AL East

[Frayed Knot]

NYY -
TBR -2.5
Bost -9.0

This looks like it should be a fun pennant race but it really won't seeing as how the loser is almost certain to be the WC winner. The Red Sox are the closest competition at this point (ChiSox trail them by one game) so there's almost now way the WC comes out of any other division.

So we're reduced to waiting out 'home field advantage' (one of my least favorite topics for discussion) and mundane speculation about things like the specific match-ups such as pondering whether there's an advantage in playing Texas first rather than Minnesota or the other way around.

Yanx & Rays have seven head-to-head remaining (3 in Tampa starting Monday, then 4 in NY the following week). If nothing else, six straight vs Texas & Tampa could knock the Yanx around a bit this week.
Tampa has won 6 of the 11 games played to date.

Other than that the MFY starting rotation bears watching as it's been more than a bit raggedy lately and Pettitte, who is due back soon, is desperately needed to regain his early season form and right the ship. The post-season sked supposedly (I haven't seen anything yet) doesn't have as many built-in off-days as that disaster they gave us last season, the one that had a scheduled November finish by giving teams (read: TV) more off-days than game-days and allowed a team to not only use just three starters but do so without fear of using any on short rest.

[Frayed Knot]

I couldn't stay up for the end of the 5:12 abortion that was the Tex/NYY game - finding out only now that Nelson Cruz won it with a leadoff HR in the 13th.
One could rationalize the length based on the extra innings but that thing was dragging from the very start. It took them just under an hour just to play the first two innings and it was a 1-0 game at that point.

Fun stuff I did see:
- Joba the Fat serving up the game-tying HR on the first pitch he threw in the 8th (also Cruz)
- Jeter going 1-for-7 (infield single in the 3rd) which deepens his current slump into something like 10 for his last 60-something, .260/.326/.366 for the season and .235/.313/.322 since June 1st
It's time to begin wondering if they'll consider dropping him out of the leadoff or 2nd slots in the lineup come playoff time in favor of say Brett Gardner (.388 OBA) or Swisher (.364) or ... hell, just about anyone else.
Going to be an interesting contract discussion this winter for sure. Buster Olney said the other day that if you took the name away and just looked at the stats, position & age you'd tag him as a 1-year/$4mil contract



Tampa did pick up a game on the Yanx, managing to hold on to a 9-8 win after jumping out to a 6-0 lead in the top of the 1st.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

IBuster Olney said the other day that if you took the name away and just looked at the stats, position & age you'd tag him as a 1-year/$4mil contract

[ashie62]

I was looking at Jeter's stats today and it appears at age 36 he is about shot.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'm not so optimistic with my pessimism. I think they will somehow find a way to appropriately overpay him without crippling themselves too too much, and he'll find a way to produce a little along the way. Nonetheless, not an impressive showing for the Athlete of the Year.

At this age, Joe DiMaggio had one disappointing season and walked away.

[Frayed Knot]

What this season does is tend to make last year look like more of the aberration and not 2008.
In 2008 he dropped to an OPS+ of 102 after a string of years mostly in the 120s & 130s. At age 34 it wouldn't have been irrational to see that as the beginning of the slide towards mediocrity. But the 3rd place MVP year of 2009 tied for his best OPS+ ever (132) other than the career year of 1999 when he turned 25 and it became easier to write off the one so-so season as a fluke.

But drop this year's OPS+ = 91 into the mix and suddenly there's two mediocre (or worse) seasons out of the last three which, added to his age, makes the good season the one that seems out of place. Now into that stew toss in the clash between the face-of-the-franchise label and the question about how much the Yanx are willing to (over)spend for goodwill with the perceived ego thing about how much less he's willing to take as compared to ARod and they're in for one interesting negotiation over the winter.
In a way the team probably caught a break that the contract wasn't up last year.



But, in the meantime, nice sweep by the Rangers.
Now it's on to Tampa for three where Sabathia hooks up with Price in game 1.

[Guest Number 6]

Tangential question, if I wanted to output a list of SS sorted by a metric like OPS+ for this season, what site would one use? I looked through B-R and couldn't find a way to do it, as well as the Baseball Cube. Could very well be that I'm not navigating those sites properly.

