Bullied by Bullington, et al

August 16, 2010

Watching the Yankees lose to yet another fourth starter that they had never faced previously in Kansas City (of all places) yesterday actually lifted my spirits. And not really because Burnett, after a rocky first in which he gave up the winning and only run of the game, settled down and ate innings and kept his club in the game. If the playoffs started today, the Yanks wouldn’t have to face Texas in the opening round, which, because of Cliff Lee’s presence in the role of ace, is what teams are seemingly wanting to avoid. But, the Yanks beat the Phils in the Series last year with Lee, et al. And we beat him in Texas last week despite being down 6-1 at one point in that contest.

All season long, the thing that has stymied the ballclub from the Bronx are these journeymen, rookies and soft-tossers. Actually, as far back as I can recall, those sorts of garbage-throwers have always caused the Yankee hitters trouble. This year it’s been narrowed down to guys they are facing for the first time. Bring ‘em in again, and if we don’t get to him early, we get to him the second trip through the lineup. But the Yanks won’t get bullied by guys like Bullington (congrats are in order to the twenty-nine year old righty on his FIRST major league W) in the playoffs. They won’t face guys like him or Chen or Arietta. Come playoff time, the Yankee lineup will be hitting against guys that they have seen; many of them time and time again. And those very professional Yankee hitters (many under the highly lauded tutelage of hitting coach Kevin Long, of whom A-Rod labeled “a genius”) know how to work over pitchers.
Now that pitch count is used as much, if not more, than the manager or pitching coach’s eyes or even the radar gun. When Swisher alone sees twenty-five to thirty pitches a game by himself, the Yanks as a team are very successful at tiring starters – no matter who they are (see exceptions above) – which leads to pitches to hit and they hit those more than they don’t (well, except for Granderson who still seems lost in the batter’s box more than he doesn’t).
I guess I will now have to watch Damon play leftfield in the new Yankee Stadium for a few days, but it will be in those Detroit grays. Even Posada may be able to score from second base on a single to left…


Last night, I enjoyed a pretty good punk rock movie double-feature, courtesy of Netflix. As part of a tribute to Roger Corman, a whole slew of his productions have been released or re-released on dvd in the last few months. “Suburbia,” Penelope Spheeris’ narrative feature debut, still stands up as good as it did when it first came out in 1983. It’s funny for me to reflect, as a dyed-in-the-black-leather New York punk, that the two best “punk rock movies” came out of the Los Angeles scene within a year of each other. The aforementioned and the no need for an introduction “Repo Man,” in case you were wondering.
Suburbia, and Spheeris’ great directorial choice of casting “real” punks (including one “Mike B, the Flea” as Razzle) instead of trying to turn Hollywood actors into them. The Alex Gibson s/t which I loved then is still really, really effective. The live performances by DI, TSOL and The Vandals are really good and mostly worked into the plot. And although they’re kids and “rejected” by society they do attempt to make their own little corner of hell, live well in it and take care of each other as best they can.
The second flick, “You Weren’t There” is about the punk rock scene from Chicago 1977-1984. And when it started I thought it was going to go the elitist way that the last Strummer doc’ went: I didn’t know who is talking which was taking me out of the thing. I thought: look at your title. You’re right; I wasn’t there so outside of Steve Albini, I didn’t recognize a punk in the bunch. But that was just for the intro and I am glad I hadn’t turned off of it. Some great music, some really forgettable, funny stuff and a whole bunch of still hot and amusing, still bitter rivalries and feuds that I don’t think anyone outside of the Windy City had a clue about. A number of them featured the aforementioned Albini, but he’s not alone in his dislike for Vic Bondi, and nor was anyone else. I highly recommend this double-feature to anyone interested in the subject matter.

And, according to my calendar, tomorrow is Tuesday. You know what that means, right? The CEO gets back to me on “Crawlspace Charlie” with either an offer or an official pass. Again.