A baseball team cannot blow eighth inning leads three games in a row and expect to win the majority of those games. It cannot.

If CC Sabathia pitches your team seven innings of one run ball, and your team has scored five runs, there is utterly no reason that that game should be lost.

You can argue whether or not Cervelli should have bunted (he shouldn’t), whether Winn should have been pinch hit for (not a possibility because Posada and Swisher are still too hurt), or the merits of Thames playing in the outfield (he shouldn’t, but again, not really any other option), but tonight’s game came down to one thing:

Joba failed.

A set-up man handed a 5-1 lead in the eighth inning needs to leave that inning with the lead. End of story.

However, tonight, the second time in three games, Chamberlain could not get the job done. You can argue that Girardi should have removed Chamberlain earlier, but with the bullpen, in Girardi’s words, “a mess”, Chamberlain really did need to get the job done. He did not.

You can argue the leverage argument–that once the game got to 5-4, Rivera should have made an appearance, but rushing Rivera to get ready on a rainy night in the forties in May is also not necessarily the best course of action.

@leokitty kindly offers us this clue as to maybe why Chamberlain could not get the job done tonight.

I’m no pitching expert, so I can’t tell you what he should have thrown, but half of the pitching battle is (supposedly) that the hitters don’t actually know what’s coming. With Joba, you don’t necessarily have to guess.

So yes, once the ninth inning played out as it did, Marcus Thames should have caught the baseball, the umpires should have called a strike, Cervelli should have not bunted because Robbie Canó was already at second base and Cisco’s got some great RISP numbers, and Randy Winn swung at ball four twice, but NONE of that matters if the Yankees actually manage to hang onto a four run lead in the ninth inning.

Last year, we made fun of the Phillies (and the year before, the Mets) for bullpens that weren’t getting the job done. I know the Yankee bullpen has been overworked, but when Sabathia gives you seven and your two best relievers are available, you have to find a way to win that game.

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There is no possible way I can sum up this game. None. So take a look at this graph. It’s shiny.

(via Fangraphs)

Okay, bullet points:

1) Phil Hughes had his first not good outing, even though he left the game with a lead. Basically, he didn’t have a ‘finish’ pitch working, and the Red Sox made like the Yankees and built the pitch count up early. By the time of JD Drew’s home run in the fifth inning, Hughes was way over 100, high-stress pitches. Every pitcher, especially one still only 23 years old, is gonna have not so good outings. His next start should come against the Mets, we’ll see how he rebounds.

2) Joe Girardi’s bullpen managing was full of ‘buuuh’, but think about it this way: had the game gone to extra innings, Javier Vazquez would have been able to give the bullpen some length. Of course, this would have probably not happened and instead Mariano would have pitched the 10th and then, umm, who knows what, but hey, Marte pitched well, and Chan Ho Park…not so much.

3) Brett Gardner and Alex Rodriguez need to hit against Jonathan Papelbon more often. Wow. Just. Yeah, A-Rod hate is so 2004.
3a) Reminders of that 15 inning game last summer and ALDS game 2.

4) As, apparently, does Marcus Thames. About whom I never will again say bad things.

5) Joe West has a point. That game was what, four hours and change? Or just under four? Eeesh.

6) A-Rod’s game tying and Thames’ game-winning home runs will be added to the “for your viewing pleasure” post shortly. You can find the link on the sidebar.

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Tonight’s performance by AJ Burnett is exemplary of why have the good AJ/bad AJ dichotomy. It was also only the third time all season an opposing starter had completed seven innings (J Pineiro and D Price being the others)

So I’ll leave you with this, instead, because it’s a happier thing.

(You can also check the “For Your Viewing Pleasure” link, which has a link to the actual video on the MLB archive)

Also, Alex Rodriguez had a home run, no Yankee got hurt, the Yankees did take two out of three at Boston, and Romulo Sanchez saved a bullpen that’s likely to get killed between tomorrow and Tuesday.

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Opening Day is not Opening Day.

Opening day is when you cut class and go watch your favorite players in action, finally, once again.

Opening Day is when everything in the world is good.

Opening Day is when you feel alive again.

This year, it’s different.

This year, I spend Opening Night on my grandmother’s porch, reminiscing with my cousins about childhood memories, about relatives long and recently lost, and the conclusion that right now, baseball simply does not matter.

As I write this, the Yankees have blown a 5-1 lead and are trailing 8-7. I have no idea how this happened, but I know Granderson and Posada hit home runs, and that the Yankees tend to lose to the Red Sox in April, and then wallop them in August.

The Yankees, I know will play on. They’ll remain constant, if not exactly regular. As the summer progresses, with each day there will be another game, some wins, some losses, some rainouts, but baseball will remain constant.

But (grammatical faux pas aside), these moments with my family, I’ve learned the hard way, will not always be here.

