Thursday Night Open Thread
ByThe Yankees are off today but their closest competitors are not. The Orioles already pounded former Yankees farmhand Jose Quintana this afternoon, so they remain three games back in the loss column heading into this weekend’s series in the Bronx. The Rays are four games back going into tonight’s game against the Blue Jays. I suppose the good news is that regardless of what happens this weekend, the Yankees will head to Tampa next week no worse than tied for first place. I would much appreciate that not happening, however. Win some games, please.
Here is your open thread for the evening. The Cardinals and Nationals (Garcia vs. Jackson) will be on MLB Network, but as far as I know the Jets preseason game will not be broadcast on television anywhere. They won’t score any touchdowns anyway, so there, now you know what happens. You folks know how these things work by now, so go for it.
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The Tyler Austin Watch
I think Dante Bichette Jr. and Cito Culver need to start hanging out with the Rays Low-A minor league team. If you know what I mean.
Bruce is all about the working man. That’s why he did a propaganda video for MLB, in which owners charge a lot of money for tix to see rich dudes throw and hit a ball around. Don’t forget how they screw the fans on food and parking charges. How poignant.
GOP is evil, but MLB is great. Obviously, he’s got a flawless perspective on life.
Bruce probably knows more about baseball than you do as well.
So it’s ok to be a complete hypocrite? You make no sense.
Well, of course, someone whose handle is a Muppets song title probably wouldn’t be much of a Bruce fan. You’d need to be at least past pre-school mental age to comprehend these concepts.
You still make absolutely no sense. Explain yourself in detail. Please. As soon as possible. Can’t wait to hear it.
Don’t diss the Muppets, man. That song’s a classic. Been covered by plenty of great grown-ups. YouTube it, bro. Also, I see no hypocrisy with Bruce here. You don’t have to wear a hair shirt in order to advocate for the working man. And just because owners are greedy doesn’t mean regular folks can’t enjoy the game with a clean conscience, and enjoy a good Bruce song to boot.
Baseball’s really sending an interesting image about its relevance: An aging rock star backed by a gray-haired band.
The 5.6 billion deal they just signed gives a clear picture of the game’s relevance.
Meh. I don’t care for Bruce’s music, but plenty of people my age do. I’m 24, by the way. The band being older doesn’t mean jack shit.
Not a fan either. NFL at least seems to have changed with the times, after several years of mediocre aging former stars.
Madonna was the halftime performer at this year’s Super Bowl. You wanna fact-check your statement again?
And Bruce before that.
What kind of image about its relevance is the NFL sending with these aging, has-been performers mucking up the Super Bowl half-time show? Where’s Trey Songz?
I don’t believe the fans of Frank Ocean or Lady Gaga are much into baseball…or any other sports for that matter. So what’s your point?
Frank Ocean is the fucking greatest.
Lady Gaga is a yankee fan actually/why do I know this
Lady Gaga is a yankee fan actually/why do I know this
“I don’t believe the fans of Frank Ocean are much into baseball”
Sadly you are wrong.
Well, Frank Ocean is on record as saying his first love was a man not baseball. So there’s that.
Oh dear.
And what is the problem with man on man love?
Nothing. Whatever floats your boat.
Dude, Bruce Springsteen kicks fucking ass.
Bruce Springsteen can promote whatever he wants until he’s 150 years old, and he’ll probably still be capable of a four hour-plus live show then.
Nice to see the Rays being able to handle the big bad Blue Jays lineup. CC and Phelps should be ashamed of themselves.
Was this after 1 or 2 outs in the series?
Jays are still winning. Guess the Rays can’t handle the patch work rotation of the Jays
Pretty cool promotion, if you ask me. Stuff like that always makes me smile. I just love baseball.
Why do I feel like the Orioles are going to win at least two one-run games this series?
The Blue Jays scored two runs but the Rays have runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs..and unlike us..I’m fairly sure they will score.
Sorry to sound harsh but you can’t take a positive feeling with this team when you go 3-3 against two of the worst teams in the league. And unlike us,the A’s were able to clobber Masterton today.
Well, at least you didn’t bet any money on your hunch.
What was that?
You can’t? I can. Watch me.
+50,000.
What would half these dipshits do if the team actually didn’t make the playoffs?
Spot on.
someone not familiar with the Rays offense….
Here’s what we’ll have tomorrow to combat the Os-
Jeter
Swisher
Cano
Pearce
Granderson
Chavez
Ibanez
Martin
Ichiro
Pretty good lineup. The only problem is the stacked lefties. Buck has been signing LHP in anticipation for this series. Joe will need to get creative.
Is Jones hurt?
No. His baseball skills are hurt bad, real bad.
Why would Pearce be batting cleanup against a RHP?
