RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Sports and Wrestling How 'bout those Yankees!

heh

Scumbag Douchebag Varitek hit a homer....2-1 Boston.

Thanks Chris I feel better now.....there is no better Death Watch than a ringing endorsement from Chris Oakley.

Wang blew his load and gave up 3 runs.....but Jeter just hit a 2 run homer to make it 5-3 Boston in the 7th.

Oakley makes a prediction and Yankee fans around the world celebrate.

Posada just looked at 3 straight pitches to end the top of the 8th...........LOOKED at 3 straight pitches.......and they were pretty good pitches.....not to mention he made 2 of the biggest outs before this.

Yanks lost 5-3......they gave this one away.... really the Red Sox had no business of winning this one.....oh well....2 to go.

w00t!

Posada has had a subpar season this year, but his OPS ranking among qualifying major league catchers(those who had at least 325 at bats) the last 5 years is pretty impressive:

2005: 10th(out of 27)
2004: 2nd(out of 23)
2003: 1st(out of 25)
2002: 3rd(out of 21)
2001: 3rd(out of 22)
2000: 3rd(out of 19)

Only Mike Piazza and Ivan Rodriguez have better offensive numbers than Posada in that span, and the disparity between Posada and those immediately following him(Jason Varitek, Javy Lopez) is significant enough to make up for whatever defensive shortcomings he might have.

I'd rather have Varitek right now, but to this point Posada's career has been better.

Oh, and Posada looked very bad in the batter's box tonight.

And I was very impressed with Robinson Cano tonight, though I think he's being overhyped by Yankeedom.

Yanks win the game 8-4.....Yanks win the Division....again.......to win in Boston was sweet.....poor scum sox.....Manny and Varitek are scumbags......Yankees all the way!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank You Chris Oakley.

Make sure Steinbrenner sends Chris a thank you muffin basket.

Red Sox Go Into Finale With Focus on Wild Card
Boston Can Clinch Final AL Playoff Spot With Win or Cleveland Loss
By HOWARD ULMAN, AP

BOSTON (Oct. 1) - Mike Mussina had a new role with the Yankees. Instead of preparing to start the regular season finale against Boston, he was in the visitor's clubhouse at Fenway Park, taping plastic over lockers to protect them from champagne.

Mussina's next appearance will be in Game 1 of the AL playoffs.

The Red Sox hope Jaret Wright flops Sunday as Mussina's replacement. The Yankees made the switch after clinching their eighth consecutive AL East title Saturday with an 8-4 win over Boston.

"It's not easier," David Ortiz said. "When you take anything for granted in this game, the games comes and eats you up."

The Red Sox (94-67) lost their chance to win the division on Saturday but have several ways to get the wild card and maintain their hopes of a second straight World Series championship.

They would win the wild card if they beat the Yankees on Sunday or the Indians (93-68) lose to the AL Central champion White Sox. If Boston loses and Cleveland wins, the wild card would be decided in a one-game playoff Monday at Fenway Park, with Matt Clement pitching for the Red Sox on three days' rest.

"Let's hope it works out where we don't have to even think about that," said Clement, who felt good throwing before Saturday's game and isn't worried about the short rest. "There's more combinations that can happen where I don't pitch Monday."

Curt Schilling can clinch the playoff berth when he starts Sunday.

"I think he's the best big-game pitcher of our generation," Kevin Millar said.

Schilling is just 7-8 with a 5.98 ERA, missing much of the year with an injured ankle. He hasn't been at his best since winning Game 6 of the AL Championship Series against the Yankees and Game 2 of the World Series against St. Louis after undergoing unique ankle surgery to keep a tendon in place and having blood seep onto his right sock during both games.


"I was talking to him during the game, and the way I heard him talking it reminded me when he pitched that one game in New York last year where he was bleeding to death," Ortiz said. "He's very positive. And, you know him. When he feels that way, look out."

He may not have to pitch against the Yankees' top lineup. Some regulars may get to rest.

"It turns into two and three because you rest Monday and start again on Tuesday," Jason Giambi said. "That's huge."

Gary Sheffield wants no part of that: "I'm playing every day. I still want to win."

If the Red Sox win the wild card, they would start the AL division series Tuesday at Chicago. The Yankees were waiting for their first-round foe to be determined: Cleveland or the Los Angeles Angels.

