A Very Little Bit of Uncertainty

I have to admit to being somewhat confused this Friday. What’s interesting? Certainly not the upcoming Giants and Jets games on Sunday. The G-Men will most likely romp while the Jets play another Jeff Fisher version of an NFL team, the Titans, all defense (but not this year so much) and absolutely no passing game.

The G-Men go against the Tampa Bay Bucs, who have shown nothing in the way of pass defense in their first two games, so Eli should just eat them up whenever he gets the notion. Now that they’ve found Mario Manningham, things should go very smoothly. He and Steve Smith are among the leaders in the NFC receiving categories and they may approach stratospheric numbers after this week. The Bucs toughened their run defense while absolutely killing their historically tough cover-2 pass defense.

The Jets play the Titans from Tennessee and, although the Titans played Houston very tough in their last game, they still managed to lose, even with an unbelievable performance from their fleet running back, Chris Johnson.

The Titans also lost to Pittsburgh 13-10 in the opener, and, well, they may put up a good fight against Ryan’s warriors but I get the feeling that they’ll manage to lose again, but not before they bore us all to death. The Jets will smother the run and then pick-off Kerry Collins ad infinitum.

The Mets are dead. And have been dead, lo these many months of this sorriest of sorry baseball seasons. I refuse to even discuss Beltran and Reyes and Delgado and Maine and Wright’s power slump. I mean, really, how excited can I get about Jeff Francoeur and Angel Pagan? Oh, and Luis Castillo too. And K-Rod and Santana, I guess. Let’s face it, the Mets are in purgatory.

The Yanks face the Red Sox with a five game lead in the loss column, so a lot of the potential drama was drained from this series last week when the Bombers held on to take two of three from the Angels. I had been looking forward to the Angels kicking their butts, but it just didn’t happen. The Yanks pitchers held on in those last two games to make it clear that this isn’t the Yankees of the last few years.

Of course, Joba goes in the Yanks opener and that will undoubtedly have some tongues wagging again, no matter how he does. If he wins against Lester, the story will be his inconsistency. If he loses, it’ll be about his stupid innings-limit (again). Really, the Yanks may have bought the pennant (again), but the general management stinks (again), and the broadcast team is laughable (again).

The NJ Nets are in the news but not in any good way. What a surprise, huh? They sold the team to a Russian nickel and financial magnate whose only other claim to fame is his way with the ladies. And David Stern loves the deal. How nice for him. How sad for the locals.

The poor Knicks haven’t been in the news at all and that situation is an upgrade over where they’ve been the last few years. They did sign David Lee for about 8.5 million and that move bodes well for this year, I suppose. All signs though point to another year of holding steady until they can pick up a top free agent in 2010.

I almost never watch hockey so I won’t bore you any comments in that direction.

Given these circumstances, to me there are only a couple of things that could capture my attention. One is the remarkable comeback of the Twins and the other, strangely enough for a Mets fan, is the almost unreal performance of the Braves under a soon-retiring Bobby Cox.

The Braves could very well steal the wildcard from the Rockies. They play the hapless Washington Nationals in 7 of their last 10 games. The Rockies have a much harder schedule, playing the Central Division-leading Cards, then the hard-hitting Brewers and then the Western Division-leading Dodgers. If the Braves go 8 and 2 while the Rocks can manage only 4 and 5, a distinct possibility, they’ll wind up in a flat-out tie for the NL wildcard.

The SF Giants are still there, of course, and the Marlins have been hanging around, but the hottest team is the Braves, and the niftiest schedule imaginable plays right into their hands. How cool it would be for Atlanta to once again rise to baseball prominence under a beloved but retiring manager? For a city buried in water after a 21-inch pounding of rain, I can think of nothing better; it does my heart good.

And then there’s the upcoming NFL blackouts. What a shame ! Detroit is dying and now they won’t even get to watch their Lions play on Sunday. The same goes for Jacksonville and maybe even some other lower-profile NFL entities but my heart really goes out to Detroit.

A friend pointed out that fans will still see other games on cable but that’s really not making me feel better if I’m a Lions fan. With something approaching 40% unemployment in Motor City, another hit below the belt is not what’s needed. While it’s nice that the Tigers are probably making the playoffs, chances are they’ll be buried in the first round.

So, not being a Yanks fan, and as I foresee Jets and Giants easy wins, I guess I’ll just have to immerse myself in my fantasy team this weekend. That team is at least exciting, with Drew Brees leading the exciting Saints and Marques Colston too. But this will be one of those nail-biter weeks, as my opponent’s got the Baltimore defense and Tony Gonzalez, who keeps getting better and better.

But who really knows in football? The G-Men surely didn’t impress vs. the run against the Boyz and the Bucs have shown they can run the ball with Cadillac and former Giant Derrick Ward. And maybe the Titans will surprise us all.

On Joba And NFL Jobs

Okay, I think I’ve really had it now. I’m going to take my Joba Rules shirt and burn it. What am I saying if I wear his shirt…..that I’m a sissy boy? It’s okay, Joe, take me out after three, watch every pitch, call every pitch and then take me out whenever you feel like it, whenever the mood strikes you, because I’m SOOOOO happy to be a Yankee.

What a wimp!

I’ll trade you for an old David Wells shirt, another big guy but he had some uh, canoles? Really, it’s sickening. Joba had been the only Yankee I liked and now that feeling’s out the window too.

I’m just glad that I didn’t buy one of those exorbitant tickets to the game. Imagine laying out all that hard-earned cash expecting to see Joba and getting him for just 3 innings, no matter that he just gave up a couple of runs. I mean, what about truth in advertising? Isn’t a “start” supposed to be something in particular? Anyway, if I had the poor judgment to buy a ticket, I’d be asking for a refund now.

And then Joba makes it worse by saying he’s fine with it. I don’t know, Joba. You lost me. I mean forever.

The Yanks appear unbeatable right now. Looks like that 140 mill paid off. Teixeira, Sabathia, Burnet, what’s not to like? The one weak spot was Mitre and then he goes and delivers a quality start. Relief had been a problem and then, lo and behold, Hughes becomes Mr. Lightsout in the 8th.

Jeter’s locked in, and he’s been locked in for a long time. Damon’s hitting them over that short wall with regularity; a juiceless Arod’s delievering less but still enough to get by. It’s sickening really. You have to look pretty hard to find a weak spot; in fact, it’ll be a fruitless search.

Argh, enough about the friggin’ Yankees. I’m just glad the Rangers wooped their butts. There’re some real men down there in Texas, just as you’d expect.

And now I see some articles to the effect that the Wilpons’ management of the Mets club isn’t affected by the huge losses they suffered in the Madoff soaking. Yeah, sure. And still nobody knows how much they really lost. They don’t have to tell. I mean, that’s fine, but if the losses have been so insignificant, why not let anybody know how bad it was or wasn’t.

I won’t dwell on the Mets. It is amazing, though, how many hits it takes to score a run with these new guys. Day after day, you see numbers like 13 hits, 4 runs and if you’re a Mets fan, you don’t know whether to be happy for the hits or unhappy for the runs.

This weekend was all about football. The Jets and Giants put on a good show but it’s hard to really judge whether the Jets are that good or the Giants are that bad. I know I saw a lot of bad things as a Giants fan. I surely didn’t see any Plaxico look-alikes. Hakeem Nicks made some nice catches though.

Sinorice Moss showed nothing. Manningham showed even less. Hixon, Smith, none of the “regulars” showed anything, unless you count the ability to drop the big one. This questionable attribute was displayed by Smith and Hixon for sure, and Manningham was only consistent in that he dropped nearly everything.

The depth chart right now is scary. Hixon and Smith are the starters backed up by Manningham and Moss. The third string shows Nicks and David Tyree, the Super Bowl hero, who didn’t play. Smith is great as a possession receiver. It looks as if he’s a long way from catching the long ball. Hixon is a decent backup, that’s all. Moss and Manningham should be cut. That’ll give Nicks and Barden their chances.

The Giants tackling left a lot to be desired too. On the Sanchez pass to Chansi Stuckey, Stuckey broke three Giants tackles with no trouble at all….as if they weren’t there. Coming off his disappointing showing against the Ravens, Sanchez looked great against the G-Men so the question becomes obvious, i.e. “how bad are the Giants”?

But you have to like Sanchez. He seems to read the defenses, he delivers the ball right where it needs to be, and he seems to be a leader. There’s not much missing, is there? There aren’t even any nits to pick.

So, all in all, everything’s rosy for Gang Green going into the 4th week of exhibitions. Having a quarterback everrybody believes in is half the battle in football. Of course, as Thomas Jones pointed out, it’s still the exhibition season, but still…..

Other than the locals, I watched several other exhibitions, if, for no other reason, to watch for good fantasy sleepers. My draft was Saturday morning, and Brady’s injury Friday night pretty much locked me up on Drew Brees as my number 1 pick. Not just because Brady was nicked up, but because his line didn’t hold up. The final straw was Belichick giving absolutely no indication as to the severity of the injury.

Brady looked great though. I have to hand it to him. He and dandy Randy Moss seem to still have that magic that carried them to so many td’s and so many yards back in 2007 before Brady was hurt. He could have looked even better, too, except that Wes Welker didn’t play.

