Hindsight and Foresight: Yankee Review August 20th to September 3rd

This is coming later than I'd like. The past two months have been brutal at work, but I won't get into that. The Yankees had a rough week in Detroit and LA and head into the Red Sox series 8 games out. They are also behind the Mariners in the Wild Card race by 2 games. This is definetely the stretch run when if you're close to getting in the playoffs, the games seem even more important than before. And the Yankees are going to fight every game of the way back into this thing.

Hindsight: August 20th to August 26th
The Yankees lost both the Detroit and Angels series to bad pitching for the most part. Mike Mussina has been horrendous of late and could be fading out with the season. Sean Henn also got shelled when he came in. Garrett Anderson manhandeled the Yankees this past week getting 10 RBIs in one game tying a major league record. All in all the Yankees lost ground in the standings.


Weekly stats

W-L: 2-4

RS/RA: 40/43

Offensive Numbers (AVG/OBP/SLG): .293/.357/.490

Pitching Line (ERA/Whip/K per 9/BAA/SLG): 7.67/1.69/7.17/.286/.512

Who's Hot: Alex Rodriguez, hittin' homers again and making an MVP run again.

Who's Not: Mike Mussina, looks like he's fading out as the season ends.

My Yankee of the Week: Chien Ming-Wang. He's been consistent all season and can go 7 IP before being taken out.

Foresight: August 20th to September 3rd
Heading back home the Yankees face Boston for three games before welcoming the Devil Rays. If any ground will be made up, it's against the Red Sox but by the way the Yankees of played at late it's a toss up. The best matchup will be Clemens against Beckett with Wang Schilling being the second best.

I don't have much more to say other than I haven't been watching many games of late with my schedule. That's a pretty bad excuse now that the Yankees are playing well, but considering when I was watching a lot, they sucked.

here we go again...

As inexcusable as my absence from this space has been, there's no way I could get away with not sounding in on the upcoming War to End All Wars, otherwise known as the next Sox-Yankees series.

The Red Sox are coming off a series where they scored horse amounts of runs against the White Sox. The pitching was solid, and the bullpen was given a rest. If this was any other team playing any other team than you would have to say that the Red Sox are looking good coming into this series.

Considering the Yankees' utter decapitation of the Red Sox over a 5-game stretch last year, I'm not counting on anything. The Sox currently hold a 7.5 game lead over the Yankees, and there are six games left between the two teams. Beyond those matchups, both teams also have a lot of mouth-watering Tampa Bay, Toronto, and Baltimore matchups.

So, to state the obvious, these games will be important.

This first series will feature playoff-like pitching matchups: Dice-K/Pettite, Beckett/Clemens, Schilling/Wang.

(Come to think of it, each matchup has a former Astro involved as well)

Boston scored buckets of runs against the White Sox, but everyone's been doing that this year. The Yankees are scoring buckets of runs against everyone.

I'm going to hold off on making specific predictions and try to react more on a game-by-game basis throughout the week.

What I'd like to see is the Sox take at least 2 out of 3 this time around as well as next September, but again, I'm not calling it a prediction.

This could wind up being one of those great heroes and goats series...