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

"That Guy" being the pitcher who isn't dealing. Serf Felix (ok, fine. KING. Whatever) pitched a perfecto, whiffing12 and being generally filthy in all senses of the word, except in the sense that connotes literal filth. One sense of the word he was being filthy. The sense that isn't the actual definition, I guess.

Sweaty Freddy had his own version of a perfect game, which is to say that he didn't throw 19 wild pitches and pantomime a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man, amid trying to get outs.

It was pretty absurd. Seriously. It was like watching this, sort of. Without the tugs-at-your-heart-strings element. And without the inspiring testament to the goodness of humanity. Pretty much the only element that it mirrored was the "if it wasn't documented on video, I wouldn't believe it" element. I'm really overshooting today in terms of multiple layers of analogies thing.

The Yankees won again. WAHOO. Against (again) the BEST OFFENSE! Not really though. Hamilton IS their offense. Did you know that Hamilton used to do drugs? And now he's clean and is really making something of himself? I didn't. That b-side story needs to be trotted out more.

And by that, I mean that I think Hamilton's triumph over personal demons is right up there with Julio Franco's age, Wakefield's knuckleball, Jeter's avoidance of arguing with umps, and Sean Casey's role as "the nicest guy in the game," in terms of boilerplate comments that must be announced during each respective player's camera time.

Hamilton scored all the points. Both of them. "Two mistakes" as they call it. (If you're a Yankee fan. If you're a Texas fan, then you probably call it, "two runs from a guy who clawed his way to the top.")

Cano was out with a sore neck or something like that, but as Alex R. astutely pointed out, it may have something to do with some kind of cartoonish whiplash thing that occurred, upon hearing about Melky's scandalous roiding revelation.


What were you thinking, Melky? Is it because you don't have the influence of Cano around? You wanted to impress him? Grr. You know what that was, Melk? MALO.

And you know who your first supporters were? MY PARENTS.

Kay: "Look at that! Melk and rookies hit the spot! Now that's a clever sign.."

So basically the big bad evil empire, the guys who only win because they buy their team, won against the big bad offense from the south, with the likes of a lineup absent of A-Rod, Cano, Fatso, Mo...etc.

The only normal guy in the infield really was Jeter, since Tex was DHing.

R-So got Hamilton out for his 29th save, and Hamilton didn't tie the game, like he could've. So what good were your homeruns for, huh? None good.

Sweaty Freddy, I just learned, has an anemic ERA when it comes to the Rangers. Seriously, apparently he hasn't lost to them in ever. ("In EVER, Jerry. In EVER.") How is that possible? Nothing NOTHING about the Yankees' pitching makes sense. Ever.

I mean, I'm not complaining, but it's like this. Or this. Or that weird game in college some law school students tried to rope me into, something called Kosai Bull Fighting, where you were supposed to run full speed down a hall and dive head-first into a big top hat that someone would be holding, like a matador.

There's no point in trying to assign logic to it. You can't follow it, there's no precedent. And it's impossible to try to find a pattern.

That's the Yankee pitching situation. But unlike Kosai Bull Fighting, it seems to be working out. KBF, on the other hand, never seemed to produce a winner.

You know who else has been stellar? Swisher. Yeah. He gets so many hits. He's like the guy in a beirut game who hits all the cups in the beginning of the game to put you in the lead. Not that he misses all of 'em at the end.

But he's just explosively productive early on, and a great asset when it comes to taking pressure off the other player. (cough...Ollie...cough. Ollie and I have won about 2 games ever. He hits all the cups. I miss all of them. But he takes the pressure off me at least.)

Swish's ribbie double, Chavez's ribbie single, and Grandy's sac fly were all the Yanks needed. Kinsler did nothing for his team except get ejected. I'm pretty sure he hasn't had a hit yet this series. I keep thinking I'm going to see "A stat correction has been applied to Ian Kinsler" every time I check my fantasy roster, but no, he's just 000000000. Zeros and uselessness abounding.

There was also a lot of jam-getting-out-of during this game, for both Sweaty Freddy and Not Corey Feldman. It was pretty impressive, more so for Freddy though since he is not exactly what I would call a maintains composure pitcher. He managed to back out of trouble when there was all this activity going on in the 4th inning.

The relievers Boone, D-Rob and R-So were perfect, so profesh looking, you know? Like they were coming on the field knowing they were better than their opponents. How f'n badass. I don't know if they really thought that, probably not, but that's how they looked, and that's how they pitched.

As the score would indicate, they were right. Or, weren't wrong. Whichever.

Hell, end a dork. That's what Derek Holland's name spells. He pitches tomorrow against Nova, who will ideally, in act, end the dork.

This is Derek Holland. Seriously.

Hey. also, THIS IS GREAT THAT THE YANKEES ARE WINNING!

Quidquid tua adversarius ponit in, elevate eam.