The fall and winter are coming. This one looks like one to try.
Tuesday
May 5, 2026
Since 2002
Beat of the Day
[Picture by Louis Porter via MPD]
The Negative Zone
When Mariano Rivera blew the game Thursday night, my foot slipped. When the 8-3 sure-fire-win on Friday night became another loss, my shoulder dipped. And when Mariano blew Sunday’s game, my ass flipped right over my head and I was lost in the Negative Zone. Not even winning Sunday could draw me out; I was adrift and doomed.
And I’m not coming back. Not this year.
CC Sabathia gave a decent effort when nothing short of his best would do. The Yankees didn’t hit Chris Tillman, who’s been good this year, but hardly Tom Seaver and the 4-2 loss is the latest nail in the coffin.
In the first inning Alex Rodriguez smacked a home run and things looked up for about a minute. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but CC Sabathia couldn’t hold the lead. Not even for an inning. Nick Markakis hit a lead-off double and scored two batters later.
The game stayed knotted at one, but the Yankees were never going to be the team that loosened the knot. Sabathia kept the ball in the park, but off-the-wall can still hurt you. A handful of doubles, productive outs and timely hits put the Yankees in a 4-1 hole after seven.
Tillman retired 13 in row at one point. He struck out three straight to napalm the seventh and then Lyle Overbay scraped the sky with solo homer to start the eighth, so Showalter brought in Tommy Hunter to strike out the next three. The Orioles struck out 12 Yankees in all.
Alex hit a blue dart to center to lead off the ninth. After two ground outs, Curtis Granderson hit a full-count fastball to the middle of the warning track in center. I can’t say what it looked like from your seats, but nobody here in the Negative Zone thought it had a chance.
Cool Breeze
Okay, so we might not have much faith in the Yanks making the playoffs but they have a chance and that makes these games accordingly tense or watchable or something like that.
C.C. goes tonight. He’s the Ace and they need him to come through with a big performance.
Brett Gardner CF
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Alfonso Soriano LF
Curtis Granderson DH
Eduardo Nunez SS
Lyle Overbay 1B
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Austin Romine C
Never mind the scoreboard-watching: Let’s Go Yank-ees!
[Photo Credit: Robert Herman via This Isn’t Happiness]
Million Dollar Movie
Hackman, Elmore, Huston, Dustin, Rip, Willis, Lange and more…Movie nerds: dig in.
[Picture Credit: Robert Wilson]
Morning Art
“The Victory” by Rene Magritte (1939)
New York Minute
Could have used a jacket this morning. Well, that might be stretching it some but it was cool. Autumn is in the air.
So fresh, so fresh.
Dodging the Bullet
Thirty-five years ago to the day, as the Yankees were busy reeling in the Boston Red Sox, they stopped in Fenway Park and thrashed the Sox so soundly that the series will be forever known as the Boston Massacre. The Yankees were four games behind the Red Sox when they arrived in town, but after sweeping the series (and outscoring the Sox 49-26) they left in a flat-footed tie. We all know how that season ended up.
The Yankees would rip out Boston’s heart again in August of 2006, taking the field in Fenway with a slim game and a half lead over the Sox but leaving four days later with commanding 6 1/2 game advantage after an unprecedented five-game sweep in which they outscored Boston by an identical 49-26 margin.
On Sunday afternoon in the Bronx, the Yankees looked to avoid being on the other side of one of those season-ending, soul-crushing, series sweeps. After inexplicable losses on Thursday and Friday, followed by an old-fashioned beating on Saturday, the Yankees took the field on Sunday as a desperate team.
Hiroki Kuroda was on the mound for the Yanks, and he was probably just as desperate as the Yankees were. He had been excellent through the first three months and dominant in July (3-0, 0.55 ERA, 0.88 WHIP), but he was a completely different pitcher in August as he finished the month 1-4 with a 5.12 ERA and 1.42 WHIP. He was a man in need of redemption, and Sunday looked like a good place to start.
