ALCS

The ALCS will be the nightcap to follow a NLCS game which pits a guy some people once compared to his opponent (that is Vicente Padilla to Pedro Martinez)..what we get today is a watered down version, though Padilla comes in throwing well, he never turned into the pitcher many envisioned early in his career. Pedro meanwhile, has been pretty good for the Phillies, until of course, they over-worked him. Now he is much rested and there is just no guessing what type of performance to expect out of either of these guys. One thing is for sure however, the Dodgers have to win this game or the series is over. Especially with Cliff Lee set to pitch game 3 back in Philly.

I'm not going to get too in-depth on the Yankees-Angels series. Everyone knows how much trouble the Yanks have had in recent history with the Angels. Everyone also knows that the Yankees are the best team in baseball and the favorite to win both this series and the World Series. The weather in NY is terrible. It hasn't rained or snowed here like the weather called for, and honestly, I don't think it will rain a ton tonight. But it is going to be extremely cold and likely pretty windy. Tomorrow's game is almost undoubtedly going to get canceled with rain forecasted all day. The decision will then be whether Fox wants to pit the baseball at 4 o'clock against a weak slate of 4 o'clock NFL games. Otherwise both the Yanks/Angels and Phils/Dodgers will be playing at 8 Sunday night. My guess is Yanks/Angels game 2, 4 o'clock Sunday afternoon.

Obviously potential rain-outs would figure to be advantage Yankees. One of the few chinks in the team's armor is a lack of depth in the starting rotation. They will probably be using CC on 3 days rest in game 4 anyway, but clearly if he gets any more rest it makes the decision that much easier. Meanwhile, a strength of the Angels team is depth in the starting rotation. They don't have a true ace, but there isn't a ton of difference between Lackey, Weaver, Kazmir, Saunders.

I definitely think we will see the Angels take a couple games here. Burnett can be very shaky and did not exactly pitch well against Minnesota. A repeat performance of that against this Angels team could be a disaster. The Angels are always tough at home and the Yanks do not like traveling to the West. Clearly, the Yankees should be able to get it done this series, but their margin of error is probably smaller than people think. Say CC Sabathia loses tonight, will anyone be shocked if Burnett then drops a game and the Yanks find themselves in a hole before heading out west? CC has proven he is a horse and can pitch on short rest, but this is just one year after his arm was completely abused in a pennant race. The question of whether he can repeat that type of performance on short rest seems underrated to me.

Ultimately, the Yankees lineup is just too good and the bullpen is certainly much stronger than the Angels....LAA would have to play near flawlessly hitting with runners on, getting quality starts and managing not to blow games with a less than stellar bullpen (not the norm for this team recently).

Prediction: Yankees in 7.