“The Yankees are the best team we’ve seen all season…I don’t know why they’re a couple games over .500.” Dusty Baker
(N.Y.Times)
Well, we’ve got ourselves an answer, Mr. Ciepley. The Cubs suck more…for now, at least. The Yanks beat Chicago 6-3 yesterday, sweeping the weekend series. It was New York’s sixth consecutive win. (In a losing cause, Derek Lee went 6-12 in the three games.) Tyler Kepner has a good write up of the game in the New York Times this morning. The Devil Rays are in town for a four-game set starting tonight and then the Mets come in over the weekend, after which, we can finally put inter-league play to rest for the season.
1. Did everybody realize that this weekend's sweep means that the Cubs have never won a game at Yankee Stadium?
2. "The Yankees are the best team we've seen all season..."
Having Dusty say that seems like the kiss of death to me.
3. Surely the Cubs have played the Cardinals.
4. Good post on Steve Goldman's blog about the Yankees' chances of making the postseason at their current clip. The pertinent info:
If the Orioles play only .500 baseball over the rest of the season, they will finish with a record of 87-75. For the Yankees to win 88 games, they would have to go 54-42 from today through the end of the season. That's the equivalent of a 91-win pace over the entire season. It's not impossible, but nothing says the Orioles will slump that badly. Indeed, even with all of their injuries, they are one game over .500 in June (whereas the Yankees are one game under). Should the Orioles be even five games over .500 over the rest of the season, the Yankees would need 93 wins to beat them. That would require a .615 pace from now on, a 100-win pace.
Read the whole thing here:
http://www.yesnetwork.com/yankees/pinstripedblog.asp
Alex and Cliff, your thoughts? Do you expect the Yanks to make the playoffs?
5. Anecdotally, it seems to me that the Cubs are a good matchup for the Yanks. They're relatively slow and unathletic, aren't very patient at the plate, don't play very good defense, don't cause too much havoc on the bases, and don't have Tim Wakefield or Johnny Damon.
Womack would be a good fit for them.