Top Five Reasons New York Yankees Lost ALCS

For all the discussion about how Cliff Lee could decide the American League Championship Series in a potential Game 7, it turned out the Texas Rangers needed only one start from their starting ace to dethrone the New York Yankees and clinch the AL pennant for the first time in franchise history.

And as the Yankees attempt to pick up the pieces from a failed quest to win their 28th World Series Championship, they should be able to point to a myriad of reasons why a season in which they finished with the second-best record in the American League ended in disappointment.

This on-going analysis should also result in the identification of five main reasons New York is entering an off-season full of uncertainty much sooner than they could have possibly imagined. Ultimately though, any which way the pie is sliced, the Bronx Bombers were humbled by a team that could have destiny on their side in this year’s postseason.

5. David Robertson’s inability to hold close games

In the 61 innings he was called upon during the regular season, Yankees right-handed reliever David Robertson held 14 games and amassed 71 strikeouts. Robertson’s numbers included an ERA of 3.82 and a WHIP of 1.50.

But among New York’s relievers in the ALCS, the Rangers roughed up Robertson more than any other to the tune of six earned runs on eight hits in only two innings. Robertson finished the series with a dismal ERA of 20.25 and a WHIP of 3.38.

Robertson’s unreliability allowed Texas to blow open close games in Game 3 and Game 6 to expand deficits from which the Yankees were unable to recover.

Game 3 saw the Rangers turn a 3-0 contest into a 8-0 blowout with Robertson on the mound while in Game 6, outfielder Nelson Cruz belted a two-out, two-run home run off Robertson to give the Rangers a 5-1 lead and propel them into the World Series.

4. Power outage of Alex Rodriguez & Mark Teixeira

For a duo that combined for 63 home runs and 233 RBI’s, to say that Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira failed to come through in the ALCS would be a gross understatement.

In 21 plate appearances, Rodriguez managed to come up with only four hits and 2 RBI’s to finish with an anemic batting average of .190. Meanwhile, Teixeira didn’t register a single hit in his 14 at-bats prior to bowing out of the series with a hamstring injury in Game 4.

The lack of production from the Yankees’ corner infielders left AL MVP candidate Robinson Cano to carry the offensive load for the team, which he did with flying colors. However, Cano’s power display needed to be supplemented by similar efforts from Rodriguez and Teixeira for New York to have a shot at winning the series.

Unfortunately for the Yankees, the power went off somewhere between the end of the American League Divisional Series and the beginning of the ALCS and they’re still waiting for it to come back on.

3. Ineffectiveness of Phil Hughes

Phil Hughes won an impressive 18 games in the regular season for New York but he also had an unusually high 4.19 ERA, which translates to having a significant amount of run support during his starts. But as evidenced in the ALCS, when the run support wasn’t as robust, Hughes’ shortcomings became increasingly glaring.

Hughes was the loser of Game 2 and Game 6 at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, where he gave up eleven earned runs on fourteen hits and walked seven while only striking out six. Hughes’ ERA in his two starts was 11.42.

When the #2 starter puts up those kinds of numbers in a best-of-seven series, chances are his team isn’t advancing to the next round. This holds true for any team in baseball; even the New York Yankees.

2. Colby Lewis outshines Cliff Lee

Of all the starters on the Rangers’ pitching staff, Colby Lewis was arguably the last one who would have been expected to shine the brightest against the Yankees. Nevertheless, it was Lewis who channeled his inner Cliff Lee to shut down New York’s vaunted offense in Game 2 and Game 6.

Thus, the same Colby Lewis who finished with a 12-13 record and an ERA of 3.72 this season went 2-0 with a 1.98 ERA on the biggest stage of his career. More importantly, Lewis’ performances keyed Texas to a critical victory in Game 2 to even the series and a win in Game 6 to clinch the pennant.

He may have not been a household name prior to the ALCS but, as far as the Yankees are concerned, Colby Lewis is a name that will not soon be forgotten.

1. The Rangers were the better team

As hard as it might be for Yankees fans to admit, the Rangers outhit, outhustled and outpitched New York throughout a series that could have just as easily been a sweep as opposed to a six-game affair.

Texas scored twice as many runs (38-19), their batting average was more than a hundred points higher (.304 vs. .201) and their pitching staff’s ERA was nearly three points lower (2.76 vs. 6.58) compared to the Yankees.

So, in essence, the ALCS really wasn’t as close as the six-game outcome would make it appear. Simply put, the Rangers wanted it more.

And that may very well be the toughest reason for the Yankees and their fans to accept of them all.

Click here to read the original article on Examiner.com, which includes relevant links and a special pictorial/video recap of Game 6 of the American League Championship Series.

Yankees' Greatest Failure Must Become Rallying Cry in ALCS

When the final out was recorded in a 19-8 trouncing to put the New York Yankees up 3-0 in the 2004 American League Championship Series, the ‘Curse of the Bambino’ appeared to be alive and well.

In the history of Major League Baseball, no team had ever rallied from a three-game deficit to win a postseason series.

However, after two extra-inning, game-winning walk-off hits by David Ortiz, a pitching performance for the ages from Curt Schilling, and a Johnny Damon grand slam in the decisive game at Yankee Stadium, the Boston Red Sox proudly joined the National Hockey League’s 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs and 1975 New York Islanders in the annals of professional sports.

And although the Yankees didn’t find themselves in a 0-3 predicament, it certainly could be argued the situation was equally as grim when they took the field for Game 5 of the 2010 ALCS against the Texas Rangers. The three previous contests saw the Rangers outscore New York, 25-5, to place the defending World Series Champions on the brink of elimination.

But behind CC Sabathia’s best outing of this year’s postseason and timely hitting from Curtis Granderson, Nick Swisher and Robinson Cano, the Yankees pushed the series back to Texas with a convincing 7-2 victory.

As a result, Phil Hughes, who got roughed up for seven earned runs in four innings in Game 2, will take the mound Friday evening in an attempt to save New York’s season and force a deciding Game 7 against the virtually unhittable Cliff Lee.

Much like the Red Sox in 2004 though, the Yankees’ mentality should essentially boil down to one pitch, one at-bat, one inning and, most importantly, one game at a time.

As daunting as the prospect is of facing Lee again, Texas’ left-handed ace shouldn’t be a thought or the subject of any conversation in New York’s locker room because Game 6 presents enough of a challenge of its own.

The immediate task at hand for the Bronx Bombers is two-fold, getting to Rangers Game 6 starter Colby Lewis early and often enough to boost the confidence of Phil Hughes; which is exactly what Texas did for Lewis in Game 2 when they staked him to a five-run lead in the first three innings.

This allowed Lewis to settle into a groove and pitch confidently enough to hold the Yankees to only two runs on six hits before the Rangers bullpen shut the door.

Meanwhile, whether New York’s offense gives him a cushion to work with or not, the goal for the 24-year-old Hughes is to work six solid innings in serving as the bridge to Kerry Wood and Mariano Rivera.

The Game 2 debacle should already be in Hughes’ rearview mirror and he should step on the mound assured his repertoire can win the Yankees one more game; especially considering the fact he finished tied for fourth in the American League in victories with 18.

Another point to consider is that all the pressure is on Texas to close out the series at home, where they have gone 1-3 in the postseason.

In addition, the Rangers will feel the tremendous weight of an entire state on their shoulders as they attempt to clinch the AL pennant for the first time in franchise history.

On the other hand, New York has 40 AL pennants and 27 World Series Championships to show for all the pressure-packed playoff games they have participated in over the course of their 97-year history, and this year’s team is as battle-tested as the rest.

Therefore, ‘the moment’ will not have the impact on New York as it does on the Rangers.

The Yankees took the first step toward an improbable comeback in Game 5, just as the Red Sox did in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS. And as evidenced by their age-old rivals, once a team begins building a little momentum it can become the impetus to leaving a lasting impression in professional sports lore.

This is the hope New York can cling to entering Game 6 at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington and where lessons can be gleaned from the greatest failure in team history.

If the Boston Red Sox can come back from a three-game deficit against a team that historically owned them then anything is possible, including a Game 6 victory to knot the series and a triumph over Cliff Lee in a game to decide the AL pennant.

Click here to read the original article on Examiner.com, which includes relevant links and a special pictorial/video recap of Game 5 of the American League Championship Series.

The Yankees Can’t Afford To Lose Another Game In ALCS

After putting on a pitching clinic in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series, Texas Rangers ace Cliff Lee upped his postseason record to 3-0 in three starts against the New York Yankees over the past two years. Oh, by the way, this unblemished record includes an ERA of 1.88, 26 strikeouts and only four walks.

So as a result of Lee’s continued dominance in the playoffs, Texas took a 2-1 lead in the series, recaptured home-field advantage from the Yankees and are in a position where they need only one more victory to guarantee that Lee will take the mound again in a potential Game 7.

Therefore, it can’t be understated that every game is a must-win for the Bronx Bombers for the duration of the ALCS. New York can ill afford to face Cliff Lee again, in Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, with their season on the line.

But with A.J. Burnett going in Game 4, CC Sabathia in Game 5 and Phil Hughes in Game 6, the Yankees are playing a dangerous game of Russian roulette against the best hitting lineup in the regular season and the postseason. Burnett, Hughes and even Sabathia, a leading candidate for the AL Cy Young Award, are all question marks going into their respective starts, which doesn’t bode well for a team in dire need of three consecutive wins.

In last year’s postseason, Sabathia was the anchor of New York’s starting rotation as he posted a record of 3-1 with a 1.98 ERA, 32 strikeouts and only nine walks in five starts. However, if Sabathia was considered Dr. Jekyll in 2009, he has become the equivalent of Mr. Hyde in this year’s playoffs. Sabathia, a 21-game winner during the regular season, has gone 1-0 in two starts, his ERA has ballooned to 7.20 and he has only eight strikeouts compared to seven walks during this postseason.

Meanwhile, after shutting down the Minnesota Twins for seven innings in the American League Divisional Series, Hughes got lit up for seven earned runs in four innings of work against the Rangers in Game 2 of the ALCS. And if New York extends the series to a sixth game, the 24-year-old Hughes will have the assignment of saving his team’s season on the field where he was shellacked less than a week ago.

As for the Yankees’ most enigmatic starter, after a season in which he went 10-15 with an ERA of 5.26, Burnett was left out of the rotation for the ALDS. Nevertheless, Burnett has been called upon to make a critical and necessary start in Game 4 of the ALCS in order to give the remaining starters their normal rest.

Bearing this in mind, Burnett, Sabathia and Hughes must either throw the game of their careers or the Yankees’ offense must be prolific enough to negate any sub-par performances from the aforementioned starters. There is simply no other option at this stage of the season with Cliff Lee waiting in the wings to pitch one game to decide the American League pennant.

The Yankees are extremely fortunate to be down only one game in the ALCS because Texas has outplayed them for the better part of 25 out of the 27 innings that have been played. But if New York loses another game in the series, their good fortune will come to an abrupt end.

Although the Rangers are two victories away from winning the AL pennant, the defending World Series Champions must treat every game like an elimination game, beginning with Game 4 at Yankee Stadium Tuesday evening.

Otherwise, the Yankees will have no choice but to tip their caps to Cliff Lee and call him their daddy when the ALCS is over.

Click here to read the original article on Examiner.com, which includes relevant links and a recap of Game 3 of the American League Championship Series.

Yankees’ Playoff Existence Flashes Before Their Eyes

When Alex Rodriguez crossed the plate with the go-ahead run in the eighth inning, New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi must have looked to the heavens and asked, ‘What did I do to deserve this?’

In retrospect, the Texas Rangers were only six outs away from capturing Game 1 of the American League Championship Series for the first home playoff victory in franchise history. But like the Minnesota Twins before them, Texas appears to have difficulty handling prosperity against the Yankees in the postseason.

Since a Game 1 road win over New York in the 1996 American League Divisional Series and a 4-2 seventh inning lead in Game 2, the Rangers have lost ten consecutive games to the Bronx Bombers in the playoffs. However, the latest defeat had to sting infinitely more than any of the others.

With Texas holding a seemingly commanding 5-0 lead entering the seventh inning, all seemed lost for the Yankees. Even a solo home run by second baseman Robinson Cano to put New York’s first run on the scoreboard didn’t come close to sounding the alarm for the impending rally on the horizon.

Nevertheless, Brett Gardner’s infield single to lead off the top half of the eighth was the beginning of seven consecutive batters reaching base in a five-run explosion, an outburst that gave the Yankees a lead they would never relinquish.

More importantly though, New York moved one step closer to assuring Rangers ace Cliff Lee doesn’t take the mound twice in the series. And ultimately, with a victory in Saturday afternoon’s Game 2, all the team with the second-best home record in the American League would have to do is win two out of three games to avoid going back to Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.

On the flip side of the coin, assuming Lee is a virtual lock to win Game 3, if the Rangers pitching staff can manage to collect two wins over the next few days then a Game 7 would still be in the offing. The potential problem is what losing a golden opportunity to take control of the ALCS has done to the team’s psyche.

In New York, a collective sigh of relief was breathed when closer Mariano Rivera recorded his MLB record 42nd postseason save by retiring leading AL MVP candidate Josh Hamilton on a groundout. A loss would have meant a momentum-building first home playoff victory for the Rangers and the increased odds of twice facing the pitcher who defeated them in Game 1 and Game 5 of last year’s World Series.

Click here to read the original article on Examiner.com, which includes relevant links and highlights of Game 1 of the ALCS between the New York Yankees and the Texas Rangers.

Did NY Yankees Lose ALCS in July?

On the afternoon of July 9, the New York Yankees were on the verge of finalizing a blockbuster deal to obtain the most potent arm-for-hire in recent memory; and all it would have cost the organization is top catching prospect Jesus Montero.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Cliff Lee’s reunion with former Cleveland Indians teammate CC Sabathia. A team that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May of this year, with no World Series appearances in its 38 years of existence, trumped the most valuable franchise in Major League Baseball.

In the closing stages of the race to acquire left-handed ace Cliff Lee from the Seattle Mariners, the Texas Rangers placed rookie first baseman Justin Smoak and three minor league prospects on the table to virtually steal Lee from right under the noses of the Bronx Bombers.

Surprisingly though, the two-time All-Star and 2008 Cy Young Award winner failed to deliver the goods in his fifteen regular season starts for the Rangers. Prior to the trade, Lee was 8-3 with a 2.34 ERA and an eye-popping strikeout-to-walk ratio of 14.8. For Texas, Lee was 4-6 with a 3.98 ERA and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 8.0.

However, despite Lee’s sub-par showing in his regular season stint with the Rangers, Texas still managed to win the American League West by the widest margin of all the divisional winners. And by using the momentum of a 21-6 June to propel them into the playoffs, the stage was set for the baseball world to witness the real reason the Rangers went the extra mile to keep Lee from joining the Yankees starting rotation.

In five postseason starts as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies last year, Lee went 4-0 with an ERA of 1.56, 33 strikeouts and only six walks. Most notably, two of Lee’s victories came against the New York Yankees in the World Series, the only two wins for Philadelphia in the 2009 Fall Classic.

This postseason has seen Lee pick up right where he left off, winning two games in the American League Divisional Series. Among those victories was a decisive Game 5 victory at Tropicana Field to help Texas eliminate the Tampa Bay Rays, the team that finished with the best record in the American League.

Now Lee will take his 2-0 record, 1.13 ERA and 21 strikeouts to the American League Championship Series for a Game 3 start and a potential Game 7 start against the team that ended up as the runner-up in the negotiations for his services.

Assuming there is no end to Lee’s postseason brilliance in the foreseeable future, at the very least, all C.J. Wilson, Colby Lewis and Tommy Hunter, who comprised the fourth best pitching staff in the American League this season, have to do is collect two wins in five games to guarantee a Game 7 start by Lee.

In any case, it goes without saying that the presence of Cliff Lee will loom large in the ALCS as the Yankees' ‘Chase for 28’ marches on; a chase that may have been destined to fail on that fateful afternoon of July 9. And in retrospect, by beating the Yankees at their own game of acquiring a marquee star, the Texas front office assured the franchise its best chance to appear in the World Series for the first time in team history.

The feather in the cap for New York is they have beaten a team with a starting rotation anchored by the seemingly indomitable Lee, with last year’s World Series against Philadelphia being the case in point. However, their concerted efforts to acquire Lee from the Mariners this season indicated a lack of interest in going down that route again.

But the Yankees’ plans to avert what is the current reality were spoiled by Texas and now the ALCS will tell the story of the true impact of their trade deadline loss to the Rangers for the services of baseball’s best postseason pitcher.

Click here to read the original article on Examiner.com, which includes relevant links and a special video preview of the American League Championship Series between the New York Yankees and the Texas Rangers.

NY Yankees Had the Minnesota Twins at "Hello"

For the fourth time in the last eight years, the New York Yankees eliminated the Minnesota Twins from the playoffs in the American League Divisional Series. And with Saturday evening’s completion of a series sweep for the second consecutive year, the Yankees have bested Minnesota in 12 of 14 games in the postseason since 2003.

But when the series began last week, the Twins had every reason to believe this would be the year they would dispel the notion New York had their number. Minnesota finished the regular season with an American League-best 53-28 record at Target Field, where the series commenced, while the Yankees won only 9 of their last 26 games to conclude the season amidst a myriad of concerns about the strength of their starting rotation.

In Game 1, Twins left-handed ace Francisco Liriano held New York scoreless for five innings as his offense staked him to a 3-0 lead entering the top of the sixth. However, given their playoff history, the ugly truth for Minnesota was that no lead is safe against the Yankees.

So when Mark Teixeira doubled down the left-field line, Alex Rodriguez drew a walk, and Robinson Cano and Jorge Posada followed with RBI singles to make it a 3-2 ball game, it was simply a matter of time before New York captured the lead to set the stage for another record-breaking save from Mariano Rivera.

Only one batter later, Curtis Granderson, who had been 4-22 against Liriano, tripled off the scoreboard in right-center field to give the Yankees a 4-3 lead to steal the hearts of the Twins for the umpteenth time.

Even a bases loaded walk surrendered by Yankees 21-game winner CC Sabathia, who clearly didn’t have his best stuff, in the bottom of the inning to tie the game couldn’t repair a Minnesota psyche that was completely crushed by Mark Teixeira’s two-run home run in the top of the seventh inning.

The icing on the cake was the Twins’ failure to capitalize on a blown call in the bottom of the ninth that gave them an extra out against the best closer in the history of Major League Baseball. In what should have been the last out of the game, replays clearly showed that Yankees right outfielder Greg Golson, a defensive substitute, caught Delmon Young’s sinking line drive.

However, Golson’s catch was ruled a trap after the umpires huddled for a discussion, which subsequently brought Jim Thome to the plate as the potential tying run. But Thome, a member of the 500-home run club, was retired on a popup to third baseman Alex Rodriguez to end the contest. Game over, series over.

Minnesota would proceed to bow out of the playoffs with a whimper, losing the final two games by a combined score of 11-3. But, make no mistake about it, Game 1 of the series set the stage for what immediately followed.

So a series that had the potential to be as competitive and compelling as any of the remaining three turned into what has essentially become the Yankees’ biennial first-round bye.

Click here to read the original article on Examiner.com, which includes relevant links and a special video presentation.