Life In The Basement

The Basement.  A storage room.  What is the difference?  There are no windows, a bunch of old crap lying around.  No clear way out.

That's where the Yankees are today, after the  hullabaloo of opening day at the stadium.

We did get screwed.  Losers get screwed.  When umpires don't respect a team, don't see it as
a " quality team," the calls and the non-calls all seem to go the wrong way.

Houston got a run they shouldn't have gotten.  The inning described below, by Duque, is when it occurred. With a Houston runner on base and the score tied, Dellin fields a slow roller up the first base line.  The runner was on the infield grass from step one, and all the way to first.  Clearly, he impeded the play and ran out of the base path.  He was never on or in the base path.  The home plate umpire was apparently thinking about his nightly visit to Wendy's, and didn't bother to watch the play.  And it is his job.

The result was a blind toss by Dellin ( he couldn't see Tex or the base ) that went over Tex's head, and Houston scores.  Now we are down 3-2, despite over-whelming evidence that the runner should have been declared out, and the runner returned to where he started. The play is " non reviewable."

Then, Dillen hits an inside corner for strike three.  Inning over.  Only the home plate umpire doesn't call it a strike.  The video and David Cone both saw it cut the plate nicely.  The same, overpaid toad doesn't give it to him.  Likely because everyone had just been calling him blind.

 Then the can of worms opens, and we are suddenly down 5-3.  Dellin throws 30 pitches and is likely burned out for tomorrow.

The reality is the Yankees would never have won the game.  Castro and Didi were our offense.  Usually, we score two early and that is it.  In this case, Didi hits a late inning dinger with, of course, no one on base.  Best case, we go into extra innings tied 3-3.  We all know what happens in that circumstance.  So we lose either way.

Our scary hitters ( Jacoby, A-Rod, McCann, Tex etc. )  did nothing.

 Showing great loyalty to hitting approaches that have failed them season after season, they all hit into the shift and made out.  A-Rod's first at bat was to hit into a double play that took about 45 seconds to turn.

Undoubtedly, the first of many.

We are in last place on day one.  In the cellar.