Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Yankees Give Minnesota The D

No plate appearances since September 9th?  No big deal.  No starts since September 4th?  Big freakin' whoop.  Relegated to simple pinch runner and late-game defensive specialist duty, AKA roster expansion bitch work?  Ain't no thang.

Because Chris Dickerson is a bad man, plain and simple.  Dude's been worth close to half a win above replacement in just 14 PA.  He walks, he rakes, he steals, he fields, and he's basically an all-around boss.  I like to think I was the first in the blogosphere to coin the "C-Dick" nickname, and in keeping with that trendsetting reputation I am officially declaring that C-Dick as you know him is dead.  Chris Dickerson is now just, "The D."

Updating The AB4AR Sh*t List

(Where will the binderiffic wonder end up this time?  Click below to find out.  Courtesy of US Presswire)

It's been a solid 6 weeks since I did the last edition of the always-changing AB4AR Shit List, and after last night's bullpen gongshow today is the perfect time to come back to it and post what will, in all likelihood, be the final version of the 2012 season.  If you know me, know the site, and know what my hot buttons are, you should probably already have a good idea about what this edition is going to look like.  If you don't, well then this will be a fun little surprise for you now, won't it?

Remember that this isn't meant to be analytical in any way.  Just straight up, good old-fashioned fan griping and hostility.  Latest Shit List rankings after the jump.

Game 154 Wrap-Up: MIN 5 NYY 4

(I feel ya, Phil.  Courtesy of the AP)

Monday we got Liam Hendriks the superhero secret identity nobody, and the Yankees dispatched of him with relative ease.  Last night we got Esmerling Vasquez, another nobody that Minnesota plucked out of the bargain bin to fill out their rotation.  According to FanGraphs, he's a 28-year-old right-hander who the Yankees have faced before when he was with the D-backs, but with a name like that he sounds more like a female character from one of those soap operas on Telemundo.   He was tasked with stopping the Yankees and Phil Hughes, who were looking to extend their division lead to 2.5 games and chop 2 more off their magic number as they entered the season's final week.

Game Notes:

- The Yankees put runners on in each of the first 3 innings, but had nothing to show for it against Vasquez.  That changed the second time through the order when Robinson Cano singled for his second hit of the game and scored on a 2-run HR from the rapidly heating up Nick Swisher.

- After throwing 3 scoreless, stress-free innings, Phil decided it would be a good idea to start giving up runs in the bottom of the 4th when it was a shutdown inning.  Chris Parmalee can thank BABIP luck for his RBI double to make it a 2-1 game, but a better-placed slutter from Hughes could have finished him off.

- To Hughes' credit, he didn't get rattled.  He continued to pitch aggressively with his fastball, and used the slutter to get more GB outs than we usually see from him.  Hughes worked a quick and efficient 7-pitch 6th inning to keep it a 1-run game.

- It stayed a 1-run game because the offense couldn't do much else against Vasquez, that is until the top of the 7th when Russell Martin's solo HR to lead off the inning made it 3-1.

- Things started to get a little tense in the bottom of the 7th after Parmalee worked a 10-pitch walk to put 2 on with nobody out.  A dinky infield single loaded the bases, but Hughes battled back to get a big strikeout for his 2nd out of the inning.  Then Joe got involved.

- Hughes had earned the right to work out of his jam, at only 99 pitches and with 3 outs to his credit already against Denard Span, but Girardi and his fucking binder took that away.  Joe went to Boone Logan and Logan was terrible, giving up 4 runs on a pair of hits and a wild pitch and hanging the loss on Hughes' record.

- The lifeless corpse of Andruw Jones managed to stumble into a homer in the 9th to make it interesting, but the Yanks still ended up on the losing end.  Gotta be a real bad taste in everybody's mouth after the way this one went down.