My Name is Miserable and This is My Friend P*ssed

            "Dude, who are these guys?"  It was unusual for the Big Boy these days.  Once upon a time, the Big Boy and I would be on the phone for most of the weird moments in a Yankee season, living and dying with every pitch.  Acc was one of the few guys in the world I knew I could pick up the phone and call at 2am when the bases were loaded on a West Coast trip in May.  And he would be just as sick as I was.  These days, with two kids, the Big Boy does most of his kvetching by text, and even then I give the guy a pass when he can't make it past 10pm.  But tonight, after furious texting for about a half-hour, the big boy dialed my number and dropped that line on me.  I had no answer.  We're all saying the same thing.  No one expects anything good to happen offensively.  Wang pitched a gem tonight, and, for the second game in a row, was betrayed by an offense that should have gotten him a win.  Again.  Nothing else he could have done.  Ken Singleton mentioned a few times during the broadcast tonight that the Yankees had scored just 1 run in 17 innings.  Apparently Kenny was forgetting that the Yankees didn't score after the fifth inning on Saturday.  So it was actually 1 run in 21 innings. 

            Which brings me back to Acc's question.  What can we expect?  Giambi and Cano have slowly crept -crept- back up, but Molina has steadily sunk down along with Ensberg, Shelley Duncan and Melky.  There never seems to be a shortage of ice-cold bats on this team.  So tonight, Acc and I were chatting on the phone when the Ferocious Lion made this game interesting, although his primary function was really bailing Wang out of a hard-luck loss.  I made the comment to Acc that if they couldn't find a way to score Giambi in the ninth, there was no way they could win.  And then we looked at slow, fat, Giambi on first base and we both wondered who exactly we expected to knock his fat a*s in.  Giambi would be lucky to score from first on a triple.  And who was going to get the big base hit?  Cano?  Molina?  Ensberg?  Duncan?  It was a shame.  The Ferocious Lion just gave you a dramatic moment, and the general consensus was that that was absolutely the ceiling of what you were going to get.  That was just it.  Two runs in twenty-four innings.  That was all anyone believed we could muster.  Myself very much included.  And we were all correct.  Acc's final text message was after Floyd's single, and I think it summed things up neatly.  "Turn it off now."

            What's going to need to happen is that the bats are going to have to get some consistency.  Giambi and Cano are going to need to continue to improve, and the guys around them are going to have to improve to the point where it's not going to devastate the offense if they go into a slump.  Allie and Posada need to get back so that there is somebody - anybody - to be afraid of.  Allie coming back won't be a panacea.  It will have to come with a whole confluence of things.  As it is this is a below-average offense all around.

            Poor Mo.  He didn't stand a chance.  First, a ground ball goes right past Giambi, who has, laughably, absolutely no range.  So there's Cliff Floyd standing on first when he didn't belong there.  Then Gomes pinch runs for him and gets thrown out stealing by five feet if Jeter doesn't have to short-hop Molina's throw.  Molina should have made a better throw in the first place, although Jeter still should have made that play.  So Mo gets hosed again.  Then Gabe Gross hits a seeing-eye ball through the infield and Mo loses.  He deserved better, Wang deserved better.

            Like I said, it's tough to get motivated for these games.  Tony Sherry hasn't watched a Yankee game since my mom was the president of the Newcomers Club.  For the first time in years, the missus and my sister can't name the Yankees starting lineup.  Nor would I care to hear it, frankly.  So as of now we've lost three walk-off games and won...ummmmm....zero. 

So looking ahead I see we've got an Ian Kennedy/Scott Kazmir match-up on Thursday.  Goody, goody gumdrops.  So let me get this straight.  We're looking for Moose to get us our one win in a series?  Again?  Dude.....

Seannie!!