Well that was less fun than I'd hoped. With good ol' hindsight, however, it shouldn't have been completely unexpected.

Baseball seems to have less talk about teams not "matching up well" than you hear in football or basketball, but it certainly appears to have applied to the Nationals against the Yankees. Granted, with replay, they would have won the second game, but they would've "barely" won that one.

In hindsight, I have to tip my cap to what was a perfectly planned and executed strategy -- I'm talking Montana in 89 Super Bowl precision, the begrudging-golf-clap type -- to beating our young Nationals. The Nationals' success is based on starting pitching, probably more so than for any other team in the league. The starters are also young and aggressive.

How did the Yankees counter? Perfectly. They brought in a lineup with nothing but good, veteran hitters. Their consistency was amazing:

Gio after 4 - 79 pitches (Hughes had 63)

JZ after 4 - 79 pitches (Pettitte had 49)

EJ after 4 - 76 pitches (Nova had 46)

Total: 234 pitches to 158 pitches, almost exactly 50% more pitches; hard to think that was coincidental. They chased our pitchers in the first four innings, and then won every game in the 5th inning or later. In my view, they actually won each of these games in the first four innings, it was just a different number on the scoreboard. The bottom line is that a lineup where every hitter is good or better, and 29 or older, is perfectly-suited to beating a team based largely on a young starting rotation.