Results tagged ‘ Texas Rangers ’
Three straight and defense joins offense
Make no mistake, a three game losing streak is going to happen over the course of the 162 game season. It’s not the losses that bother me, it’s the way they happened. The offense still can’t get out of it’s own way and has been struggling for a couple of weeks now. This team needs to score at least 4 runs a game to be successful and they just aren’t getting it done. The pitching has been pretty good over the past couple of weeks, but in this series the defense and poor base running did them in. They have got to play better than this over the weekend in Texas or they will find themselves looking up at Tampa when they go home.
Offense struggling a bit
So this is one of those stretches that you hope won’t last too long. Although the team has lost only two in a row and still has a two game lead in the division, the bats have definitely gone cold. The good news is that there’s another game this afternoon and they are a few swings away from turning things around. That’s the beauty of the baseball season. So it’s up to Ivan Nova to shut down Detroit this afternoon and hope the bats wake up to gain a split of this four game series. There is a huge psychological difference between splitting a four game set and dropping three of four. Then it’s off to Texas and another tough road series. This is the first real test for this team this year. Let’s see how they respond.
Nova will take time
It kills me how the NY writers expect every new player that comes up to be a superstar right out of the gate. Ivan Nova will be a very good major league pitcher. The fact is that he’s only had a handful of Major League starts. Last night he experienced some growing pains and there will be more. I am hoping the the Yankees will be patient with him though, because his greatest asset is his makeup. He is very confident in his abilities and when you have stuff like he does, plus confidence, that is a winning combination. And how about that debut by Lance Pendleton? Three perfect inning in his debut. This guy could really help in the bullpen. David Robertson has been skating on thin ice for a long time. He is wildly inconsistent and last night we got the bad David. If Pendleton or someone else can be more consistent, then my guess is that Robertson will be gone.
And how about this headline from Ian Begley over at ESPN.com?
“Ace shunned both teams, but the Rangers are coping much better than Yankees are” He was talking about Cliff Lee of course. Once again, a national writer shows his ignorance. So after 12 games, both teams are in first place and Texas record is 2.5 games better, but they are somehow “coping much better than the Yankees”. News flash for all you experts out there. It is a long season. That was one game last night pitched by a rookie and it still was only 5-3 with the winning run at the plate in the ninth inning. These teams both have a lot of games to play, so let’s save the “expert” analysis for later on in the season OK?
Buster Olney, Gary Thorne, Chuck Greenberg and other idiots
Where do we begin. Sometimes it just amazes me the idiocy that comes out of so called “baseball people”. First Olney reports that Carl Crawford may refuse to play for the Yankees or Red Sox because he has built up a “competitive callous” against those teams. Brilliant! Then Greenberg insults Yankees fans by calling them violent and apathetic. Yankees fans may be a lot of things, but apathetic sure isn’t one of them. And if he wants to see violence, he needs to step outside the stadium into the streets of the Bronx one fine evening, just for a reality check. Finally, Gary Thorne and Rick Sutcliffe were speculating on the International feed for the World Series on how much money this start meant to Cliff Lee. The topic in itself is ridiculous. No one will offer Lee any more or less money based on his game five performance. But then they compounded it when Thorne stated that Lee has said he absolutely won’t play in NY because of the way his wife was treated. I believe the quote was something along the lines of ”Although he hasn’t stated it directly, he has in a round about way said that there is no way he’s going to NY.” The fact is, Lee has stated just the opposite. He has stated that there is no way you can control every single one of 50,000 fans and it will have no bearing on his decision. Unbelievable the stuff that comes out of some people’s mouths when talking about the Yankees. Their ignorance just blows my mind.
Finally, congratulations to the Giants. Great win. They played their best baseball when it counted. I am still convinced that Joe Girardi managed the Yankees out of the ALCS by making poor decisions, and the team didn’t help him out much. They were good enough to win this year, they just didn’t play well when it counted like the Giants did. Hats off to SF and congratulations. I was rooting for you, just because I didn’t like the way the Rangers fans conducted themselves during the ALCS. Can’t someone think of something more original than “Yankees Suck!”. I don’t ever remember Yankees fans chanting anything like this against another team. They root for their team passionately and respect the opposition. A silly chant like that is beneath their dignity. Smoke that Mr. Greenberg.
And then there were none
I guess it was better to just get it over with last night, rather than prolong the agony for another day. The fact of the matter is that once the Yankees lost game four, there was no way they were going to come back and win this series. May as well end it on the first try, rather than come back and try to beat Cliff Lee tonight. We all knew that wasn’t going to happen.
Also, I have been reading the criticism of Joe Girardi and frankly I don’t understand it. He managed this game exactly the way he always does. Like I said, he manages like an engineer and if he does not change, it will always tend to cost him and his team games.
This team was not going to win the World Series no matter what. Last year’s team was full of fire and desire and was truly enjoying themselves for most of the season. I did not see that this year. Watching this team play was like watching paint dry. They had no passion for the game, no fire and they got beat in every aspect of the game by Texas. Not that Texas was a better team, they just wanted it more.
So now it’s on to the off season and we’ll see what that brings, but let’s hope this team comes back with a little fire in their bellies.
And they live to play another day
Let me be clear about one thing. I still do not expect the Yankees to win this series. For the record, it was lost in game four by Burnett and Girardi. They simply dug themselves too big a hole. They needed to win that game and go back to Texas up 3-2. Instead, they lost and are down 3-2. Other than that one game, this series has played out pretty much as I expected it would. Split in Texas, beaten by Cliff Lee in game three and CC comes back to win game five. I saw all of that coming, but game four was critical to win and Girardi and the Yankees just didn’t play it that way. I don’t see any way that they go down to Texas and win both games, particularly with Lee going in game seven if they manage to get there. The crucial games in this series were games two and four and the Yankees couldn’t manage to win either one of those games. It would be nice if they won game six, just to see what will happen in a seventh game and to go down like champions, but I just don’t see any way this team wins both of those games.
Joe Girardi manages like an engineer
A lot has been made over the years about how Joe Girardi is very smart and that he has an engineering degree from Northwestern. Well gues what? He manages just like an engineer. Engineers use statistical analyses to predict success or failure. Girardi does exactly the same thing. He goes with the numbers 100% of the time and plays matchups based on statistics. Guess what else? It doesn’t work. I have pointed out several times that a manager needs to have a feel for the game and sometimes has to play hunches and go with his gut. Girardi absolutely never does this and it has cost his team many games the past two seasons. Now it has cost him two games in the ALCS. First, it was clear that Burnett was losing it in the sixth inning. He had Joba ready and for some inexplicable reason decided to leave Burnett in. We all saw how that worked out. Next, for the second straight game, he had a very manageble two run deficit late in the game and let his propensity for playing matchups instead of bringing in someone with the best ability to get hitters out cost him the game. Billy Martin wouldn’t know a statistic if it bit him in the rear end, but he had a great feel for the game and was a master tactician. This is what Girardi lacks and what will prevent him from becoming a great manager unless he develops it.
To be perfectly honest, I had my doubts about this team heading into the post season. They have been hot and cold all season, both offensively and with their bullpen and starting pitching. Looks like they picked the wrong time to go cold. Texas has flat out beat them and if not for a late rally in game one, this series would already be over.
Exactly where I thought we’d be
I have to admit that looking at the pitching matchups at the beginning of this series, I had a feeling that after 3 games it would be 2-1 Texas. I stated in one of my posts that the Yankees would need to really bear down in games one and two in order to gain an advantage and they did that in game one, but not game two. Now here we are, down 2-1 with A.J. Burnett on the mound. All we can do is hope he has his stuff together this evening. There really is no reason to believe that he will as he has been terrible all year. All we can do is hope. And as for the rest of the team, I still have to wonder why Mark Texeira gets a free pass from the press. He is 0 for the series and hitting .167 overall this post season. If it were A-Rod, the press would be all over him. I for one am sick of waiting for Texeira to produce in the clutch. I can’t even remember the last time he got a big hit for this team. He needs to step it up if they are to win this series. If not, they could be sitting at home watching Texas play in the series. Not saying that is going to happen just yet, but tonight will go a long way in determining that. Time to step up your game Texeira. Or give back some of that money that you are not earning.
So who’s pitching for Texas tonight?
I think the Yankees have a pretty good chance of winning two of three at home, but not sure who is pitching for Texas in game three. Of course I am being facetious. If you listen to or read the media, you would think that the Yankees might as well forfeit game three and move on to game four, which of course they will also lose because A.J. Burnett is pitching. Now the “experts” may very well prove to be right, but I for one am looking forward to the games. This is what playoff baseball is all about. It’s about testing yourself against the best the other team has to offer. It’s about a player finding out if he can dig deep and turn around an ugly regular season when his team needs him the most. Can’t wait to watch the games and see how this all plays out.
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