In Sports on
19 June 2008 tagged red sox, yankees with Comments Off
Filip Bondy:
More than two months into the season, Joe Girardi looks a lot like Joe Torre. Girardi, too, will always go first and often to his old reliables, before foraging elsewhere on the bench or in the bullpen.
…Girardi arguably has overused his core players, the ones who still remember what it feels like to win championships. He wants to play them. They want to play, at any cost. And so you have a worrisome situation which may grow worse by August or September, if you are inclined to think negatively.
Ignored in any discussion of the Yankees’ frantic rush for a playoff spot in 2007 is their predictable collapse in the post season. Having to scratch and claw for every game and unable (or unwilling) to rest players doomed New York.
By contrast Boston’s large divisional lead allowed starters scheduled rest. The result was a lower win percentage in the second half of the season but a team rested and ready for the playoffs.
Watching the divisional lead shrink while the Red Sox sat key players was frustrating; the results were impressive. Finishing with a 2 game lead in the division and winning the World Series trumps running away with the division and wilting in the playoffs.
This year appears to be shaping up similarly. The Yankees scrapping for a post season birth while the Red Sox are already preparing for the post season.
Do you understand what you’re seeing?
What the Red Sox are doing spits in the face of current major league logic. Running in one starting pitcher after another with similar successes, while having the gall to sit back and offer these various hurlers vacations to guarantee freshness come the schedule’s final stretch run?
If both Boston and New York make it to the post season it’ll be interesting to see if the results mirror 2007.
In Entertainment on
19 June 2008 tagged movies with Comments Off
Walking into the theatre to see Baby Mama I wasn’t expecting much, and that’s what I got.
The one plot twist was apparent half way into the move, so it failed as a drama. The story was cliched and the ending a cop out, so it failed as social commentary. But it wasn’t a drama, nor a social commentary, right? It was a comedy.
It failed in that respect as well. I’m a fan of both Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, but their comedy on Saturday Night Live was more cutting edge than anything in Baby Mama.
Leaving Theatre:
Me: I laughed at a few parts.
Kayleigh: Me too.
Me: What was the funniest part to you?
Kayleigh: …
That says it all.
In Sports on
19 June 2008 tagged hideki okajima, mike timlin, red sox, terry francona with Comments Off
You can fool Terry Francona once, maybe twice, but good luck with a third time.
Finally tired of being burned Francona used a quick hook on Okajima in a recent victory over Cincinnati. Single, strikeout, walk and Okajima was gone before he could do more damage.
Now if Francona could use the same strategy with Mike Timlin I could stop drinking so much. Timlin comes in with a 2 run deficit and doesn’t leave until it reaches 6.
The Red Sox appear to be giving Timlin every chance to turn his disastrous season around. A decent Timlin adds a ton of post season experience to the club. But he’s painful to watch right now and looks done. I’m hoping he proves me wrong, but I’m not counting on it.
In Technology on
19 June 2008 tagged firefox, safari with Comments Off
Big Contrarian:
Firefox, the little web-browser that could, hit 3.0 today. And it seems they think they’ve built a better browser than Safari.
The sad fact is, in most ways, WebKit/Safari is the superior browser. And it damn well better be. Apple caused a huge ruckus when it chose to use the kHTML engine as Safari’s starting point instead of Gecko. The long run has proven their decision was correct. They’ve managed to build a faster, more compliant-browser with fewer programmers and less glitz than the Firefox team. WebKit is increasingly being chosen as the default “browser component” for other manufacturers, from Nokia to Adobe to Google, and the recent Acid 3.0 browser-team-showdown didn’t make Firefox look particularly good.
Comparing themselves to Safari in such horrendously silly, self-congratulating, masturbatory ways is just begging for trouble.
I’m still amazed how popular Firefox is on the Mac. There’s no Firefox add-on that trumps the integration of Safari with the Mac OS. And yes, I also found the comparison chart comical.
In Sports on
19 June 2008 tagged jemele hill with Comments Off
Boston Herald:
ESPN.com columnist Jemele Hill was suspended yesterday after sparking outrage by comparing rooting for the Boston Celtics [team stats] to Adolf Hitler and nuclear war.
ESPN has a habit of hiring hacks as writers; Jemele Hill being a good example. You can find better and more informed writing on numerous amateur blogs, yet Hill is paid to write for the biggest sports site on the internet. When trying to entertain the lowest common denominator you’ll hook more fish with cliched drivel than substance. In that respect, Hill delivers consistently. Her appearances on ESPN’s First and 10 are equally embarrassing, though with Skip Bayless as co-host the show is already more comical than anything else.
Comparing anyone to Adolph Hitler is a bad idea when writing your first High School paper, and just as bad when writing for ESPN. Perhaps Ms. Hill missed the first day of Journalism 101.
In Sports on
13 June 2008 tagged kevin cash, red sox with Comments Off
Kevin Cash is a terrible hitter; always has been. After starting the season hot he’s now 1 for his last 24. Having Kevin Cash hitting 9th is very similar to having the pitcher hit. In a National League park, where the pitcher does hit, Cash is pushed up to the 8th spot, as he was tonight.
