fat EMO kid baseball blog

Rumor is that a prominent ny baseball player has tested positive and his name will be released today. Is it true? My money is on benny agbayani.

Here we ago again.  Just about two weeks after the Yankees swept Boston in the Bronx, the New York will travel to Beantown this weekend for a three-game rematch with the Sox in Fenway.   Things figure to be a little different this time around, with the Red Sox looking to show that the race in the American League East is not over. 

The Yankees have had their struggles recently in Boston, losing every game this year there, including a ninth-inning game-tying homer by Jason Bay off of Mariano Rivera, and a game-winning HR by Kevin Youkilis – and that was in the Yankees best performance at Fenway this season.  The Yankees, lately, have played scared when they play at Fenway, generally appearing to play not to lose, and getting out of their game plan. 

The pitching matchups generally favor the Yanks, with Andy Pettitte up against struggling Brad Penny on Friday, and A.J. Burnett opposing rookie Junici Tazawa on Saturday.  Tazawa, of course, was on the mound when A-Rod hit his 15th inning walk-off homer.   Hopefully the Yankees can take at least one of these, though the numbers suggest they should win both.  The best matchup of the series comes on yet another Sunday night game between these two, when C.C. Sabathia goes up against Josh Beckett, in what is a matchup of potential CY Young candidates.  The Yankees have struggled against Beckett, especially in Boston, while Sabathia’s number are good, far from dominating, but he is currently pitching his best baseball of the season.  This should be a great matchup, that could very well determine who wins the series. 

This 3-game set is bigger for the Red Sox than the Yankees, who, even if they are swept, will still have a four game lead in the AL East, but either way, it will go a long way in determining how the last month of the season will go. 

My prediction, unfortunately, is that the Red Sox will take 2 out of 3, and David Ortiz will continue his hot hitting of late and have a few big at bats in the series.  As much as the world is sick of Red Sox/Yankees, the rest of the season would just be too boring if we all had to follow was a race between Boston and the Texas Rangers.

Read more here..

I think the only surprise is that people seemed to be surprised by this. I’ll send Vito out to collect those 2004 World Series rings ASAP.

What a year it’s been for the Mets, 10 guys on the DL, a dropped popup to lose a game against the Yankees, a big contract for Oliver Perez, and now this (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4359215), a GM accusing a beat writer of getting the VP of player personnel fired.   Classy, Omar.   So, by Minaya’s logic, I am going to write a negative article about Derek Jeter, hoping that the Yankees cut him so I can finally play shortstop in the bigs. 

Well, I guess we shouldn’t be too hard on him, considering his other recent episodes of incredible judgement.  Lets not forget this is the guy who brought in 900 year old Moises Alou, and then did the only thing that could be possibly make the Mets outfield worse:  replace 900 year-old Moises Alou with NOBODY.   This is the same guy who signed Oliver Perez to a long-term contract, passing on much less incompetent pitchers such as Derek Lowe and well, everyone else.  This is the same guy who has left the Mets with such a watered-down minor league system that their second best option at first base this season is a AA outfielder. 

So, rather than manning-up and firing this fellow in the first place, Omar let it drag on for a week, then finally called a press-conference (after days of pressure from the media and fans) only to basically blame the situation on a writer.  I guess the order of things goes players -> coaches -> managers -> front officer -> sportswriters??  Make sense.  Too bad Phil Rizzuto isn’t still around.  A few “holy cows” and he could clear out the whole Yankees front-office. 

Needless to say, it has been a great week to be a Yankee fan.

In case you missed it, former White Sox pitcher Jim Parque sent a letter to the Chicago Sun Times admitting his use of HGH.   The story is long, but worth reading, especially if you are like me, have no life, and actually remember this guy pitching.  While I applaud Parque for his honesty, I really don’t understand what he was going for here.  Half the letter he sounds like he is trying to defend his drug use, half of it sounds like he is saying there is no defending what he did.  I can’t tell if he is trying to encourage other players to speak out, or defend those that have been accused.  This whole thing gets even more confusing when he had gone on record in 2007 denying any drug use.   Someone please tell me if this is supposed to be an admission of guilt, a defense, or what.  Either way, what’s the point?  It appears he’s doing fine in life now, was hardly one of the names on the Mitchell Report that anyone cared about.  I’m all for having a clear conscious, but then why now?  Was enrollment in the baseball camp starting to fall?  Is he planning another comeback?  I guess I just don’t get it.   

I’ve read it twice now, and the most memorable part of this for me is the paragraph where he described how the stuff actually worked.  If HGH could make a weiner like this throw 10 mph faster, just image how much better it made Manny, Bonds, Sosa, etc. 

Lets hope that some new side effect is found, and 5 years from now, everyone who took this stuff will have their left ear fall off so we can tell once and for all who did what, and get them and their tainted records out of the game forever.