We kick off our AFL coverage this week over at the Minors/College section of the site. We will also be resuming our regular coverage of prospects, the minor leagues, and college baseball. By the way, if you haven't noticed, we are now members of the NCBWA!

The Yankees storm back and take advantage of a fading Jake Westbrook to finally show the offense that makes them famous. Phil Hughes proves why he is one of the brightest young pitchers in the game today by tossing 3 2/3 scoreless innings in relief of Roger Clemens, and Johnny Damon raps out 3 hits, a home run and 4 RBI as New York forces a game 4 with an 8-4 victory over the Tribe. Indians lead the series 2-1.

FINAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E  Indians  1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 4 9 1  Yankees  0 0 1 0 4 3 0 0 X 8 11 1
W: P. Hughes (W, 1-0); L: J. Westbrook (L, 0-1)
HR: CLE: T. Nixon (1). NYY: J. Damon (2).

Recapping the Game in Quotes

Q. Was there any thought to pulling Jake in that fifth? What was your thinking, you know?

ERIC WEDGE: Well, one thing about Jake, he can always put the ball on the ground. When you get yourself in a situation to where you can be efficient and get an out or get a couple outs with one pitch, especially with a guy in that situation that, you know, is very capable of working through situations and such. You know, you stick with them. He got a ball up to Damon, and Johnny did a good job with it. It's really what happened prior to that where we could have done a little bit better job of controlling damage.

Q. Could you just talk about Hughes coming in to those circumstances? You're already behind, and then giving you nearly four innings like he gave you.

JOE TORRE: This kid showed us something the other day when he pitched in Game 1 and did a heck of a job. Then to come in the way he did, and he obviously is not used to coming out of the bullpen. Then once he settled in after that first inning, I mean, he looked like a seasoned pro out there. I can't say more than that. When we took him out, you know, he looks you right in the eye and you know he was happy that he was able to give us those innings. But you look in his eye and it wasn't a surprise to him, and to me, that's a pretty good indication of what this kid's got.

Q. When you were with the Red Sox, you had obviously rallied from a long way down. How much can one win change the momentum in a series?

JOHNNY DAMON: I think one win can really do a lot for us. We couldn't play tomorrow unless we won today. And it seemed like other guys started feeling a little more comfortable today, with our backs up against the wall. Alex got a few hits. Cano got a few big hits. Melky, Posada. So, I think we're moving in the right direction. Hopefully, tomorrow is a great game for us. Hopefully, we can keep swinging the bats and keep getting great pitching. I think Phillip Hughes did a wonderful job tonight. I think he introduced himself to the world tonight. He came in for Clemens and shut them down for a few innings.

Q. Can you talk about what kind of an emotional day this was for you from start to finish?

JOE TORRE: It's an emotional day because losing is no fun in postseason. It's like everything's going 200 miles an hour. As far as the comments from Mr. Steinbrenner. I mean, I don't want to say you ever get used to it. But you work here, you understand the pressure everybody's under to win all the time. The only thing I try to do is allow my players to roll the dice out there and play, because every time we go to postseason there's nothing that's going to satisfy anybody unless you win the World Series. And that's very difficult. Those are very difficult situations for the players to play under. I understand the requirements here, but the players are human beings, and it's not machinery here. Even though they get paid a lot of money, it's still blood that runs through their veins. And my job is to try to get them to be the players they are by, you know, allowing them to understand that the best effort you can give is all you can do. But as far as anything else that went into today, you know, this is a very uncomfortable time of year. It's an exciting time of year. Any time you win a ballgame in the postseason, it's exciting. You understand that there's no safety net. For a guy that never got to postseason as a player, I'm having a hell of a lot of fun when you look back on the whole thing.

Curt Schilling was brilliant on the hill today, pitching 7 scoreless innings while allowing just 6 hits. The big bats did the offensive damage for the Sox. David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez each reached base 3 times and homered as Boston knocked off the Angels for the third straight time and a series sweep, 9-1. Red Sox win series 3-0.

FINAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E  Red Sox  0 0 0 2 0 0 0 7 0 9 10 0  Angels  0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 8 0
W: C. Schilling (W, 1-0); L: J. Weaver (L, 0-1)
HR: BOS: D. Ortiz (2), M. Ramirez (2).

Recapping the Game in Quotes

Q. You said earlier in the series about it's trouble dealing with Manny and David, you gotta pick your poison. Watching them out there, did it seem to you like they're feeding off one another, David hits the home run, Manny follows it up with the blast?

MIKE SCIOSCIA: Well, I don't know if they feed off each other. They're trying to hit the ball every time up there up at the plate whether the guy in front of them made an out or what happened. But there's as good a 1-2 punch there is in baseball. I think some of the mistakes that Jered made, and there weren't many today, but he made a couple of them in that inning to Ortiz, he didn't get the fastball quite in the zone he wanted to. And with Manny, he left a breaking ball up into the zone throwing a 3-2 count and Manny didn't miss it. So there weren't many mistakes. I thought Jered did a terrific job out there. But the couple mistakes he made they didn't miss in that one inning.

Q. A healthy Matthews, if Matthews could play, Anderson being healthy, Kotchman being healthy, and maybe Rivera being more healthy than he was, could that have made a difference in the series, bring those in healthy and play this thing again, would the series be different or better than it was?

MIKE SCIOSCIA: I think we probably would have had a chance to have a little more offensive continuity. But this series wasn't lost on injuries. And you have to look at the team you have and you have to be deep enough to keep moving forward and absorbing it. A couple of these ball games, even with all the guys we haven't had in the lineup, we had chances to win. I think Game 2 was obviously a game where we pressured them and couldn't get the hit with guys in scoring position. Today's ball game up until the 8th inning, we had opportunities, even with all the guys that you mentioned. It's part of any season, guys are going to get hurt. We got hit by some of ours at the wrong time. Some guys weren't swinging the bats like they can at the wrong time. That's baseball. You're not going to look back and make any excuses. They're not going to let us call them in a month or now when everybody is healthy and say, hey, let's play this series again. They beat us. It wasn't because of our health. Those guys went out there and beat us, and that's the bottom line.

Last night the season came to an abrupt end for both the Phillies and Cubs. Two teams that had reached incredible highs came crashing down to earth at the hands of the Rockies and Diamondbacks respectively.

Chicago at Arizona

In the first game of the day, the veteran Livan Hernandez took control of the game for Arizona and gave his squad 6 very strong innings. Chris Young (leadoff home run), Stephen Drew (3 hits, a double and a homer), and Eric Byrnes (home run and 2 RBI) provided all the offense as the Diamondbacks cruised to a 5-1 win over the Cubs and a sweep over the series. Diamonbacks win the series 3-0.

FINAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E  Diamondbacks  2 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 5 10 1  Cubs  0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 7 0
W: L. Hernandez (W, 1-0); L: R. Hill (L, 0-1)
HR: ARI: S. Drew (2), C. Young (2), E. Byrnes (1).

Recapping the Game in Quotes

Q. Can you talk about the team's confidence, how it's improved through the regular season, and even more so now with the three games here. What's the team state right now?

BOB MELVIN: It's obviously Chris Young leading the game off with a home run in the first pitch was a huge momentum swing for us. But our confidence since the second half, since we went 21 and 5 and had those walk-offs at home, I think each series our confidence escalated. I think the deeper we got into the season the better feeling we had about ourselves as a group. Once we got into August and September we really thought we had a chance. We wanted to focus obviously on the series and the game, but I think each and every time we end up playing a team like this and getting deeper into the season our confidence grew and grew. And to be able to put it away in Colorado and then come in here and do what we did here against this team obviously is very fulfilling.

Q. So many things said about the youth of your club. Wasn't this a mature performance?

BOB MELVIN: Yeah, by a lot of young players. We have our veteran influence, but our young guys are taking us where we've gotten. We don't do it without a concerted effort from everybody on our team. We can't rely on three or four guys to shoulder the load. We have to get it from multiple guys every day, and our younger guys showed up big. To watch Chris Young's 0-2 walk, slider, slider, slider that he'd been struggling with, that was a pretty courageous at-bat right there. You can see it's almost day to day you can see some of these guys get experience and grow and mature as players in a short period of time.

Philadelphia at Colorado

FINAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E  Phillies  0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 3 0  Rockies  0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 X 2 9 0
W: B. Fuentes (W, 1-0); L: J. Romero (L, 0-1); S: M. Corpas (S, 3)
HR: PHI: S. Victorino (1).

Meanwhile, in Colorado, the Rockies continued their domination of the Phillies. Ubaldo Jimenez and 3 Colorado relievers allow just 3 hits, and pinch hitter Jeff Baker comes through with an RBI single in the 8th inning to give the Rockies a 2-1 victory and a sweep over Philadelphia. Rockies win the series 3-0.

I was a little tied up today with family and the radio show so I didn't get a chance to update Saturday's recaps. They'll be up today, complete with quotes.

Also, we should have some additional articles and a revamped home page up very soon!