They can beat us at home...
Everybody knows...
They can beat us at home...
I realize that we, perched in our ejaculatory home pods, possess no real time knowledge of the psyches and situations that dictate a manager's moves. Surely, some non-paranormal force or logic will explain every Boonie Boner. It's insane to think that we mindless, weeping, barely cognitive fans in our Naugahyde outposts know more than the Yankee high command. I get that. Still, I have some questions about last night.
Why did Boone leave Chad Green in for a second inning? Throughout the season, our key bullpen lug nuts have seldom been called upon to deliver a second inning - with a clear drop in effectiveness when they do. I understand why Boone went to David Robertson so early, in the fifth: This was a "must" game. But at that point, anyone doing second grade math could see that the Yankees were going to need a long man - Cole, Gray, somebody - as a bridge to our mainland closers. Green pitched well - for one inning. Then, kaboom.
What's even more maddening is that Boone had Dellin Betances warming in the pen. How do you have Betances warming, yet leave Green in? All season, a worst-case scenario is Betances with a runner on first. This is because he cannot hold runners. They gallop to second, and then he becomes really frazzled. Boone waited too long on Green, then brought in Betances with the go-ahead runner on base. Yow. Is that a strategy? What the hell was Boone doing? Sending death threats to Brett Kavanaugh? (Because that's about the same level of smartness.)
How do you bring in Aroldis Chapman, after weeks of inactivity, with a game on the line? The previous night, with a 9-run lead, Boone used Justus Sheffield. Fine. But that's when they should have called upon El Chapo. You can't just bring in a guy - especially one as potentially wild as Chapman - and expect him to pitch well under thermonuclear stress. If Chapman were rehabbing in the minors, he would have started a game, pitched one inning, and gotten a chance to hone his delivery. Did anybody think this was going to work? This was so unfair, almost cruel, not only to Chapman - but the Yankees.
Why did no Yankees shorten their swings and adapt to the knuckleballer? Okay, this is technically not Boone's fault. This is the modern game. This is the 2018 Yankees, who live or die with John Sterling home run calls. But watching our batters take rollicking, beer-league swings against Stephen Wright, while the season swirled down the drain - it was like watching a river overflow into your yard. You could yell at it, but nothing was going to change.
Maybe this is for the best: Maybe having seen Wright, our hitters will adapt. Right?
No. Of course not! What am I saying? They won't change one iota. The difference between the Yankees and Redsocks is not pitching, hitting, running or fielding. It is discipline, pure and simple. It is the ability to grind out each at bat, and to force the other team into making critical mistakes. They have it. We don't.
And no matter how you slice it, or where you sit, that difference boils down to management.
They can beat us at home, folks. They just did.
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29 comments:
I'm still surprised that we won two games. I had them down for one pity win game where we won it only because they were playing all of their second string players to give their normal guys a rest.
I should have remembered that the Yanks this year seems to do better against top rated teams and then amazingly fail against the worse ones. So I'm now expecting the 0's to do a 3 game sweep against us to make up for that extra Sox win.
And how about that A's score last night? It's like the Raiders had played instead of the A's! If they do that against the Yanks, then I'll do something drastic like becoming a Twins fan. LOL
The Yankees inability to hit Wright makes me nervous. The big issue with the Sox pen are those early relievers. As a knuckleballer, Wright can pretty much pitch in every game should the Yankees make it past the A's. He becomes the bridge they are looking for.
Also: I understand that in order to set the most guys with 10 HRs record (Now at 12 thanks to Luke Voit)the HRs have to come while on the team. The announcers and the press talk about the Yankees having 12 guys with 10 but actually they have 13 because McCutchen has 19 HRs.
Duque, I can explain The Sheffield Wednesday, Chapman yesterday decision. Boone wanted to see if Chapman is ready for the intensity of the playoffs. Same with trying to extend Chad Green. It wasn't really a "must win game". In his mind he is getting everyone ready for the post season. There is of course another possibility. Boone is an idiot.
Doug K.
I'm with you, Vamp. Happy to have won two, but it was not done with authority, despite the scores. This teams lacks that quiet swagger that the dynasty teams had. Kind of like when little kid hurls a snowball and it happens to land one someone's head, much to the surprise of both parties.
I'm okay going forward with the hitting - given a few lineup tweaks and A NEW HITTING COACH AND MANAGER. And, by the way, I'm talking about next year. Forget about this year. What I'm more worried about is our severe need for pitching next year and how CashMoney is going to possibly lavish stupid amounts of MoneyCash on some big name non-pitchers. Given his unerring ability to choose the worst pitchers out there - Happ aside - I fear we won't have much going for a staff next year.
This team has really begun to bore the shit out of me.
Oh fuck, I forgot, I'm excited. We're going to run the table. SELL ME SOME TEE SHIRTS, YOU BASTARDS!
I type too fast.
Ah, the hell with it.
Now, all I have to do is not watch any of the regular season games remaining and I get to back off the omeprazole.
Yeah, I doubt it'll happen, too.
