Heart of the game is still pitching

Doesn’t it figure that with the highest-scoring teams in each league, this World Series so far has been all about starting pitching?

Probably not, if we all think about it. As Joe Girardi said, “At this time of year you usually see a good pitcher every night’’ and whether that is true or not, this night we saw two of them in A.J. Burnett and Pedro Martinez.

Burnett was the winner in the Yankees’ 3-1 triumph, which levels this World Series at a game each. Pedro Martinez was the loser, although he pitched very well himself and it was good to see this 38-year-old, a guy who will get this Hall of Fame vote some day (we hope), stand up to 50,000 people screaming at him and handle himself well. Better than well, actually.

He was outstanding and that considers he made two mistakes, leaving a high change-up that Mark Teixeira pulled out to right-centre, then “flipping up’’ a curve ball that Hideki Matsui went down and golfed over the short fence in straight right field. He would give up another couple of hits when he was running on fumes, but no matter; he had pitched well enough to win and didn’t because Burnett, who can blow up at any time but didn’t this time, pitched better.

“Regardless of what happened, I’m extremely proud and happy being able to participate and compete against a real, real good team,’’ said Martinez, a free agent without a contract until the Phillies signed him in mid-season. “To be able to put my team in position to catch up or win that game and at the same time tell myself I made the right decision by coming back and getting this opportunity. It was a real good game. It was a real baseball game.’’

It was, too. The heart of the game is, and always has been and will be, pitching. We’ve seen four starters in two nights and all four have been outstanding. Martinez, who at one pointing his career was as good as anyone in the game, has lost some of his arsenal, but it’s always great to see a smart guy change his approach and use what he has.

“I have been working a lot harder at mixing my pitches and hitting location now, keeping the ball low. I know I don’t have that 95- (or) 97-mile-an-hour fastball. Since I came back, I have not had it,’’ he said. “I still feel I can get people out with, you know, what I have. I think 90 or 93 sometimes is good enough to get it by anybody, if you use your other pitches.’’

Burnett, who is younger and stronger than Martinez and has better stuff, doesn’t have the same head. But he said he had listened to Cliff Lee, the Game One master, in his post-game interviews and heard a light go on in his own head. He and Lee have the same agent and are from the same part of the world, Arkansas, which is why he was listening.

“He talked about confidence and he talked about belief in his stuff and I told myself last night and today the same thing. I went out tonight with confidence,’’ Burnett said. “The game just rolled by. I was in a good rhythm. (Matt) Stairs hit a good pitch to get his RBI, but it never stopped me and I just continued to stay in that rhythm and just continued to try to get strike one.’’

He threw 21 first-pitch strikes to 26 batters, which is outstanding. Martinez wasn’t quite as good, but no matter. If you like pitching, the way I do, this was good stuff to watch, easy to enjoy. The only bad part is that every game nudges up against deadlines, or else goes right past them.

Another Great Stupid Moment

We just had one of those great stupid moments. Derek Jeter won the Robert Clemente Award and they had a small ceremony, Clemente’s widow Vera presenting him the award. (They will repeat the presentation pre-game on the field.)

It’s a very good honour involving community dedication, named for the great ball player, and greater man, who died on New Year’s Eve, 1972, flying relief supplies from his native Puerto Rico to earthquake victims in Nicarauga.

So Jeter, who was born in June of 1974, makes a nice little acceptance speech and the first question he is asked is whether he knew Clemente.

Uh . . . .

There’s a story, which some swear is true, that after Don Larsen pitched his perfect game in the 1956 World Series, across the road at the original Yankee Stadium, the first question a breathless TV guy asked him was whether it was the best game he’d ever pitched. Different guy than today.

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A guy with an hour to kill left the ballpark, crossed 161st Street and cruised the sports bars and T-shirt joints packed along River Avenue. There is some serious, beer-lubricated atmosphere out there on a pleasant fall evening, the music loud and thumping.

There were plenty more Phillies fans, clad in their team’s garb, than I would have expected to see and while there was some back-and-forth jabbering, it seemed entirely good natured. But the night was certainly young.

The only “special’’ T-shirt was entirely predictable: Written in Phillies script, you can guess what it said. Think of a rude verb that begins with F, spelled with “Ph’’ at the beginning. Not too difficult.

Here is culture clash. A very large stage is being erected behind second base, where Alicia Keys and Jay-Z are scheduled to perform a half-hour before the first pitch. While it is being set up, the stadium organist plays ‘’Over the Rainbow.’’ So there’s Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen’s greatest hit as a backdrop for these contemporary performers. Where else could this happen?

Yanks, Phils coy on plans for rotation

As drizzling, gray and ugly as it was at this time Wednesday, it is sunny, clear and beautiful so far today, a few hours ahead of the second World Series game at Yankee Stadium.

Not that the afternoon weather necessarily dictates what will happen when the first pitch flies around 8 p.m. Weather, as they had said around here, turned out to be no factor in the first game. Cliff Lee was. He was absolutely outstanding and not to second-guess Charlie Manuel, because he hasn’t confirmed his rotation yet, but if it were me, I would throw Lee right back in Sunday’s fourth game in Philadelphia. He’s smart, thinks his way through games and has been brilliant in the post-season so far, allowing 20 hits, three walks and two earned runs in 33 1/3 innings, with 30 strikeouts. When the alternative is Joe Blanton, it would be Lee for me, particularly since the Philies then could use him again in any seventh game.

Game Two had A.J. Burnett against Pedro Martinez and Game Three in Philly pits Yankee lefthander Andy Pettitte against Cole Hamels. After that, it all depends on what happens tonight in the second game.

Yankee manager Joe Girardi finally sat down outfielder Nick Swisher, who has been terrible in the post-season (4 for 35 with one RBI and 12 strikeouts), in favour of utility guy Jerry Hairston Jr. As well, Jorge Posada sits in favour of Jose Molina, Burnett’s favoured catcher.

The Yankees are being coy on their Sunday starter. Girardi hinted that it would be Chad Gaudin, who went out when the field was dried off Wednesday about 5 p.m. and pitched a simulated game. The guy has thrown exactly one post-season inning, so he certainly should be fresh. Joba Chamberlain looks so messed up these days after his sporadic use down the stretch that he shouldn’t be any kind of option. He has pitched only 3 1/3 innings and given up seven hits.

But there is no way the Yankees throw Gaudin to the wolves in Game Four if they lose the second game. You can see what Girardi wants to have happen; if the Yanks lead 2-1 in games, Gaudin could start and what’s the worst that could happen? They would have Sabathia for Game Five on normal rest, then use Burnett back at home in Game Six. That way they would avoid using Burnett on the road.

The second-game outcome also might dictate how Manuel plays his hand vis a vis Lee. The worst he can be now is down 2-1 entering the fourth game. In that case, he might simply go to Lee and play his cards from there. If the Phillies are up 2-1 after three games, I would still go with Lee at home to put a stranglehold on the series, because you know the Yankees will be using Sabathia again on short rest and the enormous lefthander also has been excellent this post-season.

If the Phillies are up 3-0, Manuel can sit back and trot all his guys out there on normal rest, while Girardi goes all in on every hand.

For the record, the Yankees are 8-7 in their history when losing the first game of a World Series. In 10 of those 15, they were actually down 2-0 to start.

Here’s another stat to consider: Sabathia and Burnett pitched back-to-back 19 times during the regular season and only once, June 20 and 21 in Florida, did the Yankees lose both games.

Lee so good even Charlie's a little surprised

How good was Cliff Lee against the Yankees in the Phillies’ ultimately breezy 6-1 win in Game One of the 10th World Series?

Better than even his manager, Charlie Manuel, figured he would ever be.

“When we got him, I knew he was good. I had seen him before. But if you want to know the truth, I didn’t know he was as good as he’s been,’’ Manuel said after the game and note that the Philadelphia manager didn’t trust his shaky bullpen, even with a 6-0 lead in the ninth, Lee at 105 pitches and the Yankee bullpen reduced to ragtag status once again.

Lee, obtained form Cleveland in a mid-season trade for just this kind of performance, struck out 10m walked zero and gave up only four hits through eight innings before allowing two hits and an unearned run in the ninth. He departed after throwing 122 pitches. If Manuel is tempted to use him in Game Four on short rest – and how could he not be? – he didn’t act that way.

“We’ll see how it goes,’’ Manuel said. “I mean, we’ll just see where we’re at. We’ve got time.’’

More important, they have home-field advantage now and the Yankees are in almost a must-win situation Thursday with A.J. Burnett, not exactly Mr. Clutch, throwing Game Two for the home side. Burnett has been pretty good in his home post-season starts, but both times that was carrying a 1-0 series lead courtesy of C.C. Sabathia, who was good Wednesday, yielding only a pair of solo homers to Chase Utley, but was nowhere near as good as Lee, who looked like Mr. Cool all night, fielding with aplomb in addition to pitching with precision.

“About being cool or whatever, I’ve always been that way. This is the same game I’ve been playing my whole life and this is the stage I’ve wanted to be on since I was a little kid,’’ Lee said. “Now that I’m here, I’ve already put the work in (so) there’s no sense in being nervous and worried. It’s time to go out there and let my talents and my skills take over and execute my pitches.’’

He did that with all of them, a sweet change-up and   well-behaved cut fastball and down-breaking curve ball. Derek Jeter had three hits, but the middle of the Yankee order was particularly clueless. Mark Teixeira was 0 for 4 with two strikeouts and Alex Rodriguez was 0 for 4 with three whiffs.

“This whole lineup, you’ve got to be unpredictable.     You’ve got to show them stuff they haven’t seen before. Mix speeds, mix locations and don’t get in patterns,’’ he said, making it sound as easy as he made it look.

That was a terrific lineup he completely stifled and while it is only one game, does anybody still feel like lying $200 to win $100 on the Yankees? The odds have surely changed in this 105th World Series and it didn’t take long.

 

From buxom blondes to Pedro's long-ago daddy

As the World Series gets rolling – and five hours ago I wouldn’t have given you a nickel’s chances that the game would start on time – the biggest story is not Pedro Martinez getting the second game start for the Phillies against the Yankees, but that “buxom blonde’’ who got busted in Philadelphia for offering sex for World Series tickets.

    The latest today is that her older, less attractive sister tried the same thing and only ended up with Maple Leaf tickets.

    Oh, wait. Is that Maple Leaf joke thing still going on?

    It isn’t? Then never mind.

    We were talking about Pedro Martinez, who was thoughtful and insightful at his press conference earlier this evening, talking about coming back to Yankee Stadium (or at least the new one) with his famous “Who’s your daddy?’’ reference from the 2003 playoffs never to be forgotten.

    “I might be at times the most influential player that ever stepped into Yankee Stadium. I can honestly say that,’’ he said. “For some reason, with all the hype and different players that have passed by, maybe because I played for the Red Sox, you guys make it such a big deal every time I come in. But I have a good bond with the people. After playing in New York, I realize something: New York fans are very passionate and very aggressive.

    “I have all the respect in the world for the way they enjoy being fans,’’ he went on. “Sometimes they might be giving you the middle finger, just like they will be cursing you and telling you what colour underwear you’re wearing. All those things you can hear. But at the end of the day, they’re just great fans who want to see the team win. I don’t have any problem with that.’’

    What about that quote, he one he referenced himself when he signed with Philadelphia?

    “It reminds me that God is my daddy. It gives me strength. It keeps me strong and healthy,’’ he said. “When you have 60,000 people chanting your name, waiting for you to throw the ball, you have to consider yourself someone special, someone that really has a purpose out there.

    “Maybe when I said that quote, out of frustration, I had the purpose of maybe hearing it now, hearing it the following few years that I played,’’ Martinez said. “Every time I hear it, it reminds me not to make the same mistake.’’

    He has come to terms with his past in this building, or at least the one across the street. But he’ll hear the chant again Thursday night, no doubt about it.

  

Small miracle in the Bronx: Blue sky

NEW YORK - The rain has eased up, there are a few square feet of blue showing in the sky and there is hope that the World Series will get going tonight and even on time.

Shortly before 4 p.m., the grounds crew at Yankee Stadium removed the tarp and dragged it out to left field, dumping a small lake of accumulated water in short centre and short left fields. (The outfield is alleged to drain very well and within 10 minutes, indeed all surface water had disappeared.)

The workers spread substantial amounts of drying agent around the dirt portion of the infield and have a team working hard at the area around home plate, spreading bags of this compound that absorbs water.

Yankee manager Joe Girardi just said, at his pre-game press conference, that “I understand weather is not going to be an issue today.’’

Less than an hour ago, when it was dark and miserable, it said here, “it requires a great leap of faith, after a night of strong rain and an entire miserable day of dreary, nonstop drizzle with occasional pockets of serious shower, to believe the weather forecast that calls for the precipitation to magically disappear by the 7:57 p.m. first pitch. But who knows, eh? Maybe they’re right.’’

So far, with three hours and change to the scheduled first pitch, they might well be correct. It might be a small miracle, considering the way things looked only an hour ago.

It's up to the best weather man in Milwaukee

NEW YORK -- The good news is that there are no canoes or rowboats moving around in the outfield a mere four hours to alleged game time for the scheduled opener of the World Series.

There are puddles that appear deep enough to float a canoe on the rubberized warning track around the field at Yankee Stadium and it requires a great leap of faith, after a night of strong rain and an entire miserable day of dreary, nonstop drizzle with occasional pockets of serious shower, to believe the weather forecast that calls for the precipitation to magically disappear by the 7:57 p.m. first pitch.

