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I do wonder if we will get mid-season form Sale or this scaled back version. Scaled back Sale is still one heck of a pitcher. Mid-season form Sale is an absolute Monster. We have all been hoping that they have been building Sale to this specific series before unleashing the "Monster" again. We shall see if that is what has been going on or not.

Did you see Woodruff bang that HR off Kirshaw? Geez he is a better 9 hitter than JBJ is right now and he pitches for God sake.

I used to t think the 2-3-2 format was disadvantageous to the team with home field. Grew up with 2-2-1-1-1 and I think I was just used to it. But as long as the team with home field at least splits the first two, they only have to win 1 of the 3 away games to get the series back to their home field for the last 2. Is splitting the first 2 and winning one of 3 on the road too much to ask of the team with the best record? I don't think so. Get me to those last 2 games on my turf in front of my home crowd with last bats and I will take that even if I am down 3-2 in games.

Even if Sale is the advantage I think he is in games 1 and 5, this is going to be a dog fight. Mookie needs to wake up for one thing. Mookie is the straw that stirs the drink for us. I don't see this as easy under any circumstances. The Yankees were a mirage all year. They were never going anywhere in post season play no matter what they did in the regular season. The Astros aren't any kind of mirage. Thankfully Correa and Gurriel have not really been as potent as they were last year and that has even got Altuve trying to figure out how to fit in this year's Astros batting order. Bregman has been great. But it is still a bit of a hodgepodge order with both Correa and Gurriel performing below last year's standard.

I want Price to have every possible edge he can have for his "multiple" concerns. Pitching him in game 2 means he gets starts in this series. I would love that to not be the case. But if I can't get that, I will at least take the Sunday weather for Price over having him face what he could get in Oct in Boston and what it appears Sale will get. I don't think it will effect either Sale or Verlander. Price does not instill confidence in me.

We might be dodging a bullet with the weather. Sales Saturday night looks like it will be miserable, temps in the mid-40's with moisture in the air, wind 8 mph out of the west. Sale will likely pitch through anything. Verlander will likely show up in shirt sleeves. Sunday looks like it will be a chilly night but other than that not remarkable. No wind, no moisture. If Price is going to go in game 2, at least he is getting decent Oct Boston weather for it.

The only place for pitchers to pitch to now in Houston is from LC field to RC field. Outside of that, just anything is likely to go out of that park as currently configured.

Which ignores their pitching stats for the anecdotal data of a game result. AGAIN, the only way to rate pitching is to consider it under conditions of confidence in their plans which goes directly to their execution. If the Astros starters are confident in their plans and pitch like it and our starters are confident in their plans and pitch like it, their starters are better than ours with the possible exception of Sale, health dependent. Their pen is better than ours. There is simply no way to call our pitching outside of Sale better than theirs. Not one single Yankee starter pitched confidently in the most recent series, not one. Tanaka didn't either as he was throwing garbage 0-0 in order to get to two strikes where he generally guts hitters. But his 0-0 pitches were woeful. We just didn't do anything with them. We didn't even swing at them with the exception of a HR and single off 0-0 and a single off of 1-0. The hits we got off Tanaka never came past two pitches into an AB. That was it. When Tanaka is on, he throws far better pitches 0-0 and early in counts than he was throwing the night he pitched. Every other Yankee starter also pitched without confidence and therefore without conviction. But you can't depend on that and you certainly can't rate pitching on that. You can't rate pitching any other way than assuming pitching with confidence and conviction because you can't assume that a pitcher is going to shrivel to nothing unless you have glaring exceptions and real data to support that contention which happens to describe David Price in Yankee Stadium. Price can't pitch in Yankee stadium because he pitches thigh high on the outer black now in this iteration of Price...DEATH for LH pitchers pitching in Yankee Stadium. That is clearly the issue for him in that park. Its the Manager's job to put his pitchers in the best position to be confident and throw with conviction. I would actually never let David Price pitch in a big game in Yankee Stadium again because it is the worst place for him to pitch and I seriously doubt Price has another rebirth left in him at his age. He will IMO NEVER pitch with confidence and conviction in that park again. But that is based on the anomaly of a ridiculous RF in Yankee Stadium, a Yankee team designed to take advantage of it and a pitcher that now pitches excessively to the outer black and thigh high to RH hitters, an anomaly that is as clear as the nose on Cora's face. Its so much in Price's head now that he might now be shriveling to nothing whenever he sees pinstripes or an NY on a jersey. There is no such data point or fact set that obviously biased toward a conclusion or a glaring anomaly for any Houston pitcher I can think of nor any Boston pitcher I can think of. That forces you back to rating them based on all of them pitching with confidence and conviction to their plans. Outside of Sale, under those conditions, Houston has better starting pitching than ours and their pen is better on balance. If I had to guess this series is going 7 and our advantage, our actual advantage based on real information that effects outcomes in a short series is that we will have Sale going in Games 1 and 5, the most critical games of any 7 game series outside of game 7 AND game 7 is here! We have home field. That might just be enough to pull us through this series with the Astros. But suggesting that we are going to pull through it because our pitching is BETTER than theirs, outside of Sale is just cockeyed.

He won't be if he is throwing it all over the lot and that is his real problem...throwing it all over the lot and setting himself up for throwing a FB when everybody in the building knows he is going to throw a FB. Though Kimbrel likes to think he can just throw it past hitters, he can't, certainly not when the hitter with talent is absolutely convinced he is going to throw it.

So you are rating the pitching on anecdotal data which is frankly another form of hope...its looking for the bright spots that let you get you to where you want to go. Their pitching is better than our pitching. We might win this series. We have Sale and home field with Sale going in games 1 and 5 if Cora plays this right and that could be enough. But as a staff, their pitching is better than our pitching. It would also be mighty helpful if the guys in their lineup that have been asleep stay asleep. But I would not count on that. Price in game 2 is already a mistake to me and we can't afford many mistakes. Put Price in the warm comfy confines of an indoor park in October IMO. If we get a really nice October night here, might be fine. If we get a nasty night here, might not be the best place for Price.

Actually I would like to see Tingles and "my dog pissed on my glove" and a "Igot a nasty tweet last night" pitch under the roof in Houston than up here in what could be nasty conditions. Houston indoors give Price the best shot at winning IMO.

I think were the Astros are overrated is in their offense at least this year. They have guys that are simply not getting it done as a 1-9. But to suggest that our pitching is the equal of the Astros pitching is frankly trying to shoehorn hope against reality. The only argument that works is Sale might be the best of all of the starters in this series. Beyond that its all Astros with us "hoping" our guys provide career post season performances. You can't rate guys on hope. Hope is hope. Other than Sale if their starters are confident and execute their plans and our starters are confident and execute their plans, their starters are better than ours and that is the only way you can rate pitching. As for the bullpens, they are not even close. The Astros pen is much better than ours. In this series, the better pen is likely more of a factor in at least more games than the pens were in the Yankee series. We negated the pen advantage in the Yankee series because the Yankees never had a lead enough of the time to make their pen advantage meaningful. This is 7 games instead of 5 and its against a much more mature team than the Yankees. So while I am not willing to say the pen advantage the Astros have will be "the element" that swings the series toward the Astros, the Astros are a much more well rounded offense than the 2018 Yankees ever had any chance of being even with some Astros underperforming to expectation. The one aspect of the ALCS that this might come down to is we have the extra home game here. This is going to be a heck of a series whereas the Astros would have just blown the Yankees right off the map. The equalizer might well be that we get the last game here and the two teams might just be close enough to each other that the home field advantage is the edge that pulls us through. I actually expect a 7 game series which puts the last game here. Plus assuming Cora does plan Sale for game 5, we have a big chance at game 5 which can be critical in a 7 game series. The Yankees were much overrated as a 2018 post season team. Too many young guys just trying to figure out how to get through 162. It has become alarmingly popular to rate all young guys like they are budding Mike Trouts or seasoned professionals and it just does not happen that way. Look at our own experience. Is Devers ahead of schedule? Nope. Is Beni ahead of schedule? Nope. We have one guy that fits the Trout mold, Mookie Betts and Mookie is the only guy that has beaten the odds no matter how many guys we have pushed up to Boston ahead of schedule in the last decade. On top of that too many fans are home run happy and simply put too much weight on home run hitting. Whoopdie dingdong. When it came right down to it the Yankee team could not manufacture a run if they had a bloated Federal Government contract to manufacture them. All they could do is bomb away. Good luck winning post season series that way.

