The best pitching matchup heading into Tuesday's night baseball action would appear to be in the Bronx, where Cleveland's Fausto Carmona opposes New York's Andy Pettitte, with the Yankees -135 money line betting favorites (over/under: 8.5) on WagerWeb.com.
The Indians have lost five of their last seven since a season-high five-game winning streak, but hope Carmona (3-1, 2.60) can change that. The right-hander gave up two runs - one earned - and eight hits over 6 2-3 innings on Tuesday, but didn't factor in a 7-2 loss to Seattle.
Carmona will face the Yankees for the first time since the Indians' 2-1, 11-inning victory in a division series game on Oct. 5. (That was the game in which the bugs swarmed on Joba Chamberlain.) Carmona is 0-1 with a 3.86 ERA in five games, including two starts last season, vs. the Yankees.
And he won't have to face two of New York's best hitters from last year, as Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada are on the DL. Tribe pitchers held the Yankees to a .203 team batting average in a four-game split in Cleveland last month.
Pettitte (3-3, 3.93 ERA), meanwhile, will try to avoid losing three straight starts for the first time since May 7-18, 2005, while with Houston.
Pettitte allowed three runs and seven hits in six innings of a 6-2 defeat to the Tigers on Wednesday. In his previous outing, he yielded five runs and seven hits in five innings during a 6-4 loss at Cleveland on April 25.
The left-hander is 6-8 with a 4.63 ERA in 17 starts vs. the Indians, going 1-4 with a 5.48 ERA in seven matchups at Yankee Stadium.
The Yankees are 14-6 in games started by Pettitte, Mike Mussina and Chien-Ming Wang, including 7-0 in Wang's starts. They are 3-10 in the other games.
New York is coming off a three-game sweep of the Mariners. New York's starters posted a 2.00 ERA, giving up just four runs and two walks over 18 innings in the series.Derek Jeter went 4-for-5 and Hideki Matsui pushed his hitting streak to 14 games, batting .327 (17-for-52) with a homer and nine RBIs in that span. However, second baseman Robinson Cano has been awful: a .154 average, third-worst among qualifiers in baseball, with just six extra-base hits and a .214 on-base percentage, Cleveland has designated outfielder Jason Michaels for assignment to make room for outfielder Ben Francisco, who will join the Indians tonight. The right-handed hitting Michaels, signed through this season, is hitting .207 (12-for-58) with nine RBIs.
Last season, New York led the majors in runs scored for the second straight season with 968 while Cleveland finished in eighth place with 811.
Both offenses have fallen off the pace a bit in 2008, with the Yankees in the middle of the pack and the Indians in the bottom third of the league in the category.
Betting trends: Tribe are 8-2 in their last 10 Tuesday games. ... Under is 8-2 in Tribe's last 10 overall.... Under is 7-1-1 in Yanks' last 9 overall. ... Tribe are 6-21 in the last 27 meetings in New York. ... Tribe are 5-11 in the last 16 meetings. ... Total has gone over in 5 of past 6 Indians game at Yankees.
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