I hope we never need page 3 again in 2009.

Chip trying to figure out how the Twins can come back from the 3-0 deficit.

Asks Darling his opinion.

Darling leaves room.

Mmmm. Red Sox tears. So sweet. Mmmmm.

Another postseason choke job from ARod. He is just so not clutch.

schteeeve, the pacific is getting closer.

love that ending, SG.

Typical Yankees hitting (except for Alex) in a division series. Atypical Yankee pitching. That’s why they signed CC and AJ. Here’s hoping this four day layoff will wake up the bats a little bit.

Just
beautiful.
SG’s prose is perfect.
Perfect.
Of course, it might have something to do with the subject matter…

So….the Angels.  How can the Yankees possibly defeat a team brimming with scrappiness?

In the words of GOB, “Taste the happy, Michael, taste it.”

Maybe the best part of winning a postseason series again is getting to watch all the highlight shows like Sportscenter and MLBN with analysts forced to recap Yankee victories after they just finished rooting against the Yankees.

The disdain in their voices is so rewarding.

Doesn’t taste much like sad!

Angels loom.

ESPN has draped their HQ in black crepe. Eat that BBTN.

The Yankees aren’t making the post season. I know this because I heard it on ESPN in March.

I don’t think Jeter makes this play 5 years ago. Look where he is when he throws the ball to Posada:

http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=7044677&c_id=nyy

[13] Kruk still thinks the Rays are going to play in the ALCS because they have sooooo much speed on the bases.

I stopped listening to WFAN a long time ago, but I turned it on late Friday night due to a lapse in judgement caused by fermented grains.

I was (not) shocked to hear the radio personality (don’t remember who) complaining that we shouldn’t say A-Rod has redeemed himself yet, because even though he hit a monstrously important HR in the 9th, it was only two games so far AND the two games were against the Twins, so until he acutally drives in runs on a consistent basis against a REAL post-season opponent, it doesn’t COUNT.

On a related topic: Papelbon.

Happy, happy day.

I wonder if Pete’s going to have anything to do for the rest of the month.

[15] ESPN is so toasted. So….. so 20th century.

The disdain in their voices is so rewarding.

Compounded by explaining that Papelbon blew the game and ended Boston’s season.  And how is not one analyst commenting on how, just maybe, a guy like Manny Ramirez, former WS MVP, may have, maybe helped the Boston offense score another run or two?

This is too fun of a team. I’m glad of Battle cat goodness.

[16] Some people will never give it up.  Even if A-Rod remains hot and the Yankees win the WS: “He only did it for one postseason.  Let’s see him do it again.”

[18] Tend Pap’s oozing, bloody wounds.

[20] I thought the same thing.  Manny was much more crucial to their success than some RS fans realize.

Pete Abe, that is

I wonder if Pete’s going to have anything to do for the rest of <strike>the month</strike> his career with that Boston paper likely to go out of business with the lose in revenue due to the premature ending of Soxtober.

Fixed

[24] Wait, you mean the 2004 WS MVP was crucial to their success? That’s not what I heard after the trade. I heard all he did was smoke weed inside the monster and push elderly people to the ground.

I am going to need you to provide some evidence that he was important to them scoring runs, besides the whole he is one of the 5 or 10 best RHH ever.

Final note of the night before I get to Mad Men on the dvr, Gardenhire was very gracious in his postgame presser. He told the media to forget the payroll, the Yankees are good and that’s why they get paid the money they do. He didn’t complain about the Mauer call at all and simply said, “We had our chances against them all season and didn’t take advantage. They did.”

I want to sweep through the playoffs, but I’m kind of scared to go up 3-0.

[29] Why that’s what Chip is thinking about the Twins. He still has hope.

[28] Payroll indeed. That’s why they’re complaining about the Cubs payroll too.

[28] Agreed.  I was impressed.  Gardenhire was classy and genuine.  Talked about how much he enjoys watching Jeter and A-Rod and Mo play, just not against him.

Send a Bosox fan a neti pot. They need it.

