The Angels won despite themselves and their over-managing manager, Mike Scioscia. Taking out John Lackey in the 7th was one of the most dreadful moves I have ever seen in ANY baseball game, never mind a playoff game. And, although they wound up winning anyway, largely due to some very questionable Yankee relief pitching, the bitter taste in my mouth for over-managing in general and for Mike Scioscia in particular remained.
The Angels may have taken this series back to New York but they will never win it. They don’t deserve to win it with a manager as stupid as theirs is. The only way they can win it is if Joe Girardi, who has done some serious over-managing of his own in this series, loses it for the Yanks.
I have to admit that, prior to last night, Girardi’s moves have amused rather than upset me. As a serious Mets fan (whatever that is) and avowed Yankee-hater, I’d say, “go ahead, Joe, put in Joba, ha-ha.” But, as I now am actually rooting hard for a Yanks-Phillies World Series, if only to see those pinstriped posers get their heads handed to them, these imprints the managers of both teams are leaving on the games is beginning to get me down. It’s not as if they couldn’t affect the result.
I can see it now in my mind’s eye, the Yankees clinging to a one run lead, Pettitte cruising in the 6th or 7th, when oops, he’s thrown 100 pitches, time to bring in Joba, or let’s bring in Hughes or Aceves or whatever mediocre relief guy comes to his mind, if mind is the best word for it. Next thing you know, it’s not “Yankees win, thuhhhh Yankees WIN.” Instead, it’s “Angels win.” I refer, of course, to John Sterling’s call.
Did Baba Booey really pinch-run for Arod? See….point made. The only thing I can think of is that he didn’t want to see Arod get hurt running the bases. And I don’t think you can manage against the possibility of injury, not in baseball anyway, not unless you think the man doesn’t know how to slide. (A lot of ball players have hurt themselves sliding but I don’t think Arod has been one of them).
So, anyway, it’ll be Pettitte versus Saunders on Saturday, and God forbid, the Angels could very well win that one too. Joe Saunders is a really good pitcher. Then it’ll be Sabathia in a Game 7 and, who knows, if there is a rainout on Saturday, if Game 6 is played on Sunday, then CC will have to go Monday, and not even the big guy can go on just two days rest for the start of the World Series on Wednesday.
Not that I’m worried about the Yankees but I had been keenly anticipating a Lee vs Sabathia opener in the World Series. If they have to start with Burnett, it just won’t be the same.
Okay, enough about baseball, except for the umpiring, that is. I’ll just say this, “If an umpire is caught red-handed both not looking at the play and not asking for help, then that umpire should be removed from the umpiring ranks.” It’s just too arrogant for me. And the umpiring in MLB this entire year has been lousy. It’s almost as if they’re begging for instant replay. (As instant replay adds significantly to the length of games, allowing that much more time for commercial interruptions in highly-rated affairs, this last musing is not entirely out of line).
Okay, on to the Week 7 NFL matchups. Last week, I went 10-4 against the spread, not too shabby, after my first two weeks of going 6-8. (I only started making picks in Week 5). The ridiculous Eagles loss to the usually horrible Raiders ruined my four best bets and, once again, I lost my $10. This isn’t a game for the faint of heart, or um, wallet.
Without further ado (and there has been considerable ado thus far, I know), here’s my prognostications (no, that’s not a nasal condition) for Week 7:
Favorite Underdog Spread 4 Best My Pick Reason
GIANTS Cards 7 * Cards Cards could very well win outright
Jets RAIDERS 6 Raiders Unpredictable things happen on West Coast
SnDiego KC 4 ½ * SnDiego SD coming off tough loss to Broncos
Ind STL 13 Ind Colts are not Jaguars and coming off bye too
CIN Chi 1 ½ * Chi Bengals lost best defensive end
GrnBay CLE 7 GrnBay Home field not so hot for Browns and Mangini
PIT Min 4 PIT Polamalu’s back in time for Favre
NE TB 14 ½ NE London game and who cares?
HOU SanFran 3 SanFran 49ers off bye week and bad loss
CAR Buf 7 * CAR Bills can’t get wagons across Mason-Dixon line
NwOrlns MIA 6 ½ NwOrlns What? I should take Miami?
DAL Atl 4 Atl Boyz just haven’t shown enough
Phi WAS 7 Phi Campbell, Skins just pathetic
SD Den 6 Den Div battle will be much clos er
The G-Men will be lucky to escape with a win after demonstrating how bad their pass defense really is. Yeah, they’ll rush the passer this time (what a concept, too bad Sheridan didn’t think of it sooner). Geez, where’s Steve Spagnuolo ?
The Chargers looked good against a really tough Broncos defense. I can’t imagine how they would lose to the Chiefs, not even in Kansas City, not even with Norv Turner, not even if he never plays LaDainian. Look for Rivers to Gates quite often.
