A Little Better

                "I had it all typed out, dude, but I couldn't do it to you...."  I was listening to Mike Sherry on the other end of the phone today as I was strolling alongside New York Harbor in Battery Park around lunchtime.  He has for years threatened to hit me with a BPS comment akin to the SNL skit of William Shatner giving the speech at the Star Trek convention ("Get a life!!  You - have you ever kissed a girl?!").  He hits me with it off-line all the time for writing a Yankee blog.  Deservedly so, I might add....  But he agreed with me on the offense points.  Mike Sherry does not show up to see shutouts.  Mike Sherry shows up to see long home runs, and is bitterly disappointed when he walks out of the Stadium without seeing one...  And although I was lamenting the lack of offense yesterday, that's not why I show up.  I show up to see the Yankees win championships.  And if I don't get that result I walk away bitterly disappointed.  And although I have my opinions about the most efficient way to get there, I couldn't care less how they actually get it done.  If they want to win every game 1-0 with the run scoring on a groundout, that's okay by me.

            Enter the 2008 Yankees.  They are 5-5, but as I said yesterday, a precarious, uneasy 5-5.  Ten games deep, and thanks to some late-inning back-to-back thunder from Allie and Jorgie, the Yankees are officially averaging over three runs a game.  Barely... 

            Pettitte did this last year as well.  Almost a carbon copy.  I was at his first start back at the Stadium in '07, and he ran out of steam early and eventually took it on the chin.  Then he bounced back with a very strong win in his second start.  Same story in '08.  Here's hoping Pettitte will be Pettitte in 2008.  The nice thing about Pettitte is what we saw in game two in Cleveland last year.  He was an assassin.  He's proven that he's got it in him.  I'll take him in a big game any day.

            So with that said, he won't be pitching against Boston this weekend.  Wang, Moose, and Hughes.  The Yankees will most likely not get swept, but it is highly likely they will lose two of three.  Yes it's true, Raoul.  The Red Sox always beat the Yankees....in April.  It just always works out that way.  I love how Raoul will try to preempt the particularly cutting Red Sox comments by trying to mock the proclivity with which I'll use them.  And by "cutting," I mean the ones that are so embarrassingly, uncomfortably true that you will go to great lengths to try and make the BPS stop putting them into print.  I can be goaded into lots of things, I'm sure.  But I will do my best not to be goaded into making Red Sox fans less uncomfortable.

            The Ferocious Lion has surprised me so far.  I didn't expect him to come in this solid.  He's been smashing the ball.  Even his outs are good, solid, line drives.  His defense isn't anything to write home about, but he's raking...

            Is there a more useless hitter than Jason Giambi this year?  I know the obvious answer is yes, because he still draws walks, takes a lot of pitches and gets on base.  But dude, I get the uneasy feeling that he will struggle to keep the batting average above .150 this year.  And you know, after not having a real strong opinion about it the last few years, I've decided that Giambi simply needs to learn to hit the ball to the left side.  Period.  Part of the problem is that Paul O'Neill has come out very strongly against that idea on every broadcast he does.  My issue with that is that Paul O'Neill is the wrong guy to be doling out that advice.  Like Owen Wilson in Wedding Crashers, he is projecting.  Paul O'Neill has a strong opinion on the subject because Lou Piniella tried to turn him into a power hitter, taking away his strengths.  "You don't want to get away from what you do," he likes to say.  But after watching this mess for four years, I've decided that O'Neill's situation was vastly different than Giambi's.  O'Neill was getting himself out by doing something that he wasn't comfortable doing.  His reasoning was, and is - don't make somebody do something they're uncomfortable doing, because if you do they'll make outs.  If you leave them to do what they do comfortably, they won't.  The issue here is that when Giambi is doing what he is comfortable doing, opposing teams are getting him out.  Consistently.  He has spent the last few seasons hitting the ball directly into the shift.  His batting average has hemorrhaged since then.  Dude, if he can poke the ball the left side quasi-consistently, teams will stop shifting on him.  It's that simple.  He needs to go out there and work on it non-stop in BP for a few weeks.  If it works he can beat a few shifts and watch them ease up.  If it doesn't work he can go back to what he's doing and end up hitting .235 this year.

            Want to take a minute to welcome everybody back.  Love that I had double digit comments twice so far.  H810, JD, Mike F (I know you love Posada dude, and I love him too - remember my opinion is just my opinion), Ras, Dale, Jason from the Heartland, J-Boogie, Raoul, Matt from Diamondhacks, the statistician magician, Triple J, Vino, Nick, Dianna, Time2goJoe, Yankeegirl23, and The Mypster.  And a good question was asked.  Where is Happymeds?

            See you folks on Monday night/Tuesday.  Which one of our starters wins in Boston this weekend?  I say none.  I say we get one with a reliever in extras...  Because Raoul, you know what they say about the Sox in April....