Mother of Mercy

        Sad that it had come to this.  I was at my in-laws on Saturday night, finishing up some Mother’s Day ice cream from Baskin Robbins.  I had watched the first half-inning of the game a couple of hours earlier, saw the Yanks fail to score in the first and watched Phil Hughes go 0-2 on the first batter while Michael Kay talked about his last outing, specifically about the fact that he didn’t get an inch from the ump in his last start.  Then the chicken parm/pepper & egg heroes showed up.  And as I finished off my hero-and-a-quarter, I realized I didn’t want to check the score.  I was afraid to check to score.  Sad, like I said.  Much later on, after my last spoonful of pistachio, I finally checked.  Sickening.  
       Fast forward to this afternoon.  I was discouraged.  No other way to say it.  I was about two hours behind the game, and I was blowing through it on the DVR in about 20 minutes.  It’s Mother’s Day, of course, and I was doing the heavy lifting with the boy today, while the missus took some time to relax.  I finally caught up in the bottom of the sixth before I got pulled away again.  Losing again.  At one point I wondered if the Yankees’ season was on the line.  Of course it’s early in the season, and you don’t want to be too dramatic.  But still.  If the Yankees lost again, you’d be looking at 6 1/2 games out and sinking like a stone.  Last night I sent a text to Acc saying that I was “a hair away from writing off the 2009 Yankees as a joke.”  I remember that 1992 Mets team that sparked the Sports Illustrated headline “The Worst Team Money Can Buy.”  Man, is that what we were talking about here?  I found it hard to believe.  Looking at the Yankee roster, you had to scratch your head as to why this was happening.  It didn’t make much sense.  Tough to argue with the results though.  And like I said, I was discouraged.  And then, Johnny Damon.  Again.  Thank you Johnny.  
       I had a few occasions to listen to some of the talk on sports radio shows on my iphone while out this past week for walks at lunch.  And judging by the tone of what I heard, there are plenty of negative voices out there chattering.  And I’m one of them, at times.  Just not on the radio.  So for today I’m going to throw a few things out there that are more on the glass-half-full side.  First of all, as I said early on, the Yankees had a tough draw early on in the season.  They played 15 of their first 21 on the road, and played a record-low 7 games at home in the entire month of April.  And then when they did come home, they had eight games to play against the Angels, Red Sox, and Rays, all in a row.  That’s a pretty brutal first 29 games.  I know nobody likes to make excuses, but I’ve always said that the schedule will tell you a lot about your season.  When and how your tough stretches come will go a long way towards how your season will take shape.  If you look at what the Blue Jays are doing right now, it’s extremely similar to what the Rays did last year.  They played a ton of games at home early and stayed away from the tough games on the schedule early.  By the time those tough games did show up, they were playing with a lot of confidence and had the benefit of a big lead in the standings.  Nice work if you can get it.  It doesn’t always work out, as the Baltimore Orioles of a few years back can tell you.  But if you’ve got a good team that has a history of underachieving, you might find a spark.  The Yankees are in a “just hang on” stretch of their schedule.  Last year they went into one of these stretches just after the all-star break.  We talked about it here on the BPS at the time.  They didn’t.  They tanked the latter part of that stretch, and their season was finished.  So it could be worse, folks.  But it’s still not good.  Lucky to walk away with one today.
        I’ll go back to the Michael Kay comment for a minute.  He talked about Phil Hughes getting squeezed by the umps against the Red Sox last week, while Jon Lester and Josh Beckett were getting some friendly calls all night.  Yankee fans have been whispering this for two years.  Phil Hughes and Joba can’t buy a call.  It has a way of changing games, I’ll tell you.  I know.  It’s tough to excuse Hughes after getting smacked around for a thousand runs on Saturday.  I don’t disagree.  But it has a way of changing games.  Take last Tuesday, for instance.  The Yankees were making a charge and got a stroke of bad luck when Melky Cabrera’s sure RBI double bounced over the wall, forcing the tying run to return to third base (not the first time that would burn the Yanks this week, crazily).  Then, with bases loaded and one out, Ramiro Pena watches Beckett’s 2-1 pitch sail about a foot outside the strike zone.  Strike.  It was awful.  Purely awful.  And as we’ve talked about many times, one strike call can completely turn a game around.  A 3-1 count became a 2-2 count, and it was all going to be downhill.  A pitcher getting a call like that is always more pronounced than a batter getting the call.  If the batter gets a call (i.e. a ball), the pitcher can simply throw to a different part of the zone.  If the pitcher gets a gift call, the umpire is trapped, and with him the batter.  The pitcher is going to go right back to the spot, because, as it’s not really a strike, it’s going to be impossible to hit with any authority.  And what’s worse, the batter knows that the pitcher just got the pitch, and will probably get it again, so he has to swing.  And either he’s going to miss or he’s going to hit it weakly someplace.  This sequence played out to the letter after Beckett got the call, and Pena missed.  Threat over.  But that’s not the call that bothered me most of all this past week.  Now, the Yankees have been terrible.  I get it.  They’ve lost, lost, lost.  But the one that sent me into fits was the Wednesday game against Tampa.  The Yankees get a huge two-run bomb to tie the game in the eighth (the first of many this week), and have first and second in the bottom of the ninth with one out.  Pena hits a dribbler to short and beats out the throw.  Call: out.  Replay: safe.  Clearly safe.  The everyone-in-the-ballpark-knew-it kind of safe.  Call: out.  Would have been bases loaded with one out, and Molina’s long fly ball would have scored the winning run.  Ballgame over, Yankees win.  I know you can’t assume things would have played out the same, but I’m saying bases loaded, one out there in the ninth, the Yankees win that game.  Period.  So that one bothered me.  Really bothered me.
        So that’s my excuses/explanations segment.  Allie’s back, so I’m feeling pretty good about that.  Headed up to Toronto.  Not feeling so good about that.  The Yankees are not going to go on a true run until they get a good string of games against the bummier teams.  And that’s not Toronto and it’s not Minnesota, the next two up.  
         Apropos of nothing, here’s how the game is going to go on Tuesday.  The Yankees don’t touch Halladay, Burnett pitches well but gives up a couple of tough runs.  As the game goes on the Yankees swing earlier and earlier in the count (after the game they’ll say, “You have to swing early against him, because he’s going to throw strikes.”)  The Yankees are down 2-0 when Burnett comes out in the seventh, the Jays scratch out two more runs against the Yankee bullpen, and the Yankees get a cheap bomb off whoever pitches the ninth (Halladay will go eight).  Yanks lose 4-1.  The truth hurts, what can I say.  Maybe, by some stroke, between now and then they’ll realize that the object is not to hit Halladay.  The object is to get Halladay out of the game.  Simple as that.  
         Happy Mother’s Day everybody, love the BPS.  And Johnny Damon…..     

Rainy Sunday

“Dude…” Vino was yelling at me from the condiments table, holding up a bottle of barbeque sauce.  i motioned for him to chuck it over.  We were at the Brother Jimmy’s Southern Barbeque stand at the Stadium on Friday night.  Vino, Big Willie, and I did Citi Field last week, and Friday night I hosted them up in Terrace Level Suites.  And as I was slathering hot sauce on my pulled pork sandwich, I was sinking into the dark hole that I go into when I’m watching things go south at a Yankee game.  It was a miserable night, rainy with the temperature in the 60′s, yet somehow still humid and steamy.  Gross.  This was my second trip to the Stadium; the first, of course, being Opening Day against the Indians.  I made the fateful decision to drive from Brooklyn instead of taking the subway, and it was a disaster.  A trip that generally takes a half-hour took me an hour and ten.  Big Willie and Vino were waiting for me so long in Billy’s Tavern across the street from the Stadium that they called me and asked if they should just buy a ticket and go in.  We finally made it in with two outs in the top of the third.  Needless to say, I missed the Yankee four-run first inning.  So when the Angels started pouring the runs in as we were walking to Brother Jimmy’s in the sixth inning, it occurred to me that my experience at the new Stadium had been abysmal.  When the situation bottomed out and the Yankees were down 9-4, some quick math told me that, because I missed the four-run inning, I had seen the Yankees score exactly one run in the new Stadium, while I had seen the Yankee opponents score 19.  19-1.  That was my Yankee Stadium experience.  ”I hate this place,” I announced to Vino.  He was trying to be diplomatic.  ”Two games, dude.  No bid deal.”  I would not be denied.  ”Nope.  I hate it.  19-1?  How am I supposed to feel good about this place?  I hate it.”  I sent a text to Acc.  ”I hate this Pepsi h*ll-hole.”  ”You’re a very pessimistic fan, dude,” Vino decided.  ”I’m a very pessimistic in-game fan,” I corrected him, “I’m an optimistic between-game fan.”  It was  a very important distinction, and one I fully stand behind.  I’ll be the first to admit that I’m an awful guy to watch a game with.  I always think the sky is falling.  But I’m very pragmatic as soon as I’m able to shake off an individual loss.  In any case, I called Acc (I’m shocked he took my call, as he knew full well I was going to be a lunatic), and he tried to talk me off the ledge.  It all looked bleak.  And then, wow.  Yankee Stadium was back.  We were back.  The Yankees were back.  The magic was back.  Before you know it I was singing New York, New York with Vino at the top of my lungs, Big Joe was calling with congrats, and a text from Acc appeared on my phone.  ”Yes buddy, this Stadium loves u.”
      I’ll take it.  Two out of three against the Angels is not easy for the Yankees.  It’s been well documented that these Yankees have had all kinds of fits against the Angels in the last thirteen years, with the Angels playing kryptonite to the Superman Yankees.  Nothing else you can say.  It’s been brutal.  The Saturday game was a shame, though.  In results-oriented Yankeeland, C.C. Sabathia took a beating for losing his third game in four decisions, although the story has not been that bad.  You want to kill Wang?  Be my guest.  You want to kill the bullpen, I’ll yawn while you do it.  But C.C. was great on Saturday.  Shutout inning after shutout inning, betrayed only by Jeter’s error.  Then he got a huge strikeout and couldn’t get the last out.  It should never have come to that.  Facing a thirty year-old rookie, the Yankees should have been nursing a 5 run lead by then.  They let the guy completely off the hook in the first inning and then went to sleep until the 9th.  Tricky strategy, boys.  Bottom line; C.C. will show up as a member of this team when all is said and done.
       I’ve spent a good part of the season saying I don’t like this Yankee lineup, and they’ve spent a good part of the season scoring a million runs, making me sound like I don’t have the slightest idea what I’m talking about.  Not a problem, as I often don’t.  I’ve killed Melky in particular, and although he’s had some really bad at-bats in big spots, he’s also had some clutch hits in big spots and some decently patient at-bats as well.  So things are still up in the air, as far as I’m concerned.  I don’t know what I think.  I do think the best news thus far, though, has been the resurrection of the Ferocious Lion.  Shaky on the knees at the start of the season, often in the seven and eight hole, he’s slowly started taking the ball the other way, hammering it with authority, and most importantly, driving in runs.  He can be found in the clean-up spot these days, and that’s great news for the Yanks.  Especially when they get their two best bats back, Allie from the DL and Texeira from whatever planet he’s been spending the last month on.  I know we all heard the guy was a slow starter, but whoa.  Last time I looked he was hitting .182.  That’s pretty weird.  This is what Cano did last year.  I hope that wrist is healthy, because when they talk about Texeira as a notoriously slow-starter, they’re talking about him hitting .250 in April.  Not .182.  I hope it’s soon.  This offense will be tough if the Ferocious Lion, A-Rod, Texeira, and Cano can come together at some point.
      Funny.  The Red Sox were laughing hard and long last week when Ellsbury stole home against the Yankees.  The cameras kept finding their way back to the dugout where the Red Sox, while backslapping and high-fiving, were all having an uproarious laugh.  Not laughing so hard today, when Carl Crawford tied the record for stolen bases in one game against them, were they….  Congratulations, Varitek.  Couldn’t have happened to a bigger d*ck.  What does that “C” on your jersey stand for?  ”Can’t?”  Keep laughing guys…
       While we’re at it, the Red Sox have not solved their chief bugaboo from ’08.  They can’t win on the road.  It cost them the pennant last year, and so far this year, the story is just as bad.  The Red Sox are a fabulously resilient team and a brilliantly patient offense.  They get as much mileage out of their home park as humanly possible.  Their famous patience is compounded by their almost-as-famous whining, with guys like Youkilis, Pedrioa, and Varitek throwing their heads around and gesticulating wildly when calls don’t go their way.  I have no data around it, but I’d love to know what the ball-strike ratios for the Red Sox look like at home versus on the road.  Combine that with all the righty Red Sox bats doinking balls off of the monster, and you’ve got one dangerous home team.
       So the Yankees have drawn the top two Red Sox starters this week.  Again.  Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain had a good start apiece, but the Red Sox are not a good draw for those guys.  They need to pound the zone, then pound it again and again.  Otherwise, t
he pitch count will go up, and the bullpen will make an early appearance.  Never good.  I didn’t see Hughes’s last start, but the last few years his problem has been the inability to finish hitters off.  He had the Dice-K problem.  He could throw a lot of pitches for strikes, but everybody would foul off his 2-strike pitches and his pitch counts would go sky-high.   I don’t love the match-up in either game.
      Yanks vs. Sox in the new Stadium.  I’ll be there Tuesday night with Acc and Tony Sherry…
      If this rain ever stops….. 

Awesome Guys. Awesome.

“I mean, dude, which is it?  In or out?  You need to decide dude.  None of this sometimes cr*p, whenever you want.”  It was Saturday afternoon, beautiful and sunny, and Vino was breaking my chops about my sporadic posts as we sat in section 110 at Citi Field taking in the Mets-Nationals game.  Big Willie was with us.  ”I go on there every day, and nothing.  Nothing, nothing, and nothing.  If you’re not going to do it, shut it down dude.  Or at least pick a day and do a post that day, once a week.”  Of course, he’s right.  I don’t have any excuses.  Just my own laziness…  So at the very least, I’m going to try to do Sunday nights.  Here we go….
    I just watched Mike Francesa crush the Yankees for the last 12 minutes on “Mike’d up,” the show he does every Sunday night here in the New York Metro area at 11:30pm.  Francesa is as pompass as they come, but he is a unique sports commentator in the New York area for one reason.  He’s a Yankee fan.  It’s kind of funny.  With two 24-hour all-sports radio networks and four New York-based TV sports channels, there is exactly one guy who roots for the Yankees.  Everybody, but absolutely everybody, is a Met fan.  Not sure why that is…  But this is why I’m curious as to Francesa’s take, because at least I know he’s not another Met fan reveling in Yankee problems, coming at it with an agenda.  He’s not going to pull a lot of punches.  The Mets guys usually take a sky-is-falling posture with the Yankees, often seemingly trying to make it so.  So tonight, Francesa was laying waste to the Yankees, saying that the organization from to to bottom is completely and totally out-classed by the Red Sox, and that it was on display in spades this weekend.  And he’s not the only one.  There’s a lot of that flying around today…
    So I’ll take a little bit different posture.  Not because I don’t agree with a lot of what Francesa said, but because I’m not as completely convinced that we can put this in the book and call it a season.  So if you’re going to accuse me of looking at the world through Yankee glasses, for today at least, I’m completely guilty.
    A couple of reasons this weekend was not as defining as people will make it out to be:  The Yankees were playing with a depleted lineup.  We all know about A-Rod.  Matsui is still not 100% (who knows how healthy he will get, but he started the weekend clearly not healthy).  Mark Texeira, an always-awful hitter in April, was playing in, well, April.  Nady is out, and the Yankees haven’t had a chance to plug that hole.  Nick Swisher was not brought to this team to hit in the 3,4, or 5 hole.  Yet that’s where he’s hitting.  All of this meant that the Yankee bats were not anywhere near where they will eventually be in a month or two.  And yet the Red Sox needed the miracle Friday night to beat them, and had to get every nugget of offense they could on Saturday when this battered Yankee lineup hung 8 runs on their best pitcher, and another 3 on their bullpen.  The Red Sox only have one injury to their lineup right now, and it’s in the nine-hole.  Most of their hitters are perfectly healthy and on fire.  They have six guys in their lineup hitting .293 or better.  And the Red Sox bullpen, which was widely touted as a strength, was clobbered by the Yankees, giving up runs in key spots and creating jams all over the park.  Even Papelbon struggled in both of his outings.  The Yankee bullpen, never touted as a strength, was devastated on Friday when Brian Bruney, who had been electric lights-out this year, was unexpectedly sent to the DL at the worst possible time.  And perhaps most importantly, there is one thing you have to remember when looking at this weekend’s mess.  The Red Sox got to enjoy their meaty, soft, succulent, home ballpark.  The Red Sox are a magical ballclub in their own home park.  Don’t get me wrong; good teams tend to make their own magic at home.  But the Red Sox have made it almost comical.  They’ve always been a plucky bunch, but in this ten-game home stand they came back from 7 runs down in one game, 6 runs down in another, and pulled off a down-two-with-two-outs miracle against Mo in the bottom of the ninth.  Say whatever you want.  That stuff doesn’t happen on the road, and it won’t happen twice in one season.  The Red Sox can enjoy that one, because at some point this season, the Yankees will get it back.  And neither team gets two…  That’s how it goes with these two teams.  There is a lot that has to go right to pull one of those off, and luck is a huge part of it.  And the last point along those lines is that the Red Sox have now played 12 of their first 18 games in Fenway.  Last year they were otherworldly at Fenway and mediocre on the road.  And it cost them the pennant, as they couldn’t beat Tampa in Tampa when they had to.  They could pull off one of their miracles in Fenway, but they couldn’t close the deal on the road.  And their road record this year is exactly 3-6.  The Yankees, meanwhile, will play 15 of their first 21 games on the road, including a franchise-record low 7 games at home in the entire month of April.  Make of it what you will.
      My big issue with the Red Sox before the season began was that their starting pitching was not as good as people were making it out to be.  And over these three games, I saw absolutely to convince me otherwise.  Their top two guns, Beckett and Lester, were not good in their own home park.  Lester was bad, Beckett was absolutely disgusting.  And Justin Masterson, whose outing will be portrayed prettier than it was as a few days go by, made it five and a third innings and ran out of gas.  My big beef with the Yankees was that their lineup was not that good.  Again, I remain convinced.  I still don’t think Nady is the answer, so they need to find another bat.  A-Rod needs to come back, Matsui needs to get healthy, and they need to go get another bat.  This is only more crucial now that we know that Yankee Stadium is going to have more trouble keeping balls in play than the old Kingdome. 
     A couple of other points.  Melky Cabrera is Joe Girardi’s siren.  Girardi seems to be mesmerized by the fact that Melky is a switch hitter.  He can’t resist the lure of Melky’s decent outfielding, slightly above average speed, and of course, his spellbinding ability to switch hit.  What Girardi doesn’t realize is that Melky Cabrera is a cancer in a lineup.  Steer your ship too close and it will crash in a rocky heap.  Swinging at bad pitches, a pathetic approach at the plate, and an absolute guaranteed out with men on base
, Melky Cabrera cannot be a part of your lineup if you want to win.  Period.  He needs to go.
    So outside of the playoffs, this had to be three of the most satisfying days of baseball in Boston that there ever was.  What else could you ask for if you’re the Red Sox?  I guess it could be the harbinger of things to come, of a season in which Boston solidifies its dominance.  But if you’ve watched this rivalry over the last few years, it was too perfect.  These series always seem to even out.  And as I always say, if you look at history, this always happens.  The Red Sox always find a way to beat the Yankees.  They always find a way to end up on top, to get the last laugh.  No matter what they try, or how hard they fight, the Yankees just can’t find a way to beat the Red Sox….in April.     

Back in the Bronx

     The audio on the mlb app on my iphone kicked in just as I walked past the Stock Exchange.  ”Joe Maddon is managing this game like it’s the seventh game of the World Series,” remarked Suzyn Waldman.  ”He’s about to use his fifth pitcher.”  Nick Swisher, apparently, had just k’d for the second out in the eighth.  Johnny Damon had tied the score earlier in the inning with a double down the line.  And Suzyn Waldman was right.  Maddon was strangely h*ll-bent on winning this game.  Where the h*ll was the Big Boy?  He should have been all over this.  I should have been getting texts, updates.  I got nothing.  Luckily, the iphone came to the rescue.  Unfortunately, As the 4 train came rumbling into the station at Bowling Green, I clipped out just as Girardi was bringing on Bruney to relieve Pettitte.  When I emerged at 95th St in Brooklyn 40 minutes later, the first thing that popped onto my screen was a text from Vino.  ”Jeter!” it said.  I knew things must have ended well.  Quickly tapping the mlb app again, it was official:  4-3.  Sorry Joe Maddon.  Five pitchers weren’t enough.  Neither were six.  The Captain strikes again.

      I didn’t love the Yankee lineup when the season began.  I still don’t love it.  I didn’t like Nady, as I look at him to be a .278 hitter with maybe 17 bombs and 68 rbi.  I feel like we swapped out Abreu for Texeira, two guys who have put up very similar numbers in their careers; both patient hitters.  Jeter, Posada, and Damon are another year older, I hate Cano’s approach at the plate, and who knows what Gardner is going to give you.  Let’s leave Allie Rod aside for the time being.  The big surprise has been Swisher, obviously.  Mike Sherry is convinced he’s going to be this year’s Lenny Kozlowski (Scott Brosius).  Tony Sherry said he might surpass the Ferocious Lion as his favorite player.  But aside from him, the fears have been borne out, to some extent.  The Yankees in a perfect world, would score more runs.  But I’m not expecting too much.  Hopefully Al Rod comes back with some pop.  And hopefully the Ferocious Lion can stay healthy.  Or get healthy.  Stop hitting in the point-zero-teens, anyway…
       The good news, obviously, is the starting pitching has been as advertised.  Except for that first egg from Sabathia and the two Wang disasters, the Yankees have gotten extremely strong outings from their starters.  That’s why they were able to come back with a winning record on a nine-game road trip to start the season.  Burnett has been extra-special.  Man, if he can pitch like he did last year, the Yankees will win some games.  As it is, they should do well at avoiding prolonged slumps with those starters.  I hope they can keep it up.
     They were killing Texeira on the radio this week for not playing in those three games.  For any of that Tex-bashing to ring true, you have to buy into the idea that this wrist injury is indeed “a little tendonitis” that “should be gone in a couple of days.”  I’m not so sure.  I’m a  bit nervous about that.  Too many times you see a guy who has this mysterious injury to a key body part pop up that ends up getting worse and sidelining them for a chunk of the season.  Big HGH went through this just last year.  I don’t like it…  
     Nady is now going to be gone for an “extended period of time,” apparently.  I don’t really care.  The only issue is you just got a little less deep off the bench.  I wanted to play Swisher over Nady anyway.  Well, as of last week anyway.  Before that I couldn’t for the life of me understand why they would ever get a bum like that to play for this team.  But what do I know….
       I’m going to be at the Stadium tomorrow, so I’ll try and do some sort of journal on my day.  Maybe I’ll even post some updates via the iphone.  Probably not, as I am the laziest man on Earth.  But maybe.
      I watched the Mets opening ceremony at Citi Field the other night.  The poor Mets.  I remember when they closed the Stadium last year, and Tom Terrific bounced that pitch to Piazza before they closed the gates.  How fitting, I remember thinking.  I also remember thinking it was fitting that they closed it on a day that the Mets put the cherry on the top of yet another devastating late season collapse.  The poor Mets…  So there they were the other night, opening up brand-spanking new Citi Field, as pretty as a picture.  And when Seaver threw out the first pitch to Piazza, it was a strike right down the middle.  Maybe this really will be a new era for the Mets, I thought.  Maybe the cosmos will align for them.  And then Pelfrey (Really?  Pelfrey is your Citi-Field opening starter?  Really?) puts the first pitch right over for a strike.  The crowd went bananas.  Maybe it really will be different, I thought.  And then Jody Gerut smashes the third pitch of the game out of the park.  The first-ever regular season batter at Citi Field.  Can it get any worse?  Yes, actually.  After the Mets thrillingly tied the score on a three-run bomb by David Wright, they end up losing on… a balk.  Dude….  The poor Mets.   Hey, love the ballpark, though.  Great spot.  And I thought the opening ceremonies were great.
      One thing strikes me about the new Stadiums in New York. They really are a reflection of the guys who run things right now.  Guys in their late fifties, early sixties.  The new Yankee Stadium is really an homage to the old Yankee Stadium, which is cool.  I’m all for the history.  It just means a little less to me because I was never in the old Stadium.  I grew up in the post-1976 Stadium.  Like I said, still cool, just less relevance for a guy like me.  Citi Field is also an homage, to the old Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, where Fred Wilpon used to wile away summer afternoons as a kid with his dad.  The one and only thing about that field that could have been improved was its location.  Ebbets Field looked perfectly in place on Sullivan Street in Brooklyn, as the angled entrance sat on a street corner, with all of the atmosphere of the Brooklyn neighborhood wrapped around it like a cozy sweater.  Citi Field still sits in the middle of a parking lot, essentially, so the shape of the Stadium looks a bit confused.  And you miss out on the atmosphere of a surrounding neighborhood.  Great once you’re inside, though.  I haven’t been there yet, but I’m going next weekend.  Another sign the old guys are in charge: Seaver and Piazza walked from the bullpen to the mound with “Beginnings” by Chicago blasting from the sound system.  Appropriate enough title, I guess, but you’re talking about a song that was recorded five years after Shea Stadium opened.  A curious choice, I thought.   
       Excited about the big day in the Bronx, boys.  Here’s hoping we start things off right.

Banner Start

     Well I thought that went well, no?  Awesome.  That’s what I call getting things started.


     Here’s my problem with C.C. Sabathia.  Don’t get me wrong.  I liked the move, I was psyched they made it, all of that.  But you just can’t go by the National League.  Does anybody remember that CC was a decidedly average pitcher last year before he went to the National League?  I’m always skeptical of these guys who are lights-out in the NL. Not that CC exactly qualifies as Jake Peavy, Trevor Hoffman, Roy Oswalt, etc.  He’s been a stud in the AL his whole career.  But he rode that NL wave last year right to the monster contract.  You just can’t trust the NL.  And today he was a fat disaster.  Fat.  Disaster.

     Guthrie always gives the Yankees fits.  I checked the score somewhere around the third inning and Guthrie was around 47 pitches and the Yanks were up by a run.  I hoped the patience and discipline would kick in.  I hoped guys like Mark Texeira and Johnny Damon would set the tone by wearing Guthrie down and getting into the hapless Baltimore bullpen early.  This was my greatest issue with the 2008 version of the Yankees.  They were like Daniel Baldwin on Celebrity Rehab.  No self-control.  Everybody was swinging out of their shoes trying to get one to hit early in the count.  The best pitchers feasted on that silliness, gobbling up outs more quickly than Tricky gobbled up cheese doodles with his orange sausage-fingers.  Often the toughest pitchers would still be standing on the mound in the eighth inning, the beneficiaries of the Yankees’ juvenile impatience.  So I really can’t tell you what went down today.  I didn’t see a lot of the game.  It was 6-3 when I left work, 6-5 when I got out of the subway, and 8-5 thirty seconds after I got out of the subway.  The story today was CC’s fat *ss getting kicked all over Baltimore.  And I guess Texeira going 0-4 and leaving guys sagging all over the bases was a sidebar.  With the Yankee bullpen getting gob-smacked a light dessert.  An all-around giggle of a day, befitting the dark, cold misery hanging over New York City all day today.

     So there’s your Opening Day.  What’s next.  Acc sent me a text a few minutes ago lamenting tomorrow’s  off day.  I sent one back clarifying that the off day after your big (literally) acquisition gets crullered and your new big bat goes o-fer with ducks all over the pond is really what brings the pain.  Is CC going to be a big bust?  I doubt it.  He’ll get his wins.  The O’s had a monster day today.  I think the Yanks will right their ship.  I just don’t want to endure another miserable start and have to play catch-up all year again.  I’ve had it with that….

     Besides.  I knew this was going to happen.  The Yanks won a million games in the spring, including their last fifty in a row (I might be exaggerating that slightly).  And then they lose when it counts.
 
     So Acc sat in our new seats last weekend.   He said they were okay.  Section 24 is long since a memory, I’m afraid.  We’re back in the upper tank, from whence we came.  One note on the new Stadium.  Terrible job in giving Pepsi exclusive rights to the beverages in the concessions.  I don’t care if you prefer Coke or Pepsi, you have to respect the fact that Coke is the brand that perhaps best represents the American institution; the champ.  The hunted.  Pepsi will forever be the little guy chasing the champ.  Pepsi is a Met brand.  A Red Sox brand.  The Yankees and Coke are synonymous.  Awful job by the Yanks chasing a buck.  You need to protect your brand.  For that reason and for that reason alone, I’m sour on the new Stadium.  

     But not this 2009 Yankee team…  I’ll think they’ll be fine…

Looking In from the Outside

            Thursday night, New York City.  October is quickly tumbling towards November, and the weather is following along, obediently.  The missus is out with her crew in Staten Island.  The baby boy is at his grandparents’ house.  That leaves me in the blue room, trying to pack my thoughts on the 2008 season into something coherent.  I have game 2 on in the other room, but as always, I couldn’t care less.  If the Yankees aren’t playing, I’m not really interested. 

             So let’s begin where we left off.  The Red Sox ran out of pixie dust.  As I watched game 6 with Big Joe, the Red Sox still peacocking all of their magic down in Tampa, I relayed to him something Acc told me years ago, when the Yanks were in the middle of all of their glory.  “Someday,” he said, “This is going to end.  It can’t go on forever.”  And further to that, I said to Big Joe, when it ends, it tends to come crashing down.  I can’t say it crashed down as badly for the Red Sox as it did for the Yankees in 2001, but hey – the bigger you are, the harder you fall.  I’ll repeat what I said last week.  As a dynasty, the Red Sox were always going to be a fraud.  That’s not what they were, for a thousand reasons.  But man, they knew how to dig in their heels. 

            So a few thoughts on the new Stadium.  My opinion hasn’t changed from when they first announced this whole thing.  Do they need it?  No.  Do I have an issue with them putting up a new Stadium?  No.  Does it thrill me?  No.  Does it kill me that they’re moving the field where Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jackson, Don Mattingly, and Bernie Williams played?  It crushes me.  That totally devastates me.  Why would you do that?  The field is the thing.  Not the building.  It’s the field.  I hate that they’re moving the field.  My thought is, if you’re going to move the field, then you might as well pack the whole thing up and move it to Manhattan.  The building is the building, and the Bronx is the Bronx, but the field is the key.  So I get that things change, and I’m not against putting up a new building with an opportunity to make millions upon millions more.  Honestly, I’m okay with that.  But back in ’74, you realized it was better to find temporary accommodations than to lose the one thing that matters.  The field.  That’s the one thing that bothers me.  That they didn’t want to take a bit of a financial step backward for 2 years (if that?!) to keep the one thing that has always made Yankee Stadium Yankee Stadium.  The field.

            I promised Big Joe and his buddy Charlie that I would do a bit on the Mets, so here goes.  The Mets.  Man.  What can you say.  Two years of devastating meltdowns.  I was listening to some of the banter on talk radio in the days following, and I was a bit confused by what I heard.  Met fans, specifically and particularly the talking head radio and TV personalities, seemed to be coming out in favor of keeping Jerry Manuel on as Mets manager.  So let me get this straight.  There was one constant in the coaching ranks for two of the most colossal collapses in baseball history.  Jerry Manuel.  It was cool to blame Willie for a while, and it still is, but who was his bench coach?  If you’re going to argue that Manuel didn’t have any accountability for ’07 just because he was bench coach, then why do you have a bench coach?  If he’s useless and not accountable, why are you paying him in the first place?  I was listening to Joe Benigno (who I love) and Evan Roberts (can go either way) on WFAN as I was driving around on Columbus Day, and anytime a caller would suggest the Mets should get a new manager, they would immediately jump down his throat.  “Who?!” they would bark at him.  One guy suggested Buck Showalter.  “What has he ever won?!” they screamed.  But here’s where that falls down.  You’re not going to get a new manager because there isn’t anyone available who has a history of winning consistently?  That’s completely idiotic.  How many of those are there?  Four?  If that?  What did Joe Torre win before he got to the Bronx?  What did Terry Francona win before he got to Boston?  What had Scoscia won before he started with Anaheim?  Or Joe Maddon?  Find someone you believe in and take a shot.  That’s what winning teams do.  Jerry Manuel needs to go, and the Mets need to start fresh.  I think they have the right core of players.  They need more depth at pitching and they need more consistency from their bats.  They shouldn’t, because they have lots of marquee names in that lineup, but they do.  David Wright is getting killed in New York for failing to come up clutch.  They’re calling him D-Rod.  Yikes.  But for my money, the guy who needs to go is Jose Reyes.  Jose Reyes is bad for a baseball team.  I always marvel that Mets fans trip over themselves making excuses for him.  He acts like a total *ss, and the fans turn a blind eye.  The day before the Mets collapsed again, when Johan Santana came out and threw a gem, there was Jose Reyes, running out to do his ridiculous dancing out on the field when somebody hits a home run.  Dude, everybody else in the league knows to keep it in the dugout.  Especially when your season is hanging on by a thread.  What is your problem?  And for the second year in a row, he’s disappeared down the stretch.  I know he’s a scary player with a ton of weapons, but guys who carry that kind of bad karma generally don’t win.  (See: Bonds, Rodriguez…okay, Manny is clearly an exception).  The good news is that the collapse, in a strange way, doesn’t seem as monumental after you watch the Phillies do what they’ve done.  It was tougher to swallow last year when the Phillies mugged the Mets and then got swept in the first round.   

            So let’s get to an annual favorite: the smartest and dumbest things I said this year.  As usual, the dumb thing was way dumber than the smart thing was clever.  And believe it or not, my insistence that the Rays weren’t for real wasn’t the dumbest thing (although it was plenty dumb, obviously).  The dumbest thing I said this year was this, on April 3rd:

“The fact is the Yankees are playing in their second game of the season and the best they have to throw out there is Mike Mussina.  I know there are a lot of guys out there who love the Moose, and have for years.  People get on me immediately when we kill him in the BPS.  But guys – he is a number five starter.  Number five.  Is there anybody out there who thinks Moose has a better chance to throw a killer game than Phil Hughes?  Somebody explain that to me….  Or Ian Kennedy, for that matter….  “      

Yup.  That’s me, with the razor-sharp insight that Moose was a dumber choice to start a game in 2008 than Ian Kennedy.  Further proof that I haven’t the slightest idea what I’m talking about.  I owe Sean a beer just on principle.

            On to the smartest thing, posted on April 15:

“You’ve seen [Francona] many times over the last few years take risks in order to “write the story.”  Dice K is a great example.  At least three times last year against the Yankees, and this year’s game makes four, Francona stayed far too long with an ineffective and mightily struggling Dice K to try and get him a win.”

         This wasn’t the first time I’ve talked about this.  The implication, of course, is that one day this was coming to come back and bite Francona.  And bite him it did.  Only it wasn’t Dice K.  It was Beckett.  If he yanks him when he should have yanked him in game 2, the Sox probably win that game and take 2-0 back to Boston.  And in one of the few times I’ve ever felt Francona was being disingenuous, he said after the game, “I felt he was the right guy for that spot.”  I’m not Terry Francona, but his track record betrays him here.  He was trying to get him a win.  Period.  And he got burned.

            Last thing.  My heart sank when I read yesterday that Mike Cameron was “high on the Yankees priority list.”  As I said to Acc today on the phone, if that’s true, the Yankees are already out of contention for 2009.  Not that Cameron himself is the reason (although he would be an awful, awful pick-up), but it would be clear that the Yankees are headed in the wrong direction.  I think Mike F had a great tidbit in his comment the other day about Girardi saying that the Yankees “needed to swing early” against the better pitchers.  Big Joe confirmed that he heard it also.  If that’s his attitude, fire him right now.  I’m not kidding.  That’s exactly what you don’t do.  What you can’t do.  And that’s just it.  Mike Cameron isn’t the type of player that is going to help you.  I have to say, I’m really having trouble with that one.  Who exactly in the Yankees front-office was the guy saying, “Cameron might be available?!  Get him!!”  What sense does that make?  He’s hit .242 the last two years with low 20′s in home runs and a million – a million – strikeouts.  He is exactly what was wrong with the Yankees last year.  If that’s the type of guy they’re going to go after, and the type of team they’re going to be, they’ve already lost.  I will note, though, that the Yankees did not confirm the report.

            Maybe I’ll stop back in after the World Series.  I hope this isn’t going to be a long off-season….

Beyond Explanation

                At the end of my last post, I said I had a number of things to go through when I checked back in.  And I still do.  But I’m not going to talk about any of them.  It’s Thursday night/Friday morning, I have to talk about what I just saw.  I guess they would have to close it out for this to be perfected, but however it ends, we are watching one of the most incredible teams of all time, in any sport.  When the Red Sox won the World Series last year, there were whispers of the “D” word.  Dynasty.  Two Championships in four years really doesn’t get you there, though, so they were just that.  Whispers. They got louder after the first round of the playoffs, and reached a crescendo (so far) after the Red Sox game one win in Tampa. 

            With that as background, this is probably the right time to point out that there are three people you generally can’t afford full credibility to when they are opining on the Yankees, Red Sox, or Mets, and that’s Yankees fans, Red Sox fans, and Met fans.  All of them have a stake in all of the others’ situations.  Met fans and Red Sox fans ( in general – doesn’t apply to every case, of course) might tell you that they’re agnostic on the fortunes of the other, but scratch the surface, and they will all probably admit that they like to see the other succeed just because it might p*ss off Yankee fans.  My point is, I’m a Yankee fan, so feel free to stop reading here if you feel my allegiance will “Lupica” my credibility in this debate.

            As a “dynasty,” the Red Sox were always going to be a fraud.  You can argue that it all hinges on what your definition of dynasty is, and you can certainly throw a number at it and say that, say, three, championships in five years or so constitutes a dynasty.  Tough to argue.  For me, a dynasty is a team that goes out and beats you because they’re the best team every day, every year.  The Red Sox have not been that.  And I understand that Red Sox fans would want to use the word.  It’s a big word; there aren’t too many opportunities to use it in sports.  It’s a marquee term.  But frankly, to use that term with this Red Sox team would be missing the point of this team.  What they aren’t is the team that goes out and beats you day in and day out.  In thirteen years, this team has won its division exactly once.  One time.  And if not for a four-run April comeback in the ninth inning against Mo Rivera, they don’t even finish first that one time.  They always say that the season is a marathon, not a sprint.  And in this marathon, Boston has just once in thirteen years been able to beat out just four other teams to win their division.  Fifty years ago, they never would have made the playoffs. 

So what are they.  Well, they are simply the most brilliantly, fantastically, spectacularly resilient team I have ever seen in professional sports.  I can’t think of a close second, or even a distance second.  They own it, entirely.  Let’s start from the beginning.  In 2003, the year they came of age, the Yankees had run away with the division and the Sox were fighting for a Wild Card.  And as the season wore on, I remember laughing with a couple of the boys that the Red Sox just seemed to be able to yank a game out of their butt whenever they absolutely needed it.  You could almost predict it.  You could look at the standings and the games that were in progress on any given night, and if the Red Sox were going to take a significant ding with a loss, you would see them start some crazy three-run rally in the bottom of the ninth.  It was automatic.  I always used to say they had a pocketful of miracles.  So they ride their miracles into the playoffs, and they find themselves down 0-2 to the A’s and in extra innings.  Eric Byrnes should have crossed the plate with the winning run, but the umps ruled (correctly) that he never touched the plate and was called out as Varitek chased him halfway to the dugout to apply the tag.  The Red Sox survived and eventually won the game, then followed it with two wins to take the series.  Then they face the Yankees, who took a 3-2 lead back to Yankee Stadium.  With a Yankee lead in the 8th inning in game six, they got a routine fly ball that got caught in the wind by Nomar, and then a go-ahead shot that sparked a multi-run inning to steal game six.  Game seven in 2003 was the one and only time in this decade that their luck abandoned them.  Fast forward to 2004.  Goes without saying.  Then ’05 and ’06 were a bust.  Then ’07.  Down 3-1 to the Indians, they pulled off the ALCS win.  So at that point they had pulled off, in their two Championships, the greatest and the second greatest series comebacks in the history of baseball.  Now 2008.  Again down 3-1, but this time losing 7-0 with two outs and a man on in the seventh inning.  Guys, say what you want.  I know ’04 was a 3-0 deficit, and I know it was against the Yankees.  For a Red Sox fan, I can understand if that was their favorite.  But if they pull this off in ’08, and I would not be the slightest bit surprised if they do, this beats them all.  Down 3 games to 1, and losing by seven runs in the seventh inning with two outs, having to not just win, but go back on the road and win two more.  I have not seen a more unbelievable feat in my entire lifetime by one team, in any sport.  That would absolutely beat them all.  And then you would be looking at a team that came back from 3-0, 3-1, and 3-1 down 7 runs with 7 outs to go, resulting in 3 Championships.  There is no precedent for that anywhere in professional sports, as far as I know.  And I challenge anybody to find me something even close.  I know you might think I’m getting ahead of myself here, but am I?  Is Tampa really going to snap back from this?  Particularly since Big HGH and JD Drew seem to have survived their slumps and gotten their strokes back?  Really?  I don’t see it.  And I certainly don’t have any faith in the National League.  Now I’ll admit, I’ve been dogging the Rays all year.  I openly admit it.  But for the last few days I’ve been telling everybody – Let’s just see them close it out.  Let’s see if they really are immune to the Red Sox magic.  And wow.  Wow, wow, wow.              

So why not a dynasty?  Because that’s not them.  This win tonight made them 12-2 in their last 14 playoff elimination games.  Just drink that in for a minute.  Fourteen elimination games, and they’ve won twelve.  Astounding.  And to get it done this year it would be fourteen out of sixteen (at least), including their last ten in a row.  So what was the Yankees record in elimination games in their run from 1996-2000?  One and one.  And that’s the point.  They just didn’t find themselves in elimination games.  They pretty much just buzz-sawed through everybody.  If you’re asking me, that’s a dynasty.  But that doesn’t take away from what the Red Sox are.  Frankly, there have been lots of dynasties in sports.  I don’t know if you’ll ever see another team like this crazy Red Sox team.  They are almost beyond explanation.

            I know, I know.  I’m already giving them 6 wins in their next nine games.  Getting ahead of myself.  Fine.  Is anybody out there betting against them?

Requiem for a Season

            “Son-in-law…”  It was Big Joe calling from Chicago.  He was at a trade show.  “I’m here in Chicago, and everyone keeps coming up to me asking if you’re okay.  They all want to know why you fell off the face of the earth.  I told them you’re busy changing diapers and all that….“  Big Joe was running cover.  There’s some truth to what he was saying, I guess, but I would have to say it’s a combination of things.  I admit, it’s a lot of work juggling the baby boy’s schedule with side cars like the BPS.  Not that I’m doing a lot of heavy lifting where the boy is concerned.  To say that I’ve been spending the bulk of my time changing diapers and getting bottles ready would be a disservice to the missus.  I am merely an available and sort-of capable assistant most of the time.  But it does get tricky trying to fit everything in.  And to say that this was the only reason for the slide of the BPS would be kidding myself.  I have to admit, as the team slips down in the standings, it’s tough to get as amped up.  And not knowing how I would respond to the Yankees missing the playoffs for the first time since I was barely able to drive, I guess I figured I would still be as glued to the proceedings, right up to the last out.  And to an extent, I was.  Many nights Acc and I would exchange texts to the effect of, “I don’t know why I’m still watching this, but I am.”  But not amped enough that I would be storming into the blue room after a tough loss to pound out all of my thoughts on the BPS.  Besides, I’ve always warned you guys that I’m the laziest guy in America.

            So how do we analyze the 2008 season?  Was it the injuries?  A lack of clutch-hitting, mismanagement, front-office savvy?  Was this team just not as good?  After spitting and bleeding thorough six months of Yankee baseball, I’m kind of surprised that after all is said and done, I’m still sitting here wondering what just happened…

            First things first.  The Tampa Bay Rays.  Guys, I’ll stand and take my flogging now.  I promise I won’t squawk.  Yup, I was the guy.  No revisionist history here.  I’m not going to say that I hedged on this one bit.  I came out many times this year breathing fire that they weren’t for real.  That they were the fortunate beneficiaries of a soft, home-friendly schedule in the first half.  The end would see the cream rise to the crop.  I could go on and on.  Bottom line; they got it done.  Kudos to them, shame on me for being a non-believer.

            It’s not like the Yankees couldn’t beat the good teams.  Putting aside the kryptonite-in-their-pocket Angels of Anaheim, who are always a Vincent Price movie for the boys from the Bronx, the Yankees didn’t have a losing record against any of the other playoff teams, including both Minnesota and Chicago.  In fact, only Boston was even able to eke out a season series tie in extra innings on the last day of the season.  It was a lot of stumbling around with teams like Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Kansas City that cost the Yankees this season.  The Red Sox again settled comfortably into their familiar second place cubby, although this year with a new Queen Bee to serve at the top.  Not sure how they’ll fare in the post-season, but at least they know who they are.  The Yankees ended up in first place all these years because they were the best team.  The Red Sox snuck into the playoffs all these years because they’re never dead until you kill them.  The chips have fallen the last twelve years or so such 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.  The Red Sox got their one exception; let’s see if the Angels can get theirs.  Funny.

            So let’s start at the top.  The last deal on the table for Johan Santana was Hughes, Kennedy, and Melky for Santana.  Just about no one in Yankee-land wanted this to happen.  Way too much, considering the promise shown by those three guys, who by season’s end in 2007 were all starters.  Well, you know what they say about hindsight boys.  Melky is not a major league baseball player and Ian Kennedy is not a major league baseball player.  Phil Hughes, it seems, has a long way to go.  You live and learn.  That was a colossal mistake.  Speaking of Kennedy and Hughes; zero, that’s zero wins between them for the season.  Wow.  Kennedy was not only awful, he was delusional, thinking he “pitched well” after getting pounded by the Angels.  Dude, when you’re wearing the Yankee pinstripes, the only way you pitch well is when you end up with a “w” next to your name.  Hughes, when he finally got healthy, was subject to his old bugaboo.  He can’t put people away.  Gets two strikes pretty easily, and then hitters start to battle him.  Even if he gets them, his pitch count goes sky high and he can’t be effective.  It’s one of the key reasons the guy had no wins.  Even when he pitched well in a game the Yanks would eventually win, like he did in the final two weeks, he didn’t get the win because his pitch count was blown long before he was out of the fifth.  Not good.  Not sure what kind of major leaguer he turns out to be.

            So we know about the injuries.  Posada, the Ferocious Lion.  Alex Rodriguez was out and/or hurting for about six weeks early on.  Wang was lost early on.  Definitely a key theme for the collapse, without a doubt.  But I can’t say that I’m qualified to say how or why the end came.  If I had to pick one thing, I would probably say the general approach to hitting.  The Yankees just weren’t tough outs in 2008.  Cano, Melky, Molina, Alex, and sadly, Derek Jeter swung far too early in the count at far too many pitches.  That’s the key thing for me.  It wasn’t just the futility; it was the quick outs and the quick innings.  There were too many mediocre pitchers that turned into Preacher Roe facing the Yankees.  It would always drive me nuts to hear guys like John Sterling saying, “Boy, you better go up there swinging against a guy like Roy Halladay, because he’s going to throw strikes.”  And that’s just what the Yankees did.  The problem is that’s just what you don’t do against a guy like Roy Halladay.  Okay, he throws strikes.  But opponents hit what?  Low two-hundreds against him?  If that?  Bottom line is, you don’t swing against Roy Halladay.  Because the odds are great that you’re not going to get a hit.  Of course I don’t mean you never swing, but you don’t want to go out there and try to shell Roy Halladay.  It’s not going to happen.  You do what the Yankees of the past few years were legendary for doing.  You wait him out and get to the bullpen.  He’s not going to throw three straight strikes to everybody.  Make him work for it.  I know it sounds counterintuitive, but against a guy like Halladay, you’d rather make out after an 8-pitch at-bat than get a base hit on the first pitch with two outs and nobody on.  If the next guy also swings at the first pitch and gets out, you’re no closer on the scoreboard but you’re six pitches behind in terms of getting into the bullpen.  The current Red Sox, watching the Yankees all those years, are great at this.  I was in section 24 for the last Red Sox/Yanks series at the Stadium, and I distinctly remember at one point (I forget which inning) there was a man on first, one out, and the count was 2-1 on the batter.  And the Red Sox had swung at exactly one pitch in the inning.  One.  Brilliant.  The Yankees need more tough outs in their lineup.    

            Not done yet, boys.  I’ll be back with a few more thoughts.  What changes need to be made, what can be done better, the old Stadium, the new Stadium, the Mets (ugh, the Mets), etc…  See you then.

Perfect

            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 4×100 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.       

Rocky Road

            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 3rd 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!!

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