All week everyone was asking me which games I was going to.  I had our tickets for Tuesday, but I had to give them away.  So I was AWOL for this series.  Big Joe called me on last night while he was out with his regular Wednesday night basketball crew, relaying a message from his boys reminding me that I’m benched for the Red Sox series on account of the fact that my record is this side of pathetic.  What can I say.  The truth hurts.  So I was watching these games from the safety of my couch, or in today’s case trying to check in semi-regularly on the gamecast at work.  But I stayed benched.  Mikey Rumble is benched with me, particularly in the day games.  But there was one guy who really had to stay away, and that’s Mikey Juice.  It was bad enough for me and Mikey Rumble, but Mikey Juice was o-fer at the Stadium this year.  Which, considering the glistening record the Yanks have at home in ‘07, is remarkable.  Even more remarkable is the fact that the closest he came to a win was when he showed up with his family to watch a game that the Yanks ultimately won, and they didn’t let him past the gate because of the ticket snafu.  Ouch.  So this is why I was knocked over when my phone beeped with a message as I was walking out of the subway onto 34th street on my way to Uncle Jack’s Steakhouse tonight.  It was Mikey Juice.  “The streak is over!  I was at the game today and I got a win,******!”  The kid had the tickets for today and didn’t tell anybody, because he knew he would get some flak to stay home.  Phenomenal.  And totally the right move.  If I had known he had tickets, I probably would have sent Mikey Rumble on a middle-of-the-day intercept mission.  But he picked the right time to come back with a win.  And Vino took the opposite approach.  He texted me early and often from the game, insisting that he was going to bring back a win and prove my prediction of 2 of 3 to be a wild underestimation.  So good work by both of those guys.

         It does seem that every time the Red Sox have had the chance to slam the door on the Yanks this season, they have let it slip through their fingers.  You could argue that all they really needed to do was take one out of three to put this thing out of reach.  If they took two of three this race would be over.  But they keep leaving the window open.

         So this series gave us some insight into a few things.  First, as I said yesterday, the Red Sox do not have any advantage over the Yankees at all in terms of starting pitching.  It wasn’t as if these games were decided by the bullpens.  This was three games in which the Yankee starter got the win and the Red Sox starter got the loss.  Papelbon stayed in the pen, the Yanks got to Okajima for the third straight time, and Joba and Mo were lights-out.  This isn’t to say that this will happen every time, but it does tell you that there is no Red Sox pitching advantage.  Zero.  The good news for the Red Sox is that they didn’t have to send the ultimate .500 pitcher, Mr. Wakefield, out for his usual assassination at the hands of the Yanks.  History has proven that he will generally revert to his barely-over-.500 mean, so look for him to deflate over the last month.  But the big story was the offense.  With the lack of a pitching advantage, we’re left to look at the offenses.  Unfortunately, this isn’t even possible with Manny out of the line-up, because the difference is so stark and the chasm so wide that any comparison is simply impossible.  So the mission for the Yanks is just to get there.  Just get there.

         A few more observations.  Is there a bigger baby in baseball than Kevin Youkilis?  Seriously.  This guy makes McLovin from Superbad look like Burt Reynolds in Sharkey’s Machine.  All he does is make strained faces and exasperated gestures when calls don’t go his way.  Balls, strikes, base-running, you name it.  The umps must want to strangle him.  And then he flips out when they call him out of the baseline trying to avoid the tag.  So let me get this straight, Kevin.  What is your position?  That you didn’t run out of the baseline?  Dude, the general rule is that they’ll call you out when your left foot hits the grass trying to avoid a tag.  You had both feet about 15 inches deep on the grass.  So I guess I’m not following you.  And not just an argument.  A Monte Carlo freak-out, so bad that you got your manager got kicked out of the game.  You probably should have been tossed as well.  And don’t look for any sympathy from me.  Not when Joe West called Robinson Cano out of the baseline when he was running to first with one foot on the line the entire time in game 5 of the 2005 ALDS with the bases loaded.  So you need to shut up and deal with it.  And then to turn around and whimper like the class tattletale to the ump when Joba throws two balls over your head.  “He clapped the eraser at me Mrs. LaFauci!!”  I don’t know if it was intentional or not. But don’t cry about it.  I hate to beat a dead horse, but I think the captain sets the tone for this silliness.  Both the national and local broadcasts made mention of the fact that there are few catchers who freeze the pitch in his glove as long as Varitek, trying to buy a call.  And he’s a notorious whiner.  If your captain is whiny, your team is going to be whiny.

         Joseph, I have to tell you.  I would be super disappointed if I threw this stuff out there and nobody commented on it.  So, as always, I appreciate you taking the time and effort to do so, and so I’ll spend some time on them.  You made one very good catch.  I said yesterday that “good” teams don’t drop ten games off of their lead.  That was misstated.  I have been plugging the term “great” teams into that statement right along, not good teams.  The Red Sox are most definitely a good team.  And in fairness, most of the standings-divers that you mentioned were not great teams, either.  Doesn’t mean you can’t win it all.  The winners aren’t always great teams.  The best teams don’t always win (As always; see 2006 St. Louis Cardinals).  But fair is fair.  My statement was not correct.  But that’s where your argument went off the rails.  You came back with the run-support argument for Dice-K, supported by the statement that people rely on wins too much.  Yikes.  Here’s the problem.  In the three examples you cited, because he wasn’t getting enough run support, Dice couldn’t keep the Devil Rays, Orioles, and Devil Rays again off the board.  Dude, the Orioles and D-Rays.  If you’re going to cry about run support, tell me he let up a run to the Angels or Yankees and didn’t get the win.  Don’t tell me he couldn’t get the Oriole and D-Ray juggernauts’ out.  Besides, any anecdotal evidence goes in the other direction as well.  How about his 7-plus ERA against the Yanks when the offense got him two wins?  And you know what?  I love your Marino/Aikman comparison.  But I think you missed your own point.  Dice-K, in your analogy, would be the Aikman figure, as he is playing with the better supporting cast, i.e. the team with the best record in baseball.  And all of the other guys you mentioned had great numbers with bad won-loss records, precisely because they were playing on awful teams.  So carrying your own argument to its conclusion, you would be arguing that Troy Aikman was the better quarterback if he put up mediocre numbers and didn’t win Super Bowls with the better offensive talent, than Marino, who put up much better numbers and didn’t win super bowls with lackluster supporting talent.  So when you say “I think I’ve made my point,” well, I’m pretty sure that’s not the point you were trying to make.  And dude, don’t fall in love with stats like “ERA+”.  I respect that you’re the Statistician Magician, but you said yourself that Dice K isn’t the guy you would want on the mound in a big spot.  Nor should you.  And if “ERA+” is juicing him up to be the best pitcher on both staffs and one of the best in the majors, and you don’t feel that’s the case, then it’s probably not a great stat.  You have to use some common sense.  My point was never that he isn’t a good pitcher.  My point is that he hasn’t been as advertised, nor has he been the slightest bit dominant.  And that writing an article citing him as the key difference between the Yanks and Sox is irresponsible.  Last thing.  All of the evidence points to Big Papi on HGH.  He has all the trademark signs.  The equipment manager in Minnesota has said that his head has increased two hat-sizes, his body is twice the size it was when he first came up, his numbers increased exponentially out of nowhere, and he himself said he “may have” used “something illegal” without knowing it back in the DR.  But won’t say when.  Ridiculous?  I don’t think so, bro.  And as for the Yankees, I have said many times that I have Giambi, Pettitte, and Clemens on the watch list, and if you want to throw Posada in there, I’m all ears.  I have absolutely no issue speaking up when something about the Yanks is suspicious, because if you can’t do it for your own team, you have no credibility doing it for any other teams.  It doesn’t ever have anything to do with “calling out your hometown hero” and whether or not it “feels good.”  And by the way, you would “lean towards” thinking McGwire was on juice?  “Lean towards”??  I hope the other choice is that he is really secretly Ivan Drago, because that’s a lot more believable than the idea that McGwire wasn’t on juice.  “Yahtzee Biyaa!!”  Seriously, dude, I don’t mean to get after you.  I really do appreciate the comments and the banter.  As I’ve said, you’re always welcome at the BPS…

