Yankees Win And Lose All At The Same Time

I joined today's Yankees/Ray game already in progress. I turned the game on when the score was tied at 3 and it was the top of the 5th. Not bad I'm thinking and then I hear Michael Kay say that Chan Ho Park is the game and Pettitte left with a groin injury. Ooh, that ain't good. I watched a little bit, nodded off, woke up, nodded off, woke up, and so on. The wife later woke me up and the game was headed to the top of the 9th with the Yanks up 9-4. 3 outs and 1 run later, ball game over. Yankees win. Thuhhh Yankees win.

But in the end they lost. Andy Pettitte was diagnosed with a grade 1 strain of the groin and will be out for 4-5 weeks. Andy was well on his way to having his best season ever as a Yankee. He was sitting on an 11-2 record and a 2.70 ERA. It's a huge loss to lose a guy like Andy Pettitte for 4-5 weeks, especially this late in the season in such a tight division race. He's not going to be easy to replace. But they're going to try with Sergio Mitre. Yeah, I don't like how that sounds. I have a feeling this is going to turn into what seems like a yearly thing when a carousel of subpar guys taking turns as the team's 5th SP. Sidney Ponson anyone?

It should be interesting to see what progresses over the next few weeks. I wonder if Cashman is going to roll with Mitre or look on the trade market for somebody. Ah, if only they landed Cliff Lee. If I had to put money on it, I'd say Cashman will stand pat with what the team has. There are bigger issues if you ask me and the biggest is the bullpen. But that's for another post.

Considering Pettitte's injury, it turns out that A.J. Burnett is pretty damn lucky he didn't seriously hurt himself yesterday. Imagine losing Pettitte and Burnett in back-to-back games. Even with A.J. regularly stinking up the place that would have been hard to bounce back from. I wasn't surprised that the Yankees didn't say much about A.J.'s injury and attempted cover up. It's a private team matter and I kind of knew it wouldn't leave the clubhouse. I'm half-expecting Joel Sherman to drop an anonymous quote on us at some point b/c he's a d-bag like that. Anyway, A.J. is lucky his stupidity didn't turn out to be worse.

As for the game today, again slept through most of it. I caught bits and pieces but not enough to make mention of. The Pettitte injury withstanding, I absolutely love the outcome. It's nice when you beat the team that's 2 games behind you. It's nice when you beat one of the best pitchers in the game. It's nice when the Red Sox also lose.

I'll have to rub that in my kids nose.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie