csblez, who happens to be Tyler Blezinski's (Athletics Nation brother, had a nice little rant in the game thread of yesterday's 8-7 loss to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Here it is in it's entirety:
The Yankees are quite similar to the Red Sox. Starting pitching very suspect, bullpen characterized as shaky at best. One BIG difference is, in the high scoring one to two run games they have Mariano (Rivera).
The second HUGE difference is that the Yankees bats have actually heated up, whereas the Sox bats are ice cold. Papi is the only one doing anything. Ramirez is waving at everything. Millar and Nixon are battling it out for king of the double play or popout. Varitek (God bless him) has been just plain awful at the plate the second half. Damon's shoulder is obviously bothering him. Finally, Renteria is the master of the ground ball to the left side of the infield. Only once and a while will it find a hole.
Last night was the beginning of the end. Wells was the one bright spot in the rotation (beside Wake) and he is looking spent (and gets squeezed a lot). We cannot hit anymore, we do not steal bases, play hit and run, bunt, nor are we still hitting for power. I LOVE the future (Hansen, Delcarmen, Papelbon). But, IT IS the future...the here and now is bleak.
Regardless, if we do sneak in we will not last long in October with our pitching if we are not hitting. Yankees won't last much longer with their pitching, but at least their bats have not gone cold.
Do you agree or disagree with csblez here? I personally agree %100 with him. He's hit everything right on the nose. The sad thing is, though, is that he is right and it doesn't look like we can make any sort of comeback. Even with some great games, they haven't built into a streak or anything and we lose the next game. We can't afford that.
And when he says the future is Craig Hansen, Jonathan Papelbon, and Manny Delcarmen, he is absolutely right.