The final week of the 2008 season has been one long requiem for all things Yankee. On Sunday, Yankee Stadium closed it doors after 85 years. Two days later, the second longest string of postseason appearances was officially snapped. The eulogies have been written, but the game presses on.
Five days from now, the Yankees will finish their final game of the season at Fenway Park and they hurtle headlong into an offseason of transition the likes of which hasn't been seen in the Bronx in more than a decade. Moving across the street might be one of the smaller changes.
It's clear that the Yankees have fallen a step behind their hated rivals to the north. But they've also fallen behind the Rays and the Blue Jays and Orioles are improving rapidly. A massive payroll just isn't good enough on its own anymore.
This Yankees team never really got going because of significant injuries to Jorge Posada and Chien-Ming Wang and a patchwork pitching staff. It will probably wind up with a win total in the high 80s. It will let Bobby Abreu and Jason Giambi walk this winter, and possibly Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina as well.
So what now? Given all the similarities, can the Yankees get back to the playoffs and beyond in 2009 as the Red Sox did last year?
All right, so maybe the Mets aren't expecting Trot Nixon to be a hero and saveWillie Randolph's job along with the Mets playoff chances. Rather, simply a guy who will prevent the Mets from bringing up a catcher whenever Moises Alou goes on the disabled list ... as they've traded for Nixon to fill holes in the outfield created by injuries to Alou and Ryan Church.
"Everything that I've heard about the guy is that he's a gamer," general manager Omar Minaya said.
That word -- "gamer" -- was the first out of Pedro Martinez's mouth, too. The two played together for seven years with the Red Sox, and won a World Series title in 2004.
"I'll tell you what," Martinez said. "He can play for my team any day." (...) "He looks like a little grouch all the time, but in reality, he's a great person," Martinez said. "A good family man."
While the Mets roster has been grouchy lately, gamers seem to be in short supply in Flushing ... and Nixon is certainly a gamer. He's also a guy who went five for 11 in last season's playoffs for Cleveland, and has been known for a key playoff moment or two in his time with the Red Sox. Unfortunately, the Mets need to make the playoffs first. That's a tall order even for a gamer.
After the first five completed series in this post-season saw the losing team in the series win exactly one game, we've finally got a match-up that's living up to the hype. The Indians and Red Sox both won 96 games in the regular season and now they're playing toe-to-toe in the ALCS. Tonight's Game 6 features a guy who will go to the Hall of Fame based on his post-season resume, Curt Schilling, and the young Fausto Carmona, ace #1B in the Indians rotation. Neither pitched well in Game 2, though both were awesome in their respective division series.
Anyways, Fenway will be rocking tonight as the Red Sox try extend their season one more day and the Indians try to avoid the daunting task of playing at Game 7 at Fenway. This is by far the biggest game of this October, so follow along after the jump for the liveblog of the festivities, the McCarverisms, and the game, because games like tonight's are the reason that we all watch baseball all year.
Boston made its way into the record books late Saturday night, though it was for an incident for which they're certainly not proud. The Red Sox bullpen gave up seven runs in the top of the 11th, allowing the Indians to take a 13-6 lead. The seven runs were the most ever in LCS history for an extra-inning, no surprise. Eric Gagne crapped out once again for Boston, putting two men on after getting the first out in the inning. Javier Lopez followed only to surrender an RBI single to Trot Nixon of all people, wild pitch another run home, intentionally walk Victor Martinez, and give up an RBI single to Ryan Garko. Jon Lester allowed an RBI double to Jhonny Peralta, and a three-run home run to Franklin Gutierrez, for good measure.
Joe Borowski on the other hand, closed out the seven run lead without allowing a run in the 11th. Now exactly what twilight world are we living in? Wasn't the Boston bullpen supposed to be a strong suit, while the Cleveland pen was full of question marks? Whatever the reason, the Indians grabbed the coveted road split and now head home to the Jake tied up with the Red Sox in the best of 7 at 1-1. Jake Westbrook will go for Cleveland on Monday, while Dice-K counters for Boston. Given how poorly Sabathia pitched in Game 1, the Indians have to be pleased with where they stand.
A good point was made in the comments of my post about NLCS hyperbole; despite the fact that the Rockies and the D'Backs are probably the two best teams in the NL this year, most so-called experts didn't expect them to be good this year and so rather than actually trying to understand why they're good, they just spew gobbledegook about "hustle." That makes this AL version a bit harder because both the Sox and Indians were "supposed" to be good. Still, Tim McCarver will find a way.
