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

AJ gets the loss, which is bad, but paradoxically he was actually very much Good AJ today. I really couldn't figure out why the talking heads were making it out like he completely imploded in the early innings. I heard about 234 times how "AJ really overcame all his control issues in the early innings" or "AJ was not at all sharp in the beginning half of the game" etc..

I don't get it. From where I'm sitting, he only let up 1 run, yeah? And over 8 IP, he only have up 4 hits. I didn't see the 1st inning (I didn't go to sleep til 9:30am on Saturday, and hence ended up waking up when it was almost 3:00.) But I figured, ok 1 run...that's nothing. How bad could AJ have really been?

The answer is, there's no possible way he could have been bad. 1 run is good. If it was like 1 run, 13 hits, and a defensive performance from his team that rivaled cartoonish standards of impossible execution...then ok, maybe 1 run could be be considered meh. He walked 3, which isn't terrible. Unless it was the first 3 batters of the game that's not too bad. But I think the thing was that he let up a couple of hits early without recording an out.

And that should go to show you how freaking alarmist we're getting.

It's kind of like last Thursday, I was playing softball with my old company team, and it was the quarter finals against a team who was notoriously insane. Not necessarily good--though they were--but insane like Bobby Knight insane. And I asked my buddy Steve, "Are we home or away?"

"Home."

"Nice."

"Ehh. Actually would rather bat first."

"I don't think I've ever heard someone WANT to be the away team."

"Well, if they're as crazy as you say they are, I'd rather bat first so we can get some runs on the board at least. If they bat first and score, everyone's gonna be like, 'great we're done.'"

And he was right.

AJ gives up a few hits early, and we're already flapping our arms crying, "WTF! WE NEED A RELIABLE #2 STARTER!"

Have faith in the Yankees.

#34 held KC to just that 1 run, which was an RBI-single from Butler that brought it B-quist. I feel like every time we've played the Royals Billy Butler has managed to be our undoing. Hey BB... um...this.

The Yankee bats weren't much to sing about. I said once last year that the Yanks always seem to make no name pitchers famous. Not really, but sort of, in the sense that whenever they bat against rookies, NL-ers, or obscure vets who go in and out of the woodwork...they're useless.

As hard as Kevin Long is working, that's how unhard whoever the Yanks video scouter is working. I believe is was Charlie Waskjfdaksd [sic] last year, but who knows. Whoever it is, he's clearly on sebaticle or something because the guys are consistently blanked against simple pitchers who they've never seen before.

Bryan Bullington, for example, was the #1 draft pick 8 years ago. 8 YEARS AGO.

He had yet to record a Major League win.

Until today.

Congrats, Yankees.

I resent this Bullington guy, though. Not just because he 2-hit us. But because he said this: "Yeah, today it feels like it. I'm 29. Creeping up on 30. I've been kind of plodding along, been down the last couple of years. It feels really good today, that's for sure."

AND WHAT IS EXACTLY IS WRONG WITH THE AGE OF 29???!?!!!!



Psh. Shut your pie hole, Bullington.

(Something else I've mentioned before is the supreme abundance of B names on the Royals. Yup, just something to think about..)

So Cano and GGBG were the only guys who got hits. The team as a whole only saw 106 pitches. Arod, who went yard thrice yesterday, was 0-fer-ing with the rest of his team today.

(My sis has a litany of rules she wishes she could instate into baseball. Like, players should have like 4 ABs per game and they can take 'em whenever they want. Like if they strike out, they can grab the bat and go again. And the fact that Arod had 3 dings yesterday, none today, sounds like the inspiration for another made up rule, like saying, "Ok that last homerun won't count, I'd like to throw in on tomorrow's game score." Like darts, or Yahtzee.)

So that was the flimsy loss today. Rays won, Sux lost. TB only 1 game behind us. You know, for a season that's seeing a lot of reallllly tight division standings, baseball seems a little listless this year. I have to agree with the Sports Guy on that.

But the difference is, I'm saying it because I haven't been able to watch a lot of games. He's saying it because his team is tanking.

Tomorrow Javy faces Max Scherzer, when the Tiggers come to the Bronx. It's good to see the boys back at home. Let's break it wide open now!

(Oh, ps, did anyone else see the Twins game, where Slowey was pulled from his no-hitter?? Un. For. Give. Able. Isn't this the type of think that prompts emergency chute pulling these days?)