Cleveland at New York

The Yankees offense needed two things in this series. The first was to get home, where they have scored over 7 runs per game in the second half of the season. The second was to get a shot at Cleveland's second-tier pitching staff. They will get another opportunity tonight as Paul Byrd takes to the hill fro the Tribe. Many may wonder why Eric Wedge opted for Westbrook in game three vs. Byrd. He chose a 6-9 pitcher over a 15-8 pitcher. The fact is, Westbrook has been the better pitcher, and the Yankees ended up with 8 runs. Byrd had a great season record-wise, but when you dig inside the numbers you will see other reasons why Wedge made that choice. Byrd struggled vs. the good teams and he also struggled overall in September. Byrd had no success vs. the better offenses in the American League. He got off to a great start, pitching to an ERA in the 3's through May. But since then, he has been 5.02. The numbers get really horrible against the big offensive teams. If you look at him vs. the likes of Seattle, NY Yankees, Detroit and Anaheim, his numbers were dreadful. He worked 41.2 innings, gave up 69 hits, and posted a softball sized 8.42 ERA with batters teeing off to a tune of a .354 average. He is also not effective in holding runners on base. The league was a perfect 9-0 in stolen base attempts with a lefthand hitter at the plate against Byrd. There is another negative at work here as Byrd did his worst work in night games, where his ERA was 1.45 runs higher than day games. The Yankees will bring back Chein Ming Wang on three days rest. Wang has only made one appearance in his career on three days rest, and pitched ok, lasting 4.2 innings. The Yankees pen can give up runs. This game could very well, play like last night's game where the middle innings produce the bulk of the runs. Seattle, Detroit ,Ananaheim and the Yankees faced Byrd six times (seven if you include Seattle in the last series of the year when they used a lot of bench players), and the runs produced in the six games were 80 (over 13 per game). These teams have played four at the Stadium, with each producing more runs than this total. We expect a high-scoring game with the Yankees bats prevailing.