The Packers certainly look impressive as do the Saints. The Steelers haven’t lost much either. As for individuals, Matt Cassell, KC’s new QB , was hurt already. And I almost felt bad for Josh McDaniels, Denver’s new coach (from the Pats again), who was made to look foolish in the Broncos’ exhibition versus da Bears.

Kyle Orton just isn’t Jay Cutler, that was all too obvious as Cutler ate up the Broncos and Orton did very little, and then got hurt. Then there’s the new NFL idiot, Brandon Marshall.

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.

A Day for the Downtrodden

It was a day for the downtrodden. It started in the morning when a tough young woman named Gisela Dulko took the measure of Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon. Then in the afternoon, the incredible U.S.A. soccer team beat the best soccer team in the world in the Confederations Cup. It continued into the evening when the under-manned Mets just trounced the Cardinals and the Yanks won with the help of an unlikely home run from catcher Francisco Cervelli.

It’s hard to not just enjoy the heck out of seeing great performances in very unlikely places. It gives us all hope. If these yahoos on TV can do it, then we can do it too, whatever our particular “it” may be. Or, if you’re one of those superstars who really doesn’t need any more hope, well, Mazeltof.

Anyhow, the Mets were great tonight. After seeing them do absolutely NOTHING the night before, how great was it to watch a very unlikely Fernando Nieve pitch the Mets to within a game and a half of the Phillies, this despite playing without Carlos Beltran, after having already lost Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado, J.J. Putz, John Maine, Oliver Perez and some others too.

Just winning by 11-0 is nice. And winning with three Fernando’s has got to be pretty special too. If there was anything I didn’t like, at first anyway, it was Ryan Church and Brian Schneider, who I’ve just killed in this column every time I’ve had the chance, who did the most damage at the plate, just socking the ball all over the place.

It makes you think maybe the Mets really can withstand all these hurts and ow-ies. Just replace Delgado with Murphy, Tatis and now Evans. Just spell Jose Reyes with Alex Cora. Just put Reed in center to try to replace Carlos. Put Nieve on the mound for Maine (or Perez, take your pick). Try a few relievers out to see who wants Putz’s set-up job.

If Church and Schneider can continue playing well, something they’ve never been able to sustain over any period of time before, and if so many others chip in in a little, players like Omir Santos and yes, even Gary Sheffield. And tonight it was Nick Evans, bringing back that hot 2008 duo of Murphy and Evans. Evans was great tonight, and maybe his return will give Murphy a little shot in the arm, not that he’s needed one lately.

It really does take a total team effort when you’ve lost so many players. And, incredibly enough, the Mets are getting it, over and over. Even when they’ve lost, they’ve played pretty well; they just haven’t hit. Another thing that made tonight’s win so good was that they managed to hit a sinkerball pitcher after having been totally shut down the night before by a sinkerballer…..in the most boring exhibition of baseball I’d seen in a long time.

So Mets fans can be happy for another day or two. It really doesn’t make much sense to look too far ahead. Just trot out the uninjured and see what happens. And, so far, it’s working nice and easy, a tribute really to the composition of the original team. The backups almost everywhere are pretty good, it would seem. They can play baseball, all of them.

And let’s say this about Joba. He was great tonight. Well, maybe not great, but pretty good for sure. He didn’t face many batters, started the game well and actually got better as he went along, striking out 4 batters in the 4th and 5th innings, and he pitched well into the 7th inning.

That the catcher was Cervelli was especially sweet, after having to witness the embarrassing Posada singlehandedly destroy Joba’s confidence last time out. His insistence on controlling the game seems to be tiring out a lot of Yankee pitchers. After seeing that throw he made from his knees to second base the other night, I’d just sit him down for a long while.

Oh, and Arod came through with a hit in a big situation. That’s been missing, and while I can’t really root for him, maybe it’ll quiet the detractors for a while. The team really hasn’t been hitting though, and they’re now 5 games out, tied with the Blue Jays for 2nd. Boston keeps rolling so the Yanks will have to roll a little too. Maybe they can do that if Arod chips in, if not as the Arod of old, just as a major-league third baseman, somebody who can produce home runs and rbi’s.

Maybe the most heartening victory of the day was the incredible U.S. victory over Spain in the semifinal round of the Confederations Cup. The U.S. goalie, Tim Howard, stopped shot after shot and Jozy Altidore and Clint Dempsey scored to keep the heat on a team that had won 35 matches in a row. But everybody dressed in white today looked pretty good to me, and to Spain too. Not too shabby! It’s comparable to the U.S.A. hockey team victory over the Russians so many years ago. It was great to see Landon Donovan have a good day too, not to mention the coach Bob Bradley.

