The Imperial Timberlands Have Been Dusted Off And Put To Use...

For the GoodFellas style beatdown we saw last night....Wow.

Here's what I loved about last night's win. The plate discipline. Zito threw over 20 pitches in first inning. So even though they didn't score, I had a feeling that they would get to him eventually by the fourth or fifth. I had no idea that they would initiate Order 66 on him. That was brutal.

Zito has always had trouble with the Yankees, but they weren't cutting him any breaks Monday. He tried to nibble and they wouldn't bite and when he had to throw a strike, they crushed it. I loved the patience the team displayed at the plate throughout the game. Taking walks and letting the next guy drive them in. Drawing the pitchers into long counts. Even when it was 11-1. It might make for some very tired fans on the East Coast who try and stay awake for these games. But it probably means the Yankees are winning handily. Fair tradeoff, I think.

Randy Johnson looked good. His pitches had some bite to them. Outside of the homer to Frank Thomas, he pitched a very efficient game. Unit definitely knows how to pitch with a big lead. Something that is harder than it sounds. Some pitchers seem to pitch better when they're involved in a pitching duel than when they're up 11-0. Hopefully, Unit gets a lot of practice this year.

A great sports night overall, Florida puts the smackdown on UCLA to the utter delight of this USC fan and the Yankees start the 2006 campaign with a beatdown of the MoneyBall bitches. Nice night.

Mike and Chris have going back and forth about this..so I figure that I have to chime in on this Billy Wagner/Enter Sandman controversy.

For those of you who aren't aware, Wagner has been coming out to Metallica's Enter Sandman for almost as long as the Great Rivera and is apparently a huge fan of the band. Now that he's in NYC he apparently doesn't plan on changing his routine. So yesterday, Billy comes out to the song in the ninth inning.

Mike and MadDog are outraged that the Mets will allow Wagner to do this. But while my feathers were a little ruffled when I heard about it today. Idon't think he should change his song. As a matter of fact, I'm looking to the time when he has a lead at Shea in the eighth or ninth inning against the Yankees.....and he blows it!! It'll remind the infidels that theme songs don't make closers. So let him play the song. It'll remind the scions of Shea that they have pale imitiation of the Great Rivera.

When the hell did Brad Halsey get traded to the friggin A's? I mentioned him and the D-Backs in my NL preview. I felt like a real jerk when he played long man for Oakland last night.