Wiki

I've always resisted the idea that clutch hitting exists, I guess because I don't like the notion that baseball is something more than a game -- that it brings out something heroic in an athlete.

I pretty much agree with Bill James's early assessment on the topic, which was that what a batter hits in so-called "clutch" situations is close to what he hits in all other situations -- and that if this wasn't obvious, it's merely because there hadn't been enough of a sampling. In other words, if Willie Mays never hit a home run in 21 World Series games it was simply luck of the draw. Given, say, another two World Series and another 10 or 12 games, if he batted another 40 times and hit, say, six home runs, then he'd have 7 home runs in 114 at-bats, which would be almost the same ratio as his regular season average.

It's unsettling to watch baseball as long as I have and suddenly have to entertain an entirely new concept, but after watching the Yankees play like deer caught in the headlights in game after game, I'm beginning to think I was wrong about clutch hitting. Or at least wrong about clutch hitting as it manifests itself in the postseason, which is about as clutch as I can think of.

Alex Rodriguez, of course, is taking the major share of the flak for his failure to deliver against the Orioles and now the Tigers, but it has seemed to me all along that Robinson Cano, Curtis Granderson, Nick Swisher, and Mark Teixeira have been just as guilty, especially in this year's postseason.

There have been home runs in baseball history bigger than Raul Ibanez's 9th inning, game-tying shot last night or even his 12th inning game-winning swat. Bobby Thomson's, after all, won a pennant; Bill Mazeroski's won a World Series. But I don't think any pair of home runs turned so many careers on their heads as Raoul's swings.

First off, think of the Yankees., who had been humiliated in their own park by a rookie pitcher, Miguel Gonzalez, for seven innings. Can you imagine the all-pervading sense of gloom and doom that every Yankee (and every Yankee fan) would have with Phil Hughes going tomorrow night and the Yanks down 2-1 in the series, one game away from elimination?

www.yankeeanalysts.com

When your team loses 3-2, as the Yankees did last night to the Orioles, and you leave 10 runners on base, it doesn't come down to the fault of just one batter. But when you're batting 3rd and being what Alex Rodriguez is being paid, you're the one everyone points a finger at. And in this case, justifiably so.

Last night was positively embarrassing for A-Rod, who went 1-for-5, struck out twice, and left 5 runners on base. And this follows his three strikeouts in game one.

www.ESPN.com

If you didn't stay up last night to see it, you missed a classic. Russell martin -- or "Thank God For Russell" Martin, as he's known in my house -- belted a long shot off Jim Johnson in the 9th inning to give the Yankees 3-2 lead. And then it seemed like everyone in the Yankees lineup got a hit.

Except, of course, Alex Rodriguez, who once again looked like he was swinging at insects (I don't remember him hitting so much as a foul all night).

It was just about a perfect night for the Yanks to dump some demons, including C.C. Sabathia, who, I'm told, is tired of hearing the carping, mostly from me, that he can't win the big game. Still, I think Joe Girardi erred in leaving him in to get two outs in the 9th - 120 pitches is just too much.

Is it possible that following one team up close, day by day, for an entire season, can actually give you a distorted rather than accurate perception of how good they are?

Like many Yankee fans, I've been ruthlessly criticizing the team's performance, or at least its performance since the All-Star break. Now, after the breathtaking thoroughness of the three-game sweep of the Red Sox, I find that they actually had the best record in the American League. I didn't even see the possibility of that happening during the final week. Midway through September I simply assumed that the Texas Rangers, the Oakland As, the Detroit Tigers, and probably the Baltimore Orioles would finish with better won-lost records than the Yankees.

Tonight's matchup of the Mets and Washington Nationals gets about as anticipated as a game can get with no postseason at stake. The Mets, after all, have had just two Cy Young winners in their 50 year history -- Tom Seaver (1969, 1973 and 1975) and Dwight Gooden (1985). I don't know whether R.A. Dickey is the frontrunner for this year's National League honors - there are stories circulating that some old-time sportswriters think of Dickey as a sensational fluke or that his knuckleball is an amusing gimmick. But by at least one serious evaluation, he is the leading candidate.

However much relief Yankee fans feel after the split of the four-game series with the Orioles - and it was oh, so painfully close to being 3 of 4 for the Yanks - and however good it felt to finally see the Yanks cut loose for 13 runs on Sunday afternoon, it's hard to come away with any sense of confidence.

Even if the Bombers hadn't been hosed on the last call of Saturday's game -- and they were  (badly), with replays showing that Mark Teixiera was safe by at least a yard -- and Alex Rodriguez had followed up with a hit, we'd still be waiting to hear if Tex was out for just six days or for the rest of the season after reinjuring a calf muscle in the game.

However the Yankees end up after the crucial weekend series against the Orioles, there's one thing that August has pretty much demonstrated: namely, that the Yankees -- as they are now constituted -- are not going to the World Series this year and probably will not even win the American League East.

This isn't to say that the return of some combination of Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixiera and Andy Pettitte can't turn things around, but the team the Yankees fielded against Toronto this week just isn't good enough.

Yankees fans breathed a little easier last night with C.C. Sabathia's return. He went 7 1/3 innings in the Yanks' 3-1 victory over Cleveland, gave up four hits and a walk, and, best of all, struck out nine. His ERA has now dropped below 3.50 for the season.

Then again, he was pitching against the Cleveland Indians, which -- while not the worst team in baseball -- certainly have been pretty awful the last 30 games, over which they have lost 21.

Yankees fans will probably feel even better tonight when Hiroki Kuroda, the Yankees' ace (with a 12-8 record and an ERA of 2.96, that's what Kuroda is) makes the start -- since getting shellacked by the Blue Jays on May 16, Kuroda's won nine of 12 and has an ERA of about 2.40.

Bo-Sox May Be Sayin' "buh-bye" to Bobby Valentine.

Though Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine is still insisting that his team can make the postseason - that's what a manager is supposed to say, even when his team is 58-61, as the Red Sox are now, and 12 ½ games behind the first place Yankees - there isn't the usual postseason buzz to a mid-August Yankees-Red Sox series.

And yet, there is one very definite positive benefit for the Yankees to whip the Red Sox soundly in this upcoming three-game set, and one possible side benefit: the Yanks can just about wipe out the Red Sox's chances of a wild card spot, and in so doing end Bobby Valentines' career as a manager in the major leagues.