Sweet Jesus, We're Done

It's always the marginal guys like this.

Remember the great Ken Huckaby?  The backup catcher starting for Toronto on Opening Day, 2003? The guy who separated Derek Jeter's shoulder and put him out for a month by sliding into third base on the Blue Jay's wretched carpet, trying to make a tag?

It was reckless and foolish play, made by 32-year-old journeyman trying desperately to hang on to a major-league spot.  He tore up Derek, and then incensed the Captain by claiming afterwards that he had called Jetes to try to check on him.

Jeter was angry because he knew full well that Huckaby didn't have his phone number (at the time, only Mariah Carey and his Mom did), and it understandably pissed him off that this clumsy busher had not only got him hurt, but then lied to the press about calling him.

This is the sort of pride and desire the writers always claim to want to see—Jeter really wanted to play!—but of course they made Derek out to be the bully.  Various wankers at the Times like Harvey Araton followed up on the story for years, asking Huckaby whenever they saw him if he had got that apology from Jeter yet.

Apology for what, exactly?

Of course, the injury didn't really hurt the Yankees all that much in 2003 because Jeter got back on a ballfield as soon as it was humanly possible, to hit .324 for the rest of the season and .314 for the playoffs.  The Yankees made it to the World Series because the team was still run by George Steinbrenner, and still had enough guys left over from the Gene Michael Dynasty and so had built in every redundancy it could—most notably seven, count 'em seven, starting pitchers.

This weekend it was, once again, a journeyman, fill-in catcher on a bad team who did the damage.  One Pedro Severino, backing up the Orioles' other back-up, Jesus Sucré.

This time, though, it was on a legitimate play, a smart one even:  a snap throw to third that nearly caught El Matador napping there, with two outs and the bases loaded.

It was typical of how the Orioles' marginal, Double-A level players bedeviled the Yanks all weekend. Especially their other catcher, Sweet Jesus his own self, who seemed to get about 35 key hits on Saturday.

They were just playing the game the way it should be played, unlike the Yankees, who not only don't like paying so much attention but couldn't even field a third-base coach capable of shouting things like, "Hey, stay alert now!" or "Hey, get back to the bag, this guy's quick!"

And the result is...the worst injury of this awful, injury-wrecked 2019, one that will set our best natural hitter back at least a year and who knows how much more in his development.

It's a crying shame, but the biggest shame is that the talented young people on this team don't even have the protection of the adults who are supposed to have their backs.

Andujar injured?... no, NO, NOOOO, TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFFFFF!

Calling Lloyds of London

This is the swing and miss that brought down Giancarlo the great :



Note the white spheroid that has passed him by.

The tying runs were on base.

He gets paid to hit home runs.

He never hits them when it matters.

Declare him " damaged" and let Lloyds pick up the tab.

Have him vacation with Jacoby.

We can lose without him.

Giancarlo Pipp?

Giancarlo Stanton has a bad wing, and Clint Frazier is now a Yankee. 

Please, Yankees... give Red Thunder the protection he needs.

Wait ! What?

There are indications on this blog that Stanton is injured.

Is that true?

How do you get injured by striking out?

If this is true, I am opening the Gentleman Jack today, early.

I would be happy to see him disappear like Jacoby.

We have a better chance with the 28 year-old misfit.

Playing With Jeter

It seems I already have to correct my jeering post regarding Cashman's infamous boast that the Yankees had six star outfielders and thus did not need to sign Bryce Harper.

Stanton's injury means that now not two but THREE of the Magnificent Six are on the DL, indefinitely, with major hurts.

During yesterday's interminable rain delay, the Yanks' pregame guys were going on and on—without naming any names—about how foolish the Miami Marlins were in trading all these players.

This seems to have become the latest charm offensive from Snake Cashman, as already seen in the Klapsich Report.  That is, an oily, revisionist takedown on Derek Jeter for being an overrated prima donna of a player, turned fool of a general manager whose pockets Coops and others have been gleefully picking.

The usual hired panderers who do this franchise no good have all rushed on board, glad to protect their paychecks by spewing the usual Cashy line.

But of course as any Romanian peasant can tell you, he who sups with Derek Jeter had better have a long spoon.

Here's a little reality check for Mr. Cashman and his hired minions:  which man followed up a Hall of Fame career by marrying a gorgeous supermodel and moving into a Florida mansion?  Which one rappels down buildings dressed as an elf, fighting off a mistress/stalker in court and still having to rely on paid flunkies to state his case?

The Jetes-Coops showdown it now seems likely we'll see played out for years to come is like Muhammad Ali vs Chuck Wepner.  I don't know about you, but my money is not on the Bayonne Bleeder.

Of course, the 2019 season is now set up perfectly for Cashman.

This is our GM's only real talent, making excuses to his bosses and the press corps, and the Yanks' injuries have already given him everything that he needs. If the year goes south, well, what did you expect?

A somewhat less bribed observer might note that injuries are ALWAYS a part of the game, and that the way to deal with them is to get ahead of them, and build in redundancy. But that would upset the only man Cash has to answer to, Zieg Hal, who is way too busy making sure the fans don't get to sneak off with a rain check after choking down Rodentia Dogs for three hours to be bothered with more socialist ideas about spending "his" money.

So it goes. Me, I just want to see what official press release Coops puts out there the day after we all witness Derek Jeter lifting high the World Series trophy.

Don't Let this Truth Slip By......

I started sipping Gentleman Jack about two minutes after the game was meant to begin.

As I saw the words, " Rain Delay" appear on the monitor, I switched over to watch March Madness.

I returned to the baseball after I had posted something on IIH to do with a rainout being our only salvation.  I then noticed that a Yankee game was on tv, although it could have been one of
those " classic replays," of the most embarrassing yankee losses in history.

The sipping continued.

 I did realize the game was " live" when the Yankees were down three runs, had two runners on base, two outs, and Stanton at bat.  Needless to say, I made a 2018 prediction:  " Stanton will strike out here."  And he did.

To my eyes, it was not even a competitive strike out.

Later in the game, we were still down by three runs and it was, suddenly,  "Groundhog Day. " I was still sipping the Gentleman Jack, and Stanton was again at bat, with two out and two runners on base.  I predicted he would strike out.

Only the fates intervened.  He walked.

 But if any of you were still watching, that pitch ( called ball four by the ump) was clearly dead on the inside corner for strike three.  Not even borderline. The TV people even replayed it twice, making the case for automation of the home plate umpire's role.

Stanton escaped back-to-back failures with the game on the line.  He gets paid how many million to look like a poor player on a weak high school team?

Man, was I born at the wrong time!

The truth is: Stanton is a useless piece of ...( fill in your own description )....who will help the Yankees only in meaningless situations.  Mark it down.

He is a symbol of failure.

Worse than our policy in Yemen.

Out of the blocks, the Yankees look old, over-valued and poorly managed

Thus far, the 2019 season's most entertaining Yankee addition is the TV commercial where Aaron Boone tells the slimy Ameritrade therapist how to manage: Move your fingers around, act like you've done it before. I've seen it three times, each drawing a laugh. (Note: After the 50th, I may feel differently.) 

It shows Boone safe and secure in his well-feathered nest as Yankee manager - a concept that might not always apply. For the last four months, the Yankees have been hyped like a team of Olympian gods. But this weekend they played like circus dwarfs in prison pinstripes. If the clunkiness continues, it's only a matter of time before folks start questioning what Boone knows about managing, beyond fluttering his nubile fingers. 

Listen: Three games into a season, there's no point in shrieking about losses, unless you're attempting satire. The greatest Yankee teams in our lives - 1961, 1998, etc. - stumbled in April, and here's the reality of an opening weekend that pits rookie nobodies against veteran stars: The team that wants it more will win.

This weekend, let's face it: Baltimore wanted it more.

For that, I blame Boone. This weekend, his Yankees never attempted a stolen base. They never laid down a bunt. (Gardy tried once and failed.) They grounded into four DPs - a few that were soul-crushers. They made four errors, two by Gary Sanchez, who luxuriated throughout spring training in a hot bath of Boone's liquid admiration. And the greatest bullpen ever? It belonged in Trenton.  

Sunday evening, as it became clear that the mighty Yankees were going to lose the weekend, the YES Excuse SWAT Team turned to Aaron Judge's pre-game statement that the team faced a sense of urgency. Instead of pooh-poohing it, as they did in the early innings, they shifted to analytics: This was a strange thing for Judge - or anyone - to say so early in a season. Then they broke to the commercial where Boone celebrates his financial security in the exciting world of day-trades. 

Look: The Yankees are not in trouble. The season is not on the brink. Boone's job is not in jeopardy. Gary Sanchez is not finished, and Giancarlo Stanton will surely someday stop striking out in key situations. Who knows? Maybe everything will change tonight against lowly Detroit, another traveling tomato can that was meant to launch our season. 

But no matter what happens, the Yankees just squandered an opportunity to lead Boston by three games. They had the home field advantage and the worst team in baseball, while Boston had to start on the West Coast. We won't get those games back. We just lost two out of three, while the man in the dugout flapped his fingers, and nothing more.

Six Little Outfielders

So, of the six terrific outfielders we had so we couldn't sign Bryce Harper:

One is commencing his second straight year on the DL.

One has joined him, indefinitely, on the DL.

One has been sent back down to the minors.

One is currently hitting .077, with no extra-base hits, and 1 RBI (on a bases-loaded walk).

One is currently hitting .250, with two singles, no extra-base hits, no RBI, and four strikeouts in three games.

One is hitting .333!  With no extra-base hits, 2 RBI, and six strikeouts in three games.

Phew!  We really dodged a bullet there.

The Attendance Was Robbed

This was one of Casey Stengel's favorite sayings when he was managing the Mets, and it was never truer than today.

First off, in the long list of things that people want to do to "improve" baseball, how about we dispose of the three-hour-seventeen-minute rain delay, which Yankees fans were subjected to today?

This had to be done, of course, because otherwise it might have meant Hal Steinbrenner at some point having to schedule a doubleheader and lose a whole game's attendance. Instead, he probably made out like a bandit on extra sales of beer and Rodentia Dogs to those poor chumps gullible enough to sit through this monstrosity.

Empires rose and fell, the continents shifted and reformed, entire NCAA brackets were decided.  And still, this putrid, unbearable afternoon of baseball dragged on.

Today's game was almost a classic in its awfulness, the sort of contest that, if repeated often enough, will kill baseball deader than a doornail with the next generation. Why in the name of Abner Doubleday would a young person want to drop the Xbox and go see that seven-hour nightmare?

Uh-boy. Where to start?

There was The Greatest Bullpen in the History of the World once again putting an anemic Yankees comeback out of reach...yet another game in which awful Yankees fielding—a ludicrously bad throw by ICS, a ball that The Gleyber misjudged—led to a key run by the opponent...insanely bad hitting...awful starting pitching—take your pick!

We got to see J.A. Happ arguing with his manager after Ma Boone decided to take mercy on those remaining fans and pull our big, free-agent acquisition following his dreadful, four-inning start today.

Great. We're not only going to get awful pitching. We're also going to have to put up with all sorts of Happ Crap to boot.

(Incidentally, Pat Corbin wasn't exactly a world-beater against the Mets today, but he did allow only two runs and got to where no Yankee starter is likely to reach this season:  the end of the sixth inning.)

Most of all, though, it's time for someone to admit, once and for all, that Cashman's "analytics" approach to the game is an utter failure, one that has reduced the Yankees' hitters to hopeless confusion.

Yankees hitters today struck out swinging at pitches that nearly scraped the ground (I'm looking at you, Sancho.). They struck out swinging at pitches that nearly hit their heads, as if fighting off bees (You know you did, Judge and Gleyber.). They struck out on three straight pitches none of which had more velocity than 75 mph (That would be you, Mr. Stanton.) They struck out on pitches that nearly hit their ankles, to end the game (Thank you, Troy.)

Every single Yankees hitter struck out today, save for Andujar and Gardy, who still has yet to get a hit on the season. Judge struck out four times, and looked as bad as he ever has at the plate. Stanton looked genuinely haunted. Luke Voit left an amazing seven guys on base.

The cause of much of their frustration was one John Means, a journeyman minor leaguer with a single, terrible major-league appearance last season behind him, who nonetheless shut down the Yanks for over three innings by throwing nothing by 74-mph change-ups at them.

The geniuses in the television booth assured us that this was due to Mr. Means' mastery of "the analytics."

They also informed us that, no matter how many straight, dying quail change-ups Means threw up there, the Yanks could not wait on them because you always have to be waiting on a fastball.

Right.

Means had a 35-41 record and a 3.83 ERA in the minors, and he wasn't much better today, surrendering five hits and a walk in his 3 1/3. But he did strike out Yankees whenever he needed to.

So did every other Oriole in sight. For the series, the Yanks left 35 men on base, and struck out 32 times against a pitching staff that would have trouble winning a Double-A pennant.

Even the buffoons in the booth were getting exasperated with the team's approach by the end. Not Brian Cashman, though, who I am sure will tell us it's still early.

I prefer Mr. Dylan (no, not Dylan Bundy):  It's not dark yet, but it's gettin' there.
   

Best Yankee Defense Against Surging O's

Into every life, a little rain must fall:


;

 We are still even with the Birds.

 Dropping this opening series would be a backbreaker.

Boston's Devers on course for record-smashing season of clank

William Barr's wrap-up of yesterday's Yankee game

"Following a careful examination of Saturday's game between the Yankees and XXXXXXXX, this office has concluded that neither team was eliminated from the 2019 American League pennant race, and therefore, no final score is warranted. No criminal collusion with the owners  could be proven, though the Yankees were not completely exonerated."

Wanna shut down the Yankees? Use an "opener" and four situational righties

Karns, Yacabonis, Castro, Givens, Wright... goodnight. 

Like a vegan first perusing the menu at Chick Filet, so did the Yankees yesterday first glimpse what awaits them in 2019: Junkyard righties, straight from Triple A, whose specialty is throwing side-arm heat and/or junk to RH batters who have never seen them before. All afternoon, they came and went - one after another, never seeing the same batter twice - shutting down a woefully unbalanced Yankee attack.

For reasons that I fear lurk in someone's contract, Greg Bird didn't start yesterday, leaving the Yankee ship tilted disastrously to the starboard. Our lone lefty hitter, Brett Gardner, went 0-5 with a K, finishing with a soft liner to center that was hailed by YES apologists like the shot Vic Wertz once blasted to Willie. It came in the ninth, when the Yankees had their first - and brief - taste of a lefty.

The Yankees spent the month of March denying they have a right-handed problem. Great hitting always prevails, they said. But yesterday, our great hitters looked off-balance and stumbling against pitchers who would struggle in Triple A, if they faced LH bats. Without the switch-hitting Aaron Hicks - (did we dream him?) - and Bird, the Yankees sent out eight RH batters. And if Gardy flounders again - he failed to crack .230 last year - his replacement could be Clint Frazier, making us a complete RH set. This for a franchise that plays in a park carved out for Roger and Reggie, for Graig and George Herman, for even the Grandyman and Sir Didi.

So, we lost to Baltimore. Big deal? Nope. It's comical to watch fans over-react to losses in April. The sky is always falling, the screams are always hysterical, and by June, all the terror is forgotten. Still, though, around October 1, you can look back and count the games that could have made a difference. And April always looms in those calculations.

So, without hesitation, I say this: If the Yankees start 2019 by losing 2 out of 3 to this sad Baltimore team - at home, no less - we will look back on this series as testament to the crapola we were fed all winter. The Yankees have a problem: They have a lineup without lefties; (Bird might not be the answer.) Teams will exploit this weakness. Yesterday's score meant nothing. But those names that shut us down - Karns, Yacabonis, Castro, Givens, Wright - they mean everything.

Yankees Projecting to 81 win season

A hard fought loss to the up and coming orioles puts the Yanks at 1-1 for the year.

It is early, but that projects to an 81 win season.

Anyone take that number?

A nice, even year.

For me, I am committed to the NCAA tournament.  The, there is some soccer on the horizon ---Ladies World Cup in the summer;  men's gold cup sometime.

It is going to be difficult to watch or care about baseball the way the yankees play it

Red Sox fans must be peeing themselves with delight and anticipation.

This Yankee team is bollux.

All the Devils Are Here

An embarrassing loss.

One game into the season and...all the demons that undid this team last season are back in spades.

Absolutely zero clutch hitting or clutch pitching, shoddy fielding, a lack of concentration against a bottom-dwelling team that walked six batters, made several fielding miscues, and generally gave the Yankees every possible chance to win this ballgame.

Which they had no interest in doing.

This had all the general slackness of your usual, wretched, game-after-Opening Day-contest.

We got to see yet another home-plate umpire who cannot keep up with the speed and movement of modern pitching, and seemed to call most pitches by sound.  Fortunately, at least, he was an equal opportunity incompetent.

It also marked yet another ponderous step forward for the Frankenstein's Monster that is the Anonymous Pitcher, with the Orioles prevailing with an "opener."

For all the concentration on time of games and shifts, the elimination of the most heroic figure on the field, the pitcher—reduced now to an interchangeable, 2-3-inning stint—will go far to leech any and all remaining interest in the game in the years to come.

But let's puke talk Yankees.

First, two things people need to stop saying:

—James Paxton is an ace.  He is not.

He has been, at best, a pretty good No. 3-No. 4 pitcher in his short career, throughout which he has rarely managed to stay off the DL for more than 2/3 of a season.

After effortlessly dispatching the Orioles for five innings, he could not get through the sixth.  And while I know some of that was due to the appalling defense behind him, it is still not how an ace pitchers, especially against this bunch of Birds.

—We have maybe the greatest bullpen ever assembled.  No, we do not.

Our arson squad gave away the game today, unable to retire the Orioles' Sweet Jesus, who had more hits and more ribbies than I think our own catcher did all last year.  Again, the clanging mitts behind them didn't help, but Green's performance, in particular, was pathetic.

The hitting was exposed:  11 more guys left on base, making 21 in the first two games.

A truly bad sign:  Giancarlo Stanton taking "A-Rod Gulps"—sucking air like a drowning man—in his next-to-last at-bat.  

His last at-bat seemed to be a tribute to his last at-bat of 2018, whiffing on a 92-mph, hanging curve.  What makes me think that Giancarlo's curve in NYC is going to be one straight curve straight into the ground?

(When he's finally dealt away for lottery tix after the next 2-3 years of hitting .230, can we then please please please replace Coops with Derek Jeter?)

Awful day for El Matador, against pitchers he slugged last year.  And Sancho continues to look like crap with a bat in his hand.

A bad day for Coops and Zieg Hal.  Once again, this is a Yankees team so poorly put together that there was no one available to pinch-hit for a flailing Gardner in the ninth (speaking of people who should not be here).  Pathetic.

And then there was the fielding.

Voit looked even worse at first base than Bird did the game before.  Yes, Tulo had that encouraging home run and gunned down a runner at the plate.  But he was once again caught flat-footed on a play, this one Voit's ill-considered throw to second that he did not so much as move to corral.

Sancho did another good job of framing pitches for Mr. Magoo behind the plate.  But his bad throw to second on the Orioles' double-steal in the sixth was maybe THE key play in the loss.

It was, to start with, a throw to the wrong base.  He should have been trying to cut down the lead runner at third, of course, and if he had no shot there, he should have held onto the ball, in the latter innings of a one-run game.

But of course SOMEBODY should have been reminding everyone of the situation, checking the Orioles' leads, etc.

Hmm, let's think for a minute.  Who should that someone have been?

Yes, it was Ma Boone, who instead looked as sleepy and uninvolved as his players did on this pleasant, sunny spring afternoon.

He and his players should have all taken a nice, long walk in the park today instead of attempting to play baseball, a more complicated endeavor they clearly did not have the attention span or interest to undertake.
 

El Chapo is sitting at 95 mph, and this is not good

Aroldis Chapman threw just one swing-and-miss pitch against Baltimore Thursday. 

He struck out Joey Rickard. Yes, THE Joey Rickard.

His fastball averaged 95 mph, about 5 mph below lifetime heat.

They're saying he needs to become "a pitcher rather than a thrower."

They're saying there is absolutely no cause for alarm. Everything is fine. Go on, get. Shoo. There is nothing more here to read.

With an easy opponent and a symbiotic media, the Yankees can preen over their greatness, but fans know better

In The Wall Street Journal this week, Jared Diamond calls it our "lost decade:" the 10-year barf since the Yankees last played for a world championship. Depending on how you spike the cocktails, this year's team either is poised to resurrect the Yankiverse, or we are stuck on a merry-go-round of hubris, doomed to believe the self-serving bleats of our own propaganda machine.

Two days ago, we celebrated the easy dismantling of baseball's worst team in this millennium. Today, with the wind at our backs and the pathetic O's in our cross-hairs, a seemingly magical season looms - no pain, no hardship, Allah Akbar! God is great! - and we can go through the motions of devouring ourselves in a vast buffet of expectations. 

But something's wrong. Today, we find the Yankiverse boiling with anger. What happened? Why are fans so hostile when we have it so much better than most teams? Are we spoiled brats? Ingrates? Or is it that we sit on the cusp of a lost decade, and here we are - exactly where we were last year? 

Let me digress. Ten years ago, when Hal Steinbrenner took over from his dying dad, the official plan was to build the Yankees along the models of great small market franchises of the past, like the Royals of the '80s and Blue Jays of the '90s. Along with Hal's virtually unlimited financial resources, Brian Cashman would build up from Single A, and the Yankees would contend every season - never needing to rebuild.

It didn't work. The team floundered. By 2013, a year when we should have pulled the plug, we instead signed Vernon Wells, Travis Hafner and others, and became a barge of mediocrity. Then came farewell tours for Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, when other wheels fell off the cart. Instead of giving them post-season appearances, their final outings became meaningless pageants. We failed them both. 

In mid-2016, the Yankees finally adopted the "tanking" model, which Boston had used to win two world championships. They pushed A-Rod out the door and traded for enough prospects to vault to the top of the MLB farm system rankings. Last year, we dealt away that surplus in a failed run. To make matters worse - actually, about as bad as things can get - Boston won again.

This winter, we saw public angst over Manny Machado's statement that he'll never be a "Charlie Hustle" type. His words infuriated fans: A millionaire player  doesn't always play his hardest. That doesn't cut it. 

But why does not the same view hold for a billionaire owner? This winter, Steinbrenner sat on the sidelines, holding back with his wallet. This was the equivalent of a player jogging out a grounder. One can argue that Machado and/or Bryce Harper simply didn't fit the Yankee roster; fine. But the Yankees ignored auctions for Patrick Corbin - who at the end of his contract with Washington will still be younger than the pitcher we signed, J.A. Happ - and Dallas Keuchel. Again, we enter the year with the third highest payroll - below the Cubs and Redsocks. 

Hal is jogging, while the NYC media - bowing and scraping to Yankee influence -looks the other way. We even see hostility toward Machado and Harper, for being paid so much money. And of course, when writers want to make sure their calls get returned, they always mention the real culprit: Jacoby Ellsbury.  

So yeah, I'm still seething. Today, if all goes well, we'll sit back and cuff around lowly Baltimore. But our owner and GM have had 10 years to build the organization, and the Wall Street Journal now has given their tenure a name.

It's called "The Lost Decade." Worst in Yankee history.

When in custody, they're always "ex-Yankees"

John Wetteland - (who used to be a holier-than-thou right-winger, BTW) - is in the new Mel Hall of Fame.

I don't mean to make light of the charges, which are horrible. But Wetteland spent three years with the Dodgers, three with Montreal and four with Texas. Only two as a Yankee. But we all know how that works.

A joyous Yankee day... and night!

Around beddy-bye time last night, I saw "Chris Sale" trending on Twitter. Shit, I thought, he's throwing a no-no. Then, to my delight, I finagled my cursor into place and clicked. Joy! Bliss! Mariano! 

Three innings. Seven runs. Three bombs. Against Seattle, this year's AL West tanker truck. Then the bullpen conga line. A 12-4 loss. Errors by Nunnie and Fatso Devers. 

Ahhhh, Calgon Bath Beads, take me away...!

Listen: It's a long year, the world has gone nuts, my lumbago is still acting up, and the history of opening day is littered with unforgettable performances by forgettable players, and verse-visa. I'm old enough to recall Jim Hunter getting slapped around in his opener, and Frank Messier saying, "Well, Scooter, this is a rather inauspicious debut for Catfish," and neither Phil nor I knew what the hell he meant.

If I were a big-spending Redsock fan today, I'd assure myself that Sale will be fine, that by August 1, his ERA will be around 2.00, and it will reflect the ton of scoreless innings he'll throw to compensate for last night. Yep, that's what I would say. Boston lost, and the Yankees won. No big deal. 

Unless it is a big deal. If so, then the big-spending Redsocks are about to learn how hard it is to repeat, even if they spend more than any other team. 

Meanwhile, if the Yankees don't win 5 of 6 against these sorry, ridiculous Orioles, we should do what the Mets do to crack down on players: Force them to spend a day in Syracuse. Good grief, I knew Baltimore was tanking this year, when three weeks ago, in a spring training game, I couldn't recognize one player. But I hadn't anticipated this: Two Rule 5 players, (shades of Charlie Sands and Frank Tepedino), including one starting at SS, and a pitching staff that will use a Tampa-style "opener" by the second game of the season. Wow. They lost 115 games last year, and now they're gunning for 120.

Yesterday was wonderful. We got ahead early, sat on them and ate ice cream under the sun. Even Greg Bird escaped from a rotten 3-K day - and potential fan abuse - by hitting a HR. All systems go. We looked like the fully functioning Death Star that Cashman once described. We need 5 out of 6 against Baltimore. Anything less, and we're not trying.