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(The New York Yankees host the Baltimore Orioles, Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN.)

Ivan Nova has won 15 straight decisions, one shy of the franchise record held by Roger Clemens. Nova is 3-0 against the Orioles, with all three wins coming during this streak.

This season, Nova’s tendency has been to feel out his slider and curveball after a couple innings and then pick one to use predominantly. He’s relied heavily on the slider in only one start even though it’s been his most effective pitch.

Batters are missing on 43 percent of swings at Nova’s slider and hitting just .118 on at-bats ending on a slider. On all other pitches, they're hitting .386.

Nova has pitched into the sixth inning in all four starts and has been supported by a bullpen that is tied with the Texas Rangers for the second-best bullpen ERA in the American League. (In Nova's four starts, the Yankees' bullpen has allowed one earned run in 11⅔ innings.)

The AL team with the best bullpen ERA is the Orioles at 1.76. Baltimore started the day one game back of the Tampa Bay Rays for first place in the AL East – thanks in large part to its pitching. After having the worst team ERA in the AL in four of the last 11 seasons, Baltimore's 2.94 team ERA ranks second behind the Rangers in the Senior Circuit.

Baltimore’s bullpen has stranded 85.6 percent of base runners inherited – only the Yankees in the American League have stranded a higher percentage (86.9 percent). Baltimore’s relievers have allowed just four home runs, thanks in part to a league-best 52 percent groundball rate.

They also have four pitchers who have come out of the bullpen, thrown more than eight innings and not allowed an earned run. Luis Ayala, Matt Lindstrom and Jim Johnson have combined for 30⅓ scoreless innings, and Darren O’Day has allowed just one earned run in 12⅔ innings.

The Orioles have had to rely on pitching the first month of the season because the offense has been average: sixth in the league in batting average, tied for sixth in runs and 11th in on-base percentage. One reason the Orioles' on-base percentage is so low is because they strike out at the second-highest rate in the AL and walk at the second-lowest rate.

Baltimore has been able to overcome these deficits by hitting for a lot of power. The Orioles' 32 home runs are third in the AL behind the Yankees (38) and Rangers (36).

According to The Elias Sports Bureau, Madison Bumgarner and Buster Posey were the first all-rookie starting battery in a World Series game since Spec Shea and Yogi Berra started for the New York Yankees in Game One of the 1947 World Series.

How did they do?

Bumgarner became the fourth-youngest starter to win a World Series game as the Giants took a 3-1 series lead over the Rangers. The lefty went eight innings and didn’t allow an earned run becoming the youngest to ever accomplish that feat.

Bumgarner consistently got ahead of Rangers hitters as he threw first-pitch strikes to 21 of 27 batters faced (78.0 pct). That's his highest percentage in any of his starts this season.

He also threw a season-high 25 changeups, smashing his previous high of 18. Bumgarner used his changeup most often early in the count to keep hitters that were looking for fastballs off balance. Overall, hitters finished one-for-eight against his changeup, and the seven outs he recorded with that pitch were the most all year.

Bumgarner’s dominance gave the Giants their fourth shutout this postseason. That ties the 1998 Yankees and 1905 New York Giants for the most in a single postseason in major-league history. To put that in perspective, from 1903 to 1966, 16 teams threw at least two shutouts in a World Series. The Giants are the first team since the 1966 Orioles (three shutouts) to pitch multiple shutouts in a World Series.

Bumgarner’s battery-mate, Posey, wasn’t bad either. In the top of the eighth inning he took Darren O’Day deep to center field for a 419-foot bomb that would have also been a home run at AT&T Park.

Posey is the 4th rookie catcher to homer in a World Series and first since Rod Barajas (2001 Diamondbacks).

At 23 years, 219 days (born March, 27, 1987), Posey is the youngest Giants player to homer in a World Series game. The previous youngest was Matt Williams (23 years, 333 days) in Game Three of the 1989 World Series.

