Playoff Purgatory

         You don’t know what to do sometimes.  The Yankees are floating through a kind of playoff purgatory these days.  It’s a funny thing.  It’s like a compressed state of consciousness.  The highs and the lows are both clipped off, leaving only the blasé middle ground.  There are very few jump-out-of-your-chair moments in this type of situation.  If they lose, they lose.  If they win, they win.  You can root for home field advantage, which is important in the playoffs, but it’s not the same as chasing a team or holding a team off down the stretch.  The Boston Red Sox have slid down a slippery slope; done in by seemingly short-sighted deal-making and an over-reliance on too few to carry too many.  They are 10.5 games out of first, 11 in the loss column.  They are no longer a factor.  The wild-card race in the AL has burned hot, emblematic of what MLB had envisioned when they instituted it 11 years ago.  The Detroit Tigers are the heroic underdog marathoner who led from the start, inspiring the locals and carrying the flag proudly, all the while slowly succumbing to the inevitable oncoming victors.  The Yankees are the cream that has slowly and relentlessly risen to the top.  Wonderful thing, that baseball schedule.  The oldest statistical principle is that the larger your data sample, the more the results will revert to the mean.  The Yankees are the most talented team.  You play 162 games and you’ll figure that out.  So here we are. 

         I flipped on the game in the sixth inning.  I got home late, and the Mrs. had cooked up some chili.  She’ll do that from time to time.  She said that she has acknowledged that it’s time for fall.  The twist was that she also whipped up cornbread.  I’m pretty sure that was a first.  So by the time we had finished and cleaned everything up, it was time for Yankee baseball.  Bottom six, 4-2 O’s.  Again, in the current state of affairs, you can’t be too upset.  What’s the worst it could mean?  That your hold on best record in the American League becomes a little less firm?  That’s not exactly the stuff that makes your heart flutter.  So I just sat there and watched with little or no anxiousness, which is unusual for me, I assure you.  Randall gave up another run in the sixth with two outs, and you’re looking at 5-2 O’s.  I yawned lazily, flipping channels to take a peak at the Monday Night Football score.  All the while knowing that the Orioles starter, Rodrigo Lopez, had thrown 94 pitches.  This is what happens, folks. 

        Up come the Yanks in the top of the seventh.  I don’t even have to continue.  You know what happens next.  The bad news is that there is a double-edged sword to this middle plane the Yankees are on.  The highs are gone as well as the lows.  Earlier in the year, when the Yankees were, say, three back, and the Sox had lost, I would have been doing a somersault over the railing of my loft after a comeback like this.  At this time of year, you just kind of smile and marvel at the machine that they have become.  But that’s okay.  We’ll be back in the tempest before you know it.  A break is kind of nice…

        This is going to sound nit-picky, but I’m going to say it anyway.  Joe Torre is giving way too many at-bats to Aaron Guiel.  He is basically running a lefty-righty platoon with Craig Wilson at first while Giambi’s cortisone shot kicks in.  Craig Wilson is a legitimately decent hitter.  Always was.  He’s had some big years, some All-star years.  Aaron Guiel has had no such thing.  And since Wilson is the righty, he’s obviously getting the short end of the stick on that one.  There are a lot more opportunities to hit righties than lefties.  My problem is that Guiel does not have a real spot on this roster come playoff time.  The lefty-off-the-bench role will be played by The Ferocious Lion (who will most likely be playing tomorrow night), Giambi, Melky, or Bernie.  Guiel does not look to get any meaningful time.  So why is Joe trotting him out there game after game?  Wilson will definitely be a right-handed option off the bench, behind Sheffield, provided he reappears, and maybe in front of Bernie or Melky.  Either way, he’s got a spot on the team.  Joe needs to find him some at-bats to keep him sharp and stop wasting his time with Guiel.

        Level, you see what I did there?  Tease you in the title about Wright and the Incredible Sal and then not say a single word about either of them in the body of the post…  I can be such a jerk sometimes.  The funny thing about the BPS, I guess, is that I don’t usually go into so many details of the game.  I assume you guys know that stuff already.  I just expound on whatever strikes my whimsy about the game, the team, or around the league.  Or something like that….  Welcome back, h8n, I thought maybe you robbed a bank and ran off to Fiji.  Haven’t heard from you in a while…  Happymeds, you bring up an interesting point about the LA Kryptonite.  Big Joe tells me all of his “Wednesday night basketball guys” are nervously watching the scoreboard every night to see if they’re creeping up.  As well they should.  It’s a scary proposition…. Rocco, thanks for the piece about Ortiz.  He seems like a really likeable guy most of the time, but you know what?  He needs to shut up, because now he’s acting like a gigantic baby.  And by gigantic I mean that in a gargantuan, chemically-enhanced, head-the-size-of-a-beerball kind of way….gjp, if you buy that jersey you may get an opportunity to wear it come playoff time…. Lucky, Jeter is a quintessential pro.  Every single one of his teammates feels better about every game when they look over and see him out there.  And every one of them would tell you that if the ball wasn’t going to be hit to them in the big spot, they would want it to be hit to Jeter….Amber, well said.  You hit it right on the head…

        More baseball at the Stadium this week.  Look for the Ferocious Lion to be back in action after almost four months.  Somewhere, Tony Sherry is doing a back flip…Not only do the Yankees have the best record in the American League, they are only one and a half-games behind the Mets for the best record in all of baseball.  This is a fun time of year…