It’s 3:30 a.m. Do you know where your Chris Britton is?
This evening, I left work at around 6:30, had drinks and dinner and saw a show at the NYC Fringe Festival. I came home at 12:30 a.m. with all of the intention of going to bed. Instead, it was the 4th inning. So I watched 8 painful innings of baseball. Lovely.
Here’s your recap in convenient bullet-point form. Yes, I’m bitter at this game.
- From the “I’m Just Saying” Department: Chris Britton in the Minors this year: 56.0 IP, 49 H, 14 BB, 57 K, 2.41 ERA. Chris Britton in the Majors this year: 5.0 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 2 K, 1.80 ERA. And yet, Sean Henn?
- Mariano Rivera has now given up 15 hits over his 7.1 IP. Add three runners via the BB, and his WHIP during that stretch is an unsightly 2.53. This isn’t just a stretch of a few games. This is a stretch of seven appearances in which at least one runner is on base. Something is not right.
- Sean Henn should not be pitching in the bullpen for the New York Yankees. It’s that simple. He’s blown two games in extra innings this week, and whereas Chris Britton throws strikes, Henn has a 1:1 K:BB ratio. He can’t buy his way into the strike zone.
- I hate to be the one to write this, but the Yanks are looking mighty dead in the water right now. Because of Sean Henn, they are now four behind behind the Mariners in the loss column in the Wild Card race and are essentially finished in the AL East. They’re 6.5 behind the Red Sox, and it will take a six-game sweep of the remaining season series for the Yanks to have any shot at catching Boston. The Mariners also need to start losing.
- Can no Yankee reliever pitch more than one inning at a time?
- Do the Yanks have a strategy in the late innings? Bunting with Derek Jeter and not with Robinson Cano. Going inside on Carlos Guillen after he missed outside pitches. Pitching to Carlos Guillen with a horrendously ineffective Ivan Rodriguez on deck. Sure, hindsight is 20-20, but these were things I was shouting to my TV as the game unfolded. What does Joe Torre know that no one else does around here?
- Seriously. Inside pitches from Sean Henn are batting practice fastballs. Let me beat that dead horse for a few more bullet points.
- Roger Clemens has to pitch better than this if the Yanks are going to make it past the end of September this year. For $1 million a start, he can’t pitch like Mike Mussina every time he goes out there. With this lackluster effort tonight, six of his 14 starts have been pretty pathetic.
That’s it. I’m going to bed. What a way for the Yanks’ season to start heading down the drain.
Thanks to Emma for the inspiration behind the title of this post.