ALCS Game 2: It Ain't Over

On the YES Network Postgame Show last night, Michael Kay was not shy about his feelings in regards to the Yankees' chances going forward. Standing next to Ken Singleton on the field in Arlington as the Ballpark was dark and empty aside from a few maintenance men lingering in the background, Kay emphatically declared the series "over".

That is a pretty bold stance for a broadcaster to take on the air, especially one who was covering the team in 1997 when the Yankees fell into a 5-0 hole in the first inning of Game 1 of the ALDS against the Indians and clawed their way back to a 8-6 victory, only to lose the series in five games. Or in 2001, when the Yanks stole devastating back-to-back-extra-inning-walk-off victories in Games 4 & 5 of the World Series by way of Byung-Hyun Kim but ultimately fell just short of a fourth straight WS title against the Diamondbacks in Game 7 in Arizona.

To be sure, the Yanks' thrilling come-from-behind victory fueled by a string of seven straight batters reaching base safely in the eighth inning was the stuff of October lore, hearkening back to the late 90's dynasty years when the team felt nearly invincible and never out of a game or series. The Bombers trailed 3-0 before CC Sabathia even recorded an out and the deficit only widened before the top of the eighth rolled around and Brett Gardner stepped to the plate. His hustle play opened the floodgates and the five runs plated in that frame took them from four runs down to one ahead. From there Kerry Wood picked off Ian Kinsler to stifle a rally in the bottom half of the inning and Mariano Rivera worked around a leadoff single to Mitch Moreland to seal off the improbable victory.

But unfortunately for the 2010 Yankees, you can only win one game at a time.

To snatch victory from the jaws of defeat the way the Yanks did last night obscures the fact that anyone who had thought the Yankees were going to win this series likely assumed they would take Game 1 behind their ace, Sabathia. They may have done so in dramatic, soul-crushing fashion, but is that so much better than controlling the game from the outset? Would Michael Kay be so certain of a World Series berth for the Bombers if they had taken an early lead last night and went on to win?

Colby Lewis might not match up especially well with the Yankees, but if he and the Rangers can get though Phil Hughes and win tonight, the series will be all square with Cliff Lee looming large in Game 3 and the notoriously unreliable A.J. Burnett slated to take the ball for the Yanks in Game 4.

The Yanks have done what they can so far, but make no mistake, this series is far from over.

Hey now, hey now, don't dream it's over yet.

[Song notes: The sample quoted is from this song by Crowded House, which kind of sucks. But hey, it's appropriate!]

Lineups:

Yankees: Facing the right-handed Lewis, Curtis Granderson moves up to the two hole, while Nick Swisher is pushed back to sixth. Lance Berkman gets the start at DH and will be down in the eighth slot, where he managed his fair share of heroics in the Twins series.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Jorge Posada C
Lance Berkman DH
Brett Gardner LF

Phil Hughes RHP

Rangers: The bottom third of the Rangers' lineup gets turned over against the righty Hughes. Bengie Molina will catch instead of Matt Treanor, David Murphy gets the start in right over Jeff Francoeur and Mitch Moreland will man first base in lieu of Jorge Cantu.

Elvis Andrus, SS
Michael Young 3B
Josh Hamilton CF
Vladimir Guerrero DH
Nelson Cruz RF
Ian Kinsler 2B
David Murphy LF
Bengie Molina C
Mitch Moreland 1B

Colby Lewis RHP

162 > 3: In Defense Of Ron Gardenhire

Postseason baseball can be a thrilling month-long adventure, or it could be a terrible trip that lasts less than a week. A six month season will be judged on what happens to a team against top-tier competition under pressure-packed conditions in what can be as few as three games. Some players who have a terrible year can totally redeem themselves with a few big hits in a postseason series while others who have done yeoman's work since April can turn into a goat because of a split-second reaction in the outfield, one pitch left over the plate or a feeble at-bat with runners in scoring position.

The same goes for managers. A skipper can be viewed as a genius or a dummy after the fact, based on how he aligned his rotation, filled out his lineup card or inserted his relievers into a game. Or in this case, just the end results of three games against a superior team.

Take it away, David Pinto:

FIRE RON GARDENHIRE

Ron Gardenhire has now lost 12 straight playoff games. He’s been swept by the Yankees two years in a row. If he were the Yankees manager, he would have been fired last season. I really don’t care how well the team has done under him.

I believe what Pinto is trying to get at here is that he doesn't care how they've done during the regular season under Gardenhire, which of course is incredibly stupid. Regardless of how much you think a manager can influence a baseball game, 162 of them tells you a whole lot more about someone's abilities as a manager than three nights in October do.

Managers just don't have the ability to affect games over the short term, unless they want to pick a pitcher from High-A ball to start Game 1 of the series, pencil players into the wrong defensive positions and order them to bat from the opposite side of the plate they are accustomed to. Good managers are skilled at steering the ship over a interminable season and making good decisions that will work out well in the long run, but simply can't exert much pressure in the span of three games without trying to throw the series.

I'm sure losing 12 straight playoff games absolutely sucks for the Twins' organization and their fanbase, but what does the 2004 ALDS have to do with the series that concluded last night? Do you know how many players started games for the Twins in both series? Two. Michael Cuddyer, and Jason Kubel, and they might actually be the same person.

Pinto's not done yet:

The Twins team is good, but they need to be sent a message that getting swept every year is unacceptable. Firing Gardenhire will send that message.

I'm pretty sure that the Twins are aware that getting swept every year in unacceptable. Does this look like a bunch of dudes who are thrilled to be starting their offseason already?

What exactly has Gardenhire done to deserve being fired? What thing that was under his control did he screw up? Did he start someone that deserved to be benched? Was it the way he set up the starting rotation? A boneheaded bullpen move?

It's not any of those, of course. Pinto is just judging Gardy in black and white terms, which is something that a casual fan or George Steinbrenner at his most impulsive would do, not someone who goes by the Twitter handle @StatsGuru.

It's not like Gardenhire has some "Marty Ball" scheme and manages differently in the playoffs. It's not as if he has a pregame ritual wherein he runs around the clubhouse wearing only an unbuttoned Harmon Killebrew jersey screaming at the top of his lungs, which renders his pitching staff incapable of holding a lead.

The Twins, however, need someone ruthless in the playoffs who can find a way to win not only a game, but a series.

What "ruthless" mystery manager is going to be able to lead the Twins to postseason glory and by what means? Should we exhume John McGraw so he can get into a fistfight with an umpire? Perhaps an undead Gus Schmeltz would be willing to whip every fielder who makes an error with a riding crop and force the team to take batting practice using a lead pipe and jagged rocks.

Because THAT would send a message, goddammit. And that message would read, "The Minnesota Twins don't understand the concept of small sample sizes or the role that luck can play in a short playoff series, so they fired one of the best managers in baseball in favor of a sadistic zombie. Muthaphuckkkazzz1!!!!!"

