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Kevin Baker's book is here!
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Monday, September 24, 2012

We have lost the tomato can edge over Baltimore

Two weeks ago, the party line went this way: The Yankees had the easiest schedule down the wire, while the competition had to beat on each other. Well, that's no longer the case.

Baltimore plays seven home games against Toronto and Boston, then finishes in Tampa. By then, Tampa will be also-ran soup. Longoria will probably be resting for next year, and the team will be so disillusioned that Madden won't even bother to call an overshift. Maybe David Price is pitching for a Cy Young Award. After that, nothing.

It is reasonable to think Baltimore could sweep the final 10 games and blow past us. It's more likely that they lose one... or two. Let's say 8-2.

We travel out of our time zone to cold Minnesota, then backtrack to frigid Toronto. Both can freeze our bats. Then we return home for Valentine's last hurrah. Nobody scares you, but the road is always tougher. And let's be honest: Boston will run through walls that final weekend, wanting to take us down.

We need eight of 10.  There is no margin of error for Ivan Nova, for Freddy Garcia, for a bad night by David Robertson or an 0-20 by Arod. There is no margin for Robbie's continual freefall into the .270s, Teixeira's inability to heal - or for another try of Eduardo Nunez at SS: He cannot play the position, OK? Are we good on that, everybody? He cannot play SS.

Damn. That loss yesterday stank. We kicked away the winning run. We went into our usual 5th-through-8th inning swoon. The umps screwed us on another call at first. Grandy... whatever happened to the guy who in 2011 adjusted his swing via Kevin Long and saved his career? He just keeps striking out. I can't watch anymore. He just takes his swings and walks back to the dugout.

Eight of 10? I dunno.

2 comments:

Alphonso said...

If we play .500 ball, we'll be lucky.

In retrospect, Nunez maybe didn't cost us the game.

I say that because we clearly had scored our limit ( 4 ) and it was just a matter of time.

George's Ghost said...

WEEEEEEE have seen EEEEEEEEEEnough of EEEEEEEEEEduardo Nunez.