WHY THE YANKEES KNOW OCTOBER

The announcement for the ALCS rotation has been released, and if you didn't think Girardi and Hughes had confidence in his ALDS pitching performance before, you do now. It breaks down like this:

CC Sabathia vs. CJ Wilson

Phil Hughes vs. Colby Lewis

Andy Pettitte vs. Cliff Lee

AJ Burnett vs. Tommy Hunter

I actually love this rotation for the ALCS, and here's why.

Sabathia will pitch game 1, and he'll pitch it better than his last ALDS start... and the Yankees CAN hit Wilson. If they run on Wilson too, Yanks are up 1-0.

Now we're up to Game 2 with Hughes. Now, I'm not expecting a gem like his ALDS performance because I'm realistic. He's young, they're in Texas and while confidence is high, Yankee fans are not backing Hughes in an away ballpark like they would in the Bronx. But... HE WILL WIN because the Yanks can handle Colby Lewis. Lewis is also a latter rotation guy.

So, the good news is if the Yanks are up in my scenerio so far. 1-1 or 2-0 at this point and they come home to Pettitte in the Bronx. That is a great situation. At that point, you know Lee's on the mound for Texas but you can only care about Pettitte, who is the greatest in a game 3 situation AND the Post Season. I feel like that scenerio can bring New York a win. It will be a close game but a win. So, at this point it's either 2-1 or 3-0.

Burnett pitches Game 4. Assume it's a loss because that's what we get with him lately. Now it's 2-2 or 3-1. But assume he wins, which, let's face it, he could pitch a no-hitter (What a story that would be). We're 3-1 or we just swept the Rangers. OR, back to my original scenerio to make my point, assume he loses. We're 2-2 or 3-1.

CC's back. I say right then, we either win Game 5 with our ace on the mound or we hand the ball to Pettitte to wrap it up in Texas for Game 6.

Again, pitching wins ballgames but that means small ball and running mentality. That's something many teams have forgot about. It's about manufacturing runs. A perfect example is the Rangers themselves. They beat the Rays that way. Guess what? Yanks can play that game too, and adding a few home runs to that and we got something.

Let me also throw these stats at you, courtesy of the New York Post. The Yankees and Rangers split 8 games this season, the breakdown went like this:

Batting Avg:

Yanks: .269

Rangers: .241

Runs:

Yanks: 39

Rangers: 33

Home Runs:

Yanks: 6

Rangers: 5

Stolen Bases:

Yanks: 6

Rangers: 6

OBP:

Yanks: .373

Rangers: .342

ERA:

Yanks: 4.20

Rangers: 4.63

Strikeouts:

Yanks: 51

Rangers: 77

Walks:

Yanks: 28

Rangers: 41

Damn, I love October.

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