         Sweeps week here in New York.  Unfortunately for Big Joe, the Mets got caught on the wrong end.  But for us, it has kind of a nice ring to it.  See you Tuesday.  Happy Labor Day everybody.

         I had the text written.  It was staring back at me from the screen on the phone.  “Giambi – bomb”.  This was my prediction.  You can’t go to the well too often, so as the count was already 2-0, I wondered if I was wasting my bullet on an at-bat that was destined to be a walk regardless.  And as I’m looking at it the phone starts buzzing.  I hit “send” and checked the incoming text.  Tony Sherry.  “Going, going, gone.”  He was making the same call that I just made.  Nice.  This had to be good karma.  If we weren’t right, at least maybe there was a My Name is Earl episode in there somewhere.  So Giambi knocked a base hit into center field.  Joe yanks him for a pinch runner with two outs.  On the YES broadcast, Michael Kay asked Joe Girardi why he would do that.  Girardi said it was because Phillips would be able to score on the double.  I hated the move.  The only way that move works is if Damon hits a double.  And not just a double, but a double that would have gotten Phillips home but not Giambi.  A triple gets everybody home.  And Phillips is no lightning bolt, either.  So it’s an extremely low-percentage play, as I’ve said many times.  And it didn’t work.  Fast forward one inning, with Allie boy up.  Phone beeps with a text.  Tony again.  “44”.  This was bold.  Talk about going to the well.  This was it.  You’re really only allowed two.  And then you become Patrick Ewing.  But wouldn’t you know it.  Two seconds later my phone rings, then beeps, with the Big Boy checking in as well.  Boom boom Allie.  Good call, Tony. 

         A few notes on Beckett.  I’m not trying to be a bad guy, but you forget what a jack*ss he is on the mound until you see him out there again.  Lots of eye-rolling, whining, muttering.  Grow up, dude.  He was muttering about not getting a strike call on an Abreu check swing for about twenty minutes, stomping around the mound with a smirk on his face.  And that would be understandable, if Abreu ended up hitting a two-out grand slam.  But as it were he struck out on the very next pitch.  So why the whining?  He’s also into the fist-pumping and screaming at the end of an inning, although we didn’t see a lot of that tonight, as he got knocked around for 12 hits and 4 runs in 6 2/3.  And in fairness, Joba Chamberlain has been doing it, which I have frowned upon since his first outing.  And I’m still hoping that someone – Jeter, Rocket, Pettitte, Mo- pulls him aside and lets him know that that’s not the Yankee way.  As usual, Beckett had trouble with the Yanks.  There really haven’t been any pitchers in this rivalry that have owned the other team, although Pettitte’s numbers are impressive.

         I suffered through an article by Murray Chass in the Times this morning.  He wrote a column about the Red Sox getting Dice K this past off-season, and cited that as the big difference in the two teams this year.  Now I don’t know Murray Chass, and I don’t want to pretend to speak for him, but I think that he did exactly what I suspected him of doing earlier in the year.  He wrote a column before seeing the outcome of the game, and then added what looked suspiciously like a bolt-on paragraph at the end claiming that the fact that Dice K had just been beaten by the Yankees, dropping his record to 13-11, doesn’t really matter.  But the whole thing just lacked thorough journalism.  To prove his point (because the stats really don’t), he included a quote from an expert that Dice K has been “as advertised” this year.  Who is the expert?  The Red Sox pitching coach.  Atta boy, Murray.  Way to roll up the sleeves and get your hands dirty.  Here are the facts.  He’s 13-11, which simply won’t do on the team with the best record in baseball.  And don’t cry to me about run support.  What’s happened is exactly what most scouts thought would happen.  You’ll find out how good he is, they said, once he’s been through the league a few times.  If he can still get people out once they’ve seen him a few times, he’s got a shot to be good.  So what’s the story?  He was 10-5 over the first part of the season, and he’s 3-6 since.  And the ERA has been on the rise.  And he has particular trouble against good teams.  But my big problem with Murray’s piece was his baseline assumption.  He maintained that the Yankees’ off-season answer to Dice K was Kei Igawa.  Really?  Why?  Because they’re both from Japan?  Of the two teams, the Yankees made the best signing of a pitcher in the off-season.  Not even close.  And he came at a deep discount, compared to Dice.  You ever hear of a guy named Andy Pettitte, Murray?

         This brings me to my next point, which I have been saying all year.  The baseball observer that hasn’t been doing his homework will tell you that the reason the Red Sox are ahead of the Yankees is that they have a superior pitching staff.  It just doesn’t hold any water.  The reason the Sox are ahead of the Yanks is that they started out white hot while the Yankees had to start my mom in five games, my sister in three, and my Aunt Gerty (yes, I have an Aunt Gerty) in two games back in May.  And the Yanks found themselves 14 ½ games back.  The story is that the Red Sox have hemorrhaged their lead since then.  Good teams don’t drop 10 games off of their lead.  Ever.  The truth is, and this has been painfully obvious this series, the Red Sox top three have a real tough time matching up with the Yankees’ top three.  Run the numbers on Wang/Pettitte/Clemens and Beckett/Schilling/Dice, and it’s razor-thin.  Never mind the fact that all of the Red Sox guys have an ERA around 7 against the Yanks this year.  So the story is, really, hitting.  And that’s why the Yankees have cut such a gash into the Red Sox lead.  You want to throw in the bullpen, with Okijima/Papelbon and Chamberlain/Mo, I still think you have a push.  And the Sox have Manny Delcarmen pitching well, and the Yankees have the Viz pitching well.  I won’t embarrass any of us by bringing Farnsworth and Gagne into this equation.  So it’s hitting, guys.  And the Sox just don’t match up.  And with Manny out, that’s only been more evident.  The Yanks have a bench that will blow your doors off.  Any given day they’ve got guys like Johnny Damon or Jason Giambi ready to step in if someone goes down.  There may not be enough time for the division, but right now, the Yanks are the tougher team to beat.  Read it again.

