The molting Blue Jays team out there this weekend has about as much chance as your average baby seal out on the ice floe does—but hey, those seals won't club themselves! (At least, not until they are genetically modified by whatever American corporation is currently working on the Self-Clubbing Seal.)
It had to be done, and the Yankees did it, so hooray—though boy, that fifth inning was frightening, not to mention endless. It seemed to embody everything wrong with this team now, its constant loss of focus and disengagement, its tentative approach to the game, its bad strategy and planning.
It can't be said the Tommy Kahnle was truly awful, giving up a couple of seeing-eye singles on balls that, to put it charitably, Didi seemed less than inspired in chasing. But failing to challenge Richard Urena with a six-run lead should have got Kahn's butt kicked all the way back to the dugout, if not a certain city in Pennsylvania.
And was it Duque or Alphonso who said that a ball would find Neil Walker in a key situation in right field? Whoomp, there it was, to keep with the 1998 theme of today's celebration, and if Billy McKinney had not overslid third base hat inning might be going on still.
But hey, we got out of it. The team mercilessly bludgeoned every baby seal the Jays put out on the mound, and Ma Boone has even been putting on plays and trying to force the action the last few days.
Torres showed encouraging signs of life, as did Sevvy, and Stanton was terrific, and El Matador continues his drive to rookie-of-the-year, becoming the only player on our team with a .300 batting average, and Britton and Betances got the job done.
Even Bird hit a home run off a fastball (!), and so what if the pitcher in question has a 7.20 ERA? The bullpen has become so unreliable on this Yankees team that nothing that produces another run can be considered a garbage time ribbie.
You have to bottom feed. You have to kill the seals, or what's a heaven for? (Wait, do I have that right?)
The magic number is 5!
We now know why Kahnle was in Scranton. We now know why he should go back there. Guy has lost his 98 MPH fastball.
ReplyDeleteBoone still in idiot...why not just remove severino after 5 innings 7 run lead and just under 100 pitches let him leave on a hihh note knowing he's been struggling and supposedly FATIGUED NOOOOOOO God forbid a heads up managerial move....none the less as they say... A WINS A WIN...LETS get em tomorrow
ReplyDeleteI know. Leave well enough alone. But this reflects, I think, how overworked the bullpen is.
ReplyDeleteWe have 13 pitchers, but trouble coming up with a middle reliever. Sonny Gray threw 75 pitches on Wednesday, so he was out (thank goodness). Any number of minor leaguers who could have fit the bill have been traded so we can gamble some more on 16-year-olds, or on some surprising tough war horses (so far) who we don't control past October.
What a mess. And hey, if you've got an 8-run lead in the sixth, why not sub in your defensive right fielder then? Maybe Ma was looking to see if Walker could set a major-league record of most strikeouts with two down and a man on third, which he seemed to be on the verge of today.
Even after a month of hitting better than he has the rest of the year, Neil is at 7 homers, 33 ribbies, and 68 strikeouts, with a slash line of .219/.298/.336/.634.
Walker is a classic example of how you make a bad player "indispensable," by getting rid of so many better players around him.
SEE BIRD'S HOMER?
ReplyDeleteHIS BAT STILL LOOKED SLOW!
IT WAS LIKE A SWING IN SLOW MOTION, ALTHOUGH TIMED PERFECTLY RESULTING IN THE HOMER.
WATCH IT AGAIN.
WHY DOES HIS SWING LOOK SO SLOW?
THE MORE I THINK ABOUT IT, THE MORE I'M STARTING TO ENVISION OUR NEXT FIRST BASEMAN.
BRYCE HARPER.
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