A Thing Of Beauty...

There's the classic "Jeterian" swing that tied Lou Gehrig last night.

It's like the Mona Lisa or The Sistine Chapel.  Simply breathtaking.  I'm actually getting a little turned on looking at it.  No wonder Jeter has begged so many A-List hot chicks in his career.  If this doesn't get the ladies squirming in their thongs then I don't know what does.

I'll take this textbook swing over Youk's herky-jerky crap or Ichiro's run-out-of-the-box slap crap 8 days a week.

What A Night!

Well, Joba sucked again and pretty much all but guaranteed himself no shot at starting a game in the ALDS, if not the whole postseason.  But that being said, there was still plenty to be happy about tonight.

-Alfredo Aceves continued to show why he might be the most valuable pitcher in the bullpen not named Mariano Rivera.

-Jonathan Albaladejo looked strong in his 2 innings of work, making a case for himself to be included on the postseason roster is Dave Robertson gets bad news from Dr. Andrews.

-Brett Gardner looks completely healthy and doesn't seem to have missed a step despite being out for an extended period of time.  With him, Melky, and Swisher in the outfield late in games, there aren't going to be too many balls dropping in the gaps in the playoffs.

-A-Rod continues to be locked in at the plate.

-Jorge Posada continues to defy Father Time by coming off the bench cold to smack a game-winning homer.  (For my money he's the 2nd best offensive catcher in baseball behind Joe Mauer and probably the best when it comes to clutch at-bats)

-And last but not least, The Captain finally got of the schnide to lead the offensive charge tonight with 3 hits, tying Lou Gehrig for the franchise record.  A truly great moment in Yankee history that could have only been made better if Jorge failed to hit the home run and Jeter got a chance to come up in the bottom of the 9th with the game, and the all-time hits record, on the line.

If you call yourself a Yankee fan, and this image...

...of Jeter saluting the crowd as they gave him a much-deserved standing ovation didn't give you goosebumps and/or make you choke up a little bit, then you aren't a REAL Yankee fan.

JORGE JUICED ONE!!!!!

Fuck you, Grant Balfour. 

You just lost the game for your team; the least you could do was groove one for Jeter and give the people what they came to see.

Another Day, Another Walk-Off

Swish-a-licious, indeed.

Hit the music...

This Story Sums Up The Red Sox Season

Boston Red Sox' principal owner John Henry’s new bride is calling the shots when it comes to the team’s development plans at Fenway Park.

Sources tell the Herald that Henry benched Janet Marie Smith, the team’s vice president for planning and development, just weeks after his June wedding to Linda Pizzuti.

“Janet Marie was told to go because Linda’s taking over the whole damn place,” said one person familiar with Smith’s exit. Another source said, “Janet was thrown under the bus and everything is a mess as a result of the young bride. The Chinese symbol for conflict is two women under one roof.”

Smith, 51, recently ended her eight-year stint with the Sox. She is credited with sparing the storied ballpark from the wrecking ball, installing Monster seats and improving the 97-year-old stadium.

The 30-year-old bride worked for her family’s Boston development firm, which is transforming a former raincoat factory in the Bulfinch Triangle into luxury condominiums.

A third source said the conflict centered on factors that have been brewing within the Sox organization since Henry bought the team in 2001 for $660 million and hired Smith to restore the park.

In one camp were Sox staffers who praised Smith for encouraging Henry to buy properties around the ballpark to keep developers from building apartments or offices that could tower over Fenway.

But others within the organization wanted the Sox to maximize the property the team purchased under the name of New England Sports Ventures.

Since 2002, the Sox have spent millions for Town Taxi on Ipswich Street, WBCN [website]’s former headquarters, the McDonald’s on Boylston Street and a parking lot behind CVS. This faction wanted Henry to capitalize on those parcels by building up to whatever the zoning allows....

"When Linda arrived, she woke John Henry up to the fact that Janet has a conflict of interest and that the team is not maximizing its value on properties it owns,” a source said. “So they ditched her and they’re trying to make it look like Janet’s departure was mutual, but it wasn’t.”

On the details of her departure, Smith said last week, “I can’t say anything about that.”

Henry and Pizzuti did not respond to requests for interviews. (story courtesy of BostonHerald.com)



BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!  This story is so goddamn funny I almost can't talk about it.  Now it's confirmed that not only is John Henry the creepiest-looking guy on the planet, but he's also completely pussy whipped.  And his pussy-whipped-ness has created a rift in the Red Sox organization over some chick that got fired and whether or not they are doing the most to maximize the area they own around the stadium.

Their team is in the midst of battling for a wild card spot after they all collectively shit the bed at the same time and watched the Pinstripe Express go steaming by them; they have a team comprised of mostly catchers and first basemen; David Ortiz is practically a rotting corpse; their rotation consists of Tim Wakefield and his old-man back, the human batting cage pitching machine that is Josh Beckett, and Paul Byrd, PAUL FUCKING BYRD!!!!  And despite all this, what is everybody in upper management talking about?  Whether firing Janet Marie Smith was on the up-and-up or whether it wasn't.  Everyone is picking sides like the 2 gangs in the "Beat It" video while the team continues to fall back into the clutches of the Texas Rangers.

If this story isn't proof that the Red Sox run is over, then I don't know what is.  It's like the only people in the whole organization who care about winning baseball games are Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy.  Theo hasn't been heard from in months; presumably he's sitting on his racecar bed crying about the shitty contracts he gave J.D. Drew and Jason Varitek.  And Terry Francona has pretty much let everybody know where he stands as he pulls all his starters out of games at the first sign of an impending blowout. 

"Don't worry about winning this one, boys.  We're still 2 games up in the Wild Card standings and we won the World Series in 2004.  Everything will be fine.  Somebody get me some more gum."

Shit like this story leaking out would never happen in New York.  Hank and Hal would have had Janet Smith on a boat to Singapore in the middle of the night 3 weeks before she was even fired and would castrate anybody who even thought about mentioning anything related to her firing to the papers.  That's because the only thing the Yankees care about is winning.  Even if they did care what happened to the area surrounding their new stadium, they wouldn't let it become a big-time story in the New York Post quoting unnamed sources within the organization.
 
Let's all just admit that the whole "Red Sox Nation" was cute for a few years after they won in 2004, but that time has come and gone.  This story shows that Henry, Lucchino, and the rest of the Red Sox organization is just as fraudulent as their fanbase.  They've gotten so caught up in continuing to capitalize on their recent success that they've totally neglected trying to continue that success and now not only have the Yankees passed them by, but they might not even make the playoffs.
 
Thank you, John Henry.  Thank you for marrying this chick.  Somebody better run a background check on her and make sure she isn't some mail-order bride hired by the Yankees to destroy Boston.

R.I.P., Tampa

13 IP with a combined 14 baserunners allowed, 2 ER, and 18 Ks in a 2-0 shutout of a day-night doubleheader?

I'd call that $243.5 million well spent.

Karma's A Bitch, Huh?

How do you like them apples?  On the same day that Andy Pettitte picks up his 13th win of the season and helps the Bombers knock 2 more games off of their ever-shrinking magic number, his former Mitchell Report tag-team partner Roger Clemens gets his defamation lawsuit against Brian McNamee thrown out in his home state of Texas.

And as if that wasn't enough, Clemens gets a little more salt in his wound by having to still deal with McNamee's still pending counter-suit in New York.  And if THAT wasn't enough, the judge in Texas who dismissed Clemens' case did so with prejudice, meaning Roger can't file the suit again.

I wonder which one of Roger's cars is the next to be sacrificed to pay for his defense in the Big Apple.  Bret Michaels must be licking his chops in anticipation.

Thank God it's after the September 1 deadline, though, because with the way Joba and AJ are throwing right now, I wouldn't have been shocked if Cash succumbed to Roger's charms one more time and offered him $10 mil.  I don't think I could bear to hear this again...

