Now these are the kind of blown calls I can live with. With one exception…
With Mark Teixeira on first, Alex Rodriguez hit a ball that dropped in front of Trevor Crowe – or so everybody with a pair of functioning eyes thought. But the ruling umpire said he caught it on the fly for an easy double play, as Teixeira, who has excellent vision, went to second as the ball was trapped, not caught. The Yankees argued, but the umpires never huddled to at least confirm that all of the umpires saw the same thing. I don’t want to hear that they didn’t huddle because of the, ‘it slows down the pace of the game,’ argument. That argument is ASS. The Yankees would have stopped arguing sooner if all of the umpires convened and said they all saw the same thing.
Curtis Granderson hammered a ball off the top of the wall and was thrown out at second… accept his foot was clearly on the base before he was tagged. The Yankees didn’t argue.
I can live with these blown calls – they should have convened on the A-Rod/Teix call, but whatcha gonna do? These calls happen and aren’t a result of a strict interpretation of the rules, just humans making errors, which is part of the game. I can live with that.
Otherwise, there isn’t much to tell about the Yankees 3-2 victory of the Indians. Nick Swisher hit a towering solo home run, as did Curtis Granderson, but with a man aboard. Jake Westbrook pitched a great game, but those 2 homers to the bombers were all the Yankees needed to win against Cleveland’s offense. Javier Vazquez had about everything working from the 2nd inning and going forward: fastball command, a good curve ball and change, and that put a lot of the Indians off balance, particularly some of their younger hitters. Speaking of the Indians and young players, they’ve got so many on their 25 man roster right now because they’ve given up on 2010, which means Westbrook is available, and he’s expensive, so the market for him isn’t that big. I’m not saying the Yankees need him, but you never know… As far as starting pitching goes, I think they’re waiting for the off season to throw money at Cliff Lee instead of surrendering prospects. David Robertson, the champion of pressure situations, pitched well in relief, coming into yet another game with runners on base and getting two outs in the 8th before giving way to Boone Logan, who retired the only batter he faced. Mariano Rivera came on for the save – he’s 21 for 23 so far this year, and his numbers are outstanding. That guy is like… uhm, somebody that grows old but continues to perform at a high level in almost the exact same way as he did when he was young. Can’t think of a good metaphor for that… I don’t think Joe Girardi has any interest in using Joba Chamberlain in the middle of an inning; that’s definitely Robertson’s job. Robertson is the Yankee fireman – you ring the bell, he runs out of the pen, puts out the flames and heads to the showers. Rivera might get the saves, but it’s Robertson’s holds of the last few weeks that makes a lot of those saves possible. I don’t want to speculate on what the Yankees record would be without him. They’d probably be tied with Tampa Bay.
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Jamie Insalaco
