What does baseball matter if the King of Pop is dead?

If this had happened a week or two ago it wouldn’t have even made the news due to the phenomenal streak of most important games ever going on

also ransom OBP < lowe OBP

Wow, I go on a vacation and we go from the most important games ever to whatever. and the Yankees are 5 games back. What the hell?

More SG vacations, less Clay Hoadley vacations are needed apparently.

But Lowe can’t jump like Ransom can.

aside from the slump what else has happened in the past week or so?

I was lost in the wilderness of Tacoma, visiting my girlfriend.

aside from the slump what else has happened in the past week or so?

Hughes is now pitching teh 8th.

all losses arods fault
Election rigged in Iran
Rain in Ireland
Dog bites man

Dog bites man

anyone ever seen man bites dog?

I was able to follow the Iran debacle a little.

I also made it to a Mariners game, sat in the 4th row just past 1st base. Ok game, but I missed King Felix vs. Doug Davis by a day.

can we get some live blogs going? Yankees games start at 12am here so I check the scores when I wake up and read the comments on train to work. It would make my journey to work much more exciting if there was a live blog which I could read without knowing the score

[11] - I’ve felt that MLB should include a site where you can get “replays” of their gamecasts, so you can go to a page that doesn’t have updated scores, click on one of the games, and “watch” the game unfold, at least as much as you can via Gameday.  Should really be hard for them to set up, and that’s a service I might pay $5-$20 for per season.  I hate going to meetings at work and missing parts of games.

Hey, a run…

A-Rod is back.

single, single, gidp to score a run. Arod bomb.

Girardi should get ejected more often.

Or maybe not, Olney.

Ransom can’t hide even with A-Rod back.

Totally fair to evaluate A-Rod right after coming back from surgery.

Totally fair to evaluate A-Rod right after coming back from surgery.

Yep.  And no other hitter has ever gone through a slump.

Totally fair to evaluate A-Rod right after coming back from surgery.

yeah, no kidding.

I’d wait on that until the middle of next year after he’s off the major surgery he needs.

smoltz era currently 54.0. Hope Wang isn’t going to take that challenge lying down

I am going asleep with the Yankees smashing lowe and the nats hammering smoktz. If I wake up with. A Yankees loss and sox win I am ringing in sick and going drinking all day

Olney is such a putz…

just to jinx the whole poxy lot the jays and rays are also down early

End it here, Andy.

Way to lock it down Andy.

Whew.

Smoltz terrible in 1st, can’t locate anything. 4-0 Nats. Work in progress…

Andy “Battling” Pettitte.

Has anybody noticed that there was virtually no outcry when Boston took a sucky Matsuzaka for a few tests, and made a determination that he needed to go on the DL, just like they did the first time with him? Of course, people (Jayson Stark) thought otherwise when Yankees did this with Wang.

I don’t think you can expect that all of the Smoltz, Penny, Saito, Baldelli MASH unit are going to work out.

From the looks of Andy, the Yanks need to rake to win this one.

Ok Alex, we need clutchiness

Sterling did it again. Fire his sight challenged, self-aggrandizing ass.

Right on that pitch.

I don’t think you can expect that all of the Smoltz, Penny, Saito, Baldelli MASH unit are going to work out.

Certainly not from the get-go.

It seems like A-Rod is eager to make some BABIP corrections.

The HR didn’t help though.

As for Buster, he has always been full of shit. I remember early in the days of this blog, Larry really taking him to task on THT on the claims of productive outs.

From the looks of Andy, the Yanks need to rake to win this one.

At this point you have to be feeling slightly better about Pettitte than Lowe.

Andy kinda sucks now.  Either that, or Eiland has instituted some sort of new strategy with starters that requires they throw a tremendous amount of pitches and walk as many people as possible.

Smoltz seems like a nice guy but I can’t say I’m not tremendously happy that the Nationals have smacked him around.

Nate McLouth can have a career in horror movies, particularly scary joker movies.

as ground balls scoot by him at third base

Eh?  Maybe I haven’t been watching closely enough (or the games I’ve missed have shown otherwise) but I don’t remember A-Rod looking sketchy on balls not hit right at him.

“Smoltz seems like a nice guy but I can’t say I’m not tremendously happy that the Nationals have smacked him around.”

One bad inning so far.  Hmm, there’s a double.

