The Preemptive Airing Of Grievances

A new season is upon us, and it will surely bring exciting moments as well heartbreak. We just have to hope to have a healthy number of the former and just a few of the latter. Heartbreaking moments are inevitable over the course of a 162-game season, and they aren’t an indication of some kind of fatal flaw in the team. Sometimes things just don’t break right, that’s baseball, and we move on.

Thanks to the internet, we all have a way to covey our idiotic knee-jerk reactions to the masses at the click of a mouse or the enter button on your phone. We’re all guilty of it. We feel better, but that’s pretty much all it does. That’s what this thread is for, to preemptively complain about the inevitable. Get it out of your system now and you’ll feel better later. Here’s a nice long list of unfortunate things that are sure to happen at some point (more than likely multiple times) in 2011, but if you have anything to add, stick it in the comments.

• Derek Jeter will ground out weakly on the first pitch.
• Brett Gardner will take a fastball right down the middle for strike three.
• Mark Teixeira will swing over top of a changeup.
• Curtis Granderson will strike out against the lefty.
• Robbie Cano will swing at a pitch a foot over his head.
• Gardner will reach base and not attempt to steal in a timely fashion.
• Gardner will reach base and not attempt to steal. Period.
• Nick Swisher will strike out three times in one game.
• Alex Rodriguez won’t hit that game-winning homer.
• Jesus Montero will make an out, probably in his first ever big league at-bat.
• Mariano Rivera will blow a save. Might even be a walk-off loss.
• Rafael Soriano will blow a save.
• Soriano will blow a lead in the eighth.
• Joba Chamberlain will blow a lead in the seventh.
• Joba will blow a lead in the seventh, the Yankees will regain the lead the next inning, and then Soriano will blow it in the eighth.
• The Yankees will strand a runner at third.
• The Yankees will load the bases with no outs and fail to score a run.
• Phil Hughes will give up a homerun.
• A.J. Burnett will give up four runs in an inning.
• Freddy Garcia will suck. In general.
• Ivan Nova will stop looking like Cy Young once the lineup turns over.
• CC Sabathia will fail to throw at least eight innings in a start.
• CC will lose a game. Two in a row, in fact.
• Some non-prospect will get called up and shut the Yankees down in his first start. Presumably left-handed.
• Some team will steal Russell Martin blind.
• Evan Longoria will make A-Rod look old.
• Elvis Andrus will make Jeter look really old.
• Andrus will get another friggin’ infield hit.
• Adrian Gonzalez will take a Yankees’ pitcher deep.
• Kyle Farnsworth will save a game. Against the Yankees, in the Bronx.
• Tex will slump in April.
• Pedro Feliciano won’t get that one lefty he was brought in to face out.
• Someone on the staff will walk in a run. My money’s on David Robertson.
• Bartolo Colon will pitch well out of the bullpen, then suck in the rotation.
• One of the Killer B’s will get called up and not be awesome right away.
• Andruw Jones’ long swing will make him look like the worst player ever for a stretch of time.
• Joe Girardi will make a weird pitching change.
• Frankie Cervelli will start entirely too many games once he’s healthy.
• Some Triple-A reliever won’t get called up when we all know he totally should have.
• Some Triple-A reliever will get called when he should have, then he’ll suck.
• Greg Golson won’t throw out every runner who tried to take an extra base.
• Jose Bautista will hit a homer against the Yankees.
• Some guy you never heard of will hit his first career homer against the Yankees.
• Old Timer’s Day festivities will last entirely too long.
• The Legends seats will be empty for a game.
• A-Rod will wear those funny white cleats during the All-Star Game.
• Some Yankee will get snubbed for the All-Star Game.
• That guy the Yankees should have signed will pitch well against them.
• Manny Ramirez is going to remind us of the old days, at least once.
• Granderson will take a weird route on a ball hit in front of him.
• Swish will make a boneheaded play in the outfield.
• Swish will make a boneheaded play on the bases and get tagged out.
• The Yankees won’t double steal with Gardner and Eduardo Nunez on base.
• Girardi will call for a sac bunt.
• Swisher will attempt to bunt.
• Cano will square around to bunt.
• Jeter won’t bunt when he should, then he’ll ground into a double play.
• The Yankees won’t draft the guy Baseball America says they should have.
• The Yankees won’t give that international free agent $4M.
• Kevin Millwood will get a chance before your favorite pitching prospect.
• Some pitcher the Yankees should acquire will get traded, just not to New York.
• Ian Kennedy will throw a great game on the same day the Yankees’ fifth starter gets rocked.
• Damaso Marte ain’t ever comin’ back.
• Kei Igawa will still show up in DotF.

So that’s all I got. Like I said, add anything I missed in the comments.