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

I think the Yankees didn't feel like playing this week so they decided to have Bitch Stewie construct a whole team of bitch Yankees to play in their stead. I'm not really kidding here.

Because you can tell the difference between types of losses. You can do it a bunch of different ways. No one's probably ever articulated this delineating quite as effectively and comprehensively as when Bill Simmons penned his Levels of Losing manifesto. But no matter which way you look at it, sometimes there's a game that just strikes you as not your garden variety loss. The Yankees weren't just bested. And--worse--they didn't just lose. I hate myself for using this expression, but they beat themselves, to a certain degree.

Applying Simmons' scale, I guess you could call these last 2 games some kind of disgusting hybrid of The Achilles Heel, The Alpha Dog, and the Full-Fledged Butt Kicking.

But none of them really aptly capture (aptly-ture?) the discomfort, anger, and distress of watching the Yanks play 2 games like they had sent in Ben Affleck to do Matt Damon's dirty work in Good Will Hunting.

You know what, boys? YOU'RE SUSPECT.

And so I am, certainly, for making such a horrendously inaccurate prediction about the Felix-Javy matchup. 1.) The Yanks did NOT master Felix's wicked changeup and 2.) Javy did NOT pitch a 1-hitter. He pitched a many-hitter.

Some things to reflect upon before CC tries to stop the bleeding on Thursday against Rowland-Smith (hyphenated names kill me in sports. It just sounds so Jan Levinson-Gould. Like instead of lapping up pine tar and breaking bat lumber, they should be wearing power suits and reading "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" or something.)



Moving on..

• For the 2nd day in a row, the Yanks saw only 115 pitches. I'm sorry, are they playing less innings than Seattle? Because this is getting legit weird. The Yanks are batting the same way I play poker. Cluelessly founded on shots in the dark, and going "all in" with every hand, just because I don't want to fold, and I can't figure out the rules and sequence of when you have to call or raise or see the ante.
  
  The Yanks, similarly, went "all in" on every at bat. Screw the fact that patience, not luck or intelligence, is what makes your pockets thick of bills when you're gambling. The Yankees took 115 pitches. To put this in perspective more...the Mariners took 187 pitches.

• King Felix struck out 11, and Good God did he ever. Sometimes you're watching a game, and there are an abundance of strikeouts and the pitcher is just in the zone. Whiffing good batters with better dazzlers. But this game was weird. The Yankees may as well have been squatting at flies, but they looked cartoonishly awkward at the plate, being twirled around again and again, every inning, by a lethal combination of FB, SLD, CB and CU.*

• The hits the Yanks recorded: Tex's double bottom 4th. Colin Curtis's "Please Someone Explain Why This Is A Hit" pop-up to shalllllllow right that Figgins lost in lights and allowed Curtis to double off it. When did "I was looking at the lights" become a valid excuse for distraction?!!!!

• Felix was the 2nd consecutive M's pitcher to go all 9. Maybe I'm just so conditioned to the Girardi Era of "High Pitch Counts Are As Sinful As High Sexual Partner Counts," but what is the benefit of pitching your 2 secret weapons for that long when the game is pretty much is a safe place, if not all but wrapped up?
  
  Why would you risk tiring their arms? Or injuring them? Why would you sacrifice perfectly good garbage time innings? Why wouldn't you throw in the bullpen to try give them some work? Seriously, am I just really brainwashed by the Yankee Way? (And I mean with respect to the bullpen. Not just brainwashed altogether.)

• Javy wasn't looking sharp from the get go. The bases always seemed loaded, and the normally slugging-deficient (and pretty much every offensive category-deficient) M's took the Yank pitchers deep 4 times. 2 from Saunders. 1 from Bradley. 1 from Branyan. Ouch.

• Let me take this opportunity to offer my supreme congratulations and awe to the best hitting team in the AL. You guys hae been sorely misjudged, and it's clear you are a force to be reckoned with. (I'm not being sarcastic. But I am trying a new tactic.
  
  As my rare Seattle fan buddy pointed out today: "I love reading your blog. Please keep writing about how bad the Mariners are.....it seems they read your blog as well. 14 runs in two games against your Yanks. Thanks. M's have wasted all of them now....we probably won't score another run before the break." Yeah, take that and rewind it back, Ryan.

• Early on, it seemed like the lack of Felix-control that I had hoped for per my last recap, was going to push the Yankees in the right direction. A couple of past balls propelled the boys around the basepaths, and also made the catcher look like a bumbling idiot.
  
  I half expected to hear the NESN announcers chirping in with their favorite ramblings about knuckleballs. Despite the complete absence of a knuckleball. But sometimes I think they love blathering on about it just like Joe Morgan delights in reminding us how bad a 1st-batter walk is.
  
  It turned out that was pretty much the only way the Yanks could make any advances on the diamond. 0-7 with RISP, 5 LOB. (Actually 5 is pretty good considering you only managed 2 hits all day.)

• But as headless-chicken as catcher Rob Johnson looked scrambling around for balls, that's how dazed the Yanks as a whole looked in the field. I can't pinpoint it exactly, but it was very much like watching the Coyotes play after Jonathan Moxon and the boys spent all night in a strip club. Very, very similar to that. However, I still think my Bitch Stewie theory is a more probable explanation for all this.

So, yeah, it's 5:30am, the sun is coming up, and I'm drawing dangerously close to falling asleep on the computer. I have a feeling this recap may or may not be littered with nonsense, typos, and the like, all of which I apologize for. Seriously.

(And no, I do not have an excuse for this behavior since it was not a West Coast game. I was looking at the lights.)

Happy Thursday, baseball fans! Let's hope for the best, but jinx the Mariner's by hoping for the worst.

And as always, remind ourselves that no matter how frustrated things may get...Carlos Zambrano. Yeah that's the whole thought, I'm too tired to see how this is relevant. But I feel like it is. Say what you will about the Yankees, but a.) remember to start it with "World Series Champions," and b.) at least we're not harboring a castoff lab specimen from "Splice."

Small favors, etc.



*Fastball, not Facebook. Though that actually brings to mind people who relentlessly update their statuses with things like, "...is off to the gym!" We get it. You're fit and athletic. You also may spend too much time on the computer for either of those things to actually be true. Also, CB is curveball. Not trucker radio to signal help. Although that also may have found some utility in this game. Calling in for roadside assistance when the vehicle/team has stalled.