Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Shades of 1989
A text message received last night:
Dear Mark Teixeira,
Someday you'll cross me.
-- The Mendoza Line
A moment of needed brevity in the face of an otherwise dreary & predictable loss to the Toronto Blue Jays. Yes, it was another punchless night from the New York first baseman (two K's, two LOB), but more than putting the emphasis on one player in the road grays, this was a dismantling of the highest order by one Roy "Doc" Halladay.
After the Jeter pre-game injury and the Matsui in-game injury, the Yankees were left with this misfitted and motley collection by the middle of the game:
Gardner
Damon
Teixeira
Rodriguez
Swisher
Cano
Cabrera
Cash
Pena
Talk about bringing a gun full of blanks to a shoot-out. I'm not going to let A.J. Burnett off the hook for another mediocre performance, but if we're going to be fair: the Yankees had zero chance to win this game. Halladay came into the game 15-5 lifetime vs. New York with a 2.86 ERA. And last night he outdid himself. In his first complete game of the season (Do you realize he hasn't thrown less than 7 innings in a start this year?), Halladay didn't allow the over-matched Yankee bats room to breathe. 9/5/1/1/0/5. 103 pitches. Efficient. Easy. Dominant.
The Yankees' pulse is going to be checked every day now. With Jeter fighting an oblique and now Matsui warranting additional attention from the trainers, an already weakened line-up can't carry much more dead weight. They are now 6.5 games behind Toronto on the thirteenth of May. A split in the next two games is a must; a seven-game hole with the team reeling as it is would be a terrible sign.
As I watched the crowd at the Rogers Centre, which I'll forever reference as SkyDome, bask in the aftermath of a Halladay masterpiece, I was taken back to 1989 or thereabouts. My first memories of that joint. A loaded, balanced, pitching-rich Jays team beating a bad Yankees team like a drum. Nights of having to throw guys like Clay Parker against an unhittable Dave Steib.
It's a bad sign that over the last two seasons while watching this version of the Yankees, my memory has drifted back to the late 1980s on multiple occasions.
A text message received last night:
Dear Mark Teixeira,
Someday you'll cross me.
-- The Mendoza Line
A moment of needed brevity in the face of an otherwise dreary & predictable loss to the Toronto Blue Jays. Yes, it was another punchless night from the New York first baseman (two K's, two LOB), but more than putting the emphasis on one player in the road grays, this was a dismantling of the highest order by one Roy "Doc" Halladay.
After the Jeter pre-game injury and the Matsui in-game injury, the Yankees were left with this misfitted and motley collection by the middle of the game:
Gardner
Damon
Teixeira
Rodriguez
Swisher
Cano
Cabrera
Cash
Pena
Talk about bringing a gun full of blanks to a shoot-out. I'm not going to let A.J. Burnett off the hook for another mediocre performance, but if we're going to be fair: the Yankees had zero chance to win this game. Halladay came into the game 15-5 lifetime vs. New York with a 2.86 ERA. And last night he outdid himself. In his first complete game of the season (Do you realize he hasn't thrown less than 7 innings in a start this year?), Halladay didn't allow the over-matched Yankee bats room to breathe. 9/5/1/1/0/5. 103 pitches. Efficient. Easy. Dominant.
The Yankees' pulse is going to be checked every day now. With Jeter fighting an oblique and now Matsui warranting additional attention from the trainers, an already weakened line-up can't carry much more dead weight. They are now 6.5 games behind Toronto on the thirteenth of May. A split in the next two games is a must; a seven-game hole with the team reeling as it is would be a terrible sign.
As I watched the crowd at the Rogers Centre, which I'll forever reference as SkyDome, bask in the aftermath of a Halladay masterpiece, I was taken back to 1989 or thereabouts. My first memories of that joint. A loaded, balanced, pitching-rich Jays team beating a bad Yankees team like a drum. Nights of having to throw guys like Clay Parker against an unhittable Dave Steib.
It's a bad sign that over the last two seasons while watching this version of the Yankees, my memory has drifted back to the late 1980s on multiple occasions.
