Game Three: Lee vs Pettitte and Coldness

By Jose “Pepitone Reyes

Are you ready for some championship baseball? Yankee fans are and we’ll see if the Rangers will be also, since the weather will be a factor in this one. Nothing too nasty but temperature wise, it will be colder. In the mid 40′s to be exact, with rain by midnight.  This is an obstacle analysts always seem to leave out when breaking down teams in a series that involves New York. But it is very important and can be havoc for pictures, especially between innings. Here’s a breakdown (MLB):

By Mike Bauman / MLB.comNEW YORK — This is a pitching matchup so good that it appears to have taken on a life of its own.

Game 3 of the 2010 American League Championship Series, to be televised on TBS, is scheduled for Yankee Stadium on Monday at 8 p.m. ET, and the headlines are already screaming “LEE VS. PETTITTE!!”

Of course, not to get lost in the glamorous pitching matchup is an integral Game 3 that will break the ALCS stalemate.

However you want to view it, with the Texas victory in Game 2, Game 3 has become particularly pivotal. And whatever attention the two left-handed starters have achieved, on their own or in this pairing, is well-earned.

Says Lee of Pettitte: “In my opinion he’s probably the best postseason pitcher of all time just by the number of wins and the number of rings he’s got.”

Pettitte, asked what he sees in Lee, responds: “You see everything that you want to see in a starting pitcher to be successful. He throws strikes. He throws quality strikes. He gets ahead. He changes speeds. And, you know, I think what is separating him from any other pitcher right now is really his cutter, how late it is.”

For the record, Pettitte is the all-time leader in postseason victories with 19. While he has been pitching in the postseason since 1995, some of his best work has come recently. He was 4-0 in the 2009 postseason as part of a three-man rotation, winning one game in each of the first two postseason rounds and then winning two starts in the World Series.

In the Yankees’ Division Series sweep of Minnesota this October, Pettitte, despite having only three starts after returning from the disabled list, produced a typically effective, victorious start.

If anything, though, there has been more focus on Lee, because he has been the dominant pitcher of the past two postseasons, for the Phillies in 2009, for the Rangers now. He won two starts in the 2009 World Series against the Yankees. This October, he won two starts in the Division Series against Tampa Bay, including the Game 5 clincher. For his seven postseason starts, Lee is 6-0 with a 1.44 ERA.

Lee’s work has been extolled to the point that Yankees manager Joe Girardi contends that his man, Pettitte, is being shortchanged in the discussion.

“There’s been talk about Cliff Lee before he even started this series and people were talking about Game 3,” Girardi said. “But let’s not forget that we have a pretty good guy on the mound, too, that’s won a lot of postseason games…..Read More

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