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

May 14, 2012

So there are some people I hate losing to in beirut more than others. I mean, there are the Boston equivalents of opponents, which actually usually are, in fact, Boston fans. But that's a given. I'm talking about the people who really haven't done much to warrant my rabid aversion to defeat, but they still do. I hate losing to girls who aren't very good at beirut but are very good at irritating me. Because it makes me judge myself. And sometimes they play a fantastic game and we didn't stand a chance, but still I think that we shouldn't have lost.

And that's how I feel when the Yankees play the O's. I actually like the O's, as I've said before, on account of what they did to the Socks. But I can't help but get a little perturbed when they hand the Yanks an L. They're in 1st place which kind of invalidates a lot of assessments/predictions that can be made right now. You can't draw conclusions from a study that is such a clear departure from previous trials.

Whatever, the Yankees won. And I'm glad they did, because I'm literally (not really, but as close to literally as you can get without actually being literal) counting the minutes until ESPN starts being all "Sooo, Showalter. What's up with that? Under his leadership, Baltimore will 100% win the AL East. If the Red Sox weren't in the AL East, anyway. Because they're still the best. And the Yankees are screwed because they have no pitching. They don't!"

The O's aren't bad, but aside from the Twinkies, who really is? It's like the opposite of football, in the sense that last year, it was easier to identify the really bad football teams than call out the juggernauts because no one was really lights out. In baseball, there's a lot of teams playing better than I thought they would. I know, I know, this is mathematically impossible, you can't have a bunch of good teams. I'm just saying, I feel like I'm saying "Wow, ___ is doing work this year, huh!" more than I'm saying, "___is just pathetic!"

Which is nice, right? In a humane way, it's nice. Not as much in a whycan'talltheteamsexcepttheyankeessuck way.

Once again, I was involved in the cat-watching-a-ping-pong ball eye roving between 2 tvs, NYR and NYY. Both won, wahoo! (Along the lines of the beirut opponents analogy, the Devils are like playing the roided up freaks who came from their touch softball game who somehow have been holding the table all night and are not being quiet about it.)

Ivan Nova, who has been a member of team 1/CYCp3col2para29 for all of 2 days, did not do as well as I had hoped. (I also benched Bryce Harper, speaking of roided of freaks, who went yard for the first time today, which was probably the only thing he could have done to make up for hitting himself in the head with a bat after going 0 for 5. Slow your roll, small fry. If you're gonna get stitches every time you put up donuts, you're gonna look like Edward Scissorhands by the time you're old enough to rent your own car.)

Ivan Nova is hurt, he sprained his ankle and now he's going to be treated to a lesson from YES about pitchers who field balls. Eventually the pitchers are going to be throwing from behind the batting practice shield, I'm sure of it. Quarterbacks all buck wear a red flag saying, "I'm precious and porcelain!" I wouldn't be surprised if baseball followed suit (even if it's in a "ok, no salaray cap but yes to the egregious protection of starting aces" kind of way.)

There was a lot of productivity from both sides. I mean, when Girardi and Buck are going over game tapes, which I like to think all teams do, there's going to be a lot of "this was good, this was good," like when I was listlessly hanging out in the green room as a theater major and people would come off stage all out of breath saying, "Yeah, that felt good, that felt good."

Cano is loaded for bear now that he's broke his slump, and he went 2 for 5 and I think he's probably going to just keep swinging harder and harder and harder until he's reached Sheffielf territory. Nick Swisher is swinging, hitting, and generally executing at bats better than anyone on the team. I'm blown away. Even Alex "I really shouldn't be batting clean-up" Rodriguez threw in a bunch of hits today.

The last of which was so indicative of the fact he is a BASE HITTER. Why is he batting 4th? Is this a contract thing? Because is that who Girardi really wants up if we're down by 1 and need a bomb? I'm not saying anything at all about clutchness, to be clear. I'm talking about who's your power hitter. I want Cano up.

 Someone named Xavier Avery got his first major league hit, and really? No one calls him Xavery? I'm assuming that's why his parents named him that. It's like naming me Polly. You can't ignore what's going on there, but Buck does, and says "X had a good night."

Jeter made a huge production of congratulating Xavery, because Jeter always does the right thing. I don't even mean that in a mocking way. Seriously. I like it when players recognize that kind of thing.

Tex hit a great shot to break the game open for NY, and good grief, you'd think he'd be all "I'M BACK BABY!" or if not, then some subdued version of that. But he's a mess. He's coughing up a lung all over the place. And even after he makes this very key shot and everyone's asking him if this makes him feel better about his 3 for 9,100 hitting slump, he says, "I want to say yes. But truth be told...yeah not so much."

Ha. Points for honesty, Tex. I like it just because I'm sure every reporter ever started was about as stupefied as Mike Myers after Kanye's ill-advised candor.

The pitching was ok. Phelps got a win, he's going to be this year's 2006 Aaron Small I bet. Soriano got the save, and I feel like we should be getting more out of him than we do, but I'll take it. Seeing as D-Rob is slightly hurt, we may need to put more faith in Soriano. (D-Rob could have lost 7 of his fingers in a food processor accident and the party line would still be "I don't think it's too bad." Yankee Universe would officially do a cannonball into ALARMING LACK OF CLOSERS PANIC. Points for potential lack of honesty, D-Rob.)

Granderson hit a homerun, as he is want to do. Z-Pack #2 and #3 got on base, as they are want to do. And the run production from JJ "I'll keep you guessing all season about my fantasy value" Hardy wasn't enough for the O's. The Yanks win their 5th at Camden. Yet are 1.5 behind them.

It's ok because if a team has to be in first other than the Yankees, I'm ok with it being Baltimore. Even though I don't like to lose to them, girls always return my phone when I invariably leave it in the bathroom. Which I always do.