Baseballhead:
Division Serious

Michael Cox

Yes, there be Baseballhead here, and this week we wonder where in Seattle those guys in the Mastercard commercial paid eight dollars for two lattes. We're still not sure, but I look forward to their buying $15 Chicago-style hot dogs at the next stop in their tour.

As I write this column, the National League Championship Series is set, while everything is still up for grabs in the AL. If you had told me that the Indians would score 17 runs on Mariner pitching -- much less in a single game -- and that the griddle-hot Athletics would end up at the brink after winning their first two games, I'd offer to sell you a four-dollar latte.

Yet, looking at both the M's-Indians slugfest and Yankee comeback, it's easy to see how they could happen.

Abrupt turnarounds and abrupt exits are the hallmarks of a short series. When a very good team racks up two wins followed by two losses during the regular season, or even loses three straight, nobody is silly enough to label it a "collapse." Yet when this happens in the postseason it's somehow supposed to be embarrassing?

On the other hand, when the Astros keep making early exits consistently for several years running, the overall "sample size" begins to increase to the point that I really do wonder whether there's something in the slightly less muggy October Houston air.

I gotta tell ya though, this may be the most entertaining Division Series round since Bud Selig gave birth to the idea of the Wild Card.

The Indians' big Saturday game was a product of their big-inning offense. The Tribe still plays old-school AL ball, counting on the heavy-duty sluggers in the middle of their lineup. The Mariners, on the other hand, scratch and claw for every run like it's a Barry Bonds home run ball. Seeing Cleveland break out the lickin' stick, all I could say was, "you'd better save a few of those for tomorrow." Did they listen? Nuh-uh.

The Good Freddy Garcia came to play on Sunday, and the Good Bartolo Colon morphed into the Bad Bartolo Colon midway through the seventh inning. Odd moment in the game: After glancing briefly to see if he could ascertain the foul line, Marty Cordova was too close to the line to do anything but catch David Bell's deep foul fly, and the tying Mariner run tagged and scored. After the play, Colon gesticulated at Cordova as if he was planning to give his outfielder a post-game revenge wedgie.

Now both teams jet back to Seattle for a deciding game today (in fact, by the time you read this, it may have already been decided, in which case you should have read this earlier). With a rematch of the Moyer-Finley Game Two bout, the result is likely to be very similar. Still, I wouldn't want to have to wager money either way (I'm sure you're thinking of a really good Pete Rose joke right about now).

After getting the kind of pitching in Games One and Two that they expected from Mulder and Hudson, Oakland fell victim to the real ace of the Yankee pitching staff when Mike Mussina earned his Game Three shutout. Still, they might have been in a position to win if only Jeremy Giambi hadn't refused to dirty his uniform by sliding, turning a close play into an easy out.

Art Howe may want to rethink the theory of the "thank-you start" after seeing Cory Lidle lit up by the Yanks on Sunday. On the other hand, who would have expected the performance that Orlando Hernandez had? You guys from the Post can put your hands down now.

So, after every single newspaper in America had already written that the Bronx Guys had already "passed the torch" to the White Elephants (of course, instead of "passed the torch to," they could have more clearly stated "gotten their asses kicked by"), the Yankees have returned like zombies in a George Romero film.

Will 80% of Roger Clemens and 0% of Jermaine Dye be enough to keep the A's bats to a stage whisper tonight? Will Jason Giambi be forced to place his brother in a hammerlock if Jeremy doesn't slide into the plate next time? Will the collective voice of the press begin declaring anew that the Yankees "just know how to win"?

Answers: Dunno, I hope so, and boy, I sure hope not. Find out tonight, sometime in between the endless Ally McBeal season premiere promos.

Over in the Senior Circuit, after decisively putting the Astros away, the Braves joined the rest of us in sitting around and cursing Mary-Kate and Ashley during the Cards-D-Backs rain delay on Saturday. I know Fox is trying to drum up viewership for their ratings-impaired Fox Family channel, but I think I speak for the vast majority of baseball fans when I say I couldn't give a rat's ass about "The 13 Days of Halloween."

On Sunday we got to see one of the more exciting Division Series finales since the Mariners "upset" the Yanks in '95, as the typically anemic Diamondback offense managed to scrape up only their second and third runs in two Curt Schilling starts, yet won again. Tony La Russa must still be banging his head against a wall, Charlie Brown-style ("They can't hit, but they still win! How do they do it??").

And has there ever been a player who went from goat to hero within the same at-bat? Not that Womack was really to blame for his botched ninth-inning squeeze bunt -- manager Bob Brenly should have understood that even primitive African tribes would be looking for the squeeze in that situation, and Steve Kline deliberately threw Womack an unbuntable pitch.

Fortunately, a couple of minutes later Womack managed to actually get a rare base hit, celebrated briefly as Greg Colbrunn crossed the plate with the series-winning run, then did the longest extended duck-and-cover I've ever seen while his teammates tried in vain to give him the traditional helmet slap. (I do believe that baseball is the only sport in which teammates celebrate someone's achievement by pummeling him.)

So now Arizona gets at least one more attempt to dispel one of the media's Great Playoff Truths: "Randy Johnson Can't Win In The Postseason." Unfortunately, the media keeps forgetting that a pitcher can't win if his team doesn't score. If they can't generate the requisite offense against the Braves on Tuesday, I think a different kind of pummeling is in order.

about the author

Michael Cox wants to make you feel like you've hit a game-winning homer for the Mets. E-mail him at mc@strikethree.com and he'll personally come to your home or office and slap you silly.

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