He seemed to struggle a bit early on, as consecutive doubles in the second inning (David Ortíz and Mike Carp) produced a run, but he was lights out after that as he cruised through the next three innings before coughing up another run in the sixth.
Mark Reynolds doubled in a run for the good guys in the fourth, and Robinson Canó plated two more with a double of his own in the following frame, but it wasn’t until the eighth inning that the game really started to get interesting.
Did I mention that the Yankees were desperate? Clinging to a 3-2 lead, Joe Girardi brought in Mariano Rivera and hoped for a six-out save. Rivera worked around a harmless single in the eighth, but anyone who had watched the first three games knew that nothing — not even a Mariano save — would come easily in this series. In fact, the save wouldn’t come at all.
Rivera’s third pitch to Will Middlebrooks leading off the top of the ninth looked like it produced a lazy fly ball to right and what would be the first out of the inning. Ichiro slowly floated back on the ball, and no one seemed overly concerned — until it landed in the stands. The camera caught the normally placid Rivera in utter disbelief.
The game was tied, and — with Phil Hughes warming in the bullpen — all appeared lost. But Rivera recovered to finish out the ninth. The bottom half wasn’t exciting, except for the end result. Ichiro singled with one out, stole second, advanced to third on a sacrifice fly from Vernon Wells, then scored when the next pitch from Brandon Workman got past Jarrod Saltalamacchia for a walk-off wild pitch. Yankees 4, Red Sox 3.
Sure, it was an ugly weekend, but the bottom line is this. Even after three straight heart-breaking losses (who’d have thought they could score 25 runs and still lose all three games?) and a litany of injuries (Jeter’s ankle is injured yet again; David Robertson and Boone Logan are also out) the Yankees are still — still — just 2.5 games behind Tampa Bay for the wild card spot.
There’s hope, people. There’s hope.
[Photo Credit: Seth Wenig/AP Photo]
Thank You Sir, May I Have Another
Yeah, I don’t know, man. The Sox ain’t all that. Sure they scored 2 touchdowns today in the Bronx but they missed an extra point. Fuggin’ pussies.
David Huff got torched and so did the Yanks, dropping another game to the Sox, this one to the tune of 13-9. It was over early. The Yanks actually battled their way back into it but well, you get the way this weekend is going: Doom.
Derek Jeter left the game early, had a CT scan on his ankle and–good news!–it came back negative.
[Deiorama by Abigail Goldman]
Or I’ll Huff and I’ll Puff
No use steering now:
Brett Gardner CF
Derek Jeter SS
Robinson Cano 2B
Alfonso Soriano LF
Curtis Granderson DH
Eduardo Nunez 3B
Lyle Overbay 1B
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Austin Romine C
Never mind the hangover:
Let’s Go Yank-ees!
[Picture by Bags]
The Art of Getting Jumped
Remember how we figured that last night was the worst loss of the year? Well, we were wrong. Tonight was worse.
The Yanks had an 8-3 going into the 7th and then the bullpen shit the bed, walls, and carpet as they gave up 9 runs over the next two innings. Hughes, Boone, Preston, and Jobber, oh my.
The burly bastards from Boston kicked the Yanks square in the nuts. Repeatedly. Yup, it was an old fashioned Bronx mugging.
12-8 was the final.
As one Banterite succinctly put it: Fuck this.
Another stinging loss. Anger and despair. But there’s no giving up round here. Tomorrow gives another game, after all.
We’ll be here and we’ll be rooting. Fuggin’ A right we’ll be.
Try Again
It’s Old Man Andy vs. Boston’s Civil War Reenactment Squad.
Brett Gardner CF
Derek Jeter DH
Alfonso Soriano LF
Robinson Cano 2B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Vernon Wells RF
Eduardo Nunez SS
Mark Reynolds 1B
Chris Stewart C
Never mind last night:
Let’s Go Yank-ees!
[Photo Via: Think Different]
"This ain't football. We do this every day."
--Earl Weaver
--Earl Weaver