Quote Originally Posted by fedex11204:
it's funny how you Bator change your thoughts ..all you needed was a loss taking the yanks and your mindset has completely changed
It has more to do with the manner in which the Yankees blew the game and thus politely handed ALL the momentum over to the Angels. They had a comfortable lead, had at least two good chances to blow it open, but instead let the Angels hang around and ultimately let the Angels win it thanks to Joe Girardi's latest bonehead pitching change.
The Yankees are loaded with talent, no doubt, but they aren't the most mentally tough team in baseball, and they sure as hell are not the more mentally tough team in this series. If the Yankees were at home, I wouldn't doubt their ability to shake off such a bad loss, but being on the road, in their Anaheim House of Horrors, I could more easily see them crumbling again sooner than I could see them bouncing back strong.
How come I didn't hear any Yankee fans or backers complaing about Sabathia being allowed to pitch the 8th inning of Game 1? That extra inning of work was unnecessary. Sabathia was at 100 pitches at the end of 7 innings and the Yankees had a 4-1 lead, a lead which might as well have been 10-1 with the way the bundled-up Halos were swinging frozen popsicle sticks at the plate. Knowing that they were going to use him in Game 4 on short rest, why didn't the Yankees pull him after 7 innings knowing that any rag arm out of the Yankee pen could've handled the 8th? What was the logic in letting Sabathia climb up to 113 pitches? It was just a stupid move, and it's another reason I'm eager to bet against these guys tonight.
The Angels are now 52-32 at Angel Stadium this season. That's a .620 winning percentage. One of my regular plays every baseball season is to bet on a homedog with a home winning percentage of better than .600. I start looking for these plays on June 1st, and the deeper it gets into the season, the better I like them. In the playoffs, I love them. Some guys on here are making the claim that Sabathia -135 is cheap. Those guys are nuts. No team and no pitcher should be favored over these Angels in Angel Stadium. I think the Angels have earned that respect over 84 home games. But, the lines are shaped largely by public perception, and public perception insists that C.C. Sabathia is an almost unstoppable force.
Hey, speaking of Sabathia again, I'm going to annoy Yankee fans once again by suggesting that his excellent postseason is being exaggerated. In his start against the Twins, he enjoyed the enormous advantage of facing a team playing with very little rest following an incredibly emotional one-game playoff thriller and subsequent champagne celebration. Even the Twins admitted after Game 1 that fatigue hit them hard a few innings into the game (when they were up 2-0 on Sabathia). In his start against the Angels, Sabathia again enjoyed another enormous advantage, this time getting to face a Southern California team ill-prepared for what (to them) had to feel like arctic conditions. The Angels played like they were in no mood to compete in freezing weather and said afterwards that watery eyes made it almost impossible to hit. I'm not saying a well-rested Sabathia wasn't on his game in those two starts, but I am suggesting that fatigue and cold weather helped him out a lot. No such enormous edge for the big man tonight.
Up above I mentioned that the Yankees aren't as mentally tough as the Angels. Yesterday the Yankees slowly built up a solid lead only to quickly get tied up before finally giving in after one pitching change too many. There's good reason to believe that it'll be tough for the Yankees to simply bounce back after a loss that agonizing.
On April 24th, the Yankees held a 4-2 lead in the bottom of the 9th in Boston, but Rivera gave up a two-out, two-run homer to Jason Bay and the Yanks went on to lose in 11 innings. The next day, they got battered by the Red Sox, 16-11.
In that 16-11 loss the following day, the Yankees built up a 6-0 lead by the 4th inning, but A.J. Burnett couldn't hold it and the Yanks went on to get buried. The next day, the Yankees lost to the Red Sox again, 4-1.
On July 10th, the Yankees held leads of 4-0 and 5-1 over the Angels in Anaheim, but allowed 9 runs in the 5th, 6th, and 7th to get blown away, 10-6. The next day, the Yankees lost to the Angels again.
The following day, Saturday, July 11th, the Yankees again had an early 4-0 lead, and again the pitching staff imploded, letting the Angels score 7 runs in the 5th inning on their way to a 14-8 laugher. The next day, the Yankees lost to the Angels again as a road favorite behind C.C. Sabathia, who took the loss.
On July 31st, the Yankees scored three times in the top of the first against the White Sox in Chicago but blew the lead by the 2nd inning. They went on to get smoked, 10-5. The next day, the Yankees lost to the White Sox again.
The Yankees lost consecutive road games to the same team seven times this season, and on five of those occasions, they had blown a big lead the day before and failed miserably in bouncing back the next day. And if you don't think that a lot of regular season bad habits don't follow teams into the postseason, you're mistaken.
That could be knocking it down..
so i don't have to read your nonsense on covers anymore!!
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