Seven innings, two runs.

"Darrell Rasner was decent, just not good enough, and the bullpen sloppy in a 7-6 loss to the Blue Jays at the Stadium."

Okay, the first Toronto batter in the seventh inning singled.

The next batter hit into a 4-6-3 double play.

The next batter grounded out to second base. (Still unsure why nobody noticed that the "single" following the error was just a ground ball that the Yankee second baseman made no attempt to reach for.)

So, Rasner pitched excellently. Two runs in seven innings.

ARod didn't hit into a double play in the bottom of the ninth inning there was no bottom of the ninth because the Yankees won the game in nine innings because they have a second baseman who plays professional baseball.

Throwing overhand requires lots of energy, Coach.

"Cano bungled a sure double-play ball in the seventh and the Blue Jays went on to score three times in the inning. His backhand to Derek Jeter at the bag was low and skipped away, putting two runners on with no out. Bautista hit an RBI single and Joe Inglett a two-run single to pull Toronto within 6-5.

'You have to make sure of one out in that situation,' Girardi said. 'He has that smoothness that people will assume he's being nonchalant. He's not. He's made that play so many times.' "

There ya go.

Torre Version II.


Remember a couple of weeks ago when Cano "smoothly" jogged after a ground ball in the ninth inning that cost the Yankees a game?

Girardi should have dealt with it at that time.

Actually, Girardi should have dealt with it in Spring Training.


ARod's double play was bad luck. He was thrown out by only 1/2 a step -- because hustled down to first base -- what a concept.

Boo?

Jeter 0-for-4 with one GIDP, two Ks, and four left on base.

I know it's different.

Yankee fans shouldn't boo Jeter. Everybody can have a bad game. I'm just kidding.

No, I'm not.

So now Grady Little is the smartest man in baseball...

Now go home and get your shinebox

So much for this particular feel-good story:

"Tanyon Sturtze sat at his locker Wednesday afternoon, packing his bags and shaking hands with teammates. Dodgers Manager Joe Torre had just told the reliever that the team had cut him.

That kind of scene is common in the major leagues. This one is not: Torre talked to Sturtze again a few minutes later, this time to tell him the Dodgers would not cut him Wednesday, leaving him in limbo beyond then.

Sturtze declined to comment. Torre described Sturtze's reaction to the developments this way: 'He's not OK.' "

Classy is as classy does, and that move was classy.

David Wright was 0-for-5 last night with two strikeouts.

David Wright is now hitting .231 with RISP and two outs.

How much you wanna bet Fanboy Puma thinks Wright is the NL MVP?:

"Alex Rodriguez got the boo birds off his case last night, but the stench from his performance a day earlier was still prevalent in the Stadium.

Two doubles, too little too late."

Right.

Last night was a typical 2008 Yankees performance.

That is to say, their third baseman plays well, but he's surrounded by mediocrity.


"A month that began with the Yankees a legitimate AL East title contender has become a disaster, and Rodriguez's pedestrian .250 batting average in August is part of the wreckage."

Alex Rodriguez is one of the only reasons the Yankees began the month as legitimate AL East contenders.

I don't know how legit their campaign was, anyway, especially after Joba got hurt.

With a regular third baseman, they might be in last place in the AL East.


"Rodriguez stroked an RBI double against Paul Byrd in the first inning last night and then doubled leading off the fourth before scoring the Yanks' second run.

Where was that a night earlier?"

A night earlier, he struck out twice and hit into two double plays, which is atypical.

This night, he had two hits and was the best player on the team, which is typical.


"That idea of Rodriguez hitting in the clutch his whole career doesn't mesh with A-Rod's October history or the fact he entered last night batting .246 with runners in scoring position this season."

"Mesh" is a mighty big word for a mentally challenged person like you.

Convincing deep dive into the stats, by the way.


You know what is amazing to me?

I did not actually see last night's game until the 8th inning.

ARod dives for a ball and almost fields it. Hustles after it and holds Youkilis to a single. Not a big deal, it's a legitimate single off the 3b's glove and major leaguers are always supposed to hustle.

Next batter is Jason Bay and he hits a fly ball to right-center field. It's a can of corn.

