When Tanyon Sturtze turns out to be the night's pitching beacon of hope, you know you have to start worrying. That's exactly what happened tonight against Boston. What I figured would happen was El Duque would blow it, since he's do for a breakdown, and Boston would take it. I was partially correct. When I saw motion in the bullpen in the 3rd, I knew there was trouble, especially when I saw that it was Sturtze who was warming. I immediately thought, "Yay! Here come's the run fairy," but to my surprise, Sturtze did not get battered and torn like per usual, especially against the BoSox offense which is just a continual circle of talent, i.e. Ramirez, Ortiz, Damon, etc etc etc. After Sturtze had an amazing outting, Mel, of course, sent in Flash for his relief, and like most times, Flash took care of business. I had been pleasantly pleased until this point. I had figured "The game's pretty much won; 7th inning, 2-1, not many offense at-bats left, last bat advantage, and most of all -- Rivera for the save. I figured he'd get his 50th save of the season, putting him in a tight #1 position for the depth charts. But to my dismay, this just didn't happen. Rivera blew it. He's human though and no one's perfect. But like Torre said post-game, when you put Rivera out there, and he doesn't get the save, you can't help but be astonished since it rarely happens; he isn't noted as one of the games best savers of all time for no reason at all; he's usually unhittable. He threw his usual 2-seamers but his location tonight was just off, and one of my personal favorite players, Johnny Damon, took advantage of this and took a select pitch and got an RBI single in the 9th that landed right in front of Lofton in CF. Lofton, I guess, figured he had no chance of getting it and it just dropped, allowing runs to score. This was utter shit. I flipped out and my stress level became anger. In situations like that, I'm just very torn between being a Yankees' fan and being a Johnny Damon fan. But when it boiled down to it, it was Boston and they were on my team's turf, making my team, whom I love dearly but don't always agree with, behind in the game, and this makes for badness. So, Boston took it just like I thought they would. It's so down to the nitty gritty with only a 2.5 game lead in the Yankees favor and the opposition is closing in. I'm hoping to death that Anaheim puts Minnesota to rest because if they don't, and the Yankees have to face Minn., they're going to have little to no chance to make it to post-season. The Twins have been outstanding this season with an 86-61 standing for the season, and a decent record of 18-13 in the eastern division. Please, please, please, Vlady! Carry Anaheim to just get Minn. out of the east's hair!!!!111! Nerves are completely shot between this weekend's series at home and next weekend's series at Fenway... the tension mounts. The way I see it is that even by some miracle we get into the WS, no doubtedly St. Louis will be the opponents, and there's REALLY no chance there. One word: Pujols. Not only is he one of the best hitters in the league, he's also one of the top 10 defensive first-basemens' in the league. The whole team is just filled with talent... ugh. I need to go lay down now -- pre-game starts at 1.
And Rivera makes badlies...
4:06 a.m.//09.18.04
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