Tuesday, May 02, 2006
 Yeah, so, uh, I'm home and, uh, omfgJohnnyDamonandDougieisbackandYankeesandPapiandPapelbonandomfgdead.
I don't really want to talk about the previous series, mostly because looking back on it is rather like looking back on the sheet of newspaper you put under your cat's litterbox. All I'll say is that we lost a series to Tampa Bay, freakin' Tampa Bay, and I know they're supposed to be marginally better right now, and I know they've given the Yankees hemhorroids too lately, and I know Scott Kazmir, despite whatever Curt might say on the matter, can sure as heck pitch.
But. The Devil Rays? Even the 9-6 win was awful. I was watching it thinking to myself, literally, "There's no way we can be this bad of a team." Yes we came back to win it, but it was still disgusting baseball and had me questioning all sorts of things, from the front office on down to the chemical composition of the pine tar used, and on up to the air currents around the roof of the Trop. It had me questioning whether I might not have been better off hanging out in Michigan a bit longer and watching the Tigers some more (when they bothered to televise the games, of course).
And then came today, against the Yankees. And the big news was that Doug Mirabelli had been retrieved from the farm system Padres, prompting me to grumble irritably about the fact that, instead of just signing him for cash (which we've got, you know, in principle) we had to trade away players for him. Stupid. Never shoulda got rid of him in the first place. Bard is fine, we weren't going to use him or the shattered wreck of his psyche anyways, but I'm steamed that our own inability to recognize how vital Dougie was to Wake resulted in us having to lose Cla Meredith, who would've lent himself to a plethora of awful name jokes, if nothing else.
I had the following (approximate) conversation with SG board denizen and fun chick Annette over AIM--
Annette: I just never realized how well they work together. Dougie and Wake are like peanut butter and jelly.
Me: I guess. And Josh Bard was like that awful apple butter stuff that everyone always says goes with jelly just as well, and in theory it should taste just as good and look similar and all that, but in reality it TASTES LIKE ASS.
Apparently Mirabelli only barely made the game, running into the park from a police van like 10 minutes before gametime. He was cutting things so close that they put his uniform in the van and he had to change in the car on the way from the airport to the park, prompting Remy to say, "Glad I wasn't in that car!" Considering all this, he played remarkably well, even if he did go 0-for-4 at the plate.
Other highlights of the game included:
-The money that came raining down on the centerfield warning track when Damon was out there. You have to be really, really, really bad to get Bostonians to chuck the wages of sin down on your offending head.
-The tops of the first three innings, which went like this: Damon flies out to Trotter. Jeter grounds out, Lowell to Youks. Giambi flies out to Pena. ARod walks. Matsui strikes out (looking a damn fool against the knuckler). Posada flies out to Trotter. Cano flies out to Pena. Cairo grounds out, Cora to Youks. Crosby singles. Crosby is thrown out at second trying to steal. You don't steal on Dougie in his first game back, bitch. Damon grounds out to Wake, who falls the hell over fielding it and covering first, making me panic mightily, but showing his awesome Wakeness by just bouncing back up. As tidy a first few innings as you could like.
-The picture-perfect pitchout that snagged Crosby at second base in the third inning. I repeat, you don't steal on Dougie in his first game back, bitch.
-Every time someone with a thick Boston accent said LORETTER instead of Loretta.
-The way I love when Jeter leans his torso backwards out of the box, as though the pitch is way inside and is in fact threatening his precious self, and the pitch is called a strike.
-Two older-looking ladies (by which I mean, older than me) holding up a sign that read "WE FLASH 4 REM-DAWG". Momentary horror. Then NESN zoomed in on their faces and it became evident that they were both wearing big sunglasses with frames that had flashing lights in them. Horror dissipates into glee.
-"Do they count like when the other team leaves the field and then you steal?" Jerry Remy, on the fact that Mirabelli had 2 stolen bases last season.
-Dashing to check on the Tigers game between innings and seeing that Bonderman went 8 scoreless, with 9 Ks. Jeremy Bonderman is better than you. 100% of FACT.
-The bottom of the 5th inning, period. It went like this: Cora bunts. Don and Remy praise the almight inning-starting gutsy scrappy buntarific bunt. I note that it is not all that and a bag of bunt chips, but it is in fact a pretty beautifully executed bunt. Youks singles. Loretta grounds into fielder's choice, Wang to ARod, Cora out at third. Ortiz singles. Manny singles, Youks scores. Trotter grounds out, Cano to Wang (covering first), Loretta scores. Lowell flies out to Matsui on the thousandth ball of the day killed by the in-flying winds. Four hits, two runs, and one very very sad young Yankees pitcher.
-Loretta's crazygood catch on a squealing Giambi liner to make the first out of the 6th inning.
-Whatever the hell that double play was in the top of the 8th. Giambi grounded out, 4-3, but it was weird because Youks dove for it and missed. Loretta for some reason was in position behind him and he dove for it, and came up with it. Someone he managed to scramble up off his face, and Youks scrambled up off his face and covered first and made the out. And then they looked over at secondbase, which was being tightly covered by Cora, so they threw the ball down there and Jeter dove back but not in time and he was out. So the play went 4-3-6. It was weird and complicated but awesome.
What I wonder is, if two guys had to drag themselves up off the turf just to make a play, how in the hell did Giambi not beat them out? Was he strolling nonchalantly down the basepath or something?
-The bottom of the 8th inning, where Aaron Small faced three batters and got a ground out, a walk, and a HBP (Youks, on the elbow... looked an awful stinger). WOTS pitched to one batter, and gave up a run-scoring single. Myers faced one batter and Ortiz hit it out of the park. Proctor came in and got the last two outs. 4 pitchers in one inning.
-The fact that Aaron Small looks about 5,000 times goofier with his ears sticking out all the time and no hat on.
-Don talks about Torre waking up in the middle of the night during the spring and having nightmares about Ortiz at the plate.
Remy, in response, says, "I woke up a couple times in the offseason, but I wasn't dreamin' about David."
-PAPELBON!!! (warning: don't click that link if you're at work and haven't got your headphones plugged in)
-The number of homeruns today: 1, by Papi, which is as it should be.
-The number of passed balls today: 0.
-The number of Ks thrown by a combined 5 Yankees pitchers today, over 8 innings of work: 1.
-The number of Ks thrown by Jonathan Papelbon today alone, over 1 inning of work: 2.
-The number of Ks thrown by Jeremy Bonderman today alone, over 8 innings of work: 9. (sorry. I can't help it)
-The number of times Ron Guidry had to go talk to his pitchers on the mound: 119,003
-Attitude about the team? Slightly better.Labels: baseball, Doug Mirabelli, Johnny Damon, MLB, Red Sox, rivalry, Yankees
3:01 AM
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