Blue Jays Bomb The Bronx Bombers 8-2

Before I get into my condensed game recap I wanted to give a quick update. Blogging may be hit and miss over the next few weeks for a multitude of reasons. 1)Our 3rd child will be here any day now. 2)Our new house will be ready any day now. 3)While we're waiting for the house to finish we're staying at my in-laws and we're down to 1 TV. The 3rd item is probably the biggest impact right now. I was staying in the basement where I had my own setup. My wife's sister and her 2 kids are visiting from Georgia and they are also staying at my wife's parents. I've lost my room and am now on the couch. So the TV I was watching is now in the make-shift bedroom of a 2.5 year old and the main TV is being split between 3 people and there's already stuff being DVR'd. My ability to watch the games is seriously compromised. But I did get to see most of tonight's game, which wasn't a good thing.

The Yankees bats need to wake the funk up. There's been more bad games than good recently when it comes to the Yankees offense. They managed 2 hits tonight. Pitiful. 2 hits. Wow.

The Jays seem to be doing OK, don't they? Holy mackerel. It seems like they're going yard every other inning. They went deep 4 times tonight and twice yesterday. I'm amazed they lead the league in HRs (by a wide margin) and are mired in 4th place. Sucks to be in the AL East. Sucks for the Yanks too. There 3-game losing streak has allowed Tampa Bay to leapfrog into 1st place by a full game. If the Yanks were in any other division they'd be sitting on a 4-game lead or so. Again, sucks to be in the AL East. It's going to be a dogfight the rest of the way.

Hopefully, the Yankees right this ship. They're not too far off course and you shouldn't really be concerned by a 5-game swoon (1-4 in last 5). The season has its highs and lows. This is definitely a low. But there's plenty of baseball left to play and the Yankees are definitely one of the best 2 teams in baseball. They won't tailspin out of control. We just need to ride this one out and it'll be over before we know it.

Day game tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to listen at work. Not sure what my day is like but I should be able to catch some of it. But if they play like they did tonight, I won't want to. Here's to a better outcome. Somebody place a call to Jobu.

"I ask Jobu to come, take fear from bats. I offer him cigar, rum. He will come." - Pedro Cerrano

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie

Watering A New Lawn Sucks

Missed the game yesterday. We're nearing the finishing line on moving into our new home and one of things we have to do is have the lawn seeded and then water it. Having it seeded was easy. The watering is the sucky part. I spent pretty much all day Sunday standing around outside moving sprinklers every 15-30 minutes. So much fun. I missed all of the game and didn't even get to check the score until almost 7pm. Not the result I was hoping for.

I hear CC was a little off, working into and out of jams all game. Didn't matter though. You can't win if you don't score. Not the best series offensively for the Yankees. Based on the lack of offense I'm happy they won 1 game and left 1 game up on the Rays for the division.

The Yanks are now back in the Bronx for a 3-game set with the Jays. Hopefully the Yankees bats will return.

I'm getting my new smartphone (Droid X) today. It's like Christmas. Can't wait to play with it and more importantly, tweet about the Yankees with it. Fun fun fun.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie

Robinson Cano Is The Man, Yankees Clip Rays 5-4

I called it before the season started and I'm sticking with it: Robinson Cano will be the 2010 AL MVP. If the season ended now, would he be? Probably not. But there's a lot of season left and when the dust settles, Robbie will be the MVP. Monster night at the plate tonight for Robbie. 3-for-4 with 2 doubles and the game winning HR off Rafael Soriano in the 9th. Tonight's game ball goes to Robbie. No doubt about it. Cano is on a little mini-tear. He's homered in 3 of the last 4 games and he's 9 for 21 (.429) over the last 5. 7 of his 9 hits have gone for extra bases. Mark my words folks, Robbie will be the MVP.

Not a lot of hits tonight by the Yankees offense but what they did hit they hit hard. 6 hits in total, 3 doubles and 3 HRs. The balls were flying tonight and they were flying far. Joyce's HR was a blast. Teixiera hit a bomb of his own. The chicks tonight must have been going bonkers. Swisher's HR now gives him 20 on the year. The updated pledge amount for Nick's charity, Swish's Wishes, is $808. New to the blog and wondering what I'm talking about? A couple of us Yankee bloggers have gotten together to donate to Nick's charity. Every time Nick goes deep we pledge to donate $38. Want more info? Care to join us? Feel free to drop me a line and I'll give you the info.

