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

Loss.

The whole concept of having an off day is weird to me. Not that I expect everyone to be on all the time. You can't hit a homerun every time you get up, etc. (Can you? Why is this impossible? Because it's never been done?)

But it's the idea of having a whole day where you're off. What happens to make it that way? And what makes Ivan Nova think that today was an "off" day for him? I mean, he hasn't had an "on" game since August of last year. So I'd venture to say that this game was very much "on" for him, and that his "off" day is whenever he deviates from form.

He is consistently inconsistent, I guess. I mean, AJ Burnett pretty much had the market cornered on on and off days. It was his thing. Fatso has off days sometimes but we're always sad and surprised to see them happen. A whole day of being off for a normal/non-athlete person can almost always be attributed to a hangover. What are athlete's excuses? Stress? GAH!

Nova was pitching like a little leaguer who will throw a strike and then the parents in thes stand give him encouraging claps and cheers etc, and then it'll take him another 12 pitches to be able to find the strike zone again.

The Jays scoring began with a throwing error from Nunez. There we go. I knew Nunez was going to roll a 7 any minute now. Then an inning later a sac fly from a Japanese player I've never seen or heard of before the 1st inning when he scored, puts the Yanks down 0-2.

Everything looks shaky. Well, except for the hitting. Almost everyone contributed a couple of hits. Except for Pronk, Sneach, maybe Nunez, too. I feel like Chris Stewart was the only one playing. And I don't mean that in a "he was the only one who showed up" or "he was the only one who played WELL."

I mean that in a "I feel like he was always up and always in the middle of a play and always on base." Which isn't true. Obviously. Actually, I think he had fewer ABs than everyone. Oh, you know what, probably because he had a homerun, which was surprising since he unequivocally assured us in the offseason that he would not contribute offensively.

Also, he had the dubious task of catching Nova's mess of pitches that reminded me of those guns that shoot out t-shirts at baseball games.

For my sister, however, the real standout of the game was Lawrie. "Did you see that go-ahead run for Toronto? That was THE most roided out player I've ever seen in the history of ever. He was like Popeye on steroids. With red eyes. And when he got to second, his celebratory gestures were honestly terrifying."

Ha. I DO remember how he acted after doing something good. And it escalated throughout the game, because by the time Melky drove Lawrie in to make it 6-4, Lawrie looked moments away from sounding his barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world. That or pull out someone's heart from his chest with his hands, then rip telephone books in half.

Yankees scored with 2 consecutive runs walked in. Again. Second time this has happened this weekend. This is probably not significant at all.

(See? It's because it's the Decoys. If the Real Yankees had done this, it would be leveraged into a complete breakdown of BB vs BA etc, and Bill James would have already invented a stat for it that demonstrates how the Yankees' record belies its true talent. Every time I think the Yankees look good, someone writes an article about a little known stat that reveals the Yankees to be "the worst in the league.")

So, yeah, it was an off day, I suppose. Though, not for nothing, the Jays' starter was nothing to write home about, either. Both pitchers were making everything floppy. Except Toronto responded with realllly hard hits. Like bullets have left guns slower. Oh, and a lot of this came from the 2nd half of their lineup.

Melky Cabrera, who will never be the same to me again. hit well. But since he is not Arod, no one will attribute every single hit to a function of his sinister cheating and steroid use.

Seriously, everyone acts like the Yankees are Patient 0 in PED epidemic, but Toronto would be a more likely suspect, yeah? Especially since they're not even in America. They don't have the same regulations and/or difficulties when it comes to acquiring the stuff. And I don't know, but Jose Bautista may or may not have dabbled.

From 2006-2009, he hit around 13-15 HRs each season. In 2010, he hit 54. 2011, he hit 43. I mean, when the dumbest kid in the class scores a perfect score on his math final, you can't assume he just studied extra hard. That doesn't happen.

Whatever, everyone's on steroids. I don't really care. Let them eat HGH. ("Qu'ils mangent de la HGH.")

The bullpen was shaky. Again. But I say "again" in a "it has happened recently" way. Not in a "this ALWAYS happens" way. So Nova's so-so day was handed over to a couple of pitchers in the pen who were ALSO have so-so days. Which amounted to the game going from slightly under control to slightly out of control in the 6th.

A bunch of hits. Manufacturing runs. TORONTO IS SOOO THE TEAM TO BEAT IN THE AL EAST. They were shaky. So were the Yankees. Everything had all the trappings of a Sunday that was flying low to the ground. And the Decoys lost 4-8, but like I always say, I don't believe in playing 100% all the time. You get burnt out.

The other half of that sentiment, however, is that you should play just enough percent to win. Which they didn't really do, so I'm hoping the stuff they saved up can be applied to a nice and easy series against Tampa, who, like Toronto, is THE TEAM TO BEAT IN THE AL EAST.

Tubbo.com vs Matt Moore, who is very adorable until I remember his era is like lower than the legal BAC levels.

Alright, so things were a little off for the Decoys maybe, but it's just an isolated incident, as are all things that aren't the most favorable outcome. But tomorrow is today already, and yeah they wont 2 out of 3, won the series, and looked pretty strong doing so. And as for the Tampa series that begins Monday: