1. Good thing we lost to the Astros. It saves us from losing to the Nats.
2. Why couldn't we hit Astros pitchers? They stink.
3. Nice to see Houston humiliated. Suck on it, Jose.
4. Thanks to Boonie, Gary, El Chapo and company: Washington will still have never hurt us.
5. If the Astros get swept, the franchise should planning its next five-year tank.
6. I wonder how Giancarlo Stanton managed to hurt himself this week?
7. As he watches TV at home, I bet Aaron Boone impulsively changes the channel every five minutes.
8. Glad I'm not the street vendor who bought 30,000 Edwin Encarnacion stuffed parrots.
9. This was the first time in history that a team ditched traditional starters and used a "bullpen" strategy in the post-season. Also, maybe the last.
10. I don't believe 2019's Yankee plague of injuries was a fluke; I think it's the new normal.
11. Who is Pete Davidson dating these days? Get off your duff, media: We want to know!
12. Losing to Houston spared us from a week of Rudy Giuliani.
13. Remember YES Network's blitz of stats last month, where they claimed to show how HR-hitting teams do prevail in the post-season? What a joke.
14. World Series ratings are in the pits, in part because MLB finally managed to kill the Yankees. Wherever you are, Bud Selig, suck on it. Next year: C-Span?
15. Yeah, he's a dork, but throughout the playoffs, A-Rod has unabashedly carried the Yankee torch. Not many ex-es do that.
16. The series keeps our minds off the looming, brutal decisions over Gardy, Dellin and Didi.
17. Whatever happens this week, it pales in comparison to the real story: Greg Bird playing in the Dominican Winter Leagues. Good spare his tender footsies.
18. As supremely rancid as the NY Giants have been - I'm picturing the oily half of decomposing mayonnaise - they won a Super Bowl in 2011. Thus, you can say they had a better decade than the Yankees. Wow.
19. When Trump calls GOP critics "human scum," let it remind us of his true destiny in life: He was meant to own the Yankees.
20. If he could make a few thin dimes off it, Mark Zuckerberg would tell the world that the Yankees beat Houston. Turned out, Rupert Murdoch has nothing on him.
21. WTF are those snake-shaped UFOs in the skies? Aliens: If you're coming for us, please do it before the Winter Meetings. Spare us Cashman's next round of trades.
I certainly think 1 and 2. Making me wonder why couldn't the Yanks beat them. Probably because the Astros faced the Yanks about a dozen times this year and learned how to beat them. I don't think they ever faced the Nats or certainly not enough to know how to beat them. Either way, I've not been watching the WS. Don't care about either team enough to watch. But I am glad the Astros is loosing. I so wanted the Sux to loose last year in the same fashion.
ReplyDeleteI'm personally already sick about the media trying to drum up hype about the Yanks off season. Getting this player, loosing that player. It's not even a week and I'm already tired of it all because it's all such meaningless babble. And we still have months of inactivity and the constant daily nothing articles to sit though. A rough winter ahead.
The Nats are making the Stros look like their ho's.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Yankees offseason moves...it just doesn't matter.
It just doesn't matter.
It just doesn't matter.
It just doesn't matter.
Is this what you meant?
ReplyDelete14. World Series ratings are in the pits, in part because Hal and MLB finally managed to kill the Yankees. Wherever you are, Bud Selig, suck on it. Next year: C-Span?
Vampifella, the Nats and Astros share a spring training facility in West Palm Beach. They know each other very well. After the Nats wrapped up the NL, the players don't go home. They went to NY and Houston to scout pitching. They have a plan. And amazing starting pitching. The deserve to win.
ReplyDelete21. Rumor has it that those cigar shaped UFOs come from a planet called Cohiba in some galaxy far, far away.
ReplyDeleteYes, the Nats have amazing starting pitching that doesn't fold in the 2nd-3rd inning. Plus, they have players that can hit a single with RISP, bases loaded, WOW, hit a single and score two runs, what a concept!
ReplyDeleteI'm happy the Nats are winning - so far. I hope they bury the Astros, but we have to take this a day at a time.
ReplyDeleteMY reaction? In addition to the happiness mentioned in the previous sentence, I'll add this:
1. Both teams have good pitching. It makes a difference. Our pitching was dogshit - aside from Tanaka, and Paxton doesn't count for me - and it showed. Over and over, I think "if we had only gotten some pitching when we had the chance, as EVERY LAST PERSON ON THIS BLOG WANTED AT THE TIME. So, there's that...
2. The Yankees are no longer the "Yankees." It feels a bit like the Yankees of my youth, in the mid to late 60s, but we have far stronger ghosts then. These guys seem like lightweights, led by a lightweight coach, and run by a hollow-headed GM. Compared to the Astros and Nats, we don't have as much - to use a word that Dick(head) Cheney loved to drop - "gravitas." The young guys gave me hope this year. That was taken away when, with a drumroll, the Yankees brought the Big Guns and the veterans back from the I.L. in September to the Church of the Highly Paid. We promptly started tanking, losing home field advantage, getting listless, losing our fire, edge and desire. That, combined with shitty pitching, was the end of us.
3. I pray every moment for El Chapo to opt out and for us to let him. He probably won't and, despite Cashman's occasional good pickups - Hi, DJ! - the team carries FAR more dead shit weight than it can sustain due to his AWFUL acquisitions. Chap is one of them. I frankly don't care any more if Didi returns. I'd like to see Betances get another shot, but Randy so thoroughly shat on and humiliated him that I would be surprised to see him not pursue another team. The Yankees now are guilty of the worst trope - we are arrogant with no just cause for arrogant. Empty bluster and bullshit.
4. Numbers 7, 8 and 12 - all a hearty "YES."
5. Speaking of YES, they will always peddle bullshit. It's in their articles of incorporation.
6. The cigar-shaped UFOs are actually avatars of A-Rod's shlong, holographically projected to remind us of his mighty presence.
7. In truth, watching these games makes me think of everything we all discussed ad-nauseum all year and confirmed the essential truth of what we thought - not nearly enough pitching, bad coaching, bad managing, and bed front office. These two games have only strengthened my opinions on that.
OH HOW I WOULD LOVE FOR TRUMP TO BUY THE YANKEES.
ReplyDeleteWHILE HE IS STILL PRESIDENT.
I'M TERRIFIED OF ONE THING THIS WINTER.....
THAT GREG BIRD DOES GOOD IN WINTER BALL.
CAN YOU IMAGINE?
HERE WE GO AGAIN.
MERRY GO ROUND.
Great analysis Duque, and Bitty.
ReplyDeleteTwo things:
—No. 13 is a classic way to lie with statistics. Sure, teams that hit home runs do well in the postseason...because who doesn't hit home runs these days? Statistically, there is really little difference between the Yanks' 306 and the Astros' 288. Or the Nats' 231, in a league where the pitchers still bat.
ALSO, once you ring up a bunch of singles and doubles, you'll usually hit more home runs because a) pitchers are always having to pitch with men on base and b) pitchers know they can't get you to swing from the heels at pitches hopelessly out of the strike zone, so they'll be forced to come across more often.
—Bitty, I completely agree with you on the pitching. Though it also strikes me that we lost the ALCS because of how completely undisciplined our hitting was. And, yes, not to mention playing it with a handicap, stuffing about 1/6 of our roster with guys who could not play or pitchers who would only pitch in case of a blowout. Ridiculous.
But you're right, Bitty: we're no longer THE YANKEES. Sigh.
And yes, I am enjoying watching Washington beat Houston. Boy, that Soto is great! I wish we could have great young players. Ones who won't revert or break within a year or two, that is.
ReplyDeleteAlso glad to see NYCFC get beat in the MLS playoffs. Suck it, HAL!
"Glad I'm not the street vendor who bought 30,000 Edwin Encarnacion stuffed parrots."
ReplyDeleteEven gladder I'm not the person who had to catch and disembowel them first.
Doug K.
Good pitching beats good hitting. Nothing else matters.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteRe: Happy Yankee Thought #3 --
All who liked it,
Thank you.
Hoss,
Yeah it might have been my best Yankee song. Fun as hell to write.
and now Happy Yankee Thought #4
And no, it's not that Joey Binders is the Philly manager now. As a side note: Harpy? Brycey? Not sure what he's going to do with that one.
But I digress.
I would like to that Mr. Duque for supplying the fodder for...
Happy Yankee Thought #4 (Collect 'Em All)
"Nice to see Houston humiliated. Suck on it, Jose."
While it is far from over...
I still remember being out to dinner when the TV in bar gave Florida to Gore and, in terms of baseball when we lost Games One and Two to Atlanta at the Stadium. Not to mention that past results are not a guarantee of future earnings.
But...
At my rapidly advancing age I have learned to take joy where I can find it. Watching them get pummeled, watching the growing despair on the faces of the Houston fans, as the Nationals did their overly choreographed celebration dances.
As a side note: Seriously, this needs to stop. It's getting WAY too over the top. I kept expecting to read that June Taylor was hired as a dancing coach for the Marlins. She came cheap because she's dead. I hear Gene Gene "The Dancing Machine" just interviewed with the Angles. (Because he's dead too.) I think.
Where was I? Oh yeah, schadenfreude. Put me down for a bunch of that.
Doug K.
ALL CAPS,
ReplyDelete"I'M TERRIFIED OF ONE THING THIS WINTER... THAT GREG BIRD DOES GOOD IN WINTER BALL. CAN YOU IMAGINE?"
Yes I can. I think it goes something like this...
INT - Dominican Republic Airport - DAY
GREG: (to himself) Wow! Hit .586 with 14 Home Runs in just 25 Games. I can't wait to get to spring training.
AIRPORT LOUDSPEAKER: Now boarding Flight #156 to Miami Florida.
Greg boards the plane.
GREG: (To himself) I even stole 3 bases and was a vacuum in the field.I can beat out Luke Voit easily.
STEWARDESS: 46B? That's in coach.
Greg takes his seat. It's a little tight.
GREG: Ouch!
The End
Hicks will need Tommy John surgery...
ReplyDeleteFunny how Cashman's party line, endlessly parroted by Suzyn Waldman (and to some extent by Sweeny too) was the absurd argument that you can't score runs in the playoffs by stringing together 5-6 hits in a row because the pitching is so much better than in the regular season.
ReplyDeleteWell, Suzyn and Cash - no one's thinking 5-6 hits in a row is the goal, but how about the occasional two-run scoring single? Also, how about having a mix of both HRs and singles? And how about putting a line-up out there that's not a collection of glorified wind machines?!
Last night's game made me angry because our analytical approach (Ks don't matter!) will never win us a WS. Get us some guys who can put the bat on the goddamn ball!!!
You are all forgetting the " curse of the nazarene."
ReplyDeleteNazarene is a bat filled cave in north Lebanon known only to mullas and Derek jeter.
From that cave, he extracted the golden urn and named it " Giancarlo," He valued the urn at more than $300 million and offered it to the Yankees in exchange for Myrrh.
Once that urn came to the Bronx, the team was drained of its oxygen. Strikeouts replaced hustle.
Beady, unfocused looks replaced character.
The Yankees became an empty vessel.
And so they shall remain until the urn crumbles of its own accord.
Which is scheduled for 2007.
There is nothing to be done.
Alphonso, I have been blinded by your holy vision. Even the high priests of Tuckahoe Road cannot help us now.
ReplyDeleteExactly, Hedge. And brilliant scenario, Anon.
ReplyDeleteAnd Doug K., I completely agree. The celebration are out of hand (even though the Washington one is pretty funny).
I think what gets me most is how these guys all do the same celebration no matter what's going on in the game.
Down 10-0, ninth inning, someone hits a solo home run? He still runs around the bases pointing with his forefinger. You're number 1? In what? What does that mean? A guy stops a run with his team down 35-0 in the fourth quarter, and he jumps all about swinging his arms. Because...why?
Hoss,
ReplyDeleteRe: The solo home run guy
Why? Because, "They Play Loud!"
Because loud is automatically better. Who doesn't like loud? It's a great compliment to call someone a loud mouth. It clearly means they are right.
Plus, everyone needs a signature move for the video games. That's what's important. The Personal Brand. Sometimes, like in the case of the parrot, it can even become merch.
(sigh)
Oh, I forgot the sign the Greg Bird one. I just hit publish after typing "The End"
It happens.
Doug K.
Alphonso, Yelich was still available when Cooperstown Cashman went for Stanton. It hurts to think about how different things might have been.
ReplyDeleteDoug K and Hoss, the celebrations over meaningless personal achievements are proof that baseball is not really a team game.
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