Tagged: yanks

The Long Hot Summer

As the early weeks of September descend around us and baseball enters the home stretch, I come back to the blogsphere here on MLB with both heavy heart and spark of optimism. It has been a frustrating summer for the Sox and we all know the song and dance routine by now. Decimated by injuries, haunted by poor relief pitching, unlucky in love and devoid of identity, the 2010 Red Sox will be a study in lost potential. Playing in baseball’s best division has not helped obviously ( they do own the ALs 4th best record and could win 90 games) as we all knew the Yanks and Rays would be tough to beat. Since June 21 when the Sox were 43-28 and a mere .5 game out of first place, the team has gone 35-34. The series in Colorado (written about so eloquently by Rockpile Ranter and myself and mysteriously one of my last entries prior to know? am I a curse? oh please! the agony!) seemed to be the beginning of the slide into mediocrity. Oh the injuries you might yell. I felt every stinking foul ball off the foot that I saw. Has there ever been more of this by one team in a season? I sear I saw hobbling Sox players game after game shanking them off the insteps. Get Dave Magadan on the phone. Too many foul balls is a sign of some kind of hitting malfunction, right? I also watched the countless games handed away in the 7th and 8th and 9th by the bullpen. The .500 ballplayed against the leagues doormats (Mariners, orioles, Indians, Royals) has not helped either. Let’s face it. The questions posed at season’s beginning are the ones that proved unanswered and the most critical to the success of the this team – outfield, relief pitching, esp. We are now playing our AAA team and have been for most of the year and Igotta say, I like what I see. There is tons of potential here in MacDonald, Kalish, Nava, Anderson, Reddick et al. The Sox will never be the team to go fire sale and save $$ and field a team like this. The fans would not allow it and the AL East would tilt on it’s side in a power shift. The thought is interesting however. Very interesting.

While I am not quite ready to throw in the towel on 2010 (mostly because our starting pitching has the ability to keep us in this thing til the end), I cannot help but look to 2011 and imagine what will transpire in the offseason. Ortiz? Gone? Beltre? Staying? Lowell? Retiring? The youth? Trade bait? Free Agents? Who’s coming? The outfield? A big Q?

It has been a long hot summer and the way MLB is these days, it won’t end anytime soon.

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Yankee Weekend

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The Repulsive Prison Stripes

 

The Yanks are back this weekend for a 3 game stay and oddly enough it is their second visit of the season without the Sox having yet had the opportunity to class up Yankee Stadium.  The Yanks are hot and playing really good ball. The starting pitching has been fairly dominant and the Sox will get a taste of the best of the rotation; Phil Hughes goes Friday, CC on Sat and Burnett on Sunday. Combined they are 11-1 with an ERA just over 2. Impressive (and fortunate) as well that the Yanks have not had to rely much on their bullpen and they hit Fenway only one game behind the Rays at 19-8. Yankee bats have been led by Cano and Jeter while Tex has struggled mightily in April and is only batting .178  with a couple of HRs and 14 RBIs. He is positively Ortiz-like in this early 2010 season. The Yanks have seemingly waltzed through the early season, handling teams with little difficulty. Strong pitching and timely hitting will do that for you. They are hurting a bit with Granderson and Posada questionable but Cervelli has proved a suitable replacement for ol’ Jorge. The Yankee outfield is another question and when things start to rattle in Yankee land, it will be this outfield that will be the target of the questions. Bound to happen.

The Sox on the other hand are back from the Camden Yard Embarassment Weekend 2010 and enter the Yanks series on a bit of the upswing. An impressive 4 game series sweep of the Angels ( who look old, slow and ham-fisted) where the OFFENSE got on track, the starting pitching maintained composure and the DEFENSE turned up the focus has the Sox in a seemingly good position to face the Yankee Juggernaut. Becket gets the ball Friday night and will set the tone for the entire series in the first 3 innings. Will he show up and lay down the gaunlet? If not, it could be a long weekend.

I lived for a short time in NYC in a past life (does Queens count?) and had the opportunity to see Yankee fans in their natural environment. I felt like I had discovered some strange primitive society. They communicated in grunts. The read a strange stone tabloid called the NY Post. The old Yankee Stadium in the Bronx was like a prison on the river. The sprawl of humanity and the sheer magnitude of life made the Yankees seem like a apparition of perfection – a perfection that very few could achieve. The whole fan/team relationship had this glitzy escapist feel to it. The daily beat down that you received living in NYC could only be softened by rooting for the YANKS. If Tony Robbins were to help all NYers actualize their potential and envision themselves as important, his first step would be to put them all in pinstripes. See yourself as a winner. Be a Yankee. I always had the impression they had the whole Tri-State area duped? I don’t get NY sports in general I suppose. Alot of it happens in Jersey ( isn’t that were all the trash goes too?), only the Knicks and the Rangers play in Manhattan and the only people who hate the Yanks more than Sox fans are Mets fans.Someday I’ll figure it all out.  

The season continues as always. Sox and Yanks. Yanks and Sox. It never gets old does it? Damn I love this game.