I realize catching a knuckle ball is difficult; that’s why Kevin Cash (and before him Doug Mirabelli) has a job. But you have to wonder if a few missed knuckle balls wouldn’t be worth having another Major League hitter in the lineup.*
The bottom three in the Sox lineup tonight read Lugo, Cash, and the pitcher. By the 7th those three were anchoring a lineup without both Ortiz and Manny. That’s brutal.
I’ll miss Tim Wakefeild when he’s gone, but I won’t miss the accompanying black hole in the lineup.
*Finding a catcher that can hit is another problem altogether.
In Sports on
13 June 2008 tagged Yankee Stadium with Comments Off
Tim Marchman, a writer for the New York Sun, on the soon to be closed Yankee Stadium:
Yankee Stadium is on the merits one of the worst places in the country to watch a ballgame, and there’s really little that’s more hilarious in baseball than the pretense that this giant concrete bowl is some magnificent cathedral and monument to the glories of the game. It just drips with pompousness and fake old-timiness, and I won’t miss it at all.
Ouch. With all the attention given to the last year of Yankee Stadium Marchman’s comments are a bit shocking.
I’ve never been to a game at Yankee Stadium (something I regret) but I’ve read the same type comments about Fenway, a park I adore, so I doubt I’d agree with Marchman. I’ll admit I’ve never thought Yankee Stadium was very impressive on television, but it seems to me that it’s the history that’s happened in that “concrete bowl” that makes is special, and not the architecture.
I’ve always thought the monuments in the outfield were a little cheesy, but that probably stems from Roger Clemens’ narcissistic habit of visiting them before each game.
In Sports on
13 June 2008 tagged red sox, terry francona with Comments Off
For whatever reason it’s now clear Terry Francona’s brain locks up when Okajima is on the mound. For the second time in a little over a week Francona left an obviously ineffective Okajima in until a lead was obliterated.
Francona:
He was up with a lot of pitches and behind in the count…
No kidding. That’s why you make a change before the game slips away. Here’s hoping Francona’s irrational confidence in Okajima is a thing of the past.
I’m not the only one frustrated with Francona’s use of Okajima. This post by yfsf (almost strangely) mirrors my first post.
In Sports on
11 June 2008 tagged johnny damon, yankees with Comments Off
It’s been two and a half years since the Yankees signed Johnny Damon to fill their hole in center field (a signing, remember, that Damon never gave the Red Sox a chance to match). Damon became a short term solution as he was switched to left just a year and a half later.
Damon’s been on fire lately and I’ll be the first to admit I thought he was through (though I have little doubt his numbers will cool off soon), but watching his defensive play over the first half of the season confirmed what I’ve thought for a while now. Damon is incapable of playing center field at any respectable level. His arm, always bad, has regressed further. As a kid playing catch we’d often get bored and start throwing to each other with our catching arm and catching with our throwing arm. That’s Johnny Damon’s arm today.
Joe Posnanski:
it’s ASTONISHING how weak his arm is
And if Damon can’t play center, he’d have no place in Boston even if he’d stayed. He’s not a good enough player at this point in his career to put Manny or Drew on the bench. It’s clear now that not signing Johnny Damon (and Pedro Martinez) was the correct move.
Yankees Pitchers Go Head Hunting
It’s becoming apparent that Yankee pitchers are incapable of retaliating without throwing at a hitters head. Chamberlain? Check. Farnsworth? Check. Hawkins? Check. And all three lacked the guts to admit their intentions.
Joe Girardi Does His Best Earl Weaver Imitation
Watching Joe Girardi kick dirt and throw a tantrum was great entertainment. Acting out like a child only goes over well if you’re old enough that people just think you’re senile, or Earl Weaver. Girardi hadn’t yet shown the fiery change from Joe Torre Yankee fans had expected.
You could almost see Girardi’s mind spinning. “Here’s my chance to get the fans on my side”. It was very similar to the Lou Pinella commercial.
Other Yankee Observations
- Turning Joba into a starter is the right move. Still, it’s going to be nice to face 7th and 8th innings without him around.
- Mussina’s success has surprised me. I have no idea how he’s getting away with the stuff he’s got left, but give him credit. Still, I’ll be shocked if he can continue at this level as the season progresses, and I’m confident a healthy Red Sox lineup eats him up.
- Giambi’s Mustache does the impossible; making him look even sleazier than his normal greasy, swollen, sweating self. Who told him this is a good look?
So why are my thoughts all on New York? Because Boston was playing Tampa recently, and even though I subscribe to MLB’s cable package, two of the three games were unavailable to me. Why? Because I live in Florida, so I should use the local broadcast. Except that Florida is a big state. Tampa is 7 hours away, and I don’t get the majority of the Rays’ games.
Even the middle game, shown on ESPN, was blacked out. To put that into perspective we were unable to watch a game shown to the whole country, taking place a thousand miles from us, even when we paid an extra 200 bucks to see every game. So I’m stuck watching Giambi scare small children.
Great job MLB.
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