Good Thames, Bad Thames

Good morning Fackers. For the second straight morning we're leading off with a bad pun on Marcus Thames' name. Except this time, it isn't quite as pleasant. And I can't take credit for coming up with this one, as Peter Botte of the Daily News tweeted this right after Thames' critical ninth inning error.

That's a pretty big swing in momentum for Thames in just over a day, going from Monday night's hero to Tuesday night's goat. That's the way it goes. Sometimes you end the game with pie on your face, sometimes you end it with egg on your face. For all the people screaming for Marcus Thames' head this morning, remember that 1) he had the biggest hit of the night on Monday and 2) the only reason he was even in last night's game at that point is because Nick Swisher is injured and because the team's undying love for Boone Logan meant that defensive whiz Greg Golson was sent down before the game to make room for Mark Melancon.

No one is ever going to confuse Thames with a Gold Glover. That ball should have been caught easily, and Thames would be the first to tell you that. But the team is banged up right now and they had to roll the dice with Thames out there in the late innings. There were no better options. Sometimes shit happens.

Aside from Thames, there's plenty of blame to go around this morning. The Yankees had the bases loaded with one out in the sixth and Brett Gardner and Mark Teixeira both failed to push what would have been valuable insurance runs across. Joba was definitively not of the 2007 vintage last night, as he had an eighth inning meltdown for his second consecutive outing. A-Rod made a costly error of his own in the ninth. Mo got squeezed on a number of pitches.

By his own admission, Joe Girardi's bullpen is "a mess", and with nothing but assorted spare parts left out there, he still chose to play for the tie in the ninth inning, giving up an out so Francisco Cervelli could sacrifice the potential tying run to third base. In the end, that didn't work out, and we could only wonder what the Yankees could have done with that extra out since the game ended with the tying and winning runs in scoring position. And that same short bench that left Thames in for defense in the ninth, whittled down to just one healthy position player due to injuries and questionable personnel decisions, was the reason it was Randy Winn and not Jorge Posada or Nick Swisher at the plate with the potential winning run in scoring position.

But those are the breaks in a 162 game season. Sometimes they go your way, as they did Monday, sometimes they don't. You gotta take the bad with the good.