To protect Swisher and Cano!
Fierce Sam Pearce!
His name is Steve “A Jury of His” Pearce.
Sons of Sam Pearce.
I love that it’s nearly-forgotten-among-all-the-hype Greg McElroy that scores the Jets’ first touchdown of the preseason. There’s just some sort of justice to that.
No one cares about the Jets.
Tomorrow’s Lineup:
Derek Pearce
Nick Pearce
Robinson Pearce
Sam Pearce
Curtis Pearce
Eric Pearce
Raul Pearce
Russell Pearce
Ichiro Pearce
Pretty fierce lineup. The only problem is the stacked Pearces. Buck will probably sign a POOGY (Pearce One Out Guy). What can you do, he’s manager of the year for a reason.
Is Pearce pitching?
Be more specific.
Poor, Suffering jets fans can always watch the game tomorrow night on nfl network if they want to see that precious first td.
They say that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. What proof is there that this son is not Tim Tebow? I can’t for the life of me figure out why the Jets haven’t named Tebow starting QB yet. He does God’s work and went 7-4 last year as a starter. Did Sanchez have a winning record? Did Sanchez inspire his team to play great? If Tebow were practicing and playing with the starters they’d have 3-16 touchdowns by now.
Tebow sucks, and I’m an Atheist. So…no. And even if I was religious at all, I would hope that this “god” that he doesn’t give a shit about a football game and instead focuses on things like poverty, hunger, etc.
Bingo.
You. Can’t. Be. Serious.
I hope they put a major hurtin’ on dem 0′s this weekend. The fans down here are insufferable.
What fans? They drew the smallest crowd of the year TODAY!
The other not surprising news from O’s today: Nick Johnson is out for the rest of the season with wrist injury. Shit, Duquette and Buck, I thought you guys were smarter than the idiots on the Yankees who brought that problem child back here in 2010. Oh, yeah, you didn’t pay $6 million and jettison True Yankees Matsui and Damon in the process. Never mind…
Oh man, because Damon and Matsui were soooo good after that!!
Good thing we acquired Andruw Jones and Raul Ibanez instead. Fat chance these two studs would peter out before the end of August. And anyway, we’ve got Ichiro to play the role of the fading veteran with expiring skills. So…there!
…what? You would rather have 2012 Damon and Matsui? I really hope you’re kidding.
Any time you can bring in a couple of guys who will………wow, I can’t think of anything remotely positive to say about those two.
My sarcasm eludes you. For that I apologize.
This is the internet. Crazier things have been said. I apologize that I didn’t get the sarcasm. Hard to tell sometimes.
No problem my brother.
Have you seen Damon and Matsui play this year? Are you serious?
Would have been nice to have Matsui in 2010. But I thought signing Nick was a good idea.
Holy obscure name change.
#lookwhostalking
Only idiots actually go to games.
I’ll drink to that for sure.
I guess other teams can lose to the Blue Jays as well. Just disgraceful.
Tampa has been shutout again, this time by those pesky Rays. Our chief rival is now the Orioles. The Rays just don’t have enough offense to consistently win enough ballgames to overtake us. We need to put some distance between us and the Os this weekend.
I meant shutout by the Jays. Just goes to show you, you can’t predict baseball.
You can’t predict Eddard, Suzyn.
They still aren’t.
The Rays have the best pitching in the AL. They’ve just hit a minor slump after that scalding hot streak they had. They’ll bounce back soon enough.
Down 3-1 with 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth, Tyler Austin hit a grand slam to put the Tampa Yanks ahead 5-3. They would win 5-4.
Well, Toronto did the Yankees a solid tonight, but I’m gonna want more than that from them this weekend, after the bullshit that happened in the Bronx this week.
Tonight never happened. It’s a three game series. Hope the Jays can take two of three.
Just got back from NY. Brought my daughter back to Fordham and got to see Hughes pitch a gem. My wife’s first time to YSIII (my daughter and I went last year). Nice evening and at least I got to see a win. Hopefully 2 or 3 more coming this eekend.
Wow…the head dude on MLB Tonight is saying that maybe Mariano isn’t as important/great as everyone thought because Soriano has been very good. Fuck him.
What’s wrong with that?
It doesn’t fit the “Thank Mo” bullshit that has been going on here forever.
Glad I’m not the only one who never got behind that stuff. Great pitcher, but come on…
Mo is awesome, so if he’s saying he’s not, then he’s wrong.
But if he’s saying he isn’t as important as people can make him out to be, then he’s right. A guy throwing his number of innings can only have so much value, especially if comparing him to other top tier closers in which the drop off in number of wins would likely be somewhat minor overall.
