Mariano Rivera's Career is Over.

We've been through this nonsense before. We've been through this nonsense every year since 1997:

"If Mo goes south, the Yankees have no chance."

No chance to do what? No chance to make the playoffs? Because, while I know that nothing is settled until it's settled, the Yankees have a 6-game lead on the Angels with 48 games to play. I think they could possibly hold off the Angels even if Mariano went on the DL for two months.

"Joe Girardi’s club can live with A.J. Burnett being the Mediocre Man just trying to have fun. They can survive for a time without Alex Rodriguez and they can weather Jorge Posada’s struggles that cost him his DH job.

But if Mariano Rivera falters, the Yankees might as well call it a season. They go as Mo goes."

Oh.

That's a stupid thing to stay.


"The Great Rivera stumbled for the second straight game last night, surrendering a two-run home run to Bobby Abreu in the ninth inning. That blast to right gave the Angels a stunning 6-4 win at Yankee Stadium and handed Rivera (1-2) the loss.

For now, life for the Yankees is 'Oh, Mo!' ”

It was "stunning."

I was "stunned."

I was actually stunned that Girardi didn't walk Abreu after the count got to 3-1. I considered if a failure by Rivera, Marin, Girardi, and the architect who moved the RF fence in 50 feet to accommodate Babe Ruth.

As for Rivera's back-to-back meltdowns, they consisted of exactly one legit hit.

"Abreu’s home run, his second of the night, sent Rivera’s ERA against the Angels into orbit. His 3.60 career ERA against them is his highest against any opponent."

I'll let the stupidity and irrelevance of that observation speak for itself.


"Rivera is Yankee gold. Still, in a season of questions, the biggest question is staring the Yankees in the face: Is the Great Rivera finally showing his age?"

No.

Old School.

“ 'I let [the win] go,' said Burnett, who allowed seven runs and 13 hits in 4 1/3 innings. 'They didn’t beat me, I lost the game. I wished somebody would have grabbed me and shook me. I tried not to lose the game.'

As Burnett was giving up hit after hit, none of the infielders visited him on the hill to pat him on the back or simply give him a breather. The frustration surfaced when he slapped the ball in Joe Girardi’s hand leaving the mound and in the tunnel from the dugout, where he ripped his shirt off."

I have a vision in my head. It's Goose Gossage sitting in the dugout after a tough loss. Or Bob Gibson. Or Don Drysdale. Or Ron Guidry.

Sweat-soaked and angry, Goose sits at his locker staring into a group of reporters. From his pursed lips underneath his handlebar mustache, he explains his disappointing outing with the following words:

"None of the infielders visited him on the hill to pat me on the back or simply give me a breather."

Did you know cortisone is a steroid?

I don't get the unending "Christmas Miracle" joke and I don't understand Lupica's personal gripe with Bartolo Colon, of all people:

"If Christmas Miracle Colon makes it to the end of the season pitching at anything close to a high level, they're going to have to open another branch of that hospital in the Dominican where he got his 'stem cells.' "

First of all, you're accusing Bartolo Colon of lying and cheating. That's the clear insinuation of putting the words "stem cells" in quotation marks. So you're accusing Bartolo Colon of using human growth hormones or steroids.

I can't prove Colon didn't use steroids, but Lupica has the burden of proof.

I know that filthy liars like Lupica project their tendencies upon other people, but this is quite an accusation to make without proof.


Secondly, I thought of Colon when I heard about Lackey's cortisone shot.

Lackey sure is pitching better since his "cortisone shot," don't you think?

It's understandable that Lackey would turn to "cortisone shots," given the pressure of his contract. Lackey probably asked David Ortiz how Ortiz's career suddenly rebounded for a second time (wink, wink). Maybe Lackey uses Ortiz's "supplier" of 100% legal medicinal aids.


"The Mets may be running out of steam, but Jose Reyes sure can't if he wants to get paid, right?"

Yes, it would be terrific if the Mets overpaid for the overrated Jose Reyes.

But the Mets can't be running out of steam. The Mets are the biggest story in New York and you just said one week ago that you'd never give up on the Mets.

To quoth:

"Even if Santana does come back, it is hard to say how the Mets keep the Braves in sight. Or stay over .500. That doesn't make sense. But neither has the Mets season over the last 80 games or so. You count them out now that Beltran is gone. Count me out of the counting-out business with Collins' Mets."

Do you know what men do? Men say what they mean and mean what they say.

Your punishment for lying is mandatory attendance at every Mets game for the rest of the season. You have to ignore the first-place Yankees and write a column about every interminable, September-callup, 10-games-out-of-the-Wild-Card Mets game.


"You can trust me on this one:

You know what the guys running the Yankees must fantasize about a lot:

Getting out from under the rest of Alex Rodriguez's contract somehow.

The modern-day Yankees have signed players to a lot of dumb contracts over the years.

Never one as dumb as A-Rod's."

This weird, ongoing proclamation goes beyond typical anti-ARod/anti-Yankee bias. It's just downright illogical and easily disprovable.

My advice is, don't trust Mike Lupica on anything. The only thing he's consistent at is being Mike Lupica. Which means being a hypocrite ... or maybe an ignoramus.

Lupica proclaims no modern-day Yankee contract is worse than ARod's contract.

Just on the current 2011 Yankees (or Trenton Thunder, as the case may be): Kei Igawa, Mark Teixeira, A.J. Burnett, Derek Jeter, Rafael Soriano, Jorge Posada.

"Modern-day" Yankees could go back to Steve Kemp, but certainly would include, say, Jeff Weaver, Hideki Irabu, Carl Pavano, Javier Vazquez, Jaret Wright, Kevin Brown, Jason Giambi.

What about the Roger Clemens contract of 2007?

ARod's annual .300/30/100 is dumber than paying a 44-year-old pitcher a pro-rated salary of $28 million (?) ... which would have been the highest salary in baseball at the time ... to win 6 games and lose 6 games? To last a whole 2 1/3 innings in the playoffs?

I know the ARod contract is longer and the ARod contract is bigger, so it's appropriate to grade on a curve. But ARod earns his money and always has.

I think the "guys running the Yankees" fantasize about different things. The "guys running the Yankees" are happy to overpay for ARod, Jeter, Posada, Burnett, etc., as long as the Yankees keep winning and the merch keeps moving.

I think the "guys running the Yankees" fantasize about similarly overpaying for Cliff Lee.

4 2/3 innings.

This was the third time in about three weeks that Girardi removed his starter in the fifth inning. Girardi removed Burnett when the Yankees had a 13-7 lead. Now, we know Torre would never do it, hoping to get his starter a W. We also know that Girardi doesn't always do it.

It won't always work out.

Gonzalez might have hit a grand slam.

But keep it up, Joe.

Wild card both good and bad.

The wild card race has pretty much ruined the 2011 AL East race.

Number Two.

Just a thought: As The One Who Shall Not Be Named tries to blow a 12-run lead and continue his month-long winless streak ...

... why is he still consistently referred to as the Yankees' #2 starter?

Granderson closing in on 100 runs.

Sabathia closing in on 20 wins (knock on wood).

The Yankees sure are boring.

No storylines.

You're not allowed to write about the Yankees during the playoffs because they are too boring.

It's fun to see a liar's logical constructs collapse:

"But Monday is Aug. 1, and for now, Reyes is not just still the best player in town this season, he is the MVP of his league. He has the second highest batting average in baseball, after Adrian Gonzalez, who is the MVP for the American League so far. He has scored 78 runs, even though you know what the rest of the Mets batting order has looked like for so much of this season."

The Mets are tied for the 7th-best record in the National League (I will ignore the American League, since this discussion is about the NL MVP).

The Mets have the same record as the Pirates.

Jose Reyes has 4 HRs and 35 RBIs. (Yes, CitiField decreases HRs, but it also increases triples.)

78 runs is a lot; 23 stolen bases is a lot; Reyes gets extra credit for playing shortstop, even though he's been mostly a butcher with 12 errors already.


Consider the season that Curtis Granderson is having so far: .269/.363/.567, 28 HRs, 77 RBIs, 94 runs, 19 stolen bases.

So this is a CFer with 16 more runs scored and 42 more RBIs.

Reyes is (a lot) better in batting average and triples.

Granderson's team is (probably) going to make the playoffs.

So which player is having a better year?


The whole "team record" thing isn't my rule. It's Lupica's rule. It's a rule that applies to every MVP contest for the past 30 years, but it suddenly doesn't apply to Jose Reyes and the Mets.


"Oh, sure, there are other players with better across-the-board numbers in the National League, starting with Matt Kemp of the Los Angeles McCourts. Ryan Braun is having a big year for the Brewers, so is Prince Fielder, Ryan Howard always has the numbers with the Phillies, who still have the best record in baseball. Brian McCann of the Braves was in the conversation before he got hurt."

Oh, sure, across-the-board numbers don't interest me in MVP discussions.

Neither do team records.

Neither do injured players like McCann, with the exception of Jose Reyes, who missed three weeks.


"He has done that without hitting the ball over the wall, done that from leadoff, done that with all those multiple-hit games and all those triples, done that standing on second or third after blowing into one of those bases and smiling and clapping his hands. No one in the league has carried a team more than this."

It's probably true that Reyes has carried his team more than any other NL player. But now you're giving Reyes extra credit for playing on a bad team.


Also, this is the 700th column you've written about Jose Reyes.

The Yankees, 21 games over .500, 2 games back of the Red Sox ... they bore you that much?

The only mention of the Yankees in this three page column are (1) mocking ARod, (2) praising HOPE week, (3) an indirect knock that the Mets are the best story in New York, and (4) mocking the Yankees' chances in the playoffs vs. the Rangers.

Which makes no sense.

The Yankees are boring.

The Mets are the best story in New York.

When the Yankees are playing the Rangers in the playoffs, I want a profile of Lucas Duda. Or maybe you can caddy for the so-called NL MVP on the golf course.

But ...

"There was supposed to be no season and there was supposed to be no Mets future and somehow now, at least in the short run, they might have both."

I dispute the notion that there was "supposed to be" no Mets season this year. They have a $115 million (?) payroll and that should allow for some roster depth in the event of injuries.

As for the idea that there was "supposed to be" no Mets future, how far in the future are we talking about? The Mets are not "supposed" to play .500 ball for the next fifty years?

It's difficult to decipher Lupica's unusual use of English words and verb tenses.

The idea that, in the past, a future event was not supposed to happen ... that's very confusing. Because I don't know if today's present is the past's future or if the future in question is an indeterminate point in time even further in the future. Which would mean it "is" not supposed to happen instead of "was" not supposed to happen.

But, yeah, I get the gist. The Mets are 3 games over .500, which is impressive to a lot of people who had low expectations.


"Maybe you still aren't sure about the future part, because you think the Madoff trustee, Irving Picard, is going to eventually shut the Wilpons down like a bank foreclosing on one more house. But all of a sudden that story isn't being covered the way it was for a long time, which means like a slam dunk, excluding the New York Times, of course."

The Mets will have a lot of money. If not from the Wilpons, then from someone else. They rake it in every time Chris Carlin uncomfortably corners a barfly in "Beer Money."


"They come into Thursday afternoon's game with the Reds two games over .500, even though there have been all the times SINCE they became a real team where we have declared them legally dead in the National League and in the wildcard race. They come into Thursday afternoon's game 7 1/2 games behind the Braves in the wildcard race and if you are a Mets fan, you know how close they are to being closer than that after the Braves stole one game against the Pirates and got a walk-off win in another."

But ...

They are already dead in the NL East race.

But ...

They were never declared legally dead in the wildcard race.

But ...

7.5 games behind the Braves is a heckuva lot, but that's not the most daunting task. They're also behind the Diamondbacks, Cardinals, and Pirates.

But ...

The game where the Braves won on the bad call at home plate? The Braves might have won that game, anyway, even if the umpire had gotten the call right.

But ...

You're criticizing the Braves for a walkoff win? Walkoff wins don't count as wins?


"Because you can keep saying this, again and again and again: If somebody had told you that everything that has happened to the Mets would happen to them - and that means apart from all the Madoff drama - you would have been sure that they would be the Cubs right now, or the Orioles, or the San Diego Padres."

Wow. You set the bar kind of low there.

The Cubs are only 13 games behind the Mets ... and if the Mets hadn't swept the Reds ... and if the Mets didn't have that walkoff win against the Yankees ... and if the Cubs had won some of the games they almost won ... blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

The Mets are just another Forced Underdog story because that's the only narrative that is palatable.

Good article for Yankee fans about Kevin Maas, Roberto Kelly, and Hensley Meulens.

Burn it down.

The Tropicana Dome has a roof which is the color of baseballs. It's pathetic and embarrassing to major league baseball, the Rays acknowledge as much, and it is about to cost the Yankees a ballgame as Granderson loses a can of corn in the 7th inning.

Mets Stats of the Day.

• Since their 5-13 start, the Mets are 42-35.
• Including their 5-13 start, the Mets are 47-48.
  
• If the Mets win all of their remaining 67 games, they will match the record of the 1998 Yankees.
  

Ubaldo Jimenez isn't Uber-Anything.

Uber means Big and Great and Spectacular.

The only thing Ubaldo Jimenez is Uber at is being an average major league pitcher:

"So the first name floated this season is Ubaldo Jimenez of the Colorado Rockies, a young righthander who came out of the blocks last season looking like the most unhittable pitcher anywhere."

The most unhittable pitcher anywhere?

So that's all it takes nowadays? You have a good month or two and you're something special? Call it Joba Syndrome.


"So Jimenez is the one who might be the game-changer for the Yankees, because there is supposed to be a game-changing pitcher almost every July. Whether the Yankees are in first place at the time or not."

Just randomly looking at the past 20 years. Starting in 1991. How many game-changing pitchers have the Yankees picked up in July?

David Cone.

Can you think of any others?

Denny Neagle? Cory Lidle? Esteban Loaiza? That's quite a stretch to consider them game-changers. Though Loaiza pitched pretty good in the playoffs for, you know, eight innings.

Did they get Sterling Hitchcock back one year? Yes! I looked it up! In 2001, in July, the Yankees traded Brett Jodie and Darren Blakely for Sterling Hitchcock. So there you go. Maybe Lupica thinks the Hitchcock trade Changed the Game. I know I've personally always thought that the Yankees soul has never been the same since they traded away Brett Jodie.

Actually, I thought of another one: Jeff Weaver. He was supposed to be a difference-maker. They traded Ted Lilly, who was decent.

There's a heckuva lot of turnover in the bullpen as Armando Benitez keeps the seat warm for Jeff Nelson, but that can't possibly be what Lupica is referring to.

I might be missing someone and I might be missing someone obvious. All the big names I can think of were free agent signings and or offseason deals ... Clemens I and II, Wells I and II, Key, Pettitte II ... ummm ... Kenny Rogers, Scott Sanderson, Randy Johnson, Kevin Brown, Jaret Wright, Jon Lieber, Jack McDowell ... am I forgetting about some top-line pitcher?

Sometimes, they get lucky with Aaron Small, or whatever, but that's just scrapheap stuff.

Besides David Cone and Jeff Weaver, were there any bigtime starting pitcher the Yankees picked up at the trade deadline in the past 20 years?

Because Mike Lupica just said this happens almost every July.


"Last year, and famously, the guy who was going to make all the difference in the world was Cliff Lee, who ended up going to the World Series with the Rangers and might end up doing the same this year with the Phillies. The Yankees thought they had Lee locked down and then the deal got blown up at the end."

I agree that the Yankees expected to land Lee, but Lee was never on the Yankees. I'm a little mystified by the constant calculus where the Yankees supposedly lost something that they never had.
The financial flexibility is not such a bad thing.

They are in position to pick up (gag) Ubaldo Jimenez and a DH. Though I was hoping for Jered Weaver and a DH.


"The Yankees? They have gotten by so far, and pretty well, with Scrap Heap All-Stars like Freddy Garcia and Bartolo (Christmas Miracle) Colon."

What is the Christmas Miracle joke? Does anyone understand this joke? Because I don't understand this joke.

Did Colon undergo surgery on Christmas, or something? Is this common knowledge?

Or does Lupica just think it's funny to put the word "Christmas" in front of the word "Miracle"? Like, since Lupica is skeptical of Colon's credibility, why doesn't he just call it a "Miracle" instead of a "Christmas Mircale"?


Anyway, from a baseball perspective, I think Cashman got two vets on the cheap and got a lot out of them. That's shrewd. That also leave him money to pick up Jered Weaver and a DH.


"The Yankees are 4-1/2 games ahead of the Rays for the wild card, 5 ahead of the Angels, 6½ ahead of the Tigers. Are the Yankees and Red Sox better than all of those teams? Yeah, they are. Nobody really thinks, as we move up quickly on 100 games played, that the Yankees won't make the playoffs this season."

Ummm ... okay.

Maybe you don't know what uber means and you don't know what nobody means.


"But does anybody really think they win it all with a rotation of CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Hughes, Garcia and Colon? In a pitching year in baseball?"

1) In my entire life, I don't think I've ever seen a proposed five-man rotation for a playoff series.

2) Stop listing A.J. Burnett as the #2 starter.

3) Can they win it all with this rotation? Sure. I'd give them about a 15% change. Replace Colon with Zero Ring Lee and it probably would have jumped up to about 20%.

4) This rotation is instantly upgraded as soon as Aldo Nova is promoted.

5) Because they didn't spend money on Damon, Matsui, Werth, Crawford, and Lee ... now they can afford Jered Weaver and a DH.

6) A rotation of Sabathia, Weaver, Lee, and Jimenez does not guarantee a World Series title.


"Ubaldo Jimenez becomes the first name we hear this July. He probably won't be the last. Hughes is a kid. The rest of the current Yankee rotation is the 30-year-old Sabathia, the 34-year-old Burnett, the 35-year-old Garcia, the 38-year-old Colon. So far they have stood up better than younger guys with the Red Sox. We'll see about that the rest of the day.

Jimenez is 27. You can see how this makes him almost irresistible. Somebody always is at this time of year at Yankee Stadium."

Just because Lupica said the Yankees are getting Jimenez, I really think they will not.

But, yeah, the Yankee roster is not complete. Duh.


On a completely unrelated note:

"-- I don't want to make a big thing of this, because you know I'm a glass-half-full guy, but Mark Teixeira - at .240 - is hitting a snappy 43 points below his career batting average."

I actually have to give Lupica credit. He noticed that Teixeira is not that good. Giambi was considered a bust and Teixeira is considered an MVP candidate. Teixeira is basically Giambi with a glove.

Alex Rodriguez is old and on the DL. If he was young and on the DL, one might confuse him with Jose Reyes.

"This has been the Yankees season - and off-season before it - dominated by Derek Jeter. It started with his contentious contract negotiation, has continued all the way through 3,000 hits and through the, which he did not attend, citing exhaustion, because of the 3,000."

Years ago, I went to a movie theater and watched the first Harry Potter movie. I instantly became disinterested in all things Harry Potter.

The final Harry Potter movie is currently in theaters -- it's not called Harry Potter 8, but instead it's called Harry Potter 7, Part 2 -- and lots of people think it matters, but I don't care.


Kinda like the women's US soccer team. Don't even care enough to google the scores. Though it's nice to see Han Solo and Princess Leia's daughter doing so well.


You can choose to pay attention to what matters to you.


The Yankee season has been about a lot of things. Second place; Eighteen games over .500; 1-8 vs. Boston; A starting pitcher with 12 wins at the All Star Break; Granderson and Teixeira hitting HRs like Mantle and Maris; David Robertson; A team with an unusual combination of power and speed.

In my world, the first 88 games have not been dominated by Derek Jeter.


"A few years ago, coming out of the 2007 when Rodriguez hit 54 home runs for the Yankees, you could make a case that he was as big a baseball star as there was in the world, the way - who turns 36 at the end of this year - was still the biggest sports star in the whole wide world. Now it is the middle of the sports summer and A-Rod is out of action with a bad knee and so is Tiger Woods, who misses his second straight major because of injury, and might miss a third before the summer is over."

ARod is on the DL. Jeter just got off the DL. Wright and Reyes are on the DL. About 100 players are currently on the DL. Tiger Woods doesn't play baseball.


"The attention will shift to Jeter's right, where the third baseman will come back and move up the all-time home run list a little more. He is at 626 right now. Junior Griffey is at 630. So A-Rod will pass him at the end of August or in September. Next year he is scheduled to pass Willie Mays, who sits at 660. And he will be the next Yankee to get to 3,000 hits, either next season or the one after that."

How boring.


"Big numbers approaching for Alex Rodriguez, even as his numbers keep slipping. The Yankees are paying him big to play into his 40s, but ask yourself a question: Do you expect him to ever again carry the Yankees the way he did in the 2009 postseason?"

Sure, why not?

Edgar Renteria won the World Series MVP last year. Crippled Hideki Matsui won the World Series MVP the year before that.


"The Yankees paid him to carry the team and then, almost immediately, had to go get Mark Teixeira to help him carry the team. Think about that: They paid A-Rod upwards of $300 million to be The Man and then had to go pay Teixeira nearly $200 million to be his sideman."

This is a dig at ARod that makes no sense.

When a baseball team signs a big free agent, their game plan is not to never sign another free agent ever again. I can't really think of another instance where the Yankees stopped signing free agents.

Two players can be The Man. We'll call them The Men.


"Alex Rodriguez may retire with numbers across the board as great as anybody since Babe Ruth has had. The Yankees, bless their hearts, have him for six more years after this one."

Stupid Numbers as great as stupid Babe Ruth. Yawn.

But they're gritty or something.

I found a baseball columnist who is less talented than Wallace Matthews.

Critiquing this column is like shooting fish in a barrel.

I know why David Ortiz missed Kevin Gregg's face, by the way. Gregg just made his face look like a curveball.

In 1999, David Ortiz was 0-for-20 with 12 strikeouts.

I'll bet one of my toenails that David Ortiz met a li'l helper named P.E.D. sometime between his .000 performance in 1999 and his 139 RBIs in 2004:

"In the four years before A-Rod became a Yankee, including the years when he says he was juicing in Texas, he averaged just about 50 home runs a year.

Five-oh."

Five-oh, yo, five-oh!

Lights flashing behind him / But they scared of Lupica, so they mace him to blind him

"In his first four years with the Yankees, he averaged 43."

Right, and the whole time, you basically said ARod wasn't any good.

"If he hits the same 30 this year he has hit the last two, he will have averaged 31 home runs for his second four-year term with our kids from the Bronx.

Stop me if you see a trend here."

I absolutely see a trend. A hackneyed and stupid sportswriter once again endlessly praises the Red Sox and Mets while pointlessly ripping the Yankees.

Another trend is a player with 30 HRs and 100 RBIs for 13 straight season. Even better than Cody Ransom.


"All those who acted as if the earth would stop spinning properly if the Yankees didn't hit David Ortiz must have gotten giddy when they saw the highlights of Papi duking it out with Kevin Gregg of the Orioles late Friday night."

If you change "duking it out" to "swinging and missing," I thought the highlights were mildly amusing.

I also thought Gregg had a point. Ortiz is walking towards the mound when he wasn't even hit by a pitch.


But, for the most part, Yankee fans are understandably disinterested.

The Orioles baseball team is located in Baltimore and the Yankees baseball team is located in New York. The New York Daily News caters to fans of the New York Yankees, all three entities brought together due to proximity.

Yankee fans are rooting for Baltimore to beat Boston. That's because Boston in in first place and Baltimore is in fifth place.

Other than that, Yankee fans have no particular reason to be "giddy" when a Baltimore pitcher gets into an argument with a Boston DH.

If you had to choose Dennis Rasmussen or Jeff Kent, but Kent had to bat left-handed, and the games were played underwater, which would you choose?

"And that makes for an intriguing question: if you could choose one or the other to put on your team for the rest of his career, which would it be, the Mets' shortstop - who had to leave Saturday's game after two innings his left hamstring tightness - or the Yankees' second baseman?"
That is not an intriguing question.

It's a moot question and a very dumb question.

But, if we're talking about right now ... as in July 3rd, 2011 ... I'll take the player who is not injured.

No Go, Nova.

"And still I think he's the one getting kicked to the curb to make room for Phil Hughes.

It doesn't seem fair, especially after Nova earned his eighth win of the season as the Yankees reminded the Mets which team in New York is the hottest, defeating their crosstown rivals, 5-1, Friday night.

But, in truth, there's no easy call for the Yankees to make as they suddenly find themselves with a surplus of starting pitching.

It's a nice problem to have, and it's about the only problem the Yankees have these days.

Still, with Bartolo Colon rejoining the Yankees' starting rotation Saturday and Hughes waiting in the wings, Nova may well have felt like he was pitching Friday night to keep his spot."

Aldo should definitely keep his spot in the rotation. I don't know if Garcia has options to the minors, but it's either that or the bullpen. The benefits of choosing the young player are obvious.

Mike Lupica harbors a mystical love for David Ortiz. It's the only explanation.

I am pro-DH, probably largely because I'm a fan of an AL team. I can make a strong case that the NL should adopt the DH. Lupica simply seems angry that the Sox lost two out of three to Philly:

"This has to be the last season in which this system is allowed to exist in baseball, because the out-of-date rules about the DH now affect the integrity of the season and the schedule more than all the interleague baseball does. Your team is supposed to be your team."

Has to be?

Or what?

California will slide into the ocean?


"Before interleague play, the use, or non-use, of the DH only came into play in the World Series."

Regular season interleague play started in 1997. Fifteen years ago.


"For a long time, that seemed to be a bit of a novelty, teams only employing the DH in the American League park for two or three or four games in October. Only now there are all these interleague games every season. Why? Because baseball gets a spike in attendance out of them, that's why. I get it. This is about business."

Ummm ... why should the NL adopt the DH?


"And if there are two teams added to the playoffs, that will be about business, too."

Well, since you're the decider, why don't you tell us if two teams will be added to the playoffs?


"But this is about the business of baseball today, and I don't care what the records say about how the American League usually does against the National League in interleague baseball."

AL teams typically pound NL teams.

Still not sure what that has to do with anything.

Still not sure why you think the NL should adopt the DH.


"The simpler solution is to give everybody the DH, have everybody play the same rules the American League has been playing for years, no harm, no foul, we move on."

You, sir, are a dope.


"This has to be the last year where someone like Vlad Guerrero of the Orioles has to basically take a furlough from being a regular player when the Orioles play interleague ball in a National League park. Or David Ortiz of the Red Sox, the second-most important hitter on a team that thinks it has a chance to win the AL East and maybe the World Series this year, has a great season disrupted and not because of injury or a slump, because of the rules."

Again with the "has to be."


But this is really about David Ortiz, isn't it?

Lupica has a diary on his bedside table and he logs the at-bats of David Ortiz every day. When David Ortiz has zero hits, Lupica can't maintain an erection and the tension builds in the Lupica household. For this reason, Lupica has a sudden personal interest in the consequences of interleague play.

I apologize for being so vulgar, but it's the only plausible explanation.

It also partially explains why Lupica loves to refer to David Ortiz as "Big Papi."


"To get Ortiz back in the batting order the other night against the Phillies, Adrian Gonzalez - who IS the Red Sox's best hitter - had to go play rightfield for the second time in his career."

Lupica is completely nuts.


Adrian Gonzalez didn't have to play rightfield. They didn't have to get Ortiz back in the lineup.

It's maybe ironic that John Lackey had the only RBI for the Red Sox in that particular game?

I'm not really understanding what Lupica is getting at.


After 17 years of regular season interleague play ... after 40 years of the DH ... did Lupica just figure out that the AL teams often have to bench one of their big bats when they plan in NL parks?

More to the point, it's unclear to me why this particular incident stands out as the straw that broke the camel's back.

I mean, the Yankees benched the MVP in the 2009 World Series.


"Did the Red Sox lose two of three to the lowly San Diego Padres at home using the DH last week? You bet they did. Then they lost two of three to the Pirates in Pittsburgh and used Ortiz solely as a pinch-hitter. So maybe they would have lost those two of three anyway. But they should not have had to try. This is a system that has gone on for far too long and needs to be changed now, and the only way it gets changed is if everybody who loves baseball starts to make some noise about it."

Wow.

The beloved Red Sox had a bad week and Lupica wants to change the rules of baseball.

I mean, that's exactly what's happening in this man's mind.


"By the way? The Yankees would feel the same way about this if Alex Rodriguez were their full-time DH. But A-Rod is still a full-time position player at third base, at least for now, and this has been a season when a lot of guys have DH-ed for the Yankees. That isn't a team constructed around interleague play, that is just the way the Yankees have been constructed, period."

Remember when Lupica said ARod was going to move to CF or 1B? Still hasn't happened. Yeah, Lupica is really a dope.


By the way? [sic] Just exactly how do "the Yankees" feel about this? I haven't heard anyone from "the Yankees" give an opinion. But I'm sure "the Yankees" want to play their DH in NL parks. So Lupica's assertion is downright bizarre.

Jorge Posada is the Yankees' DH.

Jorge Posada hit .391 in June.

Why would the Yankees prefer to send Freddy Garcia to the plate instead of Jorge Posada?


"They are surely going to add a couple of teams to the playoffs and they might cut the schedule down from 162 games, and might move a team to the American League so we have leagues of 15 and 15, and go ahead and try to figure how interleague baseball is going to work with THAT."

It's a bad idea, but you still haven't explained why the NL should adopt the DH.


"I will give them all of that. But they have to give me something back. They've got to give me one set of rules for all of baseball, once and for all."

I know the "have tos" and the "give mes" sound like literary license.

But Lupica might be truly delusional. A Yankee-hating, Mets-and-Red-Sox-loving psychopath who thinks he's important because he once talked to Joe Torre.

After reading this self-absorbed nonsense, I really think Lupica may have lost his mind.

Lupica thinks the commissioner of baseball is asking him for his opinion.

Lupica thinks he's the commissioner of baseball.

Lupica thinks "the Yankees" are anti-DH because "the Yankees" were monitoring the Boston/Philly series and diabolically grinning when Adrian Gonzalez had to play one whole game in right field.

Lupica thinks the last 100 years of NL rules were a conspiracy to force Adrian Gonzalez to play one whole game in right field. A Yankee/NL/Bud Selig conspiracy which hands the AL East to the Evil Yankees.

The anti-Mondesi.

For his career, Francisco Cervelli has batted .236 with the bases empty.

For his career, Francisco Cervellia has batted .383 with two outs and runners in scoring position.

My bad.

For the first time in my life, I briefly listened to Mike Lupica's radio show.


The initial attempt at humor was, "When I heard Jack McKeon was hired by the Marlins, my first thought was whether he got treatments at Bartolo Colon's Dominican doctor."

Implying with humorless humor that Colon's comeback is suspect and due to a treatment outside the purview of American laws.


Within five minutes, Lupica was claiming the Red Sox would beat the Yankees in the ALCS because the Yankees don't have Andy Pettitte anymore.

Mind you, this is June 21, 2011 and we're talking about Andy Pettitte and a fictional 2011 ALCS.


But, you know ... while Lupica is continually mocking the age of the Yankee players (such as Colon), he also criticizes the Yankees losing Pettitte, Matsui, and especially Damon ... though that criticism has died down as Granderson and Gardner have excelled in the plate, on the basepaths, and particularly in the field.

On the other hand, Lupica mocks the play of the youngsters on the Yankees, such as Nunez.

The narrative is that the Yankees have a deficient farm system.

So this narrative necessitates the dismissal of the contributions from Joba, Hughes, Robertson, Nova, Gardner, Cervelli, and even Cano.

The Yankees have nine guys in their bullpen with ERAs under 3.00. This is based on limited innings, of course, and ERA is not the be-all and end-all of pitching stats in general and reliever stats in particular.

But if Lupica is willing to pronounce Chris Young as the Mets' best pitcher after 20 innings, you'd think he'd notice the stellar performances across the board of the AAA Yankees.


Which is just a longwinded way of saying that Lupica is a hypocrite in various mediums.

That didn't last long.

Mets are stale:

"This day curdled early for the Mets - in the second inning, to be precise. That was when Jon Niese's recent stretch of dominance ended, and the Mets effectively fell to two games below .500. Now we ask: When does this dance with respectability cease to be interesting?

...

But their dead-energy 7-3 loss to the Los Angeles Angels Sunday, which clinched a series defeat against a team stuffed with overpriced veterans and who-is-that-guy youngsters, offered a peek at the darker underbelly of where this could go.

Despite playing sharp baseball of late, the Mets are 10-7 in their last 17 games: Good, but not enough to muscle out of a losing record. The pattern has been, lose one, win three. Lose one, win two, lose one. Not sunk, but hardly soaring. And beginning to grow a tad stale."

They're the Rebecca Black of MLB.


Which actually got me thinking: Are the writers who cover MLB out of tune with the pacing of the game?

In the Internet meme / twitter / facebook age, is a 162-game baseball season filled with 3-hour games simply unable to keep their attention?

Does this explain why they're picking MVPs after two weeks and making up nonsense like "Power Ratings" and praising the Mets when they have a good week just to ridicule the Mets when they have a bad weekend?


"A clear-eyed look at Sunday's product could produce no other analysis: This team needs to be a bit better, if it wants to hold our attention."

Okay.

You're the sportswriter who's writing about the Mets.

I'm kind of embarrassed that I bothered reading the article about such a lame subject matter. I'll be sure to read the funny papers next time.


I don't necessarily think it's preferable to offer the Mets false praise ... which, actually, seems to be the typical tone for a $100-million team that's playing .500 ... Collins for Manager of the Year and such ...

I just don't understand why so many baseball columnists seem to dislike baseball so much.


Also, are the Angels really just a team of overpriced veterans and who-is-that-guy youngsters? If you're a baseball writer, why don't you explain to us who-is-that-guy>

The walk-off balk was compelling.

Another writer answering the question nobody was asking. Another baseball writer who's bored by a baseball team playing baseball:

"This was the backdrop to a get-away day game that would count in the standings but hardly seemed to matter in the grand scheme. By the time Brett Gardner’s broken-bat single in the 12th inning gave the Yankees a 3-2 walk-off victory, many of the 47,487 fans had already departed, but another regular-season game was crossed off the calendar.

And, for just a second, you could not help but think about the Mets coming home to play at Citi Field tonight, and how in the last two weeks theirs has become the more dramatic of the two local baseball stories."

Yesterday's Yankee win had about a dozen compelling storylines if you care about that sort of thing.

Sweeping the reigning AL champs; the converted outfielder starting pitcher guy; the Yankee bullpen pitchers with ERAs under 2.00; ARod not playing; Teixeira/Granderson HR race; a walk-off win; etc.

"Ever since June 2, when they trailed the Pirates 7-0 before coming from behind to win, 9-8, Terry Collins’ Mets have been playing for their lives and become much more compelling to watch than the Yankees. Derek Jeter going on the disabled list Tuesday and taking his march to 3,000 hits off the schedule for a couple of weeks only served to accentuate the point. The Yankees are the Yankees for a reason. Over the course of a six-month season, everyone knows they’ll be fine.

Not even losing eight of nine to the hated Red Sox could create much of a sense of urgency at the Stadium. Boston started the season 2-10 and now have the best record in the American League. The Yankees had a six-game skid in May and are right on Boston’s heels. Who doesn’t think they’ll separate from the rest of the American League by August? Gordon getting the start was more a curiosity than a cause for concern. The Yankees didn’t need the game."

Okay, so pay attention to the Mets. I'm a Yankee fan, so I'll pay attention to the Yankees. I hope you don't run out of Mets storylines.

By the way, there's no rule that says you can't pay attention to both teams.

I guess Dancing With the Stars must be a really, really, really, really good show.

What is more predictable?

A Mike Lupica article in which he mentions Dancing With The Stars or a Mike Lupica article in which he favors the Mets over the Yankees?:

"We talk and talk about shortstops this season in New York the way they once talked about Willie and Mickey and the Duke, though the conversation about them was mostly good. You really can't say the same about Jose Reyes and Derek Jeter, even if Reyes is the best player in town."

Wrong.

Jason Bay is the best player "in town."


The rest is comparing a 28-year-old baseball player to a 37-year-old baseball player.

If that intrigues you ... (spoiler alert: Lupica concludes that Reyes is better than Jeter and Lupica also uses the adjective "fast" to describe various things and, since Reyes is "fast," this somehow ingeniously links all of these things) ... please feel free to read the rest of the article.

I think it's kind of, well, lame to compare a 28-year-old athlete to a 37-year-old athlete.

Somebody, somewhere ask why Jeter didn't try to score on a fly ball in the first inning.

Yankees end up losing 1-0, fall to 7-11 in one-run games, and fall 2.5 games behind the Red Sox. The run was there for the taking, yet Jeter seemed unwilling to take it. A mental gaffe or lack of effort typical of the 2011 Yankees:

"Oh, by the way, the Yankees were blanked, 1-0, by the Indians as Asdrubal Cabrera's fourth-inning RBI single off A.J. Burnett stood up as the game's only run.

But enough about that. After a sweep at the hands of the Red Sox and three straight wins over the Tribe, this home stand has been all about Jeter and his pursuit of No. 3,000."

By the way, a baseball game was played.

Yawn.

Baseball is boring, isn't it?

Joe Girardi gets goes toe-to-toe with Manny Acta.

The question is, did Terry Francona give Girardi permission to act this way?:

"Yankees manager Joe Girardi was red in the face with anger, nose-to-nose in a screaming match with Cleveland counterpart Manny Acta after Mark Teixeira was whacked with a fastball.

Tired of getting hit by pitches - and losing to rival Boston - the fired-up Yankees took out their frustration on the skidding Cleveland Indians .

Alex Rodriguez hit a colossal home run, Curtis Granderson also connected and New York got back on track with an 11-7 victory Friday night in a game that quickly grew testy.

'Sometimes it doesn't really matter if it's on purpose,' Rodriguez said. 'There's no question, it was very important for us to bounce back and play our type of baseball.'

Girardi and Acta got into a heated argument when both benches and bullpens emptied after Teixeira was hit behind the shoulder by a second-inning pitch from struggling Cleveland starter Fausto Carmona .

No punches were thrown and there appeared to be little pushing and shoving - if any. Plate umpire Dale Scott issued warnings to both teams, and there was no further trouble.

'I have respect for Manny. I actually had a nice exchange with Manny at 3 o'clock today. But that doesn't mean there's not some feistiness in me and when my guys are getting plunked, I'm going to protect them,' said Girardi, who gestured angrily at Carmona on the field. 'I told him I thought he did it on purpose and I didn't like it.' "

So you got beaten up by your big brother Red Sox and you took it out by kicking the dog Indians.

The Yankees need to trade for some Boston Bruins players.

"David Ortiz on Wednesday night had a message for New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi, who had said he didn't care for the way the Boston Red Sox slugger had flipped his bat after hitting a home run Tuesday: 'Take it like a man.'

...

For his part, Girardi also downplayed his comment, suggesting before Wednesday's game that the media had given it a 'Full Monty' treatment he hadn't intended. Nor did he believe Red Sox left-hander Jon Lester hitting two Yankees batters Tuesday night -- Mark Teixeira and Russell Martin -- was an invitation for the Yankees to engage in any retaliatory target practice.

'I didn't hear our guys talk about it at all,' Girardi said. 'It seems like it's been talked about more in the media than our guys. I didn't hear anything about our guys being upset.' "

I'm upset.

Hey, Yankee fans, are you upset?

Because I'm upset.

Nice to know that Girardi is not upset and none of his guys are upset.

Makes me feel like I'm more emotionally invested than the manager and the players.

Makes me feel like, if I was playing second base for the Yankees, and the catcher threw the ball poorly to second base, and I was backing up second base, that I'd stick my arm out and try to keep the ball from going into centerfield.

Make me feel like, if I was managing the Yankees and Ortiz challenged my manhood, I might instruct my pitcher to drill him.

What were you expecting?

Derek Jeter has 1 career grand slam and 241 career GIDP. I realize that not all 241 GIDP occurred with the bases loaded, but he also has more career GIDP than career homeruns.


You were expecting a Time Warp Big Hit from the Cap'n?

It's like expecting a bird to swim.

It's like expecting a fish to fly.

It's like expecting A.J. Burnett to pitch well in a big game.

Under .500 in one-run games.

I don't trust Burnett and I don't trust this team to win a so-called big game.

The only "retaliation" against Ortiz is to win, but this team and this pitcher have a tendency in 2011 to come up small.

I searched high and far and I finally found a sportswriter who likes Derek Jeter.

"For much of the past year, too much of the talk around here has been about what Derek Jeter no longer can do:

Can’t get to enough balls to his left.

Can’t hit like he did in the clutch anymore.

Can’t hit more than .270 anymore."

That's definitely all true. His RISP BA is .170. His on-base% is .313. His slugging% is .325.

Awful.

"Yes, he plays for the Winning-Isn’t-Everything-It’s-The-Only-Thing Yankees, for whom the future is forever now, who will inevitably find themselves in the position of detesting Alex Rodriguez’s opt-in contract as much as they reveled in a modicum of payback for The Captain for his prodigious previous bounty even as they reap the marketing benefits of his run to 3,000 hits."

That, Sir, is a run-on sentence.

The Yankees are going to detest ARod's contract as much as they reveled in a modicum of payback for Jeter for his prodigious previous bounty? I'm confused and scared after reading that sentence.

"I ask:

Why are we so eager to show this guy the door?

Why are we so eager to shove him off shortstop?

Why are we so eager to shove him off leadoff?"

Can’t get to enough balls to his left, can’t hit like he did in the clutch anymore, can’t hit more than .270 anymore, has an on-base% of .313, and a slugging% of .325.

"Because trust me, we will miss him more than we know when he’s gone.

In case you have forgotten:

On and off the field, he has been The Pride of the Yankees, a five-time champion of grace and elegance and class who has drawn comparisons with Joe DiMaggio, minus the 56-game hitting streak, the home runs, and Marilyn Monroe."

Jeter is the most-worshiped and most-recognized person in baseball. He is going to the Hall of Fame. He will get a monument. His number will be retired.

There is no way we will ever miss Derek Jeter when he's gone, because Derek Jeter will never be gone. Jeter will always sell cars with cool panoramic vista roofs.


Turn on the radio and you'll still hear Joe Torre hawking green tea. Bigelow green tea. From the locker room to the dugout to the front office, Torre has always enjoyed the antioxidant benefits of Bigelow green tea.

Let's talk about the 1986 Mets and the Red Sox.

You'd think this would be a good time for a Yankee-Hater to focus on the Yankees, since the Yankees are just starting a 1-8 road trip which will drop them into fourth place.

But this is all we get:

"I will ask this question again: When was the last time you watched A-Rod and thought to yourself that you were watching the best player in baseball?"

If you are asking rhetorical questions, I'll provide rhetorical answers.


The last time I thought ARod was the best player in baseball was 1 1/3 seasons ago. The 2009 playoffs.

But it's a bit of a trick question.

Lupica himself never thought ARod was the best player in baseball and, to be fair, maybe ARod never was. The "Big Papi for MVP" argument wasn't very convincing in the first place, but it's even less convincing to backtrack and elevate ARod's status.

When did Lupica last think ARod was the best player in baseball? If he says anything other than "never," then he's either a liar or he wasted a lot of ink playing Devil's Advocate.


"And here's an even better question: Who IS the best player in baseball right now?"

Jose Bautista.

I know he doesn't play for Boston, but you should check out major league baseball sometime.

Plagiarism.

You're not hallucinating, you're reading two separate columns by the same writer on the same day.

I don't think it's legally possible to plagiarize yourself:

Article #1, Mike Lupica, May 27, 2011:

"He spent money badly and the Wilpons let him. So it's on him and it's on them.

...

They have had two bad years. Before that they had two bad Septembers. Nobody is quite sure what is going to happen with the 2011 Mets - though we're going to have a much better idea after the next homestand, starting with the Phillies coming to town - but they came into yesterday two games under .500. They were two games under even in a season when they haven't had Santana and might not have him, when David Wright and Ike Davis are on the DL, when Chris Young, who had been their best starter early, blows out his shoulder.

Sometimes, though, the coverage makes you think that they haven't won a game all year. Or as if these past two years, because of the stink of Madoff all around, is really ten years. But it isn't.

...

Mets fans have a right to be angry. They have a right to want these owners gone. It is the nature of fans in general and New York sports fans in particular. But for now, today, with a new owner about to be in place and some much-needed money coming into the Mets, money isn't the issue. The baseball decisions that will be made from now on are the issue. The general manager in this case is more important than the owners. New or old. I will say this again: You either believe in Sandy Alderson and his guys or you don't."


Article #2, Mike Lupica, May 27, 2011:

"He spent money badly. The Wilpons let him. So it's on him and it's on them. Here comes the hedge-fund guy to bail everybody out, at least for now.

The Mets have had two very bad years. Before that they had two bad Septembers. Sometimes, though, the coverage makes you think that they haven't won a game all year. Or as if these past two years, because of the stink of Madoff all around, is really 10 years. But it isn't. Think about how much more bad baseball the Mets would have to play to have a decade like the Knicks just had.

Mets fans still have a right to be angry, have a right to want the owners gone. But now, today, they get a new owner, one for whom Mets fans should cheer, just because he's the Mets owner who doesn't want to make baseball decisions."

As for the content:

1) Lupica is whining about the press coverage of the Mets. A team with the highest payroll in the NL and the tenth-best record in the NL.

2) "Two bad Septembers" is an understatement. Try "two of the biggest collapses in MLB history."

3) Lupica is whining about injuries on the Mets, including the injury to journeyman Chris Young. So Young's now the Mets' best pitcher based on 24 whole innings.

When I read this column(s), I truly wonder if Lupica is on the Mets' payroll.

Weird dude.

Knoblauch's teams won 4 World Series and 13 out of 14 playoff series:

"I remember working for $9 an hour in the Twins ticket office during the 1997 off-season when Knoblauch tapped on my window and asked if I had four quarters for his dollar so he could plug a nearby parking meter. I told him I had just three quarters and he said 'give me whatever you got.' So we traded and Knoblauch went on his merry way.

A few months later when the Yankees came to town to mark Knoblauch's return to Minnesota, a message came up from the Yankees traveling secretary to me that Mr. Knoblauch needed his quarter I owed him. A millionaire worried about a quarter? That's the Chucker I came to know."

The Yankees had a bad month.

"Somebody needs to point out to the Yankees that every time a batter of theirs gets hit, it's not on purpose.

And every single pitch one of their batters takes isn't always a ball."

Oh, you're making this up, Yankee-Hater.

Jeter and ARod have been getting plunked for 15 years. It's on purpose.

More to the point, it doesn't even matter if it's on purpose. Markakis gets one in the back to remind Baltimore pitchers to be more careful. Does Lupica have a problem with that?


As for the Yankees arguing balls and strikes, I see no evidence that they argue more than any other team from the past 100 years.


What did Lupica think of Reyes's "bear claw" after a leadoff double in a game where Reyes's team lost by four runs? To drop them a game under .500, a mere one game ahead of the last-place Nationals?

I'm sure Lupica thinks it's feisty. I'd like to see a Yankee do that: "I got a leadoff double. Bear claw! Rawwwr!"

Heck, Reyes should have been drilled just for acting like a fool.


"We have the Mets starting 5-13 and getting to .500 on Friday night against the Yankees, ending a month when they have been a much better and more entertaining team than the $207 million Yankees."

The Yankees were 12-6 after 18 games. Since then, the Yankees have won 12 and lost 14.

• They lost six straight home games for the first time since 2002(?).
• They lost six in a row for the first time since 2007(?).
• Swept by the Red Sox.
• Cano leads the team in batting average with a .275 batting average.
• 1,000 unearned runs in one month.
• A Mondesi-like BA with runners in scoring position.

The Mets were better than the Yankees over this stretch?

It's really nothing to be proud of. It's like saying "Thor" is better than "Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol."

Baseball analysis for people who know nothing about baseball.

"Admit it. You thought you had a handle on the New York baseball scene. The Yankees are destined for October. The are trying not to embarrass themselves before they fade from contention."

Please don't presume my baseball opinions.

Before the season started, I thought the Yankees would win about 95 games and the Mets would win about 85 games.

Since that time, I've lowered the Yankee prediction because I realized they're gutless punks. But the AL East is under-performing as a whole, so I'd still predict about 90 wins. It could still bump up to 95 or so when one considers their ability to acquire new players in mid-season trades.

As for the Mets, as long as there is a wild card, no team is out of contention. The Mets won't catch the Phillies.


"And then you get the Subway Series and it gives you a whole new look at things."

That makes no sense.

Both teams stunk on Thursday and both teams still stink.


"The Mets beat the Yankees, 2-1, in a pitching duel Friday night before 47,874 at the Stadium on the strength of R.A. Dickey's best performance of the season and Daniel Murphy's tie-breaking home run. And now the Mets (22-22) have exactly one fewer win than the Yankees (23-20)."

Now we're getting to the difference between the teams.

The Mets are proud of their .500 record.

So the key to success is to set expectations really low. Then, you can never fail.


As for the game itself, a Yankee fans has seen it all year.

-- One-for-ten with RISP .... and that "hit" didn't even advance the runner. If I was an opposing pitcher, I'd just intentionally load the bases at the start of every inning.

-- The Yankees score on solo HRs and nothing else.

-- The Yankees can't score in the final three innings.

Whether or not the team is truly gutless, it's hard to say. Gutless is as gutless does.

When your team has outscored opponents by 40 runs overall, but has been outscored by 20 in the last 3 innings ... when you have one walkoff win the whole season ... when your 1-through-5 hitters can never get a sac fly ... you're gutless chokers.

If the Mets' success is pegged to the Yankees' success, then the Mets should be ashamed of themselves.

You know Brett Favre is associated with football, and football is different than baseball. You know this, right?

"Alex Rodriguez made a nice stop, but his ill-advised throw to first was wild. Teixeira made a superb play to stop the ball, as Felix Pie would have scored the game-winner if it had gotten past the first baseman.

'That's one of the highlight plays of the year for me,' A-Rod said. Asked why he attempted the throw in the first place, Rodriguez said, 'To make a play, like Brett Favre. At that point, you have to go crazy to make a play.' "

It's almost charming in a way how ARod's mind can twist any bad play into a good play.

When he got thrown out at second base trying to stretch a single into a double? It was like Ben Franklin discovering electricity. Sometimes, you've got to take a chance.

Race to the bottom.

The Mets are the hottest team in New York, huh?

Even hotter than the Yankees, who are in the midst of their longest losing streak since 2007?

That must mean the Mets are totally awesome:

"They are still tied for last place and have the look of a team that is going to be fighting .500 for the year, but nobody refused to play for Terry Collins Sunday and nobody needed tea leaves and a lie detector to sort through all the versions of the truth, the way they seem to in the Bronx."

Unless you're a Mets ticket salesman, what is the point of conveying this information? When the Mets were 5-13, did any Mets fans suddenly start rooting for the Yankees? I don't quite understand the purpose of the Lupica-esque sales pitch. Do Daily News writers have stock in the Mets, or something? A side deal with the merch vendors at Citi Field?


"For the Mets, the story is simple: they are playing tight, aggressive baseball, and they are pitching the ball and catching it, and Sunday they even had a steal of home, with Jason Pridie scoring on the front end of a double-steal with Jose Reyes in a four-run fifth inning. They are winning games with help from all sorts of unlikely sources - from Justin Turner to center fielder Pridie to Daniel Murphy, the first baseman for the next two weeks until Ike Davis returns from the disabled list."

The Mets are in last place. The Mets are under .500. So the scintillating imaginary Battle for New York is between two bad teams.

Two wild pitches, two HRs, one batter two many.

Joe Girardi doesn't understand his players as, once again, Mr. 5 2/3 can't get the last out to preserve the lead:

"Bottom 6th: Tampa Bay

- J. Jaso doubled to right

- S. Fuld homered to deep right, J. Jaso scored

- B. Zobrist lined out to right

- J. Damon struck out swinging

- E. Longoria singled

- E. Longoria to second on wild pitch

- M. Joyce singled to shallow right, E. Longoria scored

- M. Joyce to second on wild pitch

- B.J. Upton homered to deep left, M. Joyce scored

- L. Ayala relieved A.J. Burnett" Also, I appreciate the Gutless Yankees responded to the adversity in the final three innings. Nine up, nine down.

This is an insult to young players.

Though I appreciate the worldwide existential crisis caused by Jorge Posada's meltdown, I think it's unfair to the younger players on the Yankees.

A lot of young players on the Yankees stink, too.

Girardi needs some heart to go along with his brain sometimes.

"After the game — the Yankees’ fourth straight loss — Posada was visibly disturbed that Cashman had gone public without speaking with him first.

The reality is that this moment — in fact, possibly the entire Yankees season — is about metamorphosis and transition, about a team that has gotten a lot of miles out of a core of aging stars. Now it’s time to begin the painful season of transition.

Posada recoiled when someone asked point blank if he was he considering retirement. Now. He repeated his refrain that his back was tight and that he needed time to clear his head.

The Yankees have the option of docking Posada’s pay; there is no indication he is going to retire. How will Cashman handle this? And what was Girardi thinking when he unceremoniously demoted Posada."

You play Posada tonight even though is average batting right-handed is a scintillating .000. You bat him ninth, he gets a standing ovation from the fans, and probably gets a 3-RBI double.

I'm a numbers guy.

I'm not a big believer is mystique, aura, and Pinstripe Power.

But this is kind of ridiculous.

Posada is not only angry with himself, he's angry at a team that doesn't play with guts or with brains. He's angry at a manager and a GM that seemingly shrug off players who earned five rings (four-and-a-half for Posada).

Posada's .165 BA doesn't give him the moral authority to chastise talented players who don't turn double plays and who jog to first base.

You play Posada tonight because this team has to turn the corner. Girardi has to realize that pride precedes production. In this instance, you ignore the numbers. This is not strat-o-matic.

Probably the best article about the Posada situation.

"Here’s where a series of mistakes unfolded on both sides. Posada, too indignant for a long conversation, chose not to explain why he was asking out. And Girardi, who avoids confrontations, didn’t push Posada for an answer.

...

So why the need for an alibi? Because Posada and his handlers under-estimated the Yankees’ wrath. Anyone following the events on Twitter would’ve known that Hal Steinbrenner had contacted the commissioner’s office early in the evening, weighing the possible responses. At the minimum, Posada was facing a two-day fine. At worst, the Yankees were asking about voiding his contract. It was a long fall for one of the most accomplished catchers in Bomber history, a personal favorite of none other than Yogi Berra. Posada was one of the last bridges to the Joe Torre golden era – back when the Yankees were a championship-winning machine.

But his slide toward sub-mediocrity this season is only part of the problem. The fact that Posada would walk away from a war with the Red Sox would’ve been incomprehensible under Torre – or even as recently as 2009, when he was an integral part of the Yankees’ 27th World Series conquest.

That was the former Posada, tough to the point of being indestructible. But Torre never had to shepherd Posada or Derek Jeter or any of the franchise’s guardians toward the ends of their careers."

Girardi's non-confrontational style doesn't always work. Girardi's postgame press conference was quite embarrassing. For all the critiques of Torre, I'd have to think Torre would have handled this situation better than this (e.g., when Knoblauch pulled himself out of the lineup in the middle of a game).

Having said that, some baseball tenets still apply.

When .165 hitters talk, nobody listens.

Just when you thought things couldn't get worse.

For the record, I was bearish on this team when they were 17-9, though I didn't envision the dual disintegration of the #3 and #4 batters.

I doubt I'm the only one who notes the irony of Nomar discussing Jorge's self-benching.

Yankees battled and had their chances.

I wish there was a stat for cheap runs. The Yankees have allowed a lot of unearned runs, but they undoubtedly lead the league in cheap runs allowed. A walk, an error, a wild pitch, two ground outs.

Burnett gives up two hits, sure. But he walks five, two HBPs, four wild pitches, three errors, a missed double play, a missed cutoff man.

The Yankees used to be the team that took advantage of other team's mistakes.

You know he's got an edge.

Jeter.

RISP.

.143.

Last-place Mets take two out of three from powerhouse Nationals.

Lupica and his "conversation." As if an individual can't pay attention to two whole teams at the same time. As if Yankee fans are cowering in fear as their first-place team loses Mike Lupica to the last-place Mets:

"Then here came Daniel Murphy again, ripping a double, a screamer, into the rightfield corner for two more runs, moving his batting average for the season to .315. He had done a bit more on this night than get the game to David Wright. He had provided a little hope. He had made the Mets, for this one night, the Yankees still scuffling to score runs against the powerhouse Chicago White Sox, the best baseball game in town to watch."

The Yankee game in question was actually pretty good. It included great performances by Buehrle, Colon, and Mariano. A baseball fan would appreciate that.

Do you think Lupica is even a baseball fan?

His entire premise is that the 5-13 Mets were not worth watching. Not worth writing about. Not worth being part of the NY baseball conversation.

Millions of Mets fans follow their team dutifully through thick and thin, and they're not even paid to do it.

You'd think an award-winning New-York-based sportswriter could muster up a bit more enthusiasm.

I believe if the Mets had beaten the Cardinals in the 2006 NLCS, then they would have beaten the Tigers in the 2006 World Series.

Mike Lupica outdoes himself, making predictions of past events that never happened:

"It doesn't matter how they got here, the terrible history that has been written since the night in October of 2006 when Carlos Beltran took a called third strike from with the pennant on the bases and the Cardinals went to the World Series, which they won, and not the Mets."

Okay, it doesn't matter how they got here. It doesn't matter how they got here. It doesn't matter.

The only reason Lupica would even suggest it doesn't matter is because an honest analysis would require a takedown of Randolph and Minaya.


"The chain reaction, at least on the field, started then. If the Mets had won that 2006 Series from the Tigers - which I believe they would have, the Tigers took all that time off after they won the American League pennant and never recovered against the Cardinals - then maybe they don't collapse in September of 2007."

Unbelievable.


If the Mets had beaten the Cardinals (which they didn't) ...

Then the Mets would have beaten the Tigers (which they didn't) ...

And if the Mets had beaten the Tigers (which they didn't) ...

Then the Mets wouldn't have collapsed in 2007.


Using this reasoning, I say anything would have happened.


"If they don't collapse that September maybe it doesn't happen again the next September."

We can extend this endlessly and you end up the Mets winning five World Series in a row.


"But it did."

Yeah.

It did.

Join the rest of the world in discussing what actually happened rather than discussing what maybe would not have happened.


"Terrible relief pitching. No Santana to start the season, no Bay, Beltran still looking like a shell of what he once was. Pedro Martinez long gone. It is the short list of Omar Minaya's All-Stars."

Beltran is playing well. Not a shell of what he once was. .286, 3 HRs, just for the record.


"I thought he was the best guy at the time to run the Mets, a good man and a great story out of the neighborhood in Flushing. Only now he is gone and the Mets are where they are."

That's almost Lupica admitting he was wrong about Minaya.


"And please understand that Minaya didn't act alone. Fred and Jeff Wilpon stood right there and watched him make the deals he did and spend their money the way he did and never stoped [sic] him."

No, Minaya acted alone. The owners stood right there and watched. That's the same thing as doing nothing. Which means Minaya acted alone.


"Maybe this doesn't seem nearly as hopeless if some of the relievers had gotten some big outs, and if stars like David Wright had over-performed instead of under-performed so far. There was the one series against the Rockies when the Mets had two-run leads in all four games and lost them all. There are all those teams who came into Thursday with 9-9 records in the National League Central. Give the Mets just a few more wins this season and they look like one more mediocre team trying to make its way through the first month of the baseball season."

Right.

Give the Mets a few more losses and they're the worst team in baseball history.

Lupica, you're going to be great on the radio.

What award die he win? Probably a Pulitzer for his in-depth appraisal of Tony Womack.

• A face made for radio.
• If you put the buildings far enough in the background, it will make me look taller.
• Lupica is gangsta.
  

Archives.

This article is dated April 18, 2011:

"As an ardent Yankee rooter, I am used to watching some stellar set-up pitching, such as the likes of Jeff Nelson, Ramiro Mendoza and Mike Stanton, as New York tries to make the jump from the starter to Mariano Rivera. So far, Soriano has not lived up to his billing."

Nelson, Mendoza, and Stanton.

We've got some good insight from an ardent Yankee rooter who hasn't watched a game since 1997.

Only.

"This season, with Brett Gardner off to a dreadful (.150) start and Eduardo Nunez on the bench as a utility infielder, All-Star second baseman Robinson Cano is the only everyday position player developed by the Yankees’ farm system."

Correct.

Except for Brett Gardner, Jorge Posada, and Derek Jeter.

Filip Bondy criticizes Phil Hughes for pitching poorly, but can't blame Hughes for spelling Phil with a "ph" instead of an "f."

"There is legitimate concern that Hughes, 24, hasn't really thrown at peak efficiency since the middle of the 2010 season. He was 5-0 out of the box last year with a 1.38 ERA his first six starts. He was 8-1 and 2.71, then was named to the All-Star team. From Aug. 25 on, however, he posted a 5.45 ERA. After a shutout stint against the Twins in the playoffs, he was blasted in two starts by the Texas Rangers, yielding 11 runs in 8-2/3 innings during two losses.

...

Then start No. 3 was a disaster again for Hughes. No Torre to blame for this one."

Right.

That's probably why Cashman isn't blaming Torre for Hughes's pitching.

Having said that, it's quite clear that Torre overused Proctor, Sturtze, Karsay, Quantrill, etc. So that has nothing to do with Phil Hughes. So thanks for nothing.


The only good thing to come out of this whole episode is that Joe Torre said "no comment" for the first time ever. I thought for sure Torre would effortlessly weave in a tale about Bigelow's green tea or the pitching exploits of Bob Gibson.

Somebody should ask him about the 1996 World Series.

The Yankees were down 2 games to 0 to the heavily-favored Braves. Yankee owner George Steinbrenner expressed his displeasure. In response, Torre calmly predicted that the Yankees would sweep 3 games in Atlanta and then win the World Series in 6 games.

That's what happened!

It's a good story.

Pass the beer nuts.

Judge Lupica.

Read this:

"It is a question asked repeatedly across America: why, in the aftermath of a financial mess that generated hundreds of billions in losses, have no high-profile participants in the disaster been prosecuted?"


Then read this:

"Does any living person actually think that Martha Stewart should have done time? Stewart avoided a loss of $45,000 by selling about 4,000 shares of stock in something known as ImClone Systems after receiving 'nonpublic' information. The government indicted Stewart on nine counts. Obstruction one of them. She was convicted of conspiracy, and obstruction of an agency proceeding."

Yes, I absolutely think Martha Stewart should have done time.


After mis-representing and mis-diagnosing Bonds / steroids / MLB in general, Lupica still believes he has the authority to write about Clemens's upcoming trial.

I think I can state with near certainty that Mike Lupica's columns are not the place to go for expertise on U.S. jurisprudence.

Red Sox probably losing on purpose.

Eric Ortiz is the guy who predicted the 2011 Red Sox would challenge the 1927 Yankees for the title of best team ever.

Melky Cabrera eats something off his bat.

At least Bill Madden is asking the question.

Yes, I'm still obsessing about an April loss. Too bad the $200 million players are not:

"But what was most bewildering about Girardi's explanation about using Soriano when he did was the fact that, obviously, he didn't consider Robertson an eighth-inning man in a non-save situation, and yet, he said, he'd planned to bring in Robertson to close the game out in the ninth had Soriano gotten through the eighth unscathed. All of this, of course, came about because Girardi was hoping to get Rivera a night off - which didn't happen anyway once the Twins tied it up in the eighth and the Yankee manager was in need of a true closer in the ninth.

'There are times you're gonna bring (Soriano) in (in non-save situations)' Girardi said. 'Four-run leads don't seem like a lot in the American League.' "

Four-runs leads don't seem like a lot in the American League.

That's.

Why.

You.

Keep.

Sabathia.

In.

The.

Game.

Yankees rained out.

At least Mariano is rested for the game of cribbage he's playing with Gustavo Molina.

Extended Spring Training.

Sabathia had retired 17 batters in a row. He had pitched 7 shutout innings. He had thrown only 100 pitches.

Mariano got 3 outs, but Girardi wouldn't let him get 4 outs.

"It's a long season" is Girardi's excuse for tanking a game in April.


While the manager certainly has to balance long-term goals with short-term goals, it's quite clear that Sabathia can pitch one more inning (or even two more innings) at minuscule risk.

If Rivera is available for 3 outs, he's available for 4 outs, if that's the difference between winning and losing.

The real reason Girardi and the Yankees tanked this game is because it's April, it's the Twins, it's mid-week, it's a half-empty stadium.

That's not being careful, that's being unprofessional.


Uber-Hack Wallace Matthews focuses on what Rafael Soriano did after the game. Who cares what Soriano did after the game?

I find it continually amazing that sportswriters spend so much time attacking the characters of players who don't talk to them.

Soriano has nothing to say -- he did all of his talking on the field.