Nice to see Bernie have a couple hits. Will Andy ever get a start?

I am going to the game on Saturday with Wright pitching. I hope the bats are awake that day.

How great was Paulie O's story about Mariano and "Enter Sandman" before the top of the 9th? Got chills, great to have baseball back.

He's a great asset for this YES team, especially when he tools on Kay.

I like analysis and chicory flavored baseball lore as much as anyone, but silence is golden sometimes and I often find myself wishing someone would shut up for a half a second.

There's enough intrigue in the "nat sound" at a ballgame, and the idea that you are thinking along with the managers and players is interesting too. 5 seconds of zipped lips would serve YES well from time to time. Personally, I like it when Jim Kaat and Bobby Murcer are in the booth together.

Great win. Exciting drama. Let's keep the baton moving.

Look for a review of Alex's book in the next 3 or 4 days. Got busy and didn't make a dent in the last couple of chapters, so I'm back at it tonight.

As if Steinbrenner didn't have anything better to do than indulge the Yankee-hating Chassticle during the Yankees Home Opener.

Right, Murray, he should have made you a priority.

As for Lupica, I don't buy the phony sentimentality his column today. That pandering vulture hates the Yankees as much as anybody, and can't wait to see the grand old Stadium replaced.

re: Opening Day flops, Wang & Sheffield: I'm not worried about either of these guys. They're tough and talented enough to snap out of their funks.

But Sturtze is a concern. His arm should be a weapon, not a liability. Can he be fixed, Mr. Kerrigan?

Here's hoping for a strong showing from Lord Farnswacker today.

Let's hope with Opening Day behind us that the media fixation on Damon cools a bit.

BP

I'm so sick of Sturtze. I cannot believe he's still living off of having 3 good weeks one September.

http://tinyurl.com/gsfan

1) A close game is a close game -- whether you're playing against the Angels or the Royals, there are situations where you need to push one run, and you do it by moving runners over.

2) I don't get the Johan Santana argument. Yeah if it's Santana vs. RJ, you are more likely to play for one run early in the game. But by the time you get to mid-late, the score dictates, not the guy on the mound. Down by 1 at home in the 8th -- play to tie. You don't strategize for a three-run homer when you're down by 1. If it happens, great.

3) Small ball is a mindset. Small ball teams don't always sacrifice -- they move runners over without sacrificing, too. Take the 1st yesterday. Damon doubles. Jeter grounds out to SS. Hitting the ball to the right side in that situation isn't giving away an out -- hell, Jete hits mostly to the right side anyway. There is no excuse for anyone -- even Jeter who almost never makes a mistake -- grounding out to SS in that situation...especially the #2 hitter in your lineup. I don't care who you're playing or who's on the mound.

Go back and look at our teams from 96, 98, 99, 00. We had power hitters and guys with 110+ RBIs every year. But when you watched them play, they didn't blow the fundamentals of the game -- they moved the leadoff hitter to 3rd in that situation 95% of the time. In fact, that's one of the things that made Jeter the best #2 hitter in the league at the start of his career.

Go back to the games so far this season -- we have made a habit of stranding runners on 2nd or 3rd with no outs in the first inning. Those guys need to score! -- on ground balls, sac flys, whatever. Scoring a run or two in the first inning puts pressure on the other team no matter how you do it. I'm happy we got away with one yesterday. Jeter came up with the big hit as he has so many times in his career. I'm not happy about the way we're playing, though.

What people are objecting to is having Damon bunt to move the runners over when the pitcher is struggling and the heart of the lineup now has one less out to work with. Why play for one run against KC? That is the "small ball" people are objecting to.

Both small ball and Earl Weaver (2 walks and a homerun) philosophy require productive outs to be successful. You can't always get a hit or a walk. But with your out, can you be productive -- move the runner over, sac fly, etc?

That is what the Yanks are lacking right now, productive outs. A lot of that has to do with a slumping Sheffield coming to bat with men on bases and hitting a DP or striking out.

I wonder if giving up chewing tobacco is giving him trouble. Or the lack of a contract extension. He keeps playing like this, he will have a hard time getting that extension.

To be honest, I think he shouldnt be in this rotation once Small comes back. He is too valuable of a young arm to pushing him like this onto the big league stage. I think our starting rotation is too deep to bringing young guys up and getting their confidence jacked by the lowly royals. We should be bringing him up when we need him, like last year.

I think he should have opted for that surgery last year regardless if he didnt need it. Something tells me, there just isn't something right with his mechanics, lately.

I think it is a reflection of the Yankee lineup when we think of Wang and Phillips (age 29) as "young" prospects.

Now, if its the 8th or 9th inning, and the game is tied, or the Yanks are down by 1, then and only then is a sacrifice maybe the way to go. For example, in a tie game in the 8th or 9th, with Damon on second and Jeter on first, no one out, you damn well don't have Sheff bunting. If, for some strange reason, Cairo is at the plate, then of course a bunt is proper.

Others have elsewhere made the case, pretty conclusively, that Buster Olney's so-called 'productive outs' have next to no correlation with scoring runs - or winning, for that matter. That said, I too seem to recall the '96 and '98-'00 Yanks excelling in moving the runners over, etc. I prefer data to my memory, though.

Unfortunately, retrosheet doesn't have PBP data for '93-'99, so I can't go back and verify if those Yankee teams really did excel at 'productive outs'. However, they do have the 2000 PBP data, and I'll take a look at that - specifically what Jeter did, or I'll be at this all week - and let you all know what I find.

I also think, prompted by a lot of off-season media hyperbole, most of us were hoping for Wang to be something he's not - a lights-out ace.

20: You may be right that too much has been expected of Wang this year but, really, what's the alternative? You mentioned pitching depth. The Yanks don't have pitching depth - they have bodies. Very mediocre bodies.

The annoying thing is, there's some research now that suggests that the reason some lefty hitters struggle with lefty pitchers is because, when they were young, they were almost always taken out against lefty pitchers. In other words, they never learned to hit them because they never got the chance to hit them.

Let's hope Torre doesn't similarly decide to screw up Cano's development by playing Cairo everytime the Yanks face a lefty.

But I still contend that the decision to play for 1 / play for a big inning is situation-driven not opponent-driven. The problem is that this team (and I mean the players) has developed a philosophy that they should always play for the big inning. They fail to make contact with a runner on 3rd and less than two outs. They don't hit the ball to the right side with a leadoff runner at 1st. Instead, they always try to get the big hit. And that philosophy is a product of the way they have been playing for 2+ years.

If that philosophy doesn't change, they will tank in the post season the same way they have every year since 2000. They can't just "turn on" the small ball switch in October -- it must be natural to them to do the right thing in a given situation.

Has he had 1 good game out there yet?

He has absolutely got top catch those. I hazard to say that even Bernie would have snagged that.