Abreu does his typical Gutless Old Man With Arthritis act and, somehow, Bay ends up with an RBI triple. Not only does Abreu short-arm the ball -- he's scared of the wall, don't you know -- but he inexplicably cartwheels on the warning track. Never even touches the ball. Damon has to back him up.

Sox end up with 7 runs in the inning. Obviously, not all of those 7 runs are Abreu's fault, but it would be nice to see a wee bit more effort.

There are about 900 players in the major leagues who would have caught that ball.

Mike Mussina and Mariano Rivera would have caught that ball if they were shagging flies during batting practice.

Bottom of the 8th, Abreu grounds out.

No boos.

No boos for a left-handed hitting corner outfielder who bats third, is protected by ARod, has a mere 15 HRs, will barely break 100 RBIs, can't even hit .300, and is paid $16 million.

No boos for Abreu, the gutless stiff, the symbol of the 2008 Yankees. Either Abreu pulling up at the wall or Cano swinging feebly at the first pitch.

Boo.

Bottom 7th: NY Yankees

- K. Youkilis at first
- J. Lowrie at third
- A. Cora at shortstop
- I. Rodriguez hit for J. Molina
- I. Rodriguez struck out swinging
- J. Damon walked
- D. Jeter singled to right, J. Damon to second
- B. Abreu walked, J. Damon to third, D. Jeter to second
- J. Masterson relieved M. Delcarmen
- A. Rodriguez grounded into double play shortstop to first, B. Abreu out at second

I don't know what's up with the sudden surge of double plays. In the context of the game's importance and the scrutiny, that at-bat is utterly disgraceful. Hit a sac fly, you jerk.

But, next time you need a HR, I still say he's the guy you want up.

Also, Cashman doesn't regret signing him for the next nine years.

ARod's going to win a lot of games over the next nine years.

I'm tired of the negativity directed towards him, but, tonight, he deserves the boos.

Smartest Man in Baseball Swept by Charlie Manuel.

"This is no time to sound clueless, the Dodgers going flat against the Phillies again, the manager asked what he might say to his team, and Torre appearing befuddled.

'There's nothing I can tell them,' he said."

I'm pretty sure you can think of a time the Cardinals lost four in a row and then Bob Gibson won a game.

I wonder who Mike Lupica is rooting for.

"It starts with A-Rod, who so far this season has been nothing more than a gaudy numbers-hanger and a tabloid dream."

Nothing more than a baseball player putting up gaudy numbers, when he could have been so much more.

He could have been a beacon of hope for blind orphans.

He could have been the Democrats' presumptive nominee.

He could have been my lover.


"Let's see if this is the week against the Red Sox when at least one of the games ends with a swing of his bat."

Tonight, I'm willing to bet that ARod ends the game with a swing of his mighty bat. Though it's only a 1 in 9 chance, I'm gonna roll the dice here.

Pettitte gives up 7 runs in 4 innings. Two of the runs are unearned because Jeter/Cano can't turn double plays. But they're really earned runs, technically, because the official scorer can't assume a double play, which is moronic. As John Sterling would say, that's just recordkeeping.

4 IP, 7 R, 11 H, 7 ER, 2 BB, 6 K.

Youkilis goes deep twice and Bay drives in at least three or four runs just so somebody can compare him to Manny. "Even without Manny ..." will be Michael Kay's mantra.

Then, the Yankee bullpen gets lit up. Is Chris Britton still in the bigs? Either Britton or that guy David Robertson.

Then, with the Yankees losing by 14 runs in the ninth inning, ARod grounds out to shortstop to end the game.

Thus, the game ends with a swing of ARod's bat.

For his career, ARod hits .303 with the bases empty and .303 with runners in scoring position.

"It even extends to Alex Rodriguez, whose numbers don't look all that disappointing. A-Rod actually possesses the AL's second best OPS at .992 (to Milton Bradley's 1.029) but has come up limp in the clutch.

..

Club higherups are concerned enough about A-Rod that they are even wondering aloud whether his off-field distractions are affecting his play."

Unfortunately, ESPN does not provide those particular splits: Pre-Madonna and Post-Madonna breakdowns.

Maybe it's because they couldn't keep track of all the pro athletes who've slept with Madonna.

Ba dum bum. Ahem. Is this mic working? Attention K-Mart shoppers.

ARod's divorce was announced in early July and his post-All-Star stats exceed his pre-All-Star stats. Not by a whole lot; they're almost identical. But that's kind of my point.

Do we have to go through this hand-wringing every time ARod has a bad two weeks? Or a bad 50 at-bats? Or strikes out with the bases loaded?

This is fun for me to do.

It is really not too difficult, either. In fact, it's easy.

Let's go with the idea that ARod's all-around batting average is fine. .312 is higher than his career average and it's top ten or so in the league.

I don't quite understand why we suddenly revert back to BA when we're discussing situational splits, but whatever. Let's go with at-bats, batting average, runs batted in.

(Not for nothing, but this particular breakdown has ARod batting .292 in something called "late inning pressure." Wonder how they came up with that distinction.)

Now, the reason I bring up his overall BA is because the gripe is not so much with ARod's overall BA, it's with the distribution of hits.



So, let's even things out:

RISP: 124 at-bats, 31 hits, .250 ba, 47 rbis.

No RISP: 283 at-bats, 96 hits, .339 ba, 31 rbis.


How do we even things out?

We take 8 hits from category two and move them to category one.


Adjusted RISP: 124 at-bats, 39 hits, .315 ba, ??? rbis.

Adjusted No RISP: 283 at-bats, 88 hits, .311, ??? rbis.


Ponder these additional eight hits with RISP.

In a perfect world, they'd all be bottom-of-the-ninth game-winners and I've just miraculously given the Yankees eight more wins.

That conclusion is, of course, absurd.


ARod absoutely should have more RBIs and he should hit better with RISP. I'll give him 12 more RBIs if he was hitting up to par with RISP. However, you've also got to deduct a few RBIs from category two (you've just taken away 8 hits after all -- what if all 8 of those hits were HRs?).


ARod's deficiency with RISP has probably cost the Yankees about 9 or 10 runs this season.

I don't want to ridicule those 10 runs. Ten runs are ten runs. They couldn't hurt and they probably could have helped win 1 or 2 games all by themselves.


But this is a team that's 200 runs off last year's pace.

This is a team that is seventh in the league in runs scored. So much for "Murderer's Row and Robinson Cano."

Those 10 runs would put them 190 runs off last year's pace.

If you're looking for the biggest culprit, look elsewhere.

Imagine if he'd lost the game.

"Carl Pavano is still a colossal disappointment, the appropriate butt of countless jokes and hands down the most overpaid athlete in Yankees history. Heck, he's probably the most overpaid athlete in New York sports history."

You know what's funny?

Pedro Martinez is still inexplicably given credit for giving the Mets "credibility," or something.


As for the most overpaid athlete in Yankees history (I can only speculate that Baumbach has a gigantic list of overpaid non-athletes in Yankees history -- personally, I think Willie Randolph was probably overpaid all those years standing at third base with his hands on his hips yelling, "run home, run home"), it may very well be Carl Pavano.

It also may be Kei Igawa, and Igawa is on the current Yankees' roster. Or it may be Mike Witt. Or it may be Pascual Perez -- you'd have to use 1990 dollars, to be fair about it.

Or it may be Jim Abbott, relatively speaking -- was Jim Abbott the highest-paid pitcher while he was going 20-22?

I may go with Abbott. Or maybe Barfield. Or maybe, ummm, maybe Steve Kemp.

How could you forget Steve Kemp, big free agent signing, being sent to the minors?

It's kind of tacky and nonsensical to compare injured players to healthy players, don't you think? Barfield was bad just because he was bad. Kemp was sent to the minors in the prime of his career, not because he had to recover from major surgery.

I'm not going to completely defend Pavano, for the love of Christ. Pavano was a bad signing from day one. But is he more overpaid than Allan Houston? Is he more overpaid than Yinka Dare?

Probably not.


"After a brief chat, Girardi let Pavano continue, and he recorded the final two outs of the inning with ease. It was an upbeat end to a thoroughly surprising positive night.

