Just days after Cory Lidle’s plane crash, yet another Yankee has experienced some trouble with a plane flight. Today, the plane which Alex Rodriguez was a passenger on, overshot its the runway at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank. There were no injuries reported.

Now with this being a sensitive subject, I know there will be a few blog sites which will say that maybe the plane should have gone down. The reason I say this is, there is a lot of anti-AROD sentiment in Yankee land. To me, it’s just eerie, being Friday the 13th and all, that two Yankees players have had problems with airplanes in recent days.

Maybe the Yankees should take a page from John Madden and start busing around the country. It seems as though it’s a lot safer.

Once again, I’d like to offer my condolences to Cory Lidle’s wife, Melanie, and their six year old son, Christopher, and both of their families.

In today’s first playoff game, the Detroit Tigers won 3-0, behind another strong pitching performance by Kenny Rogers, to take a 3-zip series lead. Kenny Rogers has now not given up an earned run in two playoff starts.

As history dictates, we know that there is only one MLB team that has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit. And you ask who that may be? It is of course the 2004 World Series Champions, Boston Red Sox, who came back to defeat the Yankees after falling behind 3 games in the series.

After watching the first three games of the ALCS, I don’t think theres a better team in baseball right now than the Detroit Tigers. Everything seems to be clicking right for them, their starting and relief pitching, their hitting and defense. You name it, it’s going right for the Tigers. It looks as though I may not get the total games right for this series as far as my prediction goes, but there’s a real good chance I will at least get the team right.

(photo taken from Yankees.com)

This afternoon, a plane that was carrying Cory Lidle and an instructor crashed into a building in New York City killing them both. The crash caused debris to be thrown to the ground and brought back memories of 9-11 to the residents of the city. In talking to a friend who was in the city at the time, she stated NYC was in a complete lockdown with basically every car getting searched looking for god only knows what. But given the past, this was necessary.

My prayers and thoughts go out to the family and friends of Cory Lidle.

Just reported on ESPN and earlier in the New York Daily News, Joe Torre will reportedly be fired by the end of the day today (October 8th) and be replaced by Lou Pinella. Stay tuned to this as I will post any new developments here.

I know some of you are asking why I would post news about the Yankees firing Joe Torre. Well the reason is even though I am a Red Sox fan, I am a baseball purist. Joe Torre to me is a great manager and he deserves better than this. I don’t see it as his fault for the reason why the Yankees didn’t advance. As seen by TEAM USA’s recent failures in certain sports, a team of all stars usually doesn’t win. Anyways, good luck to Joe Torre in his future endeavors.

UPDATE: It is being reported on ESPN and ESPN.COM that Joe Torre will return for a 12th season as the skipper of the New York Yankees. To me, this is big Stein’s way of keeping the Yankees on the back pages of the New York papers while the Mets are in the playoffs still.

Ok, so I didn’t do so well with my predictions for the Division Series matchups going 1 for 4, only getting the Mets right. So we are gonna try this again and see how we can do.We will start off with the American League Championship Series since they start tonight.

Oakland A’s vs Detroit Tigers:

Surprisingly, the Detroit Tigers dispatched the vaunted New York Yankees in 4 games. How did they do this you ask? They did it with superior starting pitching. The only starter who had any trouble with the Yankees lineup was tonight’s game 1 starter, Nate Robertson, who took the loss in game 1. Justin Verlander, Kenny “Roasters” Rogers, and Jeremy Bonderman beat up on the Yankees hitters in the next 3 games. Also, the best bullpen in baseball shut down the Yanks as well. For the A’s, some clutch hitting in spots by Frank Thomas propelled them to a sweep of the Twins. I didn’t see this one coming as the American League pitching Triple Crown winner, Johan Santana, didn’t dominate like he did towards the end of the season. The big bats for the Twins didn’t come thru like they had all year. I am going to take Detroit in 6 games. Pitching Matchups:

1. Nate Robertson (Det) vs Barry Zito (Oak)
2. Justin Verlander (Det) vs Esteban Loaiza (Oak)
3. Dan Haren (Oak) vs Kenny Rogers (Det)
4. Rich Harden (Oak) vs Jeremy Bonderman (Det)
5. If Necessary, TBA
6. If Necessary, TBA
7. If Necessary, TBA

Now onto the National League Championship Series.

