ALCS Beat: Yankees comeback not enough against resurging Angels

As Yogi Berra once said, “It ain’t over till it’s over”. And as my buddy Don, who is an Angel fan said late night, “If Brian Fuentes had walked Swisher, I think I would have jumped off my roof”.

Fortunately for the Angels (and Don S), he didn’t.

I learned my lesson though. I watched the game on TV at home till the beginning of the 7th. John Lackey had been pitching brilliantly up until then and had a 4-0 lead. Thinking that Big John had things well in hand, I decided to head to local coffee shop and watch the rest of the game on Gameday while I got some work done.

It’s a 6 block walk to the coffee shop and I was away from the game for 15 minutes, 20 tops. Logging into Gameday, I was rudely greeted with a 7-6 Yankee lead. Refreshing the browser didn’t seem to help.

Looking back at it, I had a sneaking suspicion that Lackey was tiring. Mid-inning, the camera crew show him in the dugout and boy, he really looked spent. I remember commenting on that to my kid.

But thanks to a 3-run seventh fueled by back-to-back base hits by Guerrero and Morales, the Angels got back on top for the final score 7-6.

I’d like to say that was the end of the excitement but the Yankees made the Halos earn their pay Thursday night. Angel reliever Brian Fuentes made things a little too interesting. After a two-out, bases empty intentional pass to Alex Rodriguez, Fuentes followed that up with a Matsui walk and a Cano HBP to load the bases. If that weren’t enough, Nick Swisher took him to a full count before popping out to short for third out to end the game.

Fuentes line looked good. One inning, no hits and a save. But that sure didn’t tell the story of the game. However, he got the job done.

The Angels got their miracle. Three-Two sounds a whole lot better than Two-Zero or Three-One.