[Frayed Knot]

ESPN's stats page will let you do stuff like that.
You can limit your search by position, league, min ABs, etc. and then sort (up or down) by stat

[Guest Number 6]

Thanks, FK.

[Frayed Knot]

Lost in the Met & Jet stuff last night (the three game were coming down to the wire right around the same time - tough night for the remote thumb) was the Rays beating the Yanx on an 11th inning walk-off HR by Reid Brignac which took them into 1st place.

Sabathia tossed 8-innings of 2-hit/2-BB/9-K scoreless work while David Price was throwing 8 innings of 3/2/4 shutout ball of his own.
Girardi then seemed content to go with his lesser relievers, first Wood, but then Boone Logan, Chad Gaudin, and finally Sergio Mitre who served up the whopper to the first batter he faced.

That's 4 straight losses for this Yanx stretch against likely AL playoff teams.

[Frayed Knot]

Yanx jump out to a 6-0 lead in TB ... only to cough up a 7-spot in the 5th.
Now 7-7 heading for bottom 9 with last night's star Reid Brignac to lead off.
David Robertson pitching.

3 of the Yanx' 4 losses over the last four games have come via walk-offs.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Grrr

[Guest Edgy DC]

Rays had eight hits, six in one inning.

For the Yanks, well... even Jeter got two hits.

[Frayed Knot]

Not sure which was worst:
- Posada's PH HR in top 10
- Longoria's almost 2R HR in the bottom that would have won it (caught at the fence in straight-away CF)
- Carl Crawford ending the game by being thrown out at 3rd after tagging on a fly to short RF


Yanx back up by a half-game. Hughes & Shields today.

[MFS62]

Soon-to-be free agent Carl Crawford trying to audition for Angel Pagan's job?
That reminded me of some of the past mental mistakes that Angel made that caused to you to scratch your head in bewilderment.

Later

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

O's clinging up 3-1 in the 9th vs. MFYs Uehera's got some serious sideburn action happening and just caught Jeets looking but MFYs have tying runs on and meat coming.

[Guest Kong76]

Jerry's press conference not doing it for you?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Severna Park's own Mark Fucxeira pops up. Now Gayrod as the go-ahead run, 2 out.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Jerry's press conference not doing it for you?[/quote:284z5dp5]

Nope. I am still rooting for MFYs to miss playoffs.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

This is why I don;t do this shit. Jeezus fuck.

[Guest Kong76]

I flip over and Arod hits a bomb.

[G-Fafif]

A-Fraud was struck out on the previous pitch but ump didn't call it. Yet another case of someone in MFY gear taking something that didn't belong to him.

[Frayed Knot]

Pettitte got his ass kicked tonight one day after CC get a sore butt as well.
But no need to worry, after those guys they have ... ummm, well, lemme get back to you on that.

Rays winning as we speak vs Seattle.
If things hold it would flip the 1/2 game lead once again - although the Yanx just cut the lead to 10-5 and, of course, they're only 2-1/2 hours in so they've got several innings to go still.

Yanx have two more against Boston and then 3 more to close out the season. Yanx would need to lose at least 5 of those 6 plus fall down during the Toronto series in between for the Sawx to have a shot at catching them but, as we know, stranger things have happened.

[Guest themetfairy]

The only reason I'm watching the MFY game is that I get to watch it with the NESN feed.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Boston after another win this afternoon has got 4 more games on the sked with the MFYs.

Hmmm, I seem to recall them having won 4 straight vs. 'em at least once before.

[Frayed Knot]

TB winning late in their game so it looks like them up by 1.5 for 1st place in the East.

Boston essentially has to run the table in order to make this interesting - but stranger things have happened.
Need to not only sweep the Yanx but can't lose more than one in their 4-game series vs ChiSox in between while hoping the Yanx stumble in Toronto.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Mariano blows another.

Heh heh

[seawolf17]

Joe Morgan actually had some good insight there. I don't watch enough MFY baseball to know how Rivera is with baserunners, but both of those runs were flat out stolen; he didn't even try to slow them down. That has to be in opponents' heads come next month.

[Gwreck]

Fuck you, Papelbon.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Yeah, Pap's a big-time douche.