Yanks In (More Than) A Sentence: Yankees 4, Twins 3 (11 innings)
1. A-Rod, huh?
2. In all the post-game banter, in all the recaps and the morning-after second takes, I haven’t once seen or heard the word “luck.” The Yankees were very, very lucky last night, with big assists from the Twins and the umps: Carlos Gomez running the bases like the Met he once was, Phil Cuzzi blowing the call on Mauer’s double, etc.
3. Re. the Gomez screw-up: How could that be? We’ve been told the Twins PLAY THE GAME THE RIGHT WAY! That didn’t look FUNDAMENTALLY SOUND to me! Isn’t baserunning one of the LITTLE THINGS that the pluckmeister Twins do so well?
4. Re. the umps: Pitiful. The left-field ump has a single responsibility - minding calls just like that one - and Cuzzi still couldn’t perform that single simple task, even with Mauer’s ball being fair by a good 10 inches. Let’s not forget Chuck Meriwether’s migrating strike zone, either. He gave the high-and-away strike to lefty hitters but not to righty ones, etc.
5. Burnett wasn’t “effectively wild” so much as “lost and disoriented from the fourth inning onward.” I can’t see how the results would’ve been better or worse throwing to Posada.
6. As for the bullpen, what I wrote the other day still holds. You want starter-to-Hughes-to-Rivera, even if both relievers were touched up a bit last night. Hughes’ unforgivable sins were walking Gomez, which is almost impossible, and inexplicably throwing a breaking ball to Punto, who was flailing helplessly at the fastball. Gotta love what we saw from Dave Robertson, though, who has missed bats all season long.
7. Other games: The Angels started running on the Sox, as we knew they would, and the results were predictable. I still say that series goes the full 5… Brett Myers is going to get one of his teammates killed if he keeps “throwing inside” to Tulowitzki… Forget the Holliday groin catch. No matter what his ERA says, Ryan Franklin ain’t the guy you want on the hill during a situation that matters.
