NFT: Yankees (22-18) @ Nationals (23-17) , Wednesday Ed.

you'd think Girardi would want to get this guy in the lineup immediately to get him comfortable. But, nope!

hitting 6th, good lord.

I wish Heathcott were in the lineup.

not wanting to move BG. But, now JE is on DL & BG is the better CF to begin with. Why the hell is BG not in CF? The logic of Chairman Joe

Nice start. Lets hang onto it tonight. And it would be so huge if Beltran really got hot right now with Ellsbury out. He's looking pretty good.

Come the fuck on.

You're our only hope. =(

for not getting in the batter's box? Had the game on mute but that's what the announcers are saying.

I'll take it. Yanks need all the help they can get right now.

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Harper didn't like the call and started chirping. Umpire asked him to get back in the box. He did a little run and tapped a foot in the box. Deserved to be ejected for that.

is just stupid. Umpires walk around with their big-girl parts on the outside way too often.

In comment 12295158 illmatic said:

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You're our only hope. =(

How about a fucking bat help us because that's the problem on this team no hitting. Warren has done his job tonight 2 earned runs from your 5th start you take every time. This offense stinks,even last night we score 6 runs and the nationals tie it the bats go silent for 5 innings against the Nats bullpen.

that pitch was almost behind ARod

How in the world is he still on the team. He's the most useless player I have seen on the Yankees in a long time. He does NOTHING well. He's a minor league talent.
Of course,Alex finishes the game with a K. Doesn't he always?

with that complete lack of effort on defense.

Warren didn't help with those walks to a pair of putrid hitters.

In comment 12295542 Marty866b said:

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How in the world is he still on the team. He's the most useless player I have seen on the Yankees in a long time. He does NOTHING well. He's a minor league talent. Of course,Alex finishes the game with a K. Doesn't he always?

You can't be serious... that pitch was way above the belt. 99.999% of the time, that's a ball.

have pissed away the great start rather quickly

I didn't see the Yankee game. I just looked at the boxscore but Alex does strike out more to end games then anyone else. You are talking about Alex at bat,correct? I hope you're not defending Jones.

In comment 12295561 Marty866b said:

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I didn't see the Yankee game. I just looked at the boxscore but Alex does strike out more to end games then anyone else. You are talking about Alex at bat,correct? I hope you're not defending Jones.

No, I was talking about A-Rod's strikeout. Strike 3 was a ball 99% of the time. The rest of the AB wasn't exactly a thing of beauty, but strike 3 was BS.

There goes that good start. They suck ass right now. When they actually decide to score runs, their pitching sucks. When they pitch well, they can't score. They score early and then can't do anything the rest of the game. Reminds me of the past few seasons again.

The only saving grace is that the rest of the division isn't playing very well... yet. Someone will turn it on soon so they need to wake up.

I'm still kind of mad about that Tampa game where they had the bases loaded, nobody out and didn't add more runs. They went on to lose that game and I think that was the start of this slide. Oh well.

during game two against Tampa - blown chances on offense and Girardi botched the bullpen usage that night, which is rare. Haven't recovered since.

mostly because the ump was a sack of shit for both sides. That is some special strike zone he calls.

Needs to do something about these umpires. Their strike zones suck, as do their attitudes. No-one comes to these games to see these a-holes. I hope some little kid didn't come from hours away to see Harper only to have a self important ump toss him.

if they can get Strasburg ironed out and Rendon back they are going to be tough to beat.

We hung in there and there is a lot of room for optimism. We just need Tanaka and Nova to come back and give us better than we are currently getting from Capuano and Warren. Warren would be lights out in the pen for us and would let us send Rogers to the dark side of the moon.

I see an 88-74 team. Baltimore will probably run away with it in the second half, same as last season. The Yanks caught the Nats at the wrong time. They were dipping while Washington continues on a burn.

Girardi has to thin-slice more, a la Joe Maddon and make some intuitive decisions rather than always using that engineering degree from Northwestern. It was inevitable that the offense would suffer when Gardner cooled. Now Ellsbury is out. Chris Young in CF everyday is nobody's solution. The comment above about Gardner needing to be in CF when Ellsbury is not playing is money. Gardner is better than Ellsbury defensively. You want to play the contract in 8, fine, but when he is not in there, keep Young out of center. He gets a poor jump on too many balls.

Everybody marvels at Jarhead's handling of the bullpen. That claim is problematic. I will let it go for now. However, I think he has not done a good job handling his starting pitchers. He is too reluctant to allow them to work out of jams. Too quick with the hook. That eventually will lead to a burnt bullpen. Warren usually gets victimized by poor support behind him, whether or not mistakes actually qualify as errors. The home-plate umpire was brutal last night. With the evaluation tools now available to MLB, he should be let go soon.

Help should be on the way in the form of Refsnyder. They need to bolster the lineup. Pirela is a utility player, who is not close to the player that Reggie (Rueben Rivera, Hensley Muelens, et. al.) thinks he is. He has a fast bat but I see a large problem with him keeping balance on the outside corner. He uses the staggered, open stance that many batters adopt in today's game. It allows you to track with both eyes. When you're a 2-eyed hitter, you get a better sense of depth of the ball & not just spin. And you open sooner to the quality inside fastball, which remains the toughest pitch to drive. But he stands a good distance from the plate. His arms are short unlike an A-Rod or Machado so when he offers outside he lunges and loses his fixed head position as he drops the barrel head on the ball. A noisy head in baseball, whether you're pitching, batting or tracking a fly ball in the field, is ruinuous.

Refsnyder's errors have tapered off to just a few. More Heathcott please. Less Young. Release Beltran at the break. Hope Tanaka does not rip through, but that seems likely. CC is making the adjustment to being David Wells. Still learning the nuance of a slower spinner. And the back-door action often times starts too wide to fool the right-handed batter. However, he has a thirst for the fray so I think he will be alright. I am surprised they're not bunting on him more, especially early in the game to work that bad knee.

In comment 12295585 illmatic said:

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There goes that good start. They suck ass right now. When they actually decide to score runs, their pitching sucks. When they pitch well, they can't score. They score early and then can't do anything the rest of the game. Reminds me of the past few seasons again. The only saving grace is that the rest of the division isn't playing very well... yet. Someone will turn it on soon so they need to wake up. I'm still kind of mad about that Tampa game where they had the bases loaded, nobody out and didn't add more runs. They went on to lose that game and I think that was the start of this slide. Oh well.

That was the Tuesday game when Archer pitched. Had him on the ropes and bailed him out of course he had over 30 pitches in that inning to and still pitched into the 7th this offense stinks.

Was at the game, sitting behind 1st base, and watched the whole thing unfold. A veteran on the Nats needs to take Harper aside and get through to him. He acts like a child. Sure he's intense, but he needs to learn proper decorum to umps no matter how bad he thinks their calls are. The long term aspect of it escapes him.

In comment 12296819 davek3698 said:

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Was at the game, sitting behind 1st base, and watched the whole thing unfold. A veteran on the Nats needs to take Harper aside and get through to him. He acts like a child. Sure he's intense, but he needs to learn proper decorum to umps no matter how bad he thinks their calls are. The long term aspect of it escapes him.

I agree with that for the most part (as a Nats fan), but to be ejected for what he did in last nights game was BS. That ump was trying to send a message.

but last night it was a culmination of his actions – both verbal and body language. It’s one thing to bark back a bit, but walking deliberately slowly back into the box the 2nd time, gingerly putting his foot back into the box, telling the ump he’d take the fine – he’s asking for it. Continued post game with his interview as well. Not saying they’re right, but umps remember. Hurting his team with actions that can easily enough be avoided.