Mussina preferred to stand on a chair and attach the plastic with duct tape than to talk about his next start.

"Ask me later," he said. "I don't know who we're playing."

The Red Sox are just focused on Sunday.

"We feel good about ourselves," said Tony Graffanino, who had three of Boston's seven hits. "I don't care how you get in. We'll take it any way we can get it."

Of course, they'd rather get it Sunday.

"Hopefully," Clement said, "we'll see what we're used to seeing out of Curt Schilling."

I hope cleveland wins today!

Updated: Oct. 1, 2005, 10:44 PM ET
Yankees' winning formula: Hard work, team work
By Gene Wojciechoski

BOSTON -- Not far from Fenway Park, at the corner of Boylston and Massachusetts, a local organization provided free stress tests to anyone who stopped by its sidewalk tables. I only saw one person take advantage of the pregame freebie consultation: a New York Yankees fan wearing his road gray Bernie Williams jersey.

This was late Saturday morning, before the Yankees won Game Two of their weekend cage match against the Red Sox and clinched the AL East title outright when New York's new best friends, the Chicago White Sox, beat the Cleveland Indians. Now the Yankees can relax (at least, until George Steinbrenner's latest rabies shot wears off), and Red Sox manager Terry Francona can take a seat at the makeshift Boylston stress clinic.

Once again, the Yankees soaked another clubhouse floor and walls with sprayed bubbly. They've won so many of these things (eight consecutive division titles and counting) they could conduct a seminar on proper cork-popping technique. But this one, said Yankees manager Joe Torre "is the best of all of them. ... This has to be the most special."

It was special enough that Torre wore sunglasses in the Yankees dugout -- not because he needed them, but because he didn't want anyone to see the tears in his eyes as starter Randy Johnson protected New York's five-run lead by striking out the side in the sixth inning.

Torre gets chick-flick misty at the drop of a baseball cap, but this was different. It was different because in his 10-year Bronx tenure, the Yankees have never had to work harder for a division title. Injuries. ... The Red Sox. ... The constant, sometimes-suffocating pressure that comes with wearing pinstripes all made for a celebration to remember in the cramped -- and wet -- visitors' clubhouse at Fenway.

"This club has made me very emotional this year," said Torre, who didn't seem in a hurry to switch from his champagne-doused t-shirt to something in the non-alcohol variety.

You couldn't swing a bottle of Korbel brut without hitting a Yankee who wasn't having an Oprah moment. There was closer Mariano Rivera, who was cheered by Boston fans when the Red Sox were presented their 2004 World Series rings before the April 11 home opener. It was Rivera who had blown a ninth-inning Yankees lead in what could have been, should have been the AL Championship Series Game 4 clincher. Instead, the Red Sox won that one, and three more to record one of the greatest playoff series comebacks in the history of sports.

So guess who abandoned his usual game-day routine and spent the first couple of innings in the Yankees' dugout cheering on his teammates? It was Rivera, who usually stays for the national anthem before returning to the clubhouse and later the bullpen. But this time, Rivera couldn't help himself.

"I was almost telling him to shut up," said Torre, who wanted Rivera to conserve his energy for something important, like pitching.

Rivera, who arguably is the Yankees' most valuable player this season, was where he belonged in the ninth inning: on the mound, duct-taping the Red Sox's AL East hopes shut.

"A lot of people counted us out," Rivera said. "We showed we are capable of coming back, and we did. It's special. Before, it wasn't like that. Before, we had big leads. Now, we have to fight for it."

The Yankees were 11-19 and nine games out of first on May 6. By mid-July they led the division, but fell behind and trailed by four games as recently as Sept. 10. Now this: another title and, for the moment, retribution and satisfaction.

"We had a lot of guys who stepped up," said shortstop Derek Jeter, the guy Torre describes as the Yankees' "Gibraltar."

One of those guys is Johnson, whose arrival via free agency made the New York rotation the deepest Torre has had as Yankees manager. But that was before Yankees starters began dropping like they had heat stroke. Through it all, the 42-year-old Johnson was the only one who never spent time on the disabled list. He finished the regular season with a 17-8 record. Five of those victories came against the Red Sox.

