The Yankees take their offense and their payroll to the post-season tonight as $180 million takes on $53 million. While those numbers might speak to the crazy finances of baseball, it doesn't matter at this point, all that matters are wins. Tonight, the Yankees play the Twins in the start of a best of five series. During the regular season, the Yankees took four of six against the Twins, including a three game sweep last week in a series that was meaningless to the Twins.
Seems like the issue for the Yankees is their starting pitching. Mike Mussina and Jon Lieber are the probable starters for games one and two, but the other two starters remains a question until the Yankees officially file their post season roster and Joe Torre makes a decision on Orlando Hernandez's status. The NY Times reports that Jason Giambi will be left off the post-season roster and Javier Vazquez will pitch in long relief. Torre has yet to make an announcement as to who he will pitch in game three, but Brian Cashman says the Yankees are going to have 11 pitchers on the post-season roster. As they say, pitching wins the post-season. The Twins will start Johan Santana, a solid candidate for the Cy Young award, in game one followed by Brad Radke in game two. MLB.com is reporting that Hernandez is the tentative starter for game three, which considering his performance in recent outings is rather surprising. In his past two starts, both against Toronto, Hernandez has given up 10 total runs in 9.1 innings of total work. His surgically repaired shoulder has been acting up, but the Yankees may not have anywhere else to turn. Then again, the Yankees have had poor pitching all year and they've managed to win 100+ games.
Game one is tonight in the Bronx with the first pitch is scheduled for 8:19 with the game airing on Fox. Do you have tickets to the game tonight? If you didn't and you found some, would you have turned them in? It seems like that's what nine New Jersey children did. A package of 70 tickets, valued at $70,000 fell of a delivery truck and all but four were returned. The reward? From Wachovia, the boys and their family are going to a Nets game in a luxury box. From the Yankees, tickets to last Thursday's game. Pretty crappy in our opinion. How about watching a Yankees game from a luxury box?