         Saif, good to have you back.  TS Mike, to answer your question, Saif has always been vague about his allegiance, but he’s never been a fan of the Yankees.  His comments will always sway anti-Yankee, so you can take that for whatever it’s worth.  But his comments are intelligent and well thought-out, so it’s cool either way.  Generally he’ll get after me when I start pulling out the math.  Keeps me honest.  And he’s been with us from pretty much the beginning.  I will say this, though.  I expected his comment from someone in the Red Sox camp.  Revisionist history always comes in handy, especially when it hits close to home.  I get that the in-a-headlock-with-his-mask-still-on moment is a tough memory for Sox fans, but let’s get it right.  The Red Sox sunk from that point to being down 3-0 in the ALCS.  If you want to pick a turning point, give credit where credit is due.  Dave Roberts stealing second base, and then Papi putting the team up on his juiced-up shoulders was their turning point.  Let’s not pretend that any event that came before the 9th inning of game 4 carried the Sox through that year, because that was the low point.  I know it would be convenient to be able to spin that humiliating moment into a “turning point,” but it just isn’t accurate.   

                 Joey Puma was at the game tonight making sure to bring us back a win.  I put him in charge.  Only because I didn’t feel like calling Paul McCartney and putting him in charge.  Because I was going to do that….  But then I decided I would stick with Joe Puma.  And he came through, so no complaints…

        On paper, I’ll take the Wang vs. Schilling match-up any day.  But the Sox always hit Wang hard, and the Yankees, for some maddening reason, never win day games at home.  And it’s just hard to sweep anybody.  So I’ll hope for the best. 

         But that said, the Yanks are guaranteed a winning record in this brutal 20-game stretch, currently clocking in at 11-8.  Mr. Wang, you’re up….. 

        Radio silence all over the map.  I didn’t walk in the door until about 8:30 tonight.  I was careful with that sentence, as it came to my attention that I blew it right out of the gate yesterday, saying “I walked before 8” instead of “I walked in before 8.”  Nice to blow it on your third word off the top.  Whoops.  So tonight, I most assuredly walked in about 8:30.  And I hadn’t heard a word.  No messages, no texts, no nothing.  Not the big boy, not the Sherry brothers, not Vino, not Petey Goods, not Big Joe.  Nothing.  But that was okay.  Because that told me that it was close.  And after yesterday, I was okay with close.  Note to the Red Sox: This ain’t the White Sox.

         So I flipped it on upstairs and it was 2-2.  And by the time I got changed and downstairs to the living room, the missus was handing me the remote to flip the channel.  And Derek Jeter was up.  And he did it.  And even though Varitek later tied it up, I knew right there that we had it.  Pettitte, as usual, showed up.  I really have no words for that guy.  If you could put his guts in a bottle and sprinkle it around the locker room, the Yankees would be so confident they wouldn’t bother wearing pants.  It all worked tonight.  And once again, Dice K demonstrated his limitations.  Another so-so performance.  He’s not a bad pitcher.  It just doesn’t seem that he has another gear.  I thought the best criticism of him came early in the year; that he had a big bag of pitches, but none of them was an out pitch.  You need to have a go-to pitch.  He seems to just be doing the same things over and over out there.  He just keeps mixing his pitches up.  The problem is that major-league hitters will adjust to the soft stuff, and if you can’t consistently put them away, you’re going to run your pitch count up and you’re a dead man if you make a mistake.  I know the statistician magician has pointed out that he has gotten no run support, and that’s a fair point.  But he’s pitched three games against the Yankees this year with an ERA over 7.  And the Sox still got him two wins by bailing him out with offense.  So I’m not a hundred percent sold on that argument.  But he needs to be better for them down the stretch.  It’s not going to bode well for the Red Sox if the 90-year old Schilling has to be their second starter.  You knew Dice was going to have issues after the league got a few looks at him, and it looks like he’s 3-6 in his last 10 starts, so the Sox had better hope for a second wind. 

         Don’t get me wrong, the Yanks didn’t exactly knock the mound off the field.  But they won a close game, and that’s been a rarity for them this year.  They hadn’t scored in 13 innings going into tonight, and they just don’t go that long without scoring.  You knew they were going to get a few.  That’s what they do.

         I really don’t know what to say about Seannie’s boy, the Moose.  He’s been a good, solid Yankee the last few years.  I just feel bad for the guy. I know GM’s don’t have the luxury of that sentiment.  So I guess it’s good that I’m not a GM…. 

        Saif, why didn’t you tell me that was you, dude.  I wouldn’t have treated you like a stepchild.  Sorry about that…

         Jason Varitek.  You know what it is about that guy?  It’s that the Red Sox have no Jeter.  Derek Jeter is the epitome of the Yankee tradition, the consummate Yankee.  And when he shows up year after year in the batting race, getting his 200 hits, his 100 runs scored, winning MVP’s of All-Star games and World Series’, and being clutch all over the map, he’s everything you could ask for in a captain.  And on the Red Sox, Nomar was supposed to be that guy.  And let’s be fair.  He was that guy for a long time.  It was only his last few years that the team began to sour on him.  But he was the pride of Boston for a good six years.  And then things went south.  So now, the Red Sox are trying to make Varitek that guy.  And there are a few problems with that.  First, his signature moment is still probably the ultimate cowardly moment since Robin Ventura charged the mound against Nolan Ryan.  He will forever be known as the guy who tried to pick a fight with Alex Rodriguez while wearing full gear and a face mask…..and then, like Ventura, ended up in a head lock.  Dude, your catcher can never end up in a head lock.  Ever.  Especially not wearing his facemask.  Thurman Munson and Carlton Fisk wouldn’t ever have stood for it.  Next, he’s not that good.  He’s good, but he’s not an elite player.  He’s a .268 lifetime hitter who averages 15 bombs a year.  Okay for a catcher, and good to have on the team, don’t get me wrong.  But not as the face of the franchise.  And lastly and most importantly…..well, do I even have to say it?  I hope the title of this post says it all….

         I walked a little before 8 tonight.  I had no idea what was going on in the game.  Until Tony Sherry called.  And this is what he drops on me: “Well, I turned on the TV and said that someone is smiling on me tonight.”  Immediately I began to process the information.  It wasn’t too tough.  He had a “yeah, but” kind of tone to his voice, so I figured the Yanks jumped out to an early lead and the Tigers came right back against Moose.  Bottom line, though; it sounded like the Yanks were hitting, and that was definitely good news, as the distinct Tiger advantage was in the pitching match-up tonight.  A slugfest always favors the Yankees.  But his next line stopped me in my tracks.  “…because the game is on ESPN…”  This was devastating.  If that was the good news, the bad news was going to be that they were getting life-pasted.  So not that I needed to hear his next line, but out it came, “…but then I saw the score.”  First of all, why is someone smiling on him that the game is on ESPN?  Why does he care?  He can flip right over and see the game on YES.  The first part of his sentence didn’t make the slightest bit of sense.  Unless his YES is out or something.  I have no idea.  And I didn’t get a chance to ask him, because I was so p*ssed at that point.  Not that I should have been.  This game was going to be a massacre on paper.  And even though everyone loves the “that’s why they play the games” moment when the thing you least expected happens, the truth is that very often these things do turn out exactly the way you expected.  After all, that’s why you expected it in the first place.

         So I have very little to say about this game.  I didn’t watch any of it, and I have no idea how any of the carnage played out.  I only know that it is currently 10-0, as I did check mlb.com just to make sure that I wasn’t writing an entire diatribe if a miraculous comeback was underfoot.  No concern there, I’m afraid.

         So instead I’ll dip into the mailbag.  I don’t know what happened to Happymeds today, as he usually acts as the BPS greeter, but Lucky, TS Mike, and Jason from the Heartland more than filled in.  Good show gents.  You know, sometimes I’ll write something and know in an instant that it will fire people up and get me some outraged comments.  Sometimes I’ll actually do it on purpose, as I’m a ****** for repartee.  But sometimes I will be completely surprised when I spark somebody up.  And yesterday was one of those times.

         This goes out to Lisa and Saifuddin.  Wow.  Guys, I was honestly trying to figure out where you guys were steered astray.  I read the link that Lisa provided (from the Tigers website, of all things), and I hope that this wasn’t it.  But maybe it was.  Did you guys actually read it?  What Rick Reed actually said and what the league said?  You really thought that this was the umpire’s decision?  Okay.  First I’ll go through what happened, and then I’ll go through just how ridiculous MLB’s “umpire story” was.  And I’m only reporting what the local media, including the print media and the radio guys, got from their inside sources and have been reporting here in New York (and believe me, these guys are no Yankee advocates).  I’ll give the people outside of the NY metro area the benefit of the doubt when it comes to not knowing the story, I guess, because the NY media has greater access to the machine at MLB headquarters at 245 Park Ave due to proximity.  First of all, as we were all reminded by everyone talking about the situation, these things are always about money.  MLB, as Phil Mushnick stated in his column today in the Post, has a few cornerstones of its revenue ramp-up strategy; one of which is no-doubleheaders.  So as it became clear that the game was going to be delayed because of rain, the League office at MLB got on the horn with the Tigers (and Yankees probably, although secondarily) officials.  The “memo” that Rick Reed referred to did indeed come down from the league, most likely because the league was not pleased that the Red/White Sox game in Chicago was called due to rain prematurely on Thursday.  So the league office called in to the Tigers and talked about the options.  There weren’t many, as this Fox rule and ESPN rule were in the way of day-night double-headers, apparently.  But the Tigers did have the option of a traditional double-header, because even though they are severely frowned upon, the league realized that playing late into Friday night was really going to push the envelope of tolerability (read: bad PR), and because the Tigers had a full four hours of concession revenue from Friday night, plus parking revenue, to offset the loss of gate.  So the decision was made to instruct the umpires to “play the game at all costs,” as Joe Torre said he was told by Reed himself, according to the New York Times, which Reed did not deny.  The problem for MLB was that their worst fear came true.  The game went long, and then went even longer.  A 3:30am finish gave everybody a black eye.  And it wasn’t even one of those west coast finishes that clocked in at 3:30 on the east coast.  This thing was actually finishing at 3:30am.  So the next part of the spin machine was the word from MLB that “the umpires made the decision,” according to protocol.  Right.  The problem for MLB was that Reed was furious that the game was ordered played, so he stuck his finger in their eye by admitting that the order came from above.  “By the vice president of umpiring?” he was asked.  “Higher,” was his reply, meaning the league was behind it.  Apparently the league was annoyed that he broke rank, knowing that his statement verified that MLB made the call, not the umpires – as if everyone didn’t know this already (although apparently they overestimated some in the blogosphere understanding this).  So they further concocted this story that “the roads were flooded.”  That might be the best one of all.  MLB cares.  And they flavored it with the tidbit that, “Reed understood that point as well as anybody, being a Michigan native who still lives in the Detroit area. His family left around 8:30 p.m. and had to maneuver around the tie-ups.”  Beautiful.  So let me get this straight, MLB.  Rick Reed was concerned about the safety of the crowd going out into flooding, so he sent his family out into it?  Sure, that makes sense.  Good backstory…  But I don’t want you to think, Lisa and Saifuddin, that I’m looking to pick on the Tigers.  Probably the only other fan-slap of this magnitude was in last year’s ALDS when the Yankees (again with MLB’s gun at their back) made the fans wait until 10pm to cancel game 2, still insisting until 9:59 that the game was going to be played.  I killed them for that, and justifiably.  So it’s not the Tigers, per se; I get that MLB has its agenda.  But when it’s going on in your building, you’re responsible.  Bad job by the Tigers and MLB.  Good job by TS Mike, who absolutely nailed it in his comment. 

        So that’s the end of the brutal run-up to the Sox series.  Unfortunately, that last seven was the undoing.  But, hey, we’ve still got September.

         Talk about hitting the nail on the head.  I don’t do it often, so I’ll gloat when I do.  Well, I said last week that I had originally budgeted for 3-4 on this seven-game stretch, and I figured Boston would take 5 of 7 in Tampa and Chicago.  Then late last week I said I was a little worried about the White Sox holding up their end of the bargain.  The one win.  They were beginning to establish themselves, I said, as the ultimate lay-down team in the American League, and I was a bit worried that they were just going to get swept at home.  So…..any questions?

         So the Yankees have pretty much given you exactly what you would have expected.  On paper, they would have won today, and then Moose would have taken a powder against Verlander tomorrow.  But now they’re down 1-2, and now the book probably says they should drop 3 of 4.  And they  might.  But like the Lackey game against Anaheim, I just think the Yanks are going to come out hitting tomorrow. 

        To look at the last six games, most of the analysis would tell you that the Yankees came out flat, or can’t beat the good teams on the road, or don’t have the pitching, or bench, or aren’t clutch enough to win these series’ on the road.  But most of the analysts that are feeding you that stuff aren’t watching the games.  Seriously.  The national broadcast types, the Gammons’s, the ESPN guys, whomever, can’t watch every game.  They’ve got to pick one or two and read about the rest.  Not the BPS.  We really don’t care about anything but the Yankees and the things that are going to have some sort of impact on the Yankees.  So how do you want to look at the last few games?  Do you want to look at it as losing 4 of 6, no excuses; this isn’t going to cut it?  That you need to win the games, and nothing else matters?  I don’t disagree, to an extent.  But that’s not the whole story.  The Yankees dropped 4 of 6, yes.  But they hit the Angels in two of the games in that series, and lost in extra innings.  They out-hit the Tigers all three games of this series in regulation, and lost a brutal extra-inning game that the Tigers should really be fined for even playing, pulling what they pulled.  But I’ll get to that.  So lots of people will have the knee-jerk answer that out-hitting isn’t winning, etc.  Right.  No one’s saying it is.  But if you’re out-hitting the other team and losing, you can scream all you want about not being clutch, etc, but the truth is if you’re going to consistently out-hit teams, you’re going to beat them most of the time.  And that’s held true for the Yanks against the Angels and Tigers.  If it weren’t for yet another extra-inning miracle for the Angels, they would have gotten swept by the Yankees in the Bronx their last time through.  And the Tigers dropped something like 15 of their last 19 against the Yanks, including 3 of 4 in the Bronx.  So the Angels and Tigers have won 6 games out of their last 13 games against the Yanks, 3 in extra-innings and one today in which the Tigers snuck away with a 1-run win, even after not getting a hit after the fourth inning.  So that’s 4 out of the 6 that they squeaked out.  The 7 games the Yanks won?  A blitzkrieg.  And in the last six games, they’ve only lost to one starting pitcher, Kelvin Escobar.  And he got hit pretty hard to the tune of five runs in six innings.  Unfortunately, it was Moose day.  Like it is tomorrow.

