What The Farnsworth?

Geoff at Bleeding Pinstripes opened his latest post with a question: "Are there any other losers out there who sat there until 2 o’clock in the morning watching the Yankees lose a waste of a game tonight?" I'll admit it. I'm a loser. What's worse is I even stayed up for the post game show. So my night ended around 3am. Ugh.
Even though the Yankees lost, there is some good to take from the game. Igawa came through and showed us that he does belong in the rotation. He was in command for most of the evening. His only real slip was leaving that ball up in the zone for Chavez to crush. Had Abreu not dropped that fly ball, my man would have been tossing a 1-hit shut out going into the 6th. It was a far better outing than when he made his regular season debut in Pinstripes. He was getting his off speed stuff over for strikes and that's largely what his success is going to depend on. After 5 so-so outings from the Yankee rotation, we've now had 4 good ones. As I mentioned before, the ability of the rotation shouldn't be of concern. It's their health and well-being we should worry about. Wang and Karstens opened up the season on the DL. Moose tweaked a hammy and is going to miss a turn. Rasner has/had blisters. And now we come to find that Pavano has a sore elbow and will be pushed back a few days. At this point, I'm not concerned that much. Wang and Karstens will be back soon. Pavano's injury doesn't sound too serious. And Moose is a warrior. He's made at least 27 starts in each of the last 12 seasons. I'm not worried, but I'm knocking on wood.
The only other positive takeaways from last night's game were the performances of Vizcaino and Bruney. Bruney may have taken the L, but he was on his game. He made a great pitch to Buck who in turn had a great swing to knock it for a triple. Even the way the A's scored the winner wasn't bad. A soft ground ball that was fielded in plenty of time to get the runner at home. If only Dougie knew that Robbie was behind him. And as far as I'm concerned Vizcaino should be Mo's official setup man. Dude's been on his game.
Now the negatives. And there are plenty to go around. We'll start with Farnsie. ***? Torre has to realize that he can't be trusted to hold a lead. You know what, I don't even want to talk about KF right now. it's starting to turn my stomach.
Dougie, Dougie, Dougie. He may be real slick with the glove, but he's got to give us some production at the plate. It wasn't bad enough that he went 0-fer 5. He was up in some pretty big spots and he failed miserably. 6th inning, bases loaded, no outs, double play. 8th inning, bases loaded, 1 out, weak pop up to the pitcher, force at home. Can you even call that a weak pop up? I don't even think there's a name for that. 10th inning, go-ahead runner on 2nd, 2 outs, fouled out to Chavez. It wasn't your night dude. He has got to give the Yankees something from his spot in the lineup. He's yet to hit the ball since spring training. It's not going to fly. Going back to his foul out to Chavez. In any other park, that ball is likely in the stands. The foul territory in Oakland is a huge home-field advantage. No wonder Zito, Mulder and Hudson flourished there and aren't leaving up to their numbers with their new teams. Interesting.
Negative #3, and I have to piggy back off Geoff at the BPS on this one because I'm in total agreement. Why pinch-run for Giambi? It makes no sense. Torre's does this with Giambi more often than he should and I've rarely seen it work. Bad move. Click on the link for Geoff's take on it. It's spot on.
Today is a new day. Time to look ahead and forget about yesterday. The worst thing that can happen tonight would be the return of Rasner's blisters. Besides not being able to finish off his pitches effectively, it could result in an early exit and that could totally drain the bullpen, and that wouldn't be good. Especially, when right now, Farnsworth is off his game. Farnsworth. Ugh. I'm going to be sick.
Go Yanks!
J