Bim Bam Boom

[Painting by Meghan Howland via This Isn’t Happiness]

Nova can’t return soon enough.  When he does, maybe Warren can go back to the pen to help Betances out while Miller gets healthy.

[Photo Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sport]

Got to figure the Warriors are going to even-up the Finals tonight (in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Cavs don’t win another game).

I’ll be pulling for Lebron and his boys, though.

Painting by Ernest Barnes, Jr.

Picture by Linda Christensen via Susan Zweig]

Bout that time of year again, ain’t it?

R.I.P. Ornette Coleman.

“I was out at [anthropologist] Margaret Mead’s school and was teaching some little kids how to play instantly. I asked the question, ‘How many kids would like to play music and have fun?’ And all the little kids raised up their hands. And I asked, ‘Well, how do you do that?’ And one little girl said, ‘You just apply your feelings to sound.’ And I said, ‘Come and show me.’ When she went to the piano to do it, she tried to show me, but she had forgotten about what she said. So I tried to show her why all of a sudden all her attention span had to go to another level, and after that she went ahead and did it. But she was right: If you apply your feelings to sound, regardless of what instrument you have, you’ll probably make good music.”–Ornette Coleman.

For more, dig this, this, this and then Go here for a listen. 

[Photo Credit: Roberto Polillo via Jazz in Photo]

Bad news all around for the Yankees today as Andrew Miller hit the DL with a forearm strain and the cascading bullpen shuffle hamstrung Girardi and contributed to a tough loss.

The Yankees struck in the bottom of the seventh again, turning an 0-2 hole into a 4-2 lead. But instead of the Betances-Miller hope-killer, we saw Eovaldi start the eighth. He allowed a hit and when Jacob Lindgren came out of the pen, something was officially NOT RIGHT.

Lindgren pitched OK for a guy who gave up a game-tying homer. He got Bryce Harper, the key at-bat, we thought, and induced a possible inning-ending double play. But Stephen Drew double-clutched when a single-clutch was all that was called for and the inning leaked forward for pinch-hitter Michael Taylor to ruin a really nice day.

Extra innings played out as Yankee fans began filing missing persons reports for their bullpen aces. When neither appeared in the 10th and 11th, the looming loss crystalized. It was Denard Span with chopper in the eleventh if you’re looking for the official cause of death. Nats pulled it out, 5-4.

The Yankees dropped three of four to Washington overall and at least two of those losses were real stingers. But losing Miller is the real test here. The bullpen hasn’t been anything special outside of those two dynamos, so we’ll see what happens when rubber meets the road.

It’s Senior Eovaldi as the Yanks and Nats play a matinee in the Bronx.

Brett Gardner CF

Chase Headley 3B

Alex Rodriguez DH

Mark Teixeira 1B

Brian McCann C

Carlos Beltran RF

Chris Young LF

Jose Pirela 2B

Brendan Ryan SS

Never mind the commencement speech:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Masahiro Tanaka out-aced Max Scherzer in a titanic pitching duel last night. The final score skews Yankees because of a seventh inning bulge that came very close to not happening. But before that, it was a doozy.

Let’s pick up the two Tanaka-Harper showdowns that changed the game. In the 4th inning, Tanaka zipped a low fastball that caught a good chunk of the plate. It wasn’t a bad pitch, but I doubt anybody is surprised that Harper got good wood on it. The landing spot however, would be a surprise for most other hitters. Harper festooned just left of dead-center with a moon-shot and that tied the score at one apiece.

It was still tied when Harper batted again in the 7th and this time, Tanaka was better. For a few pitches. He dipped three splitters in and out of the zone and Harper fell behind in the count. Then Tanaka’s splitter slipped and meatball alarms blared throughout the stadium. If Harper had hit a 93 mph heater, low and away, out to the deepest part of the park, what was he going to do this 88 mph floating orb of “hit-me”?

Turns out he was going to bunt it foul. As our friends at the firm of St. Hubbins and Tufnel have held forth, there’s a fine line between clever and stupid and Harper found himself squarely in stupidtown. He took the bat out of his own hands during a crucial spot in a tight game facing what very may well be the best pitch he’ll see all season.

The Yankees quickly turned good fortune into runs in the bottom of the inning. Evidence that Alex Rodriguez has not yet won back the hearts and minds of the Yankee organization? He didn’t get credited for the hit that won the game. With Scherzer on the ropes and passing one hundred and eleventy pitches or so, Alex smacked a first-pitch sitter towards left field. Desmond made a great dive to his right to snag it and save the run, but he wanted to end the inning as well. From his knees he gunned to third, but failed to calculate Pirela’s Flores’ ETA correctly and his throw nicked Flores as he slid and bounced into the seats.

Flores scored the run and the Yanks tacked on with big hits from McCann and Beltran and, get this, a second homer from Stephen Drew. They won 6-1. But man, how is that not a hit for Arod? Desmond had no other plays around the diamond and it would have taken a degree from MIT to figure out where to the throw the ball in order to keep Rendon on the bag and avoid hitting Flores. From his knees. Imagine the whining we’d hear from David Ortiz if his home park official scorer jobbed him on a play like that?

With a big lead lead, Miller and Betances seems like overkill, but with a day-off coming, why not. Miller and Betances and no more chances. Miller and Betances and you better sit out these dances. Remember when Joba came up and was the best reliever we’ve ever seen for 24 innings? Betances is that, but now over 122 innings.

***

NBA Finals, do not sleep on this. LeBron James went to Miami and became just about the perfect basketball machine. He was lethal and efficient and, when Wade and Bosh were firing, often didn’t have to break a sweat to level a team. One year later and he has scrapped that model completely and become a tornado of basketball ability, barely harnessed and unleashing destruction all over the court. It’s hard to watch him miss so often when he had basically eliminated bad shots from his game over the last four seasons, but the fact that he’s found this gear under these circumstances is one of the great individual performances in basketball history. I hope he’s got two more wins in him.

Artwork by Bob Layton, Marvel Comics

Tanaka vs. Scherzer at the Stadium tonight. Should be a good one.

Brett Gardner CF

Chase Headley 3B

Alex Rodriguez DH

Mark Teixeira 1B

Brian McCann C

Carlos Beltran RF

Didi Gregorius SS

Stephen Drew 2B

Ramon Flores LF

Never mind the raindrops:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Picture by Bags

Salted Peanut Caramel Ice Cream Bars.

Who’s the Boz?

Picture by Bags.

Will Eisner.

Found in the $1.00 cutout bin at a record store in Jersey.

[Photo Via: Wikipedia]

Tonight gives the draft. And an open chat.

Have at it.

Picture by Bags

Nice job by the New Yorker allowing us to dig Lillian Ross’ famous 1950 profile of Hemingway (and thanks to Longform for linking it on their site):

After getting his necktie off, and then his jacket, Hemingway handed them to his wife, who went into the bedroom, saying she was going to unpack. He unbuttoned his collar and went over to the telephone. “Got to call the Kraut,” he said. He telephoned the Plaza and asked for Miss Dietrich. She was out, and he left word for her to come over for supper. Then he called room service and ordered caviar and a couple of bottles of Perrier-Jouët, brut.

Hemingway went back to the bookcase and stood there stiffly, as though he could not decide what to do with himself. He looked at the pasteboard backs again and said, “Phony, just like the town.” I said that there was a tremendous amount of talk about him these days in literary circles—that the critics seemed to be talking and writing definitively not only about the work he had done but about the work he was going to do. He said that of all the people he did not wish to see in New York, the people he wished least to see were the critics. “They are like those people who go to ball games and can’t tell the players without a score card,” he said. “I am not worried about what anybody I do not like might do. What the hell! If they can do you harm, let them do it. It is like being a third baseman and protesting because they hit line drives to you. Line drives are regrettable, but to be expected.” The closest competitors of the critics among those he wished least to see, he said, were certain writers who wrote books about the war when they had not seen anything of war at first hand. “They are just like an outfielder who will drop a fly on you when you have pitched to have the batter hit a high fly to that outfielder, or when they’re pitching they try to strike everybody out.” When he pitched, he said, he never struck out anybody, except under extreme necessity. “I knew I had only so many fast balls in that arm,” he said. “Would make them pop to short instead, or fly out, or hit it on the ground, bouncing.”

Have you ever seen C.C. Sabathia as hot as he was yesterday at the end of the 6th inning? He was in the right to be pissed and his ejection was entertaining. So was the rest of the game, apart from the first inning when Mike Trout and Albert Pujols hit solo home runs against Sabathia. The Yanks hit three long balls of their own–Chris Young, Brett Gardner, Jose Pirela–and sailed to a 6-2 win and a series sweep.

[Photo Credit: Seth Wenig, AP]

Couple of southpaws on the hill this afternoon at the Stadium on a beautiful Sunday in the Bronx.

Brett Gardner CF

Chase Headley 3B

Alex Rodriguez DH

Mark Teixeira 1B

Carlos Beltran RF

Chris Young LF

Jose Pirela 2B

John Ryan Murphy C

Didi Gregorius SS

Never mind those flapjacks:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Picture by Bags

Man, oh, man, the Yanks put a beating on Garrett Richards last night and that first inning drubbing was enough to propel them to a breezy, 8-2 win.

Yanks get a tough assignment tonight in Garrett Richards. They’ll counter with Adam Warren, who is pitching these days

Brett Gardner CF

Chase Headley 3B

Alex Rodriguez DH

Mark Teixeira 1B

Brian McCann C

Carlos Beltran RF

Didi Gregorius SS

Stephen Drew 2B

Ramon Flores LF

Never mind last night’s close call:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Picture by Bags