Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Wednesday 11/04 Quickie: Pettitte, Pedro,
Utley, Dirk, Purdue, Buffs, LeMoyne

I need my baseball specialists to help me with today's SN column lead, in which I contend that the Yankees' best strategy for winning a best-of-7 series was to concede Game 5 -- not tank, but certainly not start Burnett on short rest -- but set up their rotation for optimal performance in Games 6 and 7.

Now, Pettitte is on short rest for Game 6, which means that Game 7 is far more likely than had Burnett gone tonight and Pettitte gone in Game 7. It just seems to make sense to me, but I'm happy to be debunked. (But please don't use "You play to win the game." We all know that's not always true, and in the World Series, you actually "play to win 4 out of 7."

More from today's column:

*Dirk! (29 in the 4th quarter? Yikes.)
*How about those unbeaten Suns?
*Darrell Scott: Leaving Colorado.
*Anyone buy Purdue as the 7th-best CBB team?
*LeMoyne!

LeMoyne's exhibition of Syracuse is not on par with a 16-over-1 in the NCAA Tournament, but it is pretty freaking shocking. For LeMoyne, this WAS their NCAA Tournament; for Syracuse, it was the first exhibition game of the season. Still: What a humiliation for the Cuse.

Complete SN column here. More later.

-- D.S.

2 comments:

Steve said...

Why shouldn't Purdue be the 7th ranked team? They were a top 16 team last year with Hummell playing through an injury. They have everyone back and Hummell is back to 100%.

SwaggerTooth said...

Absolutely right about the Yanks needing to "concede" game 5. I now have a sneaky suspicion the Phillies could pull this off. Pedro looked good enough in game 2, especially good enough to beat a non-fully-rested Pettitte in game 6. And then if they get by that, I'll take Hamels in game 7 (with Happ ready to come in on the whiff of trouble) against CC, who hasn't looked himself this series...on 3 days rest.