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

Loss.

The headlines for this game sound like an Onion article:

Astros snap skid, pound Andy Pettitte in rout of Yankees

Astros hit like major-leaguers, crush Yankees

Yanks embarrassed at home by Astros, lose 9-1

Andy Pettitte implodes in 9-1 Yankees loss to Houston Astros

There was a bunch of stuff that happened on the Astros' end (obviously) and not of lot on the Yankee's end (to be clear), which is maybe not as shocking as it initially appears.

How many times have we seen the Yanks completely BUCKLE against a pitcher they've never seen before? A sinkerballer, in particular?

A lot of times. A lot, a lot, a alot.

And how often do we see the Yanks give Also-Rans their day of glory?

I remember this series very clearly.

Regardless of whether it was totally mindblowing or whether it was unremarkably routine, tt wasn't a good game (for the Yankees. Since they lost.)

And it's a game that probably no one wants to rehash. But, you know, I do get a kick out of reading my journals from my formative years, ie the profound anxiety that would ensue over losing my dad's mesh Redskins cap. Or having to get my test signed because it was below 90%. Or--the worst--the "couple's skate" at the roller rink birthday parties.

And someday Andy will be inducted into the hall, and we'll dismissively wave away these ridiculous outings. Not unlike Joe Pesci does to the counteroffer hick dude in "My Cousin Vinny" at 0:17.



God, I love that part.

Andy gets bludgeoned to death, basically. In a little over 4 IP, he gets tagged for 10 hits and 7 runs. Which, I have to say, looks better than it did on TV--meaning those 10 hits were HIT hits. (Along the same vein as when you LIKE like someone.)

I mean, Corporan's shot in the 5th was just sad. No one even budged after the bat crack. A resounding "Well, that ball got outta here in a HURRY" spilled from the booth. (Even though it didn't really get out of there in a hurry. It was a normal speed, and not even that far of a shot, but it just like an outtake from the Natural, nonetheless.)

I was surprised Andy stayed in for as long as he did, actually. Girardi has been hanging on the coat tails of Lard and Andy's ace tendency to pitch deep in the game, and do it with sparkling results.

But I can't really wrap my head around how you could watch so much as 2 innings of this game and not think that Andy looked about as comfortable as the guy at a cocktail party who saunters up to a few people already in mid-conversation.

And Andy looked like that guy looks when no one stops conversing to acknowledge his presence, leaving him with nothing to do but stand there and hope for an introduction and/or a phone call.

Girardi was essentially the converser. He just let him stew and sweat it out, when a simple, "Oh, hey Andy! Join us in the dugout/dialogue" would have been more merciful.

(Or maybe Girardi is subscribing to the same principle that my mom applies when buying airline tickets. She thinks that if she keeps waiting out the rising prices, that eventually the price will drop to almost nothing. Almost always this amounts to her doling out $800 for plane tickets to Ft Lauderdale in the 11th hour, aka doling out 10 hits after waiting out more than 4 innings.)

Alright, I'm done belaboring Andy's TOTAL IMPLOSION AGAINST THE WORST TEAM IN THE LEAGUE. Even if he HAD pitched brilliantly, the Yankees played like they were in some of kind of Wife Swap-esque reality show with Houston. Except replace "Wife" with "offense."

Top of the order did work: GGBG, Cano and Wells all pitching in 2 hits each. Then 1 from Overbay, and another from Nunez.

I may or may not create a Word macro for this phrase:

"reached on Nunez's error."

Function key + Shift + Backslash key

With Cervelli out, Andy pitched to nubian Austin Romine, and then verrry subtly threw him under the bus. Not really. It was more of a pushing him in front a rollerblader, at most.

"He hasn't been back there, and I felt like maybe I didn't get into the rhythm I wanted to." There was also a ton of frantic waving for baseballs, which makes sense since the balls didn't really stay in Andy's possession for long before they darted all over the outfield.

It was also Andy's 18th anniversary of his very first pitching outing in the Show. He came in for relief, gave up 2 runs on 3 hits in 2/3 of an inning on April 29, 1995.

1995 ERA for the day: 15.36
2013 ERA for the day: 27.27

I wouldn't sweat it, Andy. The 18th anniversary is not a big deal, and I know this because I looked up what the appropriate present is for this, but it just goes from 1 to 15, then jumps to the 20th anniversary.

I guess you get something in between China and Crystal? Cubic Zirconia?

(I like what's listed for the 6th anniversary: Candy/Iron. Too many questions, but the first one is what husband opts for the iron when social mores sanctions giving his wife some Rolos and calling it a day?)



Dealbreakers.

Tomorrow's another day, with Kuroda going up against the most recent member of the Perfect Post Mets club. The outlook would appear to favor our Yankees:

"Kuroda has never lost in seven career starts against the Astros while Humber has been hit hard in losing all five starts for Houston heading into Tuesday night's matchup."

Tomorrow is not only another day, but another ridiculous set-up for a game that everyone is going to think will "surprise" us again. They will surprise people who are expecting to be surprised. But for the realists, things are going to work out the way they should.