Same new, Same new
It is easy to blame this one on Johnson, and in a comment on my last posting, Z did exactly that. But the truth is the Yankees lost this game by displaying every one of their worst tendencies all at once. First of all, they still can't field. You can't commit three errors and expect to best good teams. Mapping onto this is the fact that AROD has got to be the world's biggest choke artist. He committed two of the errors and the first one cost the Yankees the game. If he makes the play, the third inning ends with the Yanks still up 2-0 instead of down 3-2. Let it be noted that AROD has been playing gold glove level third base so far this season. I say this not to mitigate his faults tonight but to magnify them. Athletically gifted beyond measure, capable of Omar Vizquel and Mike Schmidt type glovework combined, he simply wilts every time the pressure is on. Tonight's performance was the regular season equivalent of that easy play he blew that gave last years ALDS to the Angels. AROD is right to be in therapy, so right, but these treatment protocols take more time than the Yankees have. He's not much use with the bat in these big games either--tonight he went 0 for 3 and, of course, hit into a twin killing.
But AROD was not alone in collapsing under the weight of the rivalry. Johnny Damon looked perfectly awful, striking out twice, once looking. For someone who is supposed to be among the best contact hitters in the game, this is not only unacceptable but further evidence that he can't play against his old team. That is if he's not actually playing for them. It is up to the Yankee fans at the park to make it clear to MR. Dreamboat that if he doesn't snap out of it pronto, they will make his life miserable. They should establish contact with him that is not only audible but aerial.
No list of typical Yankee fuck-ups would be complete without a review of Torre's managerial malfeasance. Now I understand why in the absence of Sheffield, slow Joe would want to get Cabrera in the line-up. He was leading the INT. league with a 385 batting average. But we all know (except Joe) that he can't field a lick. He proved that last year, and reminded us all once again with his ridiculous 2-run error on a frigging pop-up tonight. What is more we all know (except Joe) that Bernie Williams is totally overmatched by Josh Beckett. It's a simple formula really: if their fastball is going 93, Bernie can no longer see. So everyone knows (except Joe) that you get the added hitting you want by putting Cabrera in the DH slot (he went 2-3 with an rbi) and you get the defense you so badly need by putting Bubba in right. The defensive problems of the Yankees are so pronounced and so fatal that I don't think Torre should be fucking allowed to submit a lineup card to the umpire that doesn't have Bubba's name somewhere in the outfield.
Finally, I repeat, Aaron Small is not a relief pitcher. He pitched well as a starter throughout last summer, but he never excelled in relief. This year he's getting jacked in relief. MAybe last year was a fluke and he can no longer pitch at the major league level. We'll never know unless he starts a game or two, because even in his dream season, he was scaring noone coming out of the pen.
To return to where we started, Johnson was in fact terrible tonight. He couldn't find the plate. Not only did he walk too many, he was always pitching behind. Would he have righted the ship with better defense? Hard to say. But it would have helped if he exploited his wildness a little bit and drilled (I don't mean plunked, I mean drilled) Ortiz, somewhere in the region of his head; drilled Nixon, somewhere in the region of his head and drilled Youkillis somewhere in the region of his head. That was the thing about Clemens; if you hit him hard, he would hit you harder, which in turn made you a little less willing to score runs on him. At 6 ft. 10, with that whipsaw motion, Johnson could be firng 93 mile an hour fastballs from roughly 55 feet directly at Ortiz's face. Something tells me Big Papi would get a lot smaller offensively under that barrage, much as another great hitter, Mike Piazza, did.
Of course that brings us to what we might call the gestalt of this rivalry at this point in time. Until 2004, the rivalry was defined in terms of the Yankees calm efficiency and the Red Sox frenetic futility. But now the rivalry is defined in terms of the Red Sox grit and grind and the Yankees softness, for which their vestigial calm serves as a mask. Soft in the field, soft on the bases, soft on the mound. Thanks to Torre's managerial style, he Yankees have really become AROD's team rather than Jeter's, a team so gifted it never thinks to fight its way to victory; a team that thinks doing the little things--blocking the plate, laying down the bunt, diving for the ball in the outfield, getting nasty on the inside of the plate--will somehow compromise their cool, which is how they have come to define their swagger; a team, accordingly, that mows down inferior oppostion only to come unglued in tight games or confronting quality sides. A team finally that fails to inspire not just confidence, but even affection. There's a reason some of us view the retirement of Paul O'Neill as a gotterdamerung--not because he played like a god but because, never being deluded he was any such thing, he played like a mortal, which is to say as if his life depended on it. The way, in 1996, that Torre managed.
But AROD was not alone in collapsing under the weight of the rivalry. Johnny Damon looked perfectly awful, striking out twice, once looking. For someone who is supposed to be among the best contact hitters in the game, this is not only unacceptable but further evidence that he can't play against his old team. That is if he's not actually playing for them. It is up to the Yankee fans at the park to make it clear to MR. Dreamboat that if he doesn't snap out of it pronto, they will make his life miserable. They should establish contact with him that is not only audible but aerial.
No list of typical Yankee fuck-ups would be complete without a review of Torre's managerial malfeasance. Now I understand why in the absence of Sheffield, slow Joe would want to get Cabrera in the line-up. He was leading the INT. league with a 385 batting average. But we all know (except Joe) that he can't field a lick. He proved that last year, and reminded us all once again with his ridiculous 2-run error on a frigging pop-up tonight. What is more we all know (except Joe) that Bernie Williams is totally overmatched by Josh Beckett. It's a simple formula really: if their fastball is going 93, Bernie can no longer see. So everyone knows (except Joe) that you get the added hitting you want by putting Cabrera in the DH slot (he went 2-3 with an rbi) and you get the defense you so badly need by putting Bubba in right. The defensive problems of the Yankees are so pronounced and so fatal that I don't think Torre should be fucking allowed to submit a lineup card to the umpire that doesn't have Bubba's name somewhere in the outfield.
Finally, I repeat, Aaron Small is not a relief pitcher. He pitched well as a starter throughout last summer, but he never excelled in relief. This year he's getting jacked in relief. MAybe last year was a fluke and he can no longer pitch at the major league level. We'll never know unless he starts a game or two, because even in his dream season, he was scaring noone coming out of the pen.
To return to where we started, Johnson was in fact terrible tonight. He couldn't find the plate. Not only did he walk too many, he was always pitching behind. Would he have righted the ship with better defense? Hard to say. But it would have helped if he exploited his wildness a little bit and drilled (I don't mean plunked, I mean drilled) Ortiz, somewhere in the region of his head; drilled Nixon, somewhere in the region of his head and drilled Youkillis somewhere in the region of his head. That was the thing about Clemens; if you hit him hard, he would hit you harder, which in turn made you a little less willing to score runs on him. At 6 ft. 10, with that whipsaw motion, Johnson could be firng 93 mile an hour fastballs from roughly 55 feet directly at Ortiz's face. Something tells me Big Papi would get a lot smaller offensively under that barrage, much as another great hitter, Mike Piazza, did.
Of course that brings us to what we might call the gestalt of this rivalry at this point in time. Until 2004, the rivalry was defined in terms of the Yankees calm efficiency and the Red Sox frenetic futility. But now the rivalry is defined in terms of the Red Sox grit and grind and the Yankees softness, for which their vestigial calm serves as a mask. Soft in the field, soft on the bases, soft on the mound. Thanks to Torre's managerial style, he Yankees have really become AROD's team rather than Jeter's, a team so gifted it never thinks to fight its way to victory; a team that thinks doing the little things--blocking the plate, laying down the bunt, diving for the ball in the outfield, getting nasty on the inside of the plate--will somehow compromise their cool, which is how they have come to define their swagger; a team, accordingly, that mows down inferior oppostion only to come unglued in tight games or confronting quality sides. A team finally that fails to inspire not just confidence, but even affection. There's a reason some of us view the retirement of Paul O'Neill as a gotterdamerung--not because he played like a god but because, never being deluded he was any such thing, he played like a mortal, which is to say as if his life depended on it. The way, in 1996, that Torre managed.
posted by joe valente | 12:21 AM
2 Comments:
There's a reason some of us view the retirement of Paul O'Neill as a gotterdamerung--not because he played like a god but because, never being deluded he was any such thing, he played like a mortal, which is to say as if his life depended on it.
Why I read this blog.
Yeah, my comment about RJ in the last post was written before I examined the box score more closely and saw how many of those runs were unearned. Obviously he still sucked, but the defense was atrocious. You know, it just occurred to me--mainly because atrocious rhymes with Brosius--that A-Rod is sort of the anti-Brosius. He was all clutch, A-Rod has no clutch whatsoever.
I put Brosius up there with Paul O'Neill as a quintessential late 90s Yankee, making the absolute most of what he had.
One more thing about Brosius: when the Bleacher Creatures used to chant each player's name, going around the diamond, and they started chanting, "Sco-ott Bro-sius, Sco-ott Bro-sius," according to Jeter, he looked over and saw Brosius chanting his own name along with them. That's awesome. He was as happy as a little puppy out there, clearly amazed that he was standing at third base in Yankee Stadium with thousands of people chanting his name.
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