Yankees Crush, Juice Crushed

         I walked in the door a little before eight.  I pulled my cellphone out of my briefcase, turned it on, and put it on the table.  The missus was putting the chicken-orzo frittata on the table.  Before I made it halfway to the blue room to change my clothes, my phone started chirping and beeping, telling me that I had both voicemail and text messages waiting.  I glanced at the clock.  Probably good news, I thought.  Juice was in section 24 tonight, so he might be giving me updates.  I changed my clothes and came back out to the living room.  I flipped on the TV to check the score as I began to check my voicemail.  YES told me the score was 3-2 Yanks, and they were threatening.  Just before I heard the first message, a base hit by Cano made it 4-2.  First message, Mikey Juice.  There was a problem.  Juice had this mix of fury and anxiety in his voice.  Not a good combination.  Still, I held out hope that somehow he was either kidding or possibly juicing the situation.  Next message, Tony Sherry: “We have a disaster on our hands…,” he started.  Uh oh.  That means Juice wasn’t kidding around.  He was going to be a ball of fire.  Next message, Mike Sherry, who was with Tony watching the game in Staten Island:  “Dude, Juice right now is in his car with his family and on his way home….”  Oh man.  Tony was right.  This was a true-life disaster.  What could possibly have happened?  Well, let’s leave it at this.  We learned something tonight.  If you e-mail tickets from your season-ticket package to somebody, make sure you e-mail them the right game.  Because if you blow it and e-mail that night’s tickets accidentally (I won’t name names here, but something tells me Juice will call him out on the comments), it voids the paper tickets automatically, and the guy with that night’s paper tickets will show up at the Stadium and be accosted by security for trying to use “fraudulent” tickets.  In front of his family.  And then have to turn around and go home.  With his family.   

         So needless to say, things got weird.  For me, everything tends to be less stressful when the Yankees are beating teams senseless.  That’s when all is right in the world.  I showed up at Three Lounge on Forest Ave in Staten Island to meet the Sherry brothers around 9:30.  Juice called me as I was walking in.  “It’s amazing how much better food makes you feel.  It really truly helps.”  He sounded better.  “Glad to hear it bro.”  A few minutes later, as I was watching the highlights of Allie Boy’s rip, I got a text message from the missus.  “Sanjaya’s in the bottom three.”  Then another one a few minutes later.  “He’s out, and he’s crying hysterically.”  I knew Tony would be psyched.  I showed him the phone.  “Sanjaya’s out?!” he said excitedly.  Then he kind of yelled it out to the bar.  They all looked at him with a curious expression, not sure what he was talking about.  “It is my secret favorite show,” he said firmly.

         But let’s not stray too far here.  John Sterling described Igawa’s performance as “masterful.”  I don’t know if that’s the right word based on his line score, but I didn’t see a lot of the game, so I’ll leave it to you guys to comment on how you thought he did.  Similar to Chase Wright last night, anyway.  Keep the ball down, go six, don’t walk a lot of guys and let bullpen work its magic.  It’s amazing how many options we have out there in the pen.  And that’s good, because we don’t have a lot in the rotation.   Speaking of which, apparently Boston is throwing its best at us this weekend.  Schilling, Beckett, and Dice.  The Yankees are set up with Pettitte, Karstens and Chase Wright.  Not good on paper….

          But the story is the offense.  Everybody is getting into the action.  Almost everybody.  You’re right, Nick.  The Melk-man needs to chill with his boy Cano so some of his offense can rub off on him.  And Dougie is….well, not going to hit anytime soon.  I know he hit a bomb yesterday, but he’s going to be flirting with under-.200 for most of his time here, I’m afraid.  Allie has got this team firmly on his shoulders, and he’s crushing.  The offense and the bullpen.  Deep, baby…

          That’s it for tonight, boys.  The Sherry brothers dragged me out to the diner late-night, so I’m feeling pretty weighed down.  Day game tomorrow, so work is looking like it’s going to be pretty productive (!).  Still not going to get out of the 40’s here in NYC though.  Good luck to anybody heading out there.  Go get ‘em Darrell.