ALCS Game 1: Angels at Yankees
The Angels and Yankees are ready to rumble in this year's ALCS, but weather may not cooperate for Friday's series opener and could remain a factor in New York for the entire weekend.
There are plenty of stories behind this year's ALCS to choose from.
After signing the huge contract to pitch for the Yankees, it's a game C.C. Sabathia has been waiting for all season, the first at the new park in the Bronx. The Angels have a real angel they're playing for in teammate Nick Adenhart. Mark Teixeira is trying to beat the same team he was trying to get into the World Series with last year.
And now Mother Nature is trying to push her way into being part of the story as well.
The 2009 ALCS is slated to begin Friday night in what should be a cold, wet and windy Yankee Stadium. It was nasty during workouts on Thursday and it's going to rain most of the day in the greater NYC area. There is the open date for this series on Sunday, but MLB would rather not go up against all of the afternoon NFL action with Game 3 of the NLCS is already on tap for the prime time in Philadelphia.
Assuming the game will be played, the Yankees and Sabathia are heavy -170 favorites to beat John Lackey and the Angels. The total opened at 8½.
Both LA and New York enter this best-of-seven series off ALDS sweeps. The Angels got the Boston playoff monkey off their back with three wins against the Red Sox while the Yanks pushed aside the Twins. New York and Los Angeles are also no stranger to each other, squaring off 10 times this season (each team winning five), four of those games in September (also split two apiece).
Sabathia started two of the NY losses to LA in '09, allowing Nine earned in 13.1 innings. He'll face a very tough lineup with the Halos second in the majors behind the Yankees in scoring this season, but the key hitter to watch for might be Howie Kendrick who is 8-for-12 lifetime against the chunky chunker.
With the Yankees No. 1 in scoring, it's obvious that Lackey will be facing a tough lineup himself. The righthander won his only start against New York on July 12 in Anaheim, working seven innings and allowing two runs in a 5-4 win. He's seen a lot of Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira over their careers with the pair playing for AL West rivals from Texas along the way. A-Rod is just 9-for-51 lifetime, but with four homers, while Tex is 19-for-49 with a pair of long flies.
Back to the weather. An early delay of any length on Friday and we're maybe looking at a pitching matchup of Phil Hughes vs. Ervin Santana. Rain is in the forecast all weekend, with 80% and 70% presently listed for Saturday and Sunday. So you have to think that the league and/or McClelland will do everything they can to get this game in. It's easy to like the Over with these lineups, but in this weather with what I suspect will be a larger strike zone, I'll take the Under 8½.
STARTING PITCHERS
ALCS Game 1, Fri, 7:57 p.m. (ET): John Lackey (16-11, 3.83 in regular season; LDS 1-0, 0.00) vs. C.C. Sabathia (23-11, 3.37 regular season; LDS 1-0, 1.35)
UMPIRE
Does Tim McClelland work the plate in every playoff game? Seems that way. This will be his ninth LCS overall and third-straight year to work a League Championship Series. The lanky one posted a 17-19 Home/Visitor record in the regular season and favored the over by a 20-12-4 mark.
This will be the 18th postseason series McClelland has worked during his career that started in 1983. He was behind the plate in Game 1 of last year's ALCS, a 2-0 Boston win in Tampa. He should have worked Game 7 of that series as well, but a foul ball during Game 6 in Tampa forced Derryl Cousins from the game, and McClelland took over in the third and closed out the Red Sox 4-2 win. That meant he gave way to Brian Gorman for the Game 7 duties the next night when Tampa clinched with a 3-1 victory.
WEATHER
It's going to rain during all over the New York City area during the day, and the chance of rain only drops to 60% on Friday night when the temperature at first pitch will be in the low-40s. Winds are listed in the 10-20 range from the NNE (in from left towards 1B). Nasty stuff.
NOTE: The W-L records shown for starting pitchers are their team's W-L mark when they start games. Statistical sources for this article were Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com and ESPN.com and of course, S-BEE-R-dot-com!
The Angels and Yankees are ready to rumble in this year's ALCS, but weather may not cooperate for Friday's series opener and could remain a factor in New York for the entire weekend.
There are plenty of stories behind this year's ALCS to choose from.
After signing the huge contract to pitch for the Yankees, it's a game C.C. Sabathia has been waiting for all season, the first at the new park in the Bronx. The Angels have a real angel they're playing for in teammate Nick Adenhart. Mark Teixeira is trying to beat the same team he was trying to get into the World Series with last year.
And now Mother Nature is trying to push her way into being part of the story as well.
The 2009 ALCS is slated to begin Friday night in what should be a cold, wet and windy Yankee Stadium. It was nasty during workouts on Thursday and it's going to rain most of the day in the greater NYC area. There is the open date for this series on Sunday, but MLB would rather not go up against all of the afternoon NFL action with Game 3 of the NLCS is already on tap for the prime time in Philadelphia.
Assuming the game will be played, the Yankees and Sabathia are heavy -170 favorites to beat John Lackey and the Angels. The total opened at 8½.
Both LA and New York enter this best-of-seven series off ALDS sweeps. The Angels got the Boston playoff monkey off their back with three wins against the Red Sox while the Yanks pushed aside the Twins. New York and Los Angeles are also no stranger to each other, squaring off 10 times this season (each team winning five), four of those games in September (also split two apiece).
Sabathia started two of the NY losses to LA in '09, allowing Nine earned in 13.1 innings. He'll face a very tough lineup with the Halos second in the majors behind the Yankees in scoring this season, but the key hitter to watch for might be Howie Kendrick who is 8-for-12 lifetime against the chunky chunker.
With the Yankees No. 1 in scoring, it's obvious that Lackey will be facing a tough lineup himself. The righthander won his only start against New York on July 12 in Anaheim, working seven innings and allowing two runs in a 5-4 win. He's seen a lot of Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira over their careers with the pair playing for AL West rivals from Texas along the way. A-Rod is just 9-for-51 lifetime, but with four homers, while Tex is 19-for-49 with a pair of long flies.
Back to the weather. An early delay of any length on Friday and we're maybe looking at a pitching matchup of Phil Hughes vs. Ervin Santana. Rain is in the forecast all weekend, with 80% and 70% presently listed for Saturday and Sunday. So you have to think that the league and/or McClelland will do everything they can to get this game in. It's easy to like the Over with these lineups, but in this weather with what I suspect will be a larger strike zone, I'll take the Under 8½.
STARTING PITCHERS
ALCS Game 1, Fri, 7:57 p.m. (ET): John Lackey (16-11, 3.83 in regular season; LDS 1-0, 0.00) vs. C.C. Sabathia (23-11, 3.37 regular season; LDS 1-0, 1.35)
UMPIRE
Does Tim McClelland work the plate in every playoff game? Seems that way. This will be his ninth LCS overall and third-straight year to work a League Championship Series. The lanky one posted a 17-19 Home/Visitor record in the regular season and favored the over by a 20-12-4 mark.
This will be the 18th postseason series McClelland has worked during his career that started in 1983. He was behind the plate in Game 1 of last year's ALCS, a 2-0 Boston win in Tampa. He should have worked Game 7 of that series as well, but a foul ball during Game 6 in Tampa forced Derryl Cousins from the game, and McClelland took over in the third and closed out the Red Sox 4-2 win. That meant he gave way to Brian Gorman for the Game 7 duties the next night when Tampa clinched with a 3-1 victory.
WEATHER
It's going to rain during all over the New York City area during the day, and the chance of rain only drops to 60% on Friday night when the temperature at first pitch will be in the low-40s. Winds are listed in the 10-20 range from the NNE (in from left towards 1B). Nasty stuff.
NOTE: The W-L records shown for starting pitchers are their team's W-L mark when they start games. Statistical sources for this article were Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com and ESPN.com and of course, S-BEE-R-dot-com!
