"It's great to be young and a Yankee."

See, it works both ways. As ecstatic as I was yesterday with the metaphorical pie-off, that's how unreasonably bummed after the Yankees comeback rally fell short.

But in a way, it was almost comforting. (Yeah, you're not gonna hear me say that very often, if ever again, about a loss...) When the Yankees came back to tie the game when down to their last out, then took the lead, then lost it, then lost the game, I could feel my stomach jumping all over the place. My heart racing. My nerves starting to snap.

OH MY GOD, I KNOW I KNOW. IT'S NOT A "REAL" GAME. I GET IT.

But it's not like we can help these things. And even though they lost, it was a nice feeling to get that holy-crap-it's-a-tie-game-and-we're-the-away-team frenzy once again. I won't, of course, relish this sensation AT ALL in about a month or two, but after being a paled version of my fanatic self for the last 4 months, it's nice to experience that rush once again. Even if it WAS a negative one.

Some game notes:

• I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with the NY Times on this one. Although I suppose the argument could be made that's it a little pot-calling-the-kettle-black. But then again, as a blogger with "Crazy" in my moniker, I think I have a little more latitude when it comes to aggrandizing performances. The NY Times, however, just looks stupid doing this. (NOTE: Update 7:57pm....I JUST NOTICED THAT THEY CHANGED THE HEADLINE!! HAHAHAHAH. Originally it read, "Halladay outduels CC" or something like that. Ha. Ok, well I agree with the Halladay sparkling headline. Stupid NYT. I hate them.)
  

• Both CC and Halladay were their usual brilliant selves. Halladay struck out 3 over 2 innings, 24 pitches, (21 strikes). No walks. And despite this, I still for the life of me can't figure out why they got rid of Cliff Lee. CC gave up 2 hits in 2 scoreless innings.

• The bats all around were pretty muted. Cano got a hit in the 4th. Tumbleweed sailed across Bridgewater. OH, and Nick Johnson got scratched from the lineup btw, because the m'f-er is hurt already. Good grief.

• Our Snoopy batting order can't be held TOO accountable for the quietude against supernova Doc, and conversely, credit should be doled out to David Winfree for tying the game with 2 outs, and Jose Gil for scoring Winfree, to give the Yanks a 2-1 lead. Good job, kids.

• The Phillies lineup was equally bland, and had similar effects from their NON-ROSTER INVITEES, which is one of my favorite expressions since my college D-Hall days of seeing "Ice cream novelty" on the menu. Since I didn't actually watch the game, and merely went by ESPN's lackluster score-refresher, I'll let yankees.com give you the quick and dirty of what actually happened:
  

With one out in the bottom of the ninth and his team trailing by a run, non-roster invite Paul Hoover doubled and advanced to third, scoring Quintin Berry just ahead of the throw from left field. Wilson Valdez won it two batters later with an infield single that ricocheted off pitcher Wilkins Arias, allowing pinch-runner Dewayne Wise to score from third with two outs.

(I once gave a one-day "how-to" lecture as part of Kaplan program, on memorizing things. And I said the best way to memorize anything is to associate everything with a sequence you know like the back of your hand. For me, that's baseball line-ups. And I bring this up because I read and reread that above paragraph about 7 times, and not a single player in there rings any bells, barring Dewayne Wise, of course. It's amazing how 5 seconds of that guy's life has made him a virtual household name among baseball enthusiasts.)

• The Yankees used 8 pitchers, the Phillies used 5, but since Halladay and his 24-setting arm was in the game, maybe it counts as more than 5. Ex-Yank Contreras came into the game, and once again, my buddy K.J. locks it up nicely with this comment:

"Nice to face Contreras again. He's about 60 now, right? Honestly with the amount of quality young pitchers in the majors and knocking at the door, who in their right mind is thinking...hmmm, 47yr old Jaime Moyer for $7m or 2-3 prospects?"

• Oh, Contreras. Actually, he and the rest of the relievers were all sorts of tight today. 10Ks among the lot of 'em. Melancon (Mellon-cone) was really the only Yank who whiffed anyone (2)...and "closer" Arias, but I'm not counting his 1 K since he blew the save.

(I should really think about developing my own Baseball-Reference site--a compendium of stats founded on fuzzy sets and subjectivity, with no clear rubric for applicability. I mean, what's more marketable than that?)

So the Phils handed us our first loss of the season, after we handed them the last loss of theirs. More symmetry from Spring Training, I love it. (Kind of.)

In other ST news, I just saw the final of the Mets game was 17-11. Nice comeback, Mutts! That's impressive. 17 runs, and you did it against a legitimate professional club.

(Why it irks me that the Sux won 15-0 yesterday against Northeastern U., I'm not sure. Maybe it's a little reminiscent of this. Or the more likely reason, which is that I hate everything the Sux do, and want to give myself a lobotomy every time the mere mention of Boston floats in my direction.)

Next up, Friday's game against TB. Annnd, the countdown to my Florida trip (Floriday) is on. At 1:54pm on Tuesday, I will be in the sunshine state. I'm so happy it's March.