Game 3 in Houston; Sale Eo Price Porcello Sale Some modifications possible depending on how these game go. But that is how I would stack it going into the series.

I would give a slight (but only slight) edge to the Astros because of their pitching. We have Sale and Mr Dependable Porcello, plus Mr Undependable Price and Erod who has lost even Cora's confidence at this point. So if Alex is not confident in him, I would have a hard time being confident in him. We have Eo. They have Cole and Verlander plus guys that are simply better than Price/Erod/Eo. So Sale matches up to either Verlander or Cole but not both. Porcello is more Keuchel than either a Cole or a Verlander. Price does not match up with either Cole or Verlander. Who matches up with Morton? Erod!!!!! Eo maybe bests out Morton. Eo does not on the surface appear to match up well against the Houston team. Their pen is better. That is a ton of pitching to overcome in a game, baseball, that is designed around pitching. Correa and Gurriel are still somewhat underperforming to their post season potential and I actually don't like what I have been seeing even from Altuve lately. So I actually think in spit of the usual complaints about our hitting depth, we may just be better there than the Astros. Defense maybe close enough to be a wash. I just hate to give Houston the edge there though they might deserve it. If Devers is not on the field, Houston is not better defensively than we are. If Devers is not at 3rd and Holt is not at 2nd I am not even sure they are at all better than us in the field. But no matter how I try to slice it, the Astros pitching is better than ours. If their starters take the mound and are confident in their abilities to execute their plans on that given day and our starters are confident in executing their plans on a given day theirs are just better as a staff. We just saw what happens when one team's starters are just better than the other team's in the post season. That great big Yankee pen never got off the ground. The Yankees just did not have the lead enough times to matter over those 4 games. The dif between the WS Astros and this year's team is that their pen is better and they have Cole (SON OF VERLANDER). Maybe the extra home game for us will make a difference in the overall outcome. I would like to think the teams are that close. At least we will have a great series and it will be a dog fight. This Astros team would run over the Yankees like they were not even there.

I did not think Angel was inordinately bad behind the dish tonight. Some of his calls made no sense and were really really bad...like strike calls on balls way high or low. But there were not that many of them...not for Angel anyway.

I will say that where Jacko is right even if tangentially....this particular Yankee team was always too young to go very far. Noted that months ago. They don't hit with the maturity of a team that can really go anywhere in the post season. They don't field like a team that can. Its most telling in their hitting and the dif between the maturity of the Sox team and the Yankee team should be pretty obvious from this series. It is really hard to win games on 1 run HR's. That is why we have the old saw of pitchers don't lose games on 1 run HR's. Well if pitchers don't lose games on them then teams don't win games with them. If they stay together as a team, they might have a run at some point in the next couple years....but not this year. Was never going to be this year. Just too young up and down the roster. We at least have a fair shot at the Astros. The Astros would have chewed this Yankee team up and spit them out.

Actually, are we forgetting Sandy standing on his ear in this very series making stops! Made no sense to leave Holt's bat on the rack with ducks on the pond and Kembrel almost ate up every one of those 3 runs we had.

Glad Porcello got this win. Takes the monkey off his back big time and he deserves not to have to carry that monkey around.

Pearce saved that. Virtually every 3rd baseman we have gets to that ball....50-50 shot that any of them make a better throw than Nunez made. That was an incredible stretch by Pearce.

He has got to stop pitching himself behind in counts. Have the guts to throw FB 0-0 for God sake almighty...Mr I got the gas.

Kimbrel has not hit a target yet, even on strikes and outs...24 pitches...24 missed locations

Another overthrow.

What a total meltdown...don't care what happens from here. That is a total meltdown.

Unbelievable...walks that punk...RH pitcher to RH batter. You have just got to be kidding me.

He's got 98 in that arm and he's overthrowing. Go explain that one.