So that game didn’t go exactly as planned.

You can divvy it up however you want, but the honest truth is that Phil Hughes did not pitch like a Game Two starter is supposed to pitch, and Colby Lewis did–at least enough to keep the Yankees unbalanced and make his pitches when he had to.

So now the Yankees head back to New York City, with the ALCS tied at one game a piece, and Cliff Lee slated to pitch on Monday and AJ Burnett on Tuesday.

Some, such as Ian O’Connor, might argue it’s time to panic.

Here’s why you shouldn’t.

1) Cliff Lee is not unbeatable, even in the postseason.

In Game Five of last year’s World Series, Lee pitched seven innings, allowing seven hits and five runs, all earned. No, the Yankees did not win that game–but that had more to do with AJ Burnett’s poor start than Lee’s good one, which wasn’t actually a good start. If you remember the Yankees almost completed a ninth-inning come back.

More recently, this August, Lee pitched six-and-a-third innings, allowing eight hits and four runs.

Cliff Lee is a very, very good pitcher. He has mind-boggling numbers in the majority of his postseason starts. He is not unbeatable.

2) Andy Pettitte will be on the mound for the Yankees on Monday, opposing Lee.

Name me another Yankee starter you’d rather have on the hill in the postseason in a Game Three scenario.

3) AJ Burnett is not an automatic loss.

First of all, to get it out of the way, if the Yankees are down 1-2 going into Tuesday’s game, it’s entirely possible Sabathia pitches on short rest. Of course, the Yankees would prefer that from occurring, but let’s say AJ does pitch Game Four.

Last year, at home in the postseason, Burnett was fantastic.

In three starts at Yankee Stadium, in a total of nineteen innings, Burnett allowed four runs. While past performance does not guarantee future performance, it should be of some comfort to know that it’s not as though Burnett has never pitched a postseason game at Yankee Stadium, or never pitched a decent one.

Tommy Hunter, good as he may be, is not Sandy Koufax, and the Yankees’ A lineup is, well, pretty good. They don’t need Burnett to be perfect, they need him to give their lineup a chance.

4) The bullpen has been fantastic.

The Yankees have, through five postseason games thus far, allowed just three runs in the sixth inning or later, and two of those in the sixth inning itself in games one and two of the ALDS. Otherwise, seventh inning on, with the exception of one run in the 8th inning of ALCS Game Three–a game the Yankees led by a considerable margin–the bullpen has been flawless.

Mariano, of course, is Mariano, and David Robertson has taken to pitching in the postseason like a fish in water, but Boone Logan had been great, Kerry Wood’s been good enough, Dustin Moseley was nothing short of heroic on Friday night and Joba Chamberlain’s been good himself.

TBS threw out a stat about the Yankees and the great scoring disparity when it comes to the seventh inning or later–the excellence of the Yankee bullpen has more than a little to do with it.

5) Home Sweet Home

The ALCS is returning to the Bronx, and since the Yankees still can clinch in five games, they have the home field advantage.

Texas, good as they are, pitches worse on the road and hits worse, too.

You can argue that it’s a moot point because it clearly didn’t hurt the Rangers in Tampa, but Yankee Stadium is still Yankee Stadium. Even if it doesn’t hurt the Rangers, it will (theoretically) help the Yankees.

The ALCS has now become a Best-of-Five series, and hey, if you have Andy Pettitte going in Game One of a Best of Five, it’s not the end of the world. Far from it.

The Yankees have been here before; they know what to do.

Keep calm, and carry on.

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(Minnesota vs Yankees tropes checklist: 1) Minnesota scores first, check. 2) Yankees come back and score more, check. 3) Yankee bullpen is better than the Twins bullpen, check. 4) Umpires do something stupid, check.)

Since all the important tropes are checked and this is in every way the exact kind of Twins-Yankees game that gets played in the postseason, let’s talk about these things three: Andy Pettitte, Curtis Granderson, Lance Berkman.

Andy Pettitte: Seven innings, five hit, two run ball. Easily his best pitching performance since returning from the DL and a vintage Pettitte postseason start. Not perfect, but filled with double plays, gettings-of-clutch-outs, makings-of-pitches and nerves (and stares) of steel.

Okay, seriously: Pettitte looked fantastic. Any qualms about whether he or Hughes should have started game two seem to have been fully set aside, because now if Minnesota wins games three and four (possible, though, it would seem unlikely), the Yankees can rest assured that their vaunted postseason lefthander is healthy and ready to take the mound game five.

The Hudson home run was a bad pitch, but almost everything else worked flawlessly, especially after the second inning when he escaped a jam giving up just one run.

Curtis Granderson: Look, I know giving hitting coaches lifetime contracts is ill-advised, but in this case I’d be willing to make an exception.

Since his mid-August Long-ian retreat, Granderson has been on fire and shows no signs of abating now. He came up with one of, if not the biggest hits of the game last night, and tonight hit the double that eventually scored the Yankees’ first run.

The only blemish was a bunt that may not have needed to be made in tonight’s game, as he otherwise went three-for-four, and is now batting .500/.500/.875 in the postseason. Yeah, two games is a small sample size and ultimately insignificant, but he has been phenomenal in the first two games.

Lance Berkman: The Big Puma, in his first postseason game in pinstripes, hit a home run that gave the Yankees their first lead tonight and then the RBI double that gave them their second and final lead.

Want to know what’s crazy about how deep the Yankees’ line up is this postseason? Berkman, a formal All-Star, and the offensive hero of tonight’s game, was hitting eighth.

Eighth.

Oh, and while we’re on the theme of Cashman’s 2010 acquisitions striking gold tonight, how utterly dominant was Kerry Wood in the eighth inning?

Yikes!

Now the Yankees head back home, up two-games-to-none, and can potentially clinch a spot in the LCS on Saturday.

Only one team has ever come back from losing the first two LDS games at home to win the series. You may remember–it was the 2001 Yankees that did it.

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Miss me? No? Ah, well, too bad.

Anyway, some hopefully coherent thoughts about the postseason:

1) Since May 1st, Derek Jeter has 148 hits, of which just thirty-four have gone for extra bases, and only one out-of-the-park home run since June 12th. His slugging (.344) is only six hundredths of a point higher than his not-quite-as-awful on base percentage of (.338) in that same time span.

Since May 1st, Brett Gardner has a .380 OBP and .378 slugging. Sure, his OBP being higher than slugging doesn’t suggest he’s a great power hitter, but the argument can and should be made that Brett Gardner should hit lead off for the Yankees in the post season, as their highest OBP guy, and, at this rate, his 29 extra-base hits in the same time span is not sufficiently less than Jeter’s 34 for his lack of power to be such a liability to keep him out of the top spot.

2) A discussion on Twitter emerged tonight over who the Yankees should start game two, Andy Pettitte or Phil Hughes.

I’m falling into the Hughes camp for these reasons:

a) his home/road splits go beyond just the home run: a higher SO/9 and SO/BB rate indicate pitching better on the road, even accounting for the difference in innings pitched.

b) Target Field is a pretty massive ball park, which should theoretically help with the whole home run issue.

c) While you can argue that you’d rather have Pettitte pitching in game five, I think that it’s not the wisest move to plan for game five before you’ve finished games one, two and three. The Yankees’ best bet is, of course, to win the LDS in as few games as possible.

d) If the Yankees do lose game one, they can adjust the rotation if they see fit, although I imagine this is quite unlikely.

That said, the big difference between this year’s Yankees and last year’s has got to be the current confidence in the rotation: last season, besides CC, Pettitte was still healthy and although AJ Burnett was a wild card, he was not downright bad as he’s been for much of this season. This year, there’s CC, sometimes Hughes, pray Pettitte stays healthy…

3) It’s not that this year’s Yankees team is bad or undeserving; but that last season’s, especially after mid-June, was that good, getting better as the year went on. This year’s team started strongly enough, and then stumbled once Pettitte got hurt, Vazquez came up lame and Burnett was, well, AJ Burnett.

That said, this year’s squad has much to commend to it: Nick Swisher’s had a brilliant, consistent year, Brett Gardner has emerged as a legitimate mlb-caliber outfielder, Curtis Granderson’s remembered how to hit of late, and even with Jeter’s struggles you can still argue the Yankee infield is one of the best in the league. Kerry Wood has been simply fantastic in pinstripes, and Boone Logan’s turn around means the loss of Damaso Marte is a little less gaping.

4) So what happens if Girardi fails to win the World Series?

It seems almost unfair that he could make it to the World Series, or even game seven of the ALCS, lose and then not be invited back even when he won a World Series just last year, but, of course, the world of Yankee baseball is not a forgiving place.

I think, in the end, if the Yankees don’t win it all (and even perhaps if they do), it will depend as much on how the events occur as the events themselves; managing a team out of an ALDS win because Francisco Cervelli is hitting instead of Jorge Posada is a little bit different than losing in a game seven bottom-of-the-ninth hit with Mariano Rivera on the mound.

Of course, everything could go right and then Girardi choose not to return, but that’s probably a bridge to cross when it’s reached, to use a cliché.

5) Lastly, on the question of Minnesota or Texas as a playoff opponent, I’ll simply say that either team would offer its benefits and drawbacks, and it’s still up to the Yankees to win the games they need to win–and that, even if they do so, the much-imagined ALCS versus the Rays is not a guarantee, as the Rays would need to take care of business on their end and well.

Neither Minnesota nor Texas is a walkover…

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The secret behind time travel is startlingly simple to understand, albeit, erm, difficult to do: one must be able to master the fourth dimension, and to exist outside of not just space, but time as well.

Baseball players are not supposed to be able to master time.

Okay, so maybe Mariano Rivera did it in his Age 38 (and 39) year, but he’s Mo, and we all know the traditional rules of time do not apply.

No one has ever made the case that the rules of time do not apply to Andy Pettitte, and yet, here we are, on May 26th, and Pettitte has an ERA of 2.62 and a WHIP of 1.22.

As I’ve written before, Pettitte isn’t necessarily striking out more guys, or giving up any less hits–in fact, he’s giving up more fly ball outs than previously, and that’s usually a bad sign. The peripherals suggest he is due for regression, but even so, through eight starts there are only two he did not pitch more than five innings–and one of those was due to injury.

The start in Tampa Bay, when he was charged for seven runs, appeared to be one of those karma-calling starts, where regression was due to happen, but as we so often see with a good pitcher, Pettitte made whatever adjustments he needed to make, and night, in Minnesota, threw 94 pitches of two run ball through eight innings.

It’s much too early to make any indication that Pettitte is having himself a significant season, but it’s still remarkable that Pettitte, at age 38, is pitching as well as he is, and as deep into ball games as he is

The Core Four are having an interesting season, thus far–Jeter is struggling, Mariano has struggled recently (though he looked much better in the second game tonight), Posada has a broken foot–but Pettitte is still there, motoring along, pitching as though time itself was a dimension easily overcome.

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Early season statistics can be funky.

For example, right now, the league leader in ERA is…Livan Hernandez? Huh? (Mike Pelfrey and Carlos Silva also make the top ten, along with the names you’d be more expectant to find there, such as Halladay, Lincecum, and Wainwright).

So, as I’m sure you, the astute fan you are, know that it’s not really a great idea to put too much into the early season leaderboard.

That said, when Andy Pettitte makes an appearance there, with an ERA of 1.29 after four starts and a WHIP of 1.07, you start to wonder: can this be a fluke? Or can this be like Cliff Lee in 2008 or Zack Greinke last season?

****

Going into this season, any Yankee fan worth his or her salt would have told you that the number one concern for this team was their dependence, still, on the “Core Four”, a quartet (Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte) that seems to have somehow gotten a hold of naked pictures of Father Time, or something. Year after year, writers and fans inscribe their doom; year after year, they like to prove us wrong.

Okay, so there are some signs that they may be slowing just a little, but the dramatic fall off and collapse many have predicted has never materialized.

In fact, switching Derek Jeter to the leadoff role last season seemed to spur a renaissance, and Mariano Rivera had the best season (thus far) of his career at the age of 38.

Given the hijinks of this quartet, then, is it really any surprise that Andy Pettitte is off to one of his best starts in career history?

****

The question, then, is thus: how can we tell if it will last? Logic tells us that there is no possible way Pettitte will end this season with an ERA of 1.29; experience tells us that with a member of the Core Four, anything, really, is possible.

For what it’s worth, there have only been two seasons in Pettitte’s career–two out of fourteen completed–where he has finished with an ERA under 3.00 (1997, and 2005 when he pitched for Houston), and only six where he has finished with an ERA under 4.00. This would seem to indicate that there’s no way Pettitte could maintain his start, but if that was the end-all of the argument, you wouldn’t be reading this.

The sabermatician in all of us knows that there’s really only two ways to figure out if Pettitte’s tremendous start is a fluke or not:

a) Watch all of his starts from now until the end of September and look at his final statistics, or
b) Look at his peripheral statistics.

So let’s start by analyzing the most basic of these.

Walks = good. Strikeouts = bad.

In Pettitte’s career, he has average 2.33 strike outs for every walk–while it’s always good to strike out more than one walks, Pettitte is hardly (nor has he ever been known as) a strikeout specialist.

In 2010 thus far, Pettitte has 22 strikeouts to 9 walks–a not-so-different ratio of 2.44.

What does this mean? Whatever the secret to his early season success, it’s not that he’s striking out any more batters.

Still, we’ve known for a while–since 1995, really–that Pettitte isn’t really a strikeout pitcher. That’s why the almost-no-hitter he had in Baltimore last year, the one where Hairston’s error caused him to lose a perfect game, was so weird. Out of all the starters on the Yankee staff, Andy Pettitte is the one guy you’d least expect to do it–he’s a “ground ball” pitcher, and as BABIP will tell you, sometimes balls get through.

Ground Ball pitchers may not have all the flash of the CC Sabathias or the Tim Lincecums, but they can be pretty effective in their own right when they’re on–ever watch Roy Halladay pitch?

Actually, one of the cool things about good ground ball pitchers is that since they can induce swings early in the count, they can keep their overall pitch count down. It’s certainly not the only reason, but it’s likely one of the reasons Halladay seems to pitch a complete game every single time he steps on the mound.

The converse, however, might be what we saw from Chien Ming Wang last season–when ground ball pitchers get hit, they can get hit hard. Pettitte’s not traditionally considered a sinkerballer in the way that Wang is; it’s perhaps less imperative for him to keep his pitches low than it is for Wang, but if Pettitte starts giving up lots of fly balls and home runs, there’s probably something wrong.

By now we’re pretty familiar: a hallmark Pettitte start involves some base hits, a couple double plays, and more likely than not, some sort of caught stealing or successful pickoff.

ANYWAY, the point here, is that just as for some pitchers we look at strikeout-to-walk ratios, with Pettitte, we need to look at groundball-flyball ratios as well.

Our friends at Fangraphs tell us that, career wise, Pettitte pitches to a tune of a 49% groundball percentage (for comparison, Javier Vazquez is at 39% ).

Fangraphs has yet to update with today’s start, but through three starts in 2010, Pettitte’s groundball rate was…dun dun dun…48%.

So, once again, we have a peripheral statistic that’s pretty much in line with his career norms.

Where, then, is the difference? Pettitte’s career norms aren’t that of someone who pitches to a 1.29 ERA, so something’s gotta be going on, right?

Right.

This is where we take a journey over to the BABIP column. As many of you will know, batting average on balls in play is basically an indicator that tells us how often batted balls “find holes” or otherwise eschew fielders. It’s basically a measure of luck–though maybe (and I stress maybe here) someone could find a way to include BABIP in an analysis of a team’s defense.

A normal-ish BABIP is about .300. For his career, Pettitte’s BABIP is .315. Through three starts, as Fangraphs lists it, Pettitte’s BABIP is .260.

Simply put, then, either Pettitte is getting some really, beyond-the-pale help from his defense, or he’s just been pretty darn lucky.

This doesn’t mean Pettitte’s pitched poorly (so don’t fret); just that a season long ERA of 1.29 is probably unsustainable.

Thus far, if we’re to be encouraged by anything, it should be that Pettitte’s given the Yankees four quality starts by the standard definition (6 IP with 3 ER or less), and that in each of his past two starts, he’s given the Yankees eight innings. In fact, I’m personally encouraged that Pettitte’s worked deep into his most recent games considering that due to the weather deities, he didn’t pitch nearly as much as he would have otherwise during Spring Training.

So, there will probably be a clunker in the near future, but even if Pettitte only pitches to his career norms, that should suit the Yankees just fine.

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Of all Major League teams, thus far, the Yankees rank just twelfth (as of this writing) in hits.

That’s almost as middle-of-the-pack as you can get, given the thirty teams in the league over all. Not all that remarkable, one would think–certainly, one might expect a team which hits so, well, averagely, to be closer to the middle of the pack in the standings.

If, however, you learned baseball fan (which, by this point, you probably are), visit the stats page, and then move to the column third from right, labeled OBP, and click that to sort, you’ll see that the Yankees rank not 12th, but second.

On a team where Mark Teixeira and Nick Johnson are both hitting under .150, and Robinson Canó, albeit briefly, had a higher batting average than an on-base percentage, it can occasionally be hard to believe that the team has not yet had a game where they’ve scored less than three runs, or that they’ve scored five in nine of 12.

Still, if one really wants to know what’s gotten into the Yankees this season, all one has to do is look at the just-completed series with the Texas Rangers to get some idea.

The Rangers are not supposed to be a poor team, pitching wise, yet in this series only one of the three starters pitched more than four innings.

On the flip side, the Yankees starters all went at least six innings–and Sabathia, who threw 73 pitches and had a staggering 58 of them count as strikes, would have certainly pitched longer had not the game been called due to rain. AJ Burnett pitched seven innings; today Andy Pettitte has, despite not having his greatest ‘stuff’, pitched eight.

One can’t discount the Texas offense, either–a team with Michael Young, Josh Hamilton, Nelson Cruz and Vladimir Guerrerro is hardly the Pittsburgh Pirates or the San Francisco Giants of recent memory.

So here you have it: the Yankees aren’t (necessarily) blowing teams out 10-0 every game, but with the way the starters are throwing and the bullpen is not making headlines (because it is, by and large, doing its job), four runs begins to feel like twenty.

It’s been a while since the Yankees have had this good of an April–not only are they winning, but they are winning against teams that should shape up to be among the league’s elite–so there is certainly a temptation to let it go to one’s head.

Yeah, this team is good, but Yankee fans should know better than most that the baseball season is a marathon (yeah, yeah, cliché and all that). A hot April can turn out to be insignificant if the team levels off in June and July.

That said, the more last season progressed, the better the Yankees became. Right now, the Yankees are pretty darn good, but some of their best hitters aren’t even hitting the Mendoza line, and Javier Vazquez has, well, not been great. So, as good as the Yankees are, there’s still plenty of room for improvement.

That’s reason enough to be optimistic, if ever there was one.

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At the moment, only one thought is going through my mind: No matter what, I will never feel like this again.

The Yankees will win more championships, but there’s nothing like the first time you’re really old enough to appreciate it, and the first time you get to watch it with the same people you have watched with the entire season.

There were seven of us tonight–Amanda, Ben, Joe, Mark, Larry, Brent and myself–and from the get-go, you knew something was up.

The Angels long having been left in the dust, we wanted more. The ALCS alone was not enough.

Brent and I were among the first to arrive. See how clean, how prepared the bar looks? Yeah, by the fifth inning, not so much. By then you could sense it.

A very blurry Ben and Larry.

If you ever get a chance to go to a bar and watch a game with Larry, I highly, highly recommend it. He is an optimist prime!

Brent and Mark.

I have it on good authority that those wings are very, very good. I can’t eat anything fried so I’ve got no idea, but Blondie’s has amazing soft pretzels, so I gorged on them. Actually, by the fifth inning I was so distracted by the game and OHMIGOD CHRIS MELONI that I wasn’t hungry at all.

Brent is gettin’ jiggy wit it!

If you’re an astute observer, you’ll notice who the baserunner is–it kind of sums up everything.

We can sense it. Us and our pitchers of Brooklyn and Miller Lite–so many that we get one on the house–we can sense it.

Mark wanted proof he was here. Ergo, proof he was here.

Celebrating someone doing something in front of a CBS camera man. I can’t really remember what it was, except that after Matsui’s double we all jumped up and started chanting MVP! MVP! and really, at that point, there was no doubt.

Oh, and, GUESS WHO WAS IN THE BAR WATCHING THE GAME?!?

CHRIS MELONI THAT’S WHO!

They handed these signs out towards the end

I’ve also got videos:

1) That girl playing air guitar and generally making an ass of herself? Yeah?

That’s me.

2) The final out. We kind of went crazy. If you can’t tell.

3) New York, New York, one more time:

It was after this last song that tragedy struck:

I’ve had my camera for three years. In those three years I have without fail remembered to use the wrist strap when doing stupid things. Without fail.

Except last night.

While celebrating, one of us who shall remain nameless, knocked the camera out of my hand and it hit the table and then landed on the open lens on the floor.

Had the camera been off, or had it landed on the backside, it would have been fine.

Alas, such was not the case.

Meh.

BUT DUDE. MELONI! MATSUI! TWENTY SEVEN WORLD TITLES!

The best part?

Being able to experience it with friends that have been there every step of the way.

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[I will have a recap with photos and videos from the bar--AND OMG DID I MENTION CHRIS MELONI WAS THERE?!--a little later on]

Let us now praise famous men.

Let us praise men that took Twenty-Seven, that did so easily in a 7-3 fashion.

Let us praise them.

Let us praise Hideki Matsui, who had six RBI, a home run, single and double. Matsui, who had the third highest batting average this World Series ever (min 10 ABs). Matsui, who’s six RBI ties Bobby Richardson with the most RBI in a single World Series game. Matsui, who’s eight RBI total in the World Series are the most since Reggie Jackson. Matsui, who is the first full-time DH to ever win the World Series.

Let us praise him.

Let us praise Andy Pettitte, who pitched his 37-year-old body on three days’ rest to the tune of three runs over five and two-thirds’ innings. Pettitte, who clinched everything this year–the AL East, the ALDS, the ALCS and the World Series, all for the Yankees, the first time any pitcher has ever done that. Pettitte who became just the second pitcher after David Wells in 98 to win four postseason games for the Yankees. Pettitte who did everything the Yankees asked and then more.

Let us praise him.

Let us praise Mariano Rivera, who saw it to the end. Rivera, who’s World Series ERA is now 0.99. Rivera, who’s 41 pitches were the most he has ever thrown in a World Series game. Rivera, who has now been the finishing pitcher in the final game in each of the Yankees’ last 6 Series appearances and in 15
overall playoff Series.

Let us praise him.

Let us praise Alex Rodriguez, who may be the sole person responsible for the Yankees making it to the World Series. Rodriguez, who’s ALDS and ALCS for once and all rid him of the playoff demons and the unfair scapegoating. Rodriguez, who can now say he is a True Yankee in every sense of the word. Rodriguez, who has proven, once and for all, that he can play for a World Series winner.

Let us praise him.

Let us praise Joe Girardi, who has now won the World Series in just his third year as a manager and second with the Yankees. Girardi, who guided his team to 103 wins in the regular season–and 114 overall. Girardi, who became the first person to play for and manage the same team to a World Series title since Billy Martin.

Let us praise him.

Let us praise the Yankees, who have now won their 27th world title, the most ever for a professional sporting team. The Yankees, who never gave Philadelphia a chance last night, who knocked Pedro out in the third inning, who played smart baseball and had the game more or less decided by the sixth inning.

Let us praise them.

It is said that some are born great, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

This is wrong.

It does not allow for the fact that some become great, not because they were born that way or because they found themselves in extreme circumstances, but because they themselves decided to become great.

In 2009, greatness came to those who took it.

It came to New York.

It came to the Yankees.

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It’s tempting to judge a decision as right or wrong based on whether or not it works out.

While this may be the case in some aspects of life–ie, surviving on a desert island–it is not necessarily the case in baseball.

Since so much in baseball depends simply on pure luck, it is entirely possible to make the wrong decision–starting Hairston in Game 2 of the World Series–and not be penalized for it.

On the other hand, it’s entirely possible to make the right decision and have it backfire. History abounds with plenty of these and I’m sure you can find an example without much thought.

The decision to go with a three-man rotation–invariably one that requires each pitcher to make at least one start on three days’ rest, could end up the most egregious example of a right decision that doesn’t work if the Yankees cannot win tonight or tomorrow.

I’ve had this argument with a few of you, but let’s rehash why the three man rotation is the right decision. It goes something like this:

1) Chad Gaudin has pitched one inning since September. One. Asking him to suddenly make a start–against the Phillies, no less-would be like asking my brother, who hasn’t done much running since the birth of his son six months ago, to have run the NYC marathon last Sunday.

2) Joba Chamberlain, the other option for a fourth starter, utterly bombed in his last start. Don’t try to tell me different–I had the misfortune of seeing that one in person!

Anyway, for what it’s worth, the Yankees actually really have needed Chamberlain in the bullpen, as Hughes has more or less run out of gas, and Girardi, for whatever reason, still seems scared of using Robertson (though he’s getting better).

Joba’s last performance from the bullpen, in Game Four, was stellar, even with the mistake to Pedro Feliz.

***

That the Yankees would go to the postseason with a three man rotation has its roots in the injury to Chien Ming Wang and the fact that, well, Sergio Mitre is still Sergio Mitre.

A healthy Wang that pitches anywhere near his performance pre-June 2008 is a more than competent fourth starter, and this discussion never happens. In fact, it’s tantalizing to think about just how good the Yankees would have been this season if Wang had been healthy and, well, Wang all season long–they won 103 games more or less without him (he had two wins).

***

Such as it is, the three man rotation is the best choice the Yankees could have made given their circumstances.

It should also be noted that Gaudin in the bullpen has allowed Girardi the flexibility of playing bullpen mix-and-match (even if sometimes he shouldn’t), but that has kept the bullpen from being burnt out.

Tonight, the Yankees have a full bullpen available–even AJ Burnett in an emergency–to back up Pettitte’s start.

It’s not a bad place to be.

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(h/t: The Yankee Universe)

The City, it seems, is in a groggy funk this morning.

Lots of people who think a Game 5 loss automatically means the Yankees are going to completely collapse and Philadelphia will win the series.

Clearly, these people did not watch the 2009 ALCS.

Philadelphia’s a good team. The Yankees have their work cut out for them, yes, but don’t forget, it’s the Yankees–not the Phillies–who are up three games to two.

The Yankees haven’t been this deep in a postseason in almost a decade–a series that either the Yankees will win or a series that will go seven games.

How many of you would sign up in February for a team that will play in the sixth and possibly seventh game of a World Series? I guarantee you every single one of you would do so.

Let me say this again, for dramatic effect: the Yankees are in the World Series.

As far as baseball is concerned, you cannot ask for more than that.

The Yankees are the only team in the American League left standing; better than the Red Sox and the Angels and the Rays and the Twins and the Tigers and on and on.

As much as we may worry about Andy Pettitte going on three days’ rest, remember also who Philadelphia is throwing on the mound–Pedro Martinez, who’s had a decent postseason, and Cole Hamels, who is so utterly lost he provoke a teammate to ask “Hey, didn’t you quit?”.

The Yankees, instead of turning to infighting and public remarks about wanting the season to end, have instead chosen to wear it, owning up to when they don’t play well, and taking it in stride when they do.

That’s class.

There is no good reason, no way to convince me, that these 2009 Yankees, that these fine men and centaurs cannot finish the task set before them.

Even if calamity strikes and they do not, I will still hold my chin high–this is one of the best, most fun to follow Yankee teams that there ever has been, and I am honored to be a fan the whole way through. Whatever happens from here on out, nothing will invalidate how much fun this season has been, and how much it has meant to be able to remember why it is we are Yankee fans in the first place.

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