Tagged: New York Yankees
10/9 MLB Tonight – ALDS Previews
We have plenty to talk about on today’s show. Both AL series will be played tonight so we’ll break those down as well as look back to yesterday’s games with the big story taking place at Dodger Stadium.
It’s going to be very tough now for the Cardinals to come back and beat the Dodgers being down 0-2 and losing both of the games Carpenter and Wainwright pitched. It should be 1-1 and then you’d like the Cardinals chances of possibly winning this series. If they don’t come back and win it’s going to be a long off-season for Matt Holliday. There are a few reasons as to why he didn’t catch that ball yesterday. It could have been the white towels, the lights or the time of day, but when he didn’t make the catch it started to unravel for St. Louis and they may not be able to recover.
Yankees-Twins will be interesting to watch tonight. Joe Girardi has given A.J. Burnett his wish as Jose Molina will be his catcher. Will this work for Girardi or backfire? It’s important to make your pitcher comfortable so I think he’s making the right decision here. We’ll find out.
After Yankees-Twins tonight we’ll have Angels-Red Sox as LA looks to go up 2-0. The Angels haven’t been able to beat the Red Sox in the postseason in recent years, but this may be the year they get it done. They’re as healthy as they’ve ever been, while the Red Sox are not. We’ll have to see which Josh Beckett shows up tonight.
We’re on at 5 tonight and then we’ll be on after both game so make sure you tune into MLB Nework all postseason.-Dan Plesac
10/5 Path to the Pennant – Playoff Preview
We have a couple of themes on tonight’s show. It goes 1, 2, 3, 4. We’re going to look at the best 1-2 pitching combinations for this year’s playoffs as well as in past playoffs. We’re also going to do the same for 3-4 hitting combinations.
First up is the 1-2 pitching duos. We have a few good ones this year with Carpenter-Wainwright in St. Louis, Lester-Beckett in Boston, and Sabathia-Burnett in New York. The thing that always fascinates me about these debates is the historical part of it. There have been some great 1-2 punches over the years. Koufax-Drysdale for the Dodgers, McLain-Lolich for the Tigers, and Schilling-Johnson for the D-backs to name a few. Who is better? That can be debated for a long time.
The same can be said for the best 3-4 hitters of all-time. Again, we have a few good ones this year. Teixeira-Rodriguez in New York and Pujols-Holliday in St. Louis jump out at you right away as the most formidable 3-4 combos in this postseason, but are they better than say Manny-Papi? Tough to say.
The other topic I can’t wait to get into tonight is the one-game playoff. This is the 3rd year in a row we’ve had one. We’ll have two guys on the set tonight who played in one and that’s Barry Larkin and Al Leiter who squared off in 1999 for the NL Wild Card. Leiter and his Mets won 5-0.
We’re on from 6-8 tonight previewing all of the playoff matchups so make sure you tune in.- Matt Vasgersian
9/28 Path to the Pennant Debut
We’re debuting a new show today called “Path to Pennant.” It will air all this week from 5-6 as a lead-in to MLB Tonight. This is where our network is different from everyone else. We can bring you baseball in a variety of ways.
We’re going to begin the show tonight discussing the 10 teams that have a shot at the winning the World Series. I know there are only 8 playoff spots, but the Braves and Twins still have a great shot at making it with one week to go. Atlanta is 2.5 back in the NL Wild Card race and Minnesota is only 2 back in the AL Central and they begin a 4-game set in Detroit tonight. We are carrying this game on MLB Network.
The Twins-Tigers series is going to be fun to watch this week. We’ll be breaking it down from every angle. Tonight Harold Reynolds will be talking about Nick Blackburn, Tom Verducci will discuss Rick Porcello and our John Hart will break down the pitching matchups in all 4 games.
The other big topic tonight will be on the Yankees and Cardinals since they both clinched their divisions over the weekend. Harold’s going to break down the seasons of Mark Teixeira, Robinson Cano, and Johnny Damon and how they’ve benefited from the short porch in right field at the new Yankee Stadium. He’s also going to look at facing the Cardinals’ Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright back to back and whether that’s good or bad.
Make sure you tune in to all of it tonight. Path to the Pennant at 5, MLB Tonight at 6, Twins-Tigers at 7 and then MLB Tonight after the game.-Greg Amsinger
9/23 MLB Tonight – Billy Ripken’s Take
So the New York Yankees are the first team to qualify for the postseason. The thing we’re going to find out from this club this year is can you truly buy yourself a world championship?
The Yankees went away from devoloping players a long time ago and have gone the free agent route. Now this did not work with Mike Mussina and Jason Giambi, but it may for CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, and Mark Teixeira. If it does what does that say to the rest of the baseball teams out there? These teams have to outwork the Yankees with shrewd moves and proper scouting where NY can just throw money at any problems they have.
The Yankees have a long way to go though before we say their offseason was a success. They need to come away with a championship. If not, they spent over 400 million dollars this season with nothing to show for it and as we know it’s all about rings with the Yankees who haven’t won one since 2000 when they had home grown players and excellent role players.
Do the Yankees have an unfair advantage? If they win people will say yes. If they don’t then it’s a different story. You need intangibles to win a championship. The Yankees may have brought in the right players to win this year, which shows you that it’s not how much money you spend, but who you spend it on. We’ll find out if it works out in about 6 weeks.
Make sure you watch MLB Tonight starting at 6.-Billy Ripken
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