The truth is, in these 5 game series, anything can happen. If the Tigers had to play the Royals in a five game series right now, would the Tigers decisively beat the Royals. As we saw last weekend the Royals could take the Tigers in a five game series, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are the better team.

I like the Tigers odds from here on out, since we will have our #1 and #3 pitcher going on full rest, while we get the Yanks #3 and #4 or #1 going on three days rest and we have home field advantage for the rest of the series.

Now anyone correct me if I’m wrong, but tha’ts the way it works unless you choose not to offer arbitration after a few years. They are around for six major league seasons before they can choose to leave on their own. Example, Bonderman is eligibible after 2008.

I was thinking the same thing. I was at the “Yankee game” (most of the fans didn’t even know who they were playing until the first pitch)…and explaining to a Yankee fan next to me that Verlander and Zumaya are pratically auditioning for a job here…

I hope it isn’t so, but guaranteed Steinbrenner put out the order to Cashman after seeing that JZ performance…get this guy at all costs….

I’m not sure what JZ or Verlander’s contract details are, but I hope we have them both a least a couple more years…

I actually agree that the Yanks didn’t get it done in key situations against Verlander–and watching ARod K repeatedly in front of the angry home crowd is truly wonderful.

But now I’m going to say something that I really can’t back up with much evidence, but I feel is an accurate observation.

I wrote yesterday that Justin looked fierce. By that, I meant that he just wasn’t about to cave in to pressure–or that brutal lineup–when he got himself into Jams. The double-play ball hurt the Yankees a lot–maybe you can chalk that up to luck–and Cano’s first pitch flyout was pretty dumb, but other than that I really felt that Verlander got nasty, got focussed, and threw a lot of really good pitches when his back was against the wall.

And as far as some of the jams he worked himself into, lets not forget who he was facing. That lineup is unbelievably patient. Verlander would have looked much better against a lot of other, lineups. Didn’t he throw like 25 of his 105 pitches to Posada? The number 8 hitter? It’s really hard to get through that lineup without letting men on base and getting dinged up a little. I think he really showed a lot of toughness yesterday and I give him a ton of credit yesterday’s victory.

Right on. Stats through two games:

Tigers: 20 hits, 8 doubles, 1 triple, 3 HR, 3 walks
Yankees: 22 hits, 4 doubles, 0 triples, 3 HR, 5 walks

That’s 12 extra base hits for the Tigers vs. 7 for the Yankees.

But I strongly disagree with the second part of the statement where he says Mussina should have never allowed as many runs as he did to an undisciplined offense. The Tigers actually posted an above average run total this year. They did it because they have a bunch of guys who can hit the ball hard, and for 2 straight games the Tigers have swung the bats as well as the Yankees.

I almost wish this was true. $220 million payroll and you can’t buy a good performance? Steinbrenner must be pretty embarassed. :-p

Of course we all know the real story. Zumaya humiliated the best hitters in baseball.

And speaking of Steinbrenner, how much do you want to bet he’s got “steal Verlander and Zumaya from the Tigers” on his to-do list? How many years before they’re eligible for free agency?

I am loving these responses to Law’s blog. I just read that worthless piece of crap and came straight the DTW to drop a link and a tirade down.

Of course Billfer beat me to the punch with the link and then I find a whole bunch of guys beat me to the tirade.

What kills me about this guy–and others such as Neyer–is that they speak in such absolutes. Like they are tapped into some reality that the rest of us aren’t able to access.

Here’s the trip: the tone of that piece is exactly the same as the tone of his piece describing an impending Yankee sweep. It never changes with these guys. If the Tigers pull out the series Law will drop down a bunch of numbers, and kick the “I know all” tone of voice and tell us that it was inevitible that the Tigers would win the series.

In reality, Keith Law doesn’t have any more idea of what the hell is going on in baseball than some guy calling a sportstalk radio station on his cell phone while he’s stuck in traffic. The only difference is Law can throw a bunch of numbers at you and pretend that they somehow innoculate his arguments from debate.

The quote pulled here by Billfer–and further highlighted by Jeff–is a perfect example of Law’s tactics.

Law begins by stating his conclusion: “The story of Game 2 isn’t so much the Tigers beat the Yankees as it is the Yankees beat themselves with an embarrassing performance.”

He then drops a few specific examples down that really don’t do much to support an argument that the Yankees hitters blew the game with bad at-bats; then he rolls out some totally irrelevant paragraph about how Leyland was actually managing by the book, though everyone else is too stupid to recognize it; and finally he gives one specific example of Mussina failing to victimize the Tigers hitters as he should have–which does even less to support an argument about Mussina blowing the game than did his evidence of bad at bats supported his argument against the Yankees hitters.

And finally he rewords the conclusion from the first paragraph with the quote Billfer pulled:

“The Yanks should have scored more than three runs off Verlander, and Mussina should never allow four runs to an offense as undisciplined as the Tigers.”

So basically he made a conclusion; weakly supported it with a couple examples that certainly don’t tell the full picture–but lend a sense of authority to his writing; and then presents a restatement of his conclusion as further evidence supporting that conclusion.

If one of us were to write an email to Law that made the inverse claim regarding Tuesday’s game–the Tigers beat themselves with an embarassing performance–the dude would respond by telling us that’s a simply a baseless claim, unsuported by any quanitative evidence.

But because the equally baseless claim he makes about today’s game is built on spurious evidence presented authoritatively, we aren’t allowed to discredit it on similar grounds.

Schmuck is right.

You’re right, he’s painting by numbers here, from a palette that covers only the last fifty regular season games. Doesn’t seem like he was watching this particular game.

Funny thing is “an offense as undisciplined as the Tigers” sounds like an echo from these parts from those last fifty games.

He just hasn’t caught the spirit.

Not that I don’t think that statistcal analysis doesn’t have a place, but it drives me nuts how these statheads seem to think team chemistry, leadership, clutch hitting, stolen bases, etc. are absolutely worthless and can make insane arguments on how to build a team based on statistics.

For those interested in my take on game 2:
http://pauls.wordpress.com/200.....up-at-one/

/end self promotion