Well CC Is Off The Market

The Yankees and starting pitcher CC Sabathia came to an agreement on a contract extension yesterday night to that adds $30 million and one season to his existing contract, giving him a package that pays $122 million over the next five years.

Anyone who thought that CC was going anywhere other than New York this offseason was foolish. There is no way that the Yankees were going to let this kid go. People will say that CC is going to eventually break down because of his weight and because he throws a bazillion innings a year, but not going to happen. This guy is an old school pitcher who will be able to go up there and be effective for a majority of his contract. The good news for this means that the Yankees may not overspend on other SP out there, so the Sox may get a fair shot at whoever they desire (hopefully not CJ Wilson). I say trade our whole minor leagues to Seattle for Felix but whatever.

NY Post The New Dueling Couches?

Hahaha, "Gunman had more hits the A-Rod" is fucking priceless. All the oversensitive people are going crazy about this. I'll admit I am surprised any newspaper would actually put that as a tag line on a leading story, but it got a chuckle out of me so I say good job.

They must have been reading this site.

Chuck Knoblauch Hasn't Had The Best Retirement

Chuck Knoblauch retired back in 2002, but it hasn't been nice beaches and pina colada's for this former Yankee. Since his retirement, he has been named the Mitchell Report, had to admit that he did do HGH, plead guilty to misdemeanor after strangling his then wife, and to top it all off he has a bunch of Twitter drama going on.

Knoblauch had this bomb dropped through Twitter...

Oh boy, that'll get you in trouble on a couple different ways. He says his Twitter account was hacked, which could be true, but on the other hand it was a 1:30am tweet, so it could've been hacked by himself in a drunken steroid endused rant.

Let's just say his life has been a little "off the mark" since 2002, which is kind of fitting for the way his career played out anyways.

3 Tigers, 2 Yankees

A lot of the blame lies on 2 peoples shoulders Joe Girardi and Alex Rodriguez. Joe Girardi panicked a little after starter Ivan Nova gave up 2 runs in 2 innings and Yanked him a little before when he should have. (Both runs were solo shots from Don Kelly and Delmon Young) There were rumors that he had forearm tightness, but I think that's a little bullshit.

More mistakes were bringing CC Sabathia in on short rest for no real reason, Boone Logan who pitched the inning before CC came in only threw 7 pitches to get out and looked good. CC was on short rest and the Yankees had one of the best bullpens in the league this year, doesn't make a ton of sense to bring him in. CC let up the run that was the difference off of a Victor Martinez single.

Alex Rodriguez had himself a series? Rodriguez was 0-for-4 with three strikeouts and hit .118 in the series (2-for-18). And interesting stats, Alex Rodriguez has been unable to come up big for the Yankees when he bats in the ninth inning of losses that eliminate the team from the postseason.

Alex Rodriguez's 9th Inning At-Bats
In Games Yankees Were Eliminated

2011 ALDS	Strikeout for final out
2010 ALCS	Strikeout for final out
2007 ALDS	Groundout for 2nd out
2006 ALDS	Did not bat
2005 ALDS	GIDP for 1st and 2nd out
2004 ALCS	Did not bat

So A Rod once again choked and saved his worst game as a Yankee for last night. Given, he was injured all year, but all this seems pretty consistent throughout his career (except 1).

Tigers will now face the Rangers in the ALCS. Imagine if the Phillies lose, no one will watch the playoffs figuring the 3 biggest markets will be out of it.

MLB Playoff Updates

Texas beats the Rays in the series 3-1.

Maybe the Rays weren't as good as we thought they were or maybe Texas was a lot better than we assumed. The Rays were on the ropes for the last couple of months of the season and they couldn't continue their living on the edge streak. Former Red Sox player Adrian Beltre belted 3 solo home runs last night, it's a shame that we couldn't sign him last year because we had no space to put him. Matt Harrison was able to shut down the Rays to get the win in the final game. Harrison and Colby Lewis really did a great job in the back end of that rotation for the Rangers.

Yankees tie up the series 2-2 with the Tigers

AJ Burnett may have not been the best, but he did his job. Burnett went 5.2 innings allowing 1 run wih 4 bb and 3 ks. The game could have got ugly in the 1st when the bases were loaded and Don Kelly hit what should have been a double or triple but Curtis Granderson made a leaping catch ending the threat. For the Yankees Robinson Cano drove in 2 runs and A Rod got off his drought to drive in one himself.

Phillies have a 2-1 lead over St. Louis

Not impressed with the Phillies so far, but Cole Hammels came up big last night going 6 and striking out 8. Phillies should take care of business today with Roy Oswalt on the bump.

The Brewers will eventually win this series no reason to talk about it.

The Yankees Turn To AJ Burnett

After the Yankees lost last night they turn to their unlikely starter AJ Burnett to get the back in the series. Although he did let up 4 runs Justin Verlander pitched a pretty good game, going 8 and striking out 11. The Tigers now lead the series 2-1.

AJ Burnett unlike Lackey has the "potential" to pitch a great game. He has been there before with both the Marlins and the Yankees, but this year he has been awful going 11 and 11 with a 5.15 era (he did have 173 Ks). Rick Porcello will be opposing him for Detroit, he wasn't awful this year but he is a soft tosser and with a great Yankees line up he has the potential to blow it. If the Yankees want to go anywhere they will need help from A-Rod and Mark Teixiera who have gone a combined 1-21 this postseason.

Unfortunately I think the Yankees will take this one because it feels like a 2-2 series, but I hope I'm wrong.

Orioles 4, Red Sox 3

Anyone that dares blame the Yankees for the Red Sox not making the playoffs deserves a swift slap to the face. The Red Sox surrendered a playoff berth that was theirs for the taking. It all happened so quickly last night, but this was a month long stretch of crappy baseball played by overrated, overpaid players. The Red Sox do not deserve to be in the 2011 MLB Playoffs.

Lester pitched well, all things considered. 6 innings, 2 earned on 3 days rest. I'll take that. He was a bit fortunate that Scutaro made that unbelievable glove-toss to Pedroia to start a double-play. Then Aceves did well, then Bard pitched a scoreless 8th, then Papelbon...

Papelbon had a tremendous season. But this is not the first time that he's been on the mound when a Red Sox season has ended with disappointment. I'm not saying we shouldn't re-sign him (unless we can acquire a similar talent for less money), but the facts are the facts. He has blown some pretty big saves.

It's a game of inches. Scutaro was inches from scoring on Crawford's double. But you shouldn't need a few inches here and there to beat the Orioles. The Sox had 7 games against Baltimore at the back of this schedule, and they went 2-5 in those games. The Orioles' payroll is $75 million less than the Sox.

And while the Red Sox lose the burden of JD Drew, but we're still saddled with Carl Crawford and John Lackey. This is not a complete team. All the preseason hype from all the suckers and fools in this town was over fantasy baseball stats. This team needs more starting pitching. They need another reliable arm in the pen. They need a full-time catcher, outfielders who play 150+ games, they need a bench.

There are good players on this team, good players with heart. Pedroia, Ellsbury, Youkilis. There's talented guys like Gonzalez, Beckett, Lester. Buchholz will hopefully be healthy. Daisuke isn't a bad #4 or #5. Lackey needs to be quietly killed and his body left in a snowbank. But there is a foundation here. There's something to build on.

But there needs to be a significant amount of building.

One thing I am seeing from most of the team in their post-game media sessions is emotion. Frustration. Anger. Disappointment. That's been missing, at least in the public's eye, all throughout this stretch. Maybe this team can play with some fire next year. Then again, you have excuse conjurers like Lackey who think the entire universe (except for Jim Beam) is against them. I don't know how much this team's attitude will change. I think you have different kinds of personalities in that clubhouse, and when things go well on the field, there's chemistry. When they don't, things break down.

Bruins season starts in 8 days.

-The Commodore

7 Sox, 4 Yanks (Game 2, Only Game That Mattered)

Jacoby Ellsbury and the bullpen saved the season last night.

The bullpen, on the whole, was outstanding. They pitched eight shutout innings. Jonathan Papelbon went 2 1/3, and that fact alone tells you how important this game was. He came in with the bases loaded and two down in the 9th, as Daniel Bard just doesn't have it anymore and is a liablitiy. Papelbon came in breathing fire and was absolutely lights out, no one that he faced had a chance.

Franklin Morales, despite some control issues, looked strong and was throwing the ball hard. Felix Doubront came on for a pretty easy save in the 14th.

After some early drama, Lackey actually looked pretty good. Innings three through six went smoothly, and made his 1st right decision of his coaching job this year and Tito wisely yanked him as soon as the first batter of the 7th was on. Lackey was pissed as usual.

As for the rest of the team, the spotlight once again shines on Jacoby Ellsbury, whose three-run homer (and 3rd of the day) put the good guys on top for good in the top of the 14th.

The Sox are up only one game as the Rays keep winning. Beckett is going against the Orioles today and James Shields of the Rays is going against the Yanks tonight.