The Yankees concluded a horrendous seven days of baseball by losing to the inferior Mets 6-4 in the ESPN Sunday Night Heartbreaker Marathon game. As has been par for the course this week, the Yanks once again strung together a late rally but couldn't claw all the way back. Alex Rodriguez actually came up as the go-ahead run with two on and two out in the top of the ninth against Francisco Rodriguez and put together a tough at-bat, but ultimately struck out swinging.About the only positive to come out of this game was ESPN's continued use of old-school Stone Temple Pilots going into and coming back out of commercial breaks, which tells you everything you need to know about this game. I can't remember the last time the Yankees had a 2-5 week -- I'm sure it's happened more recently than I realize, but they haven't looked this awful in what feels like quite some time. This was also the second time in the last two weeks (with the previous instance coming during the last three games in Detroit) that the Yankees have gone homerless in three straight games.
Pretty much everything has gone wrong for the Yankees during this recent stretch of uninspired play, including a complete and utter lack of timely hitting, an unfortunate although not entirely unexpected regression to the mean (and then some) for the starting rotation, several bullpen meltdowns and of course, injuries galore.
CC Sabathia's control abandoned him in his worst outing of the year, as he gave up six runs through 5 innings, including two home runs to Jason Bay, who only had one home run entering the game. Johan Santana was as good as Sabathia was bad, keeping the Yankees completely off-balance with a wide array of offspeed pitches and pounding the zone with strikes. It was a vintage Santana performance, as the lefthander chucked seven and two-thirds innings of one-run ball, and I can only imagine the tabloids are licking their chops at the prospect of inanely slamming Brian Cashman yet again for passing on Johan.
And that's all I got. Given that the Yankees currently don't give a crap about playing baseball, I'm not going to waste my time writing a more comprehensive recap.
I feel ya, Larry - they were all but unwatchable last week. I wrote some posts last week I still haven't published - thinking about the Yankees is too depressing.
ReplyDeleteMy girlfriend and I were surprised to see that ESPN had Alfredo Aceves listed as "out indefinitely." Wasn't it reported on Friday by YES that he felt great after his cortisone shot? and the MLB injury update site has him listed to begin throwing TODAY. We reasoned that since he wasn't supposed to be doing any baseball activities until then, what happened to suggest such a radical change? Did he have a nightmare and fall out of bed? as usual, ESPN's announcers offered no information.
http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/mlb/fantasy/wsfb/news/injuries.jsp#team147
Oh and the FOX game... They were having this ridiculous baseball purist conversation about how starters and relievers should be able to throw as many pitches as the pitchers did way back when and totally neglected to mention that the mound was 6 inches higher back then - like that has nothing to do with it, as they brought up points that only advanced their argument. Can't FOX and ESPN just shut up and let me watch the Yankees get their butts kicked by inferior competition in peace?
~jamie
"Can't FOX and ESPN just shut up and let me watch the Yankees get their butts kicked by inferior competition in peace?"
ReplyDeleteHa, you're asking for a competent broadcast team on a nationally televised baseball game? Good luck with that.
If you ever need to fill space on an off day, i'd love to read your thoughts on FOX vs ESPN. I find ESPN a lot easier to tune out and therefore easier to deal with, but my girlfriend always points to that fateful sunday night ESPN game vs the Red Sox during which they interviewed Luis Tiant, the subject of ESPN Films' "The Lost Son of Havana," which debuted the following evening, and they hardly showed any of the game during the interview. It was SHAMELESS. She's got me there... but then,I point to the endless commercial for Avatar that FOX treated us to all post season long...
ReplyDeleteIt's a tough call!
~jamie
Heh, that would be an interesting and fun post to write, considering that they'd both lose.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'd give a slight edge to ESPN if only because they don't hate the Yankees quite as blatantly and obnoxiously as Joe Buck does. You'd think one's contract as a national commentator would call for impartiality; Buck should NEVER be allowed to work a Yankee game ever again.
Even before Peter Gammons left, FOX still had a hatred edge because he wasn't on the air much. He, as a red sox fan, had the audacity to say that the homers flying out of the new Yankee stadium last spring was 'a joke' and it was a joke of a ball park during a FOX saturday baseball game of death... I yelled at the TV, "FENWAY has got to be the smallest park in the LEAGUE! Maybe only edged by the Phillies... Agh!" My dogs came running over to make sure I wasn't having some kind of fit. In a real way, I was. Yeah i give ESPN a minor edge... FOX has a way of doing things that just irritates me - oh, and Scooter is a crime against humanity.
ReplyDelete