A day late, but still relevant. 

The Yankees loss on Monday was an inning after inning of wasted opportunities.  While you can get all het up about Joe West’s inteference call on Cano, the Bombers didn’t have it when it counted.  A-Rod and Matsui continued playing horrendously; Matsui stranded 8, and A-Rod weakly grounded into a double play that pretty much ended the season.

A-Rod has been getting a good deal of abuse for his implosion in the ALDS.  No doubt the man was not at his best. He never became the lethal, feared presence in the line-up the way Ortiz is, and his error in Game 2 was a turning point in the game, perhaps in the series. Yet to deny his tremendous season and to forget that last year’s ALDS (.421 AVG .476 OBP .737 SLG 2 SB) in favor of his failure here continues the trend of smearing Rodriguez at every possible opportunity.  Jeter hit .200 in last year’s ALCS, but it didn’t wipe out Jeter’s other successes. 

Sportswriting has a strange way of perpetuating certain stories, regardless of whether it is still true or actually substantaied by evidence.  The White Sox and smallball seem like another example of that.  There have been several articles explaining why this isn’t the case, yet Fox continues to on about it.  I yield to Nate Silver writing in Baseball Prospectus last week:

The White Sox are also an odd hybrid of a lineup. They’re far more dependant upon home runs than the press clippings would have you believe–about 40% of their run output on the season–and it’s hard to think of two players who less embody the speed and defense ethos than Paul Konerko and A.J. Pierzynski do.

Bravo, Mr Silver, bravo.  I highly doubt this to penetrate the analysis over the next week, but we can dream