Surprise, Surprise, Yankees In the Cellar

Two weeks after winning the opening game of the season on a Sunday night, the Yankees start the third Sunday of the season with a 4-7 record, their worst start in 14 years.

Last night's 7-6 loss to the Orioles was another example of the bullpen's collapse. Set-up man Tom Gordon took his second loss in as many games after a run, a hit and a walk in 1 1/3 innings and the O's took their second straight from the Yankees at home after a 5 run 7th inning which was capped by Brian Roberts' three run homer. Roberts went 2-for-4 with two walks to raise his batting average to .444. The 5-foot-9 second baseman already has five home runs (in 11 games), matching his career high and eclipsing the four he hit last season in 159 games.

I thought this photo was interesting for the guy holding up the sign over the Yankees dugout as Moose was walking back off the mound: "Five Years Later You're Still a Traitor. How's the Ring Fit?"

O's closer BJ Ryan struck out Matsui with the bases loaded and two outs in the 8th.

Yanksfan v Soxfans points out that the Yankees of yesterday, looked alot like the Yankees of the 80s:

Aging lefty ace who seems past his prime:
Then: Gator
Now: Unit

Overpriced, underwhelming pitching imports:
Then: Witson, Tewksbury, Drabek
Now: Wright, Pavano

Dominant top of the order:
Then: Ricky, Willie, Donnie, Winnie
Now: Derek, Alex, Gary, Hideki

Genuine Yankee God:
Then: Donnie
Now: Derek

Bullpen closer prone to giving up leads:
Then: Rags
Now: SturGorMo


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Two days after the incident with the jerkoff fan in Boston (hmmm, is there any other kind of fan in Boston?), Gary Sheffield homered, drove in three runs and scored twice for the Yankees in the losing effort.

Now the jerkoff fan, otherwise known as Tom House, has friends who want to stick up for him.

Mike Dee, the Sox chief operation officer, said in a statement the Sox are "examining the incident from a variety of perspectives: security, legal, and ballpark operations, so that we can determine an appropriate course of action based on full information." and revocation of House's season tickets remains an option, as does his arrest.

Unfortunately, if House's tickets were revoked, he would receive a full refund from the club, according to the policy. A full summary of the event itself, including biased opinions from idiot Red Sox fans, can be found here. In particular I enjoyed the comments of a poster named Rick who notes:

I'd have like to see him drag the idiot over the little wall and beat him senseless on the field. Next time somebody wanted to reach over the fence, not to distract a player, but even just to disrupt the game and swoop up a ball, they would think twice...One fan ruins it for everyone, and Red Sox fans should be embarrassed, but they should be even more embarrassed if they find any way to defend that loser."

Exclusive photos of the incident can be found here.

Hopefully, the same Idiot Collective that is running MLB doesn't get indignant and suspend Sheffield for even a game since it sends the wrong message to fans. Act like an asshole and get your worst rivals star player suspended.

Perhaps this swirl of media propogated controversy is good for the Yankees as it takes some of the glare way from the fact that whilst the Mets have won 6 in a row, the Yankees have lost 5 of 6 and must be embarassing King George to no end by now.

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Meanwhile on the Left Coast, the Dodgers have done the exact opposite by getting off to their best start since 1983, without their ace closer, the nearly-indominable Eric Gagne and with their top free agent batter, JD Drew, hitting .135.

In fact, as Dodger Hill points out:

"The Dodgers currently have five players on the DL that would be on the team if healthy. That’s a fifth of the roster on the DL and a third of the pitching staff."

Yesterday, they won their second straight game over division rivals, the San Diego Padres and have a two and a half game lead over the Diamondbacks. Jeff Kent, the player the Dodgers were heavily criticised for signing in the off season for too much money, is hitting .405 for the season with 3 homers and 12 RBIs in 10 games.

Even notorious hothead Milton Bradley has a new approach.

Frankly, any time you've got the washed out Scott Erickson recording a win for you, you have to count your blessings and hope you can hold on until the reinforcements arrive.

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Nat Attack

With a four game winning streak, the Nats are perhaps the surprise of the National League, leading the NL East, just ahead of the Braves and the Mets. Enjoy it while you can, Nat Heads because the Mets are moving quickly up the line.

