Indians’ Absence Leaves Yankees With Best Shot at Ring

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Fie on the Indians, I say. Before their epic collapse over the last week of the season, I had them pegged as the best team in baseball and the most likely to win the World Series. They had it all: A solid rotation fronted by the league ERA leader and a phenomenal bullpen, strong defense all around the diamond, and a diverse lineup offering speed, power and discipline. On top of all that, they were on a historic run, having come back from a 15-game deficit to nearly grab the AL Central lead by beating up on the White Sox on the road.


As is, they were clearly unsuited to win it all. There is a lot of luck involved in one-run games, but the Indians lost five of them in their last seven games, to an awful Devil Rays team and a White Sox club that, having locked up homefield advantage, had literally nothing to play for. Everyone was ready a bit over a week ago to write off the Sox as chokers of a historic scale; truth is, the Indians fit that bill pretty well.


While this is bad for the Indians and bad for their fans, it’s also bad for me, because I now have no real idea which team to pick as the likely Series winner.


Every team in the National League is a weak sister in one way or another. The Cardinals are much like last year’s edition – with Chris Carpenter (5.73 September ERA) looking worn-out, they again lack a true ace, and with Scott Rolen on the shelf, their offense is weaker than the one they went with last October.


The Padres barely finished above .500, and the Astros, while they have a truly incredible pitching staff, don’t have an offense. The Braves may be the best team right now, with two aces in Tim Hudson and John Smoltz and half a great lineup, but the other half is the problem, as is the fact that pitchers who aren’t Hudson or Smoltz will have to start. In my estimation, the NL pennant is going to be decided on luck more than skill.


The American League has four at least theoretically strong teams, but it’s awfully tough to figure how these matchups are going to play out. The Angels and White Sox are close to being pure defense-and-pitching teams, and the Yankees and, especially, the Red Sox are close to being pure offensive teams. Sometimes good hitting beats good pitching; sometimes the converse is true. These are unusually difficult series to predict, and I wouldn’t be in the least surprised to see any of these teams running up a pennant.


Having said all of this, I’m going to choke on my season-long skepticism of the Bronx Bombers and pick them to win their first World Series since 2000, essentially because they’re now playing their best ball of the season. Whatever problems they were having earlier this year, no one doubts that this team is, when right, a juggernaut, with a murderous offense, starters capable of dominance, and the best closer/set-up man tandem in the game. St. Louis and Boston are (again) the only other teams capable of true dominance, but neither team is right. The difference for New York is that Randy Johnson, unlike Carpenter and Curt Schilling, is both healthy and throwing well.


Of course, it won’t take much for that to look like a rather useless advantage; should Mike Mussina and Shawn Chacon, both of whom are justifiably viewed with a great deal of skepticism, get whacked over the first two games of the Division Series against the Angels, Johnson isn’t going to much matter. And that gets to the large, obvious flaw of the Yankees, which is that aside from Johnson, every one of their starters can quite easily be envisioned giving up 10 runs in an inning.


I don’t think that’s going to happen because, aside from Vladimir Guerrero, the Angels just don’t have any hitting. A Yankee victory over the Angels would match them up against either a similarly offensively weak White Sox team that 732 1857 863 1868lacks a Guerrero-type thumper, or the Red Sox, whom the Yankees beat in the regular season and can beat again. And none of the NL teams should overly frighten the Yankees at all.


The logic is basic, but compelling: The Yankees are the favorites because right now they’re the best team and match up well against all conceivable opponents. If they’re the favorites by default to some extent, so be it – the Indians may have been the best team in baseball this year in some sense, but being the best doesn’t count for much when it doesn’t even get you a playoff spot.


tmarchman@nysun.com


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