Friday, August 3, 2018

Potpurri of Disgust


Tonight, I close my windows.

Even though it's 103% humidity and temps are in the high 80s and I live in a 139-year old house with no air conditioning, central or otherwise, I'm going to close my windows and bake and sweat until I have a shiny, inch-thick patina and generally look as miserable as CC did last night.



Why am I going to do this?  Because last night I screamed FUCK YOU at the television so many times, I think my neighbors have all started a Change.org petition to get me shit-canned from the 'hood.

[Sorry for all the harsh language but those guys pissed me off royally last night.]

A client of mine, who hails from Erie, PA is a big Pittsburgh Pirates fan.  At the time we sent him to the Pirates, Ivan Nova had proved himself to be another in a long line of frustrating Yankee pitchers to watch.  I warned my client: Nova will dazzle you at first.  He'll give you a few good starts and get your hopes up and just when you start to think you won the trade, he'll let you down.

It never happened.  Nova has performed passably well for the Pirates.  Why?  Because the Pirates have a pitching coach and we have Larry Rothschild.  Which brings us to Jonathan Holder.



I blame much of Holder's performance last night -- both in terms of getting batters out AND knowing something about baseball fundamentals, you know, like executing a rundown or knowing what to do when your opponent attempts to steal a base -- squarely on Boone and Rothschild.

Letting a pitcher give up seven runs on five hits without getting an out is inexcusable. Those two yutzes chewed their seeds and stared straight ahead and did nothing. I would have loved to see the dugout camera pan down the bench to catch every single player staring at Boone waiting for him to do something, anything.

When Holder saw Benintendi trying to steal second, I have to guess he never threw the ball because he assumed Boone was coming out to get him and that time had been called.  But it wasn't.

My client from Erie sent me an article from today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  In it, the Pirates' pitching coach, Ray Searage, talks about looking forward to working with Chris Archer and hopes he can be an "easy fix" the way Nova and Happ were:
J.A. Happ, that was an easy fix,” he said. “Nova coming over, that was an easy fix. You just see a little thing and it’s like, ‘Hey, let’s try this.’ And then it clicks, and then all of a sudden they just run with it...
Does that sound like any quote you've ever heard coming from Larry Rothschild?  Or from Aaron Boone for that matter?  The Pirates' coach is a guy talking about seeing a little thing, trying out some ideas, watching something click, and then enjoying his players "running with it".  He's talking like a professional coach who's good at what he does.

Our manager, by contrast, lets a guy give up 7 runs without getting an out and afterward says things like:
We have to do a better job, play a cleaner brand of baseball, especially when things are hard...
That's the sort of mush-mouthed bland-speak that doomed Jeb Bush in 2016 and it will ultimately spell the end of the NYY clubhouse when an all-enshrouding soporific malaise descends over everyone.  The players are all going to stare at runners trying to steal, waddle after passed balls, and lope back to the dugout after striking out.  As a fan, you can feel it coming like another dreary batch of this awful humidity.

As far as actually watching his players -- you know, with his actual eyeballs -- Boone appears to be watching something else ... or maybe just the back of his eyelids ... or maybe that chick A Rod was gawking at back in the day.  When asked about Gleyber Torres' lack of hustle last night, Boone was quoted in the NY Post as saying:
“I didn’t see that.
Any outraged Yankee fan on the verge of a stress-induced heart attack (like, say, me) also remembers Boone's response when someone asked him to comment on Gary Sanchez' lack of hustle just last week.  You remember, Yankee fans, this was when Sanchez failed to run to first base with the Yankees down by a run in the ninth.  We all saw it.  Here's what Boone saw:
“I’d have to watch that,” Boone said.
When asked separately about Sanchez waddling up the third base line earlier in the same game to retrieve a passed ball and allowing a runner score, Boone said:
It’s another thing I’ve got to look at.
What game is this guy watching? 

KD said in a comment this morning that he believed this team-wide letdown is "all the result of the Sanchez Contagion which Boone let fester."

Yer durn tootin' it is.

Ok, this rant is over.  The game is starting soon.  I'm going to go grab a beer and close all my windows.  I've got Boone and Rothschild on a short leash tonight.  Unlike those two, I'm watching and I'll take action if I see professional players not doing their jobs.

Just ask my neighbors.

18 comments:

HoraceClarke66 said...

Well said, LBJ. You're a better man than I am; I can't even watch.

JJ in MA said...

Also not watching, but score-peeking in the MLB app. Even that is frustrating.

Joe of AZ said...

Like I said last last night....Girardi's teams lost pineapples when Girardi over/under tinkered but at least
He flipping DID SOMETHING!!! his guys were NEVER this under prepared or pathetic looking under the hot lights.....one more thing the life went out of this team the MOMENT they sent Torreyes to AAA in favor of ol crusty walker...MARK IT!

#pissed

Rufus T. Firefly said...

oh fuck.

says it all.

Anonymous said...

What the hell did these guys work on during spring training...positive reinforcement. Hicks looking at a grounder like he just hit a grand slam. Down three run to first u fuckin bum. The spread of the sanchez virus is doing much more damage than this recent outbreak of hfm disease

13bit said...

I am rooting for a full-on meltdown, no-playoff appearance, disaster movie, overflowing toilet bowl last two months. Better to suck 1000 percent and maybe wake Hal up to the need to fire Cashmoney and Boone than another "we got so close season."

It's simple, friends: sometimes you really need to just bottom out. This semi-functional bullshit is just so much mirage action.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Wow. I have never seen a Yankees team this completely devoid of spirit.

KD said...

One hit complete game with less than 100 pitches. We got Maddoxed. This has to be the low point.

Vampifella said...

Yeaaah...at this rate I rather see the M's and A's fight each other for the wild card spot and let one of them deal with Boston than to let us get slaughtered in the playoffs. I mean there just isn't any sense to this anymore unless Boston's team plane crashes into a mountain or something. They are obviously a top 10 team ever in the history of baseball.

Too bad this wasn't 5 days ago. I would have said trade off everyone who's has less than 3 years of the majors. We'll need to rebuild for at least two more years at this rate and hope everyone on the Sox ages badly quickly.

I'm Bill White said...

Someone should write a comic book about the Ghosts of Yankees Past taking the Toads of Yankees Present to the woodshed.

Anonymous said...

IT'S NOW, EASY TO SEE.

AARON JUDGE IS OUR HEART.

AARON JUDGE IS OUR SOUL.

AARON JUDGE IS OUR MVP.

AARON JUDGE IS OUR LEADER.

WE ARE LOST WITHOUT HIM.

Alphonso said...

Not to be annoying, but I disagree.

Someone earlier identified the malaise, and its name is Jesus Sanchez.

He is lazy and disinterested.

He performs unacceptably, and Boone keeps putting his name on the card.

We are lucky he is gone.

Unfortunately, his impact of slothfulness and lack of focus remain.

Judge is great and maybe he is the heart and sole.

But the spirit of Jesus Sanchez, and the lack of managerial response, is the death nell for this team.

When you see Torres imitating Sanchez you know we are done.

Sanchez needs to be dumped, traded or, daily reamed with an electric cattle prod.


Anonymous said...

I HEAR YOU AND AGREE ABOUT THE MALAISE SPREADING FROM SANCHEZ TO TORRES.

HOWEVER, WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO WIN GAMES WITHOUT SANCHEZ AS LONG AS JUDGE WAS IN THE LINEUP.

NOW, WITHOUT JUDGE, IT'S THE STRAW THAT BROKE THE CAMELS BACK.

TO MAKE MATTERS WORSE, I BET TORRES WONT PLAY TOMORROW [AND POSSIBLY SUNDAY TOO].