Some remarks about the stars that came out for Opening Night for baseball in DC from The Nats Blogspot:

"There were numerous celebrities or quasi-celebrities sitting around us, including John McCain, George Will, Darrell Green, Bob Novak and Fred Barnes. We had as good or better seats than all but John McCain, who was wearing a D-Backs hat anyway and likely was not sitting in his own seats."

Food was apparently a crisis for the Nats opener. Washington Nationals President Tony Tavares said some Aramark food vendors ran out of hot dogs and nacho cheese, specifically on the fifth level of the stadium.

District of Baseball had pretty broad coverage of the game and the difficulties.

If you can't get a hotdog in the 6th, so long as the Nats keep winning, I suppose the fans will be happy.

Last night former Diamondback John Patterson pitched seven shutout innings to help the Nationals defeat the Diamondbacks, 9-3, in front of 34,943 fans at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, judging by the lack of commentary on it, there were enough hot dogs available but the pitcher's mound is no good:

"The main issue, manager Frank Robinson said, is that there's not enough clay near the rubber. When the pitcher digs in, the hole becomes too large."

It didn't seem to hurt Patterson too much last night. The Diamondbacks had a runner on second base with less than two outs only once in the game against the right-hander.

"That's the best I've ever seen him pitch," Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin said. "The slider has ended up being a big pitch for him. The slider might be his best pitch right now, at least today. He threw more strikes. The two-seamer is a very playable pitch for him -- that was outstanding."

Vinny Castilla seems to like it at RFK as well. For the second straight game, he went 3-for-3 with a home run -- this one a two-run shot off Russ Ortiz (1-1) in the fourth. He has now reached base in all eight of his plate appearances at RFK, and his home slugging percentage is a ridiculous 2.667.

AL Central Tightens Up

Mark Buehrle had a dominating performance for the White Sox yesterday, defeating the Seattle Mariners 2-1 in a mere 1 hour, 39 minutes by pitching a complete game while fanning 12, walking one and allowing only three hits and one run -- all to Eee-Chee-Row.

Paul Konerko hit leadoff home runs in the second and seventh innings to give the Sox their only two runs. The home runs were numbers five and six on the season for Konerko, giving him the most in the Major Leagues so far this season. It was the twelfth (12th) multi-homer game of Konerko's career and his first this season.

In addition to his pair of homers, Konerko also made a brilliant, diving stop of a line drive in the 9th inning.

The Sox are still clinging to their first place spot but the hard-charging Twins, who have now matched the Mets for the longest winning streak of the season at 6 in a row, are also tied with the Sox for first place behind two three run homers by the Twins Lew Ford and Torii Hunter.

Last night lefty Dave Gassner made his major league debut a winning one by floating changeups in the low 70 mph range and spinning curveballs in the mid-to-high 60s to help the Twins to a 6-4 victory over the Indians. Gassner became only the third Twins pitcher since 1980 to win his big league debut, joining Eric Milton (1998) and Scott Erickson (1990). He was recalled from Class AAA Rochester when right-hander Carlos Silva went on the disabled list with torn cartilage in his right knee April 9.

Meanwhile, Indian free agent signee, Kevin Millwood, lost his second of the season with no wins.

Blue Jays Still Atop AL East

Can we say whether or not Blue Jays new ace Gustavo Chacin was a flower waiting to blossom this season? Now that he's 3-0 with a 1.42 ERA and perhaps leading the AL Cy Young chase already, we can look back on last season and see that he won a combined 20 games, 17-2 at New Hampshire (AA) (includes 1-0 postseason), 2-0 with Syracuse (AAA) and 1-1 with Toronto.

Smoltz Loses Third Straight

His season as a starter is not starting well. After yesterday's 2-1 loss to the Phillies, he is now 0-3 to start the season despite two straight gems in a row. Smoltz dominated the Phillies for five innings before yielding a leadoff homer to Jimmy Rollins in the sixth and a pair of walks that set up Chase Utley's clutch, two-out hit, a game-winning RBI single in the 6th.

Utley owns a .429 lifetime average against Smoltz.

Former Yankee and current Phillies ace Jon Lieber (3-0, 2.49 ERA) got the victory but the Phillies are still down in the last place of the NL East.

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As always, Archie Bunker's Army has the lowdown on the Mets and their current 6 game winning streak.