Silence is golden!

Just to clarify, my disappearance isn't because I have a fundamentally sour disposition and I only feel like talking baseball when I have something to complain about. Not that that's not probably true anyway, but more importantly I've noticed that the team keeps winning when I'm silent, so my lips are sealed. Finding a way to win is something Yankee teams have lacked in recent years, and that seems to be changing. And that's pretty great. And that's all I have to say about it.

Saved by zero

A-Rod saved us. Hail prima donna, full of grace. You know, aside from the fact that his three RBI didn't technically affect the outcome of the game.

But I've decided to be positive about him as long as possible, since I've failed at my attempt to be positive about the Yankees' permanent homelessness. So actually, I'm going to credit the early lead he provided Sabathia with giving CC the confidence/comfort level he needed to have his first truly dominant start of the year.

I'm also not going to say that we finally saw "the real CC." We've been seeing the real CC all along. A good pitcher, but not a great one, who has flashes of brilliance like last night. We got him because we needed starters. We drastically overpaid for him because the Yankees show love by wasting money, just as they expect their fans to do. However, if the man could continue getting run support, and Captain Buzzcut would continue letting him stay in when he has a lead so the bullpen can't blow it, he could certainly prove himself to be the #1 starter we've told ourselves he is.

Too bad that will never happen.

Wait! Positive thoughts! Good thing that has finally started to happen. Let's hope it continues.

As a side note, why are we in Baltimore again for the second time in 5 weeks? Who makes these schedules? They're absurd.

And Alex: I still don't like you, but thanks for the runs. Now sit down and shut up until it's time to play again.

Back in the saddle...

Pardon my silence. I was distracted by the Rangers' collapse. At least tonight's loss, while disappointing and all, means no more hockey-related frustration for me for a few more months. Well, unless the Devils...[shudder]...I won't even finish the thought. At least there wouldn't be the indignity of another Meadowlands parade. I couldn't decide whether those were more of an insult to the concept of a ticker-tape parade or to the concept of the Meadowlands Grand Prix.

Anyway, the Yanks are up to their 2008 tricks. If run differential were what the standings were based on, we'd be all set. However, I'd rather win ten one-run games than one ten-run game, wouldn't you? Yeah. At least they don't look completely lifeless, but what's the use?

Oh and actually, we probably wouldn't be all set, what with that 22-4 Cleveland debacle. But anyway. My eyes hurt. Enough.

Melky Melks Himself Usemelkful. Eventuamelkyly.

Melky. What kind of name is that anyway? Deep in the dark recesses of the Yankee bench, there still lies a guy who can come through once in a while. He is the man they call Melky, and when he's not hacking at a pitch over his head (which he did yesterday, mind you) and not chasing a misplayed routine fly ball, Melky running uphill although the ball seems to be rolling down, until it turns into a triple, he does manage flashes of brilliance.

He hit the last home run in Yankee Stadium.

He hit the first walk-off homer to win the first game to require extra frames (Clyde Frazier I'm not but I figured I'd go for it) in the Interactive Yankeetainment Experience. And in so doing he sealed the deal on another inconsistent Yankee's strong outing (Hi, Jose Veras!)

I think I like this version of Melky...unseen most of the time, surfaces only occasionally, gets the job done when he does surface.

But I bet Joe Girardi uses last night's 14th inning flash of brilliance (luck? brilliance? desire by the Oakland pitching staff to go home?) as a basis for more frequent Melkying, and I just don't think that melks sense.

A win is a win

It would be hard to envision a less compelling game of baseball. It was ordinary from start to finish, played in a cavernous, soulless bowl, the inner part of which was composed of empty seats, calculated to dissipate the noise from what crowd there is directly upward into the atmosphere so you wouldn't know it even if the place were packed.

This was, owing to my ridiculous working hours of late, the first Yankee home game of the year that I've actually had a chance to watch. And while it was an unremarkable game, played in a setting remarkable only in its unfulfilled hype, it was a strong outing for Andy Pettitte, and, ultimately, a win for the home(less) team. And that can't be bad, can it?

So much for the Designated Swisher Rule. Home, now, to the Interactive Yankeetainment Experience.

I guess I asked for it when I asked for the Designated Swisher Rule, but it looks like Nick Swisher is about to become the Yankees' everyday right fielder while Xavier Nady gets his elbow fixed. This could prove problematic if Teixiera's wrist keeps bothering him...everybody get your Stephen Colbert "WristStrong" bracelets on and try to keep Tex's wrist, well, strong.

Meanwhile, the Yankees ride a winning record into the Interactive Yankeetainment Experience, thanks to the combined efforts of the left side of their infield, Jeter driving in Ransom. Hopefully the ghosts choose to look the other way on the whole "crime against baseball and humanity" thing, and the whole so the team can continue to build on its reasonably strong start. The Curse of Clay Bellinger is enough to cope with...the last thing we need is an additional curse, no matter how understandable this one might be.

