Friday, October 30, 2009

A.J. Burnett shuts the critics up, and Pedro Martinez won't shut up

A few more thoughts on Game 2:

* How about Pedro Martinez's pitching - and his postgame press conference? I know as a Yankee fan I'm supposed to hate him. But I can't - dude brings the drama. What a showman. I loved how he smiled as the crowd booed him as he walked off the mound. Did you see what he said afterwards?
“I know they really want to root for me. It’s just that I don’t play for the Yankees,” Pedro said. “They love the fact that I compete. I’m a New Yorker as well. If I was on the Yankees, I’d probably be like a king over here. But that’s not the case right now.”
Do you think he's angling to be a Yankee next year? I sure do!

* Larry Milian of South Florida's Andy and the Amigo show asked me in our radio interview today whether I thought Joe Girardi would have Jose Molina catch Burnett in Game 5. Good question. Given the lack of DH in Philly, I could see Girardi going with Jorge Posada. But it will be a tough decision, as Burnett is so much better with Molina catching him. A.J. really was something, last night, wasn't he?

* Oh, and can somebody please stop the anti-A-Rod hysteria? He had two bad games. Two. We're talking eight at bats here. How quickly the media - and way too many Yankee "fans" - forgot that he is the No. 1 reason the Yanks are in the World Series in the first place.Good grief. What kills me the most about the screeching about his strikeouts is that the Yankees still won Game 2!  Derek Jeter made one of the worst plays I've ever seen him do, where he bunted into a strikeout (his third K of the night),. but ultimately, it didn't matter, because the team won. Shouldn't the same go for A-Rod?

* Not sure how many standing room seats the Yanks are selling, but it behooves the Stadium to get as many of the real fans in there for Games 6 and 7. Let's face it - other than some "Who's your daddy" chants for old time's sake,  the crowd was weak last night. Jimmy Rollins mentioned it, and he's absolutely correct. The atmosphere is like April 2009 at the Stadium - too many corporate types, and not enough regular fans.

What do you think? Leave us a comment!

2 comments:

The Cycle said...

This kind of reminds me about something Bill Simmons wrote before the 2007 NBA Finals that the Lakers had a pretty good home crowd because they always had expensive tickets and their fans were rich already. Then in the Finals, he went after the Lakers crowd in Game 3 of that series because too many people who didn't care except it was a big event and they want to be seen there. Perhaps something similar is with the Yankees crowd, which would be awful.

Unknown said...

Agree, they need more real fans in the stands than the corporate types. I was blown away by the intensity of the Phillies fans last night! I was thinking there was no way the Yankees could compete in that kind of atmosphere. They came through though!!!

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