The Yankees are facing Baltimore for the first time at New Yankee Stadium in a three game series that starts tonight. The Orioles are still a flawed, in transition team with a scary good offense and scary bad pitching (except Jeremy Guthrie and to a lesser extent, Koji Uehara). Whether or not the series comes out in the Yankees’ favor depends pretty much on the pitching not being abysmal and the offense showing up and neither of these are sure things.
The Good
- CC Sabathia has been looking a ton better lately and hopefully that trend will continue.
- The line up is better than the first Orioles series even with Jorge Posada out because A-Rod pretty much is just that good and they are getting good performances lately out of almost everyone.
- The Yankees lineup hit some okay pitching in the Minnesota series and hopefully that is something that will translate into hitting bad pitching in the Baltimore series.
- No more Kevin Millar!
The Bad
- Adam Jones is back in the lineup for Baltimore tonight.
- Nick Swisher is back to about where he should be batting line-wise, but now anything he ropes well is finding gloves. The Orioles have excellent outfield defense between Nick Markakis, Jones and whoever they decide to play in left so there could be a lot of hit robbing going on.
- The top of the Orioles lineup is really really good. Really good. Probably better than the Yankees when you compare Brian Roberts vs Jeter and what they can do.
- Aubrey Huff has not forgotten how to hit breaking balls since last season.
The Frightening
- Phil Hughes is starting Wednesday, and with the nibbliness and typical young starter bumps he’s been hitting this could get ugly. Hopefully he’ll fight through it and put together another decent outing.
- Most of the Yankees bullpen is still terrified of throwing strikes.
- The Orioles have a lot of power, and who knows if The Wind Tunnel will have any effect on the game.
why isn’t there a WIND TUNNEL tag on your blog??