HERE COME THE YAhhnnnn never mind…

We fans do get greedy, do we not?  I wanted…demanded nothing short of a sweep of the Giants last weekend.  I don’t possess any vitriol toward the Giants, a team that is poetic justice personified as they made the deal with the devil to keep an old, expensive, immobile, yet still productive left fielder who is about to replace one of the most respected men the game has ever seen at the top of the all time home run list, while the home-run-champ-to-be’s team flounders.  This is truly a wretched squad.  And yet… the Yanks managed to lose two of three to this team that has a guy with 3 HRs on the year protecting the gimpy Bonds in the lineup.  This… this might actually be rock bottom.  Plus there are prouder ways to lose than by giving away a late lead while stranding 17 runners one day, then just not showing up the next.  But when a lineup has Kevin Thompson, Wil Nieves, Miguel Cairo and Melky Cabrera in it, Mussina might have had to bring a no-hitter with him to keep the Yanks from losing the series.  This was truly “I want my money back, including airfare and SanFrancisco hotel accomodations” material.  Thus, my question for Manager Torre:

          Dear Sir,

Why must all the scrubs be used to start the same game?  Do you really think the offense can take such a huge collective hit?

Yours,

Matt Cappiello

Cappiello’s Yankee Corner

         SantaMonicaCA

PS – Please come to my birthday party.

Where There’s a Wil, There’s a Way (to Lose)

I’m still at a loss to figure out what Mr. Nieves brings to the table since it obviously ain’t a stick.  Fortunately for him, the Sunday game was lopsided enough that no one man could be blamed.  But he does remind me of one of my goofball friends with whom I used to play softball.  None of us were any good, but for some reason this guy affected the game in such a profound way that if he ended up on your team, the advantage immediately tilted to the opposition.  It was like everything bad and spastic that happened to us involved him in some way.  Throws across the diamond would somehow bounce off his head, even though he was playing right field.  I can’t explain it.  This is sort of how I feel about Wil Nieves, although the real fault belongs in the Yankee front office or whomever hypnotized Cashman/Torre to take this lineup assassin on their squad.

And then there’s Miguel Cairo. 

There’s really not much to say, except, “So HE’S our first basemen now?”  As underwhelming a year as Nomar Garciaparra is having in LA, I still harken back to the off season of two years ago when Nomar was seemingly waving his hand in the air toward the Yanks saying “pick ME, pick ME!”.  Not a ringer these days, but he makes less than… well, he makes less than a lot of the Yankees.  With him or the light-but-not-as-light-as-Cairo hitting Andy Phillips or anyone else who owns a pair of spikes playing 1B, more production seems inevitable.  ThenCairo can be returned to the role he was born to play: that of reliable, occasionally used handy little utility infielder.

Side note: who writes the press guides, [insert sensational fiction author]?  Miggy is listed as 6’1”, 208.  That’s bigger than Mantle was.  Is the average U.S.male getting that big?  And if so, how come I can still fit in my high school locker?

Mediocre Scott!

If the definition of inconsistency is “often makes Matt Cappiello mad, but then has one or two good outings to keep stringing him along” then Scott Proctor is that.  Another definition could be: “throws in the mid 90s but fails to strike enough people out”.  But whatever was responsible for his lack of awareness of the strike zone last night (did he think he was pitching to Cano?), most boggling is his snoozing on the popped up bunt.  Nice diving play, yes, but even if you do not hear your infielders yelling “Two! Two!... That means second base!... As in, throw the ball to second base!!  It’ll be a double play!!  We love double plays!  That’s the winning run at second, and it’d be totally gear to double him off!!  Second base is the bag 90 feet right of third base, and 90 feet to the left of first base!  First base being where all those guys go when you throw four pitches that do not light up on ESPN’s K-zone…”, he absolutely should have the presence of mind to know the runners may be in no-man’s land. 

Question:

How many times is Cano going to try to chase down a runner going from first to second on a what should be a routine double play ball?  Coach Bowa, have a little chat with the lad because no one should be falling for it when the baserunner freezes and backtracks to try to induce a chase.  Great play from the runner’s standpoint, but only because the odd knucklehead will fall for it.  (Draw your own parallels to the Arod baserunning play inToronto.)

And speaking of A-rod’s baserunning…

First of all, how is the phrase trademarked, because I never know how to write it – is it A-Rod, Arod, A-rod, or A*Rod?  I want to get this right, especially since I know how to do a ™ on my keyboard.

So there was a bit of a to-do about A-rod’s forearm on Dustin Pedroia a few weeks ago when he was breaking up a double play in theBoston series.  How can Pedroia be so cheesed off by it when he himself when way out of the baseline to break up a double play earlier in the game?  Bully to both of them.  And if the ump calls an automatic double play, so be it.

Otherwise…

So much for beating up the bad teams as the Red Sox have struggled of late.  Be sure to pick up your tickets for aught-9, everyone!