Daily Archives: October 10, 2003

I ran into a lot of Yankee fans yesterday who suddenly don’t think much of Mike Mussina. “He’s not a big game pitcher,” was what they all said. What have you done for me lately is what they mean, suddenly forgetting the 1-0 victory over the A’s in Game Three of the 2001 ALCS, not to mention how brilliantly he pitched for the O’s in the 1997 post season. Label-mate, Will Carroll had a nice post about Mussina and the state of pitching today on his site. Stop by and give it a gander…

I’ll tell you what, come Game 6 on Monday, I’m going to be damn happy to have Mussina going for the Bombers once again.

Tom Boswell paints Boston pitcher Derek Lowe as an unstable flake in his latest column:

Asked at a postgame news conference about the bizarre disparity between his home (11-2, 3.21 ERA) and road (6-5, 6.11 ERA) records this year, Lowe did something you almost never see. He pretended he had heard some entirely different, imaginary question — presumably that pitch he threw to Nick Johnson on a two-run homer — and gave a lengthy answer about his misbegotten “cutter,” never mentioning his reputation as the Anti-Road Warrior.

Lowe is a man of many phobias. After this game, he said that his arm is sorer than it’s been all year, presumably because he pitched three times, twice in relief, in the Oakland series. With Lowe, you worry about any idea that manages to stick in his brain, because he tends to fixate on it. Two years ago, the criticism that comes with being a closer bothered him so much that the Red Sox made him a starter even though he once had a 42-save season in relief. Because he has the highest ground-ball to fly-ball ratio in baseball (3.62) he loathes pitching on artificial turf where bouncing balls become hits. And, finally, there’s that career-long history of road disasters — with the brilliant exception being his thrilling ninth-inning save in Sunday’s Game 5 in Oakland.

My former employers, Joel and Ethan Coen, have a new movie out today. The New York papers gave “Intolerable Cruelty,” a screwball comedy featuring George Clooney and Cathering Zeta-Jones, glowing notices. I’ve seen the ads for the movies, and it hasn’t really looked too great from what I can tell. They sure aren’t billing it as a Coen Brother film, just like Woody Allen’s latest wasn’t marketed as a Woody Allen movie. But looks can be deceiving, as Times film critic Elvis Mitchell confirmed in his review:

Between a lethargic trailer propped up by “Gimme Some Lovin’ ” and the mainstream-sentimentalist producer Brian (“A Beautiful Mind”) Grazer’s name on the credits, there’s plenty of reason for an involuntary recoil toward the Coen Brothers’ fearsomely titled new movie, “Intolerable Cruelty.” But the film is not shudder-worthy. Instead, it’s something not seen in movie theaters for a long time: an intelligent, modern screwball comedy, a minor classic on the order of competent, fast-talking curve balls about deception and greed like Mitchell Leisen’s “Easy Living” and Billy Wilder’s “Major and the Minor.”

The last time the boys tried to make a commerical film—“The Hudsucker Proxy”—it bombed. Ethan used to say that maybe 1,000 people actually paid to see it in the theater. So what did they do next? They were going to make “The Big Lebowski”—the movie I eventually worked on–but John Goodman was unavailable at the time. So they went ahead and made a low-budget crime caper about sad sack criminals in North Dakata.

I remember one of their old friends telling me that he emplored the guys not to make “Fargo.” “You guys just had a major flop and now you are going to make a movie that exactly twelve people are going to want to see.” Of course, “Fargo” turned out to be a fluke smash, and since then, I think Joel and Ethan make whatever movie they can get financed (they usually have at least a half a dozen scripts which they’ve penned, to choose from).

I hope the new one is good. The boys are currently in L.A. filming a remake of the Alec Guiness comedy “The Ladykillers,” which stars Tom Hanks.

Even Steven

Andy Pettitte was all over the place to start Game Two of the American League Championship Serious. He left fastballs and breaking pitches up in the zone and the Red Sox smacked six hits off of the Yankee lefty in the first two innings. But Boston only managed to score one run, and before you knew it, Pettitte had calmed himself down.

Nick Johnson was 1 for his last 33 when he smashed a two-run homer off Derek Lowe in the bottom of the second. The Yankees would go on to squander several opportunities themselves, but Bernie Williams and Hideki Matsui added RBI singles, and in the seventh inning, Jorge Posada had a 2 run double that put the game away.

Jose Contreras got four outs and looked sharp for the second straight night. Mariano Rivera allowed a harmless two-out single to pinch-hitter Todd Walker, and is looking better than he has all season. Early in the year, Mariano was tapping his left foot several times before he delivered a pitch. It reminded me of a cat stepping on a ledge and tentatively trying to keep its balance. ESPN ran a segment on this a couple of days ago, and said that Rivera had been having problems with his left foot. He isn’t tapping any longer—the foot must be fine—and his pitches appear to have even more zip than ever. (It’s funny, but for all the alarmist talk about Rivera this season, the Yankees great closer posted the lowest ERA of his career.)

There was some minor drama late, as Contreras straightened David Ortiz up with a Nuke LaLooshe fastball in the eighth. Bronson Arroyo returned the sentiment when he plunked ‘Lil Sori in the back in the bottom of the inning.

Unable to contain themselves, the Yankee Stadium crowd chanted “We want Pedro,” at the end of the game. Be careful what you wish for: the Yanks are going to get him. (Surely, Red Sox fans remember Game Three of the 1999 ALCS: it was the one raucous highlight of that series for them.) Martinez, the ultimate villain, was smiling in the dugout. (Cue cliffhanger music.) Pedro is an archtype—the baddy who ties the girl to the train track. He will pitch the pivotal Game Three against another archtype bad guy—Rocket Clemens, the 400 lb gorilla.

Game Three is essential for Boston; Game Four (Hello, John Burkett) is crucial for the Yanks. Should be a thrilling weekend.