Thank You, Toronto

Well Toronto finally decided to show up against the Yankees and made them look awful last night, but there's no reason to even care about last night's game.  Jeter and Swisher sat out, their replacements played sloppy in the field, and the 4 recent September callups handled the bullpen duties after Joba came out of the game.

Essentially the Yankees played their JV team against Toronto last night and they happened to run into Roy Halladay on the night that he snapped out of his funk.  Halladay has been a notorious Yankee killer, and it was only a matter of time before he found his command that he had been missing over his last 3 starts.  That time was last night and with the way he was pitching, he would have shut out the 1927 Yankees, so all you can do is chalk this game up as one the Yankees needed to rest the bullpen and move on to today.

And if you still feel a little uneasy about Joba's performance, take a look at what Paul Byrd did for Boston last night.  Not to mention the fact that Jonathan Papelbon is bitching about being fined for working too slowly on the mound, which could affect his already shaky performance when it comes to putting guys on base.

Any time your team can look horrible for a night and still chop a game off of their magic number, you can live with that.

Same Old Song and Dance

You know, this is really starting to get kind of boring.

Working the starting pitcher out of the game early, bullpen getting critical outs to hold a slim lead, and a late inning surge to put the game out of reach.  What else is new?

I can't say I blame the Blue Jays for folding the tents after the 8th inning, but you could at least pretend you're a bunch of professional baseball players and try to make the game interesting by getting a fews outs in the 9th.  Us Yankee fans have almost forgotten what a close game feels like.

And by the way, in case you're keeping score at home, that's now 7 different Yankees who have 20+ HRs and 70+ RBIs.  (Yawn)

I'm A Genius

Did I call it or did I call it?

Just this morning I said Boston using all of their best bullpen guys last night would come back to bite them and look what happens.  With Crapelbon and The Artist Formerly Known as Billy Wagner unavailable they had to turn to the double-decker crap sandwich of Ramon Ramirez and Manny Delcarmen and watch them choke the game away. 

Meanwhile, Phil Hughes is in Baltimore striking people out left and right to close out another Yankee win, what else is new?

When you're right, you're right.  Now the Sox get to sweat out the rest of the regular season after breathing new life into Tampa's lungs.  Have fun with that, fellas.

Start spreading the news...

WTF Is That???

Seriously, what the hell was David Wright thinking with this helmet last night?  He looks like a chemo patient with that thing on.

If you don't want to get hit in the head by a pitch, don't make a bigger target for pitchers to focus on.  He might as well stand right on the plate, face the mound, and start psyching himself up like Happy Gilmore because if you wear that batting helmet you're basically inviting pitchers to buzz your tower again, if for no other reason than to test the ability of the helmet to protect its wearer.

I would rather get hit in the head every time I stepped into the box until I was laid out on the trainer's table drooling and shitting myself than wear this monstrosity.  A Yankee wouldn't be caught dead wearing this thing.

Will the Real AJ Burnett Please Stand Up

While CC has shown over the last 6 weeks why the Yankees gave him $161 million, AJ Burnett's first season in pinstripes has pretty much been a microcosm of his career: consistently inconsistent with dramatic night-and-day differences between his stats over extended periods of time.

Case in point: Through June and July Burnett was 7-2 with an excellent 2.27 ERA over 10 starts. But since his July 27 start, he is 0-4 with a horrendous 6.53 ERA over 7 starts. These types of dramatic Jekyll and Hyde swings in performance have marked his whole career until he established a bit of consistency over his last 2 years in Toronto. But these latest outings beg the question: Which AJ Burnett is the real AJ Burnett? Is he in the midst of a freak Hyde phase where he's snarling and cursing on the mound and then pouting in the dugout after he gets taken out? Or is this the actual Dr. Jekyll form of Burnett and the flashes of brilliance he has shown this season are just that, flashes and nothing more?

