Ugh.
I hate games like this one.
Your starting pitcher has squat. In fact, he’s knocked out of the game in the second inning. All told, he ends up allowing 5 runs to score while retiring only four batters in the game. And, yes, that’s bad.
However, the starter is replaced by a rookie pitcher who, overall, holds his own. Sure, he allows a hit that plates two inherited runners. And, he later allows a solo homer. Yet, all told, he goes five innings, saves your pen, and retires 15 of the 22 batters that he faces. And, yes, that’s good.
On the flip-side, your batters are terrible through the first 8 innings of the game – earning only three hits and scoring no runs. And, yes, that’s bad.
However, in the ninth inning, they stage a rally – scoring five runs in total. And, yes, that’s good.
It’s a mixed bag – some bad, some good, some more bad and some more good. It’s tough to tell whether you should be happy, or sad, or both with a game like this…until you see the final score…
…and, then you see that you’ve lost the game by a score of seven to five.
Then you wonder: What if the starter, Rasner, wasn’t so bad? And, what if the Yankees batters weren’t swinging rolled up wet newspapers for bats during the first eight innings of this game? Could they have won this contest?
Which, of course, brings you back to…
Ugh.
4 Responses to “September 4th @ The Rays”
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September 5th, 2008 at 1:32 am
All of Yankee Universe awaits your judgment! A ruling on whether A-Rod’s ninth inning homer was “clutch!” You see, he had a ninth inning RBI, the dearth of which you’ve been harping on him for all year. Yet, it ultimately resulted in a losing cause! So, clearly, A-Rod was unclutch for not being able to hit a three-run homer with no one on base.
Unless, of course, one wanted to point out that A-Rod was 0 for 2 with two walks up to that point. But then, one would have to admit that runs in the fifth inning matter just as much as runs in the ninth inning. Which would be obviously false, right?
Oh, the conundrum…
September 5th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Yes, A-Rod’s homer in the 9th, seemed clutch to me. But, that’s what? How many of those have happened in how many opportunities presented?
September 5th, 2008 at 8:14 am
How about the one from the night before? It was so clutch that it finally let MLB test the new instant replay system.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:51 am
As I was watching the ninth inning I was really torn between wanting to pick up a 1/2 game vs a fear that this could be the kind of late-season comeback win that inspires the Yankees the rest of the way.
But Steve, its not really fair to look at it as a “what if they didn’t allow quite as many runs” situation. The guys on the Rays broadcast were talking about Maddon wanting that pitcher to have a stress-free game to build on. Obviously had the game been closer, he wouldn’t have put in such a scrub and the Yankees probably don’t get any closer.