Not the best debut for Lance Berkman. My buddy tweeted to me before the game, "F**k Lance Berkman." Not sure what that's all about. As for his debut, it's one game. I'm not going to put much stock in it.

Not Javy Vazquez's best outing of the season but he wasn't bad. David Robertson is making a serious push to be the setup man. He looked impressive tonight. Real impressive. Mariano, as expected, was awesome. He's having arguably the best season of his career. Like a fine wine he's getting better with age. Give that man a multi-year deal already. I have no doubt in my mind that Mo could pitch well into his 50s. He's the G.O.A.T. and he's only getting better.

Big win tonight. The win puts the lead in the East back to 2 and it guarantees that the Yankees leave Tampa in 1st place. The big man goes tomorrow. The odds of a Yankee win are very high when CC gets the ball. A win tomorrow would be mighty nice. So would an A-Rod HR for that matter. I thought for use he'd hit one while they were in Tampa. Alex always seems to hit the ball well when they play in the Trop. I'm calling #600 tomorrow. Hope it happens.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie

Wood In, Park Out, Me A Happy Camper

Got a text alert while at my company's annual summer picnic advising me that the Yankees acquired RP Kerry Wood from the Indians in exchange for a PTBNL. Just found out that to make room for Wood they DFA'd Chan Ho Park. Like the other two deadline deals the Yankees have made, it works for me.

Park was a disaster for the Yankees. It should come as no surprise that they let him go. Now Kerry Wood hasn't exactly been rock solid in recent years. In fact he's been far from it. It's such a low-risk high-reward move that you have to be a fan of it. In the end this is basically going to cost the Yankees very little. Wood is definitely an upgrade to Park. Winner winner chicken dinner.

I'd have to say that the Yankees were definitely one of the trade deadline winners. They grabbed an everyday impact bat, a veteran bat off the bench, and slightly upgrade the bullpen. Not bad for 2 minor leaguers and 2 PTBNLs. Nice job Cashman. The moves make the best team in baseball a little better. Yankee fans should be very pleased. If you're not, I'd love to hear why.

Girardi has Berkman hitting 2nd tonight. I probably would have hit him 6th behind Cano but that's just me. The 2-hole, while not the ideal spot for him in my opinion, works. Let's hope he delivers.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie

Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh Berkman!

Just got the text alert and the deal is official. Welcome to the New York Yankees, Lance Berkman! For those wondering what the title of the blog is all about, all of those nuh-nuh-nuh-nuhs are meant to be the Batman theme song. Bonus points to anyone who picked that up.

The deal breaks down as follows: Yankees acquired Berkman and cash from the Astros in exchange for Mark Melancon and Jimmy Paredes. Works for me. I've never been fully sold on Mark Melancon. I always thought of him as an over-hyped Yankee prospect. Admittedly, I don't have a heck of a lot of exposure to him but from what I've seen I'm not overly impressed. Berkman brings a solid veteran bat to an already potent Yankee lineup. He may be on the decline and not having a typical Lance Berkman type of year, but I think he fits better in the lineup than who the Yankees have now, or could have when and if Nick Johnson ever gets off the disabled list. I think it's safe to admit that nobody cares if that day ever comes.

If I were in charge of filling out the Yankee lineup I'm not sure where I'd slot LB on the lineup card. The choices as I see them are having Berkman hit 2nd, 7th or 8th. I don't see him as a #2 hole hitter but is OBP is decent enough to pull it off. I'd prefer though that they leave Swisher there. Batting him 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 9th are definitely out. I wouldn't hit him 6th unless maybe Posada wasn't in the lineup. I also wouldn't bat Granderson and Gardner back-to-back so to break up the lefties, I'd probably put Berkman in the 8-hole. Lance Berkman hitting 8th? Only in NY. I'm assuming he'll be in tonight's lineup. The game is tonight at 7pm so there's still a few hours before the lineup goes public.

I did get to see most of last night's game though it didn't get my full attention. We had our 7th annual family Pai-gow card game so I was focused more on that. Did have the game on the big screen but with the sound off. Saw Hughes give up the 3-run bomb. Even with a giant buttload of cash in front of me (mainly $1 bills- won $141 altogether) it still bummed me out. I have no complaints about Phil's outing. You have to be pretty near perfect when your team only gives you 2 runs of support. One bad pitch spoiled what could have been a great outing. His pitching line is nothing to balk at. It's one of the better outings Phil's put up recently. It was good to see him bring his game. If only the offense brought theirs.

Game time tonight is 7:10pm. It's a pretty big game. A win puts the Yankees back up by 2. A loss and they'll be tied with the Rays. Javy Vazquez has been pitching pretty well over the last several months. He'll need to bring it tonight as the Rays are throwing out the most recent member of the no-hit club, Matt Garza. Go Javy go.

Almost forgot. The Yanks also made a deal yesterday with the Indians. They get Austin Kearns for the infamous PTBNL. Not blown away by the deal but then again not everybody they deal for needs to be a big named superstar. I really have no feelings about the deal. I have no problems with it. It'll probably end up costing them very little as I'm sure the PTBNL will be some minor-league chump. It's also nice having an extra veteran bat in the lineup. I guess I just talked myself into liking the acquisition. Still though, I shrug a little at it. Have to see how it plays out.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie

Yankees Close To Getting Adam Dunn? Maybe Berkman?

Just heard a rumor that the Yankees may be close to trading for Adam Dunn. After the cliff Lee deal fell through, I'll believe it when I see it.

Personally, I'd love to see Dunn in a Yankee uniform. Sure he Ks a lot but you can't deny that he's an OBP machine who hits for a lot of power. Being a lefty in Yankee Stadium wouldn't hurt either. Dunn is a career .251 hitter but has exceeded that significantly in the last 2 seasons. His career OBP is .382 and his career slugging is .523 (career OPS = .905). Dunn's bat would be a welcomed opinion to the Yankee lineup.

The other name I've heard floated around is the Astros' Lance Berkman. Umm, yes please. Berkman is another guy I'd like to see in a Yankee uniform. He's a lot like Dunn. A little older sure, but very similar offensively. He's probably better. Well, he's definitely better. He doesn't K as much as Dunn and hits for a better average (.296 career). His career OPS is higher than Dunn's @ .959. Sign me up.

I just checked MLBTradeRumors to get the latest scoop and it's all rumor at this point. Peter Gammons says that "The Rays are convinced that the Yankees will acquire Dunn." Joel Sherman (what a douche) says the "Yankees are taking a long hard look at Berkman," and "Berkman would accept a deal to the Yankees." Typical chatter for this time of year. I've learned my lesson with Cliff Lee. Until it's announced anything can happen.

I'm all for bringing in either of these guys, if of course as Drew Carey would say, if the price is right. The Yankees have scored the most runs in MLB and don't need these guys. They'd be nice to have but I wouldn't sell off top prospects for them. But that's me. I've said before that prospects are nothing more than that, prospects. I'd always prefer proven talent to prospects. Assuming there's a need for the proven talent that is. I wouldn't say there is at this point so I'm interested to see/hear who they're discussing. Assuming of course the Yankees are having discussions on these guys. I'm sure a lot of what we hear around the deadline is made up fodder designed to garner page hits. Not surprised if nothing is cooking.

Deadline is tomorrow at 4pm. We'll find out soon enough.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie

Yankees Finish Off The Indians With 11-4 Win, Bring On The Rays

I'd like to thank the Yankees for waiting until I turned the game on tonight to score all of their runs. Last night I missed it all. Tonight I saw it all. Scratch that. I did miss seeing them score their first run. But I did hear that on the radio while I was driving between houses. The 7th inning was a lot of fun to watch. I dig the longball but I like a hit parade a lot better.

Game ball goes to Dustin Moseley. He looked pretty good tonight. I'm nowhere near ready to anoint him the new 5th starter but it was definitely an outing that will earn him some consideration. I will say after seeing this one start I will take Moseley over Sergio Mitre any day of the week. I liked what I saw from him. More please.

Lots of offense tonight. The Yankees sent 12 different hitters to the plate and 10 of them picked up hits. The 2 that didn't were Mark Teixeira and Marcus Thames. I'll give Teixeira a pass because he walked 3 times. The team could have been a little more efficient though. You should score more than 12 runs when you have 12 hits and 12 walks. On the surface the #s with RISP tonight look pretty good. They were 7 for 21. But they started 0-9, maybe 0-10. Not a bad finish.

Nick Swisher should be embarrassed. Striking out against Andy Marte is inexcusable. It was also pretty funny. Marte looked pretty good. Gotta give him credit. Maybe the Yankees should swing a deadline deal for him. Kidding of course.

The A-Rod 600 watch will go on for at least another game. I couldn't help but crack up after every A-Rod AB. I loved when YES would cut to all of the fans pouring out of the left field landing after his AB. Not sure why I found that so funny but I did. I'd like to see Alex hit the HR just to get it over with. If not hitting the HR means 3 RBI, I'd much prefer that.

How ugly/funny was the end of the game? I was all set to write a blurb how the Yankees allowed 7 runs in the 4 game series. Then Joe Girardi and his managing got in the way. I don't really have a problem with the moves Girardi made. They did after all have a 10-run lead entering the 9th. If Joe learns anything from tonight's game I hope it's this: don't let Chan Ho Park pitch unless the Yankees have at least a 10-run lead. Dude is awful. You're up by 10 runs. Throw strikes! Second lesson to learn: don't ever let Marcus Thames play 3rd base again. Something tells me he never will. MT made a pretty sweet stop but totally butchered the throw. Funny stuff.

These last 2 games are a nice way to head to Tampa for a set with the Rays. The team is playing some good baseball. This series with Tampa Bay has the potential to be huge. Here's a chance to put a little distance between them in the standings. A sweep would be nice but is improbable. but hey, you never know. They've got all of the tools to do it. Hughes, Sabathia and Burnett will each get a turn and I like that trio. Hughes gets the ball in the opener and I'm looking for him to be the pace-setter. Again, not expecting a sweep, but 2 of 3 would be nice.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie

Burnett & Bats Lead Yankees To 8-0 Win Over Indians

It took the Yankees 3 innings tonight to equal their combined hit total from the 1st two games of the Indians series. The crappy part about that? I missed it all. Even with the rain delay. We're building a house and it's less than 2 weeks away from being done so the wife and I went to take a look at it. I got home, flipped the game on and it was pretty much already over as the Yankees were up 7-0. It was nice to see that the offense finally decided to show up this series, even though I missed it all. 8 runs on 13 hits. Yeah, that'll play. Here's some thoughts:

A.J. Burnett gets my game ball tonight. Really nice outing from him. He's now won 3 of his last 4 and seems to have gotten back on track for the most part. Over his last 5 starts he's 3-1, 27 IP, 24 H, 8 BB, 6 ER, 20 K, 2.00 ERA. If he keeps pitching like that everyone will forget about the little fib he told about falling and hurting his hand. If they haven't already that is. A.J. needs to step it up and keep this nice run going. His starts are a lot more important with Andy Pettitte on the DL.

Derek Jeter had a rough night at the dish. He went 0-5 and was the only Yankee without a hit. Jeet is definitely having a down year. When I think of Derek Jeter I don't think of a .274 hitter. Just when you think he's busted out of the slump he mixes in an oh-fer. To his credit he has done better recently, going 14-for-45 (.311) over his last 10 games. Hopefully the corner has been turned.

Mark Teixeira really puzzles me. I can't figure out how he can start so bad and then end up with MVP-like numbers. He entered the month of July hitting .231. His 2 hits tonight bumped his average up to .262. He's now hitting .377 this month with 7 HR and 24 RBI. That's a helluva month right there.

A-Rod is still stuck on 599 HRs. As long as he keeps knocking in runs he can stay at 599 for all I care. It's hard to believe that Alex has 82 RBI on the season. I hadn't check the leaderboard in awhile and was surprised to see he had the 2nd most RBI in all of MLB.

I thought it was absolutely hilarious that Girardi trucked Joba out there to pitch when the Yankees had an 8-run lead. If that doesn't send a message to Joba I don't know what will. It's evident that Girardi has no confidence in Joba right now and why should he? Why should anyone? He's been absolutely terrible. His ERA hasn't been below 4.75 since May 25th. God that's bad. It hasn't been below 4 since May 16th. I hope Joba has fun being the mop-up guy.

Sergio Mitre seems to be one-and-done as a Yankee SP. You won't hear me complaining about that.