The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, as a closer look at his numbers shows that through June and July his WHIP, H/9 innings, & BB/9 innings were as follows:

WHIP- 1.45; H/9IP- 7.105; BB/9IP- 4.54

Those same categories since July 27 are:

WHIP- 1.59; H/9IP- 10.33; BB/9IP- 4.007

What those splits tell you is that in June and July Burnett's stuff was electric, but his control not so much. He gave up far fewer hits (less than 1 per inning) but walked more guys. While walks are never a good thing, they are easier to overcome than doubles and home runs. You walk a few guys with 2 outs and you can still get the next guy to escape an inning unscathed. You give up a double, a walk, and a home run with 2 outs and you end up getting out of the inning having allowed 3 runs, assuming you make it out of the inning at all.

Through August and last night's start Burnett has walked fewer batters per 9 innings, but is now getting shelled by hitters at a 1.15 H/inning clip. He isn't inducing as many swings and misses, and the contact being made on his pitches is solid, both indicative of his fastball not having the same zip on it and his off-speed pitches not having the same bite they had earlier. The difference in WHIP over the 2 splits is negligible; it's the fact that lately there has been more "H" than "W."

Jorge Posada being behind the plate is irrelevant. You could put Yogi Berra in his prime back there right now and it wouldn't make much of a difference. The solution to his struggles needs to be worked out by Burnett himself and Dave Eiland. Once again we're watching a Yankee pitcher struggle for an extended period of time without any noticeable difference in his approach to try and overcome the struggle. This comes back to Eiland needing to watch video and try to notice things that are being done differently that could be causing Burnett's problems and then working with him on his off-days to resolve the problems. And like with Joba, Eiland needs to be quicker to head to the mound when these struggles pop up. Burnett's frustration has boiled over in each of his last 2 poor outings and he clearly does not have it within himself to calm down and refocus his attention to pitching.

So which AJ Burnett will we see down the stretch? My guess is it will be a hybrid version of the June-July Burnett and the Burnett of the last month as the law of averages will bring his hits and walks back to homeostasis. While that probably won't be enough to have MLB polish the trophy for the 27th Championship right now, it should be enough to keep the Yankees in the driver seat as the postseason favorite, especially if the bullpen can produce in the postseason the way they did last night.

Is Boston Serious???

Really, guys, using Papelbon for 2 innings to maintain your 5-game Wild Card lead knowing you couldn't gain a game on the Yankees for the division?  Really?

I'll take "Panicking in The First Game of A Series Against a Team Who Owns Us Because We're Secretly Concerned About Missing the Playoffs" for 800, Alex.

And you wasted Billy Wagner and Okajima, who was out on the mound doing his best Kei Igawa impression.  Let me know how it works out tonight when Daniel Bard comes in to close the game out and starts giving up bases loaded walks and 3-run doubles.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

Does The Trade Deadline Really Matter?

Seriously, why do we waste time counting down to the trade deadline and devoting entire Baseball Tonight Specials to the deadline when all the meaningful deals are being done a month after the fact?

In this economy, teams are looking to cut costs, which not only contributes to your Scott Kazmirs and Jim Thomes of the world getting traded for rosin bags and extra pine tar, but also to other teams not putting in claims to block the trades.

With all these moves being made by major contenders, the Yankees have to do something, right? Why aren't they out there trying to bring in another bat or another arm for the stretch run?

Oh, that's right. Because the big-name starting pitcher they signed in the off-season is leading the AL in wins and innings pitched right now. And the big-name first baseman they signed in the off-season is leading the AL in RBIs right now. And the 2 role player bats they acquired before the deadline have combined for 18 runs scored, 6 doubles, 7 HRs, 20 RBIs, and a not-too-shabby .350 OBP in less than 100 Abs, not to mention the fact that they are both slugging well over .500 in their time with the Yankees. The Yankees even went out and got Chad Gaudin for shits and gigs and look what he's done.

For all the bad calls he's made in the past, Brian Cashman has been like King Midas this year. People can complain all they want about how much the Yankees spend and wah-wah-wah, but the fact of the matter is they spent the money wisely this season and it's panned out just about as well as it possibly could have. When the 37-year-old you signed for $5.5 mil to be your 4th starter has 12 wins and looks like the second coming of Cy Young, it's safe to say you've done a bang-up job.

The Yankees are head and shoulders above the competition this season and the competition knows it. Now they're all in panic mode trying to stock up for the postseason, taking on big-money contracts and risking upsetting team chemistry like the 2005-2006 Yankees. Meanwhile, the Bombers get to sit back and enjoy the already establish fruits of their labor while they continue to knock everyone's dick in the dirt.

Is Pettitte Back on HGH?

I mean, not that I care; the dude can pump whatever he wants into his ass if it's going to help him win...(ummm wait, that sounds wrong).  Shit, it's common knowledge now that the Red Sox used steroids just as much as bad hair and Jack Daniel's to win their 2 titles, so why is it wrong for the Yankees to level the playing field a little?  Everybody just assumes they use after the Mitchell Report and Pettitte's already proven that he's the master of steroid apologies, so what the hell, right?

The bottom line is that Andy Pettitte has been arguably the best pitcher on the staff over the last 2 months.  Check out the numbers over his last 9 starts:

7-2 record, with 6 consecutive wins
59.2 IP
43 hits and 15 walks for a 1.005 WHIP
17 ER for a 2.56 ERA
62K for an average of 9.35 K/9 innings

That last number is particularly important because it shows Pettitte isn't just squeaking by with mediocre stuff.  His fastball has zip, his cutter has bite, and his curveball is diving off the table like Barry Zito's.  The dude is unstoppable tonight.  If it wasn't for Jerry Hairston doing his best A-Rod impression and choking at 3rd, we might be talking about the 3rd Yankee perfect game in the past 11 years because before that Pettitte was flat out cruising.

Pettitte is now 12-6 on the season and making Cash look like a genius for haggling him down to a $5.5 million dollar salary this offseason.  Theo Epstein should take notes because this is how you spend $5 mil, not on washed up has-beens and fat flash-in-the-pans from the JV League.

Leave it to a bunch of amateur-hour clowns like the Red Sox to not even show up and play a game tonight.  Come on, guys, at least try and compete.  And don't give me that "day off" bullshit; the magic number is down to 26.  You have to at least play the game to try win the division.

Hank and Hal might as well tell George that the Yankees won the division tonight because it's going to take until the end of the season for him to comprehend that anyway.

Everyone say it with me now:  Y-A-N-K-E-E-S!!!!  Shout it out loud, motherfuckers!

Who Are You and What Have You Done with Nick Swisher?

Seriously; 3-3 with 1 run scored, both RBIs, and a triple away from the cycle???
Cut the shit, that has to be Paul O'Neill out there, right?

Post-Game Analysis Quick Hits- 8/30/09

Another subpar outing for Joba today.  More than anyone on the Yankees' staff, he is the easiet to tell when he doesn't have it, and today that was apparent when he put runners on in the 3rd.  The shaking off of Jorge to the point batters are stepping out multiple times in an at-bat, and multiple throws to first are not staples of Joba' repertoire when he's got his best stuff.  On the one hand, it does show that for a pitcher still very young and learning how to pitch effectively at the Major League Level, Joba has an excellent feel for his pitches and knows what's working and when.  On the other, this is his fifth consective subpar start, which can't make coaches or fans comfortable as we move closer to the postseason.  Will the latest revision to "The Joba Rules" help get him back to the form he showed right after the All-Star Game?  His next start will tell.

Someone who can share a little of the blame for Joba's recent struggles is pitching coach Dave Eiland.  For someone who was put on the coaching staff because of the extensive work he had done with the Holy Trinity (Joba, Hughes, Kennedy) in the minors, Eiland certainly hasn't done much to bolster his resume.  Hughes and Kennedy were horrible last year, and Joba has been hit-or-miss all year this year.  Their inability to establish consistency, along with pretty much every pitcher on the staff's inability to adjust in games where they struggle brings up a valid question; would Dave Eiland be on the hot seat if the Yankees weren't having the season they're having?  He never seems to fix anybody's problems and always comes out of the dugout to talk 2 batters too late, if at all, and today was another perfect example.  As soon as Joba started throwing to first and shaking everything off, a good coach would have come out to talk to him and get him to calm down and focus.  Eiland stayed in the dugout and ate sunflower seeds.  Get off your ass, Dave, and earn your fucking paycheck.

The bullpen is the best collective group of guys since the glory days of the late 90s.  Mariano looks like he could pitch into his 50s if he wanted to; Hughes is lights-out and is starting to earn respect from umpires who are more generous with him when he tries to pick corners, Aceves is a modern-day Ramiro Mendoza with his ability to come in and get 2 outs or 4 innings; Robertson has deceptively-electric stuff that nobody in the AL has figured out yet and might have the best curveball on the team; Bruney seems to have regained his early-season form; Damaso Marte has looked good since returning from injury and is only going to get stronger as he gets more innings.  Sure, Phil Coke is basically a glorified batting practice pitcher, but with all the other options they have, the Yankees can afford to send him out there now to try to get his mojo back and then bury him in the postseason if he continues to be ineffective.

He may not be the AL MVP, but there's no argument that Mark Teixeira has been the Yankee MVP this season.  He's tailor-made for the new ballpark, has a great attitude for playing under the pressure of New York, and has made countless plays at first base this season that Jason Giambi couldn't have made in a video game.  Any Yankee infielder who wins a Gold Glove this year owes it to Teix; he has probably saved 20-25 errors easily as first base.

It really can't be said enough how great Derek Jeter has been this year.  At the rate he's hitting right now, he'll pass Lou Gehrig for the all-time Yankee hits record some time next week.  His play at short has been markedly improved over the last few seasons, and he is, for once, a legitimate candidate for a Gold Glove.  When all is said and done, he's going to go down as the greatest shortstop of all-time, whether Tim Kurkjian likes it or not.

Is anybody else getting a bit concerned about the recent Red Sox resurgence?  Beckett looks awful right now, but Tim Wakefield is back in the rotation, Clay Buchholz seems like he's finally grown a set and is pitching great, Junichi Tazawa looks like he could be a solid #4 or #5 starter or long reliever in the playoffs, and even Paul Byrd's rotting corpse threw 6 shutout innings today.  I know I still feel confident about the Yanks' chances in the postseason based on the last 2 series, but should we be concerned about the Sox again?

This Blog is High.... This Blog is Far.... This Blog is...ONLINE!!!!!

Greetings, Yankee fans, and welcome to the newest and soon to be greatest Yankee website on the internet.

Any real Yankee fan knows that the majority of the mainstream media, both on TV and online, has spent the better part of the last 5 years bowing down to the Boston Red Sox while simultaneously thumbing their noses at the Yankees (cough, cough, ESPN). Since Yankee fans can't count on getting any love from them no matter how many games the Yanks win or records they set, it's pretty much up to us to preach the truth, and the time had finally come for me to join the fight.

And so I ask you, fellow Pinstripe fanatics, to join me in the battle. Let Baseball Tonight spend 5 minutes analyzing the Matt Porcello-Kevin Youkilis fight (which, by the way, they still never acknowledged was an epic beatdown of Youkilis by a dude half his size. I haven't seen a textbook judo throw like that since Karo Parysian fought Nick Diaz). I'll spend my time trying to reverse the Pro-Boston, Anti-New York spin that gets put on everything the Yankees do, but at the same time will be fair in my analysis (sort of).

I welcome any and all Yankee fans to join me and spread the word of the site. Send me comments, stories, links, anything that's worthy of promoting the TRUE best team in baseball.

It's time to remind everybody just who exactly runs the fucking show in baseball. And it ain't Theo Eptein.

It's August 30, 2009, and the Yankees are knocking on the door of a division title. The playoffs are right around the corner and it's time to get geared up for a run at the inevitable: The 27th World Championship.