Smalltalk with James Robertson

The Yankees are up 2-0 in the best of 5 series against the Twins - so much for the Twins home field advantage. Of course, keeping the 2004 debacle in mind, it's not time for them to get cocky. Still:

Pettitte turned in a vintage performance with seven smooth innings and Lance Berkman had two big hits in a 5-2 victory by the Yankees over their favorite postseason punching bag on Thursday evening for a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five division series.

Sabathia looked a bit shaky on Wednesday, so I hope he has his good stuff back on Saturday. Wrapping this up in 3 would be a good thing.

Technorati Tags: yankees, playoffs, twins

The Yankees didn't exactly march triumphantly into the post-season - they went 9-17 to end the regular season, and have decided on a three man rotation for the Twins:

Because of A.J. Burnett's miserable season, the Yankees will use Sabathia, Andy Pettitte and Phil Hughes in the best-of-five series that opens tomorrow night against the AL Central champion Twins at Target Field in Minneapolis.

Thank goodness they benched Burnett. He has not impressed me as a guy who does well under pressure. With luck, Jeter's bat will wake up now that it's October...

Technorati Tags: baseball, yankees

With all the time I spend at the gym, this kind of thing sounds pretty cool:

The Postseason.TV package, available for $10, provides access to live video (synced with live broadcast audio) from multiple camera angles for every postseason game.

iPad in hand, I can use the exercise bike at the gym and follow along. Yes, they have TVs, but who knows what channels those will be tuned to - mostly,. it's news, and for the first round, a lot of the games overlap.

Technorati Tags: iPad, streaming tv, baseball, playoffs

The Yankees are in the playoffs again:

The New York Yankees clinched their 15th postseason berth in the last 16 years and CC Sabathia got his 21st win of the season, beating the Toronto Blue Jays 6-1 on Tuesday night.

As I like to say about this subject, it's the way things are supposed to be :) It's a nice bonus that the Red Sox are out :)

Technorati Tags: baseball, yankees

It's not just the "purists" that Selig denigrates who oppose another expansion of the playoffs; it's those of us who don't look forward to a November World Series in horrible weather. If Selig wants to expand the playoffs, he should also do the following:

• Revert to the 154 game schedule
• Return to a reasonable number of double headers in that schedule
• Have every round of the playoffs except the World Series be best of 5

Otherwise, we'll be looking at baseball under ridiculous weather conditions.

Technorati Tags: baseball, playoffs

Here's what I like to see at this time of year:

Technorati Tags: baseball, yankees

If this limits some of the long replay delays in football, I'm all for it:

Cairos Technologies, a German outfit that's been trying to sell its goal line technology to football (as in soccer) bigwigs for a while, has told Reuters that it's in discussions with the NFL about bringing its magnetic field hocus pocus to the gridiron. The idea would be for the ref to be alerted, via a message to his watch, any time the ball does something notable like crossing the goal line or first down marker.

Technorati Tags: football

There is such a thing as being overly immersed in statistics, and Joe Girardi is an example. Consider yesterday's painful game against the Indians:

holding what, on the surface, would have seemed to be a relatively safe 10-5 lead over one of the worst teams in baseball, Joe Girardi decided it was time to embark on what we have come to call "the constant search for the one guy who doesn't have it" and, in the course of three Yankee pitching changes, the Indians batted around to take a 12-10 lead.

In the midst of that mess, one of the pitchers thrown into the fray got a man out on a routine flyball, but was then pulled - likely on the basis of some stat lurking on a clipboard. What the clipboard doesn't show is the intangible "he has good stuff" thing. Some days athletes do well; other days, they're just off. I say that as a guy who ran track and cross country in high school, and I remember plenty of "on" and "off" days.

In modern baseball, that concept has been totally lost. Instead, it's all pitch counts, individual matchups, and other arcane stats. The notion that someone might be "on" is utterly gone.

Now, going with your gut is probably not the best way to run a baseball team - the moneyball thing has paid dividends. But... it's also overused, and Girardi seems to be an utter slave to the idea. When it comes to pitching, it's obvious that he never pays attention to what's going on out on the field - it's only the clipboard that matters to him.

Technorati Tags: baseball, yankees, pitching

Spotted in Wired Top Stories:

Most NFL teams have a sucky strategy at selecting their draft picks. Why? They're not looking at the numbers and crunching the data.

A few years ago Moneyball showed up, and soon thereafter, it wasn't just teams with less money (like the Oakland A's) that were zeroing in on "the stats that matter". Heck, the Red Sox suddenly became a team that could win a World Series after their new ownership bought into the idea.

Wired thinks it's high time that the NFL followed suit. I'm sure that the long suffering fans of the Detroit Lions would agree :)

Technorati Tags: nfl, draft

The good news seems to be that the pitching is holding up - as the Yankees took 2 of 3 from the Red Sox. If the pen does this well all season, the Yankees will definitely make the playoffs again.

Technorati Tags: baseball, yankees