Yanks and Phils disappoint fans waiting for re-match

Every one up and down the Jersey turnpike was hoping for a rematch of last year’s World Series which pitted the Yankees against the Phillies. The Yankees were the first ones to disappoint with the Phillies quickly following suit. The Yankees were clearly overmatched in this series as the Rangers out pitched and out hit the defending champs along with producing runs far better than the experienced Yanks, forgive the very tired cliché but the Rangers “did the little things” much better than the Yankees. I went to the clinching game 3 against the Twins and the stadium was jumping, granted I was in the right field bleachers in the infamous section 203, but the rest of the stadium seemed to possess the energy you would expect for playoff baseball in the Bronx. After the Yanks disposed of the Twins in 3 games I was sure we were going to win the ALCS, Phil Hughes throwing 7 shutout innings in his first playoff start had be believing we could make up for A.J. Burnett regressing into a play off liability. However, I was being an overconfident Yankee fan; I underestimated Ian Kinsler, Elvis Andrews, Nelson Cruz, Michael Young, Vlad Gurrero and of course the lethal Josh Hamilton who was hitting balls over the right field porch in the stadium by just waving his bat threw the strike zone. Then there was Cliff Lee, who once again stifled the Yankees, frustrating them with his masterful artistry around the strike zone. His ability to change speeds, pitch with power and throw knee buckling breaking pitches is the best I believe I’ve seen since Pedro circa 2000.
            As vaunted as the Rangers lineup is and as amazing as Cliff Lee’s performance was, the Yankees still failed to take advantage of several opportunities to win games throughout the series. Only one player hit over .300 in the ALCS for the bombers, Robinson Cano who hit .348 with 4 homers, which tied a championship series record. Cano’s dominant hitting coupled with his tremendous range and arm at second solidified his spot as the best 2^nd basemen in the game, sorry Phillies fans, he’s better than Utley, check the numbers. Losing Texiera was bad, even though he was 0-14 in the series before his injury, but then A-Rod compounded the problem by hitting .190 in the series with only 2 RBI’s, a far cry from last year’s epic home run binge which helped propel the Bombers to the World Series. Swisher who provided the Yankees with pretty good power throughout the season (28 HR, 88RBI) was anemic whether he was hitting 2^nd in the order or 8^th, going 2-22 in the series, hitting .091. If you think about it as a Yankee fan, it’s really not that surprising, besides the rabid late inning comeback in game one and the back to the wall win in game five, the Rangers outplayed them, if you watched the series you came away believing the Rangers were the better team.
            One thing that eased the considerable pain of this loss was the Phillies immediately losing in Game six of their series against the underdog Giants. When I first arrived in Philadelphia I never really gave much thought to the Phillies, they had been terrible for the majority of my childhood so I never really liked or disliked them. However, ever since the 2009 season the Phillies have become besides the Red Sox the team I root against the most in baseball. Phillies fans hate the Yankees more than they should, they try and discredit the Yankees at every turn and proclaim the Phillies to clearly be the better team. I had my satisfaction last year when the Yankees clearly displayed how the Phillies fans beliefs were misguided. This year had me a little worried, the Yankees looked a little older, especially Jeter who struck out 7 times in the ALCS and the Phillies had a tough line up and an intimidating rotation. However, Halladay proved to be human, Roy Oswalt proved to overrated and Ryan Howard and Chase Utley came up short at the plate, as the Giants entire staff kept the Giants in games and their unheralded line up came up with timely hitting. Rookie Buster Posey proved to be the real deal as he made spectacular plays in the field and came up with clutch hits. Oh well, there’s always next year, time to focus on the Giants and Eagles.