Sabathia Is Awful As Yanks Lose Opener 10-5

I had such high hopes for today's games. I thought CC would cruise. I thought Mark Teixeira would get off to a hot start. I was wrong on both counts.

CC Sabathia was awful today. He had no command of his fastball and his control was questionable on many of his pitches. He finished with 96 pitches, only 50 were strikes. That's not a good ball-to-strike ratio. I don't know if it was first game jitters but he has to be better. 4.1 innings from our 161 million dollar ace is not acceptable. I wrote earlier today that I understood why the Yankees didn't keep a long man on the pitching staff. The arms in the rotation, except for Joba, are all capable of throwing 7 innings each and every game. CC didn't do anything to prove my point today. He's lucky tomorrow is an off day.

The other big acquisition, Mark Teixeira, had a pretty crappy regular season debut. 0-4 with a walk. And that's only because the umpire must have blinked. It should have been oh-fer-five with 2 Ks. I know Teixeira is a slow starter but I expected him to do better than an oh-fer in his first game. Ugh.

I really hate those Mohegan Sun commercials. Almost as much as I hate Michael Kay. Kay uttered one of the stupidest things he's ever said in the 8th inning, "Coke delivers free and easy." You could tell Ken Singleton thought it was dumb. I loved Kenny's reply, "That's a refreshing thought." I love a good Coke reference as much as the next guy, but Michael Kay just makes them sound so bad. And in typical Kay fashion, he put the jinx on Coke. He makes that stupid remark and Coke gets taken deep. Coincidence? Sure, but it's fun to blame others. Tough break for Coke there in the eighth. That ball was probably caught if not for the fans. But that's baseball. The Yanks will get that break someday.

The bullpen wasn't a strength for the Yanks today. I thought once CC left that if the pen could hold the Os to 6 runs, then the Yanks offense would pick CC up. The Brian Bruney of old showed up tonight, walking 2. The pitching today was suspect. It needs to be better. It reminder me a lot of the Yankees pitching from the last few years. The SPs go less than 5, the bullpen implodes, you get the picture. The pitching staff is supposed to be their strong suit now. Today it was far from it.

It was nice to see Jorge Posada take one deep. His bat was sorely missed last year and it'll be a huge boost to have him around. Same goes for Hideki Matusi. The Yankees lost a lot of production last year with those 2 out of action. If those 2 can stay healthy, the Yankees offense could do great things. While I'm talking about Jorge, what was up with his failure to apply a tag on Melvin Mora? He received the ball from Brett Gardner in plenty of time to slap on a tag, but it didn't even look like he made an attempt. He's real lucky the umpire was screened and called Mora out. He looked safe to me.

I really like having Brett Gardner hitting 9th and Jeter hitting leadoff. The run they manufactured in the 3rd inning was nice. I can see that happening a lot this year. Whether it's a hit-and-run or Gardner making a steal attempt. It's going to result in some extra runs. I really like the flow of the lineup. Every other hitter hits from a different side of the plate. That's going to give opposing manager's fits. Take the 7th inning of tonight's game for example. The Os used 3 RPs in that inning alone. Burn through the bullpen and eventually you'll get to the underbelly. If only Xavier Nady didn't ground into a DP. I know he had an RBI double, but I am not a Nady guy. He's overrated. Is it me or does he look slower than molasses out there in RF? I'm not sure if it was his baserunning blunder in the 6th that killed that rally or if it was Rob Thomson's fault. I don't like though how X just stood there and let himself get tagged out. You never know if the other team will make a mistake. I don't like seeing anyone just give up like that.

Jeter had a pretty solid day at the plate. I fully expected him to bring Pena home in the 8th. I've grown accustomed to Jeter coming through in the clutch. I was surprised when he didn't.

I hate to say this but I miss A-Rod. I know Cody Ransom isn't even close to Alex in terms of talent, even without the steroids, but Cody's strength is his glove and he tanked it with that tonight. He should have easily made that play on Mora's grounder and turned it into a DP. 2 runs came around to score. Cody can't be doing that.

I hope the Orioles, and the rest of MLB for that matter, have a policy where anyone that interferes with a ball in play get bounced from the park immediately. If they're season ticket holders, revoke their tickets. I'm tired of seeing these douches reaching out for shots down the line. I would have been ticked had the umpires held Cano at third on Nady's double. I hoped they bounced that guy. What a jerkwad. Thankfully it didn't matter.

So the Yanks drop the season opener. It's not much to worry about. I'm just surprised at how poorly they played. Sabathia was disappointing. He was really bad. He needs to be much better. He'll find that groove. Tomorrow is an off day and Wednesday night we get the return of Chien-Ming Wang. I'm looking forward to that. Hopefully, he fares better than CC.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie