Now I’m ticked off. Seriously ticked off.
The game starts, and A-Rod gets plunked. Both teams get warned. Why? CC hasn’t even thrown a stinking pitch yet and he gets warned? Sure, take away the inside part of the plate from someone who has done NOTHING yet.
Guilt by association….speaking of (and getting away from the subject for a bit), Raul Ibanez is ticked because some blogger assumed PEDs with him. I feel for Raul. Is it fair? No. But hey, when someone who is doing a “Brady Anderson” (remember Anderson’s 1996? Someone who was a 18-20 HR a year guy who had 50) by having his usual yearly total by mid-June, questions will be raised, and vice-versa. Those same questions will be raised of someone who has inexplicably lost it (like Ortiz). It isn’t fair, but don’t blame the blogger or other fans. Yes, it’s true that the blogger has no accountability. It’d be hard for Ibanez to sue. But here is the reality…..thanks to people like McGwire, Palmeiro, Clemens, Bonds, Manny, etc., the guilt by association is there and will be for a while. Remember that there were 104 names on that report about users. A-Rod’s was leaked. Not the other 103. So people will wonder and speculate about the other 103. If Ibanez wants to direct his anger properly, he should direct it at the ballplayers who used and spoiled it for all the clean players. That’s the shame in all this, that players who are clean (or presumed clean) like a Jeter or Rivera….or even Ibanez (if clean) get tainted. It’s not right, but it’s reality.
Back to the game. One reason I’m ticked? David Ortiz does NADA all year, enters the series with a sub-.200 batting average (now .203) and two homers. Thanks to AJ and CC, he doubles his season total in this series. The king of the silly-looking beard club (other members include Youkilis and Beckett) put the Red Sox up 1-0. The Yanks tied it on a Cervelli double in the 7th and then A-Rod doubles in 2 and the Yanks are up 3-1. Girardi then shows his total lack of faith in any setup man by leaving CC in for the 8th. It backfires. All three batters CC faced in the eighth got on. The Red Sox get three runs as Aceves couldn’t rescue CC and the Yanks lose 4-3.
Eight games vs. Boston this year. Eight losses. Two games back.
The one area where Boston is vastly superior to the Yanks? The bullpen. Check the ERAs. The Yanks team ERA+ is 92. Boston’s is 113.
Pitching wins championships. The Yanks’ staff has to step it up (as does pitching coach Dave Eiland…I’ve loved the work that SWB pitching coach Scott Aldred has done throughout the minors. Time for a change? It’s not like Eiland has been that great in his position so far…)
Yankees ERA+: Rivera 140, Coke 111, Veras 69 (the demoted Albaladejo 74, Edwar 86) Aceves 175, Tomko 177, Robertson 240, Bruney 140….but Aceves and Tomko haven’t been here long, most of the work was by the demoted (and Veras) and now Hughes is in the bullpen.
Red Sox: Papelbon 237, Ramirez 254, Delcarmen 228, Okajima 196, Saito 187
The trade deadline will be interesting.
Meanwhile, Wang will start on Wednesday. Something tells me that if it was against any other team BUT the Nationals, he would not have this one more chance.
Bryan Hoch points out that the last-place Yankees of 1990 lost all 12 games to Oakland that year. The Yanks have what, 19 games vs. Boston this year?
They can’t lose all of them……..could they?
1 response so far ↓
1 Jason // Jun 12, 2009 at 11:17 am
If you haven’t seen it already Mike, Pete Abraham had a good post yesterday in which he questioned Eiland’s effectiveness, especially surrounding Wang’s continued problems. While Abraham (and I) squarely place the blame for Wang’s performance on Wang, he’s right to question Eiland’s lack of a rapport with Wang and raise that, for all the purported shortcomings of Guidry, he got along great with Wang and motivated him. In sum, I concur with you about Eiland. In fact, I’m not overly impressed with the managerial staff as a whole. I don’t hate ‘em, but I don’t love ‘em either.
I too was steamed about last night but, after a good rant, I just let it go. That tends to be how I operate with sports. Although sometimes things and feelings linger, usually when something really gets me I vent and it’s gone. What more can we do? We stick with the boys and support the heck out of them, we point out their strengths and weaknesses. But we don’t play.
You’re totally right about the bullpen. We’ll see about Tomko and Aceves over a longer stretch. I still feel the Yankees need more than Bruney (when he returns) as a hard-throwing middle reliever. I think different looks help, and not everyone needs to throw 95 (see Veras). But this has not been a strong area of the team, unlike last year. As per our discussion on a previous post, Robertson and Melancon deserve more attention.
Although Sabathia’s excellent start subsequently rendered it moot, I felt the same way about the warning after Penny beaned A-Rod. Yes, the Yanks have hit the Sox much more this year. However, that’s a distinct reversal of years past, when the Sox have hit the Yanks far more than vice versa; not to the 2:1 ratio Sterling claimed, but more like 1.5:1. That’s a lot. Plus, it was just a hasty decision to issue the warning in the first inning.
JD should thank his lucky stars that his atrocious drop didn’t cost the Yanks a run. That’s twice he’s done that already this year. I liked A-Rod’s gesture of kindly approaching him as JD got to the bench.
The Yanks need to improve with RISP and fast. 3-28 against Boston is abysmal.
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