Yanks in (more than) a sentence: Tigers 3, Yankees 2 (Tigers win series, 3-2)
1. What a strange series.
2. On one hand, the Tigers won it. They pitched well enough, hit well enough and fielded the ball cleanly. That last part hasn’t received enough attention: The Tigers are a dirt-rotten team defensively, yet they handled just about every single play cleanly.
3. On the other, the Yankees lost it. In the wake of any shameful, disappointing, opposite-of-heroic, character-deficit-revealing Yankee loss comes an extended exercise in goat-identification, but it can be boiled down thusly: The Yankees didn’t hit like they usually do. That’s on everyone except Posada, Gardner and Cano.
3b. Of course, if you throw Delmon Young enough pitches within spitting distance of home plate that he smacks three home runs, you’ve executed less than optimally.
4. Hell, the series was close enough that it may have hinged on Jim Leyland’s cockamamie hunches that paid off: specifically, batting no-OBP-no-SLG-no-nuthin guys ahead of Cabrera in the lineup (especially Kelly and Santiago in the two-hole). It made no sense then. It makes no sense now, nor will it tomorrow or the next day. But it worked.
5. My Joe Girardi impression: Do something! Do nothing! Do something! Do nothing! Do nothingsomething! Chomp gum aggressively! Eerily accurate, no?
6. One of the most important components of Girardi’s job next season will be ego-stomping. Jeter has to bat last and A-Rod has to bat no higher than sixth. If Girardi can’t bring himself to upset the status quo, find somebody who will.
7. It’s all A-Rod’s fault. Everything. He should’ve scored on the Posada single in the 4th. He should’ve hit home runs in the 7th and 9th innings, and probably in Games 2 and 3 as well. He should’ve given Joe Girardi noogies until he flipped Jeter and Gardner in the batting order. He should’ve printed out Russell Martin’s post-April stats and distributed them to every member of the Yankee coaching staff. He should’ve performed an emergency elbow-dectomy on Nova in the dugout.
7a. Remember how long it took for the Giambi contract to expire? The next six years are going to be a delight.
8. Two more Game Fives tonight. Baseball remains awesome.
