Kevin Baker's book is here!

Kevin Baker's book is here!
"... an exemplary sports book..." Kirkus Reviews

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

I am not Watching any more Yankee games.!

I turned on the game a bit late today, as we had a fire alarm in our building.  No problem except for the 16 flights down walk.  And the building just can't figure out how to stop the alarms, even though the fire trucks are long gone.  Incompetence here.  Incompetence there.

By the time I got back to the telly, we were down 2 runs.  It was the end of the top of the first. I kept watching long enough to watch Gardy get thrown out trying to steal second.  Then I quit.

I said to Duque and Mustang; " this game is lost because we cannot score more than 2 runs. So even if we tie, we lose, eventually."

So, before the Yankees even logged two at bats, I knew the game was over.  So why watch?

I mean it is predictable.   If we are behind early, we cannot win.

 This is a "second half of the season thing,"  as we did come back in the first half before the all star break.  When Judge and Hicks were both players.  When we were committed to a youth movement, win or lose.

 This utter uselessness is the result of trading for Frazier and that other jerk Kaynle ( or however you spell that old turd's name.)  This garbage excuse for baseball is the result of giving away 6 of our top prospects for dirt, and not holding anyone accountable.

So our pitchers do great, really....holding Cleveland to two runs over nine innings.  But we never had a chance.  We would never get the big hit.  The clutch hit.  There was no prayer of getting a lead.  It just could not happen.

I knew it and you knew it.

There is no point watching when you know the game is over before the Yankees come to bat.  Watching this Yankee line-up is like sticking yourself with a fork all game long.  Poke, bleed, poke, bleed.

So I am done.

We abandoned the youth effort for this?  For predictable futility?

I am out.


22 comments:

HoraceClarke66 said...

Listened to much of the game today while mortifying the flesh—that is, exercising, and boy should it be mortified!—and I have to say, I have never heard The Master so openly impatient with the hitting.

I was going to blame this on Girardi leading off with the Yankee Pitcher Most Likely to Put Us In an Immediate Hole, but really, two runs in five innings, and even those due mostly to, sigh, another crucial passed ball, is the Jaime German equivalent of Koufax's perfect game. Maybe, someday, he'll even pitch six whole innings for us. Well a guy can dream, can't he?

But putting Judge up with two outs in the 9th, when he needs a home run off a top closer to tie the game, is Joe's idea of resting the kid? Beautiful.

Overall today, he started six different guys who could not be more marginal to the Yankees' future: German, Torreyes, Headley, Frazier, Gardner, and Ellsbury.

The Yankees will never rebuild as long as they are run by Cashman and Girardi. This season has turned into one long trip to Hawaii, aka, Pineapple Land.

Austria's Only Baseball Fan said...

After suffering through Game 1, I tuned in a bit late to #2 (middle of the 1st) to see four runs up there already and came to the same conclusion: that's more than the Yanks can score in as many games. I'll leave the audio on for a while as I do my end-of-month online banking. Paying bills is more fun than this crap. Your post makes me wish that we had a fire alarm in my building (we don't) and that I lived on the 16th floor (hell, there are no 16-floor apartment buildings in Wien - I'm lucky to be on the top floor, the 4th).

Austria's Only Baseball Fan said...

Since I am left wondering who the fuck a lot of these people in pinstripes are, I found this on Wikipedia:

"Montgomery has two older brothers. He earned the nickname 'Gumby' in college after a senior baseball player used the moniker to make fun of his long limbs and lack of coordination."

Sez it all. D'oh!

Anonymous said...

I HATE TO KEEP BEATING A DEAD HORSE....

BUT SOMETHING IS HORRIBLY WRONG....

THIS IS ABOUT THE 5TH YEAR IN A ROW WE HAVE COLLAPSED.

IF WE MISS THE ONE GAME FUCKOFF THIS SEASON, WHEN DOES OWNERSHIP LOOK AT THINGS AND ADMIT TO ITSELF, "THIS IS NOT WORKING."

WITH ALL THE RESTING OF PLAYERS, AND ALL THE CALCULATIONS,AND ALL THE LEFTY/RIGHTY MATCHUPS, AND ALL THE EXTENDED MINOR LEAGUE REHABS, AND ALL THE SIMULATED GAMES, AND ALL THE PITCH COUNT, PITCH LIMITS, AND SPRING TRAINING "HILL BUILDING" FOR STAMINA, AND ALL THE COCKSUCKING, MOTHERFUCKING BULLSHIT!!!!

....AND WE CAN'T HIT A LICK.

....AND WE CAN'T SCORE A FUCKING RUN.

....AND WE CAN'T WIN AN IMPORTANT SERIES, (NOT A FUCKING ONE)!

WE KEEP SEEING THIS MONSTER ACE BANDAGE ON AARON JUDGE'S SHOULDER AFTER GAMES FOR ABOUT 2 1/2 WEEKS NOW....

WHY WAS HE NOT PUT ON THE 10 DAY DL?

GIRARDI IS OUT OF HIS FUCKING GRANITE HEAD MIND!

HE WORRIES ABOUT RESTING EVERYONE ALL THE TIME....

EXCEPT JUDGE! (AND TYLER CLIPPARD WHEN HE NEEDED A REST)!

I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M WATCHING THE 2ND GAME OF A DOUBLE HEADER WITH 5 INNINGS TO GO, AND IT FEELS LIKE THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO HOPE OF COMING BACK!

...AND THE GUY PITCHING AGAINST US IS THROWING 87 MPH FASTBALLS!!!!

OUR MANAGER IS NOT INITIATING ANYTHING.....NOTHING.

THIS IS NOT WORKING.

Anonymous said...

While today's games were horrible They weren't 6 of our best guys for Frazier and Kahl(whatever)was we also got Sonny Gray 27 year old with possible arm issues but also is a #1-#2 starter. and the guy holding the bullpen together after El Farnswoth went all Farnsworthy, Yankee favorite David Robinson. For this we gave up...

Sonny Gray for
A guy with a busted knee
A pitcher who just had Tommy John
a probably great player in Mateo (but ya never know)

Robertson/Kahlsomething/Frazier for
A really young kid with potential and
Ian Clarkin
Tito Polo
Plus the Yankee Clippard who most of us were rooting to set sail ASAP so I'm still not convinced those were not good moves.

The Yankee Handling of Judge? Horrible. He's clearly hurt. Giradi? Horrible. He needs to go.

We were on a roll till the fight. Maybe the upcoming suspensions are messing with them. But this was supposed to be a building year. And none of the guys who were traded were part of it except for Fowler and to be fair they did give him a call up. What happened after that was...sad. But then we got to see Frazier before we would have.

Talenti purveyors of fine ice creams and sorbets makes a lovely Alphonso Mango Sorbet. https://www.talentigelato.com/products/alphonso-mango-2 probably in your honor. I suggest you get a blender and infuse with the alcohol of your choice and then comeback tomorrow -- I hear we're going to lose to the Red Sox.

Doug K.

Anonymous said...

I know it's Robertson. Apparently I have issues.

Doug K.

HoraceClarke66 said...

I agree with ALL-CAPS. We collapse with veterans, we collapse with kids.

Usually teams get invigorated by a fight, any fight, whether they were right or wrong. Not this team.

Something has gone seriously sour—and I think it's significant that Girardi is missing replay opportunities and getting kicked out of games left and right.

Did we give up too much for the people we got? Too soon to tell, as the sportswriting cliche goes.

But it was in the wrong direction. The great performances by Los Dos Aaronos in the first 3 months convinced Jughead Rasmoulli, our GM, that we were on the verge of greatness. That we were just one Sonny, Sonny Gray from the Series.

We weren't. What we had instead was a great bunch of unsorted and unwashed talent that we needed to check out. The whole emphasis should've been on swallowing salary and dealing the Old Ones to get MORE young players, thereby opening up room for the kids to play.

'A special section in right and an invitation to the PR, excuse me, HR Derby for our hot young kid? Um, no, thank you. He has to get to bed early, and he has plenty of homework to do with all the special instructors we're bringing in to tell him how to react when the league adjusts to him.'

'We have a catcher who can look like Johnny Bench when he's on? Well, that's why our former-catcher manager is inseparable from him, working on his game in the privacy of the bullpen, before or after the beat writers come snooping around.'

This was not such a heavy lift. But Joe and Cash and Cash Only Please Steinbrenner couldn't manage it. They won't even get the wild card spot they gave it all away to get.

Stang said...

I gotta go with Doug K. here. I think everyone's exaggerating how much we gave up in trades.

But having said that, we're awful. Wait'll next year. Or the year after.

Anonymous said...

First of all, there is indeed a good likelihood that Judge has been playing hurt. He's been constantly icing his left shoulder after games--what's up with that? And, if he's not hurt, benching your team's best overall hitter for two thirds of a critical three-game series is typically moronic Yankee strategic "thinking."

13bit said...

We have not hit for 7 years, essentially. We had a few streaks, but we have suck at putting wood to the ball. Even when we had a great pitching for many of those years, you can barely get men on base and we can never drive them in. Something is very wrong in the old hitting department. But, you all knew this already.

Anonymous said...

13 BIT.... YOU ARE DEAD ON.

CAN I ASK EVERYONE A SIMPLE QUESTION?