DID YOU SEE HIM GRAB HIS ELBOW LATE IN THE GAME?

THE SAME ELBOW THAT HAD THE TOMMY JOHN LAST YEAR.

THE WORST MAY BE YET TO COME.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Vampifella, this Red Sox team is certainly PLAYING like one of the top ten teams in the history of the game, but I just can't believe that they are.

They have three superior position players: Martinez (almost certainly a juicer), Betts, and Benitendi. Everyone else is mediocre to poor. Their bench is almost non-existent. They have a strong starting staff, but after Sale, it is hardly remarkable. Their bullpen has over-performed remarkably—most likely, because it has not been stretched—but after Kimbrel, is there anyone truly outstanding out there?

What they have benefited from is being a well-constructed, well-led team at a time when over half the teams in the league are tanking. They beat the teams they should beat, play good fundamental baseball, and get good to reasonably good starts from their pitchers.

I think the REAL top ten of MLB teams—

1998 Yankees
1939 Yankees
1927 Yankees
1942 Cardinals
1976 Reds
1929 Athletics
1906 Cubs
1961 Yankees
1969 Orioles
1937 Yankees

—would all kick their butts, but that's neither here nor there. They are the best of their year.

HoraceClarke66 said...

ALL-CAPS, I love you, and I love Aaron Judge dearly, but he is no more than the 2018 version of Frank Howard.

The guy is a .204 hitter on the road. If that is the heart and soul of this team, we are in trouble—which we are.

This is a gimcrack, injury-prone team that doesn't have the depth it seemed to have earlier in the year, and has no heart whatsoever—and even less pitching.

It's a shame. In some other universe, Sanchez is full of desire, Bird can stay on the field, Torres never misses a game, and the young pitchers are all great. Not in this one.

The most charitable thing you could and should do is blow this team up. But Cashman won't, out of pride, and ignorance, and vanity, the usual culprits.

In terms of what he knows how to do, he ought to run out this offseason and sign Harper, Machado, and Corbin. But he seems to think he is Epstein now, and so we can count on 5 years of miserable soap opera ahead, as the team slowly comes apart like the Mets after 1986, and there are all kinds of desperate attempts to patch it up.

Better to forget it. Better to leave it in the realm of what-might-have-been, and move on. But we won't.

Anonymous said...

LOVE YA TOO HOSS....BUT AS FOR JUDGE AND HIS .204 ON THE ROAD.......

WHAT IS HIS OBP ON THE ROAD?

HOW IS HIS FIELDUNG AND HIS THROWING ARM ON THE ROAD?

HOW IS HIS BASE RUNNING ON THE ROAD?

FIND OUT WHAT OUR RECORD IS WITHOUT JUDGE IN THE LINEUP [BOTH HOME AND AWAY].

AFTER YOU HONESTLY ANSWER THOSE QUESTIONS THEN CHECK OUR RECORD WITHOUT HIM, WILL YOU THEN STAND IN MY CORNER ON THIS.

HoraceClarke66 said...

I completely agree that the Yankees are a better team WITH Judge than without him...mostly because our vaunted depth has evaporated.

BUT...his stats on the road, all-around...stink.

He has just 8 homers and 17 ribbies. His slash line on the road is .204/.308/.362/.671 which is terrible, and well below his home slash of .375/.491/.756/1.247.

There's something wrong when a guy is the best hitter in baseball at home—and a nonentity like this on the road.

It's not all his fault. Here is another telling stat:

Home: 40 walks, 58 strikeouts.

Road: 28 walks, 79 strikeout.

That's a big difference, and I put it down in part to one of the many things Ma Boone seems unequipped to do for his players, which is to get out there and jaw like a madman at the umps until they give Judge a fair shake on his strike zone on the road.

But in any case, the result is the same: a guy who is, if not Babe Ruth, at least Bernie and Paulie combined at home, and Chad Curtis on the road.

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