The New York Yankees will hope to continue their 2009 playoff dominance today against the LA Angels. They have yet to lose this year in the postseason. It was close on Saturday… real close.
Yankee fans can thank Alex Rodriguez for keeping the Bombers in Game 2. In the bottom of the eleventh inning, he hit his third homerun of the postseason to keep the Yankees tied with the Angels. Before 2009, ARod had one homer in his last 13 postseason games.
Yanks fans can probably also extend a little gratitude towards Macier Izturis. Thanks to his errant throw in the bottom of the 13th inning, ex-Cub Jerry Hairston Jr scored to break the 3-3 tie and brought the Yanks their second win of the ALCS.
That’s five errors in two games for the Angels for those counting and a lot out there are. LAA has come into the postseason with one of the best defensive teams in the majors yet it’s one of their facets that has let them down.
They wasted a great outing by Joe Saunders who allowed just 2 earned runs in seven innings and pretty decent work from the pen by Kevin Jepsen and Darren Oliver.
One more interesting key stat from the boxscore:
Runners left in scoring position, 2 out: Guerrero 7
Yikes!
So right now, the Yankees are up by two (and already up 2-0 in the 4th inning of the 3rd game as of this writing). It’s nice to say that anything can happen in baseball but not every team can pull off what the Red Sox did in 2004. Is the writing on the wall for LAA? It is unless they can pull away with a comeback today.