a700hitter

Yanks take a 4-2 lead going into the 9th. Hmmm, maybe they would rather play the Sox.:lol::lol:

Logan in for Wade. Rays still leading 2-1 in the 8th.

They might want to consider working D Mac into the rotation. He throws pretty hard.

What a trade deadline reinforcement! He should have come with a box of ace bandages.

Wade in for Laffey.

Kotchman with a lead off double against Laffey.

With 1 out and a man on 3rd, Romine lined into a DP to 3rd to end the inning.

Laffey in for Kontos

Kontos to replace Valdes.

2 Runs 4 hits and 1 BB in 2 2/3 innings. He'd be our #3, but he is losing today.

Yanks are warming up Raul Valdes to take over for Noesi. Girardi will parade out 1 pig after another today until he finds one that the Rays like.

Rays up 2-1 Top of the 3rd

Yanks with a 5 man lineup in game 1. I hope those 5 have a really big day.

Wow! What a surprise!

Have they posted the lineups for game 1? I hope that idiot, Maddon has penciled in 2 third basemen again.

I agree.

After losing my parents within 3 1/2 weeks of each other at the beginning of the year and my brother having a heart attack a month later, I think have gained perspective. It still sucks that they are losing, and the games do give me a headache, but it is quite a strange ride for the 2011 team-- extreme ups and downs. They sucked terribly at the beginning. They were dominant through the middle of the season, and now they look almost completely inept. I can't reconcile the swing in their performance. A few injuries should not make a team go from the 27 Yankees to the 62 Mets. It's sort of comical. Our OF play in the last week has been a blooper reel. The baserunning has been atrocious too. I will remain hopeful though the end, and I will have fun with it, but I will be brutally honest in my assessment of their shortcomings.

Unfortunately, Burnett is pitching his best in months and Wakefield's fuel gauge has been bouncing off E for quite some time. I hope Tito reconsiders this decision.

I was at the games on Saturday and Sunday, and I have to agree that there is a lot less passion. In the biggest series of the year with a packed house, the fans just didn't seem to care about what was going on on the field. Late in the game on Saturday in a close tense game, the crowd did the wave for at least half an inning and then of course they all sang Sweet Caroline to each other. On Sunday, there was also little passion. It's like the game is only part of the experience. I would have rationalized the lack of passion on Sunday on the fact that they fell far behind early and they stayed behind, but It was the same lack of enthusiasm in a close game on Saturday. Where are the real fans? Too many people on this site act like you have killed their mother if you criticize a player. They will go nuts trying to prove you wrong, and they get personal about it. We should be able to have opinions and not get attacked personally. Criticism and emotion in a game thread has to be expected. That's what passionate fans do. Are they always right? No, but what is the point of arguing to win a stupid point with a person who is already emotionally upset that his team is losing. It's a recipe for a nasty argument. There is no sense in defending the FO. Management is always to blame in every organization. Period. They reap the rewards of success, so they have to take accountability for failure. We as fans are allowed to disagree with managements decisions. We are allowed to have opinions. This is not science. I am sorry sabrenaticians, but almost nothing is provable by your stats, because we cannot compare it to the road not taken. We just don't know how things would have turned out if they had made different decisions. All that we can do is judge based on results. I don't buy the "it could have been worse" argument. To me that is not the argument of an optimist. Could things have been worse? I think that is always the case, but I think it is possible that things could have been better.

You would think the older dude like me would cling to the notion of luck playing a role. I had to reject it many years ago, because it didn't hold up living in NY.

We're all frustrated. There's plenty of cold months to dissect the reasons for losing. Let's hope that we don't blow this thing so we can enjoy some playoff baseball. Goodnight. See ya all tomorrow.

Let me clarify once more. When I say that I don't believe in luck, I reject it as an excuse. Random good and bad luck evens out over 162 games. I am not sure what you are disagreeing with.

What about the bad luck that the Yankees lost Jeter and ARod for several games, or that they lost Hughes for most of the season and that he has been ineffective most of the time when he wasn't injured. They lost Soriano for most of the season and Joba as well. Pedro Felicaino never pitched an inning. The luck evens out. They have had their share of bad luck.