I will concede that Sonny Gray did not perform like the " lights out" starter Cashman claimed him to be, when he traded half our young prospects for him.
For this season, Sonny will wrap up his numbers near the .500 mark. On his best day, he beat some horrible team over six innings and yielded only 1 or 2 runs.
Cleveland is not a horrible team.
In fairness to Sonny, he has pitched more than 20 innings in post season play ( most of it with Oakland ) and his run support remains at zero. A trend the Yankees were bound to honor.
It looked for a long while as though we would not get a single hit. Through the 5th inning, our best offensive threat was when Aaron Judge struck out ( his second of four K's ), but reached first
when " strike three" was a passed ball.
Speaking of passed balls, does anyone think that Sanchez needs a miracle to remain a catcher? He had so many pitches go off his glove, shin guards, chest protector, face mask and arms that it seemed like a carnival game, with kids trying to dunk him into the water tank.
How many passed balls, how many wild pitches, how many " free " bases did the Yankees give up? How many times did Sonny have to groove his 82 mph fastball, because he dared not throw a breaking ball with runners on base?
The Yankees were dominated by the most complete team in baseball. Until Houston shows up, that is.
We simply could not compete. Cleveland has more speed, better defense, better pitching, and a line-up that can actually hit the ball. We could have used those damn midges last night, I'll tell you.
Seriously, one could see we had no chance in the first inning when we recorded; a weak pop up to short and two strike outs. Their pitcher's breaking ball was dropping about 2.5 feet, and landing on the far left, lower corner of the strike zone every time. And the ump loved him not us.
Honestly, we are in that category of, " outclassed, out-gunned and lucky to be here."
The only thing the players can do is to try and get something out of the experience. Eat at a good restaurant. Get lucky with a chippie. Have a massage See the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame.
Simply put, this Yankee team is out of its depth.
It is next year already, for us.
Or as Warner Wolf used to say, "You could turn your TV sets off right there."
ReplyDeleteSympathy for the devil:
ReplyDeleteYou know, much as we beat up Brian Cashman here—with good reason!—it's worthwhile to remember the forces constantly pushing him to do stupid things.
I thought of this when I picked up my NY Times today and read beat writer Billy Witz's brilliant take that the real reason the Yankees lost last night was because they didn't go ahead and trade for Jay Bruce, while the Indians did.
That's right. The key to the season was not picking up a 30-year-old Mets castoff, who hit .248 with 27 ribbies in his 43-game, AL stint.
I'm sure that Witz is right, and Bruce would've been pounding Bauer all night if we had him.
Of course we needed Bruce, too, because it's not like we have outfielders, young and old, coming out of our ears. Just Judge, Hicks, Gardner, Ellsbury, C. Frazier, Austin, and Holliday, with Cave and McKinney waiting in the wings if we wanted to try them.
But this is the sort of nonsense GMs have to listen to all the time, from mouthy idiots with oversized media megaphones. It was the reporters and commentators who all but demanded that Cashman trade half the farm for Sonny "Beardless Youth" Gray in the first place, but you won't hear any of them second-guessing themselves after this gem of a half-season he's given us.
During my brief sojourn into the Bizarro World of Mets radio broadcasting a few weeks ago, the mighty minds in their booth were reminiscing about how Frank Cashen "wrecked" the 1980s Mets by letting Ray Knight walk before the 1987 season, and thus killing the clubhouse atmosphere.
Knight hit .256 for Baltimore, then .217 for Detroit, and retired.
The guy Cashen put in his place, Howard Johnson, gave the Mets their first ever 30-30 season in 1987, and went on to run up two more of them for the Metsies, leading the NL in homers and ribbies in 1991.
But that's the GM's life. You replace a fading player with a budding star at exactly the right time, and 30 years later a bunch of know-nothings are still claiming you wrecked the team.
Thank goodness Cashman has the pure genius of this site to put him right. If only he would listen to us!!
HoraceClarke66 nails it. And this is exactly why Cashman must cast off all the treacle surrounding Todd Frazier and move ahead with Miguel Andujar in 2018. And why he must kiss off the erratic and undependable Aaron Hicks in favor of Clint Frazier. And why he must cast off the dead weight of aging, expensive mediocrities like Headley and Ellsbury.
ReplyDelete2018 is such a pleasant place to already be. And in 2018 - the 2018 in my head, Cashman is gone, Frazier is gone, Randy is a piñata hanging over Gate 4, Chapo is selling nuts on the Legends Level or whatever it's called, and there is peace in the valley. I love 2018.
ReplyDeleteIf I play word association and someone says Cy Young, Jaime Garcia and Sonny Gray would NOT be correct answers...
ReplyDeleteYou can't predict baseball. That's the whole point.
ReplyDeleteThe most brutally mismanaged game I can recall.
ReplyDeleteYou can say THAT again!! Girardi has pulled some clunkers, but this one was the abso-fukking-loot worst, on more levels than one: First, he blows out our so-called "long" relievers in the fabulous WC game, then after two nights off, he proceeds to wreck their arms for what's left of the season (thankfully, at this point, not much). We here on the blog were cautioning what would probably happen after he over-used Mean Chad, D-Rob, and Tommy the K-Gun...so what does our Joey do, tonight?? He puts them in, same sequence, and leaves EACH of them in too long - - but especially Chad. I hope this doesn't affect him psychologically, that's all. Then comes D-Rob: again, looks great for a few batters, and, predictably, falls apart. Wouldn't have mattered if he had walked Bruce - - what you definitely do NOT do, is to throw him a pitch high enough, in a location where he can extend his arms and square it up.
ReplyDeleteOn top of that - - and I think THIS is going to become known as Girardi's "midge" moment - - i.e., worst decision ever - - ball hits the knob of the #9 hitter's bat, with an 0-2, Gary Sanchez signals that that is what happened, and Joey the Genius doesn't even challenge the call - - which would have been reviewable, and certainly SHOULD have been overturned. God (or Hal), please SAVE us from this "fucking MORON", from this day forward, PRETTY PLEASE, with whipped cream all over it!!
Then, we he over-taxes Betances, and they get a runner on base, instead of yanking him when he had to know they were going to steal second, he goes out to the mound, and I'm thinking "no, really, a decision I agree with, finally" - - and he turns back around and LEAVES DELLIN IN!!!! I turned to my wife, told her exactly what was going to happen next - - and it did.
I am so sick of Girardi botching game after game after game that I am not even certain whether I will renew my MLB Extra Innings Sub next year, if he's allowed to come back - - even though I am hopeful we will have a better team - - without, as "anon" above said, the likes of Todd Frazier, Head Cheeseley, and Jake-o the Chief, and his millstone of a contract.
Pardon me while I go get the pineapple shards removed, so I can sit down again.
In sorrow, brethren,
LB (No J)
Yes--and why the fuck did he pull Sabathia when the big guy was just CRUISING, after only 77 pitches, and proceed to further tax the already-overtaxed arms of Green and Robertson, both of whom should not have even pitched today. If Hal had any guts, he would fire his ass before game 3.
ReplyDeleteSo true - you could see Sabathia was taken aback and annoyed at that, too - - Joe simply did so damned many things wrong in this game, it is almost impossible to remember and list them all. My wife wouldn't take all of it, as I tried to vent - - she said, OK, that's enough, why don't they fire him?? LB (No J)
ReplyDeleteThe only worse performances I've ever seen by a Yankees manager (going back to 1966), were:
ReplyDelete—Joe Torre in the midges game.
—Joe Torre in games four through six in the 2004 ALCS. The ones where he refused to order guys to steal even though the Sox had a catcher in who couldn't corral the knuckler, and where he brought The Great One in both too early and too late, AND insisted on pitching to Ortiz even with bases open.
But hey, Joe Torre we forgive because as a clubhouse manager he saved the franchise by being the only skipper, ever, who could deal with Steinbrenner pere.
What has Girardi given us? Nothing a dozen other managers could not have done.
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