SU has been following the Boston – Baltimore series this week up in Fenway and it’s great to see teams that really hate each other. First, you have the Manny Machado beanball stuff and the Red Sox pitchers’ inability to actually hit him. SU knows this is baseball tradition – you have to protect your players. But I say in this case, as Machado is the one who started the whole mess although obviously unintentionally when he overslid the bag and hit Pedroia in the leg, why not just stage a pre-game ceremony. Instead of having someone throw out the first pitch, have Machado stand in the batter’s box and allow a Red Sox pitcher to hit him in the side. Case closed, game on.
As mentioned earlier, SU says the Red Sox, of all teams, should not be complaining here given their history of throwing at Yankees hitters for years without retaliation. Naturally, Pedro had to weigh in on the MLB Network and say that he would have drilled Machado. Duh. Once a head hunter, always a head hunter. SU says great pitcher but no respect for him here.
The racist taunts towards Adam Jones were quite frankly pretty appalling as well as how other players including CC Sabathia weighed in that they had experienced the same thing over the years up in Boston. Anyone who has gone to a game is used to the drunken fans feeling free to say whatever they want as they paid for their ticket. SU has observed this over the years and quite frankly it’s why I will not sit in the cheap seats anymore. It’s uncomfortable. But no matter how vile and vicious the comments that you hear, I have never heard anything racist. No doubt last year’s presidential political campaign has empowered some to feel they can say anything. While the Boston fan base is mostly white, SU believes what’s happened here is just some stupid, drunken fans and is not representative of the typical crowd. Credit to the team President for being proactive here.
Speaking of bad blood, SU says check out the Celtics – Wizards series. These teams hate each other. Again, that’s how it should be. Back in the late 60s and early 70s, the Knicks and Celtics were bitter rivals. You would never see any of the players talking to each other on the court. The big money contracts, Dream Teams and common endorsements of sneakers has changed all that. SU says nothing wrong with players being as passionate as the fans when it comes to rivalries.
Yankees sitting at 17 – 9 with a +45 run differential, best in the American League. Gary Sanchez is back this weekend. If and when Greg Bird returns to his spring training form, that means 3 young guys in the thick of the line up. I know it’s early but this team has shown the ability to come from behind and play with passion. Of course, you need to have starting pitching to sustain it and that remains to be seen. Enjoy it while it lasts.
So much for the Syndegaard bulking up in the off season and not throwing program. That was an injury waiting to happen. As active commenter S. Goldman says, your rotation on paper never seems to translate on the field no matter how good it may look in the spring.
Sports Update Intergalactic 
I was at the game at Fenway Tuesday night. Adam Jones got a nice standing ovation in his first at bat, followed immediately by Chris Sale throwing behind Machado two minutes later. Sale then struck him out. And Machado answered with a monster HR later in the game. Great stuff from a sheer entertainment standpoint.
I also got to see my first in-person triple play when the Orioles SS misplayed a pop fly in the 8th inning and the Red Sox runners stood around like T-ballers not knowing what to do.
Shep, I knew you would weigh in here. I saw that ovation and that was good. Machado hit another long home run last night. I guess they have pissed him off and he can play well that way. Problem is the Red Sox have no shot at him now when he becomes a free agent.
You mean to replace Pablo Sandoval? I don’t know if the Red Sox will go after Machado or not but I’m sure his agent wants them in the running. Most of us would probably be able to put a few scary pitches in May behind us for $200 million.
It is good for the game when teams hate each other. I wish it could happen without the headhunting.
To clarify my point about the expectations for the Mets rotation: the rotation is not particularly great on paper either. The rotation is great in the minds of fans and that’s fine because fans should be optimistic. But in terms of objective analysis, there is little on paper that would indicate that the Mets rotation in 2017 would be among the best rotations of all time, which is really what the fan base has been rallying around. Somehow there is a thinking that the Mets would have 4 or 5 starting pitchers that would be the ace of another team’s staff. But, other than potential upside (of which there is plenty) there is nothing on paper to indicate that we should expect this. If you cherry pick from their careers, here are the highest win totals of the 5 stud pitchers: 14, 14, 13, 11, 9. Those are the HIGHEST. None of them have cracked double digits twice. If they all turned in their best seasons in 2017, that’s what you’d get. Would it be good? Sure. But it wouldn’t be the legendary rotation people seem to expect. Have they all shown signs of potential? Of course, But this is a team where the winningest pitcher from the last two seasons was Barolo Colon. As you know, I provided similar warnings about Greg Bird. Not because I don’t like him or think he can’t be a valuable contributor but because there was nothing in his track record (other than spring training) to indicate that he’s going to be a huge run producer.
Watch the return of Gary Sanchez closely. The Yankees pitchers will for sure have some bad starts and we’re going to start to hear questions about whether he calls a good game or not. Austin Romine is a little banged up which may give Girardi some coverage here but if the pitchers have some rough outings and/or Sanchez doesn’t hit right away, there’s gong to be some negativity.
I am curious to see what sort of suspension Oubre will get. The difference between this one and other playoff altercations is that he had a few seconds to think about it after his flop from the hard foul (admit it… it was a playoff foul and he added some extra mustard to it to make it look worse). He was lying on the ground, thought about it, got up, looked at Olynyk and then ran 25 feet and bulldozed him AND the ref (Olynyk was smart enough to flop a bit himself). Most times the players are tied up and the dancing starts soon after the hard foul. I would say at least two games and I would toss in a third for contact with the ref. Of course, it will be one and a fine.
Pete, I saw that play last night. Apparently something had happened a few minutes earlier so Oubre had time to get even more pissed off. I think he will get 2 games as he had a running start there to shove Olynyk. Plus they want to send a message to both teams to chill a bit for game 4.
Did you see Curt Schilling weigh in on the Adam Jones situation and state in no uncertain terms that he is convinced he is lying? What more can you say.
Curt Schilling is an ass-hole, plain and simple. What a douche. He should have stopped talking after his bloody sock game.
Just to chip in my two cents on the Adam Jones incident. There are drunken ass fools in every stadium. Try going to a Philadelphia Eagles game or a New York Jets game. There is no room at all for racist taunts in any setting and the moron Redsox fan should be banished for the season. There is one sure fire way to stop drunken abusive fans. Cut off the alcohol. But then again, how much money would the teams forgo by not selling a bunch of idiots half a dozen twenty ounce beers a game at $12 a pop. The all mighty dollar wins again.
I have to admit it, Aaron Judge is must see TV! I find myself flipping from the Mets game to see where in the order the Yankees are. One of the most pleasant surprises of the season. He also seems like a mench, confident but sincere. Let’s hope it stays that way! New York needs some home grown stars that the kids can look up to.
TIME FOR SU TO REVISE HIS YANKEE PREDICTION FROM 80 TO 90. Though we are only 29 games into the season and we haven’t even seen Sanchez back in form coming off some tough opponents this past week which includes Baltimore, Boston and the World Series champs last year going 7-1 against them should not be taken lightly even though we are only in May. The way we have been winning with different stars on a different night shows you how balanced we are. It has become infectious as everyone wants to do well, pull their weight and all done in a good karma like environment. I’m sure Girardi could toss his 9 batters up in the air in which they bat and would still come out with the same results. The Yankees need to go 70-63 to reach 90 wins. Why not?