The GM 9-14

It is disappointing to see your ace give back leads but it is hard for me to criticize CC when he has been such a horse.  He is not pitching well and for us to get in, he must improve…I think he will be ok. 

We have too many holes and we need Tex back.  We are not good enough to overcome the loss of Rivera, Pineda and Gardner with anyone else out.  The Yanks really botched the Tex injury and let him come back too early and now it has cost us a lot of games.

The other nugget form this game that really dropped my mood was watching Nunez totally misplay a grounder for the insurance run.  It was simply a horrendous play that everything was done poorly.  Nunez didn’t move, which means he didn’t charge to get on an easy hop and also played it off to his side and looked so uneasy letting it go by him.  It was not even close to professional.  It was disheartening because if you remember, the day before they actually sent Nunez down, I was calling for sending him down to do nothing but play SS as he simply could not be used in the field.  He went down and played fairly well and then up here made a bunch of nice backhand plays.  Then this…We may have to roll the dice with him one more time and the next error shut it down.  I don’t have faith Jeter could be much better.

Ibanez has been putrid and today I was hoping we would finally come through, but nope, he is doing exactly what I was afraid of when I wanted Dickerson over him.  Ibanez is in a slump that I am pretty sure is now 3- 38 with only 4 walks.   

Friday night, the yanks and in particular Swisher missed some very hittable pitches.  However, the one pitch that I felt really hurt was after the 2 run ARod homer to close to within one.  Cano worked a walk and the Rays brought in their closer in the 8^th when they were talking about him rarely pitching more than one inning.  One of our goals had to be to make him throw pitches, not only for this game, but the series.  He struck out Martin, but he worked a little.  Then he walked Ibanez on 4 pitches.  The yanks had a chance to make him work and if you didn’t give the take sign (which is probably the smart move), Granderson better be very choosy to swing.  He swung at the first pitch and got out to end the threat and stopped Rodney form having to throw any more pitches.  It was a huge play to swing at the first pitch and unfortunately it was a low pitch and not one he should have gone after. 

Baltimore lost at least