This whole season, the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies have been linked together despite the fact that they’re in separate leagues. Both teams have a ton of talent and have won a championship in the last couple of years. But the main reason for the linkage was due to the projections that they were to face each other in the World Series.
To their credit, both teams had done their respective jobs by winning their divisions and getting through their opening rounds in dominating fashion. The Phillies used the strength of their pitching to get them past Cincinnati in a clean sweep, while the Yankees used their brute force and menacing lineup in the late
innings of every game to humiliate Minnesota in a clean sweep.
With so many similarities and comparisons between the two teams, isn’t it a little freaky to see that both teams are struggling with the same affliction that has put them in major danger of losing out on a chance at the World Series? At a time when things tend to get a little colder on the East Coast, the Phillies and Yankees weren’t counting on their bats to go ice cold as well.
People are looking for reasons as to why the Yankees are losing to the Texas Rangers and why the Phillies are losing to the Giants despite having arguably the best trio of pitchers on one team that the game has ever seen. They don’t have to look far. It’s right in front of their face. The batters for these two teams simply aren’t getting the job done.
The Yankees were certainly counting on their bats to get them through to the final round. They’ve counted on them all year since the pitching staff has been so hit-or-miss. But 18 runs in 5 games are just simply not enough. As crazy as this seems, I think the Yankee coaching staff is OK with the idea that their pitchers have given up 32 runs in 5 games. It was to be expected and would have been accepted provided that the Yankee hitters did their job. They have not.
On the other side, the Phillies didn’t even need to score that many runs because their top three pitchers would be able to keep the Giants’ run total down. And for the most part, they have by only allowing 14 runs in the first 4 games. But when the offence also only scores 14, they allow themselves to be subject to this kind of danger.
We must give credit to the Giants pitching staff as well because they have some live arms and serious talent, but the talk heading into the series was that the Phillies would ultimately prevail because they would have the major edge in offence.
They were linked because they were supposed to battle for the World Series. But with each facing 3-1 deficits, the odds say that both will be linked in the off-season by the idea that the 2010 World Series championship was one that got away from them.