So I was talking to one of you wonderful blog readers this evening, when one of you repeated a favorite Sterling-ism: "Well, Suzyn, you just can't predict baseball!"
Although Mike Blowers might disagree, on this front, Sterling is kind of right.
I got to thinking about all the games I've seen in person this season, and then thought about how improbably some of the results have been:
- I saw Chien Ming Wang, the 2009 Chien Ming Wang, outpitch Roy Halladay on July 4th. Halladay didn't get the loss, even though the Yankees won the game, but until Wang's shoulder blew up on him, he was easily the better pitcher that day.
- I saw three walk off wins, two of which included walk offs against Joe Nathan--Nathan, who is considered one of the best closers in the league--and those two walk offs involved coming from behind in the ninth inning.
- I saw Brett Gardner hit a home run. Okay, so it was an inside-the-park home run--which, depending on your view might make it more or less unexpected.
- I saw Alex Rodriguez hit a bottom of the ninth game tying home run in the postseason (!) (tongue in cheek here, folks)
- I also saw AJ Burnett get shelled twice and,
- I saw the Yankees lose to the Nationals, the Orioles and the Royals--the three worst teams in all of baseball, pretty much, unless one counts Pittsburgh, but I don't even know if the Pirates qualify any more.
These were just the games I saw in person, and out of a 162 game schedule, 10 games (and 2 postseason games) is not a whole lot, and yet, I still got to bear witness to some pretty incredible things.
This isn't any sort of predictor as to what's going to happen in the ALCS, but rather, just an observation.
This is baseball, after all, where crazy things happen in a way they don't--and they can't--in almost any other sport.