Now let's see him do it again."

Pavano has more wins in the 2008 season than Kennedy and Hughes combined.

Very easy to verify, part 2.

"But then, when the primary culprit is the $27 million-per-year cleanup hitter, to whom the Yankees are committed for another nine years, Cashman ought to be very concerned."

ARod is the best player on the team, by far.

Missed 20 games, played another 10 or 20 while injured, and still practically leads the team in every important offensive category: runs scored , runs batted in, homeruns, doubles, and stolen bases.

Sixteen stolen bases in eighteen attempts.

He's going to go 40/20 without even straining and while missing a month.

If you think ARod is the primary reason the Yankees have a bad offense, then you are a fool, an idiot, a moron, an embarrassment to the evolution of human intellect.


"Alex Rodriguez is supposed to be the key cog of this Yankees team. But going into the weekend, the man the Yankees have decided to build their franchise around for the next decade had driven in only 24.8% of runners in scoring position (with a .246 average), and of his 28 homers, 19 had come with the bases empty and only six had put the Yankees ahead."

Only 24.8% of runners in scoring position had scored? I have nothing to compare that to, but we need a little more information.

Are we counting at-bats or plate appearances? Because, in case you hadn't noticed, the opponents pitch around ARod quite often. It partially explains the whopping .452 on-base percentage with RISP and two outs.

In fact, I'd say ARod's biggest offensive flaw is his unwillingness to take the walk. He chases pitches out of the strike zone too often.

So why would opposing pitchers pitch around ARod? Maybe it's because the guy who's "protecting" him in the lineup hasn't sniffed .300 since 2002.


In 123 at-bats with RISP, ARod has 47 RBIs, which is .38 RBIs/at-bat. That's a measurement which doesn't necessarily mean too much, but at least it's a point of reference.

Wright: .43.
Abreu: .37.
Hamilton: .62 (wow!).
Pujols: .61.
Braun: .46.

Sometimes, when runners are in scoring position, ARod's driving in himself. Sometimes, he's driving in the runner who is on first base. Those runs count, too, even if Madden chooses to ignore them. Those runs can win baseball games.

I don't know how Madden came up with his measurement of 24.8% and I don't know how it stacks up to Hamilton, Abreu, Pujols, Wright, Braun, etc.


ARod is performing poorly with RISP this season and has also been a poor situational hitter. But you can't just say "24.8" and expect that to mean anything unless you provide an explanation, a context, and comparative statistics.


"The reason they don't have any of these players in their system is because they continue to do a terrible job of scouting and developing. They spend millions more in Latin America than almost every other team and yet the only position players from there to make the big club over the last 10 years are Alfonso Soriano, Cano and Melky Cabrera. The draft? An even bigger disgrace. Jeter, in 1992, is the last player they drafted who became a regular."

Let's conveniently ignore Joba, Pettitte, Mariano, and Wang.

Very easy to verify.

Nobody believes me when I tell them, so I will use the convenient Internet to verify:

• David Wright is hitting .250 with RISP and .234 with RISP and two outs.
• Alex Rodriguez is hitting .244 with RISP and .245 with RISP and two outs.

ARod has the edge in on-base% and slugging%.

The inevitable conclusion is that Wright has more RBIs because Wright has more RBI opportunities:

"[Wright] was sitting on 100 RBI going into last night's game against the Astros, will go past 30 home runs, will end up hitting .300. He had his slumps this season, he had stretches where he didn't deliver in big moments. But he has been the big player for the Mets at third that Alex Rodriguez, despite A-Rod's numbers has not been for the Yankees in a season of his own that has been shortened by injuries."

I'll give you an example.

Friday night vs. Baltimore, Yankees down by a run, 8th inning, runner on first base. ARod doubles and sets up a two-run, go-ahead inning.

That was not a "big" hit?

I say it was a big hit.

A big hit by a great player who has mostly played great all season long, for an otherwise lousy offensive team.

A big hit by a great player in the most important game of the year -- the game being played at that moment -- when the team needed him the most.


