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

Now why couldn't you do that on Wednesday and Tuesday?

Oh yeah. That whole pitching thing.

Today me and Laur were talking about the state of the Yankees. It's always weird to me when me and her haven't watched a game together in a while. I don't know why, but it's odd to me that we're both watching the same game from 2 different places.

(See, that's why I was an English major. I'm confused easily and fundamental matters of time and space are even too complex for me to wrap my head around. Forget about "imaginary numbers." I need something tactile.)

I didn't actually do any "watching" today, it being a day game and all. But I did listen sporadically, amidst the collective frenzy at the office to be so productive on Thursday that the whole office-closing-at-1-on-Friday wouldn't just be an urban legend.

"CC's pitching well, knock on wood." -Joe K.
"Oooh, the Yanks are winning! I went to lunch with boss, and ate a BLT and they're up 1-0." -Laur
"What's the score?" -Gerry B.

Day games always seem to sneak up on me, and if my sister hadn't go to lunch and told me the score upon returning, I would have completely forgotten about it.

And they're also confusing. No one seems to ever have an updated score to provide since you're only getting the game in bits and pieces, your cognizance of its status simply a function of how often and for how long you're at your desk for.

So it's like those floating eye worms that Family Guy has so prolifically zeroed in on: you never real can clearly SEE what's going on during a day game in the office. And everytime you think you're successfully tracking it, it flies off the radar aka you're called away from your desk. Hence, effectively following a weekday midday game is as elusive as squiggly eye worms.*

*Sentence I never thought I'd say.




I'm sorry this is so short, I just missed the Encore presentation of it and hence have only my sqiggly floater version of the game to go off of. So here's what I got:

As bad as AJ is on the road, that's how good CC is at home. In his GNH career, he's only lost 2 games. Insane. And today's win was his 6th consecutive W. To be honest, I was a little surprised. Because you ever notice how after a Tubbo start, there's ALWAYS something written about how the Yanks won despite a "less than stellar" performance from our round boy?

It's like sports media thinks he should be throwing no-no's every time he takes the mound, and garden variety W's are indications of the impending doom lingering in the Fatty's future.

Probably won't get much of that discourse after this one though, since he was pretty solid: 3-hit shut out into the 8th, until a passed ball, lead off-walk, and Branyan single amounted to 2 runs.

Two things:

A.) Leadoff walks are bad? Hm. News to me.

B.) I seriously feel like ever since I made fun of Branyan's almost comical, almost pathetic irrelevance, he's been like RibbieGuy. Which is a superhero who has a frog on his cape and one that I've just concocted in my head. Also, a sign I may need to hit the sack soon?

Cano obviously hit an effortless rocket ding to RF. He's so good his smooth and unflappable strength is starting to blend into the woodwork. People take notice when something extra-ordinary happens, but Cano's performance each day has been the rule for him, not exception. (KNOCKONF'NWOOD!KNOCKONWOODKNOCKONWOOD)

I just learned that no visiting team has swept the Yanks in a 3-game series in GNH since it opened. (Isn't that redundant? Visiting team in GNH? I don't know, that's the stat, so I'm assuming the "visiting" part is necessary for some reason.)

Mo pitched a perfect 9th for the save, his 18th in 19th tries. He's a god.

M's Manager was clearly a little miffed that the attention was no longer on the big showings from Lee and Felix anymore:

"I thought CC had great stuff," Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu said. "He kind of mirrored Lee and Hernandez the past two days. I really liked the way our guys fought back against him late."

Ok D-Wak, you guys had your wins. Move on.

This series totaled 7 hours, 45 minutes. HAPPY, JOE WEST? HAPPY NOW? Good grief. You are a very joyless soul.

And now for THE STORY. THE MOMENT. Best thing of the day for certain. Saved for the end. (Yeah, I'd make such a terrible journalist if I ever got into real sports reporting.)

Giddy-up.

With the game tied at 2, one of the best, most ridiculous, saddest, awesomest, and embarrassing moments was just on the brink of unfolding. I don't think anyone really thought it was going to get this close, after the Yanks had taken a 2-0 lead with Captain Chunk's strong start and the sheer fact of the matter that a sweep was too weird a possibility to consider.

HOWEVAH, the Yanks find themselves in the dubious situation of blowing the lead to the worst bats in the the league, and hence could actually toss away a needed win, at home, and try to nurse their egos back to health over the ASG break.

Then Arod comes up and sends one way into the RF stands, and gives the Yanks the lead. This is fantastic. Everyone is excited. Sterling's sputtering out his "Abomb from Arod!" party lines, inappropriateness be damned, you can hear the stadium through the radio appreciatively cheering our boy for saving the day, everyone's happy.

No one is as happy and fired up as Arod. Whose misconception that he just hit a walkoff in the 9th rather than a tie-breaking bomb in the 8th, lead to this:

NEW YORK -- Alex Rodriguez raised his right arm as he rounded first base, ready to celebrate his game-winning two-run homer off Seattle closer David Aardsma.

There was just one problem: It was only the eighth inning.

"I honestly thought it was the ninth inning and we walked off. And I was gonna go to the spread and get food," Rodriguez said of his tiebreaking homer with one out in the eighth of the Yanks' 4-2 victory on Thursday. "I thought I hit a much bigger home run than I actually did. I hit it, and I looked at A.J. [Burnett] and [Andy] Pettitte, and they weren't jumping over the railing. At that point, I was like we probably have one half-inning to play. It's pretty embarrassing."

As someone who is constantly getting into similarly mortifying experiences, I applaud his ability to laugh at himself. And also his somewhat guileless excitement and pride. I know everyone hates this guy for being "so phony" or a jerk. But when something like this happens, it just proves that his love for baseball, his team, and the spirit of competition is anything BUT an act.

Well done, Arod. On all fronts.

It was still a big homerun.

See you tomorrow, when the Yanks face the skidding J's with their skidding AJ.

Seriously, I think AJ's gonna bounce back. He's gonna have the equivalent game of when Javy threw a no-hitter against the Mets into the 6th, and everyone heaved a collective sigh of relief. "Ok, THERE he is."

Come back, Good AJ! We miss you...and luckily I think we'll be seeing you tomorrow in the Bronx. Maybe even with "Welcome Home, Good AJ! Bon Voyage, Bad AJ!" signs and other assorted party props that say, "We are supportive."

Just some suggestions. We have time to iron out the details later.