Both the Rays and Red Sox won. It's going to be a dog fight the rest of the way. 3 days til the trade deadline. Not a lot of rumors floating around there. I'd like to see the Yanks shore up the bullpen and maybe a grab a decent bat. Nothing really seems to be in the works, but who knows? Things seem to manifest out of nowhere. I think the Yanks will do something. It wouldn't be the trade deadline if they didn't.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie

Brian Cashman, You Done Messed Up

As I sit here twiddling my thumbs because I'm missing tonight's game (thanks Verizon FiOS) a thought came to me: whatever happened to Nick Johnson? Surprise surprise surprise. He's injured. Didn't see that coming. A quick scan of his player card on Yahoo tells me that he's been out of action since May 7th. He's appeared in all of 24 games and is getting paid $5.75 million dollars for his troubles. It was a horrible signing when it happened. It's a horrible signing now. Just take a look at these 3 off-season signings and their 2010 stats (salary info from Cot's Baseball Contracts):

• Nick Johnson, signed on 12/18/09, 1 yr @ $5.75 million, 24 G, .167/.388/.306, 8 RBI
• Vlad Guerrero, signed on 1/11/10, 1 yr @ $6.5 million, 93 G, .309/.358/.521, 76 RBI
• Hideki Matsui, signed on 12/16/09, 1 yr @ $6 million, 94 G, .255/.333/.429, 55 RBI

At the time of the signing I wondered why Cashman didn't resign Hideki Matsui considering the money was pretty much the same. Nick Johnson may get on base a lot but what good does that do when you're always on the DL. If memory serves me correctly he had to leave the very first spring training game because he was hurt. I typically like Brian Cashman's moves but he totally missed the boat on this one. He done messed up and he messed up pretty good if you ask me.

The non-waiver trade deadline is less than 4 days away. The Yankees are reportedly in the market for improving their bench. I hope Cashman exercises better judgement here than he did with the Johnson signing. That signing after all is one of the main reasons the team finds themselves looking for bench help. That horrible signing could cost the team a prospect or two depending on what happens. We'll find out soon enough what, if anything, it'll end up costing them. Deadline is this Saturday. Fun fun fun.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie

Pitching Leads Yanks To 3-2 Victory Over Indians

I got to catch the last 3.2 innings of tonight's Yankees game. By the time I put the kids to bed the game was pretty much over. Who knew an MLB game could be 2/3 of the way done in 1.5 hours? I almost turned the game off within minutes of turning it on. I didn't even have it on 3 minutes before the Indians took a 2-1 lead. I'm a firm believer in jinxes and was thinking i might be causing some bad mojo. Since tomorrow night's game is on My9, which Verizon FiOS doesn't carry, I stuck with it. Thanks to Curtis Granderson for getting me off the hook.

Javy Vazquez is putting together a nice little season. He's been pretty good in his last 10 starts. JV is 6-2 in those starts with an ERA of 3.05. That's pretty darn good if you ask me. I never would have guessed that he would have bounced back as well as he has. Great outing tonight.

I'm not sure how you felt about the 8th inning but I was very happy not to see Joba Chamberlain in the game. He's way too unreliable and it's evident that the Yankees think so too. David Robertson came up big getting the DP. D-Rob hasn't exactly been awesome this season but he's on a nice roll. He hasn't allowed a run in his last 8 outings. He's got a pretty nice line in those games too: 8.1 IP, 5 H, 3 BB, 11 K. Pretty sweet. He's definitely the most reliable RP right now, outside of Mariano that is. Mo is just awesome, isn't he? I had no idea his ERA is as low as it is. His scoreless inning tonight dropped it to a microscopic 0.96. Wow. He's the greatest closer of all-time hands down. They should change the name of the "save" to the "mariano." I think I'm going to start a campaign for MLB to do that. Mo now has 21 marianos on the season. I like the sound of that.

Not much offense tonight but what they got came in a big way. Nick Swisher went deep for HR #18. That HR added another $38 to the Swish's Wishes pledge drive. We're up to $732 raised for Nick's charity. Want more info on what I'm talking about? Click here. The deathblow tonight came from Curtis Granderson. Curtis has found a little power stroke. 3 HRs in the last 2 games for CG. Hopefully that's a sign of more to come from the Grandyman. His overall numbers leave a lot to be desired.

A-Rod is still stuck on 599 HRs. I predict he'll hit #600 tomorrow. Namely because I won't be watching thanks to My9 and Verizon FiOS. Things like that always happen when I can't watch so I fully expect it to happen tomorrow night. If I'm lucky maybe ESPN or the MLB Network will have live cut-ins. I can only be so lucky. If they happen to then I'm sure the HR will come before I get the kids to bed. That's just how it goes.

Another no-no tonight. Unreal. Congrats to Matt Garza.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie