PLAYOFFS BEGIN: YOUNG 'SCHOOLED'

Down Under----The 2007 BARB playoffs, delayed by holidays, finally got under way in earnest on Wednesday evening, as the East-winning Darwin Finches (93-63) met Central champs Las Vegas (80-76) back in Australia, while perennial Western titlist Yuma Firebirds (87-69) hosted wild-card Worcester (92-64) in Arizona.

With the playoffs in a ‘020201' format, there will be two games at home for the team with home field advantage, two games on the road, and then (if needed) a single game back at the favorite’s ‘house’ to determine the outcome. And, as usual in such affairs, there were plenty of surprises, but none more so than Chris Young’s big inning.

Young (11-7, 4.21) had won seven games in 17 starts with Worcester after coming over in early June in a trade with the Black Mesa Anomalies, lowering his ERA half-a-run in the process and striking out over a batter an inning. In Game 1 of the Worcester-Yuma series, Young would be matched up with Roy Halladay (15-9, 3.32 in the regular season)–a tough customer. But it would not be Yuma’s pitching the fans would talk about, but Young’s early meltdown. With the score tied 0-0 in the bottom of the second, Young walked Travis Hafner and then allowed a soft single over second to Nick Markakis. Young got two out, but then left a fastball over the plate for Curtis Granderson, who was only in the lineup due to the late-season injury of Vernon Wells. Granderson jumped all over Young’s offering, hitting a three-run bomb JUST fair curling around the left-field foul pole, and Yuma led, 3-0.

Young fanned Russell Martin to end the inning, but he would end up retiring only one more hitter the rest of the way, in a third inning that went like this: already trailing 3-0, Young walked Brian Roberts. Miguel Tejada doubled. With nobody out and a base open, the jittery Elims (in their very first playoff series) decided against pitching to Vladimir Guerrero and walked the free swinger to load the bases! Hafner then walked in a run. Markakis flied out harmlessly to left, but Ryan Braun and Raul Ibanez both got on to score runs, knocking out Young. His replacement, Jon Rauch, was similarly abused: Russell, Roberts and Tejada all had RBI singles, all with two outs (owch!), and by the time the carnage was over, Yuma had mounted an eight-run inning and led, 11-0!

What’s a boy like Roy (Halladay) to do? Simple: throw strikes and dare the Eliminators to hit enough to get back in the game. Halladay (1-0, 2..25) would go eight strong innings and allow just two runs. Scott Shields, with a 12-2 lead, fiddled about and bounced a couple of wild ones past Martin that helped Worcester add a pair of scores, but this was really just a case of a cat playing with its food. When Mark Teixiera couldn’t make contact with two strikes, Hanley Ramirez was thrown out trying to swipe third for the final out and Worcester had gone down in defeat, 12-4! Young (0-1, 34.71) was charged for nine of those runs, all earned, in as one-sided a game as you can imagine.

What happened in the rest of the games? Who’s going to the Series? Keep checking this blog to find out!