Ken Davidoff's baseball insider

Greetings from the Acela, headed north. As I type this sentence, I'm in the Bronx. But since there's no baseball here (or in Queens), I've got to keep going, all the way to Boston, for today's ALCS Game 3.

Should be a fun few days at Fenway Park, and I'm delighted that we now have competitive series in both leagues.

And of course, we're all wondering the same thing, after last night's tense NLCS Game 3:

Where was this vengeful, eye-for-an-eye Joe Torre during the prior 12 years?

That's what John Harper and Joel Sherman both asked, and had I been in Chavez Ravine last night, I hope I would've been awake enough to ponder the same question.

The answer is, I don't know. It was perhaps the weirdest component of Torre's managerial reign that he didn't insist that his pitchers back up his players, primarily against the Red Sox, who hit the Yankees batters far more than the other way around.

There were Yankees pitchers, most notably Roger Clemens and David Wells, who did retaliate, and Torre always expressed appreciation (as much as he could, publicly, without getting himself in trouble) afterwards. But the Red Sox abuse did seem to be at its worst from 2004 through 2006, the years when the Yankees employed neither Clemens nor Wells.

It's no coincidence that the primary face of the Yankees' starting rotation from that time was Mike Mussina, who steadfastly refused to engage in retaliatory tactics. Mussina loved working for Torre, but I think even if Torre had ordered Mussina to brush someone back, the Moose would've refused.

Did any of this matter? You can argue not really, since the Yankees did beat out the Red Sox for the AL East from 1998 through '06. On the other hand, a turning point of the 2004 ALCS - and, therefore, a turning point in Torre's reign - occurred when Pedro Martinez knocked HIdeki Matsui on his rear end in Game 5 and no one responded.

If nothing else, the dynamic contributed to the perception that the Yankees needed a more "fiery" manager.

The Yankees sure seemed to lack October toughness too often from 2002 through 2007. And in Friday night's NLCS Game 2, young Dodgers starter Chad Billingsley did nothing after Brett Myers threw behind Manny Ramirez in the first inning. I spent a minute or two with Billingsley afterwards, and when a reporter asked him about retaliating, he responded, "I tried to get a few pitches inside," but his location was just that bad. Not impressive.

(Update: Now I'm in Stamford. Has anyone ever live-blogged a train ride?)

Anyhoo, everyone knew the Dodgers had to respond - the Dodgers discussed it extensively, as David Lennon documented in his game story - and that was before Russell Martin got hit by Jamie Moyer in the first inning and buzzed by Clay Condery in the second. Good job by Hiroki Kuroda, taking care of business, albeit a little on the high side, as Shane Victorino pointed out so memorably.

I chose this photo of Mariano Duncan because I have a particular fondness for skirmishes that involve coaches and managers. That just seems to raise the stakes. I loved seeing Phillies coach Davey Lopes, the longtime Dodger, exchange shouts with Dodgers coach Larry Bowa, the longtime Phillie. I loved this 2005 incident involving Frank Robinson and Mike Scioscia. I even loved it when our blog's lightning rod, John Stearns, got fired up during the Clemens bat-throwing incident in 2000.

I didn't love Don Zimmer's attack of Pedro in 2003, however. I thought that was stupid, and I'm still stumped over how Zimmer avoided a suspension.

(Update: Norwalk)

Here is my Sunday Insider, which focuses on A.J. Burnett's past, present and future.

Here is the Seventh-Inning Stretch.

What a great game this was. Alas, I fell asleep in the eighth inning and woke up during the post-game show. These Rays are not going down quietly.

You know what cracked me up about this story? Hank Steinbrenner refers to "some piss-ant employee," referring to anyone on the Yankees' payroll besides himself or his brother Hal.

But Hank is such a fraud - albiet a highly entertaining one - that the people who work for the Yankees, particularly the ones lower on the totem pole whom you might think of "piss-ant," don't hate Hank. They just laugh at him. Because Hank isn't even focused or energetic enough to take the time to get to know/bully such people.

Have a great day.

