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

April 30, 2012

I know I'm going to be eating my words any day now, but that's ok, because my words generally taste like sour gummy bears, but the O's are like the dude that a lonely chick rings up whenever she's feeling undesirable.

It's the dude that she knows will be more than happy to provide a much needed self-esteem boost. And it doesn't make the dude feel too good, but yet there he is. Always fighting the good fight and hoping this time it will be different.

The Yanks are now 4-0 against Baltimore. Of course, a 2-1 game isn't exactly like the Yanks stormed in there like a Mel Gibson character, waving their swords and asserting their alpha dominance. They just marched in with quiet intimidation and superiority like a Christopher Walken character.

Then Kuroda once again pitched a good game. (That, by the way, is how I know my words taste like sour gummy bears. Because I've been dining on them every since I lambasted the guy after 1 bad start.)

Chavez knocked in 2 runs early with a long ball, and that was all the Yanks needed.

(Do you think that maybe they realized this, and decided to just wait and see if any additional runs were even necessary? Maybe the Yankees hate the expression "insurance runs" as much as I do. Insurance runs=ridiculous. All runs are insurance runs because you want to ensure you win the game.)

Catching Zs.

Regarding Chavez's pair of ribbies..um..is there anyone else out there who sometimes mixes up the Z-pak subgroup of the Yankees? Not the Z-pak as in "all-purpose-antibiotics-that-miraculously-haven't-cultivated-resistance" but the Z-pak as in the ChaveZ-NuneZ-IbaneZ trio who always seem to randomly have extremely key hits for us.

Seriously, please tell me I'm not the only person who gets confused.

Basically this game was set up perfectly for those of us that had most of our attention on the heartbreaking Rangers (NY) game. Because the offensive "show" came in the 1st with the 2-run ding. And then nothing for the rest of the game. And the defensive "gem" came in the end, the 7th, when the O's were all thinking the scoring was jusssst within reach.

It was, technically. The tying run was 90 feet away. And Kuroda threw the ball in the dirt, and the O's watched it spit over to their dugout and THIS WAS IT! Their BIG MOMENT!

Markakis makes a run for it!

And then the 19,102,631,823 replays of Jeter's Flip (you may have heard of it before) finally had some utility beyond beyond inducing Yankee haters to irrationally insist Jeter is overrated. R-Mart FLIPS the ball to Kuroda, he tags out Markakis and pfffffft, there goes the O's fleeting chance at victory.

You gotta love watching the battery chit chat on the mound. You don't gotta love the constant reminders about how they were once teammates, as if this is akin to some rare biochemical anomaly where 2 molecules find their way into the same realm against all scientific principles and learnings.

But I mean, any time a non-English speaking pitcher has a mound meeting with his catcher, you think, "Why in God's name isn't the translator up there?" How amazing would that be? And more importantly, shouldn't that be necessary? It sort of makes me suspect of all the post-game interviews where all of a sudden they're back to No English, All the Time.

It's kind of like how my ex was "lactose intolerant" whenever he was lamenting the trials and tribulations of this "condition," to the point where I expected a Handicap ticket to appear on his rear view mirror any day now...but when a chocolate mousse was on the dessert cart, his "condition" went on sabatical.

Anyways, as for the rest of the game:

D-Rob strikes out the side in the 8th, Mo gets the save, Showalter gets denied his 1000th win. Weirdly, his first came at Yankee Stadium. And we've seen how Yankees manhandle teams who are in the throes of celebrating a milestone...

"food."

Chavez got approximately 70 thousand balls hit his way, after apparently getting none during Spring Training ("none" as in none baseballs to field, not "getting none" as in getting no play with the ladies, just to be clear.)

I love this line:

Nunez, who had four different gloves stuffed in his locker, called it a "fun" experience.

It reads like a Zagat entry. Nunez called his experience "fun" and that the "homerun" he hit was "enjoyable." He's glad to "help the team" and finds the ambiance in the clubhouse "fun."

Tonight we got Hughes vs Matusz. I don't know who I dislike more here: Hughes for his inability to get a quality start, and Matusz for his inability to not have a random z stuck at the end of his name.

Splitting hairs, really.