Saturday’s game was the very first Yankees-Red Sox game that the Bombers have won this year at home, and the Yanks looked about as dominant against Boston as they have since they swept them in that August 2009 series in the Bronx. Jon Lester, who usually gives the Yankees fits, looked more like John Lackey. And Jesus Montero looked like a star. It was fun to have a blowout win, and the game actually lasted less than three hours. Shocking, I know!
I have been trying to keep myself from doing a full-on Snoopy Dance about the Boston Red Sox’s September swoon — they need to be officially out of the Wild Card race before I will put on my dancing shoes. That being said, what I’ve seen so far reminds me a lot of the 2007 New York Mets. (Squawker Jon, are you listening?)
The angriest I have ever heard Jon in the decade I have known him was when Tom Glavine coughed up seven runs in the first inning of the last game of the season, to put the nail in his team’s coffin. Tom Terrible lasted all of one-third of an inning before getting knocked out of the game. Jon was appalled by Glavine’s horrific performance and wrote a rant in Subway Squawkers that made my anti-Joe Torre rants look tame. And that was before Glavine poured salt in the wounds of Mets fans everywhere by proclaiming that he wasn’t devastated by the loss. Good grief.
Anyhow, I’ve been reading talk about how it would be unfair to get rid of Terry Francona, because he has two rings, blah blah blah. Nonsense. If the Sox don’t make the postseason, after everybody and his brother predicted them to win the World Series, the manager has to go. One of the many mistakes the Mets made in recent years was not getting rid of Willie Randolph after the 2007 collapse, instead waiting until the following June to fire him in the middle of the night after a West Coast win.
The same with the Yankees keeping on Joe Torre after 2004. It’s the manager’s job to keep the team grounded, and not letting the team drive into the ditch, the way Boston is right now. It’s not all Carl Crawford’s fault, you know, as much as some people in the media would like to make it that way.
Anyhow, I’m looking forward to today’s doubleheader, but apparently the matchup I was hoping for — A.J. Burnett vs. John Lackey — is apparently not going to happen. Alas. They could have called the game the Toilet Bowl.
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