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Angels facing steep hill to climb against Yankees

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Bob Klapisch

Bob Klapisch covers baseball for The Record in New Jersey and worked at the New York Post and New York Daily News. The author of five books, he was recently voted a top-five columnist in the country by the Associated Press Sports Editors.

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Updated Oct 21, 2009 10:58 PM ET
     
 
You don't have to remind the Angels how far away the World Series is — or, more accurately, how close they are to the offseason. Torii Hunter speaks for everyone in the clubhouse when he says, "time is running out" in the AL Championship Series.
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With a 3-1 series advantage, the Yankees need just one more game, just one more night of holding down Anaheim's best hitters. They're counting on A.J. Burnett, who proved in Game 2 — 6.1 innings, two runs — that his curveball is as illusory in October as it is in July. The Angels, however, are facing much longer odds. Not only do they have to beat the Yankees three times, two of those games would be played in the Bronx, which has so far spooked the Western Division champs. Actually, the place was a buffet table of disaster for the Angels, with its loud, aggressive fans, the crazy wind-swirls and, most of all, its freezing temperatures. It's true, the weather has been milder in New York this week, but if the series goes to Game 6 on Saturday night, the forecast, incredibly, calls for more rain with lows in the mid-40s. Such raw conditions are not what the Angels are built for. So says one major talent evaluator who believes Mike Scioscia's players, "are probably dreading" going back to Yankee Stadium. For now, all the Angels can do is focus on Game 5 Thursday night, cross their fingers, and hope for a better performance out of John Lackey than they got from Scott Kazmir in Game 4. The Angels seem comfortable with this doomsday scenario, if for no other reason than because Lackey not only is their best pitcher, he's their toughest, too. "We call him an ace for a reason," said Chone Figgins, noting the right-hander's career 3.03 ERA in the postseason. If Lackey can catch the Yankees sleeping, he hands the baton to Joe Saunders, who allowed only two runs in seven innings in Game 2, at which point the series could turn into a sudden-death affair in Game 7. It's a long shot. It's probably a pipe dream. But it's not impossible, something the Yankees know first hand. It's been five years since they were victims of the greatest collapse in October history, taking a 3-0 lead over the Red Sox in the ALCS before losing the next four games. There are still five Yankees who remain from the '04 squad — Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Hideki Matsui, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera — and while those ghosts seem mostly exorcised, the lesson hasn't been forgotten. "You can never sit back and relax and say you have a two-game lead or anything," Jeter said. "You've got to come out like every game's Game 7." The odds of blowing a 3-1 series lead are slightly less fantastic; there's an 84 percent chance the Bombers will prevail, according to whowins.com, a web site that specializes in sports-related probabilities. Besides the Bombers, there've been only two other teams who were unable to capture a championship after holding a 3-1 lead — the '85 Blue Jays, who were beaten by the Royals, and the 2003 Cubs, who lost to the Marlins. All of this matters to the Angels, who could use any nugget of information, any scrap of good luck that suggests they're not vapor — at least not yet. Still, if they have ideas of breaking the Yankees' hearts, they'll have to do more than talk bravely. They'll have to actually start hitting. Figgins, who started the series 0-for-18, was only stating the obvious when he said, "the Yankees have done a good job of keeping us off base. It seems the only hits we get are broken bat hits, which means their pitchers haven't made a lot of mistakes in the middle of the plate." The Angels, who were second in the AL in runs this year, have scored only ten times in four games, posting a mere .201 average. Asked for an explanation, Hunter said, "they've got CC (Sabathia) and Mariano (Rivera). Need I say more?" That's realism — or fatalism, your choice. Either way, it illustrates the Angels' frustration with the Yankees' dominant pitching. Sabathia, Burnett and Andy Pettitte have combined for a 4-0 record and 1.89 ERA this postseason, holding opponents to a .193 average. That run of excellence has allowed the Bombers to survive another kind of streak — 0-for-25 with runners in scoring position during this series. But, just as they have all season, the Yankees cover their blemishes with power: they've slammed eight home runs against the Angels, while Alex Rodriguez continues to treat October as his nationally-televised batting practice session. After going 3-for-4 with two RBIs and another HR in Game 4, the third baseman now has five HRs in the playoffs, and has driven in at least one run in eight straight postseason games. That mark ties Rodriguez with Lou Gehrig for the most in Yankee history. Maybe it's easier to understand, then, why Hunter says, "the pressure is on them, not us." That's another way of saying the world has given up on the Angels, even if they intend to fight to the last breath. "One game at a time, that's the only way we can look at it, because there's no tomorrow if we lose," said Figgins. That's the first step on the road to recovery, even if the path leads to more danger — Game 7, in the Bronx, in the rain, perhaps, with Sabathia waiting to throw that 95-mph fastball on full rest.
Tagged: Torii Hunter, Derek Jeter, Red Sox, Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Angels, Blue Jays, Joe Saunders, John Lackey, Chone Figgins, A.J. Burnett, Yankees, Hideki Matsui, Scott Kazmir

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