New Poll: 30% Of Yankees Fans Know Nothing About Baseball

During the top of the 6th inning, the YES Network revealed the results of their nightly text poll which asked if viewers thought Ken Griffey Jr. would be a first ballot Hall of Famer or not.

It's a really stupid question, right? I mean, he is one of the guys that gets named when you talk about players who people think almost definitely didn't take performance enhancing drugs, probably the most iconic player of his era, played 22 seasons in the Bigs, made the All-Star team in 13 of them, has 630 home runs, won the 1997 AL MVP, has five more top 5 finishes and won 10 straight Gold Gloves while playing a premium defensive position. He has a better chance of becoming the first unanimus HoF inductee in the history of the game than not getting in on the first ballot.

Uh...

Michael Kay and Al Leiter took the results of the vote to task on air, so I'm not exactly breaking new ground here, but I can certainly use more vulgarity than they did.

Seriously, what the fuck? We think HoF voters are clueless, but if the vote was conducted among people who responded to a YES Network text poll, they would have made him wait an entire year (at the least) to get in because... um... they are fucking clueless?

I think there are a few possibilities here:

• People honestly have no concept of what it takes to get into the HoF and/or Ken Griffey's career because 14 year old kids are the only ones who respond to text polls and they weren't mentally conscious when Griffey was in his prime.
  
  
• It's a small sample size and, as we've delved into before, that sample is badly skewed.
  
  
• They are stupid. No one has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.
  
  
• The respondents are only Yankee fans, as opposed to baseball fans. But even still, if the only time you watched Griffey was when he played the Yankees and listened to the broadcast, there's a good chance that one of the announcers - amid the praise the were lavishing upon him over the clip of the home run he stole from Jesse Barfield - specifically referred to him as a "first ballot Hall of Famer".
  
  
• They just pressed the wrong button.
  
  
• Voters are confusing the term "first ballot" with "unanimous". Maybe people have just enough knowledge about the game to know that no one has ever gotten all the vote in their first year of eligibility but don't know the term or aren't paying close enough attention to the question.

It's probably a combination of all of these and some other things that I couldn't think of but I'm leaning towards the last one. One way or another, the results of the voting either illustrate the stupidity of the question or of the sample. Or both.

Matsui's Reception

Matt already summed up Hideki Matsui's warm welcome back to the Bronx in the recap of of the home opener and Jason added another part of the story that wasn't obvious on the broadcast in the comments, but I wanted to capture some of the images that YES showed of fans in the stands.

That yellow Godzilla banner is a familiar site and the woman in the blue jacket appears to be holding up an "MVP" sign. We'll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that there is more it than we can see.

Two guys who don't appear to be Japanese are holding up the flag of Matsui's home country. Probably big fans of his looking to show their appreciation. That's an awfully nice gesture.

Dude.

I don't think using the fictitious solicitations of a prostitute from a movie is the best way to convey to Matsui how much his contributions to the franchise meant to you, unless you are propositioning him for sex on behalf of the entire fanbase. And by the way, Full Metal Jacket was about the Vietnam War, you dummy. Hideki Matsui is Japanese, remember? Can you see why some people might find that offensive? No? Do I have to get Gunnery Sargent Hartman to explain it to you, maggot? BULLSHIT, I CAN'T HEAR YEAR YOU!

Is this guy an insensitive asshole who is making a somewhat racist joke? Just a clueless moron who doesn't know the origin of the reference? Some combination of the two? So many questions...

Today In Tabloid Hysteria

The Yankees have only played one game and there's not much in the way of meaningful conclusions to draw from it. Should we A) wait for the season to progress a little further and see which of the things we saw Opening Night actually develop into legitimate trends or B) start panicking because the Yankees bullpen is grossly inadequate and has an ERA of 13.50!?!1!??

Your move, George A. King III:

BOSTON - Could the Yankees regret Phil Hughes beating out four other arms to cop the fifth spot in the World Champions' rotation?

If you're asking if the Yankees will regret making the potentially catastrophic mistake of choosing the best pitcher for the open spot in their starting rotation, I think the answer is probably "no". Regardless of what happens this year, I think the Yankee brass is going okay with the fact that they picked the guy who was throwing the best during Spring Training. And of course, whether the decision turns out well or doesn't has nothing to do with how the bullpen performs and everything to do with how Hughes fares in the rotation.

But how good would Hughes have looked Sunday night out of the pen in that ugly 9-7 loss to the Red Sox in Fenway Park?

How good would True Yankee Set-Up Man™ Joba Chamberlain© have looked back there, with his blazing fastball and unhittable slider, back in his natural role as a reliever? Oh, that's right. He came out of the pen, needed 33 pitches to get through an inning and a third and gave up a run.

I've found that pitchers generally look better in your mind than they do on the mound. When you're just imagining them facing the other team, it's like "Pfffttttsssssssssss, zooooooommmmm, wooosssssshhhhhhhh! STRIKE OUT!!!"

/makes stupid faces and exaggerated pitching motions

Unfortunately, in real life, the batter has a say in what happens and he generally doesn't give a shit about how you think that pitcher should look or perform.

The "Argument That Never Ends" is supposed to be about Chamberlain's role. Now, maybe that same debate should center around Hughes.

Well, George, if you could take you own arguments to their logical conclusion, you'd realize that this debate still does involve Chamberlain. Both of them should be in the bullpen while one of two guys who are older and worse than them occupy a spot in the starting rotation? That's a terrible solution on two fronts because it's both ineffective and short-sighted. That's a tough trick to pull off. But what would you expect from the guy who said Aceves was "leading the race to be the 5th starter" three appearances into Spring Training?

It's a poor allocation of resources to put superior pitchers in the bullpen when they are capable of starting (not to mention the fact that neither Hughes nor Joba would even be the closer). They aren't going to get enough high leverage innings to justify their presence there. It doesn't make sense for the future of the franchise either, because the two pitchers who have the best chance of holding down spots in the starting rotation over the long term would be stuck in the 'pen. But other than that, the plan is GENIUS!

10 (Bad) Reasons Spring Training Is "Better" Than The Regular Season

I've never been to Spring Training. I wanted to make the trip this year, but couldn't really find anyone to go with and didn't have the gumption or disposable income to go down by myself as a strictly blog-related solo adventure. But I'm sure it would be a lot of fun.

Whether you are in Florida or Arizona this time of year, you are treated to a unique kind of baseball experience. As a fan you're much closer to the action and you get to see a lot of the team's prospects who will be distributed throughout the farm system when the season rolls around. You're there for the batting practice and long toss and all the other stuff that you don't usually get to see from April - October, especially from your couch. The weather is obviously much nicer than it is here in the Northeast which a considerable benefit after being subjected to three months of temperatures around or below freezing. Blog friends Kevin Kaduk and Craig Calcaterra both made the most out of their time hopping around the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues and produced some great material when they were down there.

