 innings
• Toronto – 1-2, 7.29 ERA over 21.0 innings
• Tampa Bay – 1-2, 4.74 ERA over 19.0 innings

With Boston improving their lineup significantly, these numbers certainly are cause for concern and could help to limit his value.  How much so?  Let’s take a look at how I’d project him for 2011:

180.0 IP, 16 W, 3.95 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 160 K (8.00 K/9), 62 BB (3.10 BB/9)

His control is solid and should help him maintain a solid WHIP (my projected number is based on a BABIP of .299).  Assuming he can improve on the number of home runs he allows (the projection has a HR/9 of 1.10), he should be able to post a sub-4.00 ERA.

However, I would temper your expectations.  It is easy to look at the wins and the first two months of ’10 and get excited about a “future ace.”  The last four months of the season should certainly open your eyes. 

He does have the stuff to be a special pitcher, but he calls the toughest division in baseball home, as well as pitching in a hitter’s paradise. You couple those two things, and there is as good of a chance that he will struggle.

He absolutely is usable in all formats, but consider him more of a mid-rotation option and not a fantasy ace heading into 2010.

What are your thoughts on Hughes?  How good could he be in 2011?  Is he someone that you are targeting on draft day?

**** Make sure to pre-order your copy of the Rotoprofessor 2011 Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide, selling for just $5, by clicking here. ****

Make sure to check out some of our 2011 projections:

• Buchholz, Clay
• Butler, Billy
• Choo, Shin-Soo
• Ethier, Andre
• Freese, David
• Jaso, John
• Morrow, Brandon
• Reyes, Jose
• Willingham, Josh
• Young, Michael

THIS ARTICLE IS ALSO FEATURED ON WWW.ROTOPROFESSOR.COM

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For all the discussion about how Cliff Lee could decide the American League Championship Series in a potential Game 7, it turned out the Texas Rangers needed only one start from their starting ace to dethrone the New York Yankees and clinch the AL pennant for the first time in franchise history.

And as the Yankees attempt to pick up the pieces from a failed quest to win their 28th World Series championship, they should be able to point to a myriad of reasons why a season in which they finished with the second-best record in the American League ended in disappointment.

This on-going analysis should also result in the identification of five main reasons New York is entering an offseason full of uncertainty much sooner than they could have possibly imagined. Ultimately though, any which way the pie is sliced, the Bronx Bombers were humbled by a team that could have destiny on their side in this year’s postseason.

5. David Robertson’s Inability to Hold Close Games

In the 61 innings he was called upon during the regular season, Yankees right-handed reliever David Robertson held 14 games and amassed 71 strikeouts. Robertson’s numbers included an ERA of 3.82 and a WHIP of 1.50.

But among New York’s relievers in the ALCS, the Rangers roughed up Robertson more than any other to the tune of six earned runs on eight hits in only two innings. Robertson finished the series with a dismal ERA of 20.25 and a WHIP of 3.38.

Robertson’s unreliability allowed Texas to blow open close games in Game 3 and Game 6 to expand deficits from which the Yankees were unable to recover.

Game 3 saw the Rangers turn a 3-0 contest into a 8-0 blowout with Robertson on the mound while in Game 6, outfielder Nelson Cruz belted a two-out, two-run home run off Robertson to give the Rangers a 5-1 lead and propel them into the World Series.

4. Power Outage of Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira

For a duo that combined for 63 home runs and 233 RBI, to say that Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira failed to come through in the ALCS would be a gross understatement.

In 21 plate appearances, Rodriguez managed to come up with only four hits and two RBI to finish with an anemic batting average of .190. Meanwhile, Teixeira didn’t register a single hit in his 14 at-bats prior to bowing out of the series with a hamstring injury in Game 4.

The lack of production from the Yankees corner infielders left AL MVP candidate Robinson Cano to carry the offensive load for the team, which he did with flying colors. However, Cano’s power display needed to be supplemented by similar efforts from Rodriguez and Teixeira for New York to have a shot at winning the series.

Unfortunately for the Yankees, the power went off somewhere between the end of the American League Divisional Series and the beginning of the ALCS and they’re still waiting for it to come back on.

3. Ineffectiveness of Phil Hughes

Phil Hughes won an impressive 18 games in the regular season for New York but he also had an unusually high 4.19 ERA, which translates to having a significant amount of run support during his starts. But as evidenced in the ALCS, when the run support wasn’t as robust, Hughes’ shortcomings became increasingly glaring.

