Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Yanks Refuse to Lose, Lose Anyway

The Good

Hughes, who pitched without his best stuff (he refused to throw his fastball or curve), managed to go 5.2 innings and only give up one run. This is important because a big part of any pitcher's development is learning to win when you don't have your best stuff. It's something Joba never really showed us last year. Also, the offense played 9 innings of baseball.

The Bad

There were three costly errors late in the game. A base running error by Posada in the sixth, a botched play at short by Jeter, and a wild throw into center by Posada. The base running play prematurely ended an inning in which the Yankees had a chance to pad their lead a bit. The two fielding errors contributed to Baltimore padding their lead a bit.

The Ugly

Under a little known MLB rule, our bullpen pitchers actually receive their paychecks from the Orioles and not the Yankees. It's about the only thing that explains how incredibly poorly they pitched against a team with just 3 wins on the season, completely blowing up my sweep prediction. Logan came in to face one batter and walked him. Robertson had two strikes on the feared Ty Wigginton and then hit him with a pitch. Robertson seemed to have good control of his breaking stuff and no control of his fastball. Second time Robertson has imploded recently. Will he be this year's Jose Veras? Stay tuned.

At Least He Hit a Home Run

Posada did manage to hit a home run in addition to making bad plays in the field and on the bases. Plus he's part of the Core Four, so it's not his fault we lost, it's Robertsons.

Posada 5hr = $5
Granderson 2hr = $2
Cano 5hr = $5
Swisher 2hr = $2
Jeter 3hr = $3
Johnson 1hr = $1
Rodriguez 2hr = $2
Teixeira 2hr = $2
Thames 1hr = $1
Total = $23

8 comments:

Rich Mahogany said...

The errors, DRob's collapse after getting to 0-2 on Wigginton, and Lugo's suspiciously good positioning on what should have been ARod's game-tying hit convinced me that MLB has secretly introduced win sharing, a concept similar to revenue sharing. Just as revenue sharing allows small-market teams to get a taste of big-market dollars, win sharing allows fans of horrible teams like the Orioles to experience what it's like to watch their team actually win a baseball game against a good opponent. While I think win sharing is a flawed concept, I applaud the Yankees for their generosity to the people of Baltimore in giving the Orioles this game.

By the way, I have it on good authority that Jose Veras read this post, and then wept.

Roberto E. Alejandro said...

Veras weeps. LOL.

The Yanks definitely gave this one away. Win sharing is about the only way comprehend what happened last night.

When's Chan-Ho coming back?

lady gaganonymous said...

seriously that game was super annoying. Ohhh well.

cheshirecat9 said...

I had the same thought about Robinson being like Veras. Weird how inconsistent relievers can be from year to year.

This losing streak is very annoying.

Rich Mahogany said...

Hard to believe that the Yankees are 2.5 games out of first after how well they've played. This division is ridiculous.

Roberto E. Alejandro said...

The Rays are ridiculous. Amazing how they've pieced together that roster considering most of their revenue comes from telethons and charitable donations (that's how revenue sharing works, right?).

lady gaganonymous said...

That's what finishing in last for a billion years but having really really good scouting/development will do. This is a strange comment, but I don't know how good the Rays would be with the Yankees' money, actually. Look at their big FA acquisition: Pat Burrell. Yeesh.

That said... it's still early. I believe the Mets, Padres, and As lead their divisions.

Rob B said...

After Jeter and Posada committed the errors in the 8th to allow that 5th run, my first thought was, "this game had better not end 5-4!"

Grrrrrrrr.