The long rest between the end of the ALDS and Game 1 of the ALCS had the Yankees looking a bit rusty Friday night.  CC Sabathia was not his dominant self, putting the Yankees in a hole before recording his first out.  The Yankee hitters could not figure out C.J. Wilson through most of the game, but a big eighth inning capped off one of the Bombers’ biggest postseason comebacks as they won 6-5.

It was evident that the long time off was not good for Sabathia as he immediately walked Elvis Andrus in the bottom of the first.  Michael Young followed with a line drive to left, putting runners on first and third with no outs and Josh Hamilton at the plate.  Hamilton lined a big three-run homer over the wall in right field and the Rangers took an early 3-0 lead.  Vladimir Guerrero hit a deep fly ball to center, that Curtis Granderson caught for the first out of the inning, but Nelson Cruz followed with a single to right.  Sabathia walked Ian Kinsler but got Jeff Francoeur to pop up to short.  Matt Treanor walked to load the bases.  A fastball got by Jorge Posada and Cruz tried to score, but the ball bounced hard off the backstop and Posada tossed the ball to Sabathia who dove to tag out Cruz at the plate, saving a run and ending the inning.

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I’ll once again be jumping in on ESPN’s BBTN Live chat covering the ALCS Game Two. Join me there and help me defend the chants of bias and anti-Yankees stuff. Not to mention secondguessing all of Ron Washington’s Glorious Parade of LOOGYs.

Brien, and many others, made an excellent case that Ron Washington is a moron and should have used Neftali Feliz last night in the eighth inning. I don’t necessarily disagree, but I wonder about how much of that is results bias—stating something was the right/wrong (in this case, wrong) move because it did/did not work out (in this case, did not). Now, most people disagree with Washington’s moves, and a lot of those people are very smart people. This isn’t so much an argument with them as it is an exercise in re-examining our thoughts because we should do so anyway. So let’s look at the situation again.

CJ Wilson is dominating the game into the top of the 8^th, but he’s thrown close to 100 pitches. It’s 5-1, but you have to know that the Yankees can score on you in a hurry. Hoping that Wilson can get through one more inning before going to Feliz for the ninth for the orthodox and clear-cut move, Washington lets Wilson pitch to the first two guys who single (Gardner) and double (Jeter) to bring the score to 5-2. Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira are coming up, and because both are switch-hitters, the manager has a tough decision because you can’t get a R-R or L-L match-up that you’d normally like. Praise the Yankees for having the lineup flexibility. So, what should Washington do?

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Everyone else has pretty much already noted this, but it was so baffling at the time, and even more so this morning, that I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring it up.

The Rangers entered the top of the 8th last night with a 5-1 lead. C.J. Wilson had allowed just one run in 7 innings, on a Robinson Cano solo home run. Other than that one at bat, Wilson was simply dominating the Yankees lineup, and it hadn’t felt like they’d had a good scoring opportunity all night. Washington did the predictable thing and brought Wilson back out to start the 8th, and Wilson then allowed an infield single to Brett Gardner and an RBI double down the line to (who but?) Derek Jeter. Suddenly the Yankees were kind-of-sort-of in business, trailing by 3 runs with a runner on 2nd, no one out, and ther big bats coming up. This is where things got curious.

With the big switch-hitters coming up, Washington turned to 100 year old lefty Darren Oliver, even though Oliver has been much better against left-handed batters this year and Swisher and Teixeira have been better from the right-side of the plate. It was a curious move, and it ended with both batters walking, setting the bases loaded, no outs, go-ahead run at the plate stage for none other than Alex Rodriguez. Considering the situation and A-Rod’s history with the Rangers, I think most of us at least had fleeting visions of A-Rod coming through with a soul crushing (for Texas fans) grand slam to put the Evil Empire on top.

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We’ll have much, much more to come but this picture pretty much says it all.

J-Doug has updated his charts, tables and other gizmos to reflect what’s transpired in the playoffs so far and also what the data shows in terms of predicting the future. In short, his number-crunching shows the following:

Projected LCS Outcomes:

• Yankees 4-1 over Rangers (17.5%)
• Phillies 4-2 over Giants (17.7%)

Of course, the Yanks are already spotting the Rangers 3 games (both of Cliff Lee’s plus AJ Burnett’s), so winning in five games, as J-Doug’s predictions show, might be a bit tough.

/end sarcasm

(click “view full post” to get a better understanding on what J-Doug is talking about)

(click “view full post” for the full chat transcript)

I think Rob raises an excellent point here: for all the time we’ve spent worrying about how much money Derek Jeter is going to make over the next 3+ seasons, the real question is what kind of a role he’ll be playing on the team. Will he still be manning shortstop in 2013? Beyond? It’s a much scarier thought for me than the idea that Jeter is making too much money that year. I’m not so sure about this part, though:

It’s easy to say the money’s irrelevant and you can’t put a price on what Derek Jeter means to the Yankees and he should be a Yankee forever and yada yada yada. All true, perhaps.

But the Red Sox aren’t going away. The Rays probably aren’t going away (soon, anyhow). The Jays are respectable and the Orioles are getting out of the patsy business. The Yankees can afford to pay their players anything. It’s not clear that they can afford to lose games they might otherwise win. And if they commit the organization to playing Derek Jeter at shortstop for 150 games in 2012 and 2013, that’s exactly what they’ll be doing: losing games they don’t have to.

I’m probably going to do a lot of cringing if Jeter is playing shortstop much longer, but as for the charge of “losing games they don’t have to,” Rob leaves out the most crucial question: relative to whom? Because for as brutal as Jeter’s season was and felt to us, especially after his stellar season last year, Jeter’s 2.8 2.5 WAR was still good for 9th amongst all Major League shortstops. So unless the thinking here is that the Yankees will pass up a better option in favor of Jeter, or Rob thinks that Eduardo Nunez is a better shortstop than Jeter, I’m not so sure I’d worrying about Jeter costing the Yankees anything in terms of on-field results.

Now, if Joe Girardi is still penciling him at the top of the lineup in 2012-13, that might be another matter.

We already toured the MSM outlets so let’s fly at a bit lower altitude and see what some of our blogging friends have to say today:

• Bronx Banter: Have You Ever Been Experienced?
• Bronx Baseball Daily: Sabathia, Lee, Burnett, Pettitte, Hughes?
• Confessions of a She_Fan: Never Mind The Stats And Head-To-Head Comparisons
• It Is High…: America’s Team: The Rangers
• LenNY’s Yankees: Olney’s Key to ALCS: The pen is mightier
• Mike Silva’s NY Baseball Digest: Why Texas Will Win in Six
• No Maas: Joba Chamberlain: Now a Carbohydrate in Girardi’s Eyes
• Pinstripe Alley: Strengthening My Case Against Cliff Lee
• Pinstriped Bible: Yankees vs. Rangers ALCS Breakdown: The Starting Rotations
• Pride of the Yankees: The Pause That Refreshes
• Replacement Level Yankees Weblog: Mariano Rivera’s Pitch Frequency
• River Ave. Blues: The Ties That Bind Us
• River Ave. Blues: The Rangers’ Weaknesses
• River Ave. Blues: Rangers hitters present a different challenge than Twins
• This Purist Bleeds Pinstripes: Why We are Fans
• TYU: Cautious optimism heading into the ALCS
• TYU: The 2010 ALCS Preview: The Texas Offense
• TYU: The 2010 ALCS Preview: Cliff Lee and Tommy Hunter
• WasWatching: Why I Don’t Like The ALCS Playoff Rotation
• Yankeeist: Yankeeist’s 2010 ALCS Preview, Part 4: Advantages for the Rangers and Advantages for the Yankees

Come join the IIATMS crew today at 1:30 P.M. for a live chat prior to the start of the American League Championship Series.

