Shocker! The Yankees beat the Rangers after being down, 5-0

There are nights where even when the Yankees are down, I can feel the sense of a comeback in the air. Game 1 of the ALCS was not one of those nights, and I was truly shocked by the outcome.

When the Rangers went ahead 3-0 in the first before making their first out, I wasn't exactly in a hopeful mood. As my friend Steve Lombardi wrote on his WasWatching blog, it looked like CC Sabathia went trick-or-treating as A.J. Burnett! I can't ever remember seeing Sabathia look as inept.

After the Yanks fell behind 5-0 in the fourth, CC was out of the game, and Joba Chamberlain and Dustin Moseley were acting as mop-up men. Combine that with the Yankees' hitters' inability to get anything going against C.J. Wilson, and I figured the Yankees were going to lose. I kept on watching, but I was peeved!

Little did I know that not only would those two relievers shut down the Rangers' bats, but that Ron Washington was going to remove Wilson after just 104 pitches in the eighth inning. Yes, he did let two runners get on base, with Brett Gardner's gutty, gritty play, and Derek Jeter's RBI double, but he was still the best option. The second-best option would be to bring in closer Neftali Perez in that spot, with the heart of the Yankee order coming up.

But Washington instead decided to do this whole revolving reliever bit, using the Darrens (Oliver and O'Day) and a whole other slew of arms in the eighth. I was half-expecting to see the Darrens from "Bewitched" to pitch as well!

A-Rod silenced the "he's not clutch" critics for one night, at least, with his big hit. And after Robinson Cano drove in the tying run, and Marcus Thames got a hit to put the Yankees ahead for good, there was the thing that was symbolic of the night: the Nolan Ryan Face (photo courtesy of Sliding Into Home). Nolan really had the whole Angry Dad face going on, didn't he? Classic!

What do you think? Tell us about it!