New York Mets vs St. Louis Cardinals:

Well they are still playing baseball in NY, but its not the team everyone had hoped for. The New York Mets were said to not have the starting pitching to carry them thru the Dodgers series. So what happens? John Maine and Tom Glavine carry them to wins in the first two games. The Mets ended up slugging their way in sweeping the LA Dodgers. For the Cardinals, strong pitching in the first two games propelled them to victories over the San Diego Padres. A small bump in the road in game 3 saw the Padres beating the Cardinals in St. Louis. After a shaky start by Chris Carpenter in game 4, the Cardinals and him overcame it and defeated the San Diego Padres in 4 games. My prediction is Mets in 6. Pitching Matchups:

1. Jeff Weaver (StL) vs Tom Glavine(NYM)

2. Jeff Suppan (StL) vs John Maine (NYM)

3. Steve Trachsel (NYM) vs Chris Carpenter (StL)

4. TBA

5. If Necessary, TBA

6. If Necessary, TBA

7. If Necessary, TBA

What can you buy with $200 million dollars? For starters, you can buy 200 million jr bacon cheeseburgers. It also gets you tee times on the golf course if you play for the New York Yankees.

I know that everyone in America picked the Yankees, including myself, to beat the Tigers this series. But Detroit did it. They beat the “Evil Empire” in 4 games. Absolutely phenomenal pitching by Detroit’s Jeremy Bonderman, who was perfect thru 5 innings, having thrown 35 pitches, 29 for strikes. Leading the way hitting wise for the Tigers tonight was Magglio Ordonez and Pudge.

Some interesting numbers to look at from the Yankees in this series:

• AROD had another great postseason going 1 for 14 (.071)
• Johnny Damon was 4 for 17
• Jason Giambi was 1 for 8
• Gary Sheffield was 1 for 12
• Yankees starting pitching was good the first two games but awful the last two including today’s starter Jaret Wright who went 2 2/3 innings, 4 runs with 3 of them earned.

I could go on with this as the Yanks hitters could do nothing to muster any offense other than in Game 1 when the probable American League MVP, Derek Jeter went 5 for 5 and Bobby Abreu had 4 RBI’s.

As a Red Sox fan, I absolutely love this. Ever since the Red Sox were eliminated, the talk was that the Yankees were going to win the World Series this year. Well guess what….y’all were wrong. Now it will be another offseason of crying by the Yankees fans as well as us Boston Red Sox fans.
As a comparison for the payrolls, the Yankees were at $200 million dollars. The Tigers at $80 million dollars. What does this prove? Well that you can’t buy championships. If you are going to spend that kind of money, you really should get some starting pitching and bullpen help. The salaries of the middle of the Yankees lineup was a combined $66.7 million dollars and contributed 3 hits. That’s $13 million dollars less than the entire Tiger’s lineup.

I think what you will see next year is a totally different lineup for the Yankees. If they were smart, they’d bring up some younger guys to play as they have had success with some guys from their farm clubs. Wait a minute, the Yankees have traded away most of the talent they have. One thing to look for is the Yanks to trade AROD. Personally, I don’t think he’s cut out for New York.

So to the New York Yankees, I wish you much luck on the golf course with some of your Red Sox breathern.

Ok people, it is that time of the year where the MLB playoffs take over all of your shows on Fox for the next three weeks. This year, in the American League, we have the Detroit Tigers, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees and the Oakland A’s. Representing the National League are the San Diego Padres, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals.

So onto the predictions.

American League Division Series

Minnesota Twins vs Oakland A’s:

My prediction is Minnesota in 5 games. With Johan Santana on the mound for the 1st game and a game 5 if necessary, the Twinkees will prevail. While Oakland is playing some really good baseball right now, Minnesota comes in just as hot coming back from being double digits behind the Tigers and winning the American League Central on the last day of the season.

New York Yankees vs Detroit Tigers:

What you have here is experience vs inexperience. The veteran laden Yankees versus the young guns of Detroit. Even with some guys on the roster who have won a World Series, I just don’t see the Tigers winning this series. The Yankees have been here before and while their pitching isn’t the greatest at times, all they need to do is get to the 9th inning with a lead. Then its Mariano time. My prediction, New York Yankees in 4.

National League Division Series

Los Angeles Dodgers vs the New York Mets:

Boston Red Sox “West” vs the other team in New York. Injuries have taken their toll on the New York Mets pitching staff with Pedro lost for the rest of this year and most of next year but when he wasn’t in the lineup this year, the Mets did just fine. The Dodgers sport some former members of the Boston Red Sox with playoff experience as well as Greg Maddux, a member of the record 14 straight NL East champs. Atlanta Braves. I think in the end, the speed and power of the Mets will prevail in the end. My prediction is the New York Mets in 5 games.

St. Louis Cardinals vs San Diego Padres:

Seems like every year St. Louis makes the playoffs. Well this year, they backed into the playoffs. They almost blew a big division lead and it took a Houston loss on the last day of the season to clinch a spot for the Redbirds. San Diego returns to the post season this year hoping to go a little further then they did last year. As you can tell, I am an AL guy so I don’t know a lot about the NL. So my prediction is the San Diego Padres in 4 games.