2010 ALCS Preview: Cliff Lee Has More Than One Reason To Beat the Yankees

It all makes sense. There should never have been any doubt in anyone’s mind that in The Year of the Pitcher, some of the better arms in the American League will be fighting for the Pennant beginning with Game One on Friday night.

Cliff Lee is, of course, Cliff Lee, and depending on who you talk to, C.C. Sabathia (and no matter who you talk to, you can’t deny that he’s the Yankees Ace, he won 21 games and topped 230 innings for the fourth straight year) is C.C. Sabathia. They are the veteran anchors of the staffs that feature up and coming arms in C.J. Wilson and Phil Hughes.

Hmm, on second thought, scrap those two paragraphs and understand this: other then some of that old fashioned dominance from Cliff Lee (duh), this very well may be a high scoring series. Why? Because it’s the Yankees. It’s the Rangers. It’s the ALCS and not the NLCS. And there are some pretty huge sticks playing in this series.

With that said, who the heck is supposed to come away with this year’s pennant? Since Cliff Lee was forced to pitch in Game 5 of the ALDS against the Rays and he can only throw twice (Games 3 and 7) in this series, which begs for four wins against the powerfully expensive New York lineup?

We can start by looking at both teams pitching because pitching is the basis for everything, especially in the postseason, even in the ALCS. And we can start by taking a look at the graph below because, frankly, nobody really likes to read anymore than they have to.

Starters

If you look at everything presented, even though we’re looking at stats that are relatively simple, if we wanted to we could go into WHIP, Quality Starts, K/9IP and even WAR, but that’s not necessary at this stage in the season. Reason being: we are looking at a short series with two of the remaining four best teams in the league.

Anything can and will happen. I don’t care if Robinson Cano beat out Josh Hamilton in Wins Above Replacement by 0.1 during the regular season because everyone knows if Hamilton goes 2-18 again the Rangers will have a tough time winning anything, even if Lee pitched every single game.

The fact of the matter is, the Rangers got simply superb and consistent pitching from their front four starters. During the season not one arm had an ERA over 3.73, and the only reason Tommy Hunter threw 128 innings is because he missed all of April and May (theoretically 60 innings right there given how Hunter performed when he returned).

The matchups in this series are about as easy to call as a player using PEDs. Anyone can win.

Game 1 features Wilson and Sabathia, two left handed power pitchers with high strikeout totals and an arsenal of deadly off speed pitches. Sabathia is the Yankees ace (or the Yankees Cliff Lee, if you will). He’s expected to win and anything less will be considered a major failure by the Yankee faithful (and by those critical of his extravagant contract).

On the other hand, Wilson has been one of the main reasons Texas is even in the postseason, a shocking truth in itself seeing as how he entered Spring Training with only a handful of starts made all the way back in 2005. The pressure to win is still very much anointed on his shoulders, but being seen as a bit of an underdog does relieve a bit of the stress.

Sometimes that’s the little difference needed when you take into consideration that Sabathia has a career postseason ERA of 4.41 (although he did have a 1.98 ERA in five starts last year) and Wilson has never given up a single run in the postseason (albeit in one start).

Bottom line, we have two completely different pitchers going in Game 1 and you can’t really give advantage to either one. The case is the same in Game 2, as Colby Lewis and Phil Hughes both made their first career postseason starts last week and both forced the opposition to put up eggs in the run column.

Game 3 will feature Lee versus Pettitte, a matchup of two of the best postseason starters in baseball history. Lee is 6-0 with a 1.44 ERA in seven career postseason starts. Pettitte is 19-9 with a 3.87 ERA in 41 career starts (that’s right, 41).

The only “advantage” any team can have in this series is in Game 4, which pits Tommy Hunter against A.J. Burnett. And while Burnett had about the worst second half in baseball that you could have and STILL keep your job (the only reason he didn’t is because Javier Vazquez once again pitched worse than he did), Hunter also made his first postseason start last week and lasted four innings. Based on that, you would have to think that this game would be up for grabs.

So, having considered the starting pitching and knowing that there really is no advantage played by either team, we have to consider looking into the starting lineup, surely there we may find something.