So Spring Training is cool. It's different. But no one would actually say that it's better than the regular season. Would they?

Ladies and gentlemen, Ron Chimelis of MassLive.com would:

Once these teams head north, the air will be deflated out of my baseball balloon. In July, when others are setting their watches to the trade deadline, I will long for the carefree days of March, when the sport was at its most special and most pure.

Special? Yes, it's different than the regular season. Pure? Sure, if you're referring to the fact that it's not clouded by things like "competition", "excitement" and "anyone actually giving a shit". Being 8 years old was "carefree" and "special" and "pure", but it also sucked because you had no money, couldn't drive a car, your parents told you when you had to go to bed and no one really listened to what you had to say.

1. The ballparks. Not only are they cozy, they are named for people who have evidently done something worthwhile in their communities... It's much better than visiting stadiums named for multi-national corporations that were in the news when the nation's economy started going down the port-a-potty.

You get to see Major League players in what is typically a minor league setting, that's cool. But I assume you are referring to Citi Field? Well, the Mets just renamed their Spring Training facility "Digital Domain Park". I'm sure Mr. Domain has done some fantastic work in the Port St. Lucie area.

2. When a slugger hits a 440-foot homer, we can say it's because the pitcher was a 19-year-old kid who was buying a tux for his prom last year, not because the hitter was juiced.

Is that what you say when a person hits a massive home run, Ron? That they are "juiced"? I usually say something like "Wow, that was a bomb". Instead of trying to divine whether or not a player is taking performance enhancing drugs based on the distance of their home runs, I would recommend just trying to enjoy the game all year round.

3. The fans are universally nice. Most patrons, including those who line up at 8 a.m. to see what tickets are available, are either living on retirement money or on vacation.

Well... good for them? I don't attend baseball games to interact with courteous people. I go to see baseball players play baseball. And I definitely don't care how nice the people at the park are if I'm watching at home.

4. Lineups where the lowest uniform number is 67. I'd love the scorecard concession for these games.

If I wanted to watch a bunch of minor leaguers play, I'd watch a minor league game.

5. Parking for $5.

It's Florida and Arizona, parking should be free. In New York, thanks to the subway and the Metro North you don't even have to drive. You can even park your bike at Yankee Stadium now! What about the cheaper tickets and concessions? Sorry folks, Ron's in the press box so he doesn't care about what might matter to you the reader/fan. THIS IS RON'S LIST, SUCKERS!

6. Common sense. The umpires called a Red Sox-Astros game in the eighth inning Sunday after a 16-minute rain delay.

Common sense? Well in the regular season, it's sort of important that everyone plays the same amount of games, you know, for the playoffs and stuff. If it rains, they aren't just going to call it quits because the beat writers want to go home.

7. Fans who gloat about the Florida weather. This really annoyed me at first, but now I find it rather entertaining.

Nothing could be more relevant to a game of baseball than the fans talking about the weather. And everyone loves repetitive gloating about something they are not in any way responsible for!

8. Parking for $5. So good, I'm listing it twice.

It's much more likely that you couldn't think of another flimsy point to support your weak premise and instead of billing the piece as "9 things...", you copped out and repeated yourself.

9. The delightful contradiction over how much performance matters.

This is actually the worst part, by far, about Spring Training.

10. Interleague games that don't offend purists' sensibilities, split-squad games, games against Northeastern University and Boston College. You don't get this variety once the real games start.

There are plenty of good reasons that you don't get split-squad games against college teams when the regular season starts. No one wants that kind of "variety". If you want to see Bahston Cawledge and Nawtheastahn, then go down to fackin' Chestnut Hill.

I get what Ron is trying to get at here. He had a good time down in Florida and doesn't mind mailing in a hacky column proving just that. The problem is that most of his readers likely didn't go down to Florida and don't give a shit about the $5 parking, the nice weather, friendly people, or the ballpark names. They just want the season to start and the games to matter.

11 days.

Life Or Death

Forget competing for a spot in the rotation, according to the New York Post, Joba Chamberlain was apparently pitching for his life yesterday in Tampa. That or they felt the need to remark on the fact that he - like roughly 6 billion other people on this planet - is still in existence.

In the biggest start in the history of anything, Joba was spellbinding. With his entire pitching career hanging in the balance, he summoned a thoroughly gutsy performance, throwing three innings of one run ball in a fucking exhibition game. Hold your applause, please.

/end sarcasm

I know the Post is in the business of making things seem more important than they are, but the notion that Joba's destiny as a starting pitcher hinges on one fucking scrimmage is pretty laughable.

As our friend Joe Pawlikowski pointed out yesterday, almost everyone in the race to be 5th starter (sorry Chad Gaudin) has "led" the competition at one point or another.

First it was Sergio Mitre.

If, as the Yankees insist, there is a genuine competition for the No. 5 spot in Joe Girardi's rotation, then Sergio Mitre is atop the early leader board.

Then Alfredo Aceves.

Whatever approach Aceves is trying this spring with the Yankees, it appears to be working. Considered an unlikely contender for the fifth spot in the rotation, the right-hander has arguably outpitched the competition so far.

Then Phil Hughes.

Hughes has worked eight and two-thirds innings in spring training, allowing seven hits, two runs and two walks, with four strikeouts. If Hughes was the leader for the fifth spot coming into camp, he’s done nothing to lose that standing.

Now Joba is back into the mix. OR IS HE HEADED TO THE BULLPEN?

Some believe Chamberlain and Hughes in the bullpen make the Yankees a stronger team. But Chamberlain had pitched so poorly in the last game that the option of sending him to Triple-A was in the air before the game.

"We will discuss that [Triple-A], but he has had a lot of success out of the bullpen," Girardi said. "We put him back there in the playoffs and he did a good job."

And he apparently will get another chance to help the Yankees where he has been the best - in the bullpen.

Wha-wha-what?

I'm sorry, George A. King III, but I'm going to have to ask you to back up your logic train for inspection.

1. Some people think the Yankees would be better off with both Hughes and Joba in the bullpen. I don't know who these people are, but apparently G.A.K.III does.
   
   
2. Joba was pitching poorly, so the Yanks thought about sending him to AAA.
   
   
3. But the minors are no longer a possibility because of three innings that he pitched against the what was left of the Phillies' lineup in a Spring Training game.
   
   
4. Joe Girardi admitted that AAA is an option but also thinks that Joba was good out of the bullpen in the playoffs, which is, um, debatable.
   
   
5. JOBA WILL BE PITCHING OUT OF THE BULLPEN THIS SEASON.

I don't know who I feel worse for, King, for having to feed the beast and write this drivel or the poor schlub riding a subway somewhere, reading the Post, who actually takes this shit at face value.

