All About Expectations

What a gigantic lull in the sports schedule! It’s almost unprecedented. No baseball, no football since Monday, basketball a distant event on the horizon. If you’re not a soccer enthusiast or fanatic enough to enjoy “NFL Replay” past games, you could go absolutely bonkers.

Or maybe you’re one of those held spellbound by the side stories, Rush Limbaugh assigned to NFL limbo and Jon Gruden being considered for a couple of NFL head coaching spots. And then, of course, there’re all the side stories associated with the MLB Playoffs, the cold weather, the rain, the pitching assignments, and Mariano, Mariano, Mariano….makes a Mets fan sick!

Wasn’t it Mariano who blew the series with Boston back in 2004, a date that marked the resurgence of the Red Sox? He’s not infallible, Yankee fans. And maybe we’ll find out in this Angels series. We might find out a couple of other things too, like how stupid it was to get rid of Bobby Abreu. (A Mets fan can only hope).

The prospect of the first Yankee game Friday night seems to be casting a large shadow over the Phils-Dodgers series in the National League. There the story is, as you might expect, mostly about Manny Ramirez and Joe Torre, although you could make a case for the failures of Brad Lidge. The media loves failure, especially after a skein of successes.

So there’s really nothing happening but expectations. I had expected the Dodgers to be gone already, blown away by the Cards pitchers, Wainwright and Carpenter. That didn’t happen. Then the Phils dispatched the Rockies pretty handily, easier than I had expected given the Rockies newfound prowess in the starting pitching and relief categories.

It looked bad for the Phils in Colorado in that top of the ninth inning. Huston Street was just rolling along, striking out one batter and then getting a fielders choice grounder after a Jimmy Rollins infield base hit. He and the Rockies then just needed one more out to send the series back to Philadelphia.

Street just needed to deal with Chase Utley. Yeah, it was righty vs. lefty but still….and my recollection is that the count went to 3-2, but, in any event, Street walked Utley and then you knew he had to face big Ryan Howard, another lefty, and you started to feel a little nervous, and then, before you knew it, Howard put a big swing on a ball left out over the plate and the game was tied.

And then, just to put a punctuation point on the proceedings, Jayson Werth knocked in the winning run. Those Phillies were still the reigning World Champions, not the Yankees, not the Dodgers, but those tough guys from Philadelphia, and there were no tougher Philly batters than the ones Street faced in that fateful 9th inning.

But you don’t hear much about the Phillies. Expectations again. I guess the thinking goes, “well, the Yanks picked up Teixeira and Sabathia and Burnett and they still had Arod and Jeter and Damon and Posada and yada yada.yanka”. And for the Dodgers, it would be “their young guys like Kemp and Ethier and Loney have all picked it up in Manny’s absence and they’ve got all that relief pitching.”

Yeah, I guess so, but those Phillies sure looked pretty tough to me in that ninth inning in Denver. So I’ve changed my expectations. Until somebody knocks them out, my money (if I had any money) would be on the defending champions.

Yankee fans are probably saying that their team did the same thing against the Twins. Yeah, they did, and it was very impressive, Arod tying it up and Teixeira delivering the clincher. And they’d be right, but…..

Well, I know if I were a Yankee fan, I’d be getting just a little bit nervous about all this conjecture about the starting rotation for the next series. I mean, can they make it any more obvious that they only trust three of their starters? I guess that means they may have only three playoff-ready starters.

That’s Sabathia, Burnett and Pettite, of course. With Joba now a reliever, that leaves them with Chad Gaudin as the fourth starter. He’s been really pretty good this year too, with a respectable ERA and strong overall outings. But that brain trust is working overtime trying to figure out what the rain will do.

The rain may push back the opener but that will probably be the extent of it. The Yanks will still have to deal with using Sabathia on three days rest. Only the most optimistic Yankee forecast could expect better. You’re still left with facts. The Yanks only have three starters they trust, which means they only have three starters.

Hmm. The Angels have at least four. I say at least four, because a fella named Ervin Santana is listed at five, and he’s probably better than Chad Gaudin. The others are very respectable, John Lackey, Jered Weaver, Joe Saunders and Scott Kazmir. And those last two are lefties, just to change things up a little. Oh, and Brian Fuentes, their closer, is a lefty too.

Even knowing that the Yanks have right-handed batters, and guys who can be turned around, like Teixeira and Posada, it will still be helpful to throw a different look at your opponent. And Posada may not be catching all the time either. That’s another vaguely troubling thing for a Yankee fan, I would imagine. (even though I can’t really imagine the sheer horror of being one myself).

Another net difference from last year to this year is in the Yankee right field. And it’s a net loss, from Bobby Abreu to Nick Swisher. Bobby was one of those perennial .300 hitters with a hundred each year in both runs and ribbies. One thing he didn’t do in the Bronx was run into the outfield wall. Nick loves doing that, but that’s his only baseball advantage over Abreu.

You can expect a hell of a series, folks.