Lessons Learned

Jason Michael Barker

Where once there were eight, now there are four.

After nineteen games in four series over a full week of pretty good baseball, it's time to leave the Division Series behind and move on to the League Championship Series. For the four teams moving on, there's some comfort to be taken from the fact that there are no "must win" games for at least three more games.

For the four teams last lost... well, didn't your mother always tell you to learn from your mistakes? That in mind, here's a look at the lessons we all can take from the first round.

No matter how many runs you score, it's still only one win. Perhaps this one is more that you simply can't rattle a good team. Cleveland scored 17 runs to beat the Mariners on Saturday, but sure enough, it only put them ahead 2-1 in the series and Seattle came back to win the thing Monday.

Everything Derek Jeter touches turns to gold. Yeah, you do detect some sarcasm there. I still haven't heard a good explanation as to why Jeter was running across the field to grab that errant throw and flip it to Jorge Posada, other that Jeter himself saying "That's my job, that's where I'm supposed to be." Somehow I don't see how that's the case. Who's covering second base in that situation? Third base?

I've never heard of a team using three cut-off men on what should have been a routine throw home from the outfield. Now, if Jeter said he saw that the throw was going to miss the cutoff man/men, I might buy it. I don't buy that he was in the correct place, at least not in the traditional sense. All that said, the whole thing worked out pretty well for him and his club, so I'm not here to slam him. I'd just like an explanation that makes sense, that's all.

Oh, and that was one heck of a catch he made, falling into the stands, in Game Five.

Starting pitching matters. This one really isn't anything profound, but it certainly came back to haunt the Astros in their series with the Braves. A month ago Houston looked like the best club in the National League, and then Pedro Astacio went down. Ditto Roy Oswalt, who was set to start a fourth game that never came. In an ideal world, the Astros wouldn't have had to start Dave Mlicki in Game Two (though he pitched well) and Shane Reynolds, who didn't have a great year, wouldn't have started Game Three.

Bud Selig still doesn't get it. No champagne in the clubhouse? Give me a break. How, exactly, is continuing a well-established celebratory tradition "disrespectful" towards anything or anybody? If a team wants to make that decision on their own, more power to them. The last thing baseball needs is Selig putting a damper on things for no reason... didn't the president of this great nation just say the other day that we should all be trying to get back to normal? I can't imagine anything more "normal" than baseball players celebrating a big win with bubbly in the clubhouse.

If you've got a team down, PUT THEM AWAY. The A's certainly learned this after their series with the Yankees, and to a lesser extent the Indians in their series with the Mariners. The Yankees have been here (there?) so many times, they weren't going to be scared by a fifth. That's not to say the A's were scared -- I don't buy into much of this "experience" thing -- but the Yankees have so much post-season experience that they're some sort of wacky, special case.

Defense, defense, defense. Over the course of a full season, defense isn't nearly as big a deal as some people would like to think it is. In a short series, however, defensive lapses can be exploited. Monday night the A's made three errors which were directly responsible for two of New York's runs. This isn't to say the A's are a bad defensive club, but these kinds of mistakes to lose games whether they're made by a good defensive team or a suspect one.

And now to the respective League Championship series.

A week ago, I predicted that the Braves would struggle to score runs against the Astros and ultimately lose the series. What I didn't realize is just how dire Houston's pitching situation was (Dave Mlicki? Dave Mlicki?!). The Braves didn't have a problem scoring runs, for the most part, and they made quick work of the Astros in three games.

The fact remains, however, that the Braves have a pretty dismal offense. There's a reason they scored just 730 runs, or just over 4.5 per game, this season. Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks check in at just over five runs per game during the regular season, and I'm here to tell you the D-Backs have better pitching right now than the Astros did in the last series. Arizona can hit some too, and I suspect they'll dispose of the Braves in six games.

Over in the other league, the Yankees and Mariners emerged from hard-fought, five-game series to face off in a rematch of last season's ALCS in which the Yankees prevailed in six games. Is this the year another AL team finally breaks through? In the opinion of this writer, yes -- Seattle outscored New York by 125 runs this season while allowing 85 fewer and the Mariners took the season series 6-3. The Yankees won 95 games this year and are a better team than many (myself included) have given them credit for, but in the end Seattle's run scoring and past success against both Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens will be enough.

about the author

If you write to Jason Michael Barker at jmb@strikethree.com, he promises not to tell you to "zip it" or "simmer down" like he did to that last fellow.

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