WHY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH WON'T GIRARDI MOVE AARON JUDGE DOWN IN THE ORDER?

HE HIT 7TH FOR A LONG TIME, AND GAINED FAME IN THE 7 HOLE.

THEN GIRARDI MOVED HIM UP TO THE 3 HOLE.

PLEASE, JOE, MOVE HIM DOWN TO THE 7 SLOT....

IT MAY HELP, IT MAY NOT.....

......BUT HITTING HIM 2ND, 3RD, OR 4TH IS COMPLETELY NUTS FOR HIM AND THE TEAM.

WE ARE GETTING ALMOST ZERO PRODUCTION FROM HIM IN THESE SLOTS, SO IT MAKES NO SENSE TO KEEP HIM UP IN THE ORDER.

PLEASE!....MOVE HIM DOWN TO THE 7 HOLE.

PLEASE???

Anonymous said...

Hey all caps--why don't you read some sabremetric literature. Batting orders are not as important as you would imageine, and "protection" is mostly a myth. The baseball analysis on this blog has to be the most illiterate this side of the daily beat writers.

Parson Tom said...

Hey, anonymous. Get off your high horse. If you don't like what's being said here, save yourself the aggravation and don't read it.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Wow, sabremetric "literature." Always a fascinating read.

Of course protection matters. If Roger Maris had still been on, say, the Kansas City Athletics in 1961, would he have drawn only 94 walks? Or would it have been more like the 126 Mantle got that year?

Anonymous said...

HEY anonymous.....

I DON'T NEED TO READ SOME SABREMETRIC LITERATURE....

I WATCH ALL THE GAMES.

MAYBE YOU SHOULD TOO....

YOU GOTTA RAISE YOUR GAME IF YOU WANT TO TALK YANKEE BASEBALL ON THIS BLOG.



Anonymous said...

Hey all caps--Brian Cashman watches all the games too so does Joe Giriardi. You're a baseball illiterate--just clanking and hissing like a broken radiator, and yielding far more heat than light. Your posts are worthless.

JM said...

We haven't had an unremittingly negative commenter/name caller/what-have-you for a long time. He was named Anonymous, too. Could it be? Nah.

Sabremetrics, like "a keen eye for talent," are overrated. Some numbers mean something important. Some don't. Some do, sometimes. For instance, drawing generalities from data that includes all teams, great, good, or terrible, and then applying that to the individual team you have isn't really logical. There is brilliance among the crunched numbers, but I think there's a way to go before people realize they're just numbers. And numbers can say anything you want, really. Just keep crunching until you get the ones that say what you want, or that correlate in a meaningful way to reality.

Time will sort it all out. I think a lot of managers have already figured out the right balance between human judgment, the lessons of experience, and the digits. Meanwhile, Judge shouldn't bat third. You don't put a sure out between more reliable hitters. That's how rallies die. Not the only way, but why increase the possibility?

JM said...

All that aside, if we collapse with veterans, collapse with kids, collapse with a revolving door of players over and over, you have to look for what all those teams have had in common, I think.

Girardi, Cashman, Steinbrenner, Rothschild...who am I missing?

joe de pastry said...

not all caps anonymous correctly points out the importance of sabermetrics but his smarter than everybody else attitude is obnoxious.
and as Yogi said you can observe a lot by just watching, even if you don't study the numbers.
my advice, based on experience, is to ignore the obnoxious one, which I will henceforth do

Anonymous said...

EXIT VELOCITY?

YEAH, THAT'S A REAL IMPORTANT "SABREMETRIC" HUH?

GOT TO LOVE THAT "RUN DIFFERENTIAL" TOO, RIGHT?

VERY TELLING HUH?..."RUN DIFFERENTIAL"?

THE YANKEES WERE NUMBER 1 NOT LONG AGO IN RUN DIFFERENTIAL.

HOW HAS THAT BEEN WORKING FOR US?

SABREMETRIC FANS....

STOP.

Stang said...

Sabermetrics can be good, but how can anyone not understand that good batters at the top of order will probably get more chances than bad ones at the bottom? And as for protection... a lot of pitchers pitch to it, so therefore it exists, whether Jonah Hill can quantify it or not.

Isiyku Abdulahi said...


I really want the world to know about this great man who brought back happiness into my life again after my husband left me and the kids 3 years ago for another women online when i contacted Dr Believe he cast a love spell for me within 48 hours my ex husband start calling me and begging for forgiveness for everything that have happened between us. I was so happy to have my family back together with love again here is the email of Dr Believe via believelovespelltemple@gmail.com a man with the great powers you can also call him or add him on Whats-app: +2348156148821
God bless you
I am very grateful for your help in my marriage.