But who knows, eh? Maybe they’re right. As someone here said, with a nod to blue-skies commissioner Bud Selig, “No doubt they have employed the best meteorologist in Milwaukee.’’

The word here, very unofficial, is that they feel the field will be playable at some point tonight, although not necessarily 7:57 p.m. So we will wait and see and try to craft something to hold space in the good old first edition of the newspaper, while preparing for the longest of days and nights.

Besides, what else is there to do, having paid the $30 for parking in the press lot? Perhaps head out to River Avenue and see what the T-shirts stands have come up with to insult the Phillies. (And they tend to be pretty clever. The one they sell about Bawston can’t be quoted verbatim here, but it is kind of funny.)

For what it is worth, betting on the first game seems to be leaning toward the Yankees and C.C. Sabathia, who now are up to minus-$168 (you wager $168 to win $100). The Phillies are plus-$153 (wager $100 to win $153). The starting numbers had been -$165 and plus-$150.

For the Series, New York still is a strong -$200 favourite, with the Phillies plus-$170.

I will check in later when it gets closer to something serious being decided.

Good news for some kids, if not Blue Jay fans

The good news is that there’s another big cheque coming to the Jim Proudfoot Corner of the Star’s Santa Claus Fund, courtesy of Paul Beeston.

More than a year ago, when he was named interim president of the Blue Jays, he vowed – and repeatedly – that he would be out of the job by Christmas. This did not sound right and I immediately bet him $500, payable to the paper’s Christmas charity for children, that he would still be in the job after his initial deadline. He paid up, and generously, and sometime after that, as his self-imposed deadline kept extending further outward, we went double or nothing for this year.

So now comes the word, which seemed increasingly more likely as time went on and Rogers kept begging him to stick around, that Beeston will indeed stay on as president and CEO of both the Blue Jays and the Rogers Centre. They say a three-year term, but let’s stop believing that he will ever set a date for the end of this particular run.

He has this business in his blood and the deeper he got into it, the more hollow sounding his vows to get out once he found the right man. I ultimately thought he would aim for his golf handicap over the daily trials and tribulations of a struggling team in a marketplace that has turned sideways, if not turned it back outright, on baseball. But such was not the case.

For the past year, while protesting that he was deep into the search for his replacement, Beeston has acted as if he was in it for the long run rather than the short haul, totally restructuring the business end of an organization. Because he has Rogers’ ears, or most of them, on this – plus a salary commitment of $120 million any time they need it and a chance for more – he caused the baseball end to start getting itself sorted out, too.

It was Beeston, always anxious to keep Canadians on the fast-track management path, who pulled the trigger on J.P. Ricciardi and installed Alex Anthopoulos in that job, lest the team lose Anthopoulos to one of the other clubs that had called asking about his availability.

Since he got the job, Anthopoulos has been hiring scouts and advisors – Mel Didier and Mel Queen, two more blasts from the past, joined today – and it simply didn’t make sense any more to assume the new GM was going to do all this rebuilding when a new president was going to come in on top of him and say, ‘Hey, wait a minute.’’

So Anthopoulos is Beeston’s guy and so, too, is Cito Gaston, who had one more year to go on his contract.

Beeston and Anthopoulos spent last Thursday having dinner with Roy Halladay and his wife in Florida, where Halladay has a winter home. Halladay holds the immediate key to the future of the team; if he wants out, Anthopoulos has a lot more on his plate than he first suspected. So, too, does the new – make that old – president and CEO, the one who couldn’t stay away. Good news for some kids at Christmas, at least.

Lee-Sabathia in Yankee Stadium? It's been done before

While sitting around, waiting for The Monster to show those Ducks who’s boss, a baseball thought struck: Does everyone realize the World Series pitching matchup for the first game Wednesday is a rematch of the first game at the rebuilt Yankee Stadium?

Back in mid-April, the $1.3 billion pleasure palace was opened with Cleveland’s Cliff Lee taking on C.C. Sabathia. It was a match of the past two American League Cy Young Memorial Award winners.

So much has changed since then, obviously. The Indians won it 10-2, scoring nine runs against the Yankee bullpen in the seventh inning – and where have you gone Jose Veres? – after Sabathia left. He threw 122 pitches in 5 2/3 innings, which almost certainly will be more than he throws Wednesday.

The Yankee third baseman that day was Cody Ransom, not Kate Hudson's boyfriend, and Lee, wih the Indians long since gone into the tank, would later be traded to the Philadelphia Phillies, for whom he dominated, as most good AL pitchers do when they get to the National League.

