2011 ALDS Review: The Things That Were Supposed To Decide The Series

So how'd I do with my series preview/prediction?  Pretty shitty actually. 

1) Speed/Athleticism

You can say that the Yankees held the advantage in this department in the series, but it really didn't translate into anything.  Curtis' amazing catches in Game 4 were part of it, but other than that there wasn't much.  An extra base here and there and maybe Russell Martin's slide into home, but the Yankees never got the running game going on the basepaths, and the Tigers never really did anything in the field or running the bases to exploit themselves.  They played errorless baseball and didn't run themselves out of anything.  So while the Yankees probably made more athletic plays, it ended up being a wash in terms of predicting outcome. 

2) Miguel Cabrera

I was all prepared to point out how Detroit won the one game that Cabrera did anything in and got their dicks smashed in 3 out of the other 4 when he did nothing, thereby proving that he was the key and cementing my status as a baseball genius, but then the whole "Yankees can't a get hit when they need it" thing happened last night and well, yeah.

But the Yankees did do a good job of limiting Cabrera in the series.  The only game he had a hit in was Game 2.  For the rest of the series he was a combined 0-11 with 4Ks and 0 RBI.  They walked him when they had to, and pitched to him effectively to get him outs when the situation allowed them to.  Cabrera almost single-handedly won Game 2 for the Tigers, but was useless in the rest of the games.  Once again, the Yankees did something that was a key in helping them win but still didn't get the positive result. 

3) The Holy Bullpen Trinities

AGAIN things should stack up in the Yankees' favor here when you look at the numbers: 

DET Big 3: 7 IP, 8 H, 6 BB, 6 ER, 9 K
NYY Big 3: 8 IP, 1 H, 0 BB, 1 ER, 7 K

It doesn't get much more one-sided than that, folks.  The Yankees beat down every single one of the Albuquerque-Benoit-Valverde troika at one point or another, mostly Albuquerque.  And they looked like they were fixing to do it to Benoit again last night.  On the other side, save for the one bad pitch that Soriano made to Delmon Young in Game 3, the Yankees' big bullpen arms shut the Tigers down.  Unfortunately, D-Rob and Mo only combined for 3.1 of the total innings, so the advantage in performance couldn't be played into victory.

Essentially, my predictions were right on the money in that the Yankees dominated the 3 keys I identified, and completely off in that none of it ended up meaning a goddamn thing.  That was the most frustrating thing about this series.  Everything points to the Yankees being the winners, and they still managed to lose.  Just mind-bottling.