A week or so since my last post, and it's time for me to update on what is going on in the League Championship Series'. In the AL side of the draw, it was a very one-sided affair, with the Detroit starting pitching blowing away tame Yankee slugging on their way to a 4-0 sweep and a World Series berth. On the National League side, the Cards moved into cruise control after a big victory against Tim Lincecum, but an astonishing game 5 performance from Barry Zito has once again given San Francisco new life.
The Yankees-Tigers series was expected to be a close one, but in the end it was embarrassingly one-sided. A strong game one performance from Doug Fister appeared to have sealed an early series lead for Detroit before Valverde blew the 9th inning lead, giving up 2 run home-runs to Ichiro and late-inning hero Raul Ibanez. However, Delmon Young's 12th inning go-ahead double put the Tigers ahead for good. Game two followed a similar plot-line, but with no 9th inning Detroit implosion. Anibal Sanchez cruised through 7 scoreless innings and Phil Coke did the rest despite a superb 11 strike-out performance from Hiroki Kuroda. The Yanks needed to win game 3, and got no easy break going up against likely Cy-Young winner Justin Verlander, who continued his remarkable post-season with 8.1 innings of one-run pitching as Phil Coke nailed down another save. In the final game, the Yankees hitting woes continued, as Max Scherzer gave 6 strong innings and the bullpen did the rest on their way to a brutal 4 game sweep.
The story of the series was the Yankees hitting - Cano struggled his way to one of the worst post-season slumps in Yankee history, Granderson struck out in more than half his at-bats, Nick Swisher continued his horrible drought with runners in scoring position and Alex Rodriguez's well documented struggles led to his benching for the final two games of the series. Only Ichiro and Ibanez showed that they could put together any sort of good hitting at the plate, but I think the emphasis is being placed way too much on the Yankees' struggles than on the excellence of the Tigers pitching. The dominance of Verlander is no surprise, but the superb work from Fister, Sanchez and Scherzer were the defining performances from the series, as the Yankees could never adapt. As hot as they are now, it's hard to bet against them going into the World Series.
On the other side of the draw, the Giants and Cardinals started off a big NLCS series, with both teams proving in the divisional series that they are comeback kings. In game 1 the Cardinal bats got to Bumgarner early, and the bullpen held onto the lead to give them a big early advantage. A superb pitching performance from Ryan Vogelsong in game 2 proved the difference as the Giants tied up the series in a game that was marred by a hard slide from Matt Holliday at 2nd base that roughed up Marco Scutaro and gave the series an extra edge. Game 3 was huge in terms of impact on the series, and it was the Cards that came out on top after a superb performance from Matt Lohse and a clutch 2 run homer from bench player Matt Carpenter. Trying to tie up the series was Tim Lincecum for the Giants, who had seemingly put a disastrous regular season behind him after a number of superb bullpen pitching performances. However, he got beat up by the Cardinals as Adam Wainwright cruised to a game 4 victory and a commanding 3-1 series lead. The series seemed to be over with much-maligned left-hander Barry Zito on the mound the next day...
Having pounded left-handed pitching during the regular season and in the post-season, Zito was generally seen as a pitcher who would be lucky to make it through 4 innings. However, the soft-throwing 33 year old came up with the performance of his career, baffling and fooling the Cardinals with 7.2 scoreless innings in which he showed that location will always trump power. His astonishing performance allowed the Giants bats to heat up, and with the series now at 3-2 heading back to San Francisco, the pressure is on the Cardinals to perform in game 6 or be faced with a supremely confident and crowd-backed Giants side in game 7. This looks certain to be yet another superb series, and with their recent history for post-season heroics, you wouldn't want to put your money against St Louis, no matter how deep a hole they find themselves in...
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