Getting Off On The Good Foot: Yanks Win Game 1 Of ALCS 4-1

What a game! The Yanks got off on the good foot with a 4-1 win over the Angels in game 1 of the ALCS. I've got a 7 hour drive ahead of me tomorrow morning so I want to make this post as brief as possible. Thankfully, there was really only story tonight and that's the outstanding pitching by CC Sabathia. The big man continues to impress.

CC came up huge tonight. He was sharp right out of the box. The Angels didn't really stand a chance against him. 8 innings, 4 hits, 1 walk and 7 Ks. That's dominant right there. He for the most part was unhittable. In his final 4 innings he allowed 1 walk. 1 walk. That's it. He had great control too. 76 of his 113 pitches were strikes (67%) and he threw 1st pitch strikes to 17 of the 29 hitters he faced. CC has been awesome for some time now. Counting his 2 postseason starts, CC is 11-1 in his last 14 starts. He's lost once since July 28th. Wow. He's been nothing short of dominant in those starts. 96.2 IP, 76 hits, 25 walks, 25 ER, 103 K. A 2.33 ERA and a 1.05 WHIP. Like I said, dominant. He's having a heck of an October too. 2-0, 14 .2 IP, 12 hits, 3 runs, 2 earned, 1 walk, 15 K, 1.23 ERA, 0.89 WHIP. Awesome. Totally awesome. The best thing about tonight is that the game didn't get rained out. That pretty much means CC is in line to pitch game 4 on 3 days rest. A rainout today would have killed that. Barring any other rainouts, the Yankees can probably get through 7 games of the ALCS with 3 SPs, with only CC pitching on short rest and it should only happen once. Sign me up.

The minor story tonight was the Angels' defense, or should I say, lack thereof. The Halos committed 3 errors which accounted for 2 unearned runs. The infield popup that fell between Aybar and Figgins in the 1st was horrible. It could have been a whole different game had that ball not hit the ground. Oh well. Sucks to be you.

I'm headed to the Bronx tomorrow for game 2. It's about a 7 hour drive and we're leaving around 8:30am. The weather report for tomorrow is not favorable. The forecast is calling for a 90% chance of rain with accumulation of up to an inch. I have the feeling that they won't be playing tomorrow. I'm really excited and looking forward to it but at the same time, I'm not. I'm really looking forward to seeing Yankee Stadium for the first time. I'm not looking forward to watching it in freezing temperatures with constant rain. I'm planning on wearing a lot of layers (all Yankees gear of course). I can deal with the cold. It's the rain I'm not a fan of. With any luck, Mother Nature will cooperate and the rain will hold off or at least be light. Doubtful, but one can dream.

4 down, 7 to go.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie