Accentuate The Negative.

"So the Yankees scored 30 runs over the weekend, Tino Martinez continued to hit like Barry Bonds, and the hottest team in baseball toyed with the A's in running its winning streak to eight games. Still, you can't help thinking that fans would feel a lot better about this revival if Randy Johnson had struck out somebody, anybody, yesterday.

...

'I've had games when I've struck out 19 or 20 where I've gotten a loss or a no-decision,' [Johnson] said. 'I've said all along that strikeouts don't assure you that you're going to win the game.'

No, but they're a sign of dominance, a dominance this team is going to need if it's going to beat the Red Sox and the Orioles, not just the A's and Mariners."

Randy Johnson was not sharp at all yesterday. He managed to win the game, allowing three earned runs in six innings against a bad offensive team.

But if k's are a sign of dominance, then the Yankees have nothing to worry about. For the season, Unit still has 50 strikeouts in 57 innings. Unit is second in the league in strikeouts, a distant second to Johan Santana.

How is Randy Johnson going to pitch this season against Boston and Baltimore? Well, he has already pitched three games against Boston and Baltimore. Nineteen strikeouts in nineteen innings if that's the kind of thing that gets John Harper off.

Hooray! Nineteen strikeouts in nineteen innings! The Yankees are gonna win the World Series!


The Yankees are still in fourth place and 5.5 games behind Baltimore. A week ago, they lost three out of four to Tampa Bay and fell into last place, eight games under .500. So don't tell me that these games against Oakland and Seattle don't count.

While they've gathered some momentum and shown they can dig out of this hole, they're not out of this hole yet. If the Yankees don't beat up on Oakland and Seattle, then the games against Boston and Baltimore won't matter too much.

Naturally, the Yankees can't win the World Series unless they beat the good teams in October. But beating the bad teams is also important. During the success of the Torre era, the Yankees always win their division by playing so-so against the good teams and pounding the bad teams.


Now, for some much-needed NY Daily News comic relief, please read this article from Sunday where Mike Lupica actually claims that HBO is conceited:

"There is no more precious conceit in the media than the one from the people at HBO Sports, who actually believe they have these special insights into sports that nobody else in the business could ever possibly have.

You know what HBO really does better than anybody else?

Hype.

Now HBO acts if it's discovered amphetamines in baseball, something T.J. Quinn has been writing about in this paper for three years.

No kidding, these guys want you to think they're so cutting-edge, you ought to watch their shows with Band-aids."

Wow! HBO must be really conceited if Mike Lupica says they're conceited. That would be like Oprah Winfrey saying somebody is fat.

You know what would be fun? A reality whow where they put Mike Lupica and Bob Costas in the same house. Both of them could watch television and read newspapers and offer their opinions about everything.

Every week, they could have a contest to see who uses the biggest word. Costas could say sometihng like, "Robinson Cano is an ersatz Bobby Richardson" and Lupica would respond with a witty retort, perhaps a multi-layered pun or portmanteau: "Bob, did you ever hear my line about Curse of the Bam-Boonie?"

As special guests, Billy Crystal and George Will could show up and they'd all talk about who was better friends with Mickey Mantle and who's more outraged about amphetamines and artificial turf.

At the end of the show, America votes and the winner is crowned King Smug.