World Series Update - Yankees Even the Series

Pedro Martinez was home. It wasn’t his real home. That would be Manoguayabo in the Dominican Republic, but New York, the site of Game 2 of the World Series, was as close to home as any city in the United States to Pedro Martinez.

After all, he had spent some brilliant years with the New York Mets after winning a Cy Young Award with the now defunct Montreal Expos and with the Boston Red Sox. When he pitched for the Red Sox, Martinez spent many a day and night in New York, dueling the powerful New York Yankees.

On Thursday night, with the bitter cold lapping him on the mound, Martinez tried once again to shut down the Yankees, and he did…for a while.

The thing that Martinez knows, of course, is that you can't really shut down the Yankees. You can hope to contain them. You can hope that Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter don’t hit you out of the ballpark. You can hope that their pitching staff doesn’t shut down your batters. You can hope that winning Game 1 of the World Series is a sign that the Yankees just aren’t ready to take you on, you, the defending world champions.

You can hope and hope, but hoping doesn't mean anything. Not when guys like Mark Texeira and Hideki Matsui are there in Yankee pinstripes, waiting to pick up the slack should Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez not produce.

That’s exactly what happened in Game 2 of the World Series. Martinez went tit for tat against the rejuvenated and equally brilliant A.J. Burnett up until the 6 th inning when, suddenly, Pedro realized that he was a 38 year old pitcher from Manoguayabo.

Martinez looked brilliant and was tied with Burnett until that 6 th inning when Hideki Matsui took Martinez to the right. The ball sailed into the stands giving the Yankees a 1 run lead. When Jose Posada singled to center scoring Melky Cabrera to give New York a 3 to 1 lead, it was up to the Yankees bullpen, led by the brilliant Mariano Rivera, to shut down the Philly batters.

Riviera did exactly that. Now, it’s on to Game 3 on Saturday where Andy Pettitte will take on Cole Hamels at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.

What have we learned so far in this series? Two things, really.

First, Cliff Lee, Philadelphia’s ace is incredible. He shut down one of the most feared batting line-ups in MLB post-season history in Game 1. He did it with a lot of different pitches and just plain fearlessness.

Two, that unless Cliff Lee takes the mound every night during this World Series, you can stick a fork into the Phillies.

The truth is that player to player, the Phillies just aren’t as good as the Yankees. The Phillies can keep fighting. They can even take the lead like they did in Game 2, but eventually, the talented Yankees will win out, at the end, when the all of the chips are on the table.

In the NFL if you don’t have depth, you’re screwed. Your running back goes down, your quarterback, your left tackle gets hurt, whatever happens, someone has to be there that a coach can fill the hole with. The deepest teams win the most games. Just look at the New Orleans Saints who have three starting running backs and a bevy of wide receivers. They also have four legitimate starters at corner. That’s the type of depth needed to win a football game.