         So what’s the conclusion here?  Is it that the Yankees can’t win the close ones?  That one’s tough to dispute.  When the Yankees are behind late in a game on the road, they are going to lose.  Period.  Probably at home, too.  In fairness, their talent sometimes prevents them from putting “w’s” on the board in one and two-run games.  When they are up by a run or two late, they usually blast it open and win by five or six.  Happens all the time.  But for some crazy reason, maybe it’s psychological; they only do that when they get over the hump and take the lead.  If they tie it up, and they’ve done it many times, that doesn’t usually get it done.  They need to take the lead, and then the floodgates open.  There are practical reasons for that, I guess.  The other team isn’t going to go with its elite pitchers when it’s down, even by a run or two.  So the Yankees eat the second-tier guys for breakfast.      

         The bad news is, of course, this makes the series against Boston quite anti-climactic.  For what it’s worth, I think the Yanks will take two of three.  But losing a game in the standings while taking three off the schedule is just fine with Boston.  The good news is the Yanks are going to start blasting their schedule apart, because they have a lot of ******* coming up, and most of the good teams they play have to come to the Stadium.  So I expect the Yankees to be in wild-card position in the next two weeks.

         A few words about the Tigers decision to start a game at 11:05pm.  Evil.  Mike Lupica, in his usual whiny-little-man-who-hates-Yankees routine, made just an absolute bonehead statement about that game in the News today.  To paraphrase, he basically said that the only reason the Yankees were mad was because they lost, and if they had won they would have done a Yankeeography about it.  As I’ve said many times, the guy’s credibility takes a mighty tumble whenever he starts talking about the Yanks, and this is just the type of outrageous statement that proves my point.  Hey Mike; I’m sorry you used to get beat up on the schoolyard for wearing your Met hat, I really am.  But that game was total BS, and you should have used your forum to call out the Tigers for one of the most fan-and-opponent-egregious acts in baseball history (you don’t think so?  Go find me the last game that started at 11:05pm…).  It’s bad enough that MLB sent the Yankees to the West Coast for exactly three games and then back east.  But the Tigers, not wanting to give away a gate, refused to schedule a traditional double-header on Sunday as a make-up when it became apparent the rain was going to be there for a while.  Apparently, they couldn’t do a day-night job on Saturday because of the Fox rule (although I really don’t get that one, because Fox plays at 4; why couldn’t they play at 1 and 7?), and they couldn’t do a day-night job on Sunday because of the ESPN rule.  So, even though they would have cashed in a free game-and-a-half’s worth of concessions before sending everybody home, they insisted on not losing that gate on Friday night.  It probably didn’t hurt that they liked their chances to win after a killer delay, being that their starter was in his early 20’s, and Clemens is 45.  And that he had arrived from the west coast the day before.  Talk about screwing your fans over.  They deserve to take every ounce of blame placed on them for that.  It was a disgrace.

         So as I said, on paper the Yanks are cooked tomorrow.  But call me crazy, I think Seannie’s boy is going to man up tomorrow, bolstered by a fireworks show.  Maybe I’m wrong, but the guy does have 244 wins.  Seannie, let’s get it done.

         I walked in the door kind of late. The missus was putting some finishing touches on pepper and egg heroes. I knew it was going to be little easier night. A quick call from Tony Sherry after dinner to clarify a point he made to Anthony Cheerios and me the other day about Ghost Hunters, one of his favorite shows, and it was off to watch Mad Men" with the missus. The middle-of-the-week West Coast trips are brutal for the fans. I get that the Angels are trying to squeeze every last dime out of the Yankees coming to town, putting all three games on in primetime, but usually these things close out with a day game. Let’s be fair. Now the Yanks had today off, of course, but still – they probably arrived in Detroit, which is in the Eastern time zone, by the way, somewhere around 7am or so. If this past trip were the Yankees only pass through Anaheim this year, I might bite the bullet and let them make their buck. But since this was the second trip to Anaheim for the Yanks, it’s a bit much to give them three prime-time games, making all of the fans in the country not in the Western time zone eat it.

         Which brings me to one of my favorite topics. As most of you guys know, I am a bit of a conspiracy theorist when it comes to the MLB schedule. The Yankees are out in Anaheim for two series’, back in New York for one. The Angels notoriously have the Yankees’ number, and you can bet they are going to play a full suite of games against them every single year. None of this six-games-only stuff like they’ve got against the Indians this year. I can’t remember if it was last year or the year before, but the Yankees actually played the Angels 10 games during the season. I remember thinking that I had never seen 10 games in a single season against a team not in the division since the days of the balanced schedule. And the Yankees have played more games on the road than they have at home against the Angels over the last ten years. And for those of you interested in the conspiracy, note the teams that the Yanks only play the minimum six times. It’s never a team that MLB has any faith in to be good.

          So how did I get this way? How did I turn into a conspiracy geek worse than the guys with their own full-length copy of the Zapruder film? Here are some of the nuggets that got me started down this path. First off, MLB guards the way they make the schedule with their lives. They don’t ever give anybody anything on how that thing is created. It’s like those guys who were sworn to protect the Holy Grail in the third Indiana Jones movie. They always shoo the question away by saying it’s a very complicated system of algorithms. Isn’t that beautiful? Second, no one knows why they went away from the balanced schedule to begin with. It was fair and it worked. Everybody played everybody the same number of games against every team, with a game here or there because it had to divide into 162. Then they switched it back to unbalanced, meaning you play everybody in your division a thousand times. Seriously, why is this a good thing? Sure, Yanks/Sox is a great rivalry, but now all of the other teams that couldn’t wait for the Yanks to come to town and sell out every year are stuck ******* it up. Take Cleveland. Once upon a time they were selling out the Jake every night. But they must have been throwing things at the wall this year when they found out the Yanks were only going to show for three games. The Yankee games are usually automatic sell-outs, or close to it. And it’s not like it’s a great thing for the teams in the division, either. Sure, the Blue Jays, Devil Rays, and Orioles get an uptick in attendance when the Yanks come to town, but half the crowd is Yankee fans, which is a bit embarrassing, and they also suffer an ominous side effect. They all have to play one-quarter of their games against the Yankees and the Red Sox, virtually ensuring that they will not be competing for a playoff spot. So without that excitement, those teams are left waiting for the big boys to come to town to sell out their park. And now the little guys start the lobby machine early to have the Yankees come to their park for four or six games. You think MLB hands those out randomly? Please.

          The one that always fascinates me the most, though, is how they use this stuff to skew the competitiveness of the league. Of the past ten years of Yankee dominance in the AL East, how many times has the lead flipped during the season from the Red Sox to the Yanks? Not every year, but what, seven or eight of them? It defies logic. In years past, I have thrown out reams of data to support the fact that MLB tended to front-load the Yankee schedule with difficult games, knowing full well that it was only a matter of time until they would win the division anyway, so they would try and artificially create the illusion of a race for as long as possible. For instance, as the Yankees would grind through two West Coast trips by May, playing the tough teams, the Red Sox would be vacationing with trips through Baltimore and Tampa Bay. Before you knew it, the Red Sox had a four or five game lead, and it would take the Yanks until June or so to pull ahead. And then they would run away with it. But at least they got to hype the national games on ESPN and Fox as "pennant race" games, rather than the lamer "rivalry" games, which is what they have been trying to push on us with Cubs/Cardinals for the last few years. I really started down this road by trying to figure out why the same thing happened every single year. Boston goes out in front, every media type tells you why they made the better moves, they’re the hungrier team, "this team is different," etc. Yawn. Then the exact same thing happens. They tank, the Yanks surge, and the Yanks win the division. There must be a reason, other than that the Red Sox puked it up every year. I don’t know.

           It is worth noting, though, that this year was markedly different. And believe me I follow this stuff. This year the Red Sox didn’t play the Devil Rays until after right around the All-Star break, and the Yanks didn’t get last year’s pennant winners until about a week ago. So I don’t know. But there’s got to be something to this.

          So we’re thirteen games into this brutal, seventeen-game run-up to the Boston series. And we’ve gone 8-5. The Yankees are good, and they can beat anyone. God bless Seattle if they can keep this up and pull off a miracle. But I don’t see it. They’re in the middle of a cupcake stretch right now, and when they’ve got to hit the road and play the big boys in September, they’re going to have a very difficult time staying in the race. So stay tuned.

          No Sheff this series. I still think three of four is unrealistic. But the Yankees are a better team than Detroit right now. Would be nice if we could validate it with some W’s. Would make for a pleasant, sunny weekend for me, anyway.

        So after all of the texting that has gone on over the last few hours, after watching the entire game, after taking a moment to think about things; I have to admit it. The Yanks got the breaks tonight in Anaheim. They got a gift call on a double play that cost the Angels a run, they got Lackey throwing the ball over the first baseman’s head for a run, they got a "fair" call on a borderline ball down the line by Posada, and they got a "ball" call on a pitch that could have been strike three in that same at-bat by Posada. The only break the Angels got, and I’ll admit I was furious, was that the ball bounced directly back to Robb Quindlan when Lackey threw the ball over his head, costing the Yankees a second run when Posada got thrown out trying to score. So I guess ownership does have its limitations.

        Tony Sherry called me right as I was walking in the door tonight to tell me that the Mariners had already lost and the Red Sox were losing. "Dude, you know they’re going to pull one out in the ninth like ninjas." I was still riding the wave that Petey Goods put me on yesterday. "Nope," I said. "Today is a good day."

        So things have played out pretty much as I expected. The Red Sox took two of three from the Rays and the Angels took two of three from the Yanks. The Red Sox were so due to lose it was ridiculous. They had won what, 9 of 11 against Tampa this year? And they were in Tampa? They were just due. Dice-K ended up the hard-luck loser. Although he’s pitched better than his record of late, he’s also been bailed out of a few losses by his offense this year. He can look good, and he pitches some nice games, but he makes you ask the same question you used to ask with guys with nasty stuff like Kenny Rogers, Javy Vazquez, and Carl Pavano. Why doesn’t he win? He’s 13-10 on the team with the best record in baseball. Tim Wakefield, the ultimate career .500 pitcher, is 15-10 on that team. But I digress. We dumped a game here in Anaheim. No shock there.

        Seattle was also so due to lose. That winning streak was really on borrowed time, especially since they were in Minnesota. It’s time for them to stumble a bit. [Joba just finished off striking out the side in the eighth with a deadly slider to Vlad the Bad. Not sure how to keep from getting excited about this guy.]

        So if you look at this series on the whole, the story isn’t that bad. The Yankees out-hit the Angels badly in two of the three games. Phil Hughes held them to three hits in six innings, and Pettitte held them to four hits in six innings. The Angels got a big helping of breaks to take that first game in extra innings, and that was your series. The Yanks gave Moseley an ND, Lackey, their ace, an "L," and got Escobar for five runs in six innings, even though they got smanashticrated in the game. That’s life in Anaheim. And Mo and Joba pitched well in relief. Unfortunately, the Viz and the Moose got smoked. And Henn kind of s*cked. So really, the Yanks played hard and tough, but got beat in extra innings on the series. I think the biggest factor, though, may have been Chone Figgins not being available tonight. I really have no idea what kind of ball he plays against the rest of the league, but from what I’ve seen he looks pretty much like the toughest out in the entire major leagues. And if I never see him again it will be too soon.

         Joe Torre has passed Casey Stengel in wins as a Yankee manager. That’s pretty nuts for a guy who was introduced to this town by the Daily News as "Clueless Joe."

        I still have no internet access. Like I said, I think I’m back in business this weekend. Until then I’m rigging this. And it’s getting kind of weird… Joseph, thanks for the assist on the stats. Raoul, thanks for entertaining the group with twenty dollar words. Now if, you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch the highlights. The Yankees just beat the Angels in Anaheim. Today was a good day.

- from What a Wonderful World, by Louis Armstrong

        I have a Christmas wish. I know it’s not Christmas, but it’ still a noble endeavor. Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone could live, just for a few days, in a world like the one the Angels live in against the Yankees? A world in which every ground ball is fair by an inch, every ball bloops in just past the outstretched glove of a fielder, everybody who you count on comes through in spades and everyone you have no faith in surprises you by coming through when you need them the most? Try and picture it. For most of us, it would mean all of the traffic lights would line up perfectly, the clutch parking spot would open up just as you pull up to where you’re going, your friends would always have your back, and all of your co-workers would hold up their end and then some, even the slackers. Nice. The has-beens would have one more shot to re-live the heyday of their prime; the up-and-comers would enjoy their break-out moment…what a wondrous place that would be. But you know what the best part would be? That when you get in trouble, you mess up, when you fail to come through; you would get a pass because the authority figure would either miss it or make the wrong call. I wish that for everybody, even if it’s just for a little while, in this crazy, high-stress world. That’s my Christmas wish.

         Right now I’m living in a world with no internet access, which is why the posts have been AWOL the past few days. Apologies for that. Also leaves me without the web to check facts, figures, and data. So this is going to be a little sub-par. Sort of like the Yankees against the Angels. I should be back up by the weekend, and as I write this I’m not sure how I am going to post it.

        Also as I write this, the Yankees are b*tching out in the top of the fourth, sitting in a 12-5 hole. The Angels are averaging four runs an inning, which puts them on pace for 36 runs tonight. Cool.

