Kudos to Buck for sticking it to the Yankees for being unceremoniously fired after he choked the ’95 ALDS away. Nothing like playing the game of baseball with integrity and honor, Buck-o – enjoy languishing in last-place-land.
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You have a choice between starting Wright and Mussina, and you start Wright? You think that was fair to the Indians?

Kudos to Buck for sticking it to the Yankees for being unceremoniously fired after he choked the ’95 ALDS away. Nothing like playing the game of baseball with integrity and honor, Buck-o – enjoy languishing in last-place-land.

just saying that’s all…if we had pitched Moose today for 5 innings, we’d have the rotation set up on regular rest: Chacon, Wang, Johnson, Moose…just saying that’s all.
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I guess because of postseason experience, Moose gets the nod?

What’s the rotation; Moose, Chacon, Unit, Wang?

I think the reason Schilling seems to pitch so well against us while being crapola against everyone else is that we approach him as if he’s THAT Curt Schilling, game planning at bats. The other teams just see him as another pitcher…they hit the first good pitch they see. And with his diminished velocity and faulty location, they take the wood, literally, to him. The Yankees are too cautious by far in dealing with him. Losing to Schilling means pretty much nothing to other teams (what’s one loss among, say, 80+ others?)while losing to Schilling is a blow to our egos.

just saying that’s all…if we had pitched Moose today for 5 innings, we’d have the rotation set up on regular rest: Chacon, Wang, Johnson, Moose…just saying that’s all.

Thanks Joel. This match-up does provide lots to discuss. I think I’ll be posting a lot in the next few days!

Steve,

A wonderful job on the blog this year. Congrats!

That was a hell of a job there by Buck Showalter yanking his four best players in the third inning of a game that had playoff implications. Nothing like getting them that huge ovation as they came off the field in front of the 27 people who were in the stands in Arlington. My wife informed me that Buck had left a message on the answering machine asking if I wanted to come to the ballpark to take some swings against Scot Shields.

Anyway, we have a tough matchup. The Angels and that stadium have been a nightmare for us for the entire Torre era. My only recommendation to our very valiant Yankees: Get ahead early! They are not a tremendous offensive team and can be neutralized early. BUT YOU HAVE TO STAY AWAY FROM THAT BULLPEN!!!! This is one team you do NOT want to be trailing to by two runs in the seventh.

I know we came back against them this year. But their pen is more rested now. I am not really in the mood to watch say, Ruben, swinging from his heels against K-Rod’s slider in the top of the 8th with 2 out and the game on the line.

Oh, and lets hope that 200+ game winner Mike Mussina finds the good half of the right part of the front quadrant of the middle half of the upside of whatever the heck he’s looking for, because we can not afford one of his “I just didn’t have anything” starts in game one of a best-of-five series.