The Melky, A-Rod & CC Show Lead Yanks To 10-1 Win Over Angels

It's late. I'm tired. This post will be abbreviated with a much longer one coming tomorrow at some point. I wanted to get something up before I went to bed. Who am I kidding? I'm probably going to bust out a full post. Time will tell.

Tonight's game in a word: awesome. The Yankees crushed the Angels and are now firmly in the driver's seat with a 3 game to 1 lead on the Angels. It's going to be real tough for the Angels to run the table and win 2 in NY. I don't see that happening. Especially since they'd have to beat A.J. Burnett, Andy Pettitte, and the man, CC Sabathia.

CC was awesome tonight. He flat out dominated the Angels. CC seemed to get better as the game went on. His fastball was still hitting 94. His control was sharp. Like I said, he was awesome. CC has flat out owned the Angels this series. 2 games, 2 wins, 16 IP, 9 hits, 3 walks, 12 Ks, 2 earned runs. Now that's dealing. The outing today was especially impressive because it was on 3 days rest. The big guy is earning every penny of that contract. The man is flat out awesome. The best part about the outing is that it didn't give Joe Girardi a chance to mess things up. During the game I tweeted that CC comes out when CC wants to come out. Girardi needed to leave the ball in CC's hands until he wanted to give it to Girardi. There were a few sticky spots and I was getting a sinking feeling that Girardi was thinking of pulling him. Thankfully, CC locked things down and that didn't happen. Way to go big man.

The bats finally woke up and they woke up in a big way. The hammered the Angels for 10 runs on 13 hits and 7 walks. If not for a few baserunning blunders and some bad calls, they might have scored more. More on that later. You can't stop A-Rod right now. It's his world and we're all just living in it. Alex is the new Mr. October. He's crushed 5 HRs and knocked in 11 in the Yankees' 7 playoff games. He is absolutely crushing the ball. Talk about being locked in. And he's not just doing it with his bat. He stole a base and he also had some heads up baserunning when he went from 2nd to 3rd on a fly out and scored on a errant throw. Everything he's touching turns to gold. Stay gold pony boy. Stay gold.

Melky Cabrera had a big game going 3-4 and knocking in 4. The bottom of the order needed to produce and the Melk-man delivered. I wish I could say the same for Nick Swisher. Another ohfer. Another 4 guys left on base. I really don't see how he starts on Thursday. It wasn't his worst game tonight, but it's still not enough to keep "The Rally Killer" in the lineup. I definitely think we'll see Brett Gardner on Thursday. At least I hope we do. Swisher is all about rally-killing. Had the umps not blown the call the Angels had him picked off second. He also grounded back to the pitcher with runners on 2nd and 3rd and 1 out. I'm referring to the Posada/Cano fiasco at 3rd base. Which leads me to......

Where was Jorge Posada's head at? What was he doing breaking for home on that grounder? That was not some heads up baserunning. And then he leaves home plate thinking there are 3 outs when there were only 2. Good thing A-Rod realized what was going on and went to cover home to keep Torii Hunter from scoring. Get your head in the game Jorge. It's the freaking ALCS! Wake up!

Finally, what is up with the shoddy umpiring? Holy cow? That has to be the theme of the postseason. The bad calls went both ways tonight. It started with the umps calling Nick Swisher safe at 2nd on a pickoff play when he obviously wasn't. That blown call was wiped out by another blown call when Swisher was called out for leaving 3rd base early when he obviously didn't. The sad part there was that FOX showed the 3rd base ump on that play and he wasn't even looking at Swisher. Perhaps the worst call of all was when Tim McClelland, the 3rd base ump, didn't call Cano out at 3rd on what was obviously a double play sparked by poor baserunning. Not a good night for crew chief Tim McClelland, one of the more respected umps in the game. His 2 blown calls were beyond horrible. I think the Swisher call was a make-up call for the blown call at 2nd. Based on the crowd reaction, it sounded like they show replays of close calls like that at Angels Stadium. I didn't think you could do that as it could influence an umpire's call, which it could have tonight. McClelland's other call was worse than that though. How do you not call that a DP? Horrible.

Alright, I guess this can be called a full post. I pretty much covered everything I wanted to cover. Perhaps something will come to me as I lay in bed. If it does, I'll be back with it tomorrow, or should I say later today since it's past midnight. The Yanks now get a day of rest before coming back Thursday to try and close this out. A.J. Burnett gets the ball. The only thing I'm worried about is that Burnett pitches better at home and Andy Pettitte pitches better on the road. If only there was a way to flip-flop those guys. It's definitely not out of the cards that the Angels find a way to tie this series up. John Lackey starts for the Angels on Thursday and he can definitely shut a team down. Anything is possible. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself but the Yankees are in a very good position right now. If the Angels can somehow pull this off, they'll deserve it. They're going to have to beat A.J., Andy, and a fully-rested CC. The SP has been great. Beating those 3 is going to be no easy task. Hopefully, they wrap it up Thursday night.

6 down, 5 to go.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie