B.A.'s outlook on Yankees' offense for games 1 and 2 of Anaheim series

Good news, Bad news, with the more significant news coming first

Game 1, August 20 - Yankees facing Dustin Moseley

Good News:
Dustin Moseley has been awful in the second half, especially in his last 5 outings. In his last 22.1 innings, he has allowed 33 hits, 9 walks, and 20 earned runs for an ERA of 8.07 and a WHIP of 1.883. Over these 5 outings he's had an exactly 1:1 groundball to flyball ratio. On the season it's 1.73, so he was clearly better when he was coming out of the pen in the first half. This second half for him has been disastrous.

Bad News:
Dustin Moseley can be tough on lefties. Lefties are performing at .222/.289/.359 clips with 19 strikeouts in 117 AB versus righties who are killing this guy at .331/.380/.455 clips with just 15 strikeouts in 154 AB. And in Moseley's last 5 outings, a lot of the damage done against him has been by Mike Piazza, Mark Ellis, Detroit's heavily right-handed lineup, Mike Lowell and Manny Ramirez. So the Yankees will need to stack their lineup with righties like Andy Phillips and Shelley Duncan. And I just checked the Yankees' lineup for tonight. Phillips is in but Duncan is not. Come on, Joe...

Game 2, August 21, Yankees facing Kelvim Escobar

Bad News:
Winning this one will not be an easy task, considering Mike Mussina doesn't throw harder than Tim Wakefield anymore and the fact that Kelvim Escobar is pitching in Anaheim. In Anaheim, this year, he has a 2.07 ERA and a 1.126 WHIP. He has also pitched well on the road, but it makes sense that he's been less effective on the road because of how much of a pitcher's park Angel Stadium is.

Good News:
If I were to put this lineup together, unlike tonight, I would get all the lefties in there for tomorrow's game. The .258/.317/.388 clips for lefties versus .220/.276/.300 for righties (and the obviously higher IsoP by lefties) would help explicate that thinking. However, I might consider starting Jose Molina over Jorge Posada because Posada has abysmal numbers against Escobar in his career, and he can use every offday he can get considering how he couldn't get a day off in the first half. I would also be ready to...yes, that's right, I am actually saying this...play some smallball. Escobar has allowed 15 stolen bases in 17 attempts and Jeff Mathis only 3 for 22 throwing out runners this year. For his career he's just 6 for 37. So, the Yankees should "have larceny on their minds" as Ken Singleton would say.

I'll give my outlook on Game 3 tomorrow.