{"id":5061,"date":"2009-10-18T13:19:51","date_gmt":"2009-10-18T12:19:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=5061"},"modified":"2010-04-02T15:33:45","modified_gmt":"2010-04-02T14:33:45","slug":"yankees-win-thirteen-inning-thriller-to-take-2-0-alcs-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=5061","title":{"rendered":"Yankees win thirteen-inning thriller to take 2-0 ALCS lead"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MLBLogo\"The New York Yankees took a 2-0 lead over the Los Angeles Angels in the ALCS in the early hours of this morning.\u00c2\u00a0 Their 4-3 thirteen-inning victory dashed my hopes that the Angels could follow the Dodgers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 lead and level the series at 1-1; however there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no sense of disappointment on my part.\u00c2\u00a0 As a neutral, I want to see the two series go to as many games as possible, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d take a shorter series if the games are as action-packed as this one was.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Game Two of the ALCS started at just before 1 a.m. British time and I have to admit that I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the energy to stay up and watch it.\u00c2\u00a0 That decision was probably for the best as the game lasted for five hours and ten minutes, yet I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure I would have had little trouble staying awake for the duration had I decided to \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcjust watch the first couple of innings\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead, I relied on MLB.com this morning to allow me to catch up on everything that happened.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the strengths of MLB.com is that there are lots of different ways in which you can do this.\u00c2\u00a0 You can read the game reports from the perspectives of both teams involved, you can re-trace the game via Gameday, you can watch 30\/40 second clips of the key moments or a neat little four-minute highlights package via the Daily Recap. As an MLB.TV subscriber, I could even go back and watch the full five hours of footage if I had the spare time to do so.\u00c2\u00a0 However, whenever I want to get a true sense of the way a game panned out and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the time to watch the whole thing back again, I always opt for the Condensed Game video.<\/p>\n

Condensed Games are available to watch for free by going to the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcMedia Center\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 page and clicking on the relevant link.\u00c2\u00a0 If you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t watched any Condensed Games before, this is a perfect opportunity for you to see why they are so invaluable, particularly to baseball fans outside the States who can find it difficult to watch the whole game live due to the time difference.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 This five-hour epic is reduced to twenty-three minutes in which every hit, out and other important plays are cut together.\u00c2\u00a0 The commentary is taken out of the audio feed to make it easier to edit the footage.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t detract much from the drama of the game, I quite enjoy just listening to the crowd\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reaction in fact, and you can always go on and watch the highlight clips if you are keen to hear how the big plays were called.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the same as sitting through the whole contest, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the next best thing if you want to get a good sense of how the game ebbed and flowed from one at-bat to the next.\u00c2\u00a0 In the case of the Angels-Yankees game, what really came across for me was how many good defensive plays there were.\u00c2\u00a0 That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably the last thing you would think if you just saw the highlights.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maicer Izturis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 error allowed Jerry Hairston Jr. to sprint around from second base to score the game-winning run and that was one of five errors committed by the two teams combined, including a pair by Robinson Cano.\u00c2\u00a0 Erick Aybar, Izturis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 middle infield partner, also committed an unofficial error when he failed to touch second base on an attempted double-play.\u00c2\u00a0 The umpire correctly called Derek Jeter safe, although Aybar could perhaps justifiably feel a little hard done by as that sort of play is virtually always given as an out by umpires.\u00c2\u00a0 When a fielder is turning a double-play and is in the vicinity of the base, the umpire will normally give them a little leeway so that the fielder isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always left standing on the bag and subsequently being clattered by the on-rushing baserunner. You can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t rely on an umpire to give you the benefit of the doubt though, as the Angels found out.<\/p>\n

Mistakes always stand out, but they shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t overshadow the good fielding that was also on show.\u00c2\u00a0 Mark Teixeira made two excellent plays stretching at first base, Johnny Damon robbed Chone Figgins of a lead-off hit in the ninth inning with a diving catch and Cano partly atoned for his errors by making a nice running catch on a pop-fly in centre field.\u00c2\u00a0 Meanwhile the Angels turned three important double plays.\u00c2\u00a0 Double plays always seem to me to be somewhat overlooked from the fielding side.\u00c2\u00a0 The attention normally falls on the negative aspect of the batter who hit into the twin-killing and Major Leaguers often make turning double plays look as easy as 1-2-3 (or 1-6-3, 3-6-1 and 4-6-3 in the Angels\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 case).\u00c2\u00a0 The coordination and sheer athletic skill required to complete double plays at the speed found in MLB shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be taken for granted: so long as it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not your own team hitting into it, there are few more impressive sights in any sport than a perfectly turned DP.<\/p>\n

The Angels\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 skill at turning the double play ultimately was their undoing against the Yankees.\u00c2\u00a0 Izturis should have gone for the sure-out at first and in pushing for two, he threw the ball away.\u00c2\u00a0 The Angels\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 uncharacteristic defensive miscues in the first two games and the sixteen runners they left stranded in game two have put them in a difficult 0-2 position heading back to Los Angeles.\u00c2\u00a0 At least they should enjoy the weather more back home.\u00c2\u00a0 As for the Yankees, they are now 5-0 in the postseason and have the look of a team destined to win it all.\u00c2\u00a0 Their many veterans know all too well that things can change quickly in baseball, so they won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be thinking about ring designs just yet.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Game Three of the ALCS begins at the much more convenient time of 21.13 BST on Monday.\u00c2\u00a0 If it is another five-hour classic then we won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be finished until gone 2 a.m., so there could be some bleary-eyed baseball fans heading into work on Tuesday morning.\u00c2\u00a0 Before that, we have the third game of the NLCS between the Dodgers and Phillies.\u00c2\u00a0 First pitch is set for 01.07 tonight\/Monday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Yankees took a 2-0 lead over the Los Angeles Angels in the ALCS in the early hours of this morning.\u00c2\u00a0 Their 4-3 thirteen-inning victory dashed my hopes that the Angels could follow the Dodgers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 lead and level the series at 1-1; however there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no sense of disappointment on my part.\u00c2\u00a0 As a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[553],"class_list":["post-5061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5061"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7255,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061\/revisions\/7255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}