Buzzkill

Talk about a buzzkill. The Yanks opened up their new stadium yesterday and got blown out. The underbelly of the Yankees bullpen stunk up the joint yesterday. Jose Veras and Damaso Marte, or Damaso Garcia as Bob Klapisch called him, gave up 9 runs in the 7th inning. Really Bob? Damaso Garcia? Anyway, things didn't go as planned yesterday, for me or the Yankees.

I originally had the afternoon off from work yesterday. I had a team-building thing I was originally doing on Tuesday, but I was asked to reschedule to Thursday and I agreed and by the time I realized the error of my ways, it was too late. I got to listen to the first 2 hours of the game. I pretty much turned my radio off when CC was pulled from the game. I had one of the people in training class pull up the gamecast. I was probably there for 20 minutes when the score ballooned to 10-1. I know it's not the case, but I can't help but think had I not stopped listening to the game, things would have been different. While I was there, one of the guys in the class started talking about how the Yankee bullpen sucks. I wouldn't go as far as saying they suck, but there's definitely room for improvement, specifically with Veras and Marte.

Veras and Marte are the guys I don't want to see on the mound in a close game. The problem yesterday was that CC Sabathia didn't make it through 6 and that I'm sure impacted who Girardi sent out there and when. The problem with Veras and Marte is that they are wildly inconsistent. They're either really good or really bad. And it seems like more often than not, they're really bad. But yesterday wasn't all on them. The Yankees should have scored more than 1 run.

The Yankee offense was pretty brutal yesterday. If I told you before the game that the Yankees were going to rack up 9 hits and 8 walks, how many runs would you say they'd score? I guarantee nobody would say one. The team left 15 guys on base. Not good. Cody Ransom had the worst day (again) leaving 9 men on base. Let's look at Ransom's day at the plate:

• Struck out in 2nd with 1 out and Cano on 2nd
• Flied out to CF in 2nd with 1 out and Matusi on 1st
• Grounded into inning-ending fielder's choice in 5th with runners on 1st and 3rd
• Struck out in 7th with 2 out and runners on 1st and 2nd
• Grounded into game-ending DP with bases loaded in 9th

The Codester is killing us. He's 3-for-30 this season and is 2-for-18 with runners on base, and 1-for-11 with RISP. We really need A-Rod back and pronto. It doesn't help either that he leads the team in errors and has the lowest fielding percentage on the team. If he's not going to hit, he needs to at least field the ball well. The Cody Ransom experiment is failing miserably.

Another day game today. Ugh. I'll be listening on the radio and following along online. I hate weekday day games. Thankfully, they're aren't as many in the coming months. If I read the schedule correctly, there's one next week and then not again until Memorial Day, which is a holiday so that's not a problem. Joba makes start #2 today. I'm staying away from making any predictions. I just hope game #2 in the new digs goes much better than game #1.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie