Column: Yanks will win World Series, like it or not

Both the American and National League Championship Series begin later this week, and the West Coast and East Coast powerhouses of each league will square off. And of the four teams remaining in the playoffs, only the Philadelphia Phillies lost a game in their divisional series.

The four divisional series flew by so quickly that one might have forgotten already that the Minnesota Twins even made the playoffs this year. The Los Angeles Angels pounced all over the Boston Red Sox’ normally proficient pitchers, Josh Beckett and Jon Lester, in sweeping the Sox and ending their own playoff woes against the team.

The Los Angeles Dodgers took advantage of a horrendous dropped ball by leftfielder Matt Holliday in the ninth inning of Game 2 and eventually swept the St. Louis Cardinals. The Phillies left the Colorado Rockies heartbroken after posting two comeback losses against them in the frigid Denver air. And finally, the New York Yankees clung to the clutch bats in all three games from third baseman Alex Rodriguez, first baseman Mark Teixeira and catcher Jorge Posada.

The ALCS will feature two high-powered offenses and home run after home run. Rodriguez has finally responded to the criticism that he disappears in October and brought the Yankees two big home runs at crucial moments. In A-Rod’s last four postseason trips with the Yankees, all the attention was focused directly on him and how he would perform.

The Yankees did win some games, but the majority of the press coverage was still aimed at how Rodriguez went zero-for-four with two strikeouts. The man seemed to choke under intense pressure. The 2009 season has been rough for A-Rod, with steroid allegations and his admission of using a banned substance, and the postseason coverage has not been entirely focused on his play. I read more stories about his infamous relationship with beautiful actress Kate Hudson than about his ability to play baseball in October. He’d better hope she isn’t trying to write an article on how to date a baseball player and make him go crazy by being an overbearing girlfriend.

But seriously, the introduction of Teixeira to the Yankee lineup, directly behind A-Rod, took significant pressure off the third baseman, since he was no longer the best power hitter in the Yankee lineup.

The Yankees announced Tuesday that they are leaning toward a three-man pitching rotation of C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Andy Pettitte for the ALCS. At first look it seems that playing Sabathia at least twice in the series is a good thing for the Yankees, yet Sabathia went 0-2 with an ERA over 6.00 against the Angels this season.

In my opinion, the Yankees’ choice of a three-man rotation instead of a four-man rotation will not play a significant role in the conclusion of this series: The winner of this series will be the team that comes out with the bigger bats. The Angels had more than nine players with more than 50 RBIs and runs scored over the season. They are going to steal bases on Posada, show some hit-and-runs and use their athleticism on the base paths to attack the Yankee defense.

I expect this series to be one for the ages. There will be back-and-forth games, as one team jumps out to an early lead only to see the other race back. This series will go to seven games, but look for the Yankees to squeak by the Angels to win the pennant.

In the National League, the lesser league, the defending champion Phillies take on manager Joe Torre and his Dodgers. The Phillies came out in championship form against the Rockies, refusing to lose in Colorado and coming up big in the ninth inning of Game 4 against a quality closer, Huston Street. The additions of outfielder Raul Ibanez, pitcher Cliff Lee and pitcher Pedro Martinez, as well as the continued development of the bat of outfielder Jason Werth, have the Phillies leaning towards another National League pennant.

But I’m not going to write off the Dodgers. While nothing would make me happier than to see the Phillies sweep the Dodgers, the boys from L.A. are just too good to lose to the Phillies that easily. The Dodgers have the best bullpen and the best bench in the major leagues. And while the Dodgers cannot go man-for-man against shortstop Jimmy Rollins, second baseman Chase Utley, first baseman Ryan Howard, Werth and Ibanez, they can go much deeper into their bench, as Mark Loretta, a reserve player, proved when he hit the game-winning run in against the Cardinals in Game 2.

The Dodgers made one of the best acquisitions before the trade deadline in July when they got the left-handed reliever George Sherrill from the Baltimore Orioles. Sherill offers the Dodgers an incomparable asset in the late innings to combat the strong left-handed hitters in Philadelphia. The very talented and deep Dodgers’ bullpen gives them the edge over the Phillies’ bullpen, which is weighed down by their once-good and now-terrible reliever, Brad Lidge, who has 11 blown saves and a 7.21 ERA this year.

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This series will not be like the quick divisional series, but instead will go all the way to Los Angeles in Game 7. Look for the managerial talents of Joe Torre to lead to Los Angeles Dodgers to the World Series. (Nothing upsets me more.)

The Yankee team that Joe Torre helped to build will face their former manager in the World Series and will make the Dodgers wish they had never shown up.

The Yankees will destroy the Dodgers in a four- or five-game series. America’s team is back in true form, and they will go home with their 27th World Series title, whether you like it or not.