Fenway Fizzle (Postgame Notes 27 July 2008)

Find a comfortable seat and sit down. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath and open.

Right.

Are you thinking rationally yet? No? Repeat the above until you are.

Thinking rationally now?

Okay. Good. So you will agree with me: yes, that was an ugly loss, yes, Sidney Ponson had me reaching for the first alcoholic beverage I could find, yes the offense seemed to revert back to the way they played in the first half...but in the end, all it is is one loss.

The Yankees weren't going to win every single game after the break, nice as the thought would have been.

Let's consider what the Yankees have done since the break, though, shall we?

1) They won their first eight games, sweeping two teams--Oakland and Minnesota--that have remained in contention in the process.

2) They took two out of three from Boston at Fenway, a place where the Red Sox have won three out of every four games they've played.

3) They signed Richie Sexson for an amount lower than the league minimum.

4) They traded for Xavier Nady and Dàmaso Marte, two of the most sought after players this deadline, while surrendering two AAA and two AA players in the process.

4a) By getting Marte, they strengthened their strength (the bullpen), and they kept the Red Sox from addressing their weakness.

4b) By getting Nady, they ensured that Christian/Gardner can remain in a role in which they are much more useful--pinch runners off the bench.

So yes, Sidney Ponson got absolutely hammered. The offense only managed two runs with the bases loaded and no one out in the fifth (though two runs are better than none). Dan Giese did not have the greatest outing of his career.

It could be a whole lot worse.