On the beautiful lush green that is Wimbledon, everybody expected Maria Sharapova to beat Gisela Dulko, especially after she came back in the second set to win about 5 or 6 games in a row. It certainly appeared that Ms. Dulko was quitting, but then she came back and it was the much taller Sharapova who was wilting a bit at the end.

Of course, Sharapova has been having her share of hard luck with injuries lately too, so it was good to just see her on the court again. If she can stay healthy for a stretch, I think we’ll be hearing from Sharapova again before the 2009 tennis year runs out.

So in baseball, soccer and tennis, it was truly a day for the downtrodden. We should have more of those.

Mets and Yanks and the NFL Draft

News from the NFL disturbs and interrupts my thoughts for the Mets today as I discover the Detroit Lions, that most ridiculous of all the losing NFL franchises, has selected another huge question mark with their number 1 pick.

All those losers they took for three straight years at wide receiver haven’t apparently had any influence on them. So a new GM continues in the steps of his horrendously flawed predecessor, gambling on success.

Not that I have any particular thoughts about that quarterback. Stafford’s probably better than anybody out there, but how good are they?

Now I know there are those who think the only way to revive a team is to have that super quarterback, leader, whatever, but the learning curve is long in the NFL and Detroit stinks right now. Detroit should have either taken Curry, the consensus best player in the draft, or they should have traded down.

The Giants and Jets haven’t said much about what they’ll be doing today and that’s as it should be….. I know the Jets need a quarterback, after all, why give the guys they have any chance? And the Giants need a wide receiver, after giving Plaxico the ol’ heave-ho. And let’s not forget Toomer.

It can almost be guaranteed the Giants won’t take a receiver. They like defensive linemen. It doesn’t matter what they need. It doesn’t matter that it’s not a good class. And I wouldn’t even mind. I’d rather have them trade for a wide-out and they probably will. But Braylon Edwards? Mr. Dropsy?

The Jets can’t be trusted anymore to do anything really intelligent. Favre proved that to me. They’re just interested in making a big splash. So look for them to take a good-looking guy, first and foremost, and probably a quarterback. It’ll be “Yes, Mr. Johnson”. Nice to have money, isn’t it? You can get anything you want, but you can’t do it without looking like an idiot, which of course he is.

That’s why the Jets got Vernon Gholston. Big muscles…not much between the ears, mind you, not a good football player but one with unlimited potential. He’ll be a factor in 2013….maybe.

The Giants, thank the football gods, are as smart as the Jets are stupid. They seem to realize that it’s football players that win football games. While the opposition flexes its muscles and runs like the wind but can’t catch, the Giants just play good ball and make them look silly. I love it.

Whoever Reese selects, I’m with him all the way. And I don’t expect him to trade for Braylon Edwards. He may want everyone to think he will but he won’t, unless it becomes a total give-away. Then it’s a moot point. But look for the G-Men to take guys who have proven they can play the game. And the positions will probably be linebacker, defensive line and then offense.

As exciting as the NFL draft may be, my attention is still on baseball and particularly the Mets. Johan Santana won another one last night, of course, and now the fun starts…the rest of the rotation. It wouldn’t even be such a bad situation if our guys could start hitting when it counts. (I hate to say “runners in scoring position” or even “RISP”).

I was soooo happy to see the lineup change though, and happy to see Murphy’s butt planted firmly on the bench. If baseball were all about hitting, he’d be my choice to play, but….alas! It’s not. So we saw guys on the field who can actually catch a ball. Even Sheffield, the poor man’s Brett Favre.

But last night, it was my lineup of choice, with Beltran swapping spots with Wright, who has proven he can’t handle the three spot, at least for now. So it was Reyes, Castillo, Beltran, Delgado, Wright and Sheffield in the first six spots, and that’s as it should be, against a lefty anyway.

But you can’t hide guys who can’t hit in big spots. Reyes and Wright proved that theory right by leaving 12, that’s twelve, men on base. Reyes keeps swinging for the fences and Wright suffers from the same misconception, that is, that they are the reincarnation of Babe friggin’ Ruth. It was nice to hear the fans let them have it too.

As this is written, I see the lineup for today’s 1PM game is the same with respect to Beltran and Wright, but Murphy and Church are back in the lineup. So it should be interesting to say the least. I’m certainly rooting for Murphy. Church is a better outfielder than Sheffield, will probably hit for a better average, and, as an extra added benefit, does not scowl all the time. (Not that maybe that’s just what the Mets need).

But Pelfrey’s on the mound and that can’t be good. It should be a nice test for him vs. the lowly Nationals. And it’s very nice to know that Manuel will not hesitate to change that starting rotation after this go-around. Most of these pitchers are clueless, beginning with Pelfrey and Maine.

I have to admit that I actually watched the Yanks-Red Sox at least as much as the Mets. I love watching Joba on the mound and, while he pitched like Aaron Heilmann in his last game with Posada behind the plate, Molina seemed to bring out the best in him. While he still can’t bring it at 95 or better, he looked like a pitcher in command, and I give the credit at least as much to Molina as to Joba.

Posada can hit, he can throw out runners, and he thinks everybody is Pettite. If Sabathia keeps losing, you can start looking forward to a lot of head-shaking on the mound. I really think Posada is that bad. Ask Randy Johnson, who preferred the hot-dog guy behind the plate rather than deal with the genius Posada.

Ahhhh, life is good, hope for the Mets and disdain for the Yanks.

Joba's Bad But Omar's Looking Good

Joba Chamberlain is a better pitcher than he showed yesterday. He would have to be, wouln’t he? I hadn’t seen such tentativeness since Aaron Heilman. Did he throw any fastballs? It surely didn’t seem so.

The Yankees, my Dad says, are not a good team. He just doesn’t think they’re that good. Well, I guess I’d have to agree, given this little information. If they keep babying Joba and making him neurotic, it would appear, their chances are all that much slimmer.

Maybe it’s Jorge Posada that doesn’t agree with him. Posada had missed a lot of the Joba action last year. There were surely a lot of calls for breaking balls. And if a catcher can’t call a good game, it doesn’t really matter that he hits a little bit. One thing is for sure. If Joba has another game like this last one, I’m going to hide my Joba tee shirt. He looked that bad.

But the rest of the Yanks don’t really look that bad. I really don’t like Cano but he sure has been knocking the cover off the ball. Jeter looks really good too. Teixeira is starting to hold his own. Damon hasn’t been bad. Matsui has looked a bit off. Anyway, I’m not sure I agree with Dad on this one. The Yanks look pretty good to me, if the relievers hold up at all.

The Mets, what can you say? They did just enough to win last night, thanks largely to Sheffield, whose 500th tied the game late. It was a big big home run. And then Luis Castillo wins it for them with a slap to the left side, to deep short to score Delgado with the game-winner.

In one fell swoop, Omar looks like a genius. There have been no bigger targets of derision for Minaya than his acquisition of Sheffield and his retention of Castillo, or, better put, his failure to pick up another second baseman. Well, Castillo is hitting .387 and has fielded the position pretty well so far, better at least than Murphy has fielded his. And Sheffield showed what he can do at the plate. Big time.

Sheffield is now just 1 for 5 but that big knock should count for 3 or 4 hits. What a shot! And what a shot in the arm for our local heroes. I know Livan Hernandez was happy. He was off the hook after pitching really well and making one big mistake. Well, everybody was happy. I know I was happy.

So the Mets are even again at 5 and 5. They’ve lost three one-run games so far though. They haven’t been hitting in the clutch and were lucky to win last night, lucky that two old guys both came through when the game was on the line. If not for those two fellows, there would have been still one more one-run loss.

The Mets starters just haven’t been good enough. Livan has been pretty good despite his giving up that big homer last night. And Santana has been himself, which is to say….great. Then there’s Perez, who’s been himself also, which is to say….crazy. Maine and Pelfrey haven’t looked good at all, but not overwhelmingly bad either. And now Pelfrey’s a bit knicked up. Maybe it’ll help.

That relief pitching sure looks good though. Green, Putz and K-Rod. Jeez. It’s really kind of refreshing. If the starters pick it up even a little bit, I think the Mets will be in good shape. They can live with average performances from the bottom of the lineup, which in recent days had seemed like a long,long, long, bottom, starting with Church.

But last night they weren’t bad. Church managed to walk twice, Castro and Castillo each got a couple of hits and Luis had the game-winner. If they can pick it up a little on a more consistent basis, anything’s possible.

But we probably shouldn’t count on that core being so strong all the time either. Delgado’s been amazing, Beltran too but not last night, and Murphy’s been better than expected. Reyes is always a threat when he doesn’t over-slide the bags. (I pick on Jose because he deserves it sometimes).

So even with sketchy starting pitching, the Mets should be tough. They should be better than a .500 team as they are now. They have two more to play at home with the Brewers before taking on the Cards for three more in St. Louis. Those five games will help me guage just how good or bad they are as a team.

Time to wrap this up now. Santana just struck out Fielder and Reyes stole second. It looks like a good Mets start today, and if Castillo and Sheffield, who are both starting today, can continue to help out a little bit, it should be the beginning of a nice winning streak.

And Omar will continue looking good.

Ten Four ...Joba... Over?

Although I’m a Mets fan through and through, and would love to wax poetic today about Jerry Manuel’s relief-pitcher shuffling, or Jose Reyes’s diving stop on that hard line drive today to end the game, or even Beltran’s newly regained power at the plate, let me today turn my thoughts to those other locals, those Yankees, who, after all, have been written off by even their most loyal followers. But there is still hope.

Playing 2-4 baseball at home in their last six, losing all kinds of different ways over that stretch, and facing ten games in four different and distant cities in the next ten days, one might think the Yankees were done. I'm sure we've all heard it these last few days, "Stick a fork in 'em, they're done". Well, I'm here to tell you, it ain't necessarily so.

The Yanks are now 72-64; the Red Sox are at 79-57. Over in Minnesota, the Twins are 77-60, just 1/2 game behind the White Sox in the Central. So the American League wildcard will be decided among these four teams. I'm conceding the AL East to the astounding Tampa Bay Rays, who nobody thought would do anything different this year, except my little brother, of course, who will remind me of this at the drop of a hat.

If the Yanks can take the Tigers tomorrow in a makeup game in Detroit, then fly to Tampa and take two of three, then fly to Seattle and sweep, and then fly to LA, drive over to Anaheim and take 2 of 3 from their old nemeses Angels, they'll be at 80-66 in ten days.

The Red Sox seemingly have an easier time over the same ten days, traveling to only one city over this same time period to face the Texas Rangers. Sandwiching that series will be six at Fenway - three against the lowly Orioles but then three versus those Tampa Bay rascals. Even if the Red Sox take both series against the Orioles and Rangers, if they lose 2 of 3 to the Rays, they’ll be 84-61 in ten days. The Yanks at 80-66 would then be just 4 ½ games out for the wildcard with 13 games still to play before playing the Red Sox at Fenway for the last three.

The Red Sox will then play 14, featuring Toronto for half those games. Toronto has the best starting pitching in the league, in both leagues maybe. The other seven are versus those pesky Rays again, and the Cleveland Indians, who have seemingly risen from the dead. If the Red Sox were to falter just a little, going just 6-8 over that stretch, they’ll be at 90-69.

The Yanks would have just 13 games versus the Rays, White Sox, Orioles and Blue Jays. If the Yanks can go 10-3 over that stretch, they’ll be at 90-69 too. And they’d still have to take 2 out of 3 at Boston to take the wildcard. But it’s certainly still do-able. The wildcard winner Yanks would then be 92-70.

I won't bore you with the details of the schedules for the Twins and White Sox over the same time period but, after only a cursory inspection, it looks pretty easy for them But my point is that this game is baseball, and just go ask the Colorado Rockies what can happen in this strangest of national pastimes. Or the Mets for that matter.

The Twins and White Sox are, after all, just, well, the Twins and White Sox. It’s entirely possible for them to falter too. In fact, for the Twins, who have been doing rather well as of late, it’s almost a sure thing. So, for the purposes of this exercise, I’m assuming the Twins will fold and the White Sox will take the Central. The Twins, now at 77-60, would just have to lose 11 of their remaining 25 to finish at 91-71.

That may be a little too complicated for most people not totally obsessed by numbers and the vagaries of baseball. Let me simplify it for those folks. Remember me saying the Twins are the Twins? Well, the Yanks are the Yanks. But they have not really been the Yanks for most of this year. And they soon will be.

You can see that Hideki Matsui has rejoined the team after his knee problems. And, while he hasn’t been hitting for average yet, he’s already been knocking in some runs and you can see his affect on the team.

And Joba Chamberlain will be coming back too. But not as a starter, where he did not seem as formidable over five to seven innings as he did for just one. I must say that seeing Joba almost every day for just one inning beats seeing him for six or seven innings every five days. Just think of it, five amazing Joba sightings every single week. WOOHOO!

Arod showed some life yesterday and Giambi continued his little hot streak too. With Matsui back, the boys are all in line, so to speak, with the whole team back except for Posada. And the pitching hasn’t been that bad. Incredible as it may have seemed, Pavano was great in his two appearances, Ponson could have been a lot worse and Rasner is credible too. Mussina has been great. Pettite hasn’t been but there’s no reason he can’t come back to form either.

If the Red Sox were not showing signs of weakness, it would be a lot more difficult to predict a close finish. But really, they’re getting very little from Big Papi and they let Manny go. How long can they really expect Pedroia to go 10 for 10? How long before Youkilis reverts to the late-season Youkilis of old?

Beckett’s a little banged up too. The Red Sox are really not the Red Sox who won the World Series. And the Yankees could soon be the team that made the playoffs those thirteen years in a row.

No Stuff Is No Stuff

Andy Pettite said it best, I think. When asked about Joba Chamberlain and his thoughts regarding Joba's start tonight, Andy said "...But stuff is stuff, and he's got great stuff. So he should be successful." Now turn that around for a second and you get "no stuff is no stuff and he's got bad stuff. So he should fall on his face."

All of which brings me around to the case of the Yankees Kyle Farnsworth . He is a perfect example of a pitcher with no stuff. Farnsworth is fast. He's been as fast for the Yankees as he was for Atlanta, Detroit and the Cubs before that. He's got a career ERA of 4.47 with a 1.40 WHIP, certainly nothing to write home about. The only things that come home are opposing batters, who seem to do it with alarming regularity, and very frequently at the worst possible moments.

Farnsworth's career won-loss record may characterize his career a little better. He's 28-47. While a won-loss record for a reliever is usually not indicative of a reliever's performance, in Farnsworth's case, I think it is. He has 26 career saves in 11 seasons. He's surrendered 105 home runs in 701 career innings. It seems to me I've seen at least half of them.

Farnsworth throws hard. When in trouble, he tries to throw even harder. His temperament's not really suited to that of a reliever either. He can't seem to maintain an even enough temperament to simply answer a question. When asked about Chamberlain and possible added pressure, he snapped "It hasn't done anything to me like that."

All this comes to mind as Joba prepares for his first major league start. It bothers me that the man is being held accountable for relinquishing his 8th-inning assignment to pitchers such as Farnsworth. How long will it take the Yankees to realize what any baseball fan could have told them a long time ago? Farnsworth is not a closer, he's not a holder, at best he's a guy to throw in there with an eight or nine run lead.

It's not as if there's nobody else. Without going into specifics, there's Hawkins who's been in similar roles and well, I just can't imagine anyone else being a worse choice. Why does it take so long for the Yankees to realize it?

Slow to change....the Yankees certainly aren't the only team in New York about which the same thing could be said. The Mets have a similar problem but one with entirely different characteristics. They have an eighth-inning guy they'll only use once in a while. His name is Duaner Sanchez. But the Mets choose to keep throwing Aaron Heilman in there.

Heilman's career numbers as a reliever aren't bad, especially if one chooses to ignore the fact that it was Heilman who lost that 7th game in 2006 to the Cardinals. But a 4.21 ERA and a 1.30 WHIP compare favorably with Farnsworth's career numbers. For example, Heilman's given up only 41 home runs in 404 innings pitched, about a 1 in 10 compared to Farnsworth's 1 in 7.

But Heilman's numbers this year are horrible. His ERA is 6.37 with a WHIP of 1.58. Without a big story, the Mets have lost 16 of the 26 games in which Heilman has appeared. Heilman is 0-2 with just two blown saves but also has only 5 "holds" in those same 26 appearances. And, while he may not have blown the rest of his opportunities, he has sure come close to it.

Slow to change...Willie Randolph is probably the best example of this in the entire league. Even more so than Brian Cashman and Joe Girardi because Willie exhibits that same ridiculous persistence with Delgado and Castillo, and seemingly any and every veteran player on the roster.

That persistence, some would say stubbornness (I certainly would), is the reason the Mets are looking up at the rest of the division. Is it surprising to anyone that Delgado and Castillo began to turn things around after riding the pine for a little while? Or that Heilman did enjoy a couple of good outings after being taken out of the relieving rotation for a spell?

Supposedly, Heilman’s problem is one of location. And, while that is undoubtedly partly true, I doubt that a pitch of Joba’s, in precisely the same location, would travel quite as far into the stands. Because the pitch would have either arrived in that spot a lot sooner, or would have dived into that spot, or backed up into that spot.

You get the picture. Joba has stuff. He doesn’t always have to hit the perfect spot. The only things that Joba has not been able to overcome have been Cleveland bugs, about 20 million of them, most of which seemed to favor Joba’s face for “location.”

Yes, stuff is stuff and vice-versa. Some have it and some don’t. And, especially with relievers, there is one other crucial ingredient required to be truly successful. And that is confidence or temperament.

Joe Borowski is usually named as the quintessential example of a reliever who, inexplicably, gets batters out in the ninth inning with amazing frequency, and yet has no stuff. What Borowski does have, beyond shoulder problems this year, is guile and moxie, and maybe the confidence of having been there, done that.

But, when Borowski experienced trouble this year, Cleveland got him on the disabled list where he belonged. And, their closer by committee approach, while not 100%, worked better than would have a Borowski with just one good wing.

Slow to change…we see way too much of that in New York. That’s why we are seeing such consternation that Joba will be changing roles. He was great in that eighth inning role. Why change?

A legitimate starter is harder to find than an eighth-inning guy. The Yanks just need to find one. His name isn’t Farnsworth. But there are probably hundreds of them. The Joba’s can be counted on one hand.

