1. Whomever wins the AL Central, they'll be a mirage cut from the White House reflecting pool. Right now, it's the White Sox - four games above .500 - against a league of cupcakes and kewpies. If they played in the NL Central, they'd be 12 out.
2. The Astros, currently leading the AL West - two games above .500 - have an Aaron Judge situation. His name is Yordan Alvarez, and he'd be the unanimous MVP, if the season ended today. Guy leads in HRs and is challenging for the Triple Crown. The problem? As Yank fans know, when your lineup gets used to such a superhuman force, you face a total explosive diarrhea blowout when he tweaks a gonad. And big sluggers tweak big gonads. If/When Alvarez crushes a nut, Houston will separate like rancid mayonnaise. I can't wait.
3. As smirky as they have been, I've noticed that Redsock fans are crapping the bed, waiting for the market correction that they are certain is coming. You can't stay this good forever. They have to know that what comes up... must come down. And right now, that's our only hope.
4. Screw Boston and Tampa. Has anyone seen anything to suggest the Dodgers won't win again? They're coasting, resting their A-team, and they're nine up in the NL West. Frankly, I think the owners are colluding - happy to see LA win three in a row, so they can hit next winter's labor stoppage, pointing to the Dodgers' disparity in wealth and spending. But for three years now, LA has been cooking its books with deferred payments to Ohtani, and the owners let it happen. The shit storm is coming, and the billionaires will be fine with LA winning again.
5. Ben Rice looked like the most relieved human being on the planet after his HR yesterday. He has struggled without Judge's protection. Heliot & Garcia can't do it. Neither can Bellinger. (And speaking of Belli, what happens to Heliot when he and Stanton return? Has anybody thought this out?)
6. Watching George Lombard Jr. this week ralphed-up one basic thought: Why wasn't this guy promoted two months ago? My God, the kid was ready. I know, I know... he tweaked a finger. Still, did the Yankees not see what this kid brings?
7. Dare we believe in Spencer Jones? His triple yesterday changed the game. Over the last two weeks, he leads this team in RBIs, and he looks as solid as Trump's new hair extensions. That said, he's now 2-for-22 - .091 - with six Ks. (Topped only by Jose Caballero, six Ks in 10 ABs.) Jones' HRs have been big - usually with runners on base. When he steps to the plate, everybody leans forward. What do we have? (And if Grisham stays cold, should Jones take over CF?)
8. The Yankees are getting used to starters pitching into the 7th, yet their bullpen budget regularly looks like the Shroud of Turin. Cashman's failure to fortify the bullpen is going to kill us.
9. Today, against the NL East leaders... a visit from Ryan McBroom?
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9.1). Paul O’Neal and Michael Kay have started to increasingly creep me out.
There’s something about their banter that reminds me of sitting on the yellowing vinyl slipcovers that my grandparents had on their living room furniture.
Eewwwwwwww
6. I believe it's all about service time.
It's going to be the Dodgers in 5, right there alongside the Knicks. Although I do think that Carole Lombard has picked the team up, attitude-wise, for the moment. What's up with Betty Grable?
I was surprised the Yankees won yesterday. Cole earned his paycheck. Bastards finally scored a few runs. Five is like an atom bomb blast for these guys.
So look for the Yankees to toss one in the garbage today. Does Boone rest a bunch of guys and play the "C" lineup? Get no hit or perfect game'd until the 8th inning? Schlittler throw gopher balls all over the yard?
3. Fucking Boston lost yesterday. Finally. I guess they found out that they're not going to run the table and win every fucking game the rest of the way. I still they'll win the World Series this year.
4. Rob Fucking Manfred should've blocked the Ohtani contract for not being "in the best interests of baseball". What's next? Will some team defer their entire roster's salaries to go on a championship spree? Will they award pieces of ownership of their teams? How 'bout when some team defers the salary payout for 50 years? What if some player is so loaded and just wants to win so bad that he plays for a dollar a year plus 1 trillion dollars to his descendants 100 years from now? Rob Fucking Manfred, you stupid, spineless piece of shit.
The fucking Dodgers finally won a game yesterday. I think they lost something like 7 or 8 in a row. The Arizona Dick-Bags failed to score a run with the bases loaded, only one out, when they had a chance to walk it off. However, Dodgers' closer Edwin Diaz continues to struggle: he came on to try to close it out in the 9th, allowed fucking BACK TO BACK TRIPLES to blow the save. Have you ever seen back to back triples?
I have a feeling that the Brewers will knock off the fucking Dodgers in the playoffs. If the fucking Dodgers do reach the World Series, I think the Red Sox will destroy them. Never fear, the Red Sox are here.
5. Yanks are going out of the zone too much. Chasing rabbits. Going fishing. Need better at bats. Swing at better pitches. Lay off or foul off tough pitches. Easier said than done.
6. Be thankful they brought up Lombard this year. They could've waited 'til he was 28.
She's had million dollar legs.
But they've lost some of their attraction in the past few decades.
7. It's not about believing in Spencer Jones. It's about playing your best players, regardless of salary history and forcing development at the major league level. If I was managing, Spencer Jones would have been the center fielder a long time ago. Grisham would be sitting on the bench. Also, I never would have sent down Jasson Dominguez. JD would play RF until Judge gets back. Then either JD or Judge will DH. I would not have made the trades for Garcia or Ramos. I would have brought up Lombard sooner.
