Daily Archives: May 26, 2003

GETTING LATE EARLY…

The Red Sox mauled Rocket Clemens and he just left after five and two-thirds, down 5-3. Antonio Osuna comes in and before you know it, the score is 8-3. Clemens threw more than 125 pitches, and was ahead of a lot of batters, but the Sox, like the Angels last fall, spoiled a lot of good pitches, and demonstrated why they are scoring more than five runs per game. They had dinky hits, and then had some solid hits too.

Down 5-1, the Yanks put a couple of runs on the board to close it to 5-3. With the bases loaded in the bottom of the fifth, Raul Mondesi was up with one out. He hit into a double play.

In the sixth, Johnny Damon poked a two-out knock through the left side. Jeter put himself out of position by bluffing towards second—with two men out, why I don’t know—and Damon’s ground ball became an RBI single. Nomar Garciaparra later bounced a single up the middle, right in between Jeter and Soriano. Sori knocked it down, after Jeter waved at it, and held the ball as Matsui ran in from center and yelled for him to throw home. Too late. Another runner scored.

I could practically hear George steaming from my place over on the west side of the Bronx. How would you like to be Brian Cashman right about now?

You can hear “Lets Go Red Sox” chants loud and clear on TV. Think there is any drinking going on at the Stadium right about now?

It’s ugly and it’s gunna get f-ugly before it’s all over.

(Too bad the Yankees don’t have some red-ass clown ignorant enough to start a brawl.)

FLIP FLOP

Roger Clemens just retired the first three batters in the top of the first, and I’m going to do an about face in my approach to the game. Now, I think the Bombers will win today. If any team can help the Yankees when they are down, it’s the Red Sox, who are facing more emotional strudel and evil demons than the Yankees are. What’s a lousy little losing streak compared with Clemens gunning for 300 and 80 years of history?

So now I think the Yankees will pull one out. I’m flip flopping like a madman here in the Bronx. I’ll probably change my mind two or three more times during the course of the game. I’ve got more nervous energy than I know what to do with. Watching Wakefield float his knuckler passed the over-anxious Yankee hitters should calm me down, right?

LOST WEEKEND

The Yanks made like Ray Milland this past weekend and got bombed—swept by the Toronto Blue Jays. Spanked, really. This after the Texas Rangers swept them last weekend in the Bronx. The Bombers have now lost 11 of their last 12 at home, and now trail the first place Red Sox by a game and half. They Jays aren’t an arrogant team, but they were smiling broadly by the end of Sunday.

Who stunk up the place? Who didn’t (Okay, Contreras and Hitchcock were good in relief)? This isn’t just a couple of guys under-achieving, it’s team-wide malaise. The pitching has been weak (Andy Pettitte, Jeff Weaver), the defense stinks (Soriano, Derek Jeter), and the offense is completely M.I.A. (the Yankees have not scored more than 1 run in an inning for 49 straight innings). The Yanks haven’t played this badly since the end of the 2000 season, and you wonder what has to happen to light a fire under their ass.

Joe Torre talked with the team on Saturday, but what these guys need is Paulie O to take batting practice on a water cooler (Zim would work just fine as a fill-in).

It was rainy and cold in New York over the weekend and about the only baseball fans in town who felt halfway decent are Mets fans. Hey, we aren’t the only one’s that suck. Hey, misery loves company.

For their part, Yankee fans have not been dealing with their team’s struggles well. They’ve become so pampered and so spoiled, they don’t know how to handle losing again. Many fans I spoke with are so pissed at the Yanks, they aren’t even watching them. Now, that the Bombers are struggling a bit, some of their faithful fans are treating them like step-children.

I’m not so discouraged by the losing—I realize what goes up must come down, and that eventually the Yankees will go through a period of losing again—but it’s how they are losing. For years if they Yanks were down 3, 4, or even 5 runs in the late innings, you always felt they had a chance of winning. And even if they didn’t win, they’d make it close, put up a fight.

For the past few weeks, when the Yanks are down 5-2 in the 7th, stick a fork in em. They are done.

You know who charges back when they are down late? The Red Sox.

It’s almost 1:00 on Memorial Day, and I was hopeful that today’s game would be called on the count of rain. After asking the fans to sit on their hands through the rain all weekend, you’d think George would give us all a break and play the game tomorrow. Don’t make the fans sit in this slop, man.

But they are holding out. The game has now put pushed back to a 3:00 start. George will be in the house; Clemens has invited everybody under the sun to the Stadium, it’s a national TV game, it’s 300. They are going to try to get the game in. But I think it’s going to back fire on the Yanks. I don’t care if it is the Red Sox—the only team with bad enough Karma to kick the Yankees back to life. They are pushing it. George wants the glory of the big win. It’s a set up.

I bet Rocket pitches good enough to lose—let’s say 7 innings, giving up 2 or 3 runs, and the Yankee O snoozes again, and the Yanks lose.

That’ll give George a chance to make his money, and get good and humiliated enough to finally blow his stack. I mean, that’s what is coming, right? A classic George shit fit. Mt. Saint Steinbrenner is going to erupt any minute now, right? I don’t know if he’ll just pop off, diss his players, his manager, and issue a lot of threats, or if Rick Down or Mel Stott get fired, or what.

I think the Yankees can recover—the season is not over by a long stretch—but the fat man is about ready to sing.

Duck and cover, folks. This season may be just getting started.