Posey is also the fifth-youngest catcher to homer in a World Series game behind Yogi Berra (22 years, 143 days), Johnny Bench (22 years, 308 days), Bill Delancey (22 years, 313 days) and Tim McCarver (22 years, 362 days).

For the series Posey has two RBI and two runs scored. As a team, the Giants have scored 26 runs while the Rangers have only mustered 26 total HITS! Things will have to change for the Rangers if they hope to be the first team since the 1985 Royals to come back from a 3-1 deficit to win the World Series.

If it seems like the Yankees have done this sort of thing before, it’s because they have.

The Elias Sports Bureau confirmed for us that the Game 1 win over the Rangers marked the third time in Yankees postseason history that they’ve come back from five runs or more down to win a postseason game. Not surprisingly, those three comebacks are the most such comebacks in major league history.

In fact, if you look back at games just between the Yankees and the Rangers, this one was a near clone from one played on August 11th, when the Yankees rallied from five runs down to win. The winning hit in both games was by the same hitter – Marcus Thames, who came through an inning earlier this time around, getting the go-ahead tally in the eighth instead of the ninth.

What else did we glean from this game?

NOTES TO REMEMBER
FROM ELIAS: The Rangers fell to 0-7 at home in postseason play, the most losses by a team at home in postseason before it earned its first win. It was the first time they lost any game in which they led by at least four runs in the eighth inning or later since 2008.

Derek Jeter had two doubles. He has 29 now, tying the all-time mark previously held by Bernie Williams.

CC Sabathia had his shortest start of the season, allowed a home run on a curveball for the first time all year, and became the first Yankees pitcher to allow five-or-more runs while pitching four or fewer innings in a postseason opener since Mike Mussina in 2001.

ODD NOTE OF THE NIGHT
Darren O'Day took the loss despite facing only one batter.

In postseason history, that's only happened seven other times, most recently to Kelly Wunsch of the White Sox in the 2000 ALDS. Possibly the most memorable one is Kirby Puckett's walk-off homer against Charlie Leibrandt to send the '91 World Series to a seventh game.

Additionally, five of the eight losses have been to the Yankees, the most recent before this one being by Mike Remlinger of the 1999 Braves.

HITTER OF THE NIGHT
Robinson Cano (NYY): 3-4, HR, 2 RBI

As has been the case for most of the 2010 campaign, Cano came up big for the Yankees. He got the Yanks on the board with a seventh-inning homer off a C.J. Wilson slider - one of two sliders Cano saw on the evening. The fact that Cano saw few sliders - and that he crushed one - should come as no surprise.

Cano has now hit 11 of his 30 home runs this season (regular season and playoffs) off the slider, compared to 12 off the fastball.

Combining the regular season and playoffs, Cano is hitting .337 against the slider and .331 off the fastball.

Cano was 2-for-3 off the heater Friday night.

His three hits were all deemed to be "well-hit" by Inside Edge.

HOW THE RANGERS PITCHERS COLLAPSED
In innings 1-through-7, C.J. Wilson controlled the Yankees - especially with his fastball. Yanks hitters were 2-for-16 (.125) against the heater and only two balls were deemed "well-hit" by Inside Edge.

In the eighth inning, the Yanks adjusted against Wilson and the FOUR Rangers relievers - especially against the fastball. Of the 44 pitches in the frame, 34 were fastballs. The Yanks were 4-for-6 (.667) against the heater and four balls were deemed "well-hit".

A capsule stat-based preview of the Texas Rangers-Tampa Bay Rays ALDS matchup.

Top things to know

The Rays led the American League in both walks and stolen bases, which partly accounts for how a team could finish near the bottom of the AL in batting average, yet near the top of baseball in runs scored (third-best in the majors).

The Rays also rank atop the majors by a huge margin in a Bill James-devised metric Baserunning Gain (ability to take an extra base on hits, outs and other plays). The Rangers rank second (+66 bases, 52 behind the Rays).

Josh Hamilton had the greatest offensive season by a member of the Texas Rangers. He had the highest batting average (.359) of any player in Rangers team history (for a team that led the AL in the stat), as well as the best OPS+ (OPS compared to league average, adjusted for ballpark), a 174.

Deciding factor

The Rays had the second-best record in baseball when opponents started a left-handed pitcher, and they'll face left-handers in each of the first two games. They beat Cliff Lee three times during the regular season in 2010. Evan Longoria, currently battling an injury, led the way with a .956 OPS against lefties, followed by B.J. Upton's .919.

The Rangers bullpen won 32 games this season, most of any American League team. Their four most frequently used relievers who are available for the ALDS (Neftali Feliz, Darren O'Day, Darren Oliver and Alexi Ogando) combined for a 2.22 ERA, and had a strikeout-to-walk rate of 3.6 to 1.

Most interesting matchups

Vladimir Guerrero has good numbers against almost every Rays reliever of note, albeit in a limited number of meetings. He's 5-for-9 against Rafael Soriano, 3-for-5 against Dan Wheeler, 3-for-6 against Grant Balfour, and 4-for-15 (with four walks and a .450 on-base percentage) against Joaquin Benoit. If Tampa Bay puts James Shields in the bullpen, Guerrero is good against him too (.394 BA, 1.030 OPS).

With the first two games taking place in the afternoon, it's worth noting that the Rays .587 win percentage in day games ranked sixth-best in baseball. The Rangers were 24th out of 30 (19-25, .432 win pct). The biggest impact seemed to be with Hamilton, who hit .384 with an 1.121 OPS at night, compared to .286/.819 during the day.

Statistical secrets

Rays second baseman Sean Rodriguez has all sorts of value to his team. His 18 defensive runs saved (a metric that measures ability to turn batted balls into outs, and turn double plays) rank best in baseball among second basemen.

Rodriguez also had an unusual knack for getting hits in big spots. He hit .400 (18-for-45) in "close and late" situations (defined by Baseball-Reference.com as plate appearances in the seventh inning or later with the batting team tied, ahead by one, or the tying run at least on deck).

The Rangers combination of Elvis Andrus and Julio Borbon bunt for hits better than almost anyone. Fangraphs.com charted Borbon as tied with Erick Aybar for the major league lead with 18 bunts hits. Andrus ranked third with 13. Combining bunt hits and infield hits, the Rangers rated tops in the majors, by Fangraphs calculations, with 187.

SIG's Picks

Albert Larcada of ESPN Stats & Info did statistical analysis of the last 10 postseasons, looking for the factors that most separate winning and losing teams. He found three -- power hitting, front-end starting pitching, and the ability to turn batted balls into outs. Using his findings, he was able to make a projection.

For the Rangers-Rays matchup, Larcada's system picks the Rays in four games. He gives the Rays a 56.6 percent chance to win the series.

Earlier this year, our colleagues in Stats and Information took a crack at redefining the quality start. Our TMI colleague Tom Tango devised a means to evaluate all relievers based on their win probability contributions (shutdowns/meltdowns).

We have our own mission. It’s two pronged. First, we wanted to strictly evaluate setup men. Second, we wanted to separate the dominant ones from the ugly ones. And we wanted a method from which you could look at the newspaper box score and divine the quality of one’s work.

Let’s start by looking at the major league leaders in holds:

Luke Gregerson (16), Mike Adams (16), Scott Downs (16), Kevin Jepsen (15)

Holds is a fine stat, but we wanted to create one that would be a significant upgrade from that.

Behold, the "perfect hold".

Such a hold requires a pitcher to throw at least one inning, not yield a baserunner, and not commit a faux pas along the lines of a wild pitch or balk. This stat allows us to separate the truly dominant relievers from the rest of the pack.

Your 2010 leaders in perfect holds are: Luke Gregerson (12), Mike Adams (10), Daniel Bard (7) and Scott Downs (5)

In terms of pure results, you can't get any better than a perfect hold. But you can be more dominant. So our next mission was to identify the guys who can not only finish you off in the seventh or eighth, but embarrass you in the process.


Essentially our next concoction is a perfect hold with a dominance factor. What do you call a hold in which someone or something grabs on and won’t let go? We call it a “vise grip.”

The vise grip hold meets the following criteria

• The pitcher got at least two outs
• The pitcher did not allow a baserunner, nor did he throw a wild pitch or commit a balk
• The pitcher averaged at least 1.5 strikeouts per inning pitched

Here are your 2010 leaders in vise grips:

Luke Gregerson (4), Joba Chamberlain (4), Hong-Chih Kuo (3), Daniel Bard (3)


But what about the opposite of the vise grip? That’s the guy who comes in, makes a mess, but still maintains a lead. That’s a weak grasp, is it not? We’ll call it the “dead fish.”

A dead fish meets the following criteria

• The pitcher yielded at least 1.5 times as many baserunners as he got outs.
• The pitcher didn’t strike anyone out.

Here are your 2010 leaders in dead fish holds:

David Robertson (5), Darren O’Day (4), 10 pitchers tied with 3

Today’s Trivia: With Target Field opening, name the only three remaining teams whose ballpark also is the home for a professional football team (question courtesy of Jeff Bennett)?

Quick Hits: Some fun with early pitching oddities and irregularities.

* Tim Lincecum has retired the first batter in all 14 innings he has pitched this season, including six by way of strikeouts.

* CC Sabathia has held the leadoff hitter to a .100 batting average, but he has walked an MLB-high four leadoff hitters.

* Opponents have a BABIP (batting average on balls in play) of .000 against Fausto Carmona, yet a batting average of .059. Confused? The lone hit was a home run, and thus was not in-play.

* Consider this the tale of two closers: Opposing hitters have taken 19 swings against Franklin Morales, but have yet to swing and miss. They’ve swung at 15 Carlos Marmol pitches and missed 10 times.

* Eight of the nine batters that Darren O’Day has faced have swung at the first pitch. The ninth was a called strike. That means O’Day has a 100.0 first-pitch strike percentage and has yet to see a 1-0 count.

* Not one of the 20 batters that Rick Porcello faced last week swung at the first pitch (12 of which were balls).

* Charlie Haeger had two batters reach on a strikeout on Sunday. That would have been tied for the second most in the majors all of last season! Felix Hernandez had four hitters reach on a strikeout in 2009, while no one else had more than two.

* Jake Westbrook already has four wild pitches and four hit batsmen. Last season, Fausto Carmona was the only Indians pitcher with four of each over the entire season.

Today’s Leaderboard: As the Minnesota Twins usher in a new era at Target Field, there are some who might be sad to see the Metrodome go. Among them? Kevin Slowey, who was 17-4 in the Twins’ old home. That was the fourth best win percentage of anyone with ten decisions. Slowey will pitch the second ever game at Target Field on Wednesday, while Carl Pavano gets the ball today. Jack Morris and Juan Berenguer were both 23-5 at the Metrodome, tied for the best record there. Berenguer is particularly interesting given that he was just 44-57 everywhere else.

Key Matchups: Both starting pitchers in today’s Astros-Cardinals game have traditionally fared well against the biggest bat in the opposing lineup. Albert Pujols is just 5-31 in his career against Wandy Rodriguez, though interestingly he has only struck out once. That .161 average is easily Pujols’ worst against any pitcher he has faced at least 25 times. However, after starting out 3-25, Pujols has a pair of doubles in his last six at-bats against Rodriguez.

In the other dugout, Carlos Lee probably didn’t circle this game to break out of his 3-23 start to the season. Lee has hit just .050 (1-20) in his career against Adam Wainwright, his worst average against any pitcher that he’s faced at least 15 times. That hit came back in 2007, and Lee is hitless in 15 plate appearances since.

Trivia Answer: With the opening of Target Field only three MLB teams share their home park with a pro football team - the Blue Jays, Athletics, and Marlins. That continues a downward trend from multi-purpose stadiums. In 1970, 17 of 24 MLB teams shared stadiums including the Yankees, Tigers, and Cubs.