One last look back at the ALCS before turning attention to the World Series and understand it is my experience that good teams, which the Yankees surely are, often look lucky, too. That just seems to be the way it works.

That clinching game Sunday night included two of the more memorable moments that could have turned the game around entirely if they had gone the other way. Both went exactly the way the Yankees needed them to go.

In the top of the seventh, Yanks leading 3-1, the Angels had a runner on first and manager Mike Scioscia pinch-hit Maicer Izturis for his hottest hitter, Jeff Mathis. That in itself is worth a question or two, but Andy Pettitte had just been lifted for reliever Joba Chamberlain. Izturis hit a hot smash to short, where it bad-hopped off Derek Jeter’s chest. What initially looked like a double-play ball now looked like the tying runs on base and none out. Except the ball bounced off Jeter’s chest right toward second base, where Robinson Cano simply reached over and picked it up with his foot on the bag for a force play. Big break there.

Cano was at the centerpiece of the next huge momentum-shifting play, in the top of the eighth, with Mariano Rivera on and not entirely looking like his dominant self. With Chone Figgins at second and one out, Torii Hunter hit a low liner up the middle. Off the bat, from the centrefield camera angle, it looked like an RBI single because Jeter never gets to this kind of hit.

But here was Cano – on the shortstop side of second base – to field it on the hop and flip to first for the second out. Figgins never even advanced to third base, although he would score when the next batter, Vlad Guerrero, singled to right.

What on Earth was Cano doing there? It turns out he was holding Figgins at second and was just retreating back toward his normal position when Hunter hit his rocket. That was another huge break for the Yankees; how many times have you seen second basemen on that side of the bag make a play to first base? If it gets through, Guerrero’s single makes it 3-2, first and third and one out.

Mind you, the Angels then self-destructed. They screwed up two bunts in a row in the bottom of the eighth when everybody in the place knew a bunt was coming. Howie Kendrick dropped an easy toss, then Scott Kazmir airmailed a 45-foot throw.

Earlier, too, Guerrero had been doubled off first on a routine fly ball to right field. That’s inexcusable and later on, when Guerrero trotted halfway to first base after ball three, he was telling the world his head wasn’t entirely in it.

With all this terrible baseball, the Angels have no one to blame except themselves, really. They made eight errors in six games, plus let a popup fall, and never did get around to making their speed advantage count for much. But they didn’t get many breaks at critical moments, either.

Out here having fun in that warm California sun

The Angels were a loose bunch when working out at the Big A Friday morning, getting in a few swings under glorious hot sunshine before heading east. They got off a very large hook Thursday night with their 7-6 win and even down 3-2 to the Yankees and facing a five-hour flight to New York after today's workout, they were jazzed.

They were smiling and joking and when little Erick Aybar launched a longish batting-practice home run, teammates started needling him and he gave it right back to them.

You often see teams messing around and having fun like this. It's nothing new. Facing elimination in the LCS, there was no sign of tension or apprehension and that's a good thing. At this point they figure they have nothing to lose.

"I think you always have to feel that way. You can't be afraid to lose," manager Mike Scioscia said. "You can't be afraid to fail. When you get into that mode, you can really play aggressive and that's when your best baseball comes out."

Their best baseball tends to be speed-based. That part of the game hasn't really expressed itself yet in this series. Scioscia still has it up his sleeve, although Andy Pettitte, who starts for the Yankees in Game No. 6, can be very effective at shutting down the running game.

"They're paying a lot of attention to it. There are some things you can't force," Scioscia said. "They won a hundred and some games for a reason, because they do a lot of things well on the field. But we're going to keep pressing them."

Scioscia said he might have "subtleties" in his lineup for Saturday, but no major changes. But no one should be surprised if leadoff man Chone Figgins (2 for 30 in the post-season) and ninth-place hitter Aybar (nine hits and a walk from A.J. Burnett that loomed huge in the Yankees blowing the 6-4 lead) don't switch places.

One more thought on Major League Baseball's switch to an all-veteran crew for the World Series: It might not really matter.

Just because an ump is a veteran doesn't mean he doesn't screw up. Look at Tim McClelland in the fourth game here Tuesday. The other thing about veteran umps is that they don't always hustle like the younger ones and not to pick on McClelland, but he wasn't anywhere close to correct position when he called Nick Swisher out for leaving third base early in that game. Plus, veterans umps are sometimes less likely to seek help on a play, so sure they are in their judgment.

So it might not make a difference and if this World Series has a number of obviously botched calls – which no one is hoping for – we're all going to hear cries out for increasing TV replay in baseball, beyond its limited use now.