ALCS Preview: Yankees vs. Rangers

The Texas Rangers just completed their first-ever MLB playoff series win. Now they’ve got to face the most successful playoff team of all time.

That’s the theme coming into the 2010 American League Championship Series as the Yankees take on the Rangers for the chance to play in the World Series. Tonight, in Game 1, the Yanks will start their ace, C.C. Sabathia while Texas counters with its No. 2 — C.J. Wilson.

It remains to be seen how the Rangers — one of the best offensive teams in baseball — will fare against the hard-throwing Sabathia. If the regular season numbers are any indication, it doesn’t look good. According to Mark Simon of ESPN.com, “The Rangers have four hitters who have previously had significant issues with Sabathia — Josh Hamilton is 1-for-10 against him. Vladimir Guerrero is 3-for-17. Bengie Molina has huge problems with Sabathia — 1-for-19 — and thus will sit in Game 1 in favor of Matt Treanor. Jorge Cantu’s status (he’s 1-for-12 against Sabathia) is still to be determined.”

On the flip side, there’s no telling how well the Yanks’ big bats will do against Wilson. While he lacks the pedigree (and size) of Sabathia, Wilson has performed wonderfully at home this season and that could be an issue for New York.  Wilson went 11-3 with a 3.70 ERA in Arlington this year and has been the benefactor of some solid run support with 5.5 per game.

Speaking of run support, several of Texas’ key hitters didn’t produce much of it in the ALDS victory over Tampa Bay.  Potential MVP candidate Josh Hamilton hit .111 and only drove in a single run; Michael Young hit .150 and struck out six times. Jeff Francoeur has been his usual erratic self (.125 batting average) but that’s a stark contrast to the great string of play he provided Texas after a late-season trade; in 15 games with the Rangers Francoeur hit .340 with two HR and 11 RBI and was a valuable component.

The Yankee bats didn’t have any similar problems driving in runs against Minnesota. Leading the charge was Curtis Granderson — he lit up Minnesota by batting .455 and driving in three runs — and the rest of the New York hitters did a solid job as well. Nick Swisher hit .333 with a home run, Robinson Cano finally provided some postseason spark by also hitting .333 (which included an .833 on-base percentage) while Mark Teixeira, Derek Jeter, Marcus Thames and Alex Rodriguez all hit .270 or better. This is an important development for facing the Rangers — because the Yankees pitching staff isn’t especially deep, it’s thought that runs will be aplenty given Texas’ offensive prowess. If the Yanks can continue to rack up the runs, they should be able to keep pace and their vast postseason experience could be the deciding factor.