Yankees take a 2-1 World Series lead

The New York Yankees took a 2-1 World Series lead in the early hours of this morning after coming from behind to beat the Philadelphia Phillies 8-5 in a rain-delayed game.  Alex Rodriguez rebounded from two hit-less games by driving in two runs on a double that was turned into a home run after being reviewed.  Nick Swisher and Hideki Matsui also went deep for the Yankees and even though the Phillies matched their opponents in the home run stakes with two by Jayson Werth and a ninth-inning solo homer by Carlos Ruiz, New York’s superior pitching carried them home. 

 

Andy Pettitte was solid over six innings, recovering from a three-run second inning to keep his team in the game.  His opponent Cole Hamels’ night went the other way: starting off well but then unravelling.  After the A-Rod blow in the fourth, the Phillies’ starter hung a curveball to the lead-off hitter Swisher in the next inning that was swatted into left field for a double.  Hamels then committed the cardinal sin of making the same mistake to Pettitte.  Batting in the nine spot, the Yankees’ starting pitcher blooped the ball into the outfield to bring Swisher home to tie the game at 3-3 and Pettitte then scored a run for himself following a single by Derek Jeter and a two RBI double by Johnny Damon.  The Yankees tagged on single runs in each of the next three innings to take a 8-4 lead into the bottom of the ninth.  Ruiz’s homer off Phil Hughes gave the home side hope, but this was quickly extinguished by Mariano Rivera who got two outs to seal the Yankees’ win.

In doing so, Rivera put his team into a great position.  They now have a 2-1 series lead and will send their ace CC Sabathia out to the mound tonight, starting on short rest, for Game Four against Joe Blanton.

The first pitch was delayed by an hour and twenty minutes due to rain, a pain for everyone but particularly frustrating for us Brits staying up late to watch the action.  Various people on Twitter offered weather updates from Citizens Bank Park and, after sticking with it for half an hour past the scheduled 23.57 GMT start time, I decided to head for bed and then watch the game on MLB.com at a more hospitable time this morning.  As it turned out, I wasn’t the only person who used the benefit of replayed footage.

The umpires’ decision to use the instant replay system on A-Rod’s double/homer resulted in the right decision being made.  We’ve seen a number of mistakes being made by officials during the postseason this year, so that’s got to be a good thing and is a factor in favour of sticking with the system.  The call was made quickly as well, meaning that it didn’t cause a noticeable disruption to the flow of the game (certainly Andy Pettitte’s throw-overs to first base were a more tedious, if understandable, handbrake on the action).  Everything about the process worked well, but that in itself creates something of a problem for MLB. 

The most persuasive argument against the current system is that a home run call will not necessarily be more important to the outcome of a game than a close play on the basepads or a debatable balls-and-strikes call.  This makes it very difficult to justify using the technology for only one of those situations.  After Damon had flied out to start the fourth inning, Mark Teixeira got on base in front of Rodriguez via a walk when the home plate umpire ruled the 3-2 pitch by Hamels was low.  It looked a good pitch on first viewing and the MLB Gameday data shows that it should have been called a strike.  Had the Phillies been able to challenge that call, at best A-Rod’s homer would have been a solo shot, but it’s also possible that Hamels would have pitched to him differently in the first place, with two outs and no one on base (in particular, pitching from the wind-up rather than out of the stretch). 

It should really be a case of either going all-in with the technology, perhaps allowing managers to challenge whatever calls they wish on a rationed basis, or not using it at all.  Of the two, my personal preference would be to do away with it altogether.  MLB Commissioner Bud Selig was, and still is, a long-standing opponent of bringing technology into the game for umpiring decisions.  He finally relented to using it on home run calls largely on the basis that these were becoming ever more difficult for umpires to rule on, thanks to the configurations of outfield walls at many ballparks.  This specific incident was in some ways a great case for the need of a replay system because the ball actually hit a camera that protruded out over the wall (Joe Buck and Tim McCarver on FOX kept discussing whether the ball would have gone over the wall after hitting the camera lens, but it was later revealed that a ground rule had been set that a home run would be called regardless so long as the camera was hit). 

Is it just me, or is the answer here that MLB are the ones at fault for making the umpires’ lives even more difficult?  Why was the camera allowed to be there in the first place, protruding out over the wall?  The camera shot was hardly used throughout the broadcast anyway.  Why have MLB allowed teams to put up outfield walls that a) allow fans to reach out over the top and interfere with a ball that is still in play and/or b) don’t have a clear way to show if the ball is over the ‘home run threshold’ or not?  Sort those two problems out and it’s unlikely you would need to review a ‘boundary’ call, especially in the postseason when there is an extra umpire down each line.  I fear the horse has already bolted on these issues though, leaving us with a system that can lead to a correct decision being made quickly and yet still leaves one side feeling hard done by.

None of this is to deny the Yankees any credit for their victory.  Pretty much everything worked out well for Joe Griardi in Game Three.  He decided to start Swisher in the outfield after dropping him for the previous game and the gregarious former A’s and White Sox hitter responded with a 2-for-4 night.  Hideki Matsui had to make way from the batting lineup due to the switch to the non-DH National League rules, but he came off the bench in the eighth inning and got a pinch-hit home run.  The only thing that didn’t quite go to plan was the introduction of Phil Hughes in the ninth inning as he struggled once again.  Girardi was forced into calling for Rivera, but the light workload (two quick outs) should limit the impact on how he can use his closer in games four and five.

Game Four is tonight at 01.20 GMT (the early hours of Monday) and Yankee fans will be eyeing a 3-1 series lead, in no small part to the very favourable starting pitcher match-up.  However, the Phillies have beaten Sabathia once already and Joe Blanton produced a memorable display in last year’s Fall Classic (not least with his home run).  We’ve had three exciting games out of three so far and that trend looks set to continue tonight.