No young pitchers were harmed during the following interview: I thought you might appreciate one final tidbit before we get the Fall Classic started.
Thanks to our friends at Playmaker Mobile we were brought to attention an interview with Reds' manager, Dusty Baker about Yankee Stadium and CC Sabathia. Any baseball fan is familiar with the terms, "mystique" and "aura" often attributed to playing playoff baseball games in Yankee Stadium, or, if you're a loud-mouthed, moron, you're not. Either way, Baker had some insightful comments to think about as we prepare for Game One of the 2009 World Series in the Bronx.
"I’ve lost in Yankee Stadium as a Dodger and won in Yankee Stadium as a Dodger. It can be done, but you don’t want to be in a position where you have to win there. They just believe they are always going to win, the players believe it, the fans believe it. They brain wash you. They put all those great moments in Yankees history on the scoreboard during batting practice. The highlights are great and the Yankees are just killing teams and you have to watch it for two hours. You can’t help but see it. It's just not conducive for visitors. They wanted to take that vibe and that history from the old stadium and bring it to the new Yankee Stadium and with the success they are having it appears to have worked. I remember when Aaron Boone hit that home run off Wakefield to get the Yankees to the World Series in 2003, Derek Jeter had told him not to worry that the ghost will come. So the Ghost of Babe Ruth may be a curse to some but he’s been good for the Yankees."
I can't really see how this would be different from any other home team playing in a World Series. I would imagine all teams play highlights on its scoreboard favoring the home team and are more confident at home than they would be away, but perhaps the extensive memories of the Yankees playing at home (no longer on the same field) do have its advantages. I would chalk up home field success to the home team playing better because more often than not, the Yankees have been the best team (evidenced by a 26-13 World Series record), but that's just me. This year the Yankees have had one of the great home field advantages all season, so whether you believe in "Mystique and Aura", or you don't, I wouldn't be surprised if the Yankees play better than the Phillies in Yankee Stadium, even if the Phillies were a great road team for most of the season before learning to tolerate their own fans.
Baker went on to talk about tonight's starter, CC Sabathia.
"CC is nasty, but they have faced him enough to know him a little bit. They faced Pettitte when he was in Houston and Burnett when he was in Florida and now with interleague play you get to see guys you might not have seen before. When you’ve never faced a pitcher before that’s a huge advantage to the pitcher. But Philly knows these guys a little. One big factor will be the advance scouts. How well these guys do scouting how to play guys and how to pitch guys is going to be huge. Advance scouting is never bigger and more important than it is now."
Baker brings up some good points here and other comments I'm just not so sure about. For instance, he says CC is nasty, but that the Phillies have seen him before. This is true, most notably Sabathia was lit up in Milwaukee during the postseason last year. So in terms of never seeing a pitcher and that pitcher than having the advantage, I agree, seeing as the Phillies' hitters saw him as recently as last season, there is no element of surprise here.
I guess the same holds true for Cliff Lee and Pedro Martinez, who were last seen more often or with better stuff, in the AL. Joe Blanton spent an extended period of time facing the Yankees fairly recently in the American League as well, and Cole Hamels pitched earlier this season in the Bronx, so Yankees' hitters will probably need a little less of that advanced scouting, though it's a good point to begin with by Baker, advanced scouting is always important, especially when it's factual.
I'm a little confused about the other comments, however. Can Philadelphia hitters really remember what Pettitte and Burnett were like in 2005? Hasn't Pettitte he changed as recently as spring training of 2009 and Burnett become a pitcher who mixes his pitcher better thanks to Roy Halladay in 2008? Isn't that why they're all of a sudden healthier and having more success this year? Pettitte moved his cutter and threw other pitches to make it sneakier? Burnett isn't trying to throw through a wall every time he pitches? Not to mention, when it comes to Pettitte on the Astros and Burnett on the Marlins, how many Phillies' hitters were even on the team back then?
So without further pause, here are the Yankees' top three pitcher's career numbers against the Phillies.
The Phillies have a combined 139 at bats career against Pettitte, with 46 of them coming from: Miguel Cairo (36 and not on the WS roster), Chan Ho Park (4 and a pitcher), Ben Francisco (5 and a non-factor) and Paul Bako (1 and a non-factor). That leaves 93 at bats for the entire Phillies' starting lineup (nine of those from Matt Stairs who may actually play a role theoretically, despite being 0/9 lifetime) against Pettitte and only Ibanez, Rollins and Werth have seen him more than nine times. The team is a combined 20/93 (.215) in case you were interested.
As far as Burnett, there's a little more history there, albeit mostly from at least four years ago.
Here's the Phillies numbers against him:
Rollins: 11/43
Utley: 6/21
Ibanez: 4/15
Feliz: 2/15
Howard: 2/12
Werth: 1/7
Victorino: 1/6
Ruiz: 3/3
Stairs: 3/11
That's good for 33/133, or .248 and eight homers (two by Stairs who will likely DH).
Then we have CC, who is the one assumed to have been seen the most by these hitters. If you assumed that, you would be incorrect, though most of these at bats happened within the last year and this includes his postseason start:
Ibanez: (lefty) 11/40
Rollins: 5/13
Howard: (lefty) 3/9
Victorino: 5/9
Feliz: 1/8
Werth: 2/8
Ruiz: 2/5
Stairs: (lefty) 0/1
Utley: (lefty) 0/5
That's 23/84, or .274 in the regular season, but 29/98, or .296 including that one start. Ibanez has two regular season homers (nobody else does), but Victorino hit that Grand Slam in the playoff game. Once again, only Ibanez and Rollins have more than nine at bats against Sabathia, and Ibanez had all of them when CC was in the AL.
Philadelphia hasn't truly been dominated by any of them, but I'd argue the same size is still too small in most cases. Only Ibanez has really had any sort of experience against CC where you can start to form an opinion on how he will be treated in career terms and only Rollins has really seen enough of Burnett.
I guess the conclusion I form is not to have any preconceived notions about any of these starters, there hasn't been enough history to expect dominance or struggle against the opponent.
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