17 more days until things actually start to matter. God help us until then.

Why I'm Rooting For Vazquez (Aside From The Obvious)

The fate of Javy Vazquez is certainly one of the more intriguing Yankee storylines coming into the 2010 season. We've discussed him in-depth multiple times here because he's about as polarizing a player as there is on the Yankees. In one camp, you have those who are encouraged by his record of above average performance and durability, along with his standout campaign in Atlanta in 2009. And in the other camp, you have those who cling to one half of a season that took place 5 years ago and one pitch thrown in that ALCS. Let's see where ESPN fantasy analyst Christopher Harris pitches his tent:

But the main reason I feel secure saying Vazquez won't repeat his 2009 season in 2010 is simple: I've seen this movie before. Vazquez has done this. In 2004, at age 28, Vazquez played a full season for the Yankees and did little to erase his reputation as a soft pitcher. Set free from the non-attention he enjoyed in six years as a Montreal Expo, he put together a blazing first half (10 wins, 3.56 ERA, 1.15 WHIP) and an All-Star Game appearance as a Yankee, then went belly-up when the pennant race got tight, posting a 6.92 ERA and 1.49 WHIP after the break. Plus, he famously allowed Johnny Damon's Game 7 grand slam in the Red Sox's improbable playoff comeback. (Remember ol' gutsy Vazquez relieving ol' gutsy Kevin Brown, Yanks fans?) And after posting a sub-4.00 ERA his each of his final three seasons in Montreal, Vazquez would go on to post a 4.00-plus ERA in four of his next five with the Yankees, Diamondbacks and White Sox.

Did you see the movie about Vazquez with the Braves too? Because that one came out just last year and he was pretty damn good in it. That'd be like saying "Sure Brad Pitt was great in Inglorious Basterds, but do you remember how shitty he was in Oceans Twelve!?!" And Harris even concedes that the first half of that movie was pretty good.

Apparently, pitching in New York doesn't carry real pressure until after the All-Star break. Nevermind that Vazquez might have been pitching with an injured shoulder during that stretch, let's just assume it was the pennant race that sunk him because that fits the narrative. Kind of like neglecting the fact that Kevin Brown loaded the bases for Vazquez, and blaming the whole grand slam on Javy. He can't handle the pressure of October!

I think it's also the bright lights. Vazquez has a 10.34 career playoff ERA, and in his four career playoff appearances, has never posted an ERA better than 8.68 in a single game.

Single game ERAs? Four postseason appearances? Are you familiar with the concept of statistical significance, WriterBoy? How about confirmation bias?

Sure he was terrific in Atlanta, where it's mostly Bobby Cox's close friends and relatives watching home games.

Atlanta drew an average of 29,304 fans per game last year. Bobby Cox must have a huge family.

I'm not going to go through the process of explaining why it's foolish to predict how someone will perform based on the intangible pressures for playing for once franchise or another, because I've already done that. There are people who buy into rational analysis and people who just want to think with their gut.

Unfortunately, there will be never be a shortage of those who insist on labeling Vazquez as "soft" and take smug joy in predicting that he won't be able to perform in New York based on 14 starts and one pitch 5 full seasons ago. Because of that, he's one guy in particular that I'd love to see prove his doubters wrong. Not only for the benefit of the Yankees, but for the principles of objective analysis.

"Making" Jeter A "Yankee For Life"®!1™!!1!©!

Tired of the talk about Derek Jeter's upcoming contract negotiations? Well, you're in luck! Kevin Kernan has a mind-bendingly redundant and asinine column in this morning's Post that bypasses Jeter's current situation and orders the Yankees to somehow make him part owner of the team after his career is over (but offers no blueprint of how that might be accomplished).

Why? Because, Jeter apparently needs to be a "Yankee for Life" and Kernan purports that making him an owner of the team is the only way to accomplish that.

Allow me to summarize the entirely (and inanity) of Kernan's article with four short, verbatim excepts of it:

• The Yankees need to find a way to make Derek Jeter a Yankee for Life. There's really only one way. At some point the Steinbrenner family would have to take him into the ownership group.
  
  
• The Yankees and Jeter will come together on a new deal at some point, but Jeter needs to be a Yankee for Life and there is a way to make him one. The Yankees need to work out a deal with Jeter where they allow him to become part of Yankees ownership after his playing days are complete.
  
  
• Jeter needs to be a Yankee for Life.
  
  
• Where will that ownership path take him? It should take him through The Bronx. Jeter should be a Yankee for Life.

Pop quiz, Kernan: How much of the team does Yogi Berra own? Yes, he played for and managed other teams, but does that diminish his legacy as a True Yankee 4EVAR®? Larry Bird is the President of Basketball Operations for the Pacers, do you think fans of the Celtics remember him any less fondly?

The Yankees don't need to "find a way to make Jeter a Yankee for life". The fact that Kernan is demanding that Jeter be magically granted an ownership stake in the team is a testament to the status he holds in the franchise regardless of whether they cut him in to it financially or not. Nothing needs to be done to make Jeter a lifelong Yankee except maybe give him another contract and invite him back to Old Timer's Day when it expires.

One thing is certain, Derek Jeter attains his goals. So you can be sure he will be an MLB owner somewhere.

Another thing that is certain? That is fucking ridiculous.

What if Derek Jeter's goal is to build a baseball stadium on the Moon and play his team's games there? Well, the rest is just a formality, right Kevin? THE WILL OF DEREK JETER CAN NEVER BE DENIED!

Jeter will be a championship owner just as he is a championship player.

The formula worked perfectly for Michael Jordan.

Craig walked through the logistics of making Jeter a part owner earlier this morning and there might be some potential for that. But Jeter has expressed interest in "calling the shots" and pooling together every dime he has made and then some isn't going to buy him any real authority in the Yanks organization. Making him a token, honorary sort of owner of the team is a fine idea, but the notion that any stake he is given will make him "Boss II" as Kernan says is patently ridiculous.

If Jeter wants to have actual control over a team (and doesn't want to be a GM), he's going to have to find a bunch of extremely wealthy investors who will hand him tons of money without asking for a say in how the team is run, target another franchise besides the Yanks or both.

Kevin Youkilis Has A New Stat For You Fackin' Nerds: OBSTR

I don't think we should expect players to embrace statistics. It's probably unrealistic even to think they should understand them. Stats are for those of us who observe the game and would like to try to better understand the big picture. They aren't tailored for those on the field, playing in the moment.

There are limited situations wherein a player might be able to adjust their strategy thanks to stats, but as I mentioned yesterday, defense isn't one of those situations. But you'd hope that players would at least understand the impulse to quantify defense objectively. Youk? Not so much: (h/t BBTF)

I don’t know how they do it. How do you measure defense? You make an error, you make an error. You get to a ball, you don’t get to a ball. What if you have a bad hamstring and you can’t get to a ball up the line? I don’t know what they evaluate, but a good ballplayer is a good ballplayer.

Well, yes, that's exactly how they try to measure defense. By tracking who gets to balls and who doesn't. Just because you have a legitimate excuse - like an injury - for not getting to a ball doesn't mean it shouldn't count against you.

In that statement is exactly why we need objective stats. And yes a "good ballplayer is a good ballplayer", but part of being good involves defense. There is no universal truth that tells us who is good at defense. There isn't even a central source where scouts come to a consensus about who is or isn't good. UZR clearly has its flaws as a system, but it attempts to find a numerical representation of who is good and who isn't. When we get our hands on Field f/x data, UZR is likely to be left in the dust, but it's the best we have now.

Youkilis was in a jovial mood as he picked apart some of the stats of the day - particularly Ultimate Zone Rating, or UZR, which is used to measure how many runs above or below average a fielder allows.

“I don’t go off all those UZRs . . . is it UZR?” Youkilis said. “I don’t even know what it is. I hope my UZR is sick, along with my OBSTR.

OBSTR? I thought Jim Bowden had just raised the bar in the field of make-believe baseball statistics when he invented the cutting edge metric "OBPATUZXYZ". However, Kevin Youkilis has apparently just upped the ante by creating the Obligatory Bullshit Stat Trivializing Rationality. It may go down as the WAR of anti-stat dunderheads.

Anyhow, since Youk isn't a fan of UZR, we thought we'd create a few, more tangible stats that he might excel in and ultimately embrace:

HErBS - Homo-Erotic Batting Stances

OCFH - Obnoxious Configurations of Facial Hair

HFTASO - Hissy Fits Thrown After Striking Out

UPCOM - Unprompted Charges Of The Mound

ABRF20 - Ass Beatings Received From a 20 year old

GWwMOB - Gritty Walks With Men On Base

EHWotF - Embarrassing Hats Worn off the Field

BBwSG - Bats Broken With Sheer Guts

PEWFC - Products Endorsed With Fecal Connotations

WMFR - Washing Machines Fucked By Rhinoceri

Lupica Is At It Again...

And by "it", I mean being a sniveling malcontent and finding things to criticize about the Yankees, lest they forget that they play in New York, where the media is notoriously tough on it's teams - mainly because of smarmy, self-righteous whiners like Lupica. To wit:

But for now the story, and the Yankees are sticking to it, is that they've got a by-God budget. That they couldn't afford what they say Damon wanted. Or what they thought he wanted. Or what they were afraid Damon's agent, Scott Boras, might try to weasel out of them, because nobody can out-weasel Boras.

Really? Johnny Damon turns out to be the one guy the Yankees can't afford? It would be like finding the one bar girl Tiger Woods didn't want to take home with him.

Topical! But something tells me that if Tiger were in rehab for drugs or alcohol, Lupica wouldn't be a cracking joke about the line he didn't want to snort of the gin and tonic he didn't want to chug.

For now, though, [the Yankees] desperately want Damon's departure to be somebody else's fault. Damon's. Boras'. Anybody but theirs. At the same time, Boras is out there selling his own version of things, door to door if he has to, the same way he peddled his own self-serving version on Carlos Beltran's knee surgery.

I really don't think the Yankees care whose fault it is that Damon isn't coming back. They didn't fire him. They didn't trade or release him. His contract expired and he became a free agent. This would be like trying assign blame for my departure from college because I didn't go back to Bentley for grad school.

But does anybody believe that Johnny Damon, who helped beat the Yankees in 2004 when he was with the Red Sox and played such a spectacular World Series for the Yankees five years later against the Phillies, has to go because of money? Or because Boras made Brian Cashman mad?

Yes, how could the Yankees let Damon go when he made one play against them five years ago, and then another one for them last year? How stupid can the Yankees be, not giving Damon all the money he wants because he played well in two World Series five years apart?!?1

Cashman might be a little perturbed by this situation, but it's not like he did something irrational because he was angry at Scott Boras. He was keenly aware that the Yankees had the upper hand in the situation and Boras (and to a lesser extend, Damon) refused to give in. Now those two are free to roam the open market and find a one year deal like the one Bobby Abreu had to settle for last year. Sometimes when you play hard to get, you don't get got.

Cashman 1, Boras 0, Lupica -10.

[Update: TYU has a much more thorough takedown of the piece and Craig from CTB has a much more efficient one. But guess who couldn't agree more with Lupica!]

Jonathan Papelbon & His "Brain"

The man of a million mixed metaphors has spoken, which means we have listened. This time, he chatted with ESPN's Gordon Edes (at times in Pig Latin) to discuss his future son, his unawareness of the Red Sox offseason moves, his contract situation and more:

Papelbon's wife, Ashley, is pregnant with the couple's second child, a brother for toddler daughter Parker. The child is due in April.

"Got a name picked out,'' Papelbon says. "Gunner Roberts. The significance? Nothing, man. Just a badass name, so we went with it.''

Gunner Roberts Papelbon. Other "badass" names that just missed the cut:

• Bear Grylls Papelbon
• Shooter Blaze Papelbon
• Rambo Rocky Papelbon
• Cannonball Titcomb Papelbon
• Jason Bourne Papelbon
• Maximus Damien Papelbon
• Thunder Zeus Papelbon
• Axl Rodstock Papelbon
• Hulk Hogan Papelbon
• Rowdy Rocco Papelbon
• Magnús VerMagnússon Papelbon
• Tyrannosaurus Rex Papelbon

If we missed any, leave them in the comments.

"I had no idea we got [John] Lackey until [trainer Mike] Reinold came down to see me, just a few days ago,'' he said. "I swear to you. I don't know anything about the ballclub, but I know the words to the 'Mickey Mouse Clubhouse' song.''

Adrian Beltre deal? He hadn't heard. Casey Kotchman about to be traded to the Mariners? Nope. Mike Cameron? "Cameron, Mike Cameron?'' he said. "We got him? I swear to you, I didn't know.''

The skeptic might recall how Papelbon insisted that his dog ate the ball with which the Red Sox clinched the 2007 World Series -- a story that smacked of urban legend -- but Papelbon pleads that his ignorance is real.

Only a true intellectual pleads for others to acknowledge his true ignorance.

It was not for a lack of trying. The Red Sox last winter offered their closer a two-year deal for about $14.75 million, within a couple hundred thousand dollars of what Papelbon was seeking, according to a source close to the negotiations. "I ixnayed their offer,'' Papelbon said.

If his defense, Pig Latin is a Romance Language to people from Mississippi.

"Heck yeah, as far as what me and my brain are thinking,'' Papelbon said, "but I haven't even sat down with my agents [Seth and Sam Levinson] yet. We don't even have a number in place. There haven't been any discussions between me and the Red Sox and my agents at all.''

Jonathan Papelbon and his brain. Quite the image, isn't it?

Johnny Damon Would Give Himself A 4 Year Deal

One of the more absurd tidbits of the offseason emerged yesterday when Larry Stone of the Seattle Times dropped the following chestnut into an article about the Mariners' interest in signing Johnny Damon (h/t BBTF):

One other rather bizarre Mariner-related Damon anecdote. I heard from someone who works around the Mariners that after Bill Bavasi was fired in 2008, and the Mariners were searching for a new general manager, Damon actually was telling people he would be interested in the job. This person insisted that Damon seemed dead serious, even though he was still an active player. It didn't go anywhere, of course, but I always thought it was an interesting notion. I meant to ask Damon about it last year when the Yankees came to town, but never got a chance.

Johnny Damon seems like a pretty decent guy and when his career is done, he'll probably be a borderline Hall of Famer. He's played for four different organizations (including ones run by Billy Beane, Theo Epstein and Brain Cashman) and been on two World Series winners. The man certainly has an eye for talent. All that said, campaigning for a front office position is one of those times that being a self-proclaimed "idiot" (and "writing" a book about it) might work against you a bit.

Clearly no team with any brains is going to hand over the keys to their franchise to Johnny Damon; I'm certain that any number of assistant GMs or scouting directors or other front office personnel would make a better general manager. If this is true, it makes his request for a four year deal seem downright realistic by comparison.

Mondays With Curtis

Mitch Albom is very good at writing about "life". Life in quotation marks is inspiring and fits neatly into books which sell lots of copies and get turned into TV movies. "Life" teaches you important lessons about compassion and morality and kindness and faith and - most prominently in Albom's books - death. Unfortunately, baseball has little to do with "life" and everything to do with reality, so Mitch isn't very good at writing about it.

In his column in the Detroit Free Press yesterday, Albom tries to talk those Tiger fans who are distraught about the loss of Curtis Granderson down from the ledge. It's an admirable goal since Detroit lost the de facto face of their franchise and a guy who is by all accounts a very likable person. Except Mitch chooses to pretend that Granderson was never good in order to do so.

What did we know about Curtis Granderson? He had a great smile. He had a foundation. He made a few highlight plays in centerfield and had a good first half and a not-so-good second half in 2009.

That's what someone who is a casual fan of say, the Marlins knows about Curtis Granderson. We (as the supposed audience of this column - Detroit Tigers' fans) actually know a lot more about him than that. We know that in 2007 he hit 23 triples, 23 home runs and stole 26 bases while being caught only once which is pretty fucking amazing. We know that he's hit 94 home runs over the past 4 years which is great for a center fielder. We know that he is a pretty awesome player who doesn't cost that much money, neither of which are things that Dontrelle Wills, Jeremy Bonderman or Nate Robertson can say.

He'll also be 29 years old. Been an All-Star once.

Well he is 28 years old, so like anyone else who is under the age of 29, if he doesn't die tragically he'll be 29 years old eventually. And guess what year he made that All-Star team? This year of course, which was by far the worst of his previous three.

Only once has he hit 30 home runs or batted .300.

Another way of saying that would be "He has both hit 30 home runs and batted .300 before, although in separate seasons" which doesn't sound like the degradation that Albom tries to make it out to be.

He hit .095 in his lone World Series.

My favorite part of this sentence is the fact that Albom uses the word "lone" as if the fact that he made it to a World Series in his four full seasons as a pro was a knock against him. All the while, Albom is seemingly oblivious to the fact that 21 at bats over six games probably isn't a sufficient sample size to draw an actual conclusion from, especially when Granderson hit .313/.378/.719 in the ALDS and ALCS that same year.

Last year, he was benched occasionally against left-handers.

Could you be a little more vague here, Mitch? You know that they track statistics based on what hand a pitcher throws with, right? You could cite something called a "platoon split" if you wanted to make the case that he couldn't hit lefties.

Granderson was as close to a star in this town as the franchise had, mostly because Justin Verlander is too low key (and plays once every five games), and guys with flashier numbers -- like Miguel Cabrera or the 2007 Magglio Ordoñez -- seem eminently distant. They bolt town the minute the season is over. They seem... rented.

That is impossible to fathom. You mean to tell me that two players from the beautiful tropical nation of Venezuela return to that country to spend time with their families instead of staying in Detroit in the fucking dead of winter?

But baseball-wise, he was no Derek Jeter, a guy justifiably adored in New York for achievement and personality. He was no Albert Pujols in St. Louis. He was more like the closest thing we had to those guys, which says something about the Tigers.

Yes, it says that they have not been lucky enough to develop and retain an incredibly gifted franchise cornerstone player who has pretty much already punched his ticket to the Hall of Fame. Look around the league right now, who else fits this mold? Um, no one? Choke on that one Curtis Granderson... You may be an above average baseball player and an overall class act, but like everyone else in the MLB, you are not Derek Jeter or Albert Puljos!

"It's sad, but most likely you're not gonna see players in the same uniform for 10, 12, 15 years anymore," manager Jim Leyland told me last week. Leyland understood fans' frustration. He said Granderson was everything good about baseball. But he fell short of saying "we're losing a great talent" or "the heart of our team."

I know it would probably be futile to try to explain this to someone who cited a player's batting average in six games as a crucial stat, but the Amount of Praise Lavished Upon a Player By Their Manager After They Have Been Traded (APLUPBTMATHBT for short) is not a very good measure of their value.

What's surprising is how thin the "beloved superstar" tag has become for the Tigers over the past decade. Pudge Rodriguez? How connected was he to Detroit, really? Todd Jones? Bobby Higginson? Hardly superstars. We liked their longevity.

Considering the team lost 83, 96, 106, and 119 games in each of the first four years of the decade, it's really not that surprising at all. And just for fun, Bobby Higginson only hit 30 home runs and batted over .300 once and he played left field during the steroid era.

Granderson became someone to embrace, at least a bit, the way we once embraced Gibby or Tram, even if he wasn't that caliber player here, nor did he win the things they won. Good talent. Great guy. But I wonder if we don't lament the idea of him leaving as much as the departure itself.

But don't worry guys, Curtis Granderson the sixth person you'll meet in heaven.

Sherman Takes His Act To The Big Stage

That's right folks, ol' Joel actually turned his incoherent blog post about A-Rod deserving the Sportsman of the Year award into a column for the Post. It's worded differently, and amazingly, it might make even less sense. He continues his character assassination of Tiger Woods despite any real evidence of wrongdoing and even asks "What's next for Jeter? An Oscar? An Emmy? The Nobel Peace Prize?"

This is a bullshit topic (which is why I'm burying this post at 7:00AM) but Sherman has re-invented his article so I'm re-tooling my takedown. Here are two points Sherman makes (among countless other ones I take issue with) that do a fair job of summing up his argument:

• This feels like lifetime achievement.
  
  
• And Rodriguez should win this award. He embodies where sports are now. He is the intersection of illegal performance enhancers, advancements in sports medicine, celebrity and on-field genius.

He takes issue with the notion that Jeter is winning it because of lifetime achievement but thinks that A-Rod should win it because he "embodies where sports are now". I fear he may be taking the word "Sportsman" a bit too literally.

The Sportsman of the Year award is a pretty arbitrary award given out for a certain mix of on and off-the-field achievements. There is no concrete mold into which the winner always fits, but I think it makes a whole lot more sense to give it to someone who has always represented a high level of class and character (not to mention success in competition) over someone who has been a notorious preening egomaniac in the year he was forced to admit that he did steroids.

Is that fact that he ceased to be a complete trainwreck remarkable in some ways? Yes. Does that make him deserving of any sort of award? Absolutely not.

Too Bad I'm Not A Parent...

Or else I could teach my children the virtues of hating the Yankees (h/t Joe P):

My mom, Michele, is one of the nicest people in the world (I'm admittedly a bit biased, but this is true). She finds the good in everyone. Well, just about everyone. She cannot stand the New York Yankees! This does not make my mom unique. Throughout the Major League Baseball playoffs, I have encountered only one person who wants the Yankees to win the World Series.

With an tiny niche fanbase like the one the Yankees have, I find this statement to be totally believable.

The Yankees have the highest payroll every year. This year their payroll is nearly 50% higher than the 2nd highest payroll (the New York Mets)! They play in a stadium built two years ago [sic] for more than one billion dollars. During the offseason, the Yankees signed C.C. Sabbathia [sic], A.J. Burnett, and Marx [sic] Teixeira for nearly half a billion dollars in long-term contracts. It's clear that rooting for the Yankees is roughly the same as cheering for the bully down the street to bloody another nose.

Except that bully hasn't won a fight in 9 years. It's clear that picking on a pop psychology piece for baseball inaccuracies is like picking on a baseball piece for trying to use pop psychology. But that doesn't make it any less enjoyable.

But how should we tell our children to hate the Yankees?

"I hate the Yankees" does little to teach our children lessons about hope, persistence, and teamwork. We ought to focus on the positive characteristics of the underdog, rather than the negative qualities about the evil Yankees. Below are five suggestions for what parents can say to kids about the Yankees while staying away from negativity:

Get your notepads ready:

1) "The Twins never quit, even though they don't have the same amount of money to spend on players as the Yankees." (a message about doing the best with what one has)

Or about making excuses.

3) "Even though the Yankees make a lot of money, watch their players. They hustle, encourage each other, and play great baseball. To win, a team must hit, field, and pitch better than their opponent." (a message that money doesn't get hits, and that substance wins over style)

Except the players on the Yankees make a lot of money because they play great baseball, not despite the fact.

4) "Notice how focused all of the players in the World Series are on each play." (a message about concentration, and how all players can work on this skill)

"But not the Yankees who are only calculating how much money they are making with each passing out".

5) If all else fails, remind your kids that the Phillies won the World Series in 2008 and that the Yankees have not won a championship since 2000.

An important lesson in sportsmanship: It's not whether you win or lose... it's whether you win or lose.

Please, folks, educate your children about the virtues of hating the Yankees. Their fragile little brains can't handle the realities of "free agency", the "size of the market they play in", or " the desire to win being more important than making profit on a sports franchise".

This Is Not The Regular Season!

As we covered in yesterday's roster changes, Francisco Cervelli was removed from the Yankees roster for the World Series, leaving the Yankees with a more conventional two catcher roster construction. Given the impact this move has on the Yankees' roster flexibility, we assumed that Jorge Posada would now be catching A.J. Burnett. Then came Joe Girardi's pre-game media session yesterday:

“It’s something (catching Molina) that we’ll discuss,” he said. “But as I’ve said all along, it’s worked pretty well. And in the course of the season you go with two catchers all the time. I’m still comfortable using Molina, and if I have to, pinch hit Jorge.”

/holds breath
//counts to ten
///exhales

Where to begin on this one? Joe Girardi did some things this regular season that pissed me off. He has made some decisions this post-season that I thought were the wrong ones to make. At the same time, he's taken some heat that he probably didn't deserve. This latest comment has got my blood up again.

Here are some other things that you do in the course of the season:

• You use five starters, but I haven't seen Joba Chamberlain before the seventh inning, Chad Gaudin in anything but mop up duty, or Sergio Mitre anywhere in the tri-state area during the post-season.


• You (supposedly) give A-Rod a day off once a week. But he's played every inning of every post-season game, including the one that was safe enough for Chad Gaudin to pitch.


• You give injury prone veterans like Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui a day off every so often to keep them fresh, but they've started every game of the playoffs.


• You keep Matsui and his balky knees out of the field all season long, but you don't rule out using him in the field in Games Three through Five.


• You give a slumping player like Nick Swisher a day off when he's in a four for thirty two slump, but he too has started every game.


• You don't use Mariano Rivera for 4+ out saves everyday, but he's averaging four outs per appearance in the post-season and has two outings of two plus innings.

And I'm not remotely suggesting that Girardi should have done otherwise on any of the six above points. What I am trying to say is that when it comes to line ups or certain pitching moves in the post-season, the decision making process is often quite different than in the regular season. Just because Jose Molina would get a start each time through the rotation in the regular season does not mean he should do so in the World Series.

The Yankees are in an 0-1 hole; starting Molina tonight would be borderline suicidal. Yet Girardi was non-committal about who would catch when making his post-game comments last night.

I was dubious of Molina's ability to coax a better game out of A.J. Burnett to begin with. Burnett's performance in Game Five of the ALDS only shoots more holes in that logic. At this point, I'm diametrically opposed to the idea of Molina behind the plate at any point unless it's in the event of an injury or a blow out. If the Yankees choose to go with a three man rotation, Burnett's second start would be at Citizens Bank Park. If Molina were to start that game the Yankees line up would feature what amounts to two automatic outs at the bottom of the order.

Part of me feels bad to hammer on points like this with the Yankees being in the World Series, but poor decisions like these can be the difference between winning and losing. Girardi is free to make whichever choices he wishes, but please don't insult my intelligence by trying to defend an unorthodox move as something that would be done in the regular season.

Girardi's Biggest Mistake

Joe Girardi has made some questionable decisions throughout this season and they've occurred at a much higher rate during the postseason. There were several short essays written about his tendencies yesterday over here. Most of of the debate focused on pitching changes and other substitutions, but his (and Brian Cashman's) biggest error may have come in roster construction:

sbarro philly foot sausage 8:31 am
I mentioned this yesterday, but I am still intrigued to hear what everyone thinks.
I have a question: do you all think that maybe Girardi made a mistake in not adding Cody Ransom to the roster?

