Monday, September 17, 2007

Yanks Get it Done in Boston

With the exception of the blowout loss in game two of the weekend series, I thought it was pretty good baseball being played out there.

13 games to go, 6 of them against the birds, and with Detroit playing hot, suffice it to say I am not entirely comfortable with a 2.5 game lead in the Wild Card. Hopefully Cleveland can put a dent in the Tigers when they mix it up.

Yanks September Record: 10-4.

Clutch hitting - Jeter gets the headlines, but I think props need to be given to Giambi for coming through in games 1 and 3 with key hits. Further, Doug Mientkiewicz also stepped it up big time with Gold Glove quality fielding and solid ABs.

Too much rest? I think the only two guys that benefit from the 6 man rotation is Mussina and Clemens. The extra day off appears to be a negative for Pettitte and Wang. It is a trade off for sure and is another example of Torre trying to keep all his players happy instead of trying to do what's best for the team - maybe I'm wrong on that, but I doubt it.

The Future is Bright - Staying on pitching and taking a moment for a glimpse into what the pitching staff might look like for '08: Starters - Wang, Pettitte, Chamberlain, Kennedy, and Hughes. Relief: Farnsworth, Ohlendorf, Ramirez, Sanchez, Vizcaino, and Rivera.... Not a bad mix to start out with.

Philly Pipe Hitters - If there is any justice in this world then the Phillies would win the NL Wild Card (1.5 games back), and the Mets would have to face them in the NLCS with the rights to go to the big dance. The Mets have led the East I think the entire season, yet seem to get their brains beat in when they meet up with the guys from Philly. I think it would be a great setting for the Mets to have to go through them to make it to the Fall Classic. It would add some legitimacy to their playoff appearance seeing how they are getting there by leading one of the worst divisions in the history of MLB.

NFL Update - Clearly the Chargers and the Saints were the most over hyped team coming into the '07 season. Giants have a good offense and no defense. The Bills have no offense and a pretty good defense. Maybe we can swap units and field a competitor between the two of them. And finally, Tom Coughlin should be fired.

.... In Other News - O.J. is arrested ... The Mob fixed was on at the Emmy's - no way The Sopranos should have won the best drama again... and is anyone surprised that the only people that refused to disavow the MoveOn.org ad were the Democratic Presidential candidates? They are on the take by the billionaire socialist Soros and they want more of his money for a little longer, so they just shrug when the character of a General in the military is questioned - nice leadership.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

This shows why Jeter is the best clutch hitter in the game today.

Yes Giambi's pinch hit was huge....but let's give some props to the Manager for making the move. If Giambi doesn't get a hit and the loss of the DH (because Posada had to catch) comes back to hurt them, everyone would be absolutely KILLING Torre today. It was a bold managerial decision and most probably won the game for the Bombers. Thanks Joe!

Yankees need to keep winning. Detroit's schedule is soft after Cleveland.

When push comes to shove, the Mets have no heart. Other than Wright and Reyes, who else on the Mets would you really want on your team?

Coughlin will get the entire year so they can blow it all up and start fresh with Bellichick or Charlie Weiss next season.

Another dominating performance by Tom Brady and the Videographers. Bring on the Bills.

Well they got Al Capone on Tax evasion...so if OJ goes down for armed robbery, I'm all for it.

Lay off the Sopranos.

moveon.org is the best thing that has happened to the Republican party since.....well since John Kerry!

old professor said...

Taking two of three from Boston was great. Clemens looked very comfortable after the first inning. Still have to wonder if Torre will go with a six man rotation.

Mo did make the 9th inning interesting.

The Baltimore series will be critical. Yankees need to hope Cleveland can take care of business.

Giants this year will be a disaster. Manning showed a lot of character in playing hurt. Leadership skills??

Bellicek will not be coaching the Giants next year, he was just signed to an extesion with NE.

Anonymous said...

About Bellicheck's extension...I wonder if it was in the works before Videogate and if it was actually signed. If not, I could see Kraft rescinding the offer.

old professor said...

Okay Mid, I missed the section on the general. Having lived through an era where young men were sent into a war that was ill-conceived and poorly managed it is no wonder the Leadership in Congress can question the leadership of a General. (Who is paid to follow orders). There is no end in sight there is no exit strategy and now Alan Greenspan comes out in his new book saying the Iraq war was all about oil. No surprise there.

Robert Gates has made it clear that the US under its current philosophy will remain in Iraq for a long long long time. Both he and the president (who by the way didn't know the diffence between OPEC and APEC or that he was in Australia not Austria)believe this will be similar to our arrangement with Korea. NICE - fifty years and counting.

Before you go supporting the general, go to Washington, stand in front of the VietNam Wall and wonder if those lives were worth the sacrifice. (And by the way, Vietnam was also to some degree about the possibility of off-shore oil and all those killed still didn't affect the outcome - Vietnam is unified under a Communist Government).

Scooter, the deal with Belicek was finalized on Sunday. The deal has him staying in New England until 2013. the new contract apparently is Kraft's way of saying - Bellicek is the best coach around and it is time to put the video-taping behind them. Strange that in baseball you can go back and review a video tape of a pitcher to gain his tendencies on what pitch he throws on a 2-2, 1-2, 0-2 or 3-2 count and it is allowed under the rules.

Anonymous said...

Wait a minute Prof. Stop solely reading headlines and listening to sound bites.

Greenspan has clarified his comment. This is from the Washington Post:

"in the interview, he Greenspan)clarified that sentence in his 531-page book, saying that while securing global oil supplies was "not the administration's motive," he had presented the White House with the case for why removing Hussein was important for the global economy."

That loses a little of it's bite now, doesn't it Prof?

And here's the bottom line on Iraq: SOMEONE'S objectives are going to be attained there. If it is not our goals (and we pull out our troops) then it will be the goals of our enemies. Namely Iran. The shortsightedness of the liberal contingency in this country is shocking and disturbing to me.

I can not believe you are tacitly supporting moveon.org.

57 said...

Scooter, no heart? Are you kidding? These guys have not been one solid until all year, as solid part of the team has been on the DL..the fact that they have remained in first place since April is nothing short of a small miracle when you compare it to the injuries they have had.

I do, however, question the bullpen. As lights out as it was last year, this year is the absolute reverse. You cannot say that there is a go to guy right now other than Wagner, but with Maine and Perez gassing out by the 5th and 6th, the Mets are in trouble come playoff time. Here is my recommendation for October:

1) Glavine
2) Pedro
3) Maine
4) El Duque (if still injured - Perez)

Pen: Perez/El Duque, Sosa, Feliciano, Pelfrey, Schoenweis, Heilman (even though he is a WASTE of time this year) and Joe Smith (the unsung hero in the playoffs..mark my words)and Wagner. Mota should be shot like a lame horse...

Who else would you want on the Yanks? You mean, you would not take Chavez? Castillo? Maine? How about Marlon Anderson as your DH or Beltran with the short portch? I am appalled.

Jim Rome played the tape of the Juice's hold up yesterday. That is ONE ANGRY MAN!! The police just released that tape today... poor Juice..misguided soul.

Bill Belichek is a loser in every facet of the word. Wait until more findings come out this week. How he mic'd the defensive line to pick up the OL's calls and also intercepted the frequencies of the oppostions OC calling in the plays to the QB. He should be banned from the leauge. Wade Wilson gets suspended for steriods (by the way he took them because of his Diabetes) but Belicheck tarnishes his teams name and he goes scott free??? Are you kidding me?

Far be it for me to say Goodell has been weak, for he has been a GREAT leader since he has taken office... but I think the bomb will drop in the coming weeks after he gets a chance to peruse all of NE's filed and notes and game films... Belicheck is also an a_ _ hole for not taking responsibility. He left his team holding the proverbial BAG last week. As a head coach, he needed to step up and say.."my players have NOTHING to do with this... this is all on me..." shows how much of a piece of shit he is and I hope Marshawn Lynch runs out of bounds on a sweep this week, hits Belichek and snaps his ACL in two!!

57 said...

..and Hillary came out with social medicine today.

Anonymous said...

Apparently Mo was injured by of all things, a ball thrown by Eric Gagne. The ball hit Mo on his throwing hand, and bruised his finger - perhaps that's why or one reason the inning was not locked down sooner.

If any one watched the hearings with an objective eye, you did not see Congress questioning, there were simply jockeying for air time trying to show who hates our current President more. When you say a 4-star General's account for action is fiction you are calling him a liar - and that is not questioning, nor is it right.

57 said...

The American Troops are dying in vain in Iraq. We want to believe (and rightly so) that no honorable soldier truly dies in vain because each individual is one the young men and women who in the end were fighting as much for their love of each other as for the love of country that brought them there in the first place.

This war is all about Bush to make up what daddy failed to accomplish. Pressure on being awarded infrastructure contracts, Haliburton and of course good 'ol OIL!

This is embarassing to our country and painful for the families and friends of these troops.

I question the manner that our freedom is being protected, and have since Bush took office.

After wiping all of the bodily fluids off of the walls of the oval office, Bush took his seat and
weakened a country.

He would have been better off leaving the the oval office as it were. His imprint looks worse and more deadly than some used cigars that might still be in the drawer for future use.....

Anonymous said...

Is the division in reach?

Hughes did OK. Rough 1st, then was good until 2 outs in the 6th, then kind of shut down a bit.

Solid relief job by Ramirez.

Mid

old professor said...

Timeout - I am not supporting moveon.org. Never logged on nor have I ever read anything from the blog.

The general spoke the administrations line. The commander before him raised some concerns about the war and suddenly found himself replaced. There is a longline of retired generals who are looking at this war through a different set of glasses now that they are no longer answerable to Bush.

The rationale for getting into the war was to go after weapons of mass distruction. Hmmm, none were ever found. Then it was to remove a bad man ("he tried to kill my daddy")and create a stable democracy. Okay that hasn't worked. Now it is because it is the central front on terrorism - Al Queda wasn't in Iraq until after we got there. The central front on terrorism was supposed to be Afghanistan. We removed the Taliban, lost sight of the main target - Osma -forced the enemy to flee to Pakistan and that has destabalized the western section of that country. Nice job planning Mr. President.

Okay enough of the political conversation (by the way thanks for the support 57).

The Baltimore game was a positive from an offensive perspective perspective. Hughes pitched very well. Ramirez pitched well for one third of an inning, but created a small jam that required Vizciano to get the team out of.

Farnsworth showed his rust from not having pitched in over a week.

The race in the east could become interesting. The Saturday game in Boston now looms very large. Had the Yankees one that game, they would now be 1 1/2 games out of first.

Anonymous said...

Dear Bush and America Haters -

WMD was found - just not in the stock piles. Again, dig deeper then the left leaning headlines to find out the facts.

#1 - America is the answer not the problem.
#2 - At some point you have to confront those that intend on doing us harm or citizens die (see '93 WTC bombing, USS Cole, U.S. Embasies in Africa, London and Spanish train bombings etc.)
#3 - "support the troops" means defeating our enemies not cutting and running out of hatred for the current President.

Sincerely,
Middle "Proud to be an American" Relief.

Anonymous said...

Well Said, Mid.

old professor said...

Since Mid Relief is so keen on reviewing History, maybe he should remember that it was the right leaning president of the late 1980's that armed and funded Osama Bin Ladin against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Apparently, the belief was arm him let him loose on the Russians and he will be okay. WRONG.

Sadam Hussein was also armed and financed by the US because he was a buffer against Iran. And through some miscommunication from the State Department thought it was okay to invade Kuwait. That invasion led to Iraq 1. It was also Bush 1 who happened to encourage the Iraqi people to rebel against Saddam. Oh yes, and when they did (Kurds - northern Iraq.) we turned our back and they were massacred.

As for the World Trade Center - yes clearly a tragedy. At least nine of the hijackers were Saudis not Iraqis. Oh I'm sorry the Saudi Royal Family are personal friends of the Bush family so they can be excused from the excesses of their people.

The Saudi Government also funds schools in Pakistan and elsewhere that preach hate against most western ideologies. Whoops sorry there is that little sticking point of being friends with the Bush Family again. And oh yes, the oil they sit on which we buy. Does that make us somewhat responsible for funding those activities because we buy Saudi Oil.

And exactly what WMD did they find in Iraq mid. Colin Powell resigned as Secretary of State because of the embarassment over his statements at the UN regarding WMDs.

The personnel in the military have done an outstanding job considering the task at hand. They have gone into a combat situation without proper equipment (read into this mid - body armor and vehicles with reinforced steel panels). The strategies for this war were developed by Chaney, who during VietNam said he had more important things to do than serve, and Bush who used his families ties to avoid combat.

Mid, I truly hope that you never have to stand at a funeral to bury someone who has paid the ultimate sacrifice for the follies of others. Unfortunately, until you do and sense that type of loss, you will continue to make uniformed and narrow minded statements like supporting the troops means..... The bottom line they should not have put into the situation regarding Iraq.

the WTC, USS Cole, African Embassies, and Spanish Train bombings had NOTHING to do with Iraq or Saddam Hussein. Maybe it is you that needs to get your FACTS straight.

57 said...

The Mets held a team meeting today. All is well.

Support the Troops