Things have gone exactly to plan for the Yankees so far this postseason.
New York tanked the American League East so it could face the whipping boy Twins instead of Cliff Lee and the Rangers, and what happened?
The Bombers once again easily dispatched of Minnesota in three games, while the AL East champion Rays were taken to the limit before being eliminated thanks to Lee's second dominating performance in the AL Division Series.
Now, not only do the Yanks avoid playing pesky Tampa Bay, which took 10 of 18 from New York ...
Brendan Prunty of The Newark Star-Ledger wrote a pretty cool piece today about a hitting drill that Kevin Long developed while he was hitting coach of the Wichita Wranglers.
Brandon Berger was his first subject to be exposed to the drill and he went from 18 home runs in a season to 40. Today Robinson Cano is the drill’s main benefactor as the young second baseman who always hit for a high average has become a potential 30-home run hitter.
Here is a short excerpt, but the entire article is well ...
It’s Thursday, that means today is the last day we have to suffer through before the Yankees start back up again. Was this long delay really necessary?
Here are some notes:
The Yankees have finally announced their ALCS rotation: C.C. Sabathia in Game 1, Phil Hughes in Game 2, Andy Pettitte in Game 3 and A.J. Burnett in Game 4.
The ALCS roster will be the same as the ALDS roster.
Burnett threw a simulated game yesterday and hit two batters, but called it a big step forward.
Javier ...
This Friday night, at Rangers Stadium, the New York Yankees and Texas Rangers will take the field for Game 1 of the ALCS. Both teams promise a battle with the hopes of winning a chance to play in the 2010 World Series. On the mound, both Texas and New York are starting left-handed pitchers, who also share similar abbreviated first names that begin with the letter ‘C’, but that is about it. For the Rangers, sending out 29-year old CJ (Christopher John) Wilson to face the Yankees ace and CY ...
What's the best cure for a struggling team entering the postseason? Sweep another team in the first round of the playoffs.
That's what the Yankees certainly were able to do in the ALDS when they swept the Minnesota Twins and are now moving on to the American League Championship Series for the second straight year.
And for the second straight year, they will be facing an American League West team in the series. This year, it's against the Texas Rangers, and not the Los Angeles Angels.
The Rangers pulled off what many consider ...
After a brilliant performance in Game 3 from Phil Hughes, Joe Girardi has decided to switch him and Pettitte in the playoff rotation. And not only that, A.J. Burnett is getting the nod in Game 4. This may come as a surprise to a lot of people after Pettitte's good outing against the Twins in Game 2, and A.J. Burnett's horrendous regular season. But you have to trust the decisions your manager makes and I'm sure Joe Girardi knows what he's doing. Phil Hughes pitched seven shutout innings against the ...
But he did say it was a big step forward.
Via Chad Jennings:
When the Yankees set up a simulated game, they try to make everything as real as possible. It doesn’t get more real than this: A.J. Burnett plunked two batters today. He got Greg Golson early, then he hit Austin Kearns late.
[snip]
Both hit batters came on two-seam fastballs that got away, and Burnett laughed about them afterward. So did Kearns, who was grazed in the upper arm. Those two pitches aside, Burnett was happy with his outing. ...
Via MLB.com:
Losing Carlos Pena and Rafael Soriano hurts, but Carl Crawford came up through the organization’s farm system and has been the team’s biggest star in franchise history—so the prospect of C.C. leaving hurt most.
“I don’t want to leave, everybody knows that,” Crawford said. “I like it here. I’ve made that known. I wish something was able to be worked out.”
Two things here. First, he spoke in the past tense about wishing something could be worked out. The other is that the Rays seem to be set ...
Via Variety:
Fox and Cablevision ramped up the war of words behind their retransmission battle Tuesday.
Both sides dug their heels in, as it began to look less likely that a deal could be hammered out by midnight Saturday morning—when the cable operator’s deal to carry WNYW and WWOR in New York and WTXF in Philadelphia (as well as select News Corp.-owned cable networks) is set to expire.
Essentially what’s going on here is that Fox is demanding a certain amount of money from Cablevision who is refusing to pay. If they don’t ...
I am a fine connoisseur of movies that fall under the banner of "so bad, they're good."If it has stilted dialogue, gaping plot holes, poor special effects and gratuitous sex scenes, I am in.Classics like the Thomas Ian Griffith thriller Crackerjack (1994), Shannon-Elizabeth-gets-violated-by-a-carrot horror flick Jack Frost (1997) and the Billy Ray Cyrus action epic Radical Jack (2002) are shockingly dreadful movies that I've watched multiple times, usually while inebriated, with great delight.This weekend I reached the peak of the "so bad they're good" mountain with The Room, a 2003 ...