That’s right. A prediction. The Angels and Twins will meet in the ALCS.
It all came clear to me watching the Twins run into each other’s arms after the Detroit win.
Why will the Angels beat Boston? Well, I have certainly expressed in earlier articles why they wouldn’t, and why they haven’t. But now I am saying they WILL. for one simple reason.
Because I feel it.
Isn’t that what predictions are based on, anyway? Stats mean nothing in the playoffs. It’s all momentum, gut feeling, confidence and curses - or the end of them.
And ...
Alex Rodriguez began his final regular-season game of 2009 with 28 homers and 93 RBI, very respectable numbers for a 34-year-old guy who had missed a month of action following hip surgery.
But for Rodriguez, there was undoubtedly disappointment.
He had fallen short of the 30-homer, 100-RBI plateau for the first time since 1997. Behind all those stale, controversy-avoiding, positively Jeterian quotes he had given all season about just wanting to fit in, we knew the truth.
Alex Rodriguez still desperately wants to be regarded as The Man. El Hombre. His ego won't ...
The 2009 World Series is clearly the Yankees’ to lose.
Their offense features seven hitters who have at least 22 home runs as of Oct. 1. Don't forget an ace and a legendary closer no one wants to go up against.
The Yankees have also finished the season stronger than any other team who made the playoffs (they went 19-9 in September). They will have home field advantage from the American League Divisional Series to the World Series should they get there.
A few months ago, I made up my mind that ...
Somewhere around 10 minutes after six tomorrow afternoon, the man already anointed the American League's Most Valuable Player will step into the box against a contender for the American League Cy Young and decide what kind of playoff series we're in for.
Here's what we know so far, going into that at-bat:
CC Sabathia saw the Twins once this season, on July 7 at the Metrodome. He threw seven innings, gave up three hits and one run, and earned a resounding 10-2 win. Joe Mauer went hitless in three at-bats that day ...
This is what we have waited for all year long.
The 162 games. The day games, the night games, the winning streaks, the losing streaks, the walk-off wins, the pitching duels, the pies in the face, the grind, the blood, sweat, and tears. This is what eight teams have worked for since April.
After a dramatic finish in the 163rd game of the MLB season between the Twins and Tigers that saw Minnesota rally from being down 3-0 and 5-4 to win the A.L. Central 6-5 in 12 innings, it will be ...
Well, it wasn't the 19-inning game I had hoped for, but it was close.
The Twins outlasted the Tigers, 6-5, in 12 innings on Tuesday night to win the American League Central tiebreaker and clinch a spot opposite the Yankees in the AL Division Series, which will start in the Bronx at 6:07 pm Wednesday, just 20 hours after Carlos Gomez slid home with the winning run in Minneapolis.
New York got its wish, drawing a team that it not only defeated seven out of seven times this season, but one that ...
This is why they play the games.
Even though this philosophy is overplayed and overhyped in just about every sport, every year, the Yankees versus the Twins is the ultimate David versus Goliath contest.
The Bronx Bombers are 7-0 against the Twins this season, and since Rod Gardenhire took over as Twins skipper in 2002, the Yankees are 23-3 against him in the regular season.
The only time the two teams squared off in the postseason, 2004, the Yankees took the series in five games, beating Johan Santana, then the Twins ace.
So what should ...
...Chad Gaudin.
The Yankees broke from their season long stand of having Joba Chamberlain pitch strictly as a starter, and, in the last game of the season, threw him for one inning out of the bullpen.
Joba threw strikes, his velocity was in the mid-to-high 90s, and he punctuated a seven-pitch inning with a strikeout of Fernando Perez. Perez swung and missed on a biting slider, and then whiffed on a 95 MPH high fastball.
It was like the Joba of late 2007.
He used a hard fastball and nasty slider the entire inning. ...
Derek Jeter batted .334 this season. He had 212 hits, 18 homers, 30 steals, and 107 runs scored. He also played Gold Glove-caliber defense at shortstop, the game's most demanding position.
Think about that for a second.
Of all the subplots of a superb 2009 regular season for the Yankees, this is by far the most welcomed and unlikely development.
This was the season when Jeter was supposed to trend downward, his 35-year-old legs doing to him what they do to everyone else. Jeter refused to let that happen, however, rededicating himself and ...
Mike Vaccaro has been the lead sports columnist for the New York Post since 2002. A New York native, Vaccaro has also covered the local sports scene for the Newark Star-Ledger, as well as working for papers in Kansas City and Arkansas.
He’s just written a book entitled The First Fall Classic: The Red Sox, the Giants, and the Cast of Players, Pugs and Politicos Who Reinvented the World Series in 1912.
He’s also the author of 1941: The Greatest Year in Sports and Emperors and Idiots.
His latest book details the ninth ...