Fan News

Statistics can prove anything, but more often than not, they mean nothing. I enjoy bits of trivia, not because I want to win a bet with my friends, but because they can shed light on trends and highlight new things. As a baseball fan and sports junkie, I love hearing something and saying, "Wow, I never knew that."

Keeping that in mind, here are a collection of stats, facts, and notes about your American League playoff teams, thanks to Elias Sports Bureau, SABR, press officers, and media reps. Enjoy the information overload.

Coming into the 2010 MLB postseason, everyone wanted to know if Roy Halladay was ready to pitch on the big stage. The real question turned out to be if the stage was ready for him. Roy Halladay stepped on the mound and put on a historical performance by completing the second no-hitter in postseason history, leading his team to a 4-0 victory over the Cincinnati Reds in Game 1 of the NLDS.

The only other no-hitter in baseball postseason history was Don Larsen's 1956 World Series Game 5 perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

I don’t think there enough adjectives out there to describe the pitching performance given by Philadelphia Phillies ace Roy Halladay on Wednesday.

Awesome, incredible, spectacular, or whatever word you want to use, the fact is Halladay was simply amazing.

My friend Robert and I were eating at a campus bakery shop this afternoon when we saw a fellow college student sitting in the booth across from us wearing a Shane Victorino Philadelphia Phillies jersey shirt. On her laptop was the ESPN Gamecast of the Phillies Game 1 matchup against the Cincinnati Reds.

Wow! Roy Halladay just pitched a playoff no hitter for the Phillies.

I'm trying to remember the last time I remember a no-hitter in the playoffs. I'm sure Sandy Koufax had some. No? Curt Schilling? No? The Big Unit? No? All those Atlanta Braves guys? No?

Okay! You're forcing Stan Silliman to Google. I'm too old to Google.

Don Larsen? The perfect game in the 1956 World Series? Geez, what was I doing October 8, 1956? Hmmm?

Roy Halladay, the Philadelphia Phillies' prized offseason pick-up via trade with the Toronto Blue Jays, got his first postseason start Wednesday evening in Game 1 of the NLDS against the Cincinnati Reds.

During the regular season, quality baseball, consistent pitching, and measured tactics are the key to victory. Come October, and these methods go out the door. It's all about who can hit the most homeruns. Outside of simply including the Yankees starting nine, here are the most prolific power hitters in the 2010 postseason.

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In Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game is Wrong, Nate Silver and Dayn Perry tackled a question that had mystified fans and analysts for more than a century: What are the most important qualities for a team to have in the playoffs?

Through the magic of statistics, Silver and Perry found that only three aspects of the game had any correlation with teams doing well once they got to the postseason. The results: Good defense, a lights-out closer, and a pitching staff’s strikeout rate.

With John Russell gone, the top priority is now on selecting a new, hopefully winning, manager for the team. There are several good candidates, some of whom have strong Pittsburgh ties.

That should not be a litmus test, but could be a useful tiebreaker, if aptitudes are otherwise comparable.

No matter what they say, over the final three-plus weeks of the season, the Yankees played as if they favored taking on the Twins in the first round of the playoffs over securing home-field advantage and having to play Cliff Lee and the Rangers.

New York (95-67) seems to have gotten what it wanted and will open up the best-of-five American League Division Series in Minnesota (95-67) on Wednesday night.