Via Feinsand: “The Yankees have been eliminated by Anaheim (sorry, I can’t go with the whole “Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim” thing. On this blog, they’re always going to be Anaheim)...”

It’s about time someone took a stand and put those name-changing scalawags in their place.

So… how is everything?

Yay.

If Paper (the Angels) finally beat scissors (the Red Sox), can Rock (the Yankees) beat Paper now?

like a wet tissue.

the only thing i don’t like coming out of this series, was that Phil Hughes didn’t look expeshally sharp.

Also, Jeter and Swisher have a nice little defensive thing cooking right now. I like it.

Yankees: 100%
Red Sox: 0%

I don’t agree with the methodology behind this. I thought that the Sox were the best team in baseball!

I know everyone is going to say I’m getting ahead of myself again but with the extra off day between game 4 and game 5 it allows for…

C.C. to pitch 1, 4 (on short rest), and 7 (on normal rest).
A.J. to pitch 2, 5 (on normal rest).
and Pettitte can pitch game 3 and 6 (on normal rest).

So just by throwing C.C. on short rest for 1 game the Yankees can avoid a 4th starter.  C.C.‘s a horse.  That’s what we got him for.  I think you have to do it.

Andy Pettitte was pretty much a forgotten man. More than a few posters here thought signing him was a mistake and that the Yankees would be better off just using one of their prospects in his spot.

That and I also preferred signing Smoltz over Pettitte. I am really, really happy that I was wrong.

You can’t throw the ball more accurately than Posada did when he nailed Punto at 3B.

I thought the most important hit of the series was Jeter’s two-run HR in Game 1 because it quickly negated any reason to start thinking “here we go again” after the Twins took the early lead.

Nice that Gardenhire is gracious in defeat and all, but I wonder if there’s any second-guessing of his managing going on this morning.  Facing elimination down one in the ninth, he uses three different pitchers to walk three batters.  Doesn’t Nathan have to start the ninth in that situation?  And that’s not the only one of his moves that was questionable.  I might have to spend a few minutes perusing this morning’s Start-Tribue.

[41]  CC on short rest or Gaudin on 2 weeks rest?  I think CC will demand the ball, to be honest and Girardi will be happy to hand it over to him. 

I am pretty sure it won’t matter since CC is a horse, but I’d like to see his pitch count ~95 when he gets pulled.  If the Yanks aren’t up by 3-4 runs he’s not coming out.  Justifiably so.

Nice that Gardenhire is gracious in defeat and all, but I wonder if there’s any second-guessing of his managing going on this morning.

Gardenhire seems like a good dude, but he can be out managed, thankfully he did that himself.

why did jeter lob it into posada on that play?

why did jeter lob it into posada on that play?

Watching the replays, I was wondering if Jeter should have ran toward Punto more, rather than throw it to home plate. Making sure the runner didn’t score was probably the main thing, so if Jeter lobbed it to Posada, there was still plenty of time at home plate and, it turned out, back to third.

That’s one of the disadvantage of the Caray/Darling tandem, Buck and McCarver would have gone bonkers for Jeter’s heads up play.

Yay win!  Angels up next… long layoff, right?  Meh.

I’d prefer Mr. Gaudin doesn’t get a start.  He’s just not very good.  He’s useful in the regular season or in a very long playoff game, but otherwise there are better options.

[47] Someone on MLB Network praised Jeter’s throw saying that he had time and bouncing it rather than trying to laser it as if for a tag play meant that Posada would more certainly field it well.  Punto hadn’t turned back to the bag, and he was going too fast to do so.

Gentleman,

Been off the grid for the past few days - and for that I apologize.  Made it the surprise party, did what was required of me, and was in front of a TV in time to watch Robertson get out of the top of the 11th.

Thurm gets props - I got to have my cake and eat it, too.  Definitely was worth it.

[25]
Right.

[47]
True, but the advantage of not having McCarver outweighs that, which is… not having McCarver.
Seriously, why don’t they just get it over with and put a Buck, Carey and McCarver in the same booth and bring the universe crashing to its end?

Along those same lines, a poll:

Which has been more loathsome - the announcing or the officiating?

I’ve been thinking on that Game 4 decision for a few weeks.  CC was a stud on short rest for the Brewers in Sept ‘08, but it’s worth wondering if the resulting fatigue led to his poor October showing.

My call would be Gaudin if they’re up in the series and CC if they’re down.

The problem with Gaudin in Game 4 is that the Angels lineup will contain a decent number of lefties (more then I realized at least).  Abreu is their only LHB, but the entire infield (Morales, Izturis, Aybar, Figgins) switch-hits.  I am not excited to see Gaudin face a lineup with 5 lefties.

52. the umping. the announcers are annoying but they don’t screw with the outcomes. the umps should all be fined or fired. they were terrible.

I am not excited to see Gaudin face <strike>a</strike> ANY lineup <strike>with 5 lefties</strike>.

Fixed.

The interesting thing is that the terrible umpiring presented the announcers with repeated excellent opportunities for redemption.  Opportunities that they squandered, needless to say.  If either Caray or Darling had had the stones to just say, “That’s a strike, Mr. Wegner” on the curve to Cabrera, I could forgive about 95% of their other insufferable crap.

@57, instead they took the opposite approach. Halfway through game two they said and i quote “Merriweather is having a great game back there behind the plate.”

And they would constantly diminish the value of the on screen strike zone graphic by dismissing it as a “representation” while insinuating that the umps were more accurate than ya know, frickin LAZERS!!! Jeez.

If either Caray or Darling had had the stones to just say, “That’s a strike, Mr. Wegner” on the curve to Cabrera, I could forgive about 95% of their other insufferable crap.

Yes, and in fact they did just the opposite, trying to justify the umpire’s questionable calls saying things like “It curved around the plate” or “It had late sink, so….”
They even went so far as to PRAISE the umpire behind the plate for calling a good game when Swisher complained about a pitch, when obviously the umpiring was anything but.

First of all, announcers DO affect the outcomes, Schteeve, and you should know that - after all, how many perfect games and no-hitters have been destroyed by Michael Kay alone?

I really meant “which was worse given what they do,.”

And [57] is so true.

[57] - So much so that they might as well do away with the graphic altogether.  What’s the point, if TBS (and other national playcallers) do nothing but repeat BS storylines throughout the game, instead of providing real commentary.  They might as well lose the ball / strike / inning counter and go with “the exciting part.”

insinuating that the umps were more accurate than ya know, frickin LAZERS!!!

In fairness, Darling’s comment about the graphic not being adjusted from batter to batter was well-taken and important.  Rilke’s been talking all year about the bottom of the gameday zone rarely getting called.  Since most of us would agree that if anything, most umps consistently call pitches that are an inch or two below the knees strikes, isn’t the most likely explanation for that discrepancy that the box isn’t drawn in the right place?  (Vertically that is.)

But even if we give Darling credit for that one, he’s still got a huge deficit to overcome, and that’s even before we tally up the unjustifiable defenses of the umpiring.  It’s like eleventy billion and six to one.

They might as well lose the ball / strike / inning counter and go with “the exciting part.”

Or even better, just change the score to whatever they’d like it to be.  Oh, wait, they did that too.

[14] is also striking and persuasive.

Or even better, just change the score to whatever they’d like it to be.  Oh, wait, they did that too.

That was really too strange.  It happened, I think, right after the first out in the ninth and stayed wrong until the second out.  I remember looking up after one of the outs to see the score actually change, instead of the outs total.
It went from “LAA 7 - BOS 6” to “LAA 6 - BOS 7”.  Then it simply changed to 7-7 at some point before getting corrected.

And this was actually the second screwup in the series.  I think in game 1, when the Angels scored a run with 2 outs, the scoreboard flashed up 3 outs on the base hit instead of changing the score. 
Truly odd stuff.

Actually, it was after Ellsbury’s foul pop up, seen here.