We’re essentially tapped out on stuff to obsess about. We, like you, are done with the chatter and can’t wait for the game to start tonite. So rather than debate whether AJ deserves to start in Game 4 and if he will be “Good AJ” or “Bad AJ“, or “Where was Joba in the ALDS?“, let’s have a morning flyover and tour what the rags have to say:

• Wit and Wisdom of C.J. Wilson: A quick, fun interview with CJ Wilson, who says things like: “Everything is a big deal. That’s why you guys are all here watching us and asking us silly questions.”
• Ken Davidoff says Yanks will win
• Yankees Are Hovering Over the Rangers Again: A collection of NY-TEX memories
• Hughes to Pitch Game 2, And Here’s Why: Hint, this includes home/road splits
• History will not help Yankees. Gee, who would have possibly thought that. Aaron Sele ain’t walkin’ through that door, folks.
• All Hail Mo. At least this might quell the “Is Mo done?” stuff we kept getting asked earlier this month and last.
• Lupica: Drama king A-Rod returns to Texas. Glad to see Lupica can’t let things go. At least he’s consistent.
• CC win would avoid Cliff hanger. This just in: Pressure is on CC. Anyone else not sweating besides me?
• Yankees voice Michael Kay should keep a lid on talk of Cliff Lee’s ‘dirty’ cap. Anytime a writer calls something someone else said “the Valley of the Stupid“, I must pay attention. Especially when the writer is alleging that the message is coming from up higher in the organization.
• Good backgrounder on Rangers’ GM Jon Daniels
• ZiPS and Diamondmind say: Rangers 77% chance of beating the Yanks
• ARod to play a big role. In other news, sun to rise tomorrow. Out of the East.
• Rob Parker: Yanks in 5.
• Tom Hicks regrets A-Rod contract. ARod takes the high road, Hicks not so much.
• Kevin Long: “He’s not invincible“

We’ll do a flyover of the Yankosphere shortly!

Sometimes, being a Yankee fan and living in NY borderlines on the absurd, usually as a result of the rag writers. Today’s no exception:

If only Bud Selig would agree to waive a few silly postseason rules, the Bombers might send their Scranton/Wilkes-Barre roster to Arlington for the first couple of games, make this a fair fight.

Of course, the Yanks are too diplomatic to admit such a thing. [...]

Well, it should. The Rangers are the oldest of three existing major league clubs never to have won a pennant. They should be ashamed to bring their media guides to the Bronx. [...]

Why are they even playing this series? Why don’t they just use the scores from ’96, ’98 and ’99?

I was all set to FJM this badboy but frankly, there’s no need. The words above were not written by some Yankee fanboy site. No, this came from the NY Daily News off the fingertips of Filip Bondy. Rangers fans, email him your thoughts. Please.

Note to all Rangers fans and all other Yankee haters: We don’t think like this. This is just a ploy to sell more papers and eyeballs. No one in their right mind would actually, ya know, believe this crap. Because that’s all this is, utter crap.

A huge h/t to TCM for bringing this to my attention.

The Tampa Bay Rays dropped a 5-1 decision last night to the Texas Rangers, ending the Rays’ 2010 baseball season — and beginning a post-season full of speculation on what might happen to the team in 2011.

I first engaged in this speculation here, over a month ago.

You see, I’ve been looking at the Rays as part of our ongoing analysis of baseball’s system of revenue sharing. I’ve been arguing here (and here) that revenue sharing works mostly to pad the profits of teams like the Marlins and the Pirates who cannot (or would rather not) use their revenue sharing money to improve their product on the field.

Others have pointed to the Rays as a “shining example” of how revenue sharing DOES work when it’s used in the right way. I’ve argued instead that the Rays illustrate the failure of revenue sharing, since revenue sharing does not provide the means for a small-market team like the Rays to sustain their success. I’ve argued that the Rays have probably been losing money for the past two years, and that the team would ultimately have to cut payroll to make ends meet.

Since I first wrote about this subject, the Rays’ management announced that the team’s 2011 payroll would be cut by about $22 million from its level in 2010. Now, the Rays have fallen out of the playoffs early, meaning that they won’t earn as much post-season revenue as they did in 2008.

Does all this mean that the Rays are beginning a decline into mediocrity? I think so, and I’ve already posted an initial argument why I think so. Evidently, some writers in the Tampa Bay area agree with me (see here, and here). But Mark, who writes The Ray Area blog on our Sweet Spot network, disagrees. And now, so does my buddy Brien here on this site.

Who’s right? Me? Brien and Mark? I think you know how I’d answer that question!

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