Well, remember, on April 18, 1923, the Yankees beat the Red Sox to christen Yankee Stadium, with Babe Ruth hitting the first home run. That's right, Babe Ruth hit the first, Melky Cabrera hit the last...as Hamlet would say, what a falling off was there. At any rate, 85 years from now, when they're tearing down the Interactive Yankeetainment Experience because it only has one Hard Rock Cafe and one high-priced steakhouse, whose name will be tossed about as the guy who hit the first home run, who notched that first strikeout, who killed the first rally by hitting into a DP (oh, A-Rod's not back yet, forget that one)?

Who will wax nostalgic about the good old days, when we had only one Great Hall to honor the same tradition we were simultaneously pissing all over, and we liked it? Who will tell the youngsters of 2094 what life was like when all it took to get a seat behind home plate was $2650 and a dream (i.e. between 100 and 200 times what it cost 15 years ago, mind you...is he team 200 times better?), plus the desire to watch the game through the screen, if you watched at all. 

True grandeur is understated. It cannot be ignored, but it cannot be ignored because of its imposing presence, not because of its bombastic pretentiousness. Can the Interactive Yankeetainment Experience do quiet dignity? Or any kind of dignity? I guess we'll see. Yankee Stadium was, as the Jacob Ruppert plaque said, an "imposing edifice," even as remodeled, its stony portals, muted but monumental, standing watch over all who dared enter. The tall upper deck that must have felt, to an outfielder, like it had placed its many thousands of screaming occupants directly over your head, cast long, forbidding shadows and lent a sense of drama and urgency to all that transpired below. The minuscule foul territory down the lines made the Big Ballpark in the Bronx feel like an alleyway, no escape for those mere mortals who dared ply the corners of both infield and outfield. There was no need to bash fans and players over the head with the Yankee tradition. You simply breathed it, smelled it, sensed it. You were in the presence of greatness, whether this year's team was providing it or not. No goofy oversized letters were needed inside to tell you this was Yankee Stadium. The goofy oversized letters outside were the most flamboyant the old Stadium knew how to be, which by today's standards looked like a gray flannel suit, white shirt, skinny black tie.

And speaking of that, I need to go to work. Like, now.

Burnett burns 'em

It was a gem, I'm told, but I was once more chained to my desk and blissfully unaware of how annoyed I would have been if I'd missed a no-hitter. Not as annoyed as I continue to be at having had tickets for, but having not attended, a boring Sunday matchup on May 17, 1998 against the Minnesota Twins, but annoyed.

Once again, Burnett shines...Swisher and Burnett, in fact, have been the two best pitching acquisitions of the offseason. If he stays healthy, I really like where this is headed. If Wang remembers how to pitch, we'll be unstoppable. It's really nice having a solid pitching staff for a change. 

Small-market fans (and the more hypocritical big-market fans...you know who you are) are, at this time, I'm sure, saying "please, you guys can buy whatever pitchers you want." And you're right. The problem is we...well...not "we," but the people who make "our" decisions, have wanted some really awful pitchers in recent years, and rushed out to get them, at the expense of the staff's overall strength. This time, while Burnett is injury prone (knock on wood that he stays sharp) and Sabathia's return to the AL, like any pitcher coming (back) to the AL, is a question mark, at least I can see what the Yankees were going for, and at least we're seeing some kind of results.

Asleep at the switch, or Kansas City is so exciting I couldn't sit still long enough to comment on the last two games.

First, my apologies for being asleep at the switch, and therefore failing to fawn over Andy Pettitte (as I've basically done for the last 14 years) after he started his season off with a solid performance. Second, a further confession: I missed most of today's game, too. But 7 2/3 scoreless innings from Sabathia is, indeed, more like it. I'm not sure why he had to come out, but I guess there's something to be said for preserving your starters so early in the season, even if they come with a rubber-arm reputation.

And so, onward. Joba Chamberlain, the man who would logically be the closer-in-waiting, gets the start because it's been decided he's a starter. I have yet to see much evidence to that effect, so we'll see how it goes.

Nick Swisher: Great backup outfielder, or the greatest backup outfielder?

Nick Swisher has fun out there. He enjoys playing baseball. He smiles. In other words, Joe Girardi will probably hate him by the end of May. 

With 5 RBI today and a grin on his face usually reserved for some sort of creepy clown obstacle on a miniature golf course, Swisher was half of today's one-two punch of second-choice free agents. Burnett and Swisher were supposed to be consolation prizes for whoever didn't get Sabathia and Teixiera, but at this early juncture they look like the better pair. I'm sure that's subject to change after Burnett's first injury and once Teixiera settles in, but...yeah. 

It was a good showing all around...home runs are nice but I was much more interested in the prolonged rally in the 6th. Not every game will feature pitching as miserable as the Orioles had today, so the small-ball stuff is much more meaningful as far as I'm concerned...that's how you beat good pitchers as well as bad ones.

Still, because it's my nature to wrest anxiety from the jaws of a feel-good moment, I can't help but notice that this was yet another blowout win. The 2008 Yankees only knew how to win in a blowout, and always seemed to choke in the close games. Until I see some wins without absurd run differentials, I will remain skeptical. However, the energy level was definitely encouraging today, led in no small part by Swisher and Burnett, who looked, unlike most Yankee players in recent memory, like they wanted to be there. That's the kind of thing that carries you through those long, hot summers under the tabloid magnifying glass, and that's what I like to see.