Now that was one for the ages, huh?
Thanks to their last minute, fairly hopeless rally, the Yanks managed 10 hits—and still 12 strikeouts. They also managed two errors, another passed ball (you-know-who), and generally played the infield as if they were in some bizarre Alexandre Dumas novel: The Men in the Iron Gloves.
Stanton managed to miss breaking the team's single-season strikeout record, and a late single did get his average back up to .260. But he also grounded into a career-high 17th DP, left five guys on base, and overall has an OPS nearly 200 points below what he managed last year.
At 28, as Yogi might say, he is declining even before he is in his declining years.
In general, the game was a masterpiece of sloppy disinterest, played before an alleged 11,325 fans who for all the noise they made could have been playing pick-up jai alai games around the concession stands.
Even better, though, was the preview we got of what baseball is likely to become under the Tampa Bay Plan of minimizing ballplayers.
I should have seen this coming, of course, because which individuals are most likely to take over any sport when they are given half a chance?
Why, it's the coaches—or managers—of course, and we got a world-class display of their egotism tonight.
The most egregious offender was Kevin Cash of the Rays, who always seem to have some irritating individual at the helm, determined to show us what a genius he is. (Unsurprisingly, the very first of these was our own Larry Rothschild.)
Tonight, in a meaningless game for his team, The Great Cash managed to trot out no fewer than eight pitchers, three of whom worked less than an inning. Nonetheless, he almost dropped this one, first when his "opener" blew up in his face and then in the 9th, when he suddenly stopped his peripatetic trips to the mound and decided to leave his "closer" out there to give up five hits, a walk, and four runs.
Our Ma Boone was little better, announcing Greg Bird—then pulling him back (something that must have done wonders for Bird's already vanishing confidence), throwing in his own top relievers as if he were in a do-or-die playoff game, then winding up with Tyler Wade pinch-hitting with the potential tying and winning runs on base in the 9th.
The point is, we can expect many more of these senseless feats of managerial derring-do once the starting pitcher has been fully eliminated, along with all situational hitting in the new, Powerball game of the future.
These guys will posture and preen, endlessly running pitchers in and out of games until they are reduced to a crawl.
Triumphant, they will wave sheets of statistics at us to prove how brilliant they are. Defeated, they will tell us that hey, how were they to know that Pitcher-Bot No. 4 would not have good control of his curve tonight?
Yes, there's a great day a-comin' can't ya see, can't ya see? Uh, can't ya stay awake?
I know the Tampa venue was defended on this blog lately but it really is a terrible place. I've attended three games there. awful acoustics, laughable turf, and bizarre crap hanging low from the ceiling (resulting in even more bizarre ground rules). at times it can be so quiet that you can actually hear the player's steps as they run the bases. Baseball is the sick man of American Sports and nowhere is that more evident than in Tampa.
ReplyDeletethe best that can be said for the place is that it is often filled with Yankee fans.
I can't take last night as hard as this, because September roster expansion (which desperately needs to change). The problem as I see it is not the trotting of roster-expansion pitchers out there (because you can). It is that the Yanks are playing tight, and scared. They are nervous. They are feeling the pressure, and they truly seem not to be able to understand how they went from the success of the first half of the season to the failures of the second half. Aaron Judge says they play hard, but they also play poorly, and sometimes stupidly. Right now, their defense and their mental errors are the true culprits.
ReplyDeleteAs a whole, I don't see baseball in as bad a shape as all that. I enjoy watching the Astros, the Indians (I love listening to Tom Hamilton call an Indians game on the radio) and the Athletics play the game, and when the Royals had that run to the World Series, they were fun to watch. The very sad reality for Yankee fans is that, at the moment, there is good, enjoyable baseball being played out there, but none of that good baseball is being played by our team. That's what makes me depressed, and sad.
“The Trop” is mediocre at best.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there is good baseball being played out there, app—and that it isn't being played by the Yankees.
ReplyDeleteBeyond that, what I fear is that Rays Ball is the wave of the future. Myself, I rather like the expanded rosters—for teams that aren't going anywhere, it is a nice chance for the fans to get a look at the future.
But there was still no reason for Kevin Cash to trot that many pitchers out there. He and his front office think they have really found the way to compete—rather than spending some of the money that franchises such as the Yankees and the Red Sox throw at them every year—and who knows, they probably have.
As we've discussed, running a different hurler out there every 1-2 innings will probably swing the balance of the game, permanently, in favor of the pitchers—particularly since swinging for the fences is now mandated. Every game will be like the modern all-star game...only without all-star players.
And the managers will be the stars of the show.
Hate do defend Boone, but Wade was not pinch-hitting. He had entered the game after Walker was hit by a pitch.
ReplyDeleteIf i may pick yet another Boone regarding NY media. You know if sevy had the type of outing last night that Tanaka had they'd be going through hoops to turn it into some kind of positive outing but Prof.Tanak who has kept them from completely caving in the summer has a rough outting(done in by atrocious defense) and they call it IMPLODING....
ReplyDeleteWheres this outrage when discussing Boones idoiocy???
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