"You look at the left side of the Mets' infield over the season that has been played so far, especially the youth there, and once again ask a fair question about which guys you want on your side over the next few years in baseball, Wright and Reyes or A-Rod and Jeter."

I'd take Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain over Pedro Martinez and Greg Maddux. Doesn't mean that Phil Hughes is better than Pedro Martinez, does it?

Compare 25-year-old Wright to 25-year-old ARod and then get back to me.

Kiss me deadly.

Funny, because I was thinking that he'd never have had shoulder surgery in the first place if it wasn't for Torre:

"Reliever Tanyon Sturtze is a Joe Torre loyalist who was able to make his first major league appearance since 2006 on Tuesday, pitching a scoreless eighth inning in his emotional return from major shoulder surgery to pitch for his old manager.

'He's meant everything to me', Sturtze said. 'I wouldn't even be in baseball. The only reason I'm here is because of him.'

...

'He's a fighter,' said Torre, who managed Sturtze for three seasons with the Yankees. 'The thing I feel good about is he trusts me.' "

When Scott Proctor gets hurt, he is replaced by Tanyon Sturtze.

When Tanyon Sturtze gets hurt, will he be replaced by Steve Karsay?

Then, when Steve Karsay goes down, will he be replaced by Paul Quantrill?

Just an endless carousel of shredded right shoulders and mended hearts, known collectively as "Torre's Boys."

1-Rod.

One run batted in since joining the Yankees.

Not that anyone was asking ...

How can anybody even still believe in the "Battle of New York"?

Much less a "Battle of Young Players in New York"?

But something is amiss when the discussion excludes Joba Chamberlain. Who is the best young player in the major leagues:

"So this game was yet another reminder that - forecasts to the contrary - the Mets' young players are outdoing their Yankee counterparts in 2008. That is among the reasons the Mets are in first place and the New York Yankees are barely hanging in the wild-card race."

This is definitely true. The Yankee young players have been mostly awful.

But let's lay off on Daniel Murphy's 50 at-bats, huh? Robinson Cano hit .342 a couple of years ago. Homer Bush hit .380 in 1998. Kevin Maas was Babe Ruth for his first 100 at-bats.

Then, the pitchers adjusted.

Well said.

"Veteran Rays outfielder Cliff Floyd, who played part of one summer in Boston, was asked if he thought it was dawning on the second-place Red Sox and their fans that with six weeks left in the season, the Rays are legit.

'Hopefully they don’t start to believe until they’re sitting there watching TV and we’re playing in the playoffs,' he said. 'We’ll go with that one.' "

I was just thinking that Girardi should change his uniform number from 27 to 18.

Meek.

" 'I really had no idea that he would throw me out,' Rodriguez said. 'He made an unbelievable play. I saw it on the replay. He slid on his knees, barehanded it and threw a strike. The way we're swinging the bats right now, I thought being aggressive was the best option.'

'Give him credit, he was 0-2 on everybody throwing in the high- to mid-90s and he had a snake for a breaking ball,' Rodriguez said."

The right arms of Tanyon Sturtze and Scott Proctor would disagree with your assessment.

I'm very disappointed in the attitude of this Yankee team. It reminds me of the last three Torre years.

In other words, Girardi's biggest problem is that he's too much like Torre.

While few predicted the rise of the Rays, it was obvious that Torre was gettin' out while the gettin' was good. It's his prerogative, of course, thought it's a bit unseemly for him to act like the Yankees low-balled him with the highest managerial contract in MLB history.

It makes me want to puke that Torre landed in the worst division in divisional history, but I'll concede that success is relative in pro sports. I'd rather be the Dodgers than the Yankees right now. Not that the Dodgers are better, but they're certainly in better playoff shape.


I was tempted to comment on the this article in-depth.

Instead, I focused on the very last sentence, which blew me away:

"Thanks to the Yankees, Torre is once again looking like the smartest man in baseball."

Consider an enterprise with thousands of players, coaches, managers, scouts, executives, agents, owners, umpires, and hot dog vendors.

None of them are smarter than Joe Torre.

He's the smartest man in baseball.

Again.

Like he was before.

When he was widely regarded as the smartest man in baseball.