I was for throwing Spencer Jones in CF and playing him full time, regardless of the strikeouts. I don't particularly care if he had a 90 % strikeout ratio in the minors. That was then; this is now. I'm going to go by what I see right now. He's more than holding his own. He's a much better player than Grisham. He's modeled his swing after Shohei Ohtani. I think that happened early this year. I don't agree with platooning. You saw what Jones could do against lefties yesterday. It's possible he might hit lefties better than righties, reverse splits.
JD is already a much better hitter than Grisham, at least from the right side. He's also a much faster and better base runner. IMO The Martian got the shaft. I hope he'll round out his game in the minors. Come back stronger in 2028 (if 2027 is locked out), or get traded somewhere that will give him a chance to break out. Still have to keep in mind that JD has total service time in the majors adding up to barely one year. One fucking year. A lot of players can take three or four years in the majors to develop.
I think it was on WFAN the day before. I heard someone (a caller) say that, in 2004, when the Yankees blew the 3 games to none lead in the ALCS and lost to Boston, he thought it couldn't happen since it was "a statistical impossibility ... because it had never happened before".
Wow, what the fuck, man? I get it that the stats said it had never happened before, but that is a terrible fallacy. The truth is that if you play like shit, and the other team plays great, there is no lead that is insurmountable. Just because no previous American President ever declared himself "President, Emperor, and Dictator for Life" don't mean that it won't happen tomorrow.
Stats are just a compilation of numbers that show what happened in the past. You can then infer a probability of things happening today, based on the frequency that they happened back then. But there is always the distinct possibility that it means absolutely nothing right now. Look at what is going on right fucking now and make your best judgment call. It don't matter if a boxer is 50-0-0 in the past, if he feels like shit today and can't even move for whatever reason, and if his opponent is up to it, he can get the crap beaten out of him today. Stats are just one of the available tools for predicting the future. Don't turn stats into immutable laws of the universe.
still "think", sorry, typo
Point #4 would be shouted from the mountain tops. This year is all about getting ready for next year’s shit show.
You're all too right, Hammer.
The trouble in 2004—much as I hate with the white-hot passion of a thousand suns to return to that troubled year—was that Joe Torre, much as I love him, refused to pay attention to the evidence that had been amply demonstrated to him...
Rufus - perhaps IIHIIFIIC can sponsor an exhumation of Ms Gable to make an informed determination of, uhm, like you . . . what condition her condition is in
...As Buster Olney wrote in "The Last Night of the Yankees Dynasty"—and what other city would have a beat reporter so eager to call the end of his town's greatest dynasty?—Mariano Rivera, great as he was, was always most effective (by far) in his first inning of work...
...This should not have been a surprise. Nearly all relievers—and certainly, almost all modern closers—are that way. It's the big reason why they're relief pitchers, and not starters. Teams start to catch up to them....
...Nonetheless, and even though he usually had excellent-to-great set-up men in the pan, Joe Torre insisted on trying to get as many, two-inning playoff saves out of Rivera as possible.
And he got a great many of them—another tribute to Mariano's greatness.
But on the face of it, Torre or someone even in the Yankees' Front Office of Noodniks should have questioned this "strategy" (which was really just a jock's faith that guys need to really suck it up for the big games).
In the playoffs, Mariano would of course be MOST tired, pitching after a long, grueling season and pennant race. He would be more fatigued than ever...but was expected to pitch longer—and against the very best teams...
It's like " Frat Bros" humor. But it is not funny.
...Again, the fact that he could usually do this effectively is one more tribute to Rivera's greatness. But Torre saw the problem with this thinking demonstrated to his face in the hideous, final inning of the 2001 World Series, when Mo finally got beat.
Maybe Torre thought this was just due to a combination of remarkable circumstances, such as the physical and mental errors in that inning, along with a broken bat hit, a wet field, and Joe's own, questionable positioning of his fielders. Maybe.
But it should have given him pause. But it didn't. So...
...Oh, and by the way, he had a tanned, ready, and rested set-up guy in Ramiro Mendoza, who was at the Old-Timers' Day extravaganza set to go in that 2001 game; a Mendoza who was usually lights-out in the playoffs, and who had not surrendered a run to the Diamondbacks, if I recall correctly.
But I digress...
Someone tried to exhume Kenny Rogers but mistakenly arrived at the grave of Carole Lombard.
Yankees have set an MLB record for the number of juniors in a starting lineup.
...Even though he had seen his strategy fail, Torre insisted on going to it again in 20024, even with a 3-0 lead in games against Boston. Then refused to even call a pitch-out when everyone knew that Dave Roberts was going to steal. THEN undermined even his own strategy by bringing in Mo NOT at the start of an inning the next night, but when runs were already in and men were on base.
Awful...And of course, Torre and then Girardi went on pitching Mariano for two-inning saves in the most pressurized situations...and he never failed again, because he was and is The Great One...
...All of which is to say, Hammer, that you're completely right: NO lead is insurmountable, especially when your opponents are noodniks (see, Knicks).
Re: number 6. MY DICK COULD NOT GET ANY HARDER!!
Try Blue Chew.
Didn’t see this until now - Tommy John posted a farewell letter yesterday. Sounds like his health is pretty bad & he’s facing his last days. Saddened to hear it. I enjoyed watching him pitch.
I never liked Torre. Overrated, the beneficiary of what Gene Michael, Watson and Buck had put together, just like Cashman. Torre teams played to their ability. He didn't add to the win column and, as you note, his decisions blew some big, big games.
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