Offense 

Rangers Starting Lineup		AB, AVG, HR, RBI, SB	Yankees Starting Lineup		AB, AVG, HR, RBI, SB
1B	Mitch Moreland	145, .255, 9, 25, 3	1B	Mark Teixeira	601, .256, 33, 108, 0
2B	Ian Kinsler	391, .286, 9, 45, 15	2B	Robinson Cano	626, .319, 29, 109, 3
3B	Michael Young	656, .284, 21, 91, 4	3B	Alex Rodriguez	522, .275, 30, 125, 4
SS	Elvis Andrus	588, .265, 0, 35, 32	SS	Derek Jeter	663, .270, 10, 67, 18
LF	David Murphy	419, .291, 12, 65, 14	LF	Brett Gardner	477, .277, 5, 47, 47
CF	Josh Hamilton	518, .359, 32, 100, 8	CF	Curtis Granderson	466, .247, 24, 67, 12
RF	Nelson Cruz	399, .318, 22, 78, 17	RF	Nick Swisher	566, .288, 29, 89, 1
C	Bengie Molina (SF+TX)	175, .249, 5, 36, 0	C	Jorge Posada	383, .248, 18, 57, 3
DH	Vladimir Guerrero	593, .300, 29, 115, 4	DH	Marcus Thames	212, .288, 12, 33, 0

While collecting these stats, the one thing that kept popping in my head are the trades that Texas made to their starting lineup (especially during bankruptcy court).

Jorge Cantu, Jeff Francoeur, Cliff Lee and Bengie Molina have all shaped this team in a positive way.

For Lee, he singlehandedly won the first playoff series in franchise history. Francoeur hit .340 for Texas, as he shared part time duties with David Murphy down the stretch. Jorge Cantu has played an important role in solidifying first base, hitting against left handed pitchers as Mitch Moreland hits right handers. And Bengie Molina has once again led a staff into the postseason (an amazing feat, seeing as how he didn’t join the team until the first of July).

To look at it with broad lenses, the Yankees trump the Rangers at first base thanks to Mark Teixeira and left field with Brett Gardner and his speed. For the rest of the positions, we may have to look a little closer.

Second base pits Robinson Cano against Ian Kinsler. Based on WAR, Cano wins hands down (6.1 to Kinsler’s 0.00, but Kinsler was hurt most of the year and only played half the season in moderate health). Kinsler hit 3 home runs in the ALDS and is a hot commodity right now. Both are dynamic players, both will be instrumental in their team’s success.

At short stop the aging Derek Jeter faces off against Elvis Andrus, the player most consider to be Jeter’s heir as the pinnacle shortstop in the American League. Andrus flashed his skills in the ALDS against the Rays and we might as well compare that to Jeter 15 years ago. But at the same time, the Yankee Captain has the most postseason experience out of…anyone.

Two converted shortstops play third base for both teams. If it were three or even two years ago I would have given the advantage to Alex Rodriguez, but these days we may be looking at two aging veterans, while they may be productive, I’m not sure we’re going to see any game changers here. Of course, A-Rod was the playoff MVP last year.

Right Field employs the like of Nelson Cruz and Nick Swisher, two players with plus power and tons of potential. Swisher seems to have finally figured everything out this year, hitting nearly .300 with nearly 30 home runs and 100 RBI. Cruz, when healthy, can put up the same numbers. He’s healthy now. Both are great bats to have in your lineup.

Last, but certainly not least, we’ll take a look at Center Field. Unfortunately for Curtis Granderson, there is no competition here. Josh Hamilton holds the floor, pretty much on any player other than the Detroit Tigers Miguel Cabrera this year. The former Tiger himself, Granderson has improved against left handed pitching from earlier in the year, and he is a dangerous bat in a series like this.

The winner of this series will come from the team that is the most aggressive. The Rangers provided that aggressive behavior in the series against the Rays; the Yankees simply destroyed the Twins, and if they are able to prevent unnecessary runs (i.e. from stolen bases, extra base hits, poor fielding alignment, etc), they may be able to squeak away from this series with a win and won’t have to face the regret that they would if Cliff Lee and the team that stole him from under their fingernails this summer beat them.

All I know is that if the Rangers move onto the World Series, the Yankees will do everything in their collective power to keep him away from any other big league ballclub.

So Cliff Lee has even more reason to beat them this year.               

2010 American League Championship Series

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