Daily Archives: September 13, 2007

I love to root against A.J. Burnett. There’s just something about the looks of him that turn me off. It’s the body language, the same thing that I don’t like about Farnsworth–though Burnett is a far superior pitcher. He’s the guy with the million dollar arm, ten cent head, the guy with great stuff who is only a great pitcher sometimes. He is able to get by with his natural gifts because he’s been blessed.

Burnett will dominate a game for six innings and then not be able to finish. Or he’ll go on a run for half a season where he’s overpowering from start-to-start, and then he gets hurt or fades somehow. And always with the great stuff. But there’s always something. And you don’t know what that something is only that it is there. He’s elite talent but not an elite pitcher, not with a career record of 67-65 over 9 seasons. Burnett has never won more than 12 games in a season. I know you can be unlucky and injured but you can’t be that unlucky and injured.

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Anyone seen those Jabba The Hutt t-shirts? They are pretty cool. If you enter the code: jobabronxblock, you can save $2.50 per tee. Get ’em while they’re hot.

Our pal Allen Barra talks to Mets announcer Ron Darling about Jazz in this week’s Voice. Darling knows Lee Morgan from Ahmad Jamal. Who knew? And not for nothing, but I think that Darling is a superior color man.

Okay, here’s something to chew over. Yesterday, another BB friend, Pete Abraham, wrote a post about Jorge Posada. Pete thinks Posada is a “probable” Hall of Famer. I’m not so sure about that–as much as I’d like to see it happen, of course. Yeah, I believe that Posada is the third-best catcher in Yankee history (behind Yogi and Bill Dickey), but I think he needs to have another two or three very good seasons in order to be worthy of the Hall of Fame. Just off the top of my head, I wouldn’t rank Posada ahead of Ted Simmons, would you? Discuss.

It is brisk and chilly in New York this morning. As I walked to the subway I couldn’t help but think of playoff baseball. It’s not cold enough for a frost, so we’ll probably get local tomatoes and corn for one more week (the last, delicious reminders of the summer), but the leaves are starting to turn here and there, and the kids are back in school. The Yankees are not a lock for the post-season yet but they are getting there…

When Melky Cabrera reached second base with two out in the ninth inning, he slapped his hands together, nostrils flaired. Perhaps he was amped because his ground ball double play helped squash a Yankee rally in the fourth inning. As it was, his double was only the team’s fourth hit of the night (A fifth hit–a single to center by the next batter, Johnny Damon–was nullified by an extremely poor call by the second base umpire, Jim Wolf). The Yankees, however, had the lead and won the game, 4-1. An 8th inning error by Alex Rodriguez put an end to Joba Chamberlain’s scoreless inning streak, but Mariano Rivera got the last four outs of the game, and that was that. The Tigers (Mags) and Red Sox (Ortiz) and Mariners also won, so there was no change in the playoff standings as far as the Bombers are concerned (the Tigers did gain a game on the Indians who lost).

Hideki Matsui has been slumping but in the first inning he drove a fastball on the outside corner to deep left for an RBI. The YES broadcast showed side-by-side replays of Matsui’s RBI single with an at-bat from the previous game where he was pulling off the ball, his head jerking up in the air toward first base. Last night, he kept his rear and his head steady and drove the pitch. (Matsui also walked twice later in the game.) Rodriguez–who reached base on a check-swing walk (he got a favorable call on that one)–then scored on a wild pitch by Dustin McGowan. Robinson Cano added a two-run single in the fourth which was all the runs the Yanks would need.

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