Happ is a the most remarkable stroke of luck. It cannot be counted on to happen twice.
I dare not spake of it, but did any one else notice the waft of a fetid unwashed stench last night. A brief albeit unmistakable stink of ineffectual anger and pathetic insecurity?
We have never been able to hit knuckleball pitchers. Not, atlas, until they are in the mid fifties.
Then, se begin to wait them out. force those dancing bubbles to end up in the strike zone.
We never think about developing or acquiring a knuckleball pitcher.
Our starting catcher can't catch a normal pitcher. Let's imagine his performance against a knuckle.
We are screwed.
A knuckleball pitcher can pitch 7 innings, fifty days in a row. Credit to someone, above.
It is true.
And we will set every record for failing.
I am trying to learn Walloon.
Note to friends and family on this blog;
I had a few " shooters " before I wrote the above commentary, and it was really late.
And I couldn't find the edit button.
Just the shot glass.
And the lime.
I call it “That Stink”, as in “the Yankees have That Stink all over them again tonight”. This is a phrase I have been using repeatedly throughout this season. It’s like a miasma that blows in from some nearby swamp and covers them in some sort of cosmic goo that renders them ineffectual in every aspect of the game. Stanton can’t hit, ICS can’t catch, Sevy can’t pitch, CC sweats gallons, etc.
You can usually sense it wafting in around the second inning. The Stink.
Alphonso...after reading your comment above I remembered that I hadn't watch that great early 90's movie "Shakes The Clown" in a long while. Hopefully, the tequila was better than bar well grade, LOL.
Win War: Who were you referring to in your comment?
FUCKING DEMORALIZING WATCHING THEM WIN IN OUR HOUSE.
DOUG K. AND ALPHONSO ARE RIGHT.
THE MOST HORRIFYING ASPECT OF LAST NIGHT'S GAME WAS THE KNUCKLEBALLER.
OUR BEST SHOT AT BEATING BOSTON [IF IT EVER GETS TO THAT], IS GETTING TO THEIR BULLPEN.
NOW THEY HAVE SMOKED US OUT OF THAT POSSIBILITY.
THEY WILL JUST PUT WRIGHT IN, TO BE THE BRIDGE, AND LEVEL US.
WE CAN'T TOUCH HIM.
MAYBE WE SHOULD TRY SWINGING HARDER.
If I were a GM, I would sign the two smartest, most savvied knuckleball teachers on the planet, then sign 6 to 10 twentysomething minor league pitchers, all with great character and failing arms, and set up a special training academy, sort of like what Professor X does for talented mutants.
We would constantly be developing three or four knuckleballers in our system, with the goal of always have at least two on the major league staff. They could each throw 300 innings, so our starters and bullpen would never be taxed.
I don't know why and how the Redsocks managed to become the only team in baseball, or at least the American League, to use knuckleballers. But it's a smart move on their part. They do such things. We don't.
Traditionally, the only Yankees who have hit knucklers are mediocre hitters in deep slumps—hence Ma Boone vs. Wakefield—and Reggie.
Reggie loved the knuckleball, as he showed against Charlie Hough.
But don't worry. In the playoffs, I don't expect that this team with all its soap operatics will even make it to Boston.
Alphonso, I am very relieved. When you wrote, "se begin to wait them out," I thought OMG, he's a Frenchman!
Relieved to see that you are instead, as Humphrey Bogart put it, "a citizen of the world."
Warbler, Coops has occasionally come up with the likes of Happ before. Don't forget Aaron Small and Shawn Chacon
back in 2005, or the likes of Jon Lieber, Tanyon Sturtze—who we quickly renamed Kaiser Soze—Scott Proctor, or Chad Gaudin over the years.
It's the sort of general managing he does best, because it's the equivalent of buy a box full of nuts, bolts, and washers at a yard sale, taking it home, dumping it out on the kitchen table, and picking through them saying, "Oh, here's a good one!"
Of course, they rarely last long...
Supposedly, 13bit, the big pitching target for the offseason is Patrick Corbin, who allegedly wants to come to the Yanks (he's from upstate).
I say fine, give him a free agent whirl. But they'll need more than that, particularly with Tanaka's arm hanging by a thread, as always.
A rotation of Tanaka, Severino, Happ, and Corbin, with maybe Sheffield as the no. 5 man, and maybe Lance Lynn in Adam Warren's old role as a swing guy, MIGHT work. I guess the real question is if they are willing and able to develop young starters from within the organization—the few of them they still have left, that is.
They will also have to address the OF. Between all the back-ups Coops has traded off and Clint's maybe career-ending injury, they are very thin.
That's why I say make Andujar into a left fielder—thereby maximizing his arm and minimizing his other fielding problems—sign Machado if he will play third, and bite the bullet and sign Harper.
One day, we will come to rue such acquisitions, but in the meantime it will be a much better ride than what Coops would provide.
Never forget: Cashman is like a maniac. He really will kill the hostages and toss out their bodies. He actually has given the likes of Bubba Crosby, Shane Robinson, and Neil Walker important at-bats in the outfield.
I would rather see even a spoiled, overpaid, overrated superstar like Harper with a grotesque contract, than that again. I suspect we would at least have fun for a few years.
Then again: your point about management may be most relevant. As long as the entire, organizational approach to the game is this bad, is there any hope at all???
Duque, I agree. There should be a knuckle-baller on our staff. Never understood why the Sox always do and we don't.
Plus, as I've written before: Jim Bouton is a hero of mine to the very limited extent that I admire people. Yankee WS pitcher, groundbreaking author, genuinely funny guy, co-inventor of Big League Chew.
I know he had his faults but I'd take a resume like that all day.
Question: How come no one has invented a knuckle ball machine? How hard can it be? Then you can teach how to hit the friggin thing or at least how to approach it.
Or get some old guy coach to throw knuckleball BP on days when you are going to face them. Throw 10 pitches and then let the regular BP guy throw.
Hoss, "A rotation of Tanaka, Severino, Happ, and Corbin, with maybe Sheffield as the no. 5 man, and maybe Lance Lynn in Adam Warren's old role as a swing guy"
That's a serviceable rotation. I could live with out Lynn. Give the job to Johnny Lasagna.
"That's why I say make Andujar into a left fielder—thereby maximizing his arm and minimizing his other fielding problems—sign Machado if he will play third, and bite the bullet and sign Harper."
AnDUjar to left seems like the right move. Same with signing Machado. If all they did was sign Machado and Corbin that would be plenty.
BTW it's interesting that Gleybar leads the Yankees in errors (17-to AnDUjar's 15) but everyone is OK with that. As am I. Growing pains.
Yet the perception is that AnDUjar is a hopeless case. I'm guessing it's because of his lack of range. He lets a lot of balls get by. At least Gleybar knocks them down.
Retired Stratman, "You can usually sense it wafting in around the second inning. The Stink." For me it sets in during the fourth. I can not tell you how many defensive halves of the 4th inning I skip secure in the knowledge that we will give up three runs.
Doug K.
Spake is the past form, idiot. Sometimes trying to sound literate can backfire, right Dr. Jorgensen? The only thing on which you're qualified to "spake" is adjusting a garter belt.
Had the pleasure of meeting Bouton once, Doug K. Seemed like a very nice guy. I told him about how my parents had bought "Ball Four" for me when I was still 11—they thought it was just some typical baseball book by a former Yankee.
I couldn't really understand what he meant when he wrote about he and his teammates "shooting beaver," but I knew it was something dirty. Bouton laughed like hell when I told him the story. Shame about his Alzheimer's now.
As for me, I think The Stink often gets started right away. When was the last time we had a big first inning?
Snif? Snif? I smell ... what is it? That waft of imbecility? That aroma of ineffectual wasted life? A bit of mom's basement and dirty laundry with just a hint of pathetic celibacy too? Oh! Oh! Of course!
It's Puckered!!
Yaayyy!!!! Yaayyy!!!!
Mom's basement, WW. The thing is, in an attention economy, if you ignore morons and trolls, they wither. Best not to respond generally. We all have your back.
13bit, I know, I know. "Don't feed the trolls." But it's appearances fill me with a child-like glee. I always end up giggling. Plus, it gives me a reason to misuse the archaic simple past tense of the verb speak, which also makes me gleeful and giggling, my BA in Classical English Literature be damned.. I can't tell you how much happiness it brings me. Truly, I appreciate you having my back, but I'm mostly on the floor laughing! :-D
Bouton’s kids (stepkids?) went to my high school; they were a few years behind me. He used to bring them into the clothing store I worked at after school. I never had the nerve to say anything about Ball Four to him, though I’d read it a couple of times.
As for this team, the defense seems to get worse and worse as the season progresses. Who do you expect to consistently make plays, even routine ones? Gregorious, Hicks, Gardner, Judge. Otherwise, you hold your breath on every ball in play. And with certain catchers, even on those which aren’t. Seems like every throw to second on stolen base attempts ends up in center field.
Ever considering shutting up, just for once, to spare yourself and the rest of the world these cringes of embarrassment, Christine "Warblist" Jorgensen?
Sorry--all your sorry fourth-grade Internet flaming tropes--mom's basement, celibacy, dirty laundry--are just pathetic stabs in the dark. We all KNOW that you're a demented, cross-dressing, frothing mediocrity. Those are not conjectures--those are certainties. You know it's all true, or you wouldn't be firing back with such impotent desperation.
Speaking of impotence--is that what drove you to wearing stockings and skirts and eyeliner?
Do tell.And then get some help, you howling mess.
God, you are a massive flaming asshole, Baby Statboy. One of those assholes so massive that he can't even see what an asshole he is, even though it's obvious to every other person. Malignant narcissism? Who cares? You're just an asshole and nobody takes your hatred seriously.
TeHeHeee!
By the by, Duque, this was another masterpiece. I hope you have filed the copyright on "ejaculatory home pods." It should at least be a garage band.
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