Of course I had tickets to the
best game of the season and I got stuck in a court room for jury duty and missed it. Anyone who questions the name of this blog should just stop, seriously.
Anyway, IPK wasn't quite dazzling, but when he wiggled out of a bases loaded jam in the top of the third, you knew he'd turned a corner, psychologically. He went six strong, allowing only 4 hits, while striking out 4. The 4 walks are troubling, but you could tell that he relaxed on the mound tonight, for the first time this season. His fastball touched 92 a couple of times by YES's radar gun, I hadn't seen him hit 90 in any of his other starts.
Kyle Farnsworth pitched a clean 8th inning, stepping into his new role for the first time. Mo got the win with a perfect ninth.
The offense was dismal, again, but Robbie Cano got the job done in the clutch, punching a grounder through the left side to plate Matsui with the game winner.
Damon continues to swing a hot bat, going 3/4. A-Rod's swing seems fine, he just missed a couple of balls, hitting mammoth fly balls to center and left.
At some point, the offense will start scoring runs regularly. At some point, this team will win a slug fest. At some point they won't need a dominant start to get a win. We haven't reached that point yet, but in the past two days they've won a blowout and a nail-biter. Maybe a corner has been turned.
Girardi got run for the first time this season, and honestly I think he needs to work on his tantrums a little bit. I never got the whole kicking your own hat thing. Throw a water cooler, or a base, or cover home plate with dirt or something. Kicking your own hat just doesn't do it for me. I do find it funny that he got run arguing a call that was correct.
Player of The Game: Ian Kennedy
Team Record: 22-25
Damon: Nada
Throw a water cooler, or a base, or cover home plate with dirt or something. Kicking your own hat just doesn't do it for me
^^^^
I'm personally a fan of the dive behind the imaginary bunker and toss the resin bag grenade like that minor league guy did last year
^ Agreed.
I like the hat kicking thing though, I think it's a like we have Lou as our manager without having to go through that every game and having Thomson managing half the season.
On a side note with Kennedy, I think you're right and he psychologically turned a corner. When the bases were loaded with 1 out against Markakis, I knew he was getting ready for that tumbling snowball effect that has killed him this year. Markakis bailed him out chasing some pitches outside of the zone and then he got Huff to fly out (after getting a favorable 2-1 strike from the ump). He knows he's capable of doing these things, and he was getting squeezed a bit but it looked like he finally just said "I'm not going to nip but I'll put my fastball in tougher spots and mix the change, see what you can do." Very encouraging.
When it comes to classic ejection, Joe has a lot to learn from Yadier the Great Stripper Molina.
http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?mid=200805132689415