Top 10 Reasons The Yankees Beat The Angels In The ALCS

It'd be easy to look at the matchups between the Angels and Yankees and pick a winner.
In fact, it'd be too easy.
Instead, the Whitless Wonder has, straight from the home offices on Newland Avenue, Jamestown, the Top 10 Reasons The Yankees Win The ALCS.
10. Karma.
The Baseball Gods won't allow a team to advance to the World Series after they desecrated the game with the Rally Monkey and Thundersticks. Real fans don't need the monkey from outbreak to know when to cheer for their team. Real fans clap their hands instead of plastic tubes. After years of Baseball God penance, it's the Angels turn to rot in baseball purgatory for all they've done.
9. The Hefty Lefty.
This series is all about pitching, and the smart money says C.C. Sabathia picks the Yankees up and puts them on his 747-sized shoulders. I love everything about Sabathia -- the way he starts slow and picks up steam as the game goes on, how he saves something to be able to reach back and throw his best pitches in the biggest spots in games, how he screams and pumps his fist after a big strikeout. I feel warm and snuggly inside knowing he's starting three games in this series. And, if the rain keeps up in New York City, C.C. might start all seven games.
8. The Little Things
The Angels have beaten up on the Yankees in the past because of superior pitching and a willingness to do the little things necessary to score runs. This year, the Yankees are showing much better pitching and an ability to steal a base, sacrifice bunt and otherwise do the little things to score runs. I love having Brett Gardner as a late-inning pinch-runner if the Yankees need to steal a run late in a game, I love having two lefties in the bullpen to allow for late-inning matchups and I absolutely love the thought of Jose Molina coming in as a late-inning defensive replacement and throwing out basestealers.
7. A Better Training Montage.
Remember Rocky III, where Clubber Lang's working out in his inner city gym before the fight with Rocky while Rocky's in a hotel in Philadelphia with a jazz band playing and girls asking him for kisses all the time? Well, it's snowing in New York City right now, and it's sunny and 80 in Los Angeles. Who's got the better training montage this year -- the Angels working out in sunny, balmy Los Angeles with a ton of girls in bikinis roller blading outside the stadium, or the Yankees working out in snow hats and gloves in the middle of an October snowstorm? I'll bet $4 the Yankee Stadium sound systems were blaring Eye of the Tiger all week.
6. Turning The Tables.
For years, the Angels could shorten games with the best of them. If a starter pitched six decent innings, guys like Scot Shields, Scott Schoenweiss, Francisco Rodriguez and Brandon Donnelly slammed the door shut. I'm not quite as scared of Brian Fuentes and the rest of the Angels bullpen this year. The Yanks, on the other hand, can throw Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes and Mariano Rivera in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings with a little Phil Coke on the side. I'm feeling good about that.
5. It's The Whipped Cream That Binds.
This team has more goofballs on it than any Yankees team I can remember, and somehow, it works. Swisher has a different high-five for every player, and Burnett has bought stock in Cool Whip. When Juan Miranda hit his first major league home run, it was great to see the rest of the team ignore him when he got back to the dugout. I half expect to see Youtube footage of a Varsity Blues-type party with Swisher feeding his pet pig beer and losing a drinking contest to Jeter's girlfriend or even the entire team getting thrown in jail after a bar fight and Melky Cabrera leading the team in Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive in their jail cell. Seriously, nothing would surprise me.
4. Win One For George.
Unlike Rachel Phelps in Major League II, winning one more championship for George Steinbrenner makes sense. Big Stein isn't out in public as much now as he had been, but I'll bet we get one more visit to the home ballpark if the Yankees win the World Series. It's a much calmer clubhouse without Steinbrenner calling players out in the middle of a big series, but the softer, older Steinbrenner might be a benefit this postseason.
3. Addition By Subtraction.
The Yankees brought Bobby Abreu over a few years ago because he seemed to fit well in the lineup - high on-base percentage, could hit home runs but didn't rely on them, patient, decent speed. After four years, Abreu is now an Angel and the Yankees seem better than ever -- making this a textbook case of addition by subtraction. Abreu is the type of player who puts up great numbers and leaves you disappointed at the same time. I'm glad he's gone, even if Nick Swisher plays like Ron Bergundy on a bender sometimes in right field. I don't miss Abreu, even if every stathead on earth says he's a better player than anyone in the Yankees outfield. I look forward to winning without him.
2. Kate Hudson, Good Luck Charm?
I'm not the biggest Kate Hudson fan (she's only had one really good role -- Penny Lane in Almost Famous) and she definitely wouldn't be my cup of tea if I was one of the richest athletes on the face of the earth, but her, um, pre-game rituals (yeah, that's what we'll call them) seem to have Alex Rodriguez more relaxed than he's been in years. Unlike Jessica Simpson and Tony Romo, whatever Kate's doing to A-Rod is working.
1. Joe Girardi's Prozac.
In his first managerial stop in Florida, Girardi was wound tighter than a 40-year-old virgin working in the Playboy mansion. There were times last season where it looked like Joe needed a hot dog and a hummer, maybe even a smoke and a pancake. Much like the rest of the team, he seems a lot more relaxed this year -- maybe he's been sniffing the compressed air from A.J. Burnett's whipped cream containers. Maybe he switched to decaffinated coffee in the morning. Maybe his doctor upped his Prozac dosage. I don’t know. I don’t care. What I do know is this year's Girardi is a better manager than last year's Girardi - and that might make the difference.