Saturday, October 05, 2002
Lots of long balls in playoffs
By HAL BOCK
AP Sports Writer
Meet baseball's version of Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside — Ray Durham and Scott Hatteberg.
Oakland's first two batters opened Game 3 of the playoffs against Minnesota on Friday with consecutive home runs, Durham's inside the park, Hatteberg's over the wall.
How appropriate for the Long Ball Playoffs.
Small ball — the art of building runs patiently with singles and steals, bunts and bloopers — is old fashioned baseball, out of style in Postseason 2002, where the home run rules.
The division playoffs are a homer haven: 26 were hit in the first eight games. That's a big jump over last year's 15 homers through eight games, and the most for the postseason's start since 28 were hit in 1995.
The barrage has been most dramatic in the series between the Anaheim Angels and New York Yankees. In the first two games, the teams combined for 12 home runs, six per team.
For the Yankees, the longball showdown is no big deal. New York hit 223 home runs during the regular season, the second-highest total in club history, trailing only the 240 hit by the Mickey Mantle-Roger Maris team in 1961.
Anaheim had a more modest regular-season collection of 152 home runs, tied for 11th in the American League and the fewest of any of the eight playoff teams.
“It's an awful lot of home runs for the Angels, not the Yankees,” Fox Sports analyst Tim McCarver said. “And the guys that hit them have been no surprise. If David Eckstein starts hitting them, we've got a story.”
Eckstein, Anaheim's leadoff hitter, had just eight homers during the regular season and none so far against the Yankees. The Angels' homers have come from more traditional sources such as Troy Glaus, who connected in consecutive at-bats in Game 1 and leads all hitters with three for the playoffs.
Glaus hit 30 homers and drove in a career-high 111 runs this season. He was low-key about his power show.
“They made a couple mistakes and I haven't missed,” he said. “When you're going bad, you miss them. When you're doing all right, you don't miss those.”
The playoffs arrived at a most convenient time for Glaus, who was coming off his best power month of the season with eight homers in September.
“As far as the power, we're not trying to match the Yankees home run for home run,” said Angels outfielder Garret Anderson, who homered in Game 2 against New York. “They're a good hitting team. We hit hard line drives.”
Some of them out of the park.
McCarver thought Yankees manager Joe Torre would talk to his team about relying on the longball before Game 3.
“Even though seven of their eight runs in the opener came on homers, Joe doesn't want their mentality to be that,” McCarver said. “There is a tendency to lean on it. Home runs are fine. It's not that you're not trying to hit the ball out of the park. It's just that when you try to, other things come apart.”
With single-season home run king Barry Bonds swinging in Atlanta, the Braves-San Francisco Giants series figured to have its share of longballs.
The teams have combined for seven, with Bonds hitting the last one with the Braves comfortably ahead in Game 2. It was the second of his postseason career and pushed his playoff batting average to .200, up from the .195 he took into the division series.
The more important homers in that game were the consecutive shots hit by Javy Lopez and Vinny Castilla, triggering Atlanta's series-tying victory. J.T. Snow and Rich Aurilia also went deep for the Giants.
Minnesota used a two-run homer by Corey Koskie to start its Game 1 comeback against Oakland after the Athletics had jumped out to a 4-0 lead. Doug Mientkiewicz also homered for the Twins.
St. Louis had three home runs in the first two games against Arizona, and hit them against quality pitchers — Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling.
The Diamondbacks were the only playoff team without a home run through Friday. That also could be why they were the only team without a victory.
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Lots of long balls in playoffs
