HBT: Concerns aplenty before today's Game 5s

Four best of five playoff series, four Game 5s. Life is good.

We do it again two more times tonight, with the following action on tap:

Orioles?at Yankees, 5:07 PM ET, TBS: ?It has been an offense-free zone for both teams, but it?s not surprising given the big names and big contracts that the Yankees are catching all the heat right now. Alex Rodriguez has been terrible but, really, Curtis Granderson has been worse. And it leaves Joe Girardi with a tough call tonight: do you play an elimination game without your future Hall of Famer and your 40+ home run center fielder in the lineup? Do you go with Eric Chavez and/or Brett Gardner in an effort to shake things up? ?I doubt he?d make both of those calls, but benching A-Rod would not surprise me at all.

But maybe it?s the Orioles who need to worry more about their offense tonight, as they face CC Sabathia, who shut them down in Game 1. And, while they?re not getting the headlines Rodriguez and Granderson are getting, Matt Wieters and Adam Jones have been godawful too. They?ll need to figure something out if the O?s are going to advance to a meeting against the Tigers in the ALCS.

Cardinals?at Nationals, 8:37 PM ET, TBS: Two things that I sort of don?t believe in in baseball: momentum carrying over and experience carrying the day. ?The Nationals ? thanks to Jayson Werth?s dramatic walkoff homer ? have the former and the Cardinals ? thanks to having the 2011 World Series hardware in their trophy case ? have the latter, but that?s not really gonna matter tonight, as momentum is your next day?s starting pitcher and experience doesn?t put runners on the bases.

For the Cardinals it?s Adam Wainwright, for the Nats its Gio Gonzalez. Each are coming off strong Game 1 performances and each are facing lineups who couldn?t hit water if they fell out of a boat in Game 4. The concern has to be more on the Nationals side, however, because even in victory yesterday the bats were mostly silent, whereas the Cardinals have been doing quite alright otherwise. ?One gets the feeling that this will be a close, low-scoring game, however, decided by the bullpens.

Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/10/12/looking-ahead-to-two-more-game-5s/related/

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