Yankees at Astros, 5:00 PM PT, TV: FS1
The Yankees start RHP Masahiro Tanaka (13-12, 4.74 ERA) on the road (6.48 ERA), where he was markedly worse than at home (3.22 ERA) this season. His opponent will be LHP Dallas Keuchel (14-5, 2.90 ERA), who’s 5-2 with a 1.24 ERA in seven career starts against the Yankees, including a three-hit six-inning shutout in the 2015 Wild Card Game in which he got the win.
Today in baseball history:
- 1960 At Forbes Field, Bill Mazeroski’s dramatic walk-off home run off Yankee hurler Ralph Terry breaks up a 9-9 tie, ending one of the most exciting seven game World Series ever played. Maz’s round-tripper remains the only home run ever to a win a World Series Game 7.
- 2001 The Yankees, being down 2-0 in the best-of-five series, stave off elimination, beating the A’s and Barry Zito, 1-0, thanks to the shutout pitching by Mike Mussina and Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada’s fifth-inning home run. Shortstop Derek Jeter backing up an errant relay throw down the first base line and flipping it home to cut down Jeremy Giambi as the potential tying run will be remembered as one of the best defensive plays in postseason history.
Lesson tonight on possibly facing ‘Stros pitching is maintain plate discipline (Dodgers were the number 1 team in the majors at not swinging at pitches out of the zone)
Astros squeeze out a 2-1 victory.
‘stros take game one.
Dodgers set rotation: same as in the NLDS. Kershaw, Hill, Darvish, Wood. That means Wood will not have pitched for about three weeks, which is the only concern I have about this.
Really no worthwhile way around it. Reducing the time off (he did pitch a sim game last week), by starting him sooner is probablly not worth it. He has managed a career ERA of 3.94 in 29 starts in Wrigley. Precious layoff did help him to regain velocity on his fastball. So there is that.
Moreover, if push comes to shove, I think we could see Klayton going with three days rest in games 4 and 7. Would depend on how they are doing and being judicious in using him at 6 inning/,<100 pitches. Maeda, Morrow plus the Tonys provide a bridge to Kenley. Wood in the pen would reinforce that, particularly if Avilan is not ready to go.
Sports Illustrated reconvened its writers and they picked the winners for the AL and NL Champs Series.
Well they all like the dodgers. I am not sure that is a good thing.