So you take advantage of it when you can.

Baseball will wait.

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Is it too early for this? I think not.

Here are my top ten Yankee moments from 2000-2010–feel free to leave a comment with any you think I missed!

10. Subway Series A lot of you might argue that this is too far down on the list, but the 2000 Yankees team was perhaps better lucky than good. If the most remembered moment of that series involves Roger Clemens throwing the barrel of a bat at Mike Piazza, then, well, it’s probably not a very good World Series.

09. Jobamania Not since, perhaps, the coming of Derek Jeter had a Yankee rookie been so heralded. In one year Joba Chamberlain had risen from the lowest levels of the minors to becoming one of the most recognizable names in New York, and perhaps most of all, along with Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy, signalling the first ripened fruits of a reborn Yankee farm system.

08. Boston Massacre(s) A rare regular-season five game series in Boston in 2006 that saw the Yankees sweep will always bring smiles to the faces of Yankee fans. As nice as it was, however, the four game sweep in August 2009 may have been even more meaningful–the law of averages coming full bore after an 0-8 start and a sweep that included perhaps the best regular season game all year–a 15 inning scoreless affair ended with an Alex Rodriguez home run.

07. Jeter Flies into the Stands (h/t Matt Lorenzo): This one moment perhaps sums up what Derek Jeter means to the Yankees. During a regular season game in 2004, Derek Jeter attempted to catch a foul ball, and in doing so ended up diving into the stands along the third base line. He emerged bruised and bloody but never the worse for wear; the Yankees went on to win the game in extra innings.

06. Aaron Boone Plays a Pick Up Basketball Game At some point between the 2003 and 2004 seasons, Aaron Boone played a pick up game of basketball and tore his ACL, and the Yankees needed a third baseman. Enter Alex Rodriguez. Fans love him or hate him, but his mark on the team this decade–from playoff goat to playoff hero, from HAH! to Cynthia to Madonna to Kate, from hip surgery to 500 home runs, his mark on the team is indelible.

05. Mariano’s 500th save…and first RBI It might be this moment, much more than the 2000 World Series and even more than the Luis Castillo dropped pop up that best exemplifies the differences between the Yankees and the Mets. More importantly, it exemplifies just how much Rivera has meant for the Yankees–whatever the fault with the save statistic, only one other pitcher in MLB history has that many, and unlike Rivera, he does not have a stellar postseason record. Every year this decade Yankee fans appreciated Mo just a little more and in 2009, he was the only closer not to blow a lead in the postseason. It’s not a coincidence.

04. Babe, Bucky, Boone, any Questions? One swing on an October night in 2003 summed up everything it meant to be a Yankee, and everything that, until 2004, it meant to be a Red Sox. Eighty-four years, summed up in ball that sailed over the left field fence. Never mind the ultimate consequences, that one moment, those few minutes–if one ever asks you why you are a Yankee fan, just find a video of that swing.

03. Nine Innings From Ground Zero. Nevermind the ultimate result of the 2001 World Series–what matters is that in October 2001, the Yankees played. They fell behind Oakland two games to none and then won three straight, partially due to perhaps the greatest play of Derek Jeter’s defensive career; they beat the 116-win Mariners in a five game ALCS (remember the No-game-six chants?), and then, most remarkably of all, they managed to perform the same feat in back-to-back World Series games: Tying each game with a two-out, two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. Even today, so many years later, no one in New York will be surprised at all when you tell them that it was Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius that hit those home runs. The most chilling moment, however, may not have been the home runs, but instead when, in game five, the entirety of the Stadium started chanting Paul O’Neill’s name, a moving send off to one of the Yankees’ most beloved right fielders.

02. Goodbye, Hello I must confess, if you had told me as recently as 2005 or 2006 that the Yankees would ever leave the old Stadium, I would not have believed you. Still, despite the flaws, they pulled it off as well as such things can be pulled off–the farewell ceremonies were done while the Yankees were still in the playoff hunt, they got the glory of one more All Star game in New York City, Mariano Rivera threw the last pitch, and then, when they moved across the street, they won it all in year one. The old Stadium was not baseballl’s cathedral because of its aesthetics; it was baseball’s cathedral because of everything that happened on the field. If 2009 is any portent, the ghosts moved across the street, and the Yankees wasted no time in Christening their new digs.

01. 27 This isn’t much of any debate. The Yankees won two World Series titles in the decade, and they actually won more games when they missed the playoffs in 2008 than they won in the 2000 season. In 2009 the Yankees were the best team in baseball, played like it, and had a postseason to remember. Whether it was Alex Rodriguez carrying the line up on his back through the ALDS and ALCS, Matsui’s rampage in the clincher or Mariano Rivera simply playing G-d, the 2009 World Series may very well be the most satisfying World Series for Yankees fans since the 1996 team upset the defending Atlanta Braves.

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