Game 78 Recap

CC Sabathia carried a shutout into the 8th inning and had allow just four baserunners to that point. It was widely assumed that since the Yankees were facing Ryan Rowland Smith, their bats would come to life, but instead Sabathia had only a two run cushion at that point.

The Big Fella walked the light-hitting Josh Bard on four straight pitches to begin the 8th and after getting Michael Saunders to pop out, allowed a single to Ichrio to put the tying run on base. Sabathia induced another very shallow fly to Chone Figgins but with Russell Braynan at the plate, Jorge Posada let a change up slip past him and the runners advanced to second on third. Braynan then pulled a clean base hit to right field and spoiled not only CC's shutout but the Yankees lead as well.

The tie was short-lived, however. Mark Teixeira came up with a one out single in the bottom half of the inning and Alex Rodriguez took a high fastball from David Aardsma the other way and into the short porch in right, thereby stealing back the win Sabathia rightfully deserved.

The Yanks did at least salvage some dignity in this series after losing the first two and they'll welcome Toronto to the Bronx for a three game set starting tomorrow night.

Game 78: Fell On Black Days

Hosting the lowly Mariners and their punchless offsense, logic dictated that the Yankees had a relatively easy series on their hands heading into the holiday weekend. Instead, the M's put up a seven spot in both of the first two games while the Yankee offense couldn't muster a counterattack.

It's a weekday matinee as the Yanks look to avoid the sweep. CC Sabathia looks to play the role of stopper. The big lefty won all five of his June starts, posting a 2.19 ERA over 37 innings and holding opponents to a .191/.269/.252 line. He went at least seven innings in each outing and has kept the ball in the yard since June 3rd. The Yanks could use some more of that today.

The Yankee bats will take their hacks against John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt Ryan Rowland-Smith, his 6.18 ERA, 6.75 FIP, and 2 HR/9. With any luck that'll be the cure for what ails them. The Yankee bats fell on black days over the past two games. As they play in the beautiful July sunshine today, we're hopeful things will get brighter.

Whatsoever I've feared has come to life
And whatsoever I've fought off became my life
Just when every day seemed to greet me with a smile
Sunspots have faded
Now I'm doing time
Now I'm doing time
Cause I fell on black days
I fell on black days

-Lineups-

Yankees:
Brett Gardner returns to the lineup for the first time since Sunday. Jorge Posada gets his first start behind the plate this series, opening up the DH spot for A-Rod to get a half day off.

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

LHP CC Sabathia

Mariners:

Ichiro Suzuki RF
Chone Figgins 2B
Milton Bradley DH
Jose Lopez 3B
Josh Wilson SS
Ryan Langerhans LF
Josh Bard C
Michael Saunders CF

LHP Ryan Rowland-Smith

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.