The Bengals looked flat against Houston last week. You’d look flat too if you lost your meanest guy in a fight and that’s what happened to the Bengals early on. The Bears faced Atlanta last week and lost. Cinci should be easy by comparison.
The Bills are a mess and even Delhomme will look better than did Sanchez. Home cookin’ won’t hurt the running game.
Showing posts with label Girardi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Girardi. Show all posts
Friday, October 23, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
On Joba and Yankee Idiots
“Snake-bit” doesn’t really cover it, y’know. Not unless it’s a really big snake, more like that Harry Potter’s basilisk. This Mets team just can’t get a break. When their starting pitcher, Fernando Nieve, went down to injury early in yesterday’s game, it seemed just too much.
As small as it may have seemed, losing a journeyman pitcher, it proved to be big. The Mets filled in with a guy they’re soon either sending down or releasing, Tim Redding, and then looked lifeless for nine long innings. In the face of such disaster, why even try? The gods of baseball had already decided their fate, this day and most days in this horrible 2009 injury-fest.
It’s difficult to watch, of course, so you wind up turning the game off. Almost anything would be more interesting, say, a reality show featuring celebrities watching grass grow. Did they do that one yet?
Of course, there is an alternative, but it’s a bad one. Watching the hated Yankees. Yesterday they even had Joba going, and it’s really difficult not to like Joba, even if he is on the wrong team. Joba was great yesterday, and the announcer only mentioned pitch counts maybe 63 or 64 times in the game.
But there’s an even better alternative…two actually, but one is turning off the TV altogether, unthinkable for a baseball fan of limited means. After all, the weekly fantasy baseball contests wind up on Sunday. The other alternative is watching the MLB channel when they’re covering things live.
I had wanted to re-acquire Joba in my fantasy league on Saturday night. I was tied in wins and losses with my weekly opponent and only slightly ahead in ERA and WHIP and strikeouts. Plus, he had three pitchers going, three pretty fair pitchers, Matt Cain probably the least of them, but I had been afraid that if Joba turned in another clunker, I’d lose the advantages I had.
Bad choice. Even the idiots in the Yankee dugout, not to mention the one behind the plate, couldn’t shake Joba’s confidence yesterday. He pitched into the seventh inning, giving up just a lone home run and 3 hits overall, struck out 8 batters and looked confident until the very end when the idiots finally prevailed. Girardi pulled Joba with two outs and nobody on in the seventh. Much to my delight, the crowd booed lustily, and never was a panning more deserved.
The announcers stressed that it was the right move. Sure it was. The crowd got to watch Coke, Hughes and Rivera finish the Tigers off and Joba got the win. And he got a tremendous ovation from the crowd when they finally stopped jeering.
As I found out later on, Joba went home for the break and forgot about baseball except for a bullpen session with a good friend. He “did not think about baseball one time”. He also said, “I needed that” before resorting to the typical Yankee line, how he loved the place to death yada yada (insert finger down throat).
If he loves the place to death so much, why was it so wonderful to get away? Why did he come back renewed? Why did his fastball attain upper-90’s and where did he finally get all that confidence? In Nebraska, that’s where, well away from the idiots and the corporate atmosphere that is the Yankees.
Joba’s a great pitcher on the wrong team. If he pitched for the Rangers, where Nolan Ryan has loudly excoriated all the crap written about the significance of pitch counts, he’d be much better. If he had a catcher who didn’t drive him crazy, if every pitch and every location wasn’t dictated from the bench, the sky would be the limit on Joba.
But that’s just wishful thinking. Joba won’t go anywhere. They’ll throw money at him when the time comes and wheel out some of the old-timers and that will be that. In a couple of years, they’ll remove the shackles and let him breathe. But until then, you won’t see any complete games from Joba.
You won’t see a fist-pump after striking out an even dozen batters over nine. You won’t see the jubilation achieved only after really having completed something you started. You won’t experience any late-inning buzz, the kind of group near-frenzy that typifies baseball at its finest.
What you’ll get is those corporate guys congratulating themselves after the game, after they’ve counted the daily take from those thrice-over-priced tickets, after the W.B. Mason guys have celebrated still another sighting of a Yankee pop-up sailing over that embarrassingly short wall.
The Yanks are a game out of first and Cashman is already celebrating his acumen. They have a glut of fine talent, Arod and Teixeira, all the rest of the aging Jeters and Pettites and Posadas and now Sabathia and Burnet too. They’ll undoubtedly be there at the end of September, especially if all these old guys can hold on until then.
But at what price? I’m not just talking about the tickets. I’m talking about the cost of a stifling atmosphere in the dugout, the clubhouse and even the broadcast booths, the cost of hearing the same Yankee line from every player and announcer, an announcer who knows nothing about baseball but can tell you only how many strikes and how many balls have been thrown.
This is an emphasis that can only come from above, from that embarrassingly stupid Yankee hierarchy that has only managed to achieve a higher form of mediocrity these last several years, this achieved despite spending double and triple that of virtually every other team in major league baseball.