Player: Dustin Pedroia What you'll likely hear: "He just reminds me of David Eckstein so much with his big heart and the way he hustles and isn't afraid to get dirty and play the game right!" The truth: You know how people invariably compare white athletes to other white athletes and black athletes to other black athletes? At best, it's a lazy way to do things. Now the trend has extended to short people. This year, in his rookie season, Pedroia hit .317/.380/.442. Eckstein has never topped one part of that stat line in his seven-year career. David Eckstein is short. Dustin Pedroia is good. Player: Paul Byrd What you'll likely hear: "He sure is a crafty pitcher and that makes him as tough to beat in these big games as anyone. Just look at game 4 of the division series when he finished the Yankees off." The truth: Take a look at this line: 5 IP, 8 H, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 HR. Do you want anything to do with that in a playoff game? I don't. That's Paul Byrd's game 4 line with runs removed. The Indians won that game in spite of his start, not because of it. It kills me that of all the great ALDS performances the Indians had, somehow his is held out above the others despite the fact that it wasn't that impressive to start with and was mostly luck anyways.
Since we're already in the "second-guessing Eric Wedge" mood, let me throw this one out there: what was Trot Nixon doing in Cleveland's starting lineup last night?
He had 14 at-bats for the entire month of September and not one in the playoffs. Is an elimination game really the best chance to throw him a bone? It's true Nixon had a career .371 average against Clemens, but as Terry Pluto of the Cleveland Plain Dealer points out, it's not like he's seen him recently:
Nixon had not faced Clemens since October 2003. Yes, he did homer off Clemens back then, but it was four years ago. Then sure enough, Nixon homered off Clemens. Shows what I know. ... But the ball always finds you. Nixon has struggled in right field, and sure enough, his failure to charge and field a routine ground-ball single - it went for a two-base error - led to two unearned runs in the sixth inning when the Yankees scored three times to take an 8-3 lead.
Nixon was 2-for-14 in September. Until Sunday night, his last RBI was July 29. He hasn't been the same since back and shoulder surgery, which has limited his range in right field. After Clemens departed in the third, Nixon whiffed and hit a soft fly ball to left against rookie Phil Hughes. He then doubled in a run in the eighth. So Nixon gave up two, and drove in two. It probably would not have changed the outcome, but I'd have started Franklin Gutierrez - especially because he's an elite defensive outfielder.
In addition to his fielding, Gutierrez got on base three times in seven plate appearances the first two games, so it's not like the Indians would have been giving much up in terms of offense. Now, it's possible that Wedge thought it was worth the risk since Jake Westbrook is an extreme groundball pitcher and wasn't expected to allow very many balls to leave the infield, but if that was the case, why wasn't Westbrook removed as soon as he started showing signs of fatigue? Change for the sake of change just doesn't make sense in the playoffs, especially with a team like the Yankees on the ropes.
On Saturday night Indians catcher Victor Martinez and Cliff Lee got into an argument on the mound in the first inning, an inning in which Lee allowed five runs. Then later in the third inning Lee drilled Sammy Sosa in the head. Of course, this also happened to be the same night in which Sosa was honored before the game by a large group of friends, family, and politicians from the Dominican Republic for hitting 600 home runs.
Lee says he didn't do it on purpose, but Victor Martinez still wasn't very happy with Cliff's response. Martinez felt that Lee didn't show any remorse for hitting Sosa in the head, and that he never approached Sosa to make sure he was okay.
All of which led to the Indians calling a team meeting after the game in which the two players shared their side of the story, and the team moved on to other issues as well.
Trot Nixon called the players-only meeting following the Indians' 8-5 loss to Texas on Saturday night. The meeting was prompted by two in-game altercations between left-hander Cliff Lee and catcher Victor Martinez.
The Indians' locker room was closed for at least 25 minutes after the game. MLB rules state the media must be allowed in the locker room 10 minutes after the last pitch. The meeting lasted so long, manager Eric Wedge came out into the tunnel to talk to reporters.
None of the players would talk about the details of things discussed during the meeting, but I'm guessing they called Scott Olsen in to handle the negotiations. Olsen probably just barged in with a bottle of whiskey and sat down at Lee's locker. When Lee came over to ask him to stand up, Olsen kicked him. Victor Martinez then got mad that some guy kicked his teammate, and he went over there to say something to Olsen. Olsen then challenged the whole team to a fight, and they accepted. Just like that, everybody's friends again!
The final week of the 2008 season has been one long requiem for all things Yankee. On Sunday, Yankee Stadium closed it doors after 85 years. Two days later, the second longest string of postseason appearances was officially snapped. The eulogies have been written, but the game presses on.
Boston made its way into the record books late Saturday night, though it was for an incident for which they're certainly not proud. The Red Sox bullpen gave up seven runs in the top of the 11th, allowing the Indians to take a 13-6 lead. The seven runs were the most ever in LCS history for an extra-inning, no surprise. 
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