Phil Coke and Carlos Pena have at least one thing in common: They both loved the second pitch Coke threw in the top of the 10th inning Wednesday night.
While the Yankee lefthander maintained that his 1-0 fastball to the Tampa Bay slugger was "as good as you're gonna get," Peña, thinking the exact same thing, grooved it into the right field seats for his major-league-leading 12th home run of the season and the decisive blow in Tampa Bay's 4-3, 10th-inning victory at the Stadium.
From the manager's office to the clubhouse lockers, there is a belief the Yankees will emerge from the dog days of May in good shape.
"When it clicks, it will be ridiculous," A.J. Burnett said. "When it clicks, it will be fun to watch."
Lately, the only clicking in the Yankees' universe is the sound of the handgun hammer Joe Girardi uses while playing the nightly game of Bullpen Roulette.
... given opportunities to win the game in both the ninth and 10th, the Yankees' bats went limp again. The Bombers were 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position, making them 4-for-32 (.125) during the four-game skid to bring their season average in those situations down to .249. ...
At 13-14, the Bombers are one game ahead of the fourth-place Rays, closer to the last-place Orioles than they are to the first-place Blue Jays.
And this 1946 article by Kid Nichols entitled "Pitchers Are Sissies Now" is unbelievably awesome: "The day after we had pitched a game it was our duty to stand at the gate, and afterwards to count the tickets.... Modern-day pitchers spend half their time trying to develop and master tricky deliveries.... Yet, I had no fancy curves.... Such operations [removal of chipped bone from elbows] were unheard of until recent years.... Nothing short of a broken leg could have kept us out of a uniform." Etc.
At least Lopez is continuing the tradition of playing the outfield when not pitching.
LoHud, 9:08 PM last night: "The Bleacher Creatures are chanting 'Boston sucks.' That makes sense. The Yankees are 0-5 against Boston and playing Tampa Bay."
Michael Obernauer, Daily News:
Yankees fan: "But, A-Rod will solve all of these problems!
ReplyDeleteRight?
Right?"
Even YES had to declare Pena the player of the game.
ReplyDeleteAnd this 1946 article by Kid Nichols entitled "Pitchers Are Sissies Now" is unbelievably awesome: "The day after we had pitched a game it was our duty to stand at the gate, and afterwards to count the tickets.... Modern-day pitchers spend half their time trying to develop and master tricky deliveries.... Yet, I had no fancy curves.... Such operations [removal of chipped bone from elbows] were unheard of until recent years.... Nothing short of a broken leg could have kept us out of a uniform." Etc.
At least Lopez is continuing the tradition of playing the outfield when not pitching.
LoHud, 9:08 PM last night:
ReplyDelete"The Bleacher Creatures are chanting 'Boston sucks.' That makes sense. The Yankees are 0-5 against Boston and playing Tampa Bay."