Quick World Series Prediction

[dlgood]

Yankees in Five

1. Similar pitching staffs, except Sabbathia and Rivera are better than Lee and Lidge

2. Somewhat similar lineups, except that the Yankees have multiple switch hitters, while Philly's best hitters (Utley, Howard, Ibanez) exhibit terrible platoon splits vs. lefties.

Other than that, I'm kind of rooting for snow seeing as I'm a fan of neither team.

ETA - Actually, Chase Utley has very good Lefty/Righty splits. (As seen last night.) Ryan Howard still looks like a harmless kitten vs. lefties.

Comments

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

Snow! A pox on you. (Snow means it will snow on me! Unacceptable.)

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

Yes, my big Series prediction is nasty cold weather. The first thing I thought of in September as the playoff teams were mostly decided, "Philly versus the Yankees in November! Sheesh!"

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Yeah, though Denver, Detroit and Boston would be worse...

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

You're just unfortunate collateral damage in my war against November baseball.

[hjcallipygian.livejournal.com]

Man, Cliff Lee owned last night. It's always fun to see a surprising clutch performance.

I think that you've understated the experience factor. Philly was here last year. The Yankees have all kinds of pressure, and really, only Jeter and Rivera have any WS experience.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

Yes. All L.A. sounded fine. But the gods of perversity would never let happen going into November. ;o)

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Small sample size...)

Lee, no doubt, was dominant last night. He needs to be, because good as he's been against weaker NL hitters, Sabbathia's generally better. If we're expecting them both to pitch games 4 & 7, my money would be on CC. Actually, if it does go 7, I'd expect Lee to start game 5 and relieve in 7.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

No kidding about Lee. How bout catching that pop-up

As per experience, nobody has experience until they do, and that didn't seem to hurt the Phills last year. The bigger problem for the Yankees are the tremendous slumps Swisher and Texiera are going through.

And no matter how much pressure the Yankees might be facing, were I a philly fan I'd still be worried about their lineup. (And Howard's sad vulnerability to lefty pitching)

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

I grew up as a Baltimore Orioles fan, but switched allegiance when the Expos moved to DC. As such, I'm a fan of neither Philly nor the Yanks, and actually dislike both teams.

The only thing I'm rooting for, and in a perverse way, is for A-Rod to have a great series and for Jeter to suck - mostly because Yankees fans dislike A-Rod and slurp Jeter so much.