Tuesday, August 28, 2007
By BOB KLAPISCH
BERGEN COUNTY RECORD COLUMNIST
You drift between hope and despair, figuring the Yankees' path to the postseason lies somewhere in between. The situation has deteriorated rapidly following Monday's devastating 16-0 loss to the Tigers that dropped the Yankees eight games out of first place. The three-game series with the Red Sox has long since lost its 1978-like comeback vibe.
Instead, the Yankees are hoping to stay alive -- not just in the East (that's all but a fantasy now), but in the wild-card race, and not be sent home early for the first time since 1993.
It's a sobering thought, considering how many runs the Bombers have scored since the All-Star break. But major league executives still say the Red Sox have the most balanced team in the American League. If history has taught us anything about October baseball, it's that pure, mindless muscle always self-destructs. Sooner or later the Yankees will have to win a low-scoring game; it just might have to be this week.
Of course there's hope (no one has a more dangerous lineup than the Yankees), but plenty of reasons to sweat, too (the Red Sox' September schedule is a layup). So get ready for a terrifying/exhilarating stretch run. How it all ends could determine whether Joe Torre has a job in 2008.
HOPE: The Yankees have averaged 6.4 runs per game since the last time the Red Sox saw them in early June, with an incredible .305 average. The accumulation of runs isn't just breathtaking, it's close to historic. The Bombers may become only the third team in history to score 1,000 runs in a season, which is reason enough for the Sox to worry about them. The Yankees lead the American League in virtually every offensive category, including runs, home runs, slugging percentage and OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage).
DESPAIR: If you consider 95 wins as the magic number in the East, the Red Sox are practically there. In fact, they don't even have to play .500 ball the rest of the way; a mere 15-16 in the last 31 games will be enough. The Yankees, meanwhile, will have to play .700 ball just to match that. And remember, the Sox are looking at a soft final month: 18 of their final 31 games will be played at home, 13 of them against the Devil Rays and Orioles.
HOPE: The Yankees have their three best pitchers lined up for the Boston series: Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens and Chien-Ming Wang. If they can't beat the Sox with this trio, it's just not meant to be in 2007. The Bombers have had their problems on the road (31-35), but they clearly feed off the energy in the Stadium, where they're 41-24. That's more home victories than any other team in the East.
DESPAIR: The Sox aren't particularly worried about being away from Fenway. They're 40-28 on the road, including last weekend's four-game massacre of the White Sox, whom they outscored, 46-7, in the series. And Boston has its best weapons all pointed in the same direction, too: Daisuke Matsuzaka, Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling.
HOPE: Mike Mussina won't get anywhere near the action this week (hey, that has to count for something), while Joba Chamberlain surely will. Just wait until the Sox get a taste of that late-breaking slider, is what one AL general manager essentially said the other day. The 21-year-old Chamberlain has been unhittable so far, and the word is spreading.
Last week at the Stadium, the Orioles' Kevin Millar said, "My plan [against Chamberlain] is don't swing at the slider." Hitters everywhere go up to the plate with the same intention. Trouble is, Chamberlain delivers the pitch with so much arm-speed, the spin on the seams becomes impossible to detect. It looks like a fastball until it's too late. By the time hitters commit, the ball already has dropped a foot.
DESPAIR: If Chamberlain picks up two or three critical outs tonight, he's cooked for Wednesday. Those are the rules, as rigid and suffocating as they may be. It's hard to believe general manager Brian Cashman – who devised the terms of Chamberlain's imprisonment – will let the pennant slip away while his best reliever is sitting in the bullpen. One Yankee noted without rancor that no one seems to have a problem with letting 35-year-old Andy Pettitte go 120-plus pitches and come back in relief two days later. It's happened twice this season, so where's the logic in coddling a kid who's bigger and stronger than Pettitte?
HOPE: The Yankees know how to pour it on; they've outscored their opponents, 775-634. Only the Red have a better run-differential. If the Bombers can't catch the Sox, that should bode well for the wild-card race; they are a better team on paper than either the Mariners or Tigers. And next week's showdown with Seattle will be played in the Bronx, another bonus for the Bombers.
DESPAIR: The Bombers are just 11-17 in one-run games. The Mariners are 21-17, the Tigers 22-15. The problem rests with the bullpen, which has blown 17 saves. But those abysmal numbers were borne of the pre-Joba dark age. The Yankees now have a late-inning recipe as dependable as Boston's, assuming it isn't too late to matter. Still, the most compelling red flag is the Yankees' inability to prevail without crushing their opponents back to the stone age: The last time the Yankees won a game when they scored fewer than five runs was July 17.
It's been a long time since the Yankees played intelligent, well-pitched, defense-oriented baseball. Talk about distant memories. Today's home run orgies look great on "SportsCenter,'' but, on their own, they can make for a lonely October. The Yankees are on the verge of learning that lesson the hard way.
E-mail: klapisch@northjersey.com
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