Smoltz has always been a strikeout pitcher.  From the numbers I’ve seen in his rehab assignments, doesn’t look like he was striking a lot of batters out.
Is he one of those guys that has “reinvented” his style of pitching?

reinvented

Uninvented, more like.

Hell of a play from Lowe there.

Signs your pitcher is in trouble: “Cody Ransom singles on ground ball to left field”

Is he one of those guys that has “reinvented” his style of pitching?

yeah, he started giving up lotsa runs.

Damnit Jeter!  Don’t you know you just signed the death warrant for this inning by walking to load the bases?

Poor Nick Johnson.  Someone must have a voodoo doll of him or something.

yay Damon!

Johnny is a good human being.

Where the hell was this offense against Lowe in Game 7?!?!

 

 
_{Oh right, the caveman was in the other dugout…..}

4 outs in 3 innings is just impressive.

Crazy, man.  Got back a few minutes ago.
Doesn’t this look kind of like that other team we used to watch?!

It would be especially good if the team hit against more than one pitcher, suggesting that it’s the end of a slump and not a really, really bad day (like the one Santana had).

And if the crickets on this site would make like Cleese wanted the bazooky players to do.

Now this is the Yankee team which we watch day in and day out that makes swear poll necessary.

Anyway, 6 runs is hardly anything to complain about, but you would think that they would get something out of a first and third, no out situation.

Oh Berroa, Ransom hammered that!

SOMETHING!  (for Sam)

Cody Ransom hears your prayers.

I gleefully accept.

Wow.  This is almost - ALMOST - Farns-Veras-proofed, and we don’t even have Farns and Veres anymore!

I like the Tony Pena era.

Wow.  This is almost - ALMOST - Farns-Veras-proofed, and we don’t even have Farns and Veres anymore!

We do have Tomko.

Zobrist continue to hit the long ball.

We do have Tomko
Well… right.  Thanks for bringing that up, Sam.

In other news, am I to understand that we don’t have the right to expect Andy to double in every AB?

good thing Ransom is going to have more PAs.

Just lob the ball over, Andy.  Good job.  Oh, and continue to go 2-0 on every batter - that won’t make it harder to get outs.

nice job, Andy.

Andy was just trying to find a way to get back to “battling”.  It’s tough to battle with a 7 run lead.

How bad was the Gardner error?

Is this game Pettitte-proofed ?

If they lose this game I’m calling it a season

Another walk.  What a shock.  And with a terrible pitch.  And now the bases are loaded.  Fanfuckintastic, Andy.  Way to give away the big lead.

You have, in fact, pitched before - correct?

You’re a disaster, Andy. 

Why is Hughes in the bullpen again?

Why is Hughes in the bullpen again?

I think it has something to do with a lack of veteran-ness.

I hope the offense doesn’t just pack it in like it tends to

Andy’s a fucking glue pot.

I’m so glad that Aceves exists.

ok, I stepped away, how the hell was Aceves not in two batters sooner??

Holy cow.  Left for a few minutes - wtF?

Why is Hughes in the bullpen again?

Cf. [8].

[79] because my crack about the Tony Pena era was only wishful thinking.

ok, I stepped away, how the hell was Aceves not in two batters sooner??

I can understand leaving him in to face the LH hitting McCann, not the RH hitting Escobar.

Glue pot?

Dead horse.

Very nice, Frog.

Does A-Rod ever hit HRs?  Or doubles?  Just curious.

They’re scared of Alex again.

What?

I’m now convinced Eiland has screwed this pitching staff up.

The Yankees are scared of Vasquez.

I wish Joe Torre had been scared of Vasquez in the 2nd inning against Damon.

that was all part of Aceves’ devious scheme of getting to the pitcher’s spot sooner.

If the Blue Jays come back and the Yankees blow that lead…well, okay, that won’t mean anything in the long run, but damn would it hurt.

Big DP by Ace.

Joe Torre came in 2nd in a poll of players asking which manager you’d like to play for.

Never a bigger sign of the decrease in the amount of black players in the majors these days.

It wouldn’t suck if the Yankees tacked on a run or two.

Never a bigger sign of the decrease in the amount of black players in the majors these days.

Zing!

Double Steal.  I like it.

Singleton: “Running at will as if Will was at the next base.”
I like him in the booth.