Perfect.  Perfect, perfect, perfect.  You could not have designed this game to be a better microcosm of the Yankees season.  In fact, every game seems to be a microcosm of their system.  Except for that ridiculous aberration on Sunday.

            So let's go over a few themes from this game.  Nothing we haven't seen before.  A.J. Burnett was spectacular.  Fine.  He was awesome and he deserved to win.  Cito Gaston took a gamble leaving him in with 110 pitches through seven, and it paid off in every possible way.  He got a quick inning, he finished the eighth, and he got the win.  Perfect.

            Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi struck out seven times between them.  Seven.  And Abreu had a phenomenal game, so twice when they went down, Bobby Abreu was standing on second base.  Seven times.  Alex was particularly useless.  It seemed like each time he was a dead duck before he ever got up there.  Perfect.

            We got the perfect defensive miscue at the perfect time.  The last I heard, and it's been a while, I'll admit, the Yankees had the fewest errors in the AL.  But yet they always seem to find the perfect time.  Johnny Damon, who was anointed the starting center fielder today (after I've been screaming for it for two months), just flat out drops not one, but two fly balls.  Unbelievable.  Plain, simple, drops.  Not sure I've ever seen someone do that twice in one game before.  And in purely devastating fashion.  Drops the third out with the go-ahead run on the bases in the eighth inning.  Wow.  Perfect.

            We wasted a great pitching performance of our own.  Darrell Rasner, who has gone out and gotten knocked around many times this year, was awesome.  One bad pitch and they hit it out to tie.  Not a hit with a runner in scoring position, mind you.  They were 0-3 in those spots.  They got two runs without getting a hit with a runner in scoring position.  Perfect.

            The futility.  This is what I mean when I keep saying that I find that "batting average with runners in scoring position" stat maddening.  Maddening.  Last Friday and Saturday the Yankees were what, 3-18 with RISP, pr something like that.  But it was so much worse.  First of all, one of the hits on Friday night was Alex Rodriguez hitting an infield single that didn't score a run.  And they hit into something like four double plays in those spots as well.  So 3-18 was really more like 2-23.  And to make matters worse, they go out and torch the overworked and under-talented Kansas City bullpen on Sunday (although they couldn't even touch those guys on Friday and Saturday).  So when you look at their "batting-average-with-runners-in-scoring-position" totals for the weekend, they were actually quite good.  And if you look at their BA W/ RISP numbers over the last five or so games, they also look really good, as all of the numbers are skewed by that one game.  But the real story was that they were 2-3 in those five games, with the only other win coming in a 13 inning affair that should have been an easy seven-or-so run victory in 9 innings.  And the story was that they were stunningly impotent with runners in scoring position.  Perfect.

            A.J. Burnett is a nice pitcher.  Always more talented than his record.  But he's not spectacular.  His numbers don't knock you over by any means.  Why is he so automatic against the Yankees?  I don't get it.  He never misses against them.  Always career performances.  A million strikeouts, manageable pitch counts, guys looking ridiculous swinging at balls all over the place.  He wins every which way.  And on top of everything else, he got a win because Johnny Damon just happened to drop his second ball of the game at the perfect time.  Perfect.

            Seven strikeouts from Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi.  Whoops.  Did I say that one already....  And flailing at balls way out of the strike zone.  Seven.

            A perfect - perfect - play from Lyle Overbay to nail Alex at second base leading off the ninth.  I don't blame him for going.  You have to go.  That was absolutely a fluky double all the way.  Every single thing broke perfectly for Overbay in making that play.  Give him credit.  But does is seem like the fiftieth time this year that somebody made the play of their career to save/win a game against the Yankees?  Maybe it's me.  Perfect.

            Perfect.

            I know, I know.  Tampa keeps winning.  Hey, if they pull this off, I will gladly serve as the foiled Gargamel in their Smurf village...  To the victors go the spoils.

            A couple of quick things on the Olympics.  The Opening Ceremonies are probably my least favorite "sporting" event.  Somebody tell me if this is wrong, but it always seems to me to be about an hour of watching the countries walk in and about three hours of interpretive dance.  Thanks.  I'm good.

            That 4x100 relay might have been one of the most exciting sporting events I have ever seen in my life.  Speaking of perfect, that was pure Hollywood.  And with the French serving as villains with their condescending, snarling, boasts!  Who does that?  And the French!  And then to watch the historically underperforming Jason Lezak come from out of nowhere to turn in the race of his life when it counted most.  And to save the eighth gold for Phelps?  Hollywood, dude.  Wow.       

            Here is my issue with the NBC coverage.  It could very well be me, but why does NBC think I care when the host Chinese win a medal?  They're the hosts.  I get it.  You don't need to cut away from something interesting to show me another Chinese opportunity to win a medal.  Call me a bad guy.  There are a million American Olympians competing in events I don't see.  And with the results long since determined earlier in the day, why did NBC show an hour and a half in the key primetime slot, 8:30- 9:50pm, of diving.  Diving.  The American guy came in sixth.  But the Chinese won gold and bronze!  How exciting!  And everyone had to wait until 11:30 to watch the marquee event, the women's gymnastics.

            So let's get to the gymnastics for a second.  This is why it's difficult to root for the Chinese.  First of all, they are cheating.  And not cheating.  Preposterously, brazenly cheating.  These girls are quite clearly between 12 and 14 years old, and have been busted by multiple sources.  Now I have to say.  Here in the States, the media would never stand for this.  People would be tearing their hometowns and official records apart to try and bust them, American or no American.  There would be a race to break the story.  So where is the outrage in China?  I get it.  You want to win medals.  But wow.  This is insane.  Apparently the only check is a passport, which the Chinese girls all dutifully supplied.  The New York Times dug up Chinese newspapers that reported the girls ages as 12, 13, and 14 in the last few months, which means that this was no oversight (the Chinese news websites that held this information were promptly taken down when the Times reported the inconsistency).  Official stuff.  The Chinese government had to issue these girls bogus passports.  So they falsified some documents and records.  You know.  No biggie.

            And while we're at it, the whole thing smells.  You think I'm a conspiracy theorist in baseball?  When it comes to the judged sports, gymnastics, figure skating, and even boxing, I am Oliver Stone.  I loved when the French judge got busted for trading favors with the Russian judge in the 2002 Winter Olympics to quid pro quo an ice dancing medal for a pair's figure skating medal.  I think that stuff goes on all the time.  And some of this 2008 gymnastics judging smelled rotten, like when the Chinese girl landed a vault on her knees, but somehow won a vaulting bronze medal.

            Do or die time for the Yankees.  Do or die.       

            I've already admitted I'm the biggest loser in the world.  Anybody who lets something as silly as a baseball team affect their moods and their disposition is just an idiot.  I really don't know how else to put it.  But that's me.

            These days my stomach gets tight before I ever turn on the TV.  I suppose a trip out to Anaheim will do that to you.  This is about the time of the year when I start griping that MLB, always acting in the best interests of the bottom line, sticks the Yankees with ten games against the Angels every year.  The Angels are the only team on the schedule outside of the division that you can mark down for ten games every single year.  In fact, they are the only team outside the division that the Yankees face ten times ever.  I've said this a million times.  This is no coincidence, guys.  MLB understands that these are marquee teams, and in the salad days of the Yankees the last few years, the Angels were just what the doctor ordered - a team that owned every pinstripe on the Yankees' backs.  So you can be sure that Texas was only going to get 7 games against the Yanks but the Angels were going to get 10.  So now that my gripe is out of the way, let's look at what happened.

            The futility with runners in scoring position is getting to the point of otherworldly.  And as I've said, the only measure we've got is the pathetic batting average with RISP.  But it's so wildly lacking in telling the whole story.  The awful Melky Cabrera (I'm going to come back to him) comes up with runners on first and third with one out tonight.  He swings at the first pitch (shocking) and hits into a double play.  That counts as 0-1 with RISP, but it was a bone crushing two outs recorded with one swing, and even worse, the first swing.  And the Yankees are legendary for it.  They will have a pitcher on the ropes at 70 pitches in the third inning, and will swing at the first pitch and give him two outs.  This bails him out of two jams - the one where he's got a runner on third with less than two out and the one where his pitch count is out of control and he's staring at a fifth inning shower.  Yup.  That's where we are.  The Yankees are so bad at something, there isn't a stat that's descriptive enough to capture it.  And there's one other useless stat.  Ken Singleton on Sunday afternoon put a number to the recent suffering of Yankee fans.  "The Yankees are less than 60% in getting the runner in from third with less than two out," he said.  What?!  Less than 60%?  If you're dumb enough to watch every Yankee game, like I am, you wouldn't have signed up for that number being any higher than 15%.  Where the h*ll is he getting "less than 60%?"  And then you realize what comprises that useless stat.  That includes all of the garbage time blowouts when the Yankees actually do put a ton of runs on the board.  Like the 7 run outburst against LA at the Stadium last week.  Yes, it's true.  They got lots of runs home from 3^rd with less than two outs.  And it was all window dressing.  Nothing that did us any good.  But it pads the stats and makes a dumb number even dumber.  Show me how many times they've gotten it done when it counted.

            I'm going to say something stupid.  I honestly don't remember the last time the Yankees hit a sac fly.  And I'm not trying to be funny, or to exaggerate.  I honestly do not remember.  It really is something.

            I have to tell you.  Joe Girardi is not impressing me as a playoff-run manager.  In fairness, Joe Torre never impressed me in that regard either, but Girardi is making me sick.  Kudos to Michael Kay on the YES broadcast tonight asking why Girardi, so adamant in the pre-game that "every game is crucial right now," goes out tonight and sits Johnny Damon and Jason Giambi down.  Giambi is an easy one.  I said when the Yankees got Sexon that my one fear with getting Sexon is that they're going to play him.  And by that I didn't mean that I didn't like the move, believe it or not.  I meant that you need to recognize him for what he is.  He is a pinch hitter to face a lefty specialist.  And a late-inning defensive replacement.  That's it.  I meant that you cannot start platooning him with Giambi.  You can't sit Giambi down.  He's too important to the lineup, as even when he's making out, it's a tough out.  He takes a lot of pitches, and on this free-swinging team, you can't afford to sacrifice that.  When Giambi isn't in the line-up, pitchers go deep in games against the Yankees.  Count on it.  So what does Girardi do?  Ughh.

                Here is the crux of my problem.  The Yankees are in the last leg of a grueling stretch of 20 games that will decide whether or not they will have a shot at making up the distance to a playoff spot.  Knowing this, Girardi unnecessarily pencils three outs into the lineup last night, and he pencils three outs into the lineup tonight.  And he pencils in one or two almost every night.  First, yesterday.  Sexon, Justin Christian, Molina.  We've talked about Sexon.  Justin Christian is not a major league hitter.  He cannot be in the lineup.  He's a pinch runner.  And why was Pudge not playing?  Is he still hurt?  I didn't see anything to that effect in the news.  The Yankees got Pudge not because they were afraid Molina couldn't hold up to the rigors of being the starter.  They got Pudge because he's hitting .293, and Molina's hitting .220.  So why was Girardi putting Molina out there on Sunday?  So tonight Girardi gets a little smarter and sits Molina.  But he still played Sexon, Christian, and Melky.  And what was the result of those combined three spots in the order for those two games?  How about 1-17 with 6 strikeouts and 8 men left on base?  How does that sound?  Good?

            So here's my next question?  Is Johnny Damon hurt?  I get that he can't throw the ball very hard.  What else is new.  But us he legitimately hurt?  Because if not, he needs to be in the lineup and in center field every single day, period.  I don't care that he can't throw.  He's leading AL in hitting, guys.  Why is he sitting?  Nady plays left, Damon plays center, and Abreu plays right.  Every day.  Pudge catches every day that Moose doesn't pitch.  And Giambi plays first base every day.  If you want to DH Giambi and use Sexon at first against a lefty, fine.  But you can't sit Giambi.  In that line-up, Sexon becomes your eight or nine hitter.  Where he belongs.  Certainly not sixth or something outrageous like that.  You want to use Betemit on the other days, fine.  Melky is not a major league hitter.  He needs to go.  Brett Gardiner is a better option as a pinch runner and defensive replacement, because that's all Melky gives you.

