The Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees have been the unquestioned leaders of their respective leagues some time now. So, to the surprise of no one, they both find themselves with assured home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. But while their paths to pennants may seem relatively easy, both have some great obstacles to overcome.
Philadelphia Phillies
1) Getting Back Into a Winning Mindset
Since they clinched their spot in the playoffs about a week and a half ago, the Phillies have won only one game. While some of this may be attributed to not pushing their starters as hard as before in hopes of keeping them healthy for the postseason, there is a problem here. Many times, teams that coast by for weeks at a time, even if they are the most talented team in the league, have trouble simply flipping a switch and turning it on at the right time.
2) Scoring Runs
This may seem too simple, but consider this: if the Cardinals win the wild card (and they have a great chance of doing so as I write this article) the Phillies will have the fewest runs scored of not only any National League team, but of any team in either league. As good as their pitching is, they'll have to score more runs to beat the best of the best consistently.
3) A Potential Matchup Problem
For this point, I'll go back to those pesky Cardinals — if they win the wild card, Philadelphia should be a little worried. I say this for two reasons, the first of which is fairly obvious in that to beat the best National League pitching, you need the best National League hitting, which the Cardinals have. But possibly even more worrying for the Phillies is that in 9 games against the Cardinals this year, they're only 3-6.
New York Yankees
1) Consistency From the Starting Pitchers
At first glance, the Yankees' rotation may not look too bad, but they have one glaring problem — they can't consistently get quality starts from all of their starting pitchers. This problem was easy to cover up in the regular season, when they weren't facing the best hitters and pitchers in the league every game. But when October rolls around, they'll need their top three hurlers to be sharp every start, or they'll have to rely on their great offense to do more than even it is capable of doing.
2) Familiarity Breeds Contempt … and Upsets
At this point, it's almost assured that the American League wild card team will come from the AL East. Both the Rays and the Red Sox have seen a good deal of the Yankees this year, and knowing the habits of New York's starting pitchers could spell doom for the AL East champs in a potential matchup. If the Yankees play the Red Sox at some point in the postseason, they'll not only have to deal with only Boston's top three hurlers, but also the only offense in all of Major League Baseball that has scored more runs than they have this year.
3) Playing their Best Baseball Now
This may seem like nitpicking, but the Yankees have had a losing streak of at least three games in every month except for July. While a similar statement may be true for most teams in the league, the alarming thing about those streaks for the Yankees is that they came largely against (not necessarily in sweeps) teams like the Orioles, Blue Jays, White Sox, and Royals. Given that all of those teams may finish .500 or below, there's definitely something to be said about a need for improvement here.
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