        Last night was pure pain. Every Yankee fan in the world knew that it was a huge game. As Anthony Cheerios, Tony Sherry, and I were discussing this afternoon, the game tonight was the lock of the century for bettors everywhere. Mussina against Escobar and the Angels on the road. Wow. What was the line? So last night’s extra-inning affair became the difference between an 0-2 hole going into John Lackey, or keeping this a series. And every Yankee fan knows the history of these teams, and there were no Yankee fans who expected them to win that game, even after Posada’s bomb. But it was still excruciating. I have always made no bones about the fact that I love Mike Scoscia’s style. His over-the-top aggressiveness keeps the opponent completely uncomfortable. And it creates lot of success for him. That’s why it’s so much more painful when he gets lucky, too. His team had all of three hits going into the seventh, but the backup catcher, Mathis, hitting .207, hits a three-run double to keep him in the game. Then his eight-hitter puts a ball an inch fair on the line for a double before they win it when a guy who is 1 for 11 this year places a pop-up one inch between Melky and Abreu’s glove. What a wonderful world.

        So today, all day, Tony Sherry, Acc, and I were saying that Moose putting the first two guys on with nobody out was automatic, as was the Angels scoring two in the first. Check. But in this happy world, they were assisted by a bad "safe" call by second-base umpire Jeff Iasognia (sp?) on a Chone Figgins steal of second and a questionable call on a two run double that supposedly "went over the bag fair." Thanks, guys. How many blown calls at second does that make for the Yanks this year on stolen bases? Off the top of my head I can think of one on Willie Bloomquist, two on Coco Crisp, one on Jose Reyes and one on Chone Figgins. And I’m sure there are more that I’m not thinking of.

        I was reading an article (without the internet I can’t remember the author) that discussed the "trouble points" for the Angels down the stretch. The two prominent points were 1) Garret Anderson is a terrible ballplayer at this stage of his career, and 2) the back-up catchers are so bad that they are a tremendous liability now that the starter is hurt. As a Yankee fan, I had to laugh out loud at the Garret Anderson comment. He’s made the all-Yankee killer team that Acc and I put together for nine straight years (do I hear an even ten?). He’s one of those guys in the Edgar Martinez mold who will step in for their first at-bat of a series against the Yanks, the broadcasters will tell you what a horrendous slump he’s in, and then he proceeds to blast gloriously out of it. Great. And he has been nothing short of unconscious the past few days. If the Red Sox are smart they’ll rent him one of these years. [In a stroke of brilliant timing, literally just after I put the period on the last sentence, Michael Kay was talking about the horrendous slump that Garret Anderson was in before this series. And then Anderson blasted a grand slam for his 10th RBI of the night.] And as for the back-up catchers, two colossal hits in yesterday’s game, accounting for 4 of the 7 Angel runs, including the game-winner in extra innings. And two more tonight. Yawn.

        I was figuring on losing a game in the standings this series. I fully expected the Yankees to win one and only one game in Anaheim, and I figured the Devil Rays would figure out a way to win one game at home against the Red Sox. I was more worried about the next series, frankly. It’s unlikely that the Yankees will take three of four in Detroit, so I was figuring on a split. But I was more worried that the White Sox, who are quickly becoming the lay-down team of the American League, would sit for four straight against the Red Sox. So I was figuring on losing at least two games in this seven-game stretch, possibly three. And I still feel that way, although I knew last night (Monday) was a killer. So we’ll see.

        So hopefully I can get this thing up and posted. And hopefully Mr. Pettitte can be that stopper that he’s been so often in his Yankee career. He’ll need to be, as tomorrow we get the best they’ve got in John Lackey. Awesome. But that’s why the Yankees are a good team. They can surprise you by coming out and drilling the top guy just when you think things are at their bleakest. Petey Goods texted me tonight that the Yanks would come back when they were down 7-2. And he was right. Tomorrow I’m taking a page out of his book. I think we can win.

        “I’ve seen some spectacular things at Yankee Stadium; sick walk-off home runs and stuff like that.  But Shelley Duncan’s face yesterday might have been the mint-est thing I have ever seen at Yankee Stadium.”  Tony Sherry had waited for me at the usual spot, on South Street, right in front of the Seaport, and he was still talking about yesterday’s events as we just started up the FDR towards the Upper East Side to pick up Mikey Rumble.  Mike Rumble didn’t start his bartending shift at the 84th street Dorrian’s until eleven, and since Mikey Juice bailed, we hijacked him for the game until then.  And Tony was right.  There was a difference between a great Yankee Stadium moment and something made you look, point and say, “Dude are you looking at his face?!  How mint is that!”  That is, of course, if you’re one of those people stuck in 1989 that still uses words like “mint.”  But either way, it’s been a long time since Yankee Stadium has seen a character like Shelley Duncan. 

         Not long after we arrived at 161st and River Ave we spotted the Big Boy and his little brother waiting for us at 1977.  Little Acc was actually in front of the Yankee Store, watching the game on the TV through the window.  “What’s happening?” I asked him.  “It’s not good,” he said.  “Are you kidding me?  This game started like a minute ago…”  “Well, it’s already bases loaded with one out.”  And it was still bases loaded one out as we walked through the tunnel to section 24.  We heard a huge groan from the crowd as a potential strike three was called a ball.  And then we walked from the tunnel out to the field level.  We waited for the 3-2 pitch crouched down in front of the tunnel entrance, trying not to block the view of the guys behind us.  And with that pitch, before we even got to our seats in the front row, everything fell apart.  And for the third game in a row that I’ve been to, the Yankees were getting mauled before, just as, or just after I walked in the building.

         So just for a goof, I’m doing a little math.  The Yankees are 12-5 in their last 17 games.  That’s a winning percentage of .706.  My record, in games that I have attended over that same span, is 0-3.  That is, in case anyone’s interested, a .000 winning percentage.  “Point zero zero zero” is how it looks if you spell it out.  Like Mr. Blutarski’s GPA in Animal House.  So I have to take a drastic step.  I have to bench myself until further notice.  And I’m benching Mikey Rumble while I’m at it, as he has been with me for every one of these disasters.  Why the dramatic move?  Well, while we’re playing with math, it makes sense to note that the Yankees winning percentage over the last 17 games in games that I have not attended is .857.  And their winning percentage at home in games that I have not attended over their last 13 games is .900.  So this is not a tough one, guys.  I have to sit my dumb a*ss down.  And Mikey Rumble’s dumb a*ss.  I’m giving everybody else a pass, because they don’t seem to crush the momentum like we do.  So that’s it until further notice.  Not sure when that will be.

          What a waste tonight.  The Yankees did Verlander tonight.  This was old-school Yankees.  They did to Verlander exactly what they should have done to Bedard yesterday.  With Giambi, Abreu, and Damon in the lineup, they bled him to death.  He was way over 100 pitches with one out in the fifth inning, way before he was even eligible for the win.  But unfortunately, that grand slam by Carlos Guillen took all of the wind out the sails before this was even a game.  So even though Verlander struggled with the Yankee line-up, he picked the right night to stumble.  Moose did not have it.  And as I said to Acc as were watching the first inning, Moose isn’t a guy who can settle down after a rocky start.  Moose and Rocket either have it or they don’t.  And if they don’t you need to yank them early if you have any designs on winning.  Pettitte and Wang can weather a rocky start and settle down.  But not Clemens and Moose.  So this was just a battle to see how many Moose would give up before they mercifully got him out of there.  And, in the end, the answer was too many.  He was awful. 

          The Yankees, as Michael Kay pointed out on the broadcast a few days ago, have actually committed the eighth-fewest errors in the major leagues this season.  Pretty good.  But I think we would all agree that this season they seem to have a knack for saving them for the perfect spot.  So Allie boots a ball in the first that could have been an inning-ending double play.  Maybe it would have, maybe it wouldn’t have.  But we know how it turned out.  So that’s it.

          Not even my sister and her crew, who joined us in section 24 late in the game, or Robbie Wonderful, who was at the game and joined us at Dorrian’s afterwards, could pull together the necessary energy for a win.  Shame.  Hopefully Mr. Pettitte comes out tough tomorrow…   

         I could go in any number of different directions here.  I could talk about any number of things that Tony Sherry, Mikey Rumble and I encountered today at the Stadium.  I could talk about the gaping hole that today’s game left us with.  I could break down the game in any number of different ways.  I could give myself a giant pat on the back by mentioning that this game went pretty much exactly as I predicted it would in yesterday’s post.  The need to keep it close until the late innings because the Yanks weren’t going to touch Bedard, and needed to be within striking distance by the time their bats inevitably woke up.  For the record, they did not keep it close.  Two is close.  When that third run crossed the plate I knew we were in trouble.  I could talk about Torre sitting down Abreu, Cano, Damon, and Giambi in the same game, even though Abreu and Giambi are just the type of guys you need in there; taking pitches and running the pitch count up.  I could talk about one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen in a baseball game; the look on Shelley Duncan’s face as he walked up to the plate in the ninth clutching his bat; a look that Tony and Mike Rumble agreed looked exactly like the Undertaker walking into the wrestling ring.  I could talk about Duncan’s throw, or his catch at first.  Or I could talk about having one of those moments at the Stadium.  The way the place just exploded into a thousand pieces, when Duncan’s shot flew right past us in all of its unlikely glory.  I could talk Mo.  I could go in any one of these directions.  But I won’t.

        I won’t talk about any of that stuff, because it bums me out to think about it.  So here’s what I am going to do.  I’m going to take a cue from Happymeds and Jason from the Heartland.  If you’re going to talk about bad losses, you’ve come to the right season.  I’m going to run down the BPS ‘top three worst losses of 2007’.  Our own little BPS slice of h*ll.  Let’s hope this list doesn’t need any additions by the end of the season.  Maybe by then I’ll also be able to think of top five best wins.  Or ten, maybe.

         You’ll note that I have a number of different criteria for a bad loss.  A loss to a blood-rival, a game that has severe playoff implications, a game that had a shock-ending, and a game that saw a gross miscarriage of justice are all good ones.  I try and stay away from a loss that featured a prominent injury, because that could happen anytime, really.  But perhaps my most important criterion would be a sure-fire lock-win turned excruciating loss.  The more of these boxes checked, the better the chance that a game will make the list.  So here goes.   

The BPS Top Three Worst Losses of 2007

Number three:  Monday, May 7 3-2 L vs. Seattle

         For the sheer injustice of it.  This was a win, absolutely and completely.  It was taken away by the pure incompetence of Gerry Davis and his blown call on the Bloomquist steal.  With double digit hits, the Yankees were all over the bases all night, but just couldn’t get the runs home.  That said, they had enough to win, if Davis does his job.  And it wasn’t just a blown call.  It was probably the worst blown call I have ever seen.  Bloomquist was out by three feet.  Inexcusable.  The call would have ended the eighth inning with the lead intact.  Instead, a bloop drove Bloomquist home with the trying run.  The Yanks lost in the ninth on a blast off of Mo.  And this game happens to be the one that stands between the Yanks and the wild-card at this very moment.

Number two: Sunday, April 15 5-4 L vs. Oakland

        For a pure punch-in-the-stomach, close-to-puking loss, this one has no rival.  This thing wasn’t just a lock.  This was a two-run lead with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, with light hitting Marco Scutaro at the plate.  And then Scutaro, who averages five bombs a year for his career, hits a three-run walk-off against Mo.  Excruciating.

Number one: Friday, April 20 7-6 L vs. Boston

        As much as the Scutaro game had me huddled in a dark corner for a few hours, I just can’t get away from this one.  For starters, it was Boston.  And it was the first game of the season, the one that probably set the tone for the rest of the first half.  And it wasn’t just a lock-win.  It was a joyous statement.  It was the man they love to hate, Allie, jamming it down Schilling’s throat, punctuating his rapid decline from the echelons of the elite with two majestic bombs.  It was a celebration.  And then it all went horribly awry.  What was our celebration became their celebration, with Mo getting the horns.  The stink of that game has just not gone away, even four months later.  And to put an explanation point on it, each loss to Boston is a two-game swing, so if we had won that game, we would currently be three back, and would have spent the better part of the last few days at two back.  So we can chew on that.  That’s why this heaven-forsaken game has to be number one.  Dammit.

Honorable mention:

Saturday, June 23rd  6-5 L vs. San Francisco

         We had a million chances to win and Allie came through with a dramatic, game-tying bomb.  It also came in the middle of an awful road trip, having just been swept by Colorado.  This would have been an awesome win, but this game was on the road, so even when Allie hit it, we were still up against it.  At no point was this a lock.  In fact, the odds were always against a win, even after Allie’s bomb.

Wednesday, August 15th 6-3 L vs. Baltimore

         How do you waste one of the most dramatic, unlikely bombs in years, by one of the most likable players?  This was horrible.  And it was at home, so after the bomb, the odds were in our favor.  But the fact is we had nothing all day long, we never had a lead, and despite the dramatics, we were really only in this game for about fifteen minutes.

Thursday, August 2nd 13-9 L vs. Chicago         

         Again.  You’re at home, you cough up eight runs in the second inning, and get every one of them right back with an eight-run bottom of the second.  And then you lose.  How do you not win that game?  What a disgraceful waste…  But again, we were never winning.  So it doesn’t crack the top three.

         So all of these represent one man’s opinion.  I will also add that I may be biased because I was at every single one of the above games that was played at the Stadium.  Feel free to add your thoughts. 

        Acc, Tony Sherry, and I will be in section 24 tomorrow (Thursday) night.  Word on the street is Mikey Juice bailed, so it looks like we have a player-to-named seat.  Talk about out-of-the-frying-pan-and-into-the-fire.  Guthrie to Cabrera to Bedard to Verlander.  The good news is that the Yankee funks are usually over when they’re over.  So expect Verlander to have some trouble with the Yankee offense tomorrow.  They’re due.  Seannie, we need your boy!!