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

April 24, 2012

Well, you gotta roll a 7 eventually.

I think I had this discussion with Dom Scala in 2009, but he said that the team that wins the World Series is the one who goes on the most hot streaks. (I think my initial response was how that's similar to the Isaac Newton principle of the team who scores the most runs wins?) But he said he meant as opposed to a team with the exact same record, but whose wins were scattered.

(In exaggerated terms, the difference between winning the first 50 games, the last 50 games, and losing 62 in between vs winning 2 games, losing 1, winning 2, losing 1, all season.)

It's an interesting idea, I don't know where I stand exactly though. My inclination is as always to defer to the guy who knows way more about it (point: Dom), but if not for that element, I think I like the moderate version more.

Anyways, the Yankees end their mini hot streak by getting shut out from the almighty Yu, who "proved" the Yankees to be mortal after all.

(I never understand why people say that like it's a good thing. "Well at least you know you're human!" If there are questions on the table about whether I'm human or not, I have bigger fish to fry than whatever pecadillo has brought my humanity to my attention. Also, I can't make any real assessment on how much I like knowing I'm human if I've never been a flying squirrel. I'd like to see how the comparator arm measures up first.)

So, the Yankees know they're human which is great. Yu Darvish doesn't, since he struck out 10 batters in one of the most stacked/feared lineups in baseball. Also, since his name is Yu Darvish. That probably doesn't invoke any convincing feelings of, "Yup, everything's normal here!" POOR YU.

So, let's put things in perspective here. And not in a Boston-esque way of "whatever, you suck, who cares if you won, you suck" kind of way. But in a New York-esque "we don't tailgate 24/7 which has perhaps afforded us the time to hone analytical skills" way. Or, more aptly, in a New York-esque "It's impossible to not cultivate some legal reasoning skills when Law & Order tapings are 100% guaranteed to close off your block at least once a month" way.

Regardless, the point is that Yu Darvish may have whiffed 10, but, in addition to not being able to rejoice in the confirmation of his mortality, we must ALSO remember that he didn't render the Yankees hitless. At all.

Sometimes you win a game on 0 hits.  Sometimes you lose a game on 33 hits.

The Yanks put the ball in play. They were on base. They just were never on the important base.

There's a lot of talk about hot Yu is just getting better and better and omg he's going to make everyone's heads explode!! w39ru8pidhakldna'ldnaklcna

That is not possible. He's good, no doubt. Really, really good. But not mystifying. All batters have to do is sit on his pitches. He can be compared to Halladay all day, but the scope of the pitch arsenal is where it ends.

Halladay gets the game better (obviously), but that means he isn't mesmerized by Ks. Tonight his control was excellent, but tonight is an N of 1. People don't change. We are who we are. And control is hard to come by.

So basically, if Darvish doesnt act like a 25 year old and acts like an MLB professional, then he'll throw for ground outs. I suspect in his efforts to bolster his fast ball, this is the problem he'll run into. And worse (for Texas) he's putting his leg in injury/strain territory this way.

But mark my words, the next time he faces the Yankees, he's going to be less Cliff Lee-y and more Josh Beckett-y. (I LOVE the fact I can legitimately use Beckett to connote MEATBALL THROWING DING GIVER UPPER. Life's good, yeah?)

It's like that scene in Monk that I just spent the last half hour fruitlessly searching for on the World Wide Web, in "Mr. Monk Takes the Stand" where he tells Jay Mohr who guest stars as a badass attorney:

Harrison Powell: Do you really want to go up against me again, Former Detective Monk?
Adrian: Yes I do. I'll see you on the ball field.
Harrison Powell: The ball field?
Adrian: I've seen your curveball. I can hit it now.
Harrison Powell: Oh, I'm really looking forward to this.
Adrian: No, you're not.

Love that scene.

So the not-so-stifled Yankees had a good 7 shots. 2 of which came from Old Man River himself. Of course. Another 2 from Cano. Swisher, Ibanez, and Martin chipped in the other 3. And let's not discount the efforts from Kuroda, who I remind the jury that I had insisted would be useless for us. I think the words I used were "he's good to give up at least 4 runs a game."

What is wrong with me? If I didn't loathe pessimism in the fanaticism realm, then I'd just start being a nitpicky debbie downer about the entire team, if this is what happens when I do that. Granderson, now Kuroda. I think this is also what is known as an illusory corrollary. Unlike pessimism, however, I think this has a place, nay, BELONGS in the realm of fanaticism.

2 runs is nothing. A "ham sandwich" as my dad calls as things insignificant. It was enough tough, obviously. I just want to put up some kind of a shield against the Boston yipping. They beat the beastly Twinkies 11-2. I like the Twinks so I will bite my tongue about the level of competition in that game.

Speaking of Minnesota, Joe Nathan uses 1 pitch to close out the game for Texas. Joe Nathan bothered me when he was on the Twins for some reason.

Then when the Yanks swept 'em in the ALDS in 09, they stopped the camera on him for a bit, as he started collecting dirt off the pitcher's mound, and then I felt kind of bad for him.

(Also of note is that whenever his name comes up, my sister will remind me of a text I sent to her about 8 years ago, 3am-ish: "Hi I met a boy who looks goofy and Joe Nathan!" My intended message wasn't much more sensical, which was that I met a boy who looked like a cross between Goofy and Joe Nathan. I don't know why I was so fired up about this hybrid. Seriously.)

That said, I think a Nathan-Goofy minotaur still stir me to fever pitch much more than a game where our opponents were 1-2 with runners in scoring position. Meaning, this isnt a microcosm of anything. It's a pen that runs out of a ink.

Annoying at first, and if you're in a bad mood, it's tempting to be like "Great what ELSE is gonna go wrong!" but really it's just a matter of tossing it out and getting a new one.

Toss out last night because while a loss is a loss, it wasn't really a testament to how Texas is ruling the league.

And if that is the best they can come up with...? Then, yeah, they'll be evenly matched for most of season, until they're overmatched. Easy.



Perspective. And for good measure, a final perspective which is that I don't think there will be too many "Oh they're human after all"s! muttered about the Yankees this season.