Here is my column from last night's NLCS Game 2. While I think the Phillies will win this series, I found it interesting how many Dodgers _ Joe Torre, Manny Ramirez, Derek Lowe and Nomar Garciaparra _ have experience at climbing out of this postseason hole.

Nice win by the Red Sox, meanwhile, in ALCS Game 1. I was trying to listen to this on my drive home from Philly, but I'm going to have to tell Watchdog that, in Central Jersey, the 1050 signal was so bad that I was hearing more of this song (on some competing station, I guess) than the game.

Have a great day.

1. The Phillies, leading 1-0 over the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series, will lose today's Game 2, 8-1, as Manny Ramirez will hit two homers. But Philadelphia will rebound with a Game 3 victory Sunday, 5-3, and winning pitcher Jamie Moyer will say afterward, "Beating the Dodgers was the only way I could get that stupid commercial out of my head."

2. The Red Sox will jump out on top of the ALCS in tonight's Game 1, winning by a 6-1 margin at Tropicana Field. Tomorrow night, however, Tampa Bay will respond with a 3-2 victory. Both games will be marred by the profane rantings of a unidentified fan from a third base-side luxury box. "Just wait 'til next year," the fan will shout. "You'll both be bowing down to the Yankees!" Fortunately, the fan will fall asleep by the third inning.

3. Angels manager Mike Scioscia, signed through next year with a club option for 2010, will demand an extension, or else he'll quit. Owner Arte Moreno will call Scioscia's bluff and not grant the extension, marking Scioscia's second unsuccessful squeeze play of the week.

4. So we're a couple of weeks into the postseason , and we still can't talk enough about something that occurred last offseason: The Yankees' decision to pass on Johan Santana.

As you know, I think the Yankees made the right call. But I'm positive, more than anything else, that it's too early to declare this a Brian Cashman failure. Could it be, in time? Absolutely, if Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy never make it and Santana gives the Mets five more seasons like his 2008. But we're not there yet.

One point that intrigued me, however, was this: How would the Yankees have done in 2008 if they HAD traded Hughes for Santana? Brian Cashman, referring to Hank Steinbrenner, said this to me on June 7: ""He told me, in hindsight, looking back on that situation and where we're at right now _ with the offense, the way it's been doing _ having another starter here wouldn't have necessarily made any difference. He would've had X amount of losses because we wouldn't have scored as many runs up to this point as you would've expected, either."

That tune never really changed; even in his Oct. 1 news conference to announce his return, Cashman noted that the Yankees allowed fewer runs in 2008 (727) than they had in 2007 (777), therefore refuting the idea that Santana would've made the difference. What killed the Yankees, Cashman said, was their surprisingly diminished run production, from 968 in '07 to 789 in '08.

Naturally, however, with Santana aboard, the Yankees would've allowed even fewer runs, right? But how big a drop? Enough to make the Yankees a playoff team?

I'm no math wiz; my math dominance ended junior year of high school, with Mr. Fouratt's Math Analysis class. The Baseball Prospectus folks would probably regard my math with the same pity that Lewis exhibited when he was trying to help Stan Gable use a desktop computer in "Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation."

But what the heck. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. So here's how I went about answering this question:

a) I calculated all 30 teams' runs per game.

b) I analyzed all 34 of Santana's starts with the Mets, using his game ERA to determine how he did against the team's runs-per-game average. For instance, in his very first start, March 31 in Florida, he allowed two earned runs in seven innings to the Marlins. That's a 2.57 game ERA. The Marlins averaged 4.78 runs per game. So Santana scored a -2.21 - he allowed 2.21 fewer runs than Florida's average.

c) By adding up all 34 of Santana's "plus" and "minus" numbers _ incredibly, he allowed more than the team's average in just four of those starts _ and dividing them by 34, I computed that, on average, Santana allowed 1.83 runs below a team's per-game run output.

d) Assuming the Yankees would've given up Hughes for Santana, I plugged Santana into the games of Hughes and his successors. Santana averaged 6.89 innings per start, so for every three starts, I gave him 7, 7 and 6 2/3 innings pitched, which averages out to just about 6.89. Should I have given Santana fewer innings in the tougher American League? Perhaps, although Toronto's Roy Halladay (246) surpassed Santana's NL-leading 234 1/3 in '08.

In Hughes' first start, for instance, he allowed two runs over six innings, and the bullpen pitched a shutout seventh, totaling two runs through seven innings. Over his theoretical seven innings, Santana would've allowed 1.99 runs, which I got from taking the Blue Jays' 4.41 runs per game, subtracting Santana's 1.83 and then multiplying it by .77 (to get the seven-inning total). So Santana get a -.01 for the game.

Hughes made six starts, then Darrell Rasner replaced Hughes and made 15 starts, then Ian Kennedy replaced Rasner and made one start that Kennedy didn't think was so horrible. Rasner returned for five more starts before being replaced, mercifully, by Alfredo Aceves. And on Sept. 17, Hughes returned for two starts, giving his "slot" 30 starts overall.

e) Our simulated Johan Santana would've allowed 62.26 fewer runs than that mostly awful procession, giving the 2008 Yankees 665 runs allowed for the season. And a 789-665 run differential produces a Pythagenport record of 95-67, which was precisely the record Boston posted to win the AL wild card.

I still think Cashman made the right call, because, at some point, you have to stop the madness and try to build from within, even if it means missing the playoffs for a year (just as the Red Sox did in 2006). But no longer will I spout the "Santana wouldn't have made a difference, anyway" line, because he obviously would have.

Really, when you look at the fact that Rasner received so many chances and pitched so horribly, it's a wonder how the Yankees pitched so much better, overall, this season than last. The answer? Mike Mussina and the relievers. Mussina went from allowing 90 runs in 152 innings in '07 to 85 runs in 200 1/3 innings in '08. Remarkable. And the Yankees' bullpen ERA went from 4.37 in '07 to 3.79 in '08, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Anyhoo, I'm off to Philadelphia for Game 2. Have a great weekend.

So Mike Rose, one of the bigwigs in Newsday's sports department, e-mailed me yesterday and asked if I had LCS predictions.

Here's what I wrote back:

"As I predicted in the blog, Rays in 6 and Dodgers in 7."

Why did I write "Dodgers," when I wrote "Phillies" on the blog? I don't think it was a Freudian slip. I think, because I was writing my Midweek Insider (linked below) on CC Sabathia at the time I wrote back Mike Rose, I had the Dodgers on my mind.

It wasn't until I read the comment by the ever-astute Dennis that I realized my mistake.

So, to reiterate, Phillies and Charlie Manuel in 7, and then I think they'll take the Rays in the World Series.

If all of the regulars here could reach out to 20 people you know who read Newsday the newspaper but not Newsday.com, I'd appreciate it if you could let them know that I'm going with the Phillies, not the Dodgers. Thanks.

Here is my Midweek Insider, which wonders how big, if any, a role the Players Association will play in CC Sabathia's upcoming, monumental decision.

Let's face it, by the time Sabathia chooses his new employer, we're all going to be CC'd out.

For now, I'm predicting that the Dodgers get Sabathia. However, I reserve the right to change my mind until the day full free agency begins, 16 days following the completion of the World Series, at which point I'll post my official forecasts.

From sundown tonight until sundown tomorrow, I'll be off the radar, in honor of Yom Kippur. Happy fasting to all who do so.

Thanks to this site for the photo.

I'm in a hurry this morning, so I'm resorting to a cheap trick: The debate.

I say the Yankees shouldn't sign Mark Teixeira, because they should follow a simple rule: No exorbitant contracts to players they don't know first-hand. And yes, I'd apply the same rule to CC Sabathia, but it's apparent the Yankees disagree with me on that one.

Teixeira will probably very good for a few more years. But will he be very good for eight years? It's easy to say, "As long as he lives up to the money the first few years..." But if you remember Mike Piazza and Bernie Williams in 2005, at the end of their deals, those first few years don't numb the pain at the end.

When you throw in the fact that Jorge Posada might wind up needing to play first base, I'd say there's high incentive for the Yankees not to go to Teixeira.

I'll be back later with the Midweek Insider.