I had an idea last night, that Cody could potentially be inserted as a pinch runner who could steal home or score in a squeeze play at the plate.

Here’s my thinking: the man can jump from a standing position atop a 60 inch box. When the throw reaches the catcher, the catcher would be in a squatted reach position to tag the runner, in this case, Cody Ransom. But Cody could simply take the catcher by surprise, jump over him and touch the plate.

What do you guys think? I think it would work, and could be one of the most spectacular plays since the 2001 Jeter shovel pass to Posada in the ALDS

The only appropriate response is this.

MLB Reviewed Rivera Spitgate Tape

And you're not going to believe this, but they didn't find any evidence that Mo spit on the ball. Joel Sherman with the scoop:

The initial reaction by the league had been that the video plus still pictures they have of the incident were inconclusive if Rivera actually spit on or near the ball. But after further review of what they had, the Commissioners Office determined that Rivera was not spitting directly on the ball.

On a couple of the still pictures in MLB's possession, it apparently looks as if Rivera is spitting near, but not on, the ball. Also, as even the league office is aware, Rivera is a player who spits constantly while in action.

Glad we solved that one. Now the Sherlock Holmeses over at Halos Heaven can move on to other pressing issues such as the Yankees' rampant steroid use, FOX's blatant favoritism towards them, and the fact the umpires are on the Yanks' payroll. (Not kidding, they have suggested all of those things in the past three days.)

Checking In With The Best Fans In The World

Yesterday Mike Lupica declared Yankees fans the best in the world, not just the MLB. We took exception to that, and figured that today would be a good day to reassess that statement.

Let's see how these unparalleled, die-hard, loyal, knowledgeable and passionate fans dealt with their first loss in 17 days (all [sic'd], obviously). Enjoy:

Gardner in CF 8:36 pm
melky didn’t even go after that. i hope he never puts on a Yankees uniform again.

Mark B 8:38 pm
Torre would not have made that error….Girardi better learn from the mistake and move on tomorrow

Howie 8:40 pm
Girardi manages like a kid who found his Fathers gun.

EY 8:42 pm
Here’s a suggestion.

Take out Aceves and add Bruney.

swish 8:44 pm [Presumably not the actual Nick Swisher]
If they go on to lose the series i hope they fire Girardi.

What an awful display of managing.

Asseves sucks and he is the last to know! Wow.

Joker, The 8:44 pm
I hate Girardi. My dog could manage better than him. And as for Cano, Swisher, and Melky? They can all go to hell.

100 pitches of fun... 8:45 pm
Girardi is CLEARLY in over his head in these games. He is “choking” more than Arod ever did from 04-07. It’s almost like he gets too nervous and doesn’t know what to do.

H.E.PennyPacker 8:46 pm
Fire Girardi. He is incompetent.

Jeana 8:49 pm
I would bench Melky tomorrow….really. And Cano….I don’t even know WHAT to say about his performance.

Upstate 8:53PM
[About Melky] Lazy, overrated, pudgy, idiot who swings at crap – every time !!!

haiku-man 8:57 pm
Why did Joe walk to the mound so much?He has others that can relay his message. We never seen the pitch coach. I HOPE HE CAN’T SLEEP...

Oh no, Joe G over-managing again 9:00 pm
Joe Girardi needs to get fired for the sins he committed today….
This is even worse than Grady Little….
GOD AWFUL

CR9 9:01 pm
While I will not blame Girardi for using Aceves, I have come to my final opinion on Aceves. He cannot and should not be used anymore this postseason. I would rather have Jerry Hairston Jr. pitching than Ace. Aceves is a worthless bum.

On a side note, did anyone notice the 15 cheap calls at least on the right side of the plate in favor of the Angels...

The Ghost 9:06 pm
The thing that Joe needs to learn about the post season is that some guys have the gut for it and some don’t. He should be able to look in a players eyes before the game and know if they could be of any use to him. The eyes can never lie. When a guy like Drob is feeling it you have to milk it for all its worth.

Trevor 9:07 pm
Explain to me how this years offense is better in the playoffs now then years past?
Outside of Arod and Jeter they look no different then typical October Yankee offense: Can’t get sac fly’s, can’t hit with RISP, can’t bunt except for Jeter….
The offense absolutely sucks right now and I’m wondering will they get out of it the rest of the way.

Oh no, Joe G over-managing again 9:07 pm
Aceves should never be used again in the postseason.

Every time he comes in, we give up a run.

Fire Girardi, bench Melky and Aceves, and we win WS.

KarlHungus212 9:08 pm
Every single person watching the ballgame not named Girardi knew it was idiotic to take Robertson out after facing two batters, easily retiring them. Girardi must go regardless of the outcome of the rest of the postseason.

Jeremy 9:10 pm
Tex was a loser of the game. Yeah he helped save some runs and made some great plays but he was horrible at the plate. It’s like he never saw a breaking pitch in his life. The same goes for Cano, Swisher, and Cabrera. All losers of the game.

100 pitches of fun... 9:16 pm
Is the $180m 1st baseman actually going to show up tomorrow? Or is he trying to take Arod’s old job.

CR9 9:18 pm
There is a reason why the Red Sox were able to easily sweep 2 World Series and come back from 3-0 and 3-1 defecits and 2-0 deficits in Division Series. They do not get their ABs changed by umpires cheap calls.

We have had to work for every win this postseason. Nothing has come easy, mainly due to the HP umpires...

KarlHungus212 9:19 pm
JoeT, regular season is not what counts in New York. Girardi has proven to everybody that he is in over his head managing this team. A meat popsicle could have managed this team to a division title.

NOW is when it counts and Joe has managed worse than anybody I’ve seen in my life.

And finally, I believe that "dave c." here may be advocating some form of terrorism...

dave c. 9:21 pm

Even we are up 2-1, we are not going to win the series… not unless someone blows up Angels stadium.

Series over. Angels in 6 games.

July 10, 2009, Yankees led 4-0, Angels won.
July 11, 2009, Yankees led 4-0, Angels won.
October 19, 2009, Yankees led 3-0, Angels won.

Hmmm... quite the convincing argument he puts forth. The Angels have comeback against the Yankees two other times this season, therefore the Yankees are going to lose the next three games. Brilliant.

Quite the resilient fan base, huh? One loss and Girardi is no better "meat popsicle" and should be fired either immediately or after they lose this series (which they inevitably will). "Asseves" can never be used in the postseason again (and/or somehow be replaced by Brian Bruney despite rules to the contrary). Three starting position players can "go to hell" and Melky should never play for the Yankees again. Despite several huge and potentially game-saving defensive plays, Mark Teixeria is a loser. Even though the Yanks are 5-1 in the postseason, the umps are screwing us. And most devastatingly, the series is now officially over.

BEST. FANS. EVVVARRR!!!11!1!