Phil 'er up! (Postgame Notes 27 Sept 2007)

Phil Hughes was brilliant on a night when most of the Yankees were probably feeling the effects of last night's champagne showers, and the Yankees won a game in an unbelievably fast three hours!

Scott Kazmir, pitching for Tampa Bay, was great, but, despite his 10 strike outs, Phil Hughes was better. Kazmir should be making the all star team in a few years--as some have said, he'd look great in pinstripes...

However, the more important thing is Phil's brilliant performance, throwing just over 100 pitches in seven innings, making only one real mistake to Carlos Pena, who really just seems to like homering against the Yankees.

Tonight's line up was great for the simple reasons that Jeter, Abreu, Rodriguez, Posada, Melky and the Mient Man all got a night off, and the Yankees STILL won.

Bronson Sardinha and Alberto Gonzalez both got their first major league hits, so both need to be congratulated, well done! Sardinha also showed he's got plenty of speed, and quite an arm.

Our B-lineup tonight could probably beat most A-lineups...

The future looks bright, indeed.


SCORES AND STUFFS

Okay, if you prefer me giving you all the scores, just let me know, but for now I'm just going to stick to the ones you might care about:

The Mets have more or less completed one of the greatest collapses in baseball history. I feel for Willie, but not for the team--I'm a Yankees fan! Anyway, they lost to St. Louis, 3-0, so they got the pitching they needed...but not the offense. No team had ever blown a seven game lead with 17 to play...until now.

Of course, you can't blow that lead without another team winning, and the Phillies did just that, beating Atlanta 6-4, and more or less eliminating Atlanta from postseason contention. The Phillies seem to have defied every baseball rule ever written, as they've been doing this winning with no discernible pitching staff...

The Cubs lost to Florida 6-4, but San Diego's up 6-2 on Milwaukee and threatening for more, so I think Cubs fans can breathe easy for a night...and it really does stink that the Brewers and Cubs don't play each other any more.

Arizona won big 8-0 and Colorado and LA are scoreless in the first.


Now, I wait patiently for the Boston/Minnesota game to be over, and as Boston has the bases loaded with two out in the ninth, it's gonna end this inning...and it does. Minnesota holds on, so the Yankees are two back in the AL East with three to play...not that they care about the division or anything...

Pregame Notes 27 September 2007

Sit back, relax, enjoy the night.

Seriously now, there is absolutely no reason to worry even a little bit about tonight's game--we're in the playoffs, and while finishing out the season on a win streak would be sweet, it's far more important to get the regular guys some rest.

That being said, don't be surprised if tonight's line up completely boggles your mind...I'm personally hoping to see Sardinha and the (former) Attorney General get some ABs, or to see Shelley catch. Or pitch. Or something.


Phil's on tonight, with luck maybe we'll see the first-inning jitters go bye bye and the rest of the game go not like it did Saturday when we had to use every reliever in the known universe. Though, again, rest here is key, so maybe Torre will pull Phil after only five or six so that the gets some rest and some of the younger guys like Matt DeSalvo and Chase Wright can get some work.

I don't know about you, but right now it feels so much better than it did last year, because we clinched by winning, and not by Detroit losing.

We've done this on our own.

Oh, and that 48-24 second half record?

In 1998, we went 54-28.


48-24 = 0.667 winning percentage.
54-28 = 0.659


Unless I can't do math (which, unfortunately, is a distinct possibility), we've just knocked the socks off of 1998.


I wonder if anyone's realized that?

Pregame Notes 26 September 2007

This seems more fitting: Yankees' pitcher leading in wins, Chien Ming Wang, is on the mound tonight in an attempt to clinch a 12th consecutive postseason berth, dating all the way back from 1995.

Wang has been the Yankees' best starter; sure, he's had a couple of poor outings, but everyone does, and no one else even comes close to his 18 wins. Just imagine if he had pitched in April!

The good news for Yankees' fans? It's not likely Torre will hold postseason bullpen try outs two nights in a row.

At least, this is what we hope!

It's not likely the Yankees want to wait another day to clinch. They want to get this done tonight. Anyway, you can't keep champagne on ice forever...

Yankees' bats had an okay night last night; hopefully they'll do the whole scoring-with-runners-in-scoring position today, and hopefully Torre will not take Wang out of the game in the fifth inning if the Yanks have a 5-0 lead!

Oh, and if you all take a look over at the poll (Wow, over fifty votes! I am impressed!), I'm sure most of you will be happy to know that we are likely going to play the Indians in the postseason, barring the Yanks going 5-0 and Boston 0-5. Before you pop the champagne corks, though, remember, the Yanks haven't faced Sabathia this year...though, at most, Sabathia can only start two games, so in the end, it should be all right.


Let's clinch this thing tonight!

Blow-pen (Postgame notes 25 Sept 07)

The score is one that would seem fitting for an Igawa game, but the cruel irony is that it wasn't Igawa that gave up any of those runs.

In fact, Igawa pitched...what's the word for it...all right. Sure, he walked a few too many for comfort, but his five innings were shut out innings and at the beginning of the sixth, the Yankees had a very comfortable 5-0 lead.

I had to go do an interview for a class assignment, so I missed part of the game. When I left my apartment, the Yankees lead 5-0, and I was in a great mood. Sure, I'd had an absolutely horrible morning, and it's 90 degrees outside in Syracuse in the end of September...but the Yankees clinching would make it all better...

...When I came back an hour later, I fast forwarded my DVR, and, as the horror that was the Yankees' bullpen tonight unfolded before my eyes, I tried so hard to press the rewind.

Maybe I was fast asleep. Maybe it was the hookah in that house I visited--me inhaling without knowing it and this is all a bad dream...but I pinch myself, and no, it's not.

Lost in all of this, a game which makes me want to break something really, really horribly, is the grand slam by Alex Rodriguez and Johnny Damon's 5-for-5 night.

I'm trying to be the optimist, and there certainly are good things to consider:

Igawa had five shut out innings (again, irony is the spice of life)
Farnsworth had 1-2-3 and actually pitched on back-to-back days
A-Rod finally hit another home run, and there were three men on base.
Damon went 5-5

However, there is no excuse for the bullpen tonight--and it's not all the 'pen's fault, either. The second Bruney walked in a run, someone else should have been brought in, but hindsight is 20/20...

Now, barring a miracle, we will not win the AL East. Stranger things, of course, have happened, but it's not something I want to contemplate, not when we were yesterday morning 1.5 back...


Anyway.

It's 81 outside and about 20 degrees warmer inside my air-conditioning-less apartment. I've got my fan on, but it's not doing much good.

There are thunderstorms coming my way, will probably be here in the 3 AM-5 AM part of the morning. I have a phobia of even mild thunderstorms and these look kind of bad.

I still have much of my geography paper to write.



You'll forgive me for not posting scores tonight--I'm sure you all know the important ones, anyway. If you're curious, Boston and Detroit won, Seattle's losing, Atlanta beat Philadelphia and the Mets almost staged an improbable comeback, losing 10-9 to Washington.


Here's to 26 September. I won't say tomorrow, because tomorrow never comes, so here's to 26 September and the Yankees clinching this the fun way, with a win.

Preferably in nine innings, by a margin of three or four runs.

Pregame Notes 25 September 2007

Win tonight, and the Yankees are IN.

Detroit could also lose, but I think I speak for most when I say the Yankees would rather win.

We've got a great chance to do it: playing Tampa, a home away from home, and the Rocket on the mound, and the Yankees bats beyond DUE for a big game--they haven't hit a home run now in at least two games, maybe three...

EDIT: According to Pete Abraham, Rocket has been scratched, and Kei Igawa will be on the mound.

Optimism, everyone, we need lots of it!

Anyway, right now, it's all about how badly the Yankees want to get in--rookie hazing's over (though it was quite a laugh), and you wouldn't know it in Syracuse, but autumn technically started last week...

Seriously. It's 89F outside right now! This isn't even baseball weather; this is Dante weather! The leaves are showing some color, but it's not the same as it is when it's in the low 60s and you get that wonderful smell...

Okay, enough babble.

If I want to watch the Yankees clinch the division tonight, I need to get my geography paper done!