Still More Ado About Nothing

Well, here we go again! The Lords of Discipline in all their wisdom are once again attacking my favorite pitcher, Joba Chamberlain, for pumping his fist and yelling . It doesn't seem to matter to them that Joba is young and naturally exuberant, that he just struck out the guy who had nailed his first pitch fastball for a 3-run homer on Tuesday, or that he had had to listen to a potpourri of self-important analysts giving their two cents on whether he'd be able to handle it emotionally.

<>Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised, in a society that doesn’t seem too upset that we’re torturing prisoners without a trial. Some people just like discipline. These are the same folks who get upset when one of their co-workers gets away with coming in ten minutes late. It doesn’t matter that their car broke down, or that their kid’s babysitter called in sick. And the same people who go nuts when a really talented person gets a raise when they had the audacity to take their scheduled vacation.

In short, these are the idiots. First of all, it’s a GAME, people. Until free agency gone wild, and the designated hitter, a game played by KIDS. And, of course, Yankees fans get even more upset than most idiots, since they see themselves as the professionals, the people who actually think that pinstripe business-as-usual approach to the game is cool; the ones who think Manny Ramirez should go kill himself because he drops the bat and watches his long home runs, no matter that he hits about .330 every year.

Maybe it’s just been a slow news month for sports, not that there hasn’t been action, what with the NHL and NBA playoffs going on, and more divisional races in Major League Baseball than we’ve seen in a very long time. But there hasn’t been controversy. You could hear the disappointment in those shock-jock for sports bobble heads’ voices when those Walsh tapes turned out nothing, or when Clemens maybe couldn’t be proven guilty of statutory rape.

Or, maybe their ratings were down. That’s a distinct possibility. These loudmouths certainly aren’t known for their sports acumen. In fact, now that I think of it, it’s those soft guys who never played a sport but majored in journalism who are the very worst offenders. They can’t discuss the sport with any degree of analytical skill. They don’t know it, they can’t really know a baseball player’s feelings if they never had the same experience, if their highest moment in life was an A on some book report. These are, by the way, the same people who get crazy when a blogger gets any attention.

The young man pumped his fist, people! Joba got him (Dave DeLucci) on a breaking ball after having thrown a couple of big-time fastballs on the corner for strikes. That’s big stuff for a kid, hell, for anyone. That he did it against the guy who lambasted him a couple of days before was even sweeter. Gee, I guess his emotions didn’t get the better of him.

I hope Joba keeps right on being Joba. And I hope he eventually gets away from the Yankees. They don’t deserve him, really. Yankees fans don’t deserve him either. Their team can just buy a pitcher. (Not that they’ve had any success whatsoever in THAT department). But, Joba should have been a Royal, or a Pirate, or a Giant, hell, anything but a Yankee. The Yanks never develop anyone, unless you count Kennedy and Hughes, of course. (Word is that they’ll get better).

Another thing that bugs me is that, when DeLucci hit that homer, Cone had just said that DeLucci was a dead fastball hitter. So, um, why didn’t anybody question the pitch selection? THAT was the most obvious question. Or the location? Even though the pitch had been almost letter-high and on the inside corner, a good location against most hitters, it certainly wasn’t a bad location for DeLucci!

The news should be that Joba learned from the first experience. His fastballs were on the outside corner. And those pitches were RIPPED! And Joba’s “out” pitch was the breaking ball in the dirt. DeLucci was badly fooled, which, no doubt, played no small part in his criticism of Joba for his mound antics later on. I say “too bad, Dave, you struck out, you looked bad doing it, sit down”. NEXT!”

Can we just, please, get some real analysis? I know fantasy baseball players everywhere would appreciate some more of that. The reason I like Joba is that he’s on “Dem Crabs”, my fantasy team. I certainly don’t like the fact that he’s a Yankee.

There are so many aspects of the game that are not covered enough. How about Prince Fielder’s troubles? Here’s a guy who didn’t sign a very nice contract offer from the Brewers, a guy who turned vegetarian, and is now having his troubles at the plate. How about Geovany Soto’s and Fukudome’s performances this year, candidates for Rookie of the Year? How about Johnny Cueto pitching lights-out for the Reds? I mean, we hear a bit about these players but, certainly more could be said.

Of course, being in New York, it’s as if no other teams exist. Sports jocks here still think Carlos Delgado is a major slugger. And they anxiously await the return of Pedro Martinez, and look forward to production from 42-year old Moises Alou and the return of El Duque.

And when did we think it was OK for a sports network to own the local baseball team? Now THERE’S a way to kill any journalistic integrity! I think of Michael Kay and cringe. Not that I so much mind rooting for the home team, but at least TRY to maintain some objectivity. The Mets team does a good job of it.

And “Hey Joba, keep it goin’ man”, you’re doing just fine, especially compared to the job these no-nothing sports jocks are doing.