            I said this last week, and I'll reiterate it now.  I'm not inside Melky's head, but I'll tell you what it looks like from my perspective.  Melky Cabrera does not share the same goals as his teammates.  Melky is desperately trying to save his hanging-on-by-a-thread career, and to do that he needs to get his batting average up at all costs.  And when the Yankees need him to be selective, take a pitch, let a pitcher walk him, move a runner over, etc, he can't afford to do it.  He needs to get hits to bring his average up.  And the best pitches to do that are often early in the count.  So he's going to be up there swinging.  Every single time.  And that's not going to help the team.  You're better off bringing up Brett Gardiner as a pinch runner and defensive specialist, because Melky is a rally cancer right now, and probably will be for the rest of the season.   

            I have so much more, but I'm going to give it a rest. 

            Seannie!! Your boy!!

            I just heard the news.  Favre is going to the New York Mets.  Wow.  It's big, dude.  What can you say.  It's a huge story here in New York.  Everyone's talking about it.  And just in time, too.  Wagner's hurt, John Maine is on the DL....  The only question is what to do with him.  Can he start, can he relieve?  Tough to say, as he hasn't technically played baseball in his sixteen year professional sports career.  Doesn't really matter, though.  The guy throws gas.  Brett and the Mets is a good fit.  Just the other day Jose Reyes was doing his Brett Favre imitation, waving his finger in the air from home plate to second base after he hit a home run.  It was the sixth inning, but hey, he'll learn.  Brett will teach him the difference.  The only question left is - will this officially seal the NL East for the Mets?  I don't think there's any way that...whoops....wait a minute....never mind. 

            Sean's boy, the Moose, has now tied Cliff Lee for the American League lead in wins.  Dude, I'll just say it.  I'm flabbergasted.  I had absolutely no idea this was coming.  I was listening to the radio broadcast tonight as I was driving back from my mom's house, and Suzyn Waldman had an interesting nugget.  Early in the season, when Moose had put up his second great start after the somewhat rough start, Suzyn Waldman commented to Mariano Rivera, "That was vintage Mussina tonight, no?"  And Mo replied, "No that was vintage David Cone.  Moose has re-learned how to pitch.  You'll see."  Interesting insight.  Well done, Suzyn Waldman.  And I think that somehow our boy Sean has had something to do with Moose's big start.  I've noted that Moose just happened to start his run this season the day his daughter Ava was born.

               So I'll touch on it because I haven't touched on it yet.  Jason Bay is a nice player.  He has started out like a house on fire for the Red Sox, and they were smart to get him.  And I love Brian Giles.  He's another high OBP, grind-it-out guy who wears down pitchers and knows how to hit in situations.  When you can send guys like Casey, Youkilis, Pedroia, Giles out there every night, you are going to torture opposing pitchers.  And I know the Red Sox faithful would like to believe that they haven't missed a beat with Bay.  But they took the same posture when Scott Cooper replaced Wade Boggs.    The bottom line is this.  The Red Sox don't get guys to put up numbers or to help you beat the Royals on the road.  The true test for anyone wearing a Red Sox uniform is this.  What will you do with the tying run on second with two outs in the ninth inning and Mariano Rivera staring at you on the mound?  Manny was a fearless hurricane in those spots.  And the Red Sox will have a tough time getting that back.

            So maybe Joe Girardi can explain this to me.  The Yankees are down three runs to the Rangers last Tuesday night.  Giambi walks to load the bases with one out.  You've got Pudge Rodriguez and Melky Cabrera available.  You've already hit for Molina with Giambi, so Pudge is going in the game regardless.  So Girardi sends in Pudge to pinch run for Giambi, and Melky to pinch-hit for Justin Christian.  Help me here.  Melky, who can't hit but can run, gets to hit, and Pudge, who runs okay for a ninety-seven year old but is the all-time hits leader for the Rangers, is sent in to pinch run.  Joe.  Please listen.  Melky is terrible.  Take the lefty-righty match-up page in your manager manual, rip it out, and throw it away.  Today.  Please.  Melky never hits before Pudge.  I don't care if he can hit lefty.  That's almost as dumb as Billy Martin sending up Mike Pagliarulo to hit righty against a left-hander.  Come on, dude.

            Allie.  Wow.  Ken Singleton and David Cone were talking about his being 0-15 in this series.  That doesn't begin to tell this story.  He also hit into four double plays, three with two guys on base, and stranded everybody with less than 2 out while not moving anybody over.  He was thoroughly and completely lost.  I can only hope he finds what's missing in Anaheim.

            The Yankees have six games left in this brutal 20-game stretch they've been on.  They're 7-7 so far.  You knew they were going to bleed some games in the standings.  If they can hang on, somehow, over the next six games, they'll be in a good position to make a move over the last month-and-a-half.  It won't be easy.  They've got Ian Kennedy, Dan Giese, and probably Rasner going against the best team in baseball over the weekend in their own little private house of horrors.  I'm trying to be optimistic, here, but I need somebody to point me in the direction of which game is our best chance to win.  I guess it's the Friday game, as they're going against Weaver, who can be had.  So let's see.  I'm saying our best chance to win this weekend is Ian Kennedy, who is 0-3 with a .741 ERA and hasn't pitched in the major leagues since sweatshirt weather.  Just wanted to revisit that for a second.  Let's move on.

            Apologies for the choppiness of the posts lately, as I've been on vacation this week and will be part of next.  Looking for 3-3 in the last 6 on the road.  Looking for it.  See you next week.   

            I knew the texts and calls were probably coming in fast and furious, but I didn't want anything to do with them.  The Yankees were losing 5-4 in the sixth and I was switching over to watch Mad Men with the missus.  We DVR'd it last night, and something in my stomach was telling me that it was an eminently more appealing way to spend the next hour than watching the Yankees.  When Mad Men was over it was a little after 11, so I started the Yankee game where I had left off (also on DVR), knowing that I could blow through it if it got tough to watch.  And considering the DVR was only programmed to go until 11:30, I saw two on with one out in the bottom of the ninth with an 0-2 count on Michael Young.  Long story short, I found out what happened on the post-game. 

            I knew it was bad news when Bob Davidson handed the Yankees a free run in the third or fourth, whatever it was.  Johnny Damon was awarded second on a bogus balk call, and after moving to third on a ground ball, was awarded home on a less-bogus-but still-ticky-tack balk call.  David Cone was on the YES broadcast saying that Davidson loves to call balks, and loves to inject himself into games.  Bad news for a ballgame.  Joe West is another guy like that.  Keith Hernandez on a Met telecast the other day was saying that Joe West thinks the fans come to see him, and he's so right.  Joe West even calls himself "The Cowboy," in case anyone wasn't really sure what a pompous jack*ss he is.  So tonight it was Davidson, another guy who loves to grab the spotlight whenever he gets a chance.  So there he was, giving the Yankees a run on bogus balk calls.  And I said out loud to the missus (who wasn't remotely interested, as well she shouldn't be), "I love that we got a run, but this isn't good news.  This umpire will find a way to inject himself back in this game."  So fast forward an inning, and there's Bob Davidson jumping in to reverse a call in a tremendous spot in the game.  Now, to start, I've always said the most important thing is to get the call right.  So if that means reverse a call, reverse a call.  Get it right.  But I've seen the replay about 50 times, and none of them seem conclusive.  Certainly not that you would come in from wherever and reverse the call that the home plate umpire, a guy who was standing about a foot away, had already made.  And the one thing that the replays did show conclusively was that if the ball did touch him, he was most definitely in fair territory, not in the batter's box, so the call was incorrect anyway.  If it hit him the correct call was batter out, runner (who had been on the move) goes back to first on the dead ball.  So either way, Davidson came in, reversed a call that the home plate ump had already made, and got it wrong.  And how huge a spot.  It went from two outs and no one on to two on and no one out.  And of course you can't assume things would have played out the same, but the next batter flied out harmlessly.  Could have been the third out.  Instead, two batters later Michael Young hits a three run bomb.  Absolutely unbelievable. 

            Love to see a little bit of tenacity in the form of the X Man, who has really been all that you could have asked out there.

            I'll tell you what got me almost as mad as the Davidson intervention was the fact that in the very next inning, the Yanks put two on with nobody out.  Then Vincente Padilla, at well over 100 pitches, goes 2-0 on Cano.  And he swings at the very next pitch.  I can't say this enough times.  You have to do your job up there.  Cano can hit.  Give him a full season and he generally will be at or around .300.  But he does almost everything else wrong at the plate.  He doesn't know when to take a pitch; he doesn't hit well in situations, i.e. move runners over or hit sac flies.  He swings at far too many first pitches, he's not a tough out and his at-bats don't last very long.  So with a 2-0 count, he hits a lazy fly ball to left.  No advance.  Inning dead.  You had them right there, and nothing.

            I'm glad that Melky finally had to sit.  I couldn't help but think that with Giambi sitting against lefties, Damon resting regularly, Abreu getting days off occasionally against lefties, etc, how was it that Melky got to play every single day?  He can play D.  Great.  So can a million minor leaguers who can't hit a lick.  Great defenders grow on trees, folks.  He can't hit and he is pure cancer to rallies.  One or two swings and he's out.  He never moves runners and he never hits sac flies.  Not ever.  Guaranteed quick out.  I think now the problem is compounding itself, because Melky can see that his spot on this team is in big-time jeopardy.  And he knows if his average stays where it is, he is gone.  This means he can't afford to do things that will help his team, like taking walks and moving runners over.  Those things help you win, but they don't help your batting average.  So he's willing to sacrifice that stuff to swing at the first pitch or two, because it might be the best pitch to get him what he covets above all else.  Base hits that will raise his average and keep him in the major leagues.  The result, unfortunately, is that the biggest loser is the team.  Then comes Melky, who is a goner regardless of what he does from here on in. 

Is there no way Damon can play center?  I'll take the weak arm.  Give me Damon in center and Nady in left.  I can't take Melky anymore.  Justin Christian is fine.  As a pinch runner.  You start putting him in the lineup, you've got two problems.  He's a near automatic out, and then he's not available to pinch run, which is what he's there for.

            What else is new...  The Rangers hit three home runs and the Yankees hit three home runs.  The Rangers hit a two-run shot, a three-run shot and a grand slam.  The Yankees hit three solo shots....

            This is the problem with playing on the road.  Losses just kind of find you sometimes.  This was a crazy game that never should have happened.  Davidson needs to let his umpires do their jobs.  Get the call right, but don't come in and reverse it just to get on TV.  And then get it wrong, to boot.  The Yankees never recovered from that tonight.  Add in a sore shoulder for Joba and a devastating walk-off loss, and you've got the makings of a real encouraging trip here.  Fun...     

            Sometimes you need somebody to tell you why you're a bad guy.  Sometimes you just know.  For the last hour or so, the missus has been upstairs tending to the boy's first-ever sniffle, and I've been fielding calls from Tony Sherry, laughing so hard I'm crying hysterically as we watch Scare Tactics, hosted by Tracy Morgan on the Sci-Fi Channel.  Dude, if you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor.  My boy is fighting a cold, and my face hurts right now from laughing.  Bad guy.

            Mike Sherry called me today on the way to Yankee Stadium, guaranteeing a win.  Bold.  Usually people talk about doing their best, making winning a priority, etc.  Rarely do you get the outright guarantee.  At 11am, no less.  Nicely done, dude.  And I promised you a shout-out for your boy The Goose for going into the Hall.  He was, as you said, a great Yankee.

            So it was towards the end of the thumping that the Yankees were handing the O's today that the news came in.  Pudge.  Funny.  Most of the guys I talked to were pleased, but strangely, Farnsworth had grown on everybody.  He had gotten good press of late, even pitching the equivalent of a 10 inning no-hitter in his 10 outings prior to the Boston series.  There was a lot of talk about Girardi, having caught him in Chicago, knowing how to get the most out of him, etc.  Acc summed up the sentiment pretty well.  The bullpen wasn't broke, so why are you messing with it?  My answer - because the bottom of the order was most definitely broke, and you needed to fix it.  The question is this.  How many games did you win this year because Kyle Farnsworth got the job done when somebody else would not have?  And we'll never know the answer.  And how many games did the Yankees lose because they couldn't hit Jose Canseco if they were Vai Sikahema?  Again, we'll never know.  But man, I have to imagine it's a big number.  There have been so many failures at the plate this season, particularly when it counted.  So I'll take Pudge and some tough at-bats at the back end of the order.

            Manny.  I'll believe it when I see it.  The Red Sox desperately, desperately, do not want to deal Manny.  They want to bring him back to do what he always does.  Rake.  It's like a drug.  So tough to quit.  It's hard when you sell your soul for championships.  I think the Red Sox would have been content to do what they've always done.  They've always hated dealing with his antics, but in the end, they always suck it up because they can't live without his production.  But now he's publicly calling them out.  Taunting them.  So now, they're at least going through the motions of acting like they're going to try and trade him.  Like I said, I'll believe it when I see it.  Bottom line is that nobody does what Manny does.  If they go get Jason Bay or whoever, they would be a worse team than they are now with Manny.  That's why I don't think he's going anywhere.

            One of the tenets of the last ten-plus years in the AL is that the Yankees can't beat the Angels, the Angels can't beat the Red Sox, and the Red Sox can't beat the Yankees.  So now that the Angels have won eight straight against the Red Sox, maybe it's time for the Yankees to turn the tides on the Angels....  A guy can dream, can't he?  

            Can we talk about Josh Beckett for a second?  One of the knocks on him before he got traded to the Red Sox was that he was one of those "he's got great stuff, why doesn't he win more consistently?" guys.  His record, season-by-season starting in '01: 2-2, 6-7, 9-8, 9-9, and the "breakout year" in '05 was 15-9.  Then he went to the Red Sox and slipped down to 16-11 with an ERA over 5.  Then last year there was "breakout year II," a truly great year at 20-7.  Then this year he's right back to 9-8 with an ERA over 4.  So Beckett, billed as one of the best pitchers of this generation, is averaging what - 10 wins a year in his first 8 seasons?  And I know he's supposed to be a great postseason guy, but I don't know if the sampling knocks me over.  He's got great numbers.  He's 6-2 with an ERA under 2 in the postseason, but I don't know.  Eight postseason games is fine, but it isn't 28 postseason games.  Not sure what to make of Mr. Beckett. 

            Get ready for the four best games of perennial Yankee-killer Garrett Anderson's season.  He's salivating, I'm sure.

            One of the few reasons I'm bummed the Yankees don't play in the NL East is because I don't get to hear things like this from Keith Hernandez yesterday; "With two outs and two on the Mets now have to face an extremely dangerous hitter in Cody Ross."  Must be nice, when Cody Ross passes for an "extremely dangerous hitter."

            One comment again?  Come on guys....  Thanks, gjp....

            Mr. Pettitte.  Show them what they came to see.

            The dings were still coming on my phone, every few seconds.  "I think this is good," I said to the missus nervously as she held the just-asleep boy in her arms, just as nervously, as every sound I was making was like a pin sticking in her.  I knew I was about five minutes behind the action, so I figured if things warranting dings were still happening five minutes hence, that was a good thing.  I couldn't check any of them, of course, because I was behind.  As it were I was watching Wilson Betemit hitting with the tying run on second with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.  So as the air was filling with dings, I was thinking something good was about to happen.  And then Betemit struck out to end the game.

            I think the Acc texts were taking a few minutes to go through.  I was getting Giambi texts as Betemit was hitting.  And then Petey Goods was lamenting the weak bottom of the order.  All of it conspired to fake me out.  And not in a good way.

            I hate the bottom of the Yankee batting order.  What can I say.  I'm going to be honest.  I hate it.  I said it yesterday and I'll say it today.  I am completely fed up with these lightning fast at-bats.  I really don't know what to say anymore.  Sometimes you hear this ridiculous wisdom that sounds like this; "You have to swing early in the count against this guy tonight, because he's throwing strikes up there and you're not going to get another good pitch to hit."  And it is sound wisdom.  If you are looking to lose.  This is not how the Yankees won four championships.  It's not how any good team wins.  Daniel Cabrera owns the Yankees this season, and that's sad.  Daniel Cabrera is the quintessential Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  "Sometimes he walks people all over the park, and sometimes he's lights out," said Paul O'Neill on the broadcast tonight.  So let's assume, for a second, that it's true.  He's either awesome or terrible.  Just like it's okay to wait for your pitch, it's okay to wait for your pitcher.  So he comes out on fire.  You have to bleed him.  Make him work, get his pitch count up, and get him out of the game.  The Yankees used to do this stuff in their sleep.  If your guy can keep it close, you're in business.  Especially if you clearly have the better team, as was the case tonight.  And you know what you don't do when you're trying to get a guy out of the game?  You don't swing early in the count because you're "not going to get another good pitch to hit."  If you make out, you make out.  But try and take your five or so pitches up there.  You and the rest of your team will see that many more pitches from the guy, and you'll make him work a little bit.  And you'll get him out of there so you can light up the bullpen.  Exactly what the Yankees did tonight, with a little help from the home plate ump doing what the Yankees couldn't do - get Cabrera out of the game.

            What I'm saying is that one begets the other.  Cabrera is Dr. Jekyll because the Yankees allow him to be Dr. Jekyll.  Cabrera gets himself into trouble by walking people.  The Yankees never let him get there, because they constantly swing at the first and second pitch.  Particularly the bottom of the order.  I can't take Melky anymore.  I can't take him.  I've said this a thousand times.  It's not so much that he's hitting .247 that bothers me.  It's that every out the guy makes is on the first or second pitch.  So over 75% of the time he's the ultimate rally killer.  And Betemit is just as bad, he just plays less.  And when it comes to making quick outs, Cano is right there with them.  He's a better hitter, and he's got a higher average, but he's not a particularly tough out.  And when he makes out, it's a lightning fast out.  Tonight was a great example.  The Yanks are down 2-0, Allie belts a bomb, and Giambi follows it with a base hit with nobody out.  Cabrera was at 83 pitches in the sixth inning and starting to get wild.  Up comes Cano.  One pitch, double play.  Dude.  You need to know the situation.  Cabrera is about to unravel.  Make him work.  You can't let him off the hook like that.  You can't.  And then Betemit comes up next and really mans up.  Two pitches.  So after putting Cabrera on the ropes, it takes them three pitches to send him right back to the dugout.  And after a quick seventh, there he was, on the mound starting the eighth.  Bottom line.  I hate the bottom of this lineup.

            So Nady.  Big spot again there in the eighth.  Two on and two outs.  Damon and the real hitters on deck.  Whiff.  And swinging at bad balls again.  Nice, dude.  Nice.  Especially considering Damon, Jeter, and Abreu led off the following inning with a single, walk, and double.  Dude, all I can do at this point is hope that you aren't Ed Whitson. 

            I'm leaving Molina out of this discussion because of his defense.  But he's also a lightning-fast out.  Add them all together and you've got every also-ran starting pitcher and then some standing on the mound to start the eighth inning.  What do you do?  Fire the hitting coach?  Get new players?  I don't know.  But this was such an eminently winnable game.  And this would have been such a nice game to win, with Boston laying down against the Angels.  Not likely they're going to get swept, so you're either staying where you were or losing a game if you go out and get swept tomorrow afternoon.  And all of it totally unnecessary, as far as I'm concerned.

            Joseph, thanks for the comment, dude.  The one and only one today.

            I hate the bottom of this lineup.

Joba? 

            So let's start at the top.  I am going to be going to Elia's on Third Avenue this Thursday night with the missus, Tony Sherry, and Mrs. Tony Sherry.  We're probably going to do what we always do.  We'll start with the Saganaki, with maybe the grilled octopus and a Greek Salad.  Then Tony and I will probably go with the grilled lamb chops with sautéed spinach and Greek fries with feta.  Maybe I'll get nuts and go with the moussaka.  Then I'll cap the whole thing off with the Greek pressed yogurt, and the missus will go with the Ek Mek.  Nothing we haven't done a hundred times.  This time, though, I'll be settling a score.  Tony Sherry, who has been on a righteous prediction streak, was sick of me saying the Yankees were going to go up to Boston and get spanked, so he declared that Joba was going to start things off by beating Beckett, that he was going to pitch a shutout, and he might throw a no hitter.  And he told me that if Joba got the win and Beckett got the loss, I owed him dinner at Elia's.  So this Thursday as we sit down, I will gladly pay my due to Mr. Chamberlain's fastball and Mr. Sherry's prescience.

            So what to make of the Red Sox.  After an interesting weekend, here's what I think.  They can hit.  Like mad.  Tough outs up and down the lineup.  And they're going to win a bunch of games just for that.  But as I've said all year, they're not as good as advertised.  And they're not as good as they think they are.  Plain and simple.  The pitching is the culprit.  Beckett is solid, of course.  Dice K is wildly overrated and can't be trusted in a big spot, Wakefield just doesn't scare you, Buchholz is currently in over his head, and Jon Lester has pitched extremely well but is a kid.  Then throw that together with a shaky bullpen and a closer with an ERA of two-and-a-half and you see where the problems begin. 

            So some observations in no particular order.  Peter Gammons wrote a great piece about Manny today on his blog.  I understand that as a Yankee fan, I have zero credibility in this discussion because you know where I'm going to come out, but man did he draw it in living color.  You can make a case, he said, that the Red Sox sold their souls to solve their 86 year old problem, and Joe Hardy showed up in the form of Manny Ramirez.  Indeed, to Gammons's point, no Manny, no championships.  Period.  The problem is when you start to look in the mirror and don't like what you see.  Gammons is pretty tough on Francona ("Chief Enabler") and the Red Sox fans ("sycophants").  Tough but fair.  Francona is all over the place saying that you need to have two different sets of rules - one for the stars and one for everybody else.  That everybody does that.  Hmmm.  Maybe he and Jerry Manuel can take a page from Charlie Manuel's book.  His star Jimmy Rollins fails to run out a pop or shows up late for the biggest rubber game of the year against a chief rival in the pennant race due to traffic; he sits.  Sits.  Talk about the polar opposite of the Red Sox approach with Manny.  Manny assaults a 64-year old man in his clubhouse, Manny's out there the very next day.  Manny comes up with ailments against pitchers he doesn't want to face, he's out there the very next day.  In fact, the Red Sox threaten to take action if he doesn't play.  What exactly would it take for them to sit him down?    To suspend him?  I opined that perhaps they did just that against the Yankees in that famous Sunday Night game, prompting him to look at three straight pitches from Mo in a loss.  I gave them too much credit.  Apparently the deal was more like a six-figure fine and anger management classes.  And a spot in the lineup the very next night.  So that's how it goes, I guess.  You win, so I guess that makes it all okay, right?  As long as you can look at yourself in the mirror as Manny taunts you, saying you don't have the nuts to trade him.  Anyone want to tell him he's wrong?

            Tonight had letdown game written all over it.  For the Sox and the Yanks.  You could see it coming from a mile away.  I can only hope that this was a blip game for Moose.  As Sean correctly pointed out a few days ago, I was certainly not the guy predicting this run of success for the Moose.  I'm loving every second of it, but admittedly I'm also waiting for the other shoe to drop.  And I'm hoping this wasn't it.

            My concern with Xavier Nady before they got him was simple.  He's a National Leaguer, and the National League is a bush league.  Hitting .330 in the NL doesn't mean a whole lot to me.  I don't think 3 games is a great sampling, but my thought is that he's swinging at way too many balls.  Way too many.  Tonight I watched him swing at five balls in a row before he hit that solo bomb.  Glad he got the hit, but he hasn't exactly been clutch of yet.  Like I said, the sampling hasn't been that big, but if I wanted to see somebody swing at bad balls, I would watch Melky.

            The Yankees still need to be more patient.  Cano is red hot, but he's swinging early in the count.  If he's not hitting a double he's a quick out.  Melky is always a quick out, as is Molina.  And Jeter has been seeing far fewer pitches as well.  You've continually got these average starters going seven or eight innings.  They shouldn't be going anywhere near that deep. 

            As I feared, the minute the Yankees get Sexon, they start sitting Giambi against lefties in huge games.  Guys, you can't sit Giambi.  He's one of the toughest outs on the team.  Get him his rest against chump lefties.  Don't sit him against the Red Sox.  Or Angels.  Stop being ridiculous.

            Watching the Angels/Sox game a bit tonight on ESPN reminded me why I love the way Mike Scoscia's Angels play the game.  They run, run, run.  They always take the extra base.  If you get them once or twice, fine.  They'll get you the other two times, and they'll sacrifice and squeeze bunt a run or two in.  Beautiful stuff.  The Yankees are way too station-to-station.  And somebody explain to me how Damon wasn't tagging yesterday with a medium fly ball to center with one out.  Run!  You have to run!  Now you've got two outs and you need a base hit.  Meanwhile, you have a better than average shot to push a run across with a fast runner and a guy in center who isn't known for throwing anybody out.  You can't stand there.  Do Damon and Bobby Meacham realize that?  And another thing along those lines.  Why don't the Yankees run on Varitek?  He doesn't throw anybody out.  Ever.  Why aren't they running?  The Angels are....

            I commented the last time the Yankees played Boston that Jon Lester was stomping around the mound pouting about calls from the umpire with a seven run lead.  Last night ESPN deified Lester for pulling the ump aside and apologizing for a similar episode that the ump hadn't noticed while Lester was facing Abreu (I hadn't noticed it either).  But what they didn't mention was that Lester was at it again the very next inning, this time throwing his head around and pouting when he didn't get a strike-three call from the ump with Melky at the plate.  What is it with you, dude?  You can't help yourself?  Shut up and pitch.  You seem to be really good at it.  Again it speaks to the Varitek/Youkilis Red Sox.  Whine, whine, whine.

            I have a bunch more, but I'll save them for now. 

            Great work by Vino coming back from Fenway with a win.

            Daniel Cabrera again.  Ugh.  And then Burress, who always seems to save his best for the Yanks.  Double ugh.  And then the Angels.  Hopefully the Yankees get tough here....

            "Yo."  I saw Acc's number pop up on my caller ID.  "What's up, captain.  It's 5-0 good guys."  This is what I wanted to hear.  "Who made it nice," I wanted to know.  "Justin Christian, Sexon, and A-Rod.  Moose is sick, dude."    Nice.  And at the time the possibility was still out there that the Red Sox could lose and the Yankees would be just one out in the loss column going into this weekend. 

            Not to be.

            Was that ever really in doubt?  I just couldn't imagine a scenario in which the Red Sox would allow themselves to lose to the worst team in the league to give that crack of an opening to the Yankees.  Although the shakier and shakier Jonathan Papelbon almost coughed up another one.  Turns out that was some double play the Sox turned in the 11^th with first and third and nobody out.  So we're stuck at two.

            It would have been nice to have been just one out to start this weekend, as you could have dropped two out of three and still walked out of there just two games back.  Doable.  Now you're looking at three games back.  Less doable. 

            I keep walking around telling everyone the Yanks are going to get swept this weekend, and everyone keeps telling me I'm insane.  So maybe I am.  Maybe I'll soften my prediction to the Yankees stealing one.  I'm just not sure how it's going to happen.  I'm thinking Wakefield is the best bet. 

            So I'm back onto this Wild Card.  I'm thinking the one scenario I didn't lay out yesterday was the Tigers taking the Central and the White Sox dropping back.  I like the chances of staying ahead of the Sox better than I do the Tigers.  You never know, but I'm just thinking out loud here. 

            So I've heard Washburn, I've heard Brian Giles, and I've heard A.J. Burnett.  I don't hate any of them.  It all depends on who we would be giving up.  And I haven't heard boo about that.  But really I'm still looking for a bat.  This whole idea that Posada is going to stick around and be a DH/1B is not making me warm and fuzzy.  At this point I really don't see a scenario in which Giambi should be sitting out.  He's the toughest out in the lineup.  I get that he's old and rickety, so rest him if you need to, but don't start pulling him out against lefties so you can get Sexon and Posada at-bats.  That's a bad idea.  In the meantime, I'll be the guy in the corner with his fingers crossed that the Yanks can work out a deal for a solid bat who can play the outfield.  Either that or the AL institutes a 10-man lineup with a second DH.

            So why not make some predictions for this weekend, just for a goof.  Here goes.  Beckett will get in trouble in the early innings on Friday night, but the Yankees will bail him out by swinging at bad pitches, and he'll then settle down.  By the fifth inning or so, when it becomes clear that he's out of the woods and the Yankees have missed their opportunity, Yankee fans everywhere will be thanking whoever they pray to that the game isn't nationally televised so that they don't have to listen to Buck/McCarver/Jon Miller/Joe Morgan gloss over every jam and insist that Josh Beckett is the second coming of Cy Young, regardless of the fact that he's 9-6 with a 4.00 ERA.  Then he will coast through the seventh and either be pulled out or get back into trouble.  Joba will pitch well, strike out a bunch of guys, not make it out of the sixth, and get another loss or no decision.  On Saturday, Pettitte will wiggle out of jams in the first three innings, and will have thrown 75 pitches with no outs in the fourth.  This will be your high-ish scoring game that goes into extra innings.  Sid off the skids will pitch better than anyone expected on Sunday and be a huge story - for three innings.  Then, not so much.  David Ortiz will hit a bomb, probably in a huge spot, but will not have found his rhythm enough to hit a lot in the rest of the series.  Manny will rake.  And do something stupid.  Youkilis will argue every ball and strike.  Yankee fans will feel a twinge every time they see Pedroia step up to the plate, Lowell will hit balls off the Green Monster, and Varitek will argue every close call with the umps.  He will also take an overly demonstrative passive-aggressive posture with one of the Yankees for a perceived slight, while the two national broadcast teams gush over him, despite the fact that he's hitting .217.  Many fans will think they're funny wearing Madonna masks in the stands.  They won't be.  It will be less funny after Allie hits his bomb.  Giambi will get one too.  Francona will leap at the chance to throw Papelbon back out there, even with a 10 run lead, just to attempt some sort of offset for the fiasco at the All-Star game.  The fans will give him a huge ovation, as if he was somehow a victim and didn't get himself into his own hot water.  Cano will continue to hit, Molina will throw somebody out, Varitek won't throw anybody out, but the Yankees won't take advantage anyway.  Okijima will continue to be shaky, and the Farnsworth bubble will burst.  I will waste a lot of valuable time watching/stressing about these games, and that will confuse my mother-in-law.  Last but not least, this series will not decide the AL East.

            Or something like that....

            Okay.  So the Yankees, as I tap the keys, are three-and-a-half out of first place.  They are two behind Boston in the loss column, and could conceivably be one behind Boston if Seattle can man up tonight (never going to happen).  They are undefeated coming out of the all-star break, and the offense, finally, has shown signs of life.  How's that?  Everybody feeling good?  Good.  Because I'm going to send it crashing down.

            I'm not a negative guy, and I'm certainly not a negative Yankee fan.  I started this blog back in '05 because I thought I had a good cache of reasons why the Yankees weren't as bad as that 11-19 record.  Last year when they were 21-29 I kept saying that there were anomalies that hadn't righted themselves yet.  All three seasons of the BPS I insisted the Yankees were a playoff team, and they were.  I'm not that guy this year.  At least not right now.  Here's my problem.  I'm looking at the Yankees.  I'm looking at the personnel; I'm looking at the schedule.  They just are not, in my opinion, one of the four best teams in the American League.  Forget Posada for a minute.  Right now, the Yankees are playing the role that so many other teams played when the Yankees were perennially on top of the hill.  This year they are the beneficiaries of the MLB scheduling game instead of the victims.  Quick two-part trivia question for those of you who have followed the BPS - which is the only team in Major League Baseball with a winning record against the Yankees in the last 10 years?  Easy.  The Angels.  Now.  Which is the only team in baseball outside of the AL East that the Yankees have played 9 or 10 times every year for the last ten years?  You guessed it.  And they always play more in Anaheim than they do at the Stadium.  Funny how that coincidence keeps happening year after year with the one team that owns the Yankees, no?  So, this year, instead of front-loading the Yankees schedule with the tougher teams to create the illusion of a race, they did it to the Red Sox, who were the preseason favorites.  And it worked.  Here we are, on July 22^nd, and everyone thinks we have a race.  We don't.  The Yankees have played exactly 100 games.  They have 62 games left.  And 19 of those games, basically one out of every three games the Yankees will play for the rest of the year, will be against the Angels or the Red Sox.  And 12 of those 19 are on the road.  Not going to work, guys.  At least not with the lineup the Yankees are trotting out there these days.  It's not enough.

            The Red Sox and Angels are the class of the American League.  What can you say.  What's true is true.  As I've been saying all year, the Red Sox aren't as good as they think they are, and they're not as good as they were last year, but there isn't another team that can play with them, save for the Angels.  And the Angels can't beat the Red Sox when it counts.  The difference between the Yankees and the Red Sox is that the Red Sox have a lot of tough outs up and down the lineup.  Youkilis, Pedroia, Lowell, Drew (this year), and Manny are all tough outs.  They all get their money's worth at the plate, and any one of them can start a rally against anybody.  The Yankees do not have a lot of tough outs.  They have a lot of guys who swing at the first pitch.  The crazy thing is that Sean Casey would probably bat third in the Yankee lineup, but he doesn't even start in Boston.  And I don't know why the Red Sox have been so horrid on the road.  It really doesn't make any sense.  But my thought is that they will gravitate towards the middle of the two polar ends of the spectrum that they're on right now - magic at home and the Royals on the road. 

            The Yankees have still not shown they can consistently score runs.  The good news is that Cano has turned the corner coming out of the break, and if you can get anything at all out of Melky, you might be able to put some more runs on the board.  But the Yankees have just played too many games in which the runners could not score and the bats just drifted off to sleep.  Of course the team is just so much better with Damon in the lineup, but now Posada and the Ferocious Lion are both most likely out for the year.  The Yankees need one more big bat to knock in runs.  And that guy, by the way, is not Ritchie Sexson, although I liked to see him succeed with a ribby single in his first opportunity.  And I love that the one name you've seen on the Yankees radar as the trading deadline nears is Brian Fuentes.  A middle reliever.  Please.  That's the one thing they don't need.  You're trotting Darrell Rasner and John Goodman, aka Sid the Kid out there two out of every five starts, you've gone a stretch of nine games in which you've scored 14 or so runs, and you're chasing a middle reliever.  Nice....

            So here's the next problem.  With this schedule, they are going to have a problem with this Wild Card.  I'm not really worried about the recently castrated A's, and the Twins don't scare me either.  The Rays are enjoying the last of their 15 mi