Bang the Drum Slowly... (ALDS Game 1 Postgame Notes)

History would make us think that losing game one to Cleveland bodes well--we lost ALDS game 1 in 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2004--and advanced to the LCS. We one game one in 2002, 2005 and 2006 and lost those series.

Logic would tell us that 6-0 season series could not possibly hold forever, and that having not seen CC Sabathia in four years would already work against us.

Superstition would make us believe that like the rest of the season, we've got to play from behind.

X-factor superstition would tell me that because I did not see a squirrel today, we had no chance.


It doesn't change the basic fact though: A loss, ANY loss, in the Postseason hurts.

It hurts more because you never like to see the Wanger lose, it hurts more because you hate to see the rookie reliever like Ohlendorf get hammered, it hurts more because the Yankees had one chance, in the top of the fifth, to turn the game around, but for some reason I really don't want to know, Posada was given the green light on 3-0 and it hurts more because the TBS play-by-play guys sound as virtually anti-Yankee as you can be without being Red Sox announcers.

The Indians were able to do everything that the Yankees are supposed to be able to do, and they did it well.

However, I remember playing the Indians in '97 (and the incident of which we do not speak) and in '98. They are anything but the pushover that Texas was in '98 and '99.


Should the Yankees be concerned?

Perhaps, but it's not as though Friday is an elimination game. The Yankees will know that, they will make the appropriate adjustments.

I think, in the end, that when the Yankees are all gathered in the clubhouse, they'll be thinking just one thing: Win on Friday, beat Carmona, go back to New York with the split.


In the regular season, the Yankees were AWFUL against left handed starters on the road, and they still won 94 games.

Baseball is a funky sport.


Luck isn't on my side tonight. The Devils took a 1-1 tie through most of the third, but lost the game.

Luck might be running out on Philadelphia, too.

Colorado killed them 10-5, and Kaz Matsui was a single shy of the cycle--he had a double, triple and Grand Slam.

The Rockies are not a team either the Cubs or Diamondbacks will want to face in the NLCS.

Unless Philadelphia has a miracle in them, somehow.