Want To Talk Some Baseball?

Our pal Jason from Heartland Pinstripes is hosting a live chat which he quite appropriately calls a Heartland Digital Living Room. There should be some good banter going on at his place when the game fires up. Grab a six pack and stop by.

Humpday Linkification

It's 3:00 and I haven't come across much of anything worth turning into a post, and unlike Matt I haven't come up with any interesting, original ideas on my own, either. So here we are again with a batch of links to tide you over until tonight's game preview goes up at 5.

From the Yanks:

Tyler Kepner notes that Mariano Rivera converted his 100th save in 104 chances last night. His ERA is under 2 despite being close to 4 in the beginning of May. He's got 10 appearances where he has recorded more than 3 outs this year including three out of his last four. It's great that he can still do it, but you'd think Girardi might want to ease up on the guy a bit...

In related news, FanGraphs says his cutter is only the 4th best in baseball (go to #7)? A.J. Burnett's fastball pales in comparison to his curveball (#11).

Why is Anthony Claggett going to Toronto? (h/t RAB on Twitter) Hopefully Cody Ransom is getting DFA'd and no one is hurt (Aceves?)...

Joel Sherman praises the additions of Eric Hinkse and Jerry Hairston, Jr. for adding much needed depth to the Yankee bench. He also wonders if Mark Melancon's role will increase as the pennant race heats up.

Michael Safino of SNY says the Yanks shouldn't shut Joba down. He says the Verducci Effect is "anti-science", but the Yankee Universe is quick to point out that Major League teams aren't asking Verducci for his opinion.

Chad Jenninngs extols the value of patience while PeteAbe tells us to enjoy the moment.

Slade Heathcott is looking for almost $900,000 over slot. Mike at RAB doesn't blame him for asking.

Joba's Mom is in trouble again.

Around the MLB:

The Jose Veras experiment didn't go so well for the Indians...

Wow, the bad news for the Mets just keeps rolling in...

This article claims that AT&T Park has the most expensive beers in the MLB. Newsflash, you have to pay more than $8.75 for a 20oz beer at the New Yankee Stadium. Want proof? (h/t HowFresh) $10 for a souvenir cup. They should have consulted me, I know these things.

Has John Henry finally taken my advice and stopped Twittering?

"Blew Jays", heh.

I'm afraid Prince Fielder might be a little nuts.

New York Football Giants:

Eli Manning is about to be the highest paid player in the NFL. Really? Did he tell them he was going to pack up his lunchbox and leave if he wasn't? Who else is going to pay him $106.7M over seven years? It didn't make sense to me back in January and it still doesn't.

P.S. If you want to keep tabs on every dropped pass and made field goal that happens at training camp, read Ralph Vacchiano's ridiculously comprehensive Blue Screen blog.

What A Weekend

Good morning Fackers. Well, we have another weekend in the books, and I don't know about you, but we sure enjoyed ourselves. Jay was participating in another golf tournament. I had a helluva a cookout at my place Saturday, starting just after I watched the Yanks take game two of the series from the Tigers. I now have enough empties on my porch to get more than $10 in bottle deposit refunds. You could say it was a pretty fun Saturday.

Sandwiched around the cook/drinkout, I attended both the Friday and Sunday games. The biblical downpour on Friday night was something else. In the past three years I've sat through more rain delays than I can even remember. It seems as if it rains every other time I go to the Bronx. But none of them compare to Friday. We stayed at our seats in the very last section of the left field terrace until the official rain delay was called. And we got under cover just in time to avoid the worst of it.

I don't know how much footage YES showed of the rain, but it was incredible. The upper deck concourse has down spouts coming down from the roof. They were running like fire hydrants. There was a full pond back around the home plate area of the concourse. Thankfully, that would be the last inclement weather of the weekend, and in some ways, the torrential downpours were preferable to the oppressive humidity that preceded it.


More impressive than the rain was the performance from Phil Hughes. I still have some serious concerns about how he's being deployed. But watching him record all six outs via K on Friday, and 8 of 9 total on the weekend is very impressive.

With the possible exception of Opening Day, Old Timers' Day is my favorite day of the season, so it was very cool to be in attendance with my brother, father, and uncle on Sunday. I love a good pitchers' duel, and Sunday certainly was one of those. I'm not ready to say all is well with Joba based on just one start, but Sunday was a leap in the right direction.

Last week started with the end of an ugly three game sweep at the hands of the Angels. With no baseball for the next four days, there was much talk of the Yanks' troubles against the division leading Angels (2-4) and Red Sox (0-8). But baseball is a funny game. Just as the Yanks found a way to lose all three games in Anaheim, all games that they led at one point, they found a way to win all three games against Detroit this weekend, all games that they trailed at some point. The sweep ran the Yankees record against the division leading Tigers to 5-1. It's almost as if the baseball gods put things back to equilibrium as soon as possible. I'm sure Detroit is happy they won't be seeing Joba, Hughes, or Mo again this regular season.

In all, a great weekend. An exciting three game sweep of the division leading Tigers, featuring two classic pitchers' duels. That coupled with two Sox losses pulled the Yanks back to within a game of first. The tenth anniversary of David Cone's perfect game, the annual Old Timers' Day celebration, great weather, etc. It all adds up to make this Monday morning look a little less daunting than most.

Back with more later.

I Knew It Was Too Good To Be True

When the initial reports of $6 beers at the New Yankee Stadium came out yesterday, I was thrilled. Even though they only serve schwilly light beer at the Stadium and it's miserably overpriced, it's a lot of fun to hike up to the upper deck and do some day drinking.

Frank, Big Wille Style and I put away our fair share of $9.50 brewskis last year (and $9 the year before) while sitting in our Saturday Package seats in Sec 7, Row M. Despite the fact that we got shut out of our Saturday games this year, I was looking forward to not getting bent over every time I ponied up for a cold one. I thought maybe they were throwing fans a bone because of the economy. Of fucking course not.

As always, New Stadium Insider saw through the P.R. bullshit and discovered that the beers they are offering for $6 are only 12oz, whereas last year it was $9.50 for 20oz. The price per ounce actually increased slightly (from $0.48 to $0.50). Guess we will still be packing a flask of Jameson or Johnnie Walker this year.

Furthermore, our resident Culinary Correspondent HowFresh Eats notified me that Citi Field's food options destroy those at the New Yankee Stadium:

Did you know that that Citi Field is completely outfitted by Danny Meyer? Shake Shack, Blue Smoke and several other spots. While we get Johnny Rockets and Hard Rock. That pisses me off to no end.

Ever heard of Shake Shack? HowFresh did some intrepid reporting on the location near my apartment a few months back. It is out of this world. Take a look at the what fans at Citi Field are going to be able to choose from. Now tell me you wouldn't take those options in a tenth of a second over what they've got in the Bronx.

Like Ben at River Ave. Blues, I'm just not that excited about the food options at the New Digs. I pretty much never ate anything from the Old Stadium (outside of the Stadium Club), but that was because the food was disgusting. They had a chance to start over but kept the same crappy holdovers, I mean... "Traditional Favorites" like Famiglia Pizza, Premio Sausage, Nathan's Famous and Carl's Steaks.

Some new additions sound pretty good, like the Latin Corner (Cuban sandwiches & burritos), Soy Kitchen (sushi), and Noodle Bowls, but I'm probably still going to opt for a quick sandwich from Lenny's and eat it on the subway ride up. When I go to Citi Field though... I'm bringing my appetite.