It will be as cold as Hillary Clinton’s freezer face tonight at Yankee Stadium when the Angels and Yankees open the best-of-seven ALCS.
Mix in some light rain and temperatures in the 30s by the end of the game and you have anti-baseball weather for Game 1 of a series that will decide who represents the AL in the World Series.
And it’s expected to be just as bad tomorrow night when Game 2 is scheduled to be played with more wind, rain and dropping temperatures are on tap.
This is what you get when MLB doesn’t demand recently built stadiums to have at least a retractable roof.
“You try to keep your hands warm and stay loose,” Mark Teixeira said of the expected conditions. “You can get so cold and tight that it’s tough to hit.”
Yet it’s not like it will be cold when Yankees hit and warm when the Angels hack. With a trip to the World Series on the line, anybody who cries about the conditions is soft.
CC Sabathia against John Lackey offers the best each team has. Sabathia beat the Twins in Game 1 of the ALDS by allowing an earned run in 62/3 innings. Lackey, a free agent sure to draw interest from the Yankees, topped the Red Sox in Game 1 with 72/3 shutout innings.
“It’s going to be a helluva game, two big boys going,” Angels catalyst Chone Figgins said. “It doesn’t get better than that.”
Lackey, who predicted yesterday he wouldn’t be intimidated by the Yankees’ muscle, made an impression on Teixeira, an Angel a year ago.
“I faced him a bunch of times with Texas and he is a bulldog,” Teixeira said of Lackey, who is 5-7 with a 4.66 ERA in 16 regular-season games against the Yankees and 0-0 with a 2.67 ERA in three career playoff games (two starts) against them.
Lackey’s only start against the Yankees this year was July 12 in Anaheim, a 5-4 victory in which he allowed two runs and six hits in seven innings.
Unlike Sabathia, Lackey won’t have to contend with a lineup that puts constant pressure with its speed on a pitcher. Instead, the right-hander will deal with the Yankees’ biceps that set a club record for homers (244) and led the majors.
Regulars Alex Rodriguez (9-for-51; .176), Nick Swisher (5-for-43; .116) and Robinson Cano (6-for-26; .231) have struggled against Lackey.
Jorge Posada (12-for-29; .414), Teixeira (19-for-49; .388), Derek Jeter (15-for-44; .341), Melky Cabrera (9-for-25; .360), Johnny Damon (16-for-48; .333) and Hideki Matsui (8-for-28; .286) have handled Lackey.
Figgins, the leadoff hitter who ignites the Angels’ Marbles-In-The-Bathtub approach, is a .313 (5-for-16) hitter against Sabathia. Torii Hunter (20-for-68; .294) has hit Sabathia well. He has the most at-bats by far of any Angel against the lefty, who is 5-7 with a 4.72 ERA in 14 career starts against the Angels.
The Yankees will look for Sabathia to improve on the 0-2 ledger and 6.08 ERA he logged in two starts this season against the AL West champs.
“They have great balance to their lineup,” said Sabathia, who has lost once since July 28. “The biggest thing for me is to try and keep those guys off the bases. They have got the best of me so far in my career. I look to try to pound the strike zone, command both sides of the plate and see what happens.”
While seeing his breath.
george.king@nypost.com