Veteran (translation: older) baseball fans will remember Arizona Diamondbacks reliever, Byung-hyng Kim, in the 2001 World Series with the Yankees when he blew 9th inning leads to the Yankees in games 4 and 5 at Yankee Stadium. There were dramatic home runs by Tino Martinez, Scott Brosius and Derek Jeter in those games that totally turned around a series that the D’Backs were dominating. Manager Bob Brenly kept rolling him out for multiple inning appearances and the Yankees finally figured things out.

Well, last night Luke Weaver did his best Kim imitation. He has appeared in every Yankee playoff game so far, and often in multiple innings appearances. No matter how dominant a reliever might be, if you keep putting them out there game after game, the opposition will start to get used to facing him. That is also a challenge for Cleveland as their starters don’t go deep in any games.

Full disclosure: SU was playing tennis and only saw the bottom of the 9th inning and the 10th (after listening a bit to John Sterling on the radio which is still just too painful. Why does the listener have to pay so much attention to the crowd noise to know what really is happening?). The Yankees went from being up 3-0, to allowing Cleveland back into the series with clear momentum going into game 4. Now, baseball is not like basketball. A different scenario in the NBA where a late 3-pointer can change the series and real momentum as the teams face off in the next game with the same exact players. In baseball, it is about the next game’s starting pitcher. The Yankees will roll out Gil who hasn’t pitched in weeks and was pretty much running on fumes down the stretch. SU sees a 90-pitch outing over 3 innings with lots of walks tonight. It will still be a winnable game for the Yankees if they can hit with runners in scoring position (1 for 8 last night) but no way to expect that. As SU has said on many occasions, they need a lot of home runs to win. This team is not built for singles and doubles.

SU still says the Yankees have the advantage with Rodon going in game 5 and Cole at home in game 6. No excuses. You have to figure Weaver will not be available tonight. Someone will score a lot of runs tonight – SU’s guess is Cleveland is that someone. Clay Holmes is the closer – what can go wrong? Buckle up Yankee fans.

Meanwhile, the Mets are on the brink of elimination vs. the Dodgers. SU says they will not go out quietly this evening, and will force a game 6 back in LA. Do not count them out.