It seems like no matter who Torre brings in there, if his name isn't Sturtze/Gordon/Rivera then we have no chance of closing out the game. People have to step the fuck up and get people out. Watching Leiter was so painful, his facial expressions not withstanding either. Leiter really pissed me off, everything was going so smoothly for the Yanks and we all wanted to have an easy relaxed win. You want people (core bullpen staff) to be as fresh as possible and Leiter couldn't fucken throw a strike down the middle of the plate to save his life.

BTW, did anyone else notice how Palmeiro has turned into a rat? Can Raffy possibly damage his reputation any more? I don't feel sorry for him whatsoever.

I do think the Matt Lawton magic returned to whatever rusty lamp it briefly emerged from...

Stock up on the Tums everyone, it's going to be a wild week ahead ! Thank God we're a game up. I hope we keep hitting.

Does anyone have middle relief anymore ? No more Leiter I guess. Sturtz (the pride of Worcester makes me terrified).

Who knows ? Maybe the Sox are toast. It will be an interesting week to say the least.

He inherited Leiter's mess, and so apart from the double by Lopez he really didn't have much trouble...

I think the rest did him some good- here's hoping he's back to last year's form in time for the Fenway series..

"The Red Sox are DEAD in the water! They're toast"

Their exhausted, banged up, and now even Timlin is talking publicly about running on fumes. He's gassed, which means that unless that young kid Hansen suddenly turns into Mo Rivera, they ahve no bullpen what so ever.

If the Yanks don't sail into Boston next weekend with anything less than a 2 game lead, then we deserve to not make the playoffs...because the Sox aren't beating us this year, only we can lose the division now.

I know. I kinda feel the same way. Then I remember last year.....

Let's all be a little humbler this year, shall we?

"Shhhh..."

I love the Yanks spirit these days. They're being very stubborn about winning. Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the Yankee teams of the late 90's excellent at staking the opponents to a lead, and slowly marching back to take the game in the 7th or 8th inning? It was like a formula that kept them hungry and aggressive. Well, this past month has been different for sure, but like the Indians, I get the feeling watching the Yanks that the game is won before it starts; the actual playing of it is just variation on a winning theme.

I really want to be up 2 heading into Boston next weekend.

The one day off will help the sox a lot, especially since they will be heading into the weekend series with more rest than we will, which for obvious bullpen reasons, matters a lot

So if we can make up 5 games in 12 days, they can certainly make up 1 or 2 games in 10...it's not like we're suddenly that much better a team.

With that said, I like our "aces" better than theirs and our closers better than theirs. Between our washed up middle relievers and their super young erratic ones, I like theirs better and they've got a great future, but the distinction isn't that dramatic (yet). They have a better schedule than us the last week thanks to the home games (though Sox fans would beg to differ).

So it's going to be tight....but boy, would I love to be wrong and see the current trend lines continue.

I hear you both, but this is not even close to the same Red Sox team as 2004. Last year, the Yanks took three straight from a sleeping giant who was still at full strength.

This year, I honestly believe that the only thing that might carry the Sox to the division title is heart, and only heart (which is a questionable asset when your #4 hitter is still joggin down the 1st base line on ground outs).

As I've said before, the Sox have no closer, no legit #1 starter, a banged up leadoff hitter/CF, an exhausted catcher, a defensively challenged SS, etc.

I also FINALLY see a fire in this Yankee team. Whatever the reasom, keep it going boys!!! The Yanks are finally waking up from the hangover of last year's ALCS collapse...and it looks to me like they're on a mission.

God, I hope I'm right.

If you haven't seen it, you MUST find a way. It's inspiring in more ways than just the typical athletic success story.

I think Torre should prepare his troops for the final 10 games by showing the last 20 minutes of the film to the team. The fight between an aging Braddock and the current champion, and swaggering jerk, Max Baer.

