We Didn't Think It Would Be That Easy, Did We?

Good morning, Fackers. That's not one of you on the left with your head down, is it? If it is, we'll just assume that the glass of white wine is there because your girlfriend got up to go to the bathroom. Either way, cheer up. It was a tough loss but let's just take a deep breath.

It's funny how no one picked the Yankees to sweep this series (well, except Iracane) but we still feel like they should win every time they play, isn't it?

The same thing happened against the Angels in the ALCS. We nodded along with all the predictions saying how the series could be "one for the ages" and knew the Halos were a formidable foe, but were still shocked when Vlad Guerrero hit that homer off of Andy Pettitte and when Nick Swisher popped out to end Game 5 (another miserable A.J. Burnett outing with an unlikely comeback) against Brian Fuentes. Similarly, we applauded the notion that the Fall Classic featured the two best teams in baseball and assumed it would be a great series. Unfortunately, for the series to be great, both teams have to lose some games.

Did anyone assume that we were going to take all three games in Philly? I highly doubt it, but after the Bombers took the first two, our expectations completely changed.

After the top half of the first inning, it was easy to imagine Cliff Lee finally realizing that he was human and A.J. Burnett pitching well enough to beat him. Even when Derek Jeter came to the plate in the 9th, it was hard not to picture him poking a hit through the infield and bringing the go-ahead run to the plate with no one out.

Unfortunately, both of those fantasies were squashed almost immediately by a homer off the bat of Chase Utley and a double play turned by he and Jimmy Rollins, respectively.

As for Burnett, he threw 56 pitches and exactly half of them were strikes. He faced 15 batters but retired only 6. He walked twice as many men (4) as he struck out (2). IIATMS ran down the gory details of his outing via pitch f/x. Judging by the charts, it becomes even more apparent that Burnett had all the accuracy and precision of a greased up fire hose.

There will surely be the temptation to point to the fact that he only had three days of rest as the reason his command was so poor but we've seen this plenty of times from Burnett on 4 and even 5 days of rest. In fact, we just saw it early in Game 5 in Anaheim. As much as we don't want to realize it, his dominant performance in Game 2 of the series was about as likely as his meltdown in Game 5.

But the Yankees knew what they signed up for when they inked Burnett to that $82.5M deal: Incredible stuff with so-so command. If they wanted a guy who they thought could be consistently average all the time, they would have went after Derek Lowe instead. So we take the good with the bad and move on.

He's A Better Golfer Than He Was A Closer

Golf is definitely Jay's territory around here, as I generally have no interest in the sport unless it involves a windmill and/or a clown combined with drunken gambling.

However, I couldn't help but notice the results of the final round of The Barclays over in Jersey City yesterday, where Heath(cliff) Slocum(b) out lasted Tiger and the other guys to win the tournament.

Looking to sell high, the PGA Tour promptly traded him to the Nationwide Tour in exchange for Derek Lowe and Jason Varitek.

Game 72: Rubberband Man

A key to a successful baseball season is winning series; it's the surest way of having a winning record. The Yankees are 2-0-1 in four game series, 1-2-0 in two game series, and 11-6 in three game series for an overall series mark of 14-8-1, but have dropped three of the last four. Of the 17 three game sets they've completed, 11 have had the third and final game determine who took the set. The Yankees are 8-3 in those rubber games, but have lost two in a row to the lowly Marlins and lowlier Nats. The Yanks look to end that rubber game losing streak tonight and take the series from the Braves.

Andy Pettitte gets the start tonight, and he's a bit of a rubberband man himself. As Joe Girardi likes to say, Andy has a tendency to bend, but not break. Pettitte's had some ugly outings this year, yet his record sits at 7-3 and the team is 10-4 in his starts. On May 18th, he picked up a win against the Twins despite allowing 12 hits over 6.2 IP. On May 29 in Cleveland, his back acted up on him. He allowed 10 baserunners in 5 IP, but he held the Tribe to just one run.

In his last start though, Pettitte had no such troubles. Friday against the Marlins Pettitte threw seven innings of one run ball, allowing just three baserunners and fanning seven. He even helped his cause with an RBI double. He looks to build on that tonight as he returns to the city that saw the greatest perfomance of his impressive career. Lifetime, Pettitte is 5-1 with a 3.13 ERA against the Braves in the regular season and has two big postseason victories in Atlanta.

The Yanks will be opposed by old foe Derek Lowe, who has been tagged with the loss in his last two starts. In his time with the Red Sox, Lowe made 15 starts and 24 relief appearances against the Yanks, going 8-10 with 6.07 ERA and 1.68 WHIP. I'll take more of that please. Lowe and Pettitte went head-to-head twice, both in 2002, with both pitchers taking a win and a loss each.

