The Rebellion Strikes First

Great night for my fantasy teams. A horrible night for me and the rest of the empire.

Torre once again tempts the fates and loses. I understand he wanted to see what Small has. But when he barely got out of the seventh, that should have been an obvious sign that he was on his last legs. A more obvious one should have been him walking Alex Cora, the ninth place hitter, in the eighth. Small did not deserve that loss. He should have been pulled as soon as he walked him. He had no business starting the eighth inning.

We can talk about Myers giving up that bomb versus Ortiz. As my blog friend Kigomanager wrote earlier, he was brought in for one purpose....to get out tough lefties like Big Papi. My point is it shouldn't have even come to that. Had Torre given Small the hook and started the frame with Proctor, Sturtze or god forbid...Farnsworth! This could have ended differently. Papi is a great hitter and sometimes he's going hit whoever you have against him. Myers included.

My point is that you have make sure it never comes to that. I know Torre wants to protect Farnsworth from overuse to avoid what happened with Gordon. But this is what you brought him here for...to throw 100 mile cheese past the Sox. This might sound like sacrilege, but Torre's use of the bullpen has really been dubious over the last month.

Not to let Wang off the hook. He needs to settle down and pitch. This guy didn't walk anyone last year and now it's like watching Al(Full Count)Leiter pitch.

Speaking of Al, another great night behind the mic. Breaking down Small's changeup to how runners pick up signs and location of pitches. Good stuff.

Kruk on Baseball Tonight made the point that Cano should have dived for the ball to keep it out of the outfield. Maybe, but he practically accused of trying to hotdog with his tone. I would liked to have seen his fat ass get to the ball. I'm not going to thrown Robbie over the bow over that. People love Kruk because "he tells it like it is." But too often people who are "blunt and plainspoken" are that way because they aren't bright enough to see shades of grey or are capable of layered, thoughtful analysis. Cano got flatfooted and tried to make a play going the other way. I don't how many guys would have made that play. If he had made the play, he would have been blowing him for a week.

I know it's only May and I'm not jumping off the cliff. But I'd rather get blown out 17-1 than lose games like this.