I found an interesting article in Yahoo today that blamed Charlie Manuel for not starting Cliff Lee off of three days rest in Game 4 of the World Series. The Yankees started their Ace C.C. Sabathia off of three days rest, why didn't the Philies counter with their own Ace who held the same advantage? An interesting nugget that might explain their reasoning is this, " They saw history this decade-teams that start pitcher's on three days' rest in the postseason are 12-27-and panicked." Did the Phillies allow their fears to force them into making a bad decision? Then interestingly enough the columnist, Jeff Paassan goes on to show how Sabathia's 2nd (short rest) 3-day start on Sunday, didn't look as pretty as his first go-around against the Dodgers when he shut them down for 8 Innings but he still survived the Chase Utley HR and left the game in the 5th Inning with a Yankee 4-3 lead. His line was 6.2 IP 7H 3R 3ER 3BB 6K. Blanton's was 6.0IP 5H 4R 4ER 0HR 2BB 7K. Now with an extra rest sure Joe Blanton seemed like the right decision and maybe Lee wouldn't have worked out but know with a loss, the Philies will never know that. Even it it wasn't his best start, Sabathaia did his job, it was Jaba Chamberlain who foiled the Yankee's lead. He also recounts how the greats like Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson pushed their work loads against the Yankees in the 2001 WS when the Diamondbacks won it all. Not saying Cliff Lee is one of those guys but could he be if he gets more say in his starts? I don't want to "beat a dead horse" if you will with all this infromation but I thought it was something worth pondering on. The article has a lot more to say then I can so let me know what you think.

Yahoo article:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp-leegamefour110209&prov=yhoo&type=lgns