It was rumored that Alex Rodriguez might get his weekly day off tonight, but he is in the lineup, meaning he'll likely skip Sunday's Subway Series game in order to get back-to-back days off. Cody Ransom is in the lineup however, as Robinson Cano was a late scratch. According to Pete Abe, Cano's claims he's just getting a day off, but his wrist was also taped. Given that he was in the original lineup, it appears that the Yankee Cloak and Dagger game has returned for the second consecutive day.

Oh, and just for good measure, I'll throw this in too.



Hey y'all prepare yourself for the Rubberband Man
You never heard a sound like the Rubberband Man
You're bound to lose control when the Rubberband starts to jam

Right On Time

Via MLBTR, The Post has quotes from Omar Minaya and Jeff Wilpon indicating that the Mets could expand their payroll:

GM Omar Minaya confirmed to The Post yesterday that he has permission from ownership to increase the payroll.

"We've been told that whatever we need to do to get to help us win, we're going to try to do it," Minaya said. "[The payroll is] not unlimited. But there is the ability to increase if we need areas that need to be addressed."

COO Jeff Wilpon also said yesterday, "Omar has the flexibility to do what he has to do to give us a winning team."

Now they are willing to take on salary? Where was all this cash when Derek Lowe and Adam Dunn were still available? Instead of signing players in the best free agent market in recent history, they are going to shed prospects to take on guys with overvalued contracts?

Orlando Hudson for $4M and give nothing up? Hell no! Part with minor league talent for the right to take on another team's terrible contract? Absolutely! Have fun with that.

Wilpon: Money Ain't A Thang

Rob Neyer quotes Will Leitch in more depth than I'm about to, but here's what Will's blog post for the New Yorker boils down to:

The Yankees are opening a new stadium and, as a result, changing the economic infrastructure of baseball with their spending. The Mets are opening a new stadium and are being outbid for their target free agents. Bernie Madoff might not to be blame. But something must be.

I'm sure there is some feeling of impending doom when the future $400M sponsor of their new digs is depending on a $20B fix from Uncle Sam. But the Mets have the same built-in advantages, perhaps to a slightly lesser extent, that the Yankees do. They are moving into a brand new ballpark, they play in a gigantic market and have public transportation piping fans right into said park. They have a share in a major regional sports network and are owned by a family whose wealth stretches far beyond their baseball team-related holdings. The $300M Fred Wilpon lost in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme really had no effect on their offseason spending? None? Really?

Yes, they acquired K-Rod and J.J. Putz to shore up their porous bullpen. Excellent work. But both Leitch and Neyer point to a distinct lack of starting rotation depth. Let's start from the top:

1. Johan Santana - Awesome.
2. Mike Pelfrey - Great last year, but threw 50 more innings than the year before. As Neyer points out, has an alarmingly low strikeout rate.
3. John Maine - Good when healthy but had shoulder problems at the end of last year and has never thrown more than 191 innings in a single season.
4. Tim Redding? - Don't look at his (NL!) numbers if you've eaten recently. And no, I don't think he sucks because of the one inning of six run ball he "pitched" for the Yanks in 2005.
5. ????
6. Ron Darling

Were they waiting for the guy to change his name to Derek Lowez? Derek Lowe would have been a terrific stabilizing presence in the middle of their rotation. For similar money, they still could probably sign Oliver Perez who, like basically every other free agent this offseason is looking at potential deals far smaller than he expected. But Perez is the model of inconsistency, while Lowe is the exact opposite.

Perez gives up fly balls and walks while Lowe gives up neither. You can count on Lowe to put together a competent start almost every time he takes the mound, where Perez is bound to have a 5 walk, seven earned run shitshow where he gets pulled in the 2nd inning once in a while, like this one. Lowe only had 3 games where he went fewer than 4 innings last year and one was in his last appearance of the season when he had yet to give up a run.

The Mets' corner OF spots are occupied by Ryan Church, who is a pretty big question mark coming off his concussion shortened season last year, and Fernando Tatis/Nick Evans/Daniel Murphy? I would probably avoid Manny since they are in the NL, but Adam Dunn and Bobby Abreu are pretty nice fits at the prices they are going to end up at, despite their marginal fielding.

If I'm a Mets fan, I don't know who I hate more: Bernie Madoff for stealing Fred Wilpon's money or Wilpon for saying that losing $300M doesn't matter, then not taking the necessary steps to improve the team after two Hindenburg-ian late season meltdowns. All I know is that Bernie Madoff didn't just steal the Wilpon's money, he stole Derek Lowez, Adam Dunnito and their graphic design budget.