Oct 13

LCS, Day One

Only one game today, Tigers v. Yankees at Yankee Stadium at 8:00PM Eastern. It’s Doug Fister for the Tigers and Andy Pettitte for the Yankees. Pettitte’s next win in the postseason will be his 20th, which is astonishing, but is also symbolic of the inflation in the number of postseason games since 1995 when the Division Series was added as a result of splitting the leagues into three divisions each. The leader before the new playoff series were adopted was Whitey Ford with 10 wins (the League Championship Series started in 1969).

The Tigers have Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera; the Yankees have the Rodriguez soap opera plus Jeter and Granderson and Swisher and Texeira and Cano.

Oct 13

Dodger’s grades, cont.

In an ongoing series, Mark Saxon grades the Dodgers’ outfield this past season and looks ahead to what it might be next season, with a healthy Kemp, a recovered Crawford and a steady Ethier.

After that he does the same thing for the pitching rotation. Beyond Kershaw, forecasting who makes it up is the interesting question there, since we don’t yet know whether Billingsley will have Tommy John surgery. The latest news about that is from October 3, when Trainer Sue Falsone said “Billingsley can avoid Tommy John surgery if he stays pain-free, but ‘if he hits any road bumps he’s probably going to have to have surgery.'” A week ago he was playing catch two of every three days and reporting no pain, but that could change.

Then there’s Lilly. We won’t know till spring training whether his shoulder has fully recovered. Harang and Capuano are under contract, as is Beckett. Blanton is a free agent and will likely test the waters, but he didn’t perform all that well as a Dodger anyway.

A press release from ESPN LA says that Dave Hansen is out as hitting coach; he’s been offered another position within the organization. “Pitching coach Rick Honeycutt, third-base coach Tim Wallach, first-base coach Davey Lopes, bench coach Trey Hillman and bullpen coach Ken Howell will return in 2013.”