Having attended both Saturday and Sunday games, last night I was seven long hours into a weekend of horrible baseball.  I almost started to agree with what the host Dodger Stadium fans and countless Facebook status updaters cleverly suggested: Yankees suck.  But that eighth hour of long-awaited grinding offense was heartening.

Saturday
When purchasing tickets back in March for Saturday’s game, I took the 80% chance that Burnett would not be on the mound for this game.  He might be going through this slump as a personal favor to Javy Vasquez so AJ can assume the full burden of the fans’ ire.  But Javy has started to show signs of his NL self, so ire-redirection is made slightly easier.  It’s a sad case when watching the Yanks put 3 on the board before an out is
recorded and saying to yourself “OK, now we just need a couple more 3 run shots to have a chance in this game”.  Four interminable hours later, it was clear that two more 3-run shots would merely have tied the game.

AJ Burnett’s games are becoming more of a “pass” that Vasquez’s.  Pre-pinstripes, everyone said AJ only has to be healthy to become a dominant pitcher; that his health was the only thing preventing greater success when he was with Toronto.  Well, we are led to believe he’s been healthy his entire time with the Yanks and he still gaks with the best of them.   He’s like a heavy-set woman whom you think would be attractive if she dropped 20 lbs, but next time you see her, she’s that much lighter and equally unattractive.  I have the go-ahead to say that since I, too, am skinny and unattractive.  But I still think I’ll be disqualified as a “People All-Star”.

So after Girardi shockingly let AJ hit for himself with the tying run on 3^rd and one out in the 4th – this, after Burnett made an open and shut case for being yanked due to lack-of-being-anything-remotely-resembling-effective – I can only hope the skipper did an imitation of me whenever I lock my keys in the car.  It involves finding the nearest brick wall and banging my head against it, “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”  Anything short of that makes me fear his head is in a mystical faraway land of gnomes and sprites.  Neither of
which I’ve noticed in the Bronx.  Though admittedly, they are more likely to appear in LA.

Sunday
Much as I like Mr. Torre, he was his old self in helping the Yanks come back on Sunday night.  I had noticed last Thursday he brought in his stopper Jonathan Broxton with a 5 run lead (I think there were two men on, so Torre was clearly protecting against three consecutive home runs that would have tied the affair… the iron-clad rulebook calls that a save, afterall).  That precluded Broxton from the Friday game, which proved to be
academic.  Then in the Saturday debacle, he again saw a 5 run lead in the 8^th as tenuous enough to go to his stopper for an extended save.  In fact, in watching this I was hoping the Yanks would battle and make him work a bit so he’d be less effective the next night, but I was actually disappointed in how efficient Broxton was against them that day.  But I
guess it was enough.  Again, the rulebook tells us that protecting a 3 run lead for one inning = save, so naturally, they had to go with Broxton in the 9th yesterday.  Yes, the Dodgers added an insurance run (nullifying the “save situation”), but it was after two were out and no one was on, so Broxton was heated up and ready.  I think his use in this game in and of itself was less egregious than the day prior.  This is arguable, but put
them together and you got yourself a whole mess of “Joe T. wuz here, 6/27/10″.

[Cappiello receives the mix flavor, sighs, and slinks away, frustrated. But maybe the frustration was really because the concession stand inexplicably did not have the game on.] 

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Is Javy Vasquez’s recent trend too much of a good thing?  I suppose Girardi must think so the way he yanked him after seven efficient innings in favor of …guh… Chan Ho (outta the) Park.  The only run scored against Vasquez was on a ball that looked like it was going to beat David Wright to the plate in the 1^st inning.  Not sure why Frankie Cervelli felt the need to field Swisher’s throw six feet in front of home plate, but his futile dive back to the plate need never have happened.  Sure, he’s fast for a catcher, but he’s not faster than a thrown baseball.  I suppose if Posada was catching, he may have run into the clubhouse while the throw was still airborn, fearing a home plate collision.

I somewhat enjoy the Met broadcast team of Gary Cohen, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez, but…A) Darling kept pronouncing Vasquez as “vas-KWEZ”.  That’s not right, is it? You don’t say “KWA-sedilla” instead of quesadilla.  Even Hernandez was adding a W.  Darling’s a Yale grad and Hernandez is Mexican, so I guess I bow to them on this?  B)  Moments after giving Cervelli the business for his real or perceived histrionics, they applauded Jose Reyes’ spastic rain-dance after he doubled in the 8^th inning.  Doesn’t bother me much, but his routine was much more reminiscent of Celine Dion hitting a crescendo in one of her many spectacular Vegas showstoppers than anything Cervelli ever does.

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As a special nod to Manny’s Fenway return, I present visual proof of JD Drew recently taking a smoke break while the ball was being overthrown past the infield: