Seems kind of silly to ask this now; “Will these teams even see each other?” might be the better question. It’d have to be in the ALCS which is good news: at least the Yanks made it that far! But on a more serious note, can they really beat them? The Sox have abused the Yanks so far. Most of it came in the first half of the season. However, this past series, the Sox won one game by the skin of an Eduardo Nunez fielding blunder, and another as CC got rocked, again. I feel that the Yanks could have definitely taken 2 out of 3, which would then leave many experts wondering who the better team was. But as Boston won, “everyone” claims the Sox are that much better. And by everyone, I mean everyone on the bandwagon, whether they hopped on in December or only yesterday. Oh by the way, A-Rod didn’t play in that series. So let’s replace Nunez with him, or whoever was DH-ing that day and set a rematch, say September 30th?
Furthermore, let’s take a look at what’s going on in the Red Sox vs. Yankees world!
All Hail AL MVP Adrian Gonzalez!!! Right? Not so fast. Granderson leads the league in RBIs now, surpassing A-Gone yesterday. In fact, Adrian has only had 2 RBIs in the last 10 games. Furthermore, his average has dropped 8 points to .348! Now that is still a good average, but I’m trying to show there’s some decline going on. Before the All-Star break, Gonzalez had a 1.006 OPS (on base plus slugging), good for second behind Bautista’s 1.170. Granderson was 6th with a .935 among qualified hitters. After the ASB, Granderson has a .995 compared to Gonzalez’s .807. (Just for fun, Jose Bautista’s OPS after the ASB is .697!) Back to the RBIs. Granderson’s ten game spread shows 15 RBIs, 11 Runs, and 4 dingers to go with a .333 Batting Average. Gone-zo: 3 Runs, 2 RBIs, 0 HRs with a paltry (by his standards) .256 BA. I’m quite appalled by the drop off.
Yet the Sox continue to win without production from the runaway AL MVP, kinda. They’re 6-4 as opposed to 7-3 for the Yanks. The one thing stopping the Yanks from leap-frogging the Sox is the Rays. Not that I find the Rays intimidating; it’s just that the Rays play the Yanks and Sox back to back. Starting tonight for Tampa is “ace” David Price, tomorrow is Jeremy Hellickson (10-7) who is second in wins for rookie pitchers behind Ivan Nova (11-4), and James Shields in the finale. I feel James has been the more dominant pitcher than Price and perhaps he is the real “ace” this year. The Yanks face the tough pitchers meanwhile the Sox get the back end of the rotation to beat up. Not exactly ideal for closing the distance between you and the division leader but the Yanks could pull it off. They’ve hit Price okay so far who took a loss and two no-decisions in the match-ups so far. Hellickson is beatable. James Shields versus Freddy Garcia is the wild-card. The Yanks have struggled against Shields. The one game he lost to the Yanks was on an unearned run caused by Shields trying to pick Cano off third and throwing the ball away. Other than that, he’s been lights out. Garcia is no slouch either having taken his last loss on July 15th. In fact, the last time Garcia faced the Rays, he shut them out for 6.2 innings!
Let’s hope Cano can continue his torrid hitting. His average is back above .300, finally. Without A-Rod, Cano has taken some of the load off the other producers and seen his RBI numbers increase greatly. In the past 10 games, he’s hit .385 with 4 HRs and 13 RBIs. Definitely worth the money! Oh wait, he didn’t sign a big free agent contract, he’s a farm grown product.
Speaking of farm grown product, and I’ll end with this. Ian Kennedy leads the D-Backs with 14 wins and a 3.20 ERA. I know we got Granderson in the trade that sent Kennedy away, but think about it. We could have a rotation of CC, Kennedy, Nova, Colon, and Garcia. The combined win percentage would be .634! And think of the ERA! Ah, it was all a dream.
Can the Yanks beat Boston in the playoffs? Yes, if the pitching holds up, I don’t see why not. Also, I predict that the Yanks finish in first! Ha take that Boston!
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