New York Already One Up On Boston This Weekend

We're still about four hours away from the first pitch of game one of this weekend's series, but New York has already notched is first victory over Boston on the weekend. This morning, the annual media game was held at Fenway, with the New York writers laying a 20-3 beatdown on Boston.

Congrats go out to LoHud's Chad Jennings, the offensive star of the morning with a two run inside-the-park homer. The New York Times' Tyler Kepner hurled the first five innings, then Bryan Hoch of yankees.com/MLB Advanced Media played the role of Mo with a scoreless final frame. Friend of the blog Marc Carig had the hardest hit ball of the day, but flashed only warning track power. I've yet to see any reports on how old friend Peter Abraham did after pulling his reverse-Johnny Damon last year.

Kepner was the Times beat writer through last season, but was promoted to national columnist after shortstop Jack Curry took a buyout and joined the YES Network. No word on whether Boston will protest Kepner's eligibility.

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More links? Why not?

According to this tweet and this grainy photo, David Ortiz was grilling for students at my alma mater earlier today. I'm dubious about the picture, but if anyone should know when something is totally cooked, it's gotta be Big Papi, amIright?

After touching on the same topic twice already today, let's go for three. RAB passes along that AAA Scranton has activated catcher P.J. Pilittere, possibly indicating that Chad Moeller could be on his way up. Or since Posada is out taking earlier BP, maybe he's fine.

If you never want to think of Joe Torre in the same light ever again, read this story passed along by Deadspin's Drew Magary.

And with a tip of that to Moshe Mandel from TYU, Mystique and Aura has a post on 2008 first round pick Gerrit Cole, the one that got away.

Back with the preview in a bit.

Just Don't Kill Him, Joba

Over his Yankees career, Joba Chamberlain has launched a baseball in the vicinity of Kevin Youkilis's massive domepiece four times.

On Friday night, Joba is the scheduled starter against the Sawx. Shrek body double David Ortiz has already warned him to not try it again. Big Pawpi doesn’t specify what will happen if Joba ignores him...

According to Pawpi: ""This is a guy, as good as he is, the next step for him will be to earn respect from everybody in the league. He's not a bad guy, but when things like that happen, people get the wrong idea."

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We here at Fack Youk do not mind head hunting Youk for the sake of his discomfort. But, please, for the longevity sake of this blog (I guess also for the sake of his family), Joba do not kill the man or end his career ala Tony Conigliaro.

Also, since when should pitchers care about being "respected." As Machiavelli says in The Prince, a pitcher needs to be feared, not respected. Being respected does not lead to team wins, high strikeout totals, a low ERA, WHIP or any other individual/team stats.