mickeef2

Best part was the dude in the crowd who yelled out, "Rub it off!" Hit him dead square in the nuts. :yikes:

? He gave up a hit, two walks, and a run yesterday in 2/3 of an inning. I know it was spread out over 2 innings, and Mo actually let his run score, but that line still doesn't look good. Not only that, but you're asking him to close it out, which is not his thing.

Nope, Pedro's one of the few who has made the change successfuly. Clement is pretty good support for my argument, though.

I wouldn't have a problem with him starting the ninth, but he probably should've gone to Villone after the first guy got on. Proctor's a mess. I don't think you wanted to go there.

That's ludicrous. And you can call it "balance", but I call it mediocrity. Anyway, while the AL does have a few bad teams every year, those teams aren't any different than some of the DBack, Expo, Rockies, Pirate teams we've seen. Regardless, the AL has swept the last two series, and won 7 out of ten with what amounts to an automatic out every ninth hitter for half of the games. That's dominance.

The same guy who keeps reminding Met fans it's June is gloating about the best clutch hitter in the game's batting average in June. You're too much, Plow. # of Big Papi's failures in the big spot = # of ARod's successes in the big spot. That's really all you need to know, buddy.

The blind squirrel finds a nut! Anyway, Yankees lose! THE-E-E-E-E-E YANKEES LOSE!

I'm assuming you're joking, right? The NL blows, boss. Your team was on an 8-game winning streak against NL teams, until a "weak ass" AL team (actually, the Orioles really are a weak ass team- when they play AL teams) came in and took two straight from them (looking to make it 3 today). I won't even get into the All-star games, the past couple of World Series (speaking of 8-game winning streaks), and the boatload of AL pitchers who go over to the NL and find new life.

From an outsider's perspective, this wouldn't be a good move for the Yanks at all. A power hitter with poor plate discipline, playing out of position when he's never been good defensively in the first place, and a bad attitude? Not exactly what that team needs.

Good point, Ditto. Mike and the Dog were actually talking about those stats this week. He's a .270 hitter close-and-late over his Yankee career so far, and I believe they said he's hitting .150 in those situations this year (and that was before two more sorry chokes in those situations this week). .270 is not a horrible number, but when you consider the fact that the guy's a .307 career hitter, and an RBI guy at that, it's a little alarming. As for the excuses that the booers are just trying to motivate him, spare me. It's called being a fair-weather fan with no discipline. They're frustrated, plain and simple. It's like the wife beater saying, "I only beat you 'cause I love you, honey."

8th inning, 2nd & 3rd, one out, down two runs. Strike out. Very surprising.

6-6-1. Huuuuuuge victory tonight, 5-4, over the 2nd place team. League rules say you can't start an inning after 2 hours, and we were up 5-4 after the time limit, but being the sporting guy that I am I agreed to keep playing because there was no game after ours. So they get a runner to third with nobody out in the top of the 6th and I'm regretting it, but my pitcher came up huge and eventually struck out the last hitter with the bases loaded. Sweeeeeet.

...and grounded into a double play in his most important AB of the year.

Wow, Plow, his weight? That's weak even by your standards. I don't know, 6'4", 230- sounds like a real lardass to me.

In all fairness, you or I have never been paid that kinda money to play the game, so we couldn't say how we'd react. I do think that there must be a hell of a lot of pressure on a guy, though, making that much, playing for the Yankees. It takes a strong person to be able to perform under those conditions, and your ability will only take you so far.

You could say what same exact thing about Ortiz? That he doesn't have fun out there? Good luck finding a teammate of his that would agree with you. That he's not clutch? I don't think you'd even go there, since he's already one of the greatest clutch hitters of all time. And don't throw any of those so-called "clutch" stats at me, either. We all know what we've seen the guy do time and time again. He's huge.

1989

I was just saying this to someone this weekend. The guy is so self-conscious out there its comical. The way he grimmaces when he fucks up, because he knows the camera is on him. He looks out into the field after each big strikeout because he can't bear to make eye contact with anyone in the stands. Puckering his big purple lips incessantly. A guy of his stature should be having fun out there and oblivious to everything outside the foul lines. He looks like he's consumed with it.

Hmmm...maybe if you actually addressed the points I made, I might know what it is you don't agree with. You guys simultaneously whine about Torre sticking with the same 2 guys all the time out of the bullpen, then want him to bring in those same guys when they're down 4 in the 7th. Any pedestrian baseball fan knows it's a marathon and you have to stretch out the innings over your entire bullpen as much as possible. As foir AGirl, he did wave at that ball, Lowell would have had it, and again, only a moron would pull his starter in the 6th after 81 pitches and 1 run.

The best part is that he picked a guy off first for the one out recorded in the field. The bases were loaded and the kid on first I knew to be a total space cadet. Anyway, he's wandering way off first after every pitch, and looking down at the ground as he goes back to the bag, so I basically said, "Watch your runners" and nodded over to first. Runner and coach were oblivious. Next pitch, we nailed him, and his old man asks, "What the hell were you doing?" and the kid says, "Shut the hell up!" and starts crying. I love Little League.

5-6-1 with the 9-5 victory, and closing in on .500. My son's pitching line for today: 6 I , 1 H, 17 K, 12 BB, 5 R That's right, struck out 17 and walked 12. Drives me freakin' crazy. Anyway, we go for .500 Tues. night.

Nice call on the Varitek homer the other night. "Driven deep to right field...7-3 Red Sox ." Could he have sounded any more disappointed?

He is when he waves at balls like he did on that one. Even my Little Leaguers know you've gotta knock it down. I know it was hard it, but he didn't give it everything he had on that one. If Wright's geting flustered now, what's he gonna do in Sept. in Fenway? He's gotta work out of it there for the good of the team. Obviously, the alternative wasn't any good, either. I will agree with you about Torre not spreading out the bullpen work (Farnsworth has already pitched in half of their games), but I think that's pretty common now across baseball due to the fact that it's so hard to find relievers who can get outs. Look on the bright side- you will get Dotel soon (I think), which is probably why Torre has been using Farnsworth so much so far.

4-6-1 now, with a game today against a team we've beaten twice. Kinda disappointing, but I'm proud of the way my kids have played. They haven't been mercy-ruled yet, and have lost a lot of one-run games. Our biggest problem is we don't hit worth a shit.

The walk to Manny was on his 81st pitch, which isn't such a high pitch count that you'd think about pulling a guy who'd given up one run. At this point in the season, you've gotta find out if your starters have what it takes to go deep into games. If you're afraid to stick with Wright because he's thrown 80 pitches in a June game, you might as well take him out of the rotation. Gonzalez double was hit hard, but AGirl did a pretty nice wave at it on the way by, too (it was originally ruled an error). Mike Lowell would've had it. Granted, Proctor has had his troubles lately, but there'ds not much of an alternative. As for Erickson, you've gotta bring in the bottom of the barrell of your bullpen in that situation and hope they can keep it together. As it turned out, Torre made a great move because the Yankees never scored another run, so he got a couple of outs out of a dead body. There's no use wasting good arms when you're down 4 runs in the 7th. You really have to stop looking so hard for reasons to criticize Torre. The guy may not be the greatest manager of all time, but he's certainly been a very good one for the Yanks. I mean, Francona is not as good a manager as Torre, but I consider us lucky when I think about what's out there.