Hughes was the loser of Game 2 and Game 6 at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, where he gave up 11 earned runs on 14 hits and walked seven while only striking out six. Hughes’ ERA in his two starts was 11.42.

When the No. 2 starter puts up those kinds of numbers in a best-of-seven series, chances are his team isn’t advancing to the next round. This holds true for any team in baseball; even the New York Yankees.

2. Colby Lewis Outshines Cliff Lee

Of all the starters on the Rangers pitching staff, Colby Lewis was arguably the last one who would have been expected to shine the brightest against the Yankees. Nevertheless, it was Lewis who channeled his inner Cliff Lee to shut down New York’s vaunted offense in Game 2 and Game 6.

Thus, the same Colby Lewis who finished with a 12-13 record and an ERA of 3.72 this season went 2-0 with a 1.98 ERA on the biggest stage of his career. More importantly, Lewis’ performances keyed Texas to a critical victory in Game 2 to even the series and a win in Game 6 to clinch the pennant.

He may have not been a household name prior to the ALCS but, as far as the Yankees are concerned, Colby Lewis is a name that will not soon be forgotten.

1. The Rangers Were the Better Team

As hard as it might be for Yankees fans to admit, the Rangers outhit, outhustled and outpitched New York throughout a series that could have just as easily been a sweep as opposed to a six-game affair.

Texas scored twice as many runs (38-19), their batting average was more than a hundred points higher (.304 vs. .201) and their pitching staff’s ERA was nearly three points lower (2.76 vs. 6.58) compared to the Yankees.

So, in essence, the ALCS really wasn’t as close as the six-game outcome would make it appear. Simply put, the Rangers wanted it more.

And that may very well be the toughest reason for the Yankees and their fans to accept of them all.

Click here to read the original article on Examiner.com, which includes relevant links and a special pictorial/video recap of Game 6 of the American League Championship Series.

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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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The New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies avoided elimination by winning Game 5, as both teams trailed 3-1 in their respective series. 

The New York Yankees down travel down south to play the Texas Rangers in Game 6 of ALCS Friday night.  If the Yankees can stay alive, Game 7 will take place on Saturday night. 

The San Francisco Giants must head back east to play the Philadelphia Phillies in Citizens Bank Park in Game 6 of the NLCS.  The game will either be played on Saturday afternoon or night, depending on the outcome of Game 6 of the ALCS. 

In order for there to be a rematch of the 2009 World Series, New York and Philadelphia must win three games in a row (two now).  Both teams have a pretty good shot to force a Game 7, but the Phillies have a better chance of advancing to the 2010 World Series. 

Here are five reasons why the Philadelphia Phillies are more likely than the New York Yankees to comeback and advance to the World Series.  

Begin Slideshow

After a day off, the ALCS resumes at Rangers Stadium where Texas will host New York in a pivotal Game 6 matchup. Phil Hughes (1-1, 5.73 ERA) will take the mound for the Yankees against the Rangers Colby Lewis (1-0, 1.69 ERA).

Hughes and Lewis pitched against each other in Game 2. In that game, Hughes was hit hard, giving up 10 hits and seven earned runs in four innings in a historically poor performance. Lewis, on the other hand, gave up just six hits and two earned runs through 5.2 innings. Both bullpens then threw shutouts, and the Rangers took the game 7-2. Lewis received the win, and Hughes the loss.

Much more is riding on this Game 6 than game two though, as the the Yankees will try to quell the Rangers World Series hopes for at least one more game and avoid heading back to New York disappointed.

The Yankees were outplayed for all but one inning in their shaky game on victory. They followed up with three straight games of poor hitting and poor pitching, losing the three games by a combined score of 25-5. But the bats came back and C.C.’s arm gave New York a resurgence in a 7-2 game five win to get the series back to 3-2.

The Rangers starting rotation looked really strong, anchored by another dominant performance by Cliff Lee. Also, the offense tagged the ball hard and often, with Josh Hamilton showing why he may be the AL MVP. Minus the eighth inning in Game 1, they totally dominated the Yankees until faltering in a big way in Game 5.

I guess the question for tonight will be: Can the Yankees continue the success they found on offense and defense in Game 5? Or will the Rangers come back with the dominance they had for four games? Tune in at 8:07 on TBS to find out.

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