In this equation, the Yankees are the team everyone was shoveling dirt on as old and washed up. They reveled in the fact that we'd miss the playoffs and the Red Sox were full of themselves. Now we're showing the guts that got us here before (see Posada's game yesterday) and we need to last the final 10 rounds.

Posada being hot in late September is a new thing, isn't it?

I do like our chances. maybe this is when we need the "calmness" of Torre most

The reason I had earlier said that minor league stats almost always translate to major league ability was because of the few folks like Juan Cruz, who absolutely destroy the minors (for Cruz, 90/28 K/BB in 75 IP at AAA in '05) but have trouble in the bigs (33/21 K/BB in 30 IP for the A's in '05).

That said, I don't think Colter Bean would have any such problems.

"251. Rich
Wang starts on Sunday; Small to the pen:

http://www.nj.com/sports/ledger/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/1127451145286840.xml&coll=1"

"In this equation, the Yankees are the team everyone was shoveling dirt on as old and washed up. They reveled in the fact that we'd miss the playoffs and the Red Sox were full of themselves. Now we're showing the guts that got us here before (see Posada's game yesterday) and we need to last the final 10 rounds."

I really am enjoying this team's way of overcoming adversity, but much like a fish rots from the head and people were blaming Torre for not lighting a fire under this team. We must give him credit for making this team understand the sense of urgency of winning this thing outright. Listening to Torre yesterday on the WFAN I can see why this team responds to him, he doesn't bullshit them with managerial speak and rah-rah type shit. He makes it quite clear what they must do and sets up small accomplishments for them that they must achieve. He doesn't say win every game, but he says stuff like: "In order for us to win the division, we need a 7 game winning streak sometime in the next 18 games" (he actually said that last week on WFAN).

If I were playing baseball I would respond to that, I would respond to the goal that he's setting. Immediately thereafter another goal is set, so it keeps the team hungry. When they were losing all those games he kept mentioning the fact that the team needed to be 10 games over .500, then 15, then 20. To me, hate to make it so simplisitic, but that's the part of managing we all fail to understand.

Keep it up Joe and keep it up Yanks.

Go Yankees! I'm headed out from CA to see the last 3 games against Boston with an old friend and Sox fan. God, I need some payback for last year; he makes recordings of the key Boston plays and leaves them on my voice recorder when I arrive home from work. Yankees vs. Sox for the division; the best baseball has to offer.

You took the words right out of my mouth. This is it, boys...as important as the next 7 games are, the final 3 games will make or break this season...

Although I've gone on the record to say that I don't think the Sox, as constituted today, have the healthy tools to take this division, the AL East may very well still be up for grabs next weekend.

Torre MUST give his key players some rest over the next 7 days in order for them to be recharged and ready for next weekend. Mo, Gordo, Sturtze, Giambi, Shef, Posada and Bernie must be firing on all cylinders come next Friday. That means that over the next two series against the Jays and O's, guys like Proctor, Leiter, Embree, Small, Wright, Sierra, and Felix Rodriguez NEED to pick up the slack and be effective.

With a one game deficit in the standings, the Sox will not have the luxury to rest their core players...they'll be grinding it out until next weekend. We have the slim advantage...let's do it!

I'd also say leaving Leiter in too long WAS Torre's fault. Yes, Leiter pitched horribly. But when it was obvious that Al had no control, why didn't Torre get someone up then? A very reasonable question. IMHO, both deserve blame.

And finally, in the last 21 days, Sturtze has thrown all of 5.1 innings. I don't think he needs any rest.

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2005/09/23/on_second_thought/

It's actually pretty funny.

That was the key inning - get through the 8th and those 2 hitters with Sturze, then you can have any scrub pitch to the bottom of the order in the 9th. Torre screwed it up, plain and simple.

Great quote by Eck on Rivera in the Times article.

The Yankees' middle relief is bad, but Torre makes it much worse than it needs to be.

Few managers handle a pen worse than he does.

:

http://www.yesnetwork.com/yankees/pinstripedbible.asp

[...]

THE AMAZING ARMLESS RACE

Despite the Yankees' improved pennant-race picture, some things are still not working. Led by Scott Proctor and Alan Embree, the Yankees nearly punted a 10-3 run on Tuesday night. This is par for the course for this uninspired crew. All season long, the Yankees have struggled to come up with anything resembling adequate middle relief. Excluding Mariano Rivera and Tom Gordon, Yankees relievers have an ERA of 5.27. These are pitchers who can lose you a game if they allow one run and they're being battered for almost a run more than the league average pitcher, whose ERA is 4.36.

It is not too late to fix this. The Yankees have alternatives from within the organization who are worth trying. This is less than ideal, but as has often been said, one definition of insanity is trying the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. Proctor and Embree are the definition of insanity.

If the Red Sox are still calling up relievers (check out the debut of not-drafted-by-the-Yankees prospect Craig Hansen on Monday) the Yankees can, too. Columbus lefty Matt Smith pitched 26 innings against left-handed batters this year, allowed 15 hits, and struck out 38. Ben Julianel allowed 27 hits to lefties in 27 1/3 innings, struck out 36 and didn't allow them a home run. On the right-handed side, there's Jason Anderson, who held batters to a .190 average in 68 innings, walking 18 and striking out 60. No one is a big Anderson believer at this point, but he's worth a try. He walked seven in 5 2/3 innings with the major league club this year, but clearly that was just nerves. The Double-A Trenton closer was righty Justin Pope, a former starter obtained from the Cardinals with Julianel. Pope had 64 career starts, but moved to the pen this year and posted strong results: 77 innings, 65 hits, 20 walks, and 55 strikeouts.

Heck, if you want to get really crazy, the Yankees could try 2005 15th-round draft choice Josh Schmidt (again, if the Red Sox are bringing in 2005 draftees, so can the Yankees, where it makes sense). A righty out of the University of the Pacific, Schmidt was named to the ABCA All-West Region Second Team in his senior year. A 22-year-old, 6-foot-4, 175-pound college closer, Schmidt pitched 33 innings as a pro, allowed just 14 hits (a .128 opponent's average), walked eight, and struck out 47. Clearly he was ahead of the competition — this was a guy who was second in the nation with 13.3 strikeouts per nine innings — and scouts didn't think highly enough of him to recommend him to Baseball America before the draft. Still, desperate times call for desperate measures.

Now is not the time to try new things, there's a reason why the Sawx don't want to put their season in a young and extremely talented Hansen. What would happen to his career if he gave up the biggest homerun in Red Sox history to - imagine this - Tony F'en Womack? I'll tell you what'll happen, he'll be lynched in Kenmore square and be traded to Pittsburgh for Jose Mesa. He would probably never recover.

I used Womack because it's the guy we least think of that'll hit the long fly.

As I have been saying; oh and thanks for stealing my line Goldman ". . . one definition of insanity is trying the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. Proctor and Embree are the definition of insanity." Not that I coined it, but I have said it every day for weeks.

What Joe must doe is dump Proctor and Embree, move Small and Wright to the pen. This shores up the pen and removes uncertainty and tension in the middle innings.

He must then move to a 4 man rotation.

Moose
RJ
Chacon
Wang

RJ prefers 4 days rest to the conventional 5 anyway, Moose will be fine, and if he goes 5, Wright or Small can pick up the pieces.

The Yes Network staff is only 4 weeks behind what I have been saying all along.

It is, however, too late to bring up the youngsters, although it remains a better option than the status quo.

Under my scenario, adding Mo and Gordon, and an occassional Sturtz, we have 10 solid pitchers, why we are using anyone else is beyond my comprehension.

10 is plenty for the remainder of the year, and plenty for the playoffs.

Thanks to the press for catching on, some 4-6 weeks too late.

How did calling up a rookie to close work out for the 2002 Angels?

Mussina reportedly hates changes in his routine, and I tend to trust him to know how he pitches best.