The Mighty Yankees And The Rising Tribe
CLEVELAND VS N.Y. YANKEES (starts Thurs.)--------------
If there is a team in this year's playoffs that resembles the unlikely champions of the past six seasons--Arizona in 2001, Anaheim in 2002, Florida in 2003 and the White Sox in 2005--it's the Indians.
Much like double-headed monster of Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling at the top of the rotation that Arizona used to upset the Yanks, the Indians have Vallejo's C.C. Sabathia and the wiry Fausto Carmona.
The key to this series will be the bullpens. Even though Cleveland has their two aces pitching four of the possible five games, of the two the experience of Carmona could come into play against a high-scoring, veteran Yankees offense.
New York's strength, conversely, is not their starting pitching. Chien Ming Wang is solid and should take well to the pressures of pitching games one and four, but the rotation of Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens or whoever else has a decidedly retro feel and that is not something that inspires hope in a short playoff series.
Cleveland has become a popular boutique pick to win it all and rightly so. They have power and good situational hitting all wrapped up with a blanket of superb, gritty young stars. Ryan Garko, Grady Sizemore, Travis Hafner, Victor Martinez and so on and so on, but Cleveland's bullpen will be the icing on the cake.
In the playoffs, history shows that a strong bullpen can shore up many deficiencies. Cleveland has Rafael Perez, Rafael Betancourt and possibly someone like Jake Westbrook leftover from the shortened rotation. Closer Joe Borowski could be a question mark that will make a trip to the World Series incumbent on limiting the amount of close games he'll have to finish up. INDIANS IN FOUR.