Do you not remember how absurd this place was getting when he got hurt? Like a family member died and they should just give up on the season and nearly dissolve the franchise.
He’s awesome, but his value and importance, especially during the regular season, has typically been overblown because of who he is, how he does it, and how long he’s been doing it for.
This is exactly right.
The importance of this or that closer generally has been massively overblown. Does your pitcher have a powerful fastball and a powerful second pitch — preferably cutter or slider? Does he have reasonable control? Great, we probably have a decent closer. Which is not to minimize how much ability it takes to be a decent closer. It’s just to say that the difference in games won between a decent closer and Mo is probably not all that great. It’s just three outs after all. For a while there even Boone Logan was decent at getting three outs. (And now in stampede anybody who ever does color for ESPN — but it’s the most important three outs! It takes a special player, someone who knows how to Win, to get those final three outs! Blah blah blah. If anything I might guess that the last three outs are the easiest in non-crucial games, because if it’s 2 outs nobody on and you’re down by two or three maybe you just want to get back to the hotel.)
Maybe this is just my inner child, but disagree, strongly. He’s the greatest relief pitcher to ever step foot on a baseball field. This isn’t an Eric Gagne, someone who was great for a couple years. This is a first ballot hall of famer. Soriano stepping up has surely mitigated that. But considering the woes of the bullpen now, it sure would look a hell of a lot better if Soriano and Robertson were pushed back an inning, no?
I agree that relievers throw less innings, and are therefor less valuable than starters. And for the record, I was not a bridge-jumper when Mo got injured (not that I ever have been a bridge-jumper).
But think of how many games the bullpen has blown of late, and how long the Yankees have needed a non-OOGY reliever. Mo is more valuable than you make it seem, and the Yankees would likely be up a couple more games in the standings had he not gotten hurt.
Again, disclaimer: Mo is a childhood hero of mine, so I will defend his value to the death. But I really do thing that your comment actually undervalues him. No team in recent history (meaning after relievers were introduced) had the assurances Mo provides.
Example #1542 of AL parity this year:
Kansas City sweeps Detroit, holding them to one run in the last two games of the series.
Unreal. The best team in the AL changes from week to week.
Any loss by an AL contender at this point is good for me.
On the Mo discussion:
Mo is my favorite player. When I went to my first live game in 2009 (yes, it did indeed take me that long) it was game 3 of walk-off weekend-the Damon HR game. I remember before the game being disappointed because Mo had pitched two innings the night before, so I assumed there was no way he’d be pitching.
In my mind, then and now, A-Rod is one of the best 3b of all time. Jeter is one of the best SS of all time. But Mo? Mo is the BEST closer of all time, bar none. When Mo got hurt, I was as depressed as the rest of you, because he’s Mariano Fucking Rivera.
That said, here’s the thing about closers: Every year there are going to be closers at or near Mo’s level of competency. Soriano, for example, is putting more men on base but results-wise he’s Mo-like. Brad Lidge saved every single game he was in for Philly in 08′. Joe Nathan and Papelbon both had a few years where they were dominant.
Mo’s value is not his dominance as a closer in any given year; that dominance can be replicated by any given player for one season. The incredibly thing about Mariano is not his longevity either; Trevor Hoffman had that.
What makes Mo so incredible is his combination of the two. Mo has managed to sustain a dominance level that puts him among the top five relief pitchers in the league for every single year he’s pitched since 1996 (besides this one) with remarkably few injuries (*cries*). In a game where relief pitchers are wildly unstable Mo has been a fixed needle.
The Yankees could survive without Mo. But they’ll need to do it year by year. Closers, your most dominant relief pitchers, are important. The Yankees had someone they could stick into the 9th inning every year and forget about because they knew he’d be brilliant.
But when he’s gone every season there’s going to be a chaotic adjustment period as new relief pitchers are stuck frantically into the closer’s role until we find a good fit. It won’t be automatic, and in the meantime the Yankees are going to lose some games unless they get lucky, like this year (and even this year we got a taste of what it’ll be like when we had D-Rob in the 9th).
There’s one other thing about Mo that makes him unique: his playoff dominance. It’s insane. Unheard of. We are NEVER going to get somebody who can pitch that dominantly for so many playoff innings ever again. His ERA is below 1. I remember that in 09′, when we made a run all the way to the final game, it actually dropped.
So for any one season, Mo’s value is pretty limited. But over the span of years, and in the playoffs, he is an enormously important player. And with the bullpen woes, we could REALLY use him right now.
Hope he’s back with a vengeance in 2013.
(BTW, to address what I KNOW you’re all thinking right now, as I’m sure you all remember Mo indeed come in for one inning in the Damon HR game. The inning was scoreless. I believe there was one strikeout, although I can’t be certain.