And while I won’t be seeing any blue and orange in this year’s festivities, the Mets having all gone to the trainer’s room, I’ll take solace in watching those Torre-less guys in pinstripes go down once again, hopefully to a team that still has fun playing baseball, the Red Sox or the Rays, or in a perfect world, the Rangers.
As small as it may have seemed, losing a journeyman pitcher, it proved to be big. The Mets filled in with a guy they’re soon either sending down or releasing, Tim Redding, and then looked lifeless for nine long innings. In the face of such disaster, why even try? The gods of baseball had already decided their fate, this day and most days in this horrible 2009 injury-fest.
It’s difficult to watch, of course, so you wind up turning the game off. Almost anything would be more interesting, say, a reality show featuring celebrities watching grass grow. Did they do that one yet?
Of course, there is an alternative, but it’s a bad one. Watching the hated Yankees. Yesterday they even had Joba going, and it’s really difficult not to like Joba, even if he is on the wrong team. Joba was great yesterday, and the announcer only mentioned pitch counts maybe 63 or 64 times in the game.
But there’s an even better alternative…two actually, but one is turning off the TV altogether, unthinkable for a baseball fan of limited means. After all, the weekly fantasy baseball contests wind up on Sunday. The other alternative is watching the MLB channel when they’re covering things live.
I had wanted to re-acquire Joba in my fantasy league on Saturday night. I was tied in wins and losses with my weekly opponent and only slightly ahead in ERA and WHIP and strikeouts. Plus, he had three pitchers going, three pretty fair pitchers, Matt Cain probably the least of them, but I had been afraid that if Joba turned in another clunker, I’d lose the advantages I had.
Bad choice. Even the idiots in the Yankee dugout, not to mention the one behind the plate, couldn’t shake Joba’s confidence yesterday. He pitched into the seventh inning, giving up just a lone home run and 3 hits overall, struck out 8 batters and looked confident until the very end when the idiots finally prevailed. Girardi pulled Joba with two outs and nobody on in the seventh. Much to my delight, the crowd booed lustily, and never was a panning more deserved.
The announcers stressed that it was the right move. Sure it was. The crowd got to watch Coke, Hughes and Rivera finish the Tigers off and Joba got the win. And he got a tremendous ovation from the crowd when they finally stopped jeering.
As I found out later on, Joba went home for the break and forgot about baseball except for a bullpen session with a good friend. He “did not think about baseball one time”. He also said, “I needed that” before resorting to the typical Yankee line, how he loved the place to death yada yada (insert finger down throat).
If he loves the place to death so much, why was it so wonderful to get away? Why did he come back renewed? Why did his fastball attain upper-90’s and where did he finally get all that confidence? In Nebraska, that’s where, well away from the idiots and the corporate atmosphere that is the Yankees.
Joba’s a great pitcher on the wrong team. If he pitched for the Rangers, where Nolan Ryan has loudly excoriated all the crap written about the significance of pitch counts, he’d be much better. If he had a catcher who didn’t drive him crazy, if every pitch and every location wasn’t dictated from the bench, the sky would be the limit on Joba.
But that’s just wishful thinking. Joba won’t go anywhere. They’ll throw money at him when the time comes and wheel out some of the old-timers and that will be that. In a couple of years, they’ll remove the shackles and let him breathe. But until then, you won’t see any complete games from Joba.
You won’t see a fist-pump after striking out an even dozen batters over nine. You won’t see the jubilation achieved only after really having completed something you started. You won’t experience any late-inning buzz, the kind of group near-frenzy that typifies baseball at its finest.
What you’ll get is those corporate guys congratulating themselves after the game, after they’ve counted the daily take from those thrice-over-priced tickets, after the W.B. Mason guys have celebrated still another sighting of a Yankee pop-up sailing over that embarrassingly short wall.
The Yanks are a game out of first and Cashman is already celebrating his acumen. They have a glut of fine talent, Arod and Teixeira, all the rest of the aging Jeters and Pettites and Posadas and now Sabathia and Burnet too. They’ll undoubtedly be there at the end of September, especially if all these old guys can hold on until then.
But at what price? I’m not just talking about the tickets. I’m talking about the cost of a stifling atmosphere in the dugout, the clubhouse and even the broadcast booths, the cost of hearing the same Yankee line from every player and announcer, an announcer who knows nothing about baseball but can tell you only how many strikes and how many balls have been thrown.
This is an emphasis that can only come from above, from that embarrassingly stupid Yankee hierarchy that has only managed to achieve a higher form of mediocrity these last several years, this achieved despite spending double and triple that of virtually every other team in major league baseball.
And while I won’t be seeing any blue and orange in this year’s festivities, the Mets having all gone to the trainer’s room, I’ll take solace in watching those Torre-less guys in pinstripes go down once again, hopefully to a team that still has fun playing baseball, the Red Sox or the Rays, or in a perfect world, the Rangers.
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