Too Little, Too Late.

         It occurs to me that the poor Red Sox fans will have no choice but to talk about “moral victories,” “self respect,” and whatever else they can think of to make themselves feel good after this weekend.  Here’s the truth.  By this coming Friday absolutely no one will remember the Red Sox salvaged three of four at the Stadium this past weekend.  The legacy of Boston Massacre II will go on for years and years.  The truth is, when it was time for the key players on the Red Sox to step up this season, they smashed face-first in the dirt.  That’s why they are the losers.  Again.  Nice catch in center tonight, Coco.  Too bad you couldn’t get it done when it counted.  Know that you were a costly front-office mistake.  Good ninth inning, Timlin.  Too bad you were a bona fide Yankee punching bag this season, and were responsible for puking away many games single-handedly during the Red Sox collapse.  Good start on Saturday, Beckett.  Too bad you showed yourself to be a cowering child every time your team needed you this season.  Know that you are currently listed on more than a few polls on the internet as one of the ten worst trades in baseball history, as Hanley Ramirez continues his run towards rookie of the year, and Anibal Sanchez basks in his no-hitter. 

         As far as the games go, you can get as upset as you want.  Although there were a lot of veterans not getting it done this weekend, the four games featured a steady diet of no-names, for both teams.  I was listening to the first game today in Big Joe’s pool, and I was listening to John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman lament the fact that the Yankees couldn’t get any runs across with bases loaded and nobody out in the fourth or fifth inning.  Why was this so startling?  The first two batters to get a shot at it were Nick Green and Sal Fasano.  This is Joe Torre in September.  This has always been Joe Torre in September.  I was also listening to the radio broadcast while driving back to Brooklyn with the Mrs. earlier tonight.  Sterling was making a point about Torre being asked about how important it was to clinch at home against the Red Sox.  Sterling mentioned that Torre was insisting that he wasn’t trying to win because he wanted to clinch in any kind of way, he wanted to win because he wanted to win games; he wanted everyone to be in the mindset of winning.  Sterling clearly bought it.  I don’t.  Winning these games is extremely low on Joe Torre’s priority.  Keeping everybody rested and healthy is high priority.  Is this the right way to approach it?  Probably.  Is it always the cast-in-stone best way?  No.  A few years ago Joe would have come right out and told everybody he didn’t give a lick about winning these games; that it was about keeping people fresh.  Today he is more savvy.  He realizes that there are those who are not in total agreement.  I am one of them.  He’s running nobody after nobody out there game after game.  Jeter, because he is the right kind of ballplayer, insisted on being out there for three of the four as he chases the batting title.  So he only rested once.  Abreu, Allie-boy, Cano, Giambi, Matsui, and Damon each rested twice.  Aaron Guiel continues to get at-bat after at-bat, with no discernible purpose.  He’s hitting .233, and he hasn’t shown anything in his career to make you think he’s any better than that.  They got him when everybody was injured.  He has no place on the playoff roster.  His at-bats have come at the expense of Craig Wilson, who has been an all-star in his career, and now has been relegated to righty-pinch hitting duty.  The line-up has been a revolving door for the last few weeks.  Although I realize the logic, and I agree with the philosophy on a grand scale, I think Joe overdoes it.

         First of all, Joe Torre undoubtedly gives away games.  You can argue that he gave away all three games they lost this weekend.  He had so many weapons sitting on the bench in every game that you could have held an all-star game in the clubhouse.  One of the reasons I say that Joe Torre is more savvy now about admitting he’s resting everybody is because he took a huge black eye last year.  After clinching in Boston in the penultimate game of the season, he rested absolutely everybody on the last day of the year.  The wily Mike Scoscia, smelling an opportunity, out-foxed Torre, as usual.  Scoscia’s Angels were in the same boat as Torre’s Yankees.  They had already clinched the AL West.  But Scoscia didn’t take a back seat on the last day of the season.  He was a full game behind the Yankees in the standings.  Knowing that he had won the season series (what else is new…), he went for it.  With Joe Torre napping away a loss to the Sox on the last day of the season with every scrub he could muster, Scoscia’s Angel starters were stealing bases, bunting, and playing to win against a Rangers team (with a tacit wink from their manager, Buck Showalter, all too glad to stick it to the Yankees) that had pulled all of their starters early (and right off the bases, in an unprecedented move).  The Angels reward was home field advantage.  A week later the Angels were playing game five at home, with a rookie emergency reliever who came in to the thunderous cheers and support of the crowd.  Torre took heat for that blunder, and rightfully so.  So now he claims he tries to win all of the games.  But he hasn’t changed a thing.  He hasn’t rested less than two starters in every game.  Usually three or more.  So whereas we had a three game lead over Detroit for best record, we now have a single game lead over them, and a two game lead over Minnesota.  Joe Torre, I am begging you.  Do not underestimate the importance of home field advantage.  It is the only chance anyone in the AL playoffs has of beating the Yankees.  Do not just give it away.  Please.

         A lesser reason he denies his strategy is that it could p*ss off anybody on the team, particularly the pitchers, who are trying to finish with decent stats.  Tonight, in the eighth inning, Joe Torre left lefty specialist, Mike Myers, in to face four righties with a two run lead.  The ESPN broadcasters, Morgan and Miller, acknowledged that this was an example of how Torre is just using this type of game to see what his guys are made of in certain situations.  I agree with Morgan and Miller that that is what he was trying to do.  I disagree with the tactic.  Myers is a million years old.  Why are you testing him out in any way?  You know what he can do and what he can’t do.  If he ends up in a game in a key spot against a righty, it’s because you have no choice.  How must Sean’s boy, Mike Mussina, have felt that Torre was leaving Myers out there, hitting batters and throwing a wild pitch with two outs that tied the game, nullifying Mussina’s win?  What did that prove?  Mussina has been a horse for Torre for six years.  He’s going to be so close to 300 wins, but will probably come up a bit short.  Why are you throwing his win out the window, clearly because you just wanted to see what would happen if you left Myers out there?  The last piece of this is the fans.  Have a little more respect for the fans, who do not want the Red Sox, of all teams, to be able to walk away smiling, taking three of four in our own house.  Giving this game away for such a silly reason was a slap in the face of the fans, who have come out 4 million strong this year in support of the team.

         I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again.  Home field situation aside, it would be a major upset if the Yankees were to lose to any of the teams currently in the race in the AL.  Major.  The Yankees are better and deeper than all of them.  Period.  Do you know what their one weakness is?  I’ll give you a hint.  Don’t be a ****** and say starting pitching.  Randy Johnson and Wang will be 18 or 19 game winners, and Moose has put up a quality start almost every time out.  Let’s stop being ridiculous.  Who has a better or deeper 1,2,3 in all of baseball?  Oakland, with Zito, Haren, and Blanton? No.  Minnesota?  No.  It’s Santana and then my mom and sister.  You could argue Detroit, but they are young and untested, with the exception of Kenny Rah-Rah, who is old and has tested badly.  That leaves the Yanks.  So what is their Achilles heel?  It will be the one guy who will probably be the worst hitter in the best lineup they throw out there come playoff time.  Jorge Posada.  Now, he himself is not the weak-link, mind you.  It’s what would happen to the Yankees if he were to go down.  The Yankees acquired the Incredible Sal because Kelly Stinnett was hitting terribly.  Well, The Incredible Sal has been all that and less.  He is truly awful at the plate.  By all accounts, he is a happy, jolly guy who is universally liked.  But he has been a black hole in the lineup.  If Posada was unable to play, for any reason, the Incredible Sal would prove to be a Godsend for opposing pitchers, giving them the one thing they will not have in this line-up – an automatic out.  And the situations will find him.  They certainly did this weekend.

         Last thing on the Jeter/ Big HGH MVP situation.  Morgan and Miller were extolling Ortiz’s virtues, saying he was a good a candidate as anyone.  They even went so far as to cite, along with a visual graphic, the guidelines that MLB gives to the voters in what to look for when picking candidates.  One criterion was loyalty, which caused Morgan to say he “didn’t know what that meant.”  I think what he meant to say is that he didn’t know how it fit into the MVP voting.  I think an overwhelming majority of the media fall into the same trap with Big HGH as they always have with Shaquille O’Neal.  They are quick to forgive any shortcomings or transgressions because he is such a jolly, loveable guy.  How many times over the years have you heard an NBA broadcaster, as soon as Shaq hit three or four free-throws in a  row, jubilantly cheer that his foul-shooting woes are over, or how silly the idea was that he couldn’t hit them was in the first place?  And of course, he would quickly brick the next seven because he shoots free-throws about as well as your average five-year old.  But it was like wishful thinking on their part, because they just like the guy.  You get the same dynamic with Big HGH.  Everyone is tripping over themselves to say that he was misquoted, misunderstood, and mis-treated regarding his Jeter quotes.  The reality is simple and crystal clear.  The minute he injected Jeter’s name into any comment he was making a major transgression, even if it was in response to a question.  You can’t do that, not ever.  And he has not yet apologized in any way for the comment, as far as I know.  All he has done is cry about people “not understanding.”  Derek Jeter, as he usually does, took the high road.  But Big HGH has not backed off anything, and he made a major mistake.  So that’s the first thing.  The second one was when he mentioned that Jeter had stars all around him in the line-up.  His comment, that no one disputes, was, “Try hitting in this line-up, then see how good you can be.”  Hey Joe Morgan, remember when you said you didn’t understand how loyalty fit in to the equation?  Well how about throwing your entire team under the bus, insinuating that their lack of talent is what is costing you the MVP?  Hey guys, I get it.  Big HGH is a jolly, fun guy.  Don’t lose your credibility because of it.  Do your jobs.

Only three things left to figure out this regular season.  Home field, home-field, home-field.