One Mistake Will Kill You, Yanks Lose Series With 7-2 Loss To Rangers

I didn't get to follow along with much of the game today. I never fare well with staying up on weekday afternoon games. This thing called 'work' usually gets in the way. I had a meeting today from 1-2 so that killed the 1st hour. I'm in a training class also and that kills my chances to listen to it on the radio. My only option is to follow along online. That gets tricky in a training class. I saw my first update at 2pm when it was 1-0 Yanks. The next time I looked it was 3-1 Texas and Ian Kinsler just went deep. It looked like A.J. Burnett was cruising along up until that point. The HR was the 1st hit A.J. gave up but it came at just the right time, as he just walked two straight batters. From what I've gathered, it sounds like the bomb to Kinsler was A.J.'s one big mistake. And it was a doozy. As a pitcher, you can only hope your offense is there to pick you up. Today, it wasn't.

A.J.'s final pitching line looks pretty damn good. Anybody that whiffs 12 guys in 6 innings has some pretty dominant stuff working for him. If only he could have finished off either Josh Hamilton or Nelson Cruz. I heard on the post-game show he had 2 strikes on both hitters and ended up walking them. I think I heard he had Cruz down 1-2 and ended up losing him. That hurts right there. It's a little Joba-esque, no?

Phil Coke is starting to wear on my nerves. My friend Nick has been saying for months that Phil Coke sucks. I was always defending him. As I thought about him today, I'm wondering why and what Coke was doing that had me fooled? Perhaps I was stuck on how well he pitched in June, posting a 0.71 ERA. Perhaps it's that he tends to be better more often than when he's bad, but when he's bad, he's really bad. He's allowed earned runs in 15 of his 59 games this season. That doesn't sound too bad, especially when I see that 2 of them were in his 1st 3 games of the season, and 6 came in July. He's given up earned runs 3 times in August. He's very hit and miss. I can't really call a relief pitcher with an ERA over 5 good by any means. Right now, I'm still trying to justify that he's good and I'm hating myself for doing it. Back in the day you called a relief pitcher with an ERA over 5 a minor leaguer. Nowadays it's almost par for the course. My advice for Girardi when it comes to Coke: use him for a guy to two and try to keep it to lefties. Anything other than that and it's asking for trouble.

A new series starts tomorrow. The White Sox are coming to town. The big man is going for the Yanks. CC has been pretty awesome lately. He's won 5 straight 8 of his last 10. He's given up only 6 earned runs in his last 4 starts, a span of 30.1 IP. The Pale Hose are sending Mark Buehrle. Buehrle is winless since he threw a perfect game. He's lost 4 of his last 6 starts and has an ERA of 6.21 in those games. The Yanks bombed him the last time the two teams met. They pounded him for 7 runs on 12 hits in 4.1 IP. What's that all mean? Absolutely nothing, as baseball games aren't played on paper. I like our chances though with CC going. But that goes without saying.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie