Complete with 45 minute rain delay, everything about last night’s Sox v Yanks clash for AL East supremacy made this 5 game series a tough pill to swallow for the Boston faithful....and it was only the 4th game.
Having been slapped around by the Yankees lethal offense in the first three games, this most recent effort saw the Yankees out-clutch a team that prides itself on the late inning heroics of the franchise’s most clutch hitter of all time – who coincidentally had been honored as such before the game’s first pitch.
In the 8+ Yanks v Sox games I’ve attended at Fenway in the past three years, I have never seen so many out-cognito Yankee fans pay no price for their choice of attire. While Sox fans were sure to stand up and turn up the volume for big pitches during big at-bats, one couldn’t help but notice their shrinking collective swagger. Since 2004, the classless, tasteless, bitterness and jealousy of Red Sox nation was replaced by classless, tasteless, confidence. Now, in August of 2006, Red Sox nation is classless and deflated. A shadow of its former self, Yankee fans young and old were still “gay” and “brokeback Jeter” according the Fenway faithful, only the homophobia lacked its usual conviction and was consequently ineffectual.
Intermittent MVP chants for Big Papi were laid to rest by the Yankee captain in the 9th inning. Anyone who watches the Yankees with any regularity knows the buck starts and stops with Derek Jeter. If the Yankees mount a comeback, you can bet Jeter either started, revived, or capped it off. It’s uncanny and fantastic. He is the center of the Yankees offensive storm. Doubters and haters should be cast aside and forgotten.
GM’s
Was Theo Epstein saving for the future? Or maybe more realistically, just not willing to sell the farm in a lean market? I don’t blame Epstein for the Sox woes. This is a team that has held first place for the vast majority of the season, a team that is suddenly losing badly. Who saw these last four games coming? No one. I was hoping the Yanks would squeak out of the weekend with a 3-2 edge. I definitely did not expect to enter Monday with a 5 game sweep of the Sox, at Fenway no less, on the radar.
I give a lot of credit to the Cash Man for going out and getting Bobby Abreu. Before this year's trade deadline, I never gave pitch count a second thought from an offensive standpoint. I knew, as most fans do, that pitchers often come out of games once they’re counts reach the wrong side of 100. In acquiring Abreu, a move that was oft dismissed as insignificant or at least underappreciated, the Yankees have set themselves up to compete against even the best pitching staffs in baseball. Because of lengthy, patience-ridden at-bats from top to bottom, the Yankees eventually get to see everyone’s underbelly; middle relief. The Cash Man did not so much address Yankee weaknesses as he addressed its strengths and the strengths of the teams they will face in late September and October. Great starting pitching beats good hitting in a 5 and 7 game series. This has plagued recent Yankee playoff runs. How was this addressed? By overloading the scale. The Yankees are so prolifically patient at the plate, they are sure to see at least 3 innings of relief pitching, and bats to bats, no one matches up with the Bombers.
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2 comments:
Yeah dude...any GM would have picked up Abreu with the bottomless coffers available to Cashman, along with 2 outfielders that were supposed to be key losses. This is not really to his credit, this is a no-brainer...a good pick up nonetheless.
As for Theo, saving for the future is the GM handbook excuse for I couldn't get anything done for what I wanted.
Au contraire my little friend....the Bosox offered Clemens $22 million. They could have taken a serious stab at Abreu with that kind of money. The depth of Bronx pockets is no baseball secret. Baseball's best kept secret is the underspending of the other owners throughout baseball.
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