"When I came here, I was told there's two seasons: a regular season and a postseason," Johnson said. "There's not too many teams I've played for who expect to get to the postseason. This team has been there enough that they expect to get to the postseason every year."

Body language says everything. Even when Johnson gave up a first-inning bomb to Manny Ramirez, or squirmed out of a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the second, he walked slowly off the mound and toward the Yankees' dugout as if he were walking down the driveway to pick up the morning paper.

"But there's a heartbeat in there," Torre said.

And it was thumping hard in those first few innings, and again during the champagne shower. After all, this is why he wanted to be a Yankee.

Baseball and its agonizingly long regular season doesn't allow for many flukes, and this AL East Ironman race was no exception. The division's best team, which also happens to be baseball's most expensive team, earned its latest East title by a margin as thin as a blade of Fenway infield grass. The perk? Even if Torre shows up at home plate Sunday in a pair of boxers and forfeits the game because his team popped one too many bottles of Korbel the night before, the Yankees still will own the division because of a better season record against The Nation.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox are stuck in stress mode. A win Sunday means they're the wild-card winner. But it won't be easy, even with Jaret Wright replacing scheduled starter Mike Mussina.

"Oh, we're going to try to win," Torre said.

They always do.

Gene Wojciechowski is the senior national columnist for ESPN.com. You can contact him at gene.wojciechowski@espn3.com.

The Magic Number is 0.

you can also talk about this story here too...Sammitch's Place

Yanks Scrubs lost 10-1 to the Sux Starters and the scumbags of Boston back themselves into the playoffs....while the Yanks roar into the playoffs.

Just a few thoughts on the weekend and a few comments I've read since I was last here.

1) I want to make this official:

Quote:

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Dear Chris Oakley:

Shut the fuck up. Your comments have been a jinx this season. Shut your yap about the hometown team and MAYBE they'll be able to get somewhere in the playoffs. If you continue to jinx the team, and they are eliminated, we will come to your house and take turns alternating between punching you in the nuts and force-feeding you Manhattan-style clam chowder.

Sincerely,

Red Sox Nation

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2) While I'm not happy about the way the AL East panned out at the end, I am happy to see that both the Red Sox and Yankees are making it to the postseason. I know 99% of the boards disagree with me, but it's my opinion.

3) Wow...the Yankees got their asses kicked today, didn't they?

4) In my humble opinion, George Steinbrenner should've allowed his people to do their jobs and get Beltran. This offseason, I can understand making a run at Johnny Damon. What I don't understand is the idea of the Yankees OR the Red Sox making a run at AJ Burnett, especially after the way his season ended and the outburst that followed. I do not think that he's able to handle the non-stop pressure that comes from playing in these two baseball-obsessed markets. He should go to Washington or (shudder) Toronto or some other team that can be competitive while not under 24 hour scrutiny. The guy that Boston and New York should go after is Kevin Millwood who pitched deceptively well in Cleveland, is used to pitching in a high pressure city (did I mention that Philadelpians boo their kids' little league teams and probablt eat their young? I didn't? Oh...), and excels when he's NOT considered "the man". Make him the #2 or #2 like he was in Atlanta and Cleveland, and he does well.

5) I accept PJP's bitterness today. Thank you.

Bitterness for what....a meaningless game.

I will never understand Bostonians trying to put positive spins on shit.

It's gonna be Sox Vs. Sox........rex will be happy.


We will have our hands full with the Los Angeles Anaheim California Angels.

ANI!!!!!

my prediction and scripts were off for this weekend, as i was unaware of the weird statistical percentage point ranking thing.

but whateva!

8 straight is mighty sweet. woulda been much eviler (greater!) had cleveland won, locking the bosox out, but...

the yankees are finally acting like a team. took'em until september, but at least they've really been kicking it into high gear lately. at the same time, boston seems to have been breaking up a bit over the past month, after being sucha tight nit "group of idiots" over the past year and a half. maybe going in as the wild card will spark them to life again, as it did last year.

Quote:

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Joe Mama said:
Actually, it's called even-handedness. You circle-jerkin' Yankees fans could use a lesson. Especially considering the arrogance you show after the historical choke of last year.

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Quote:

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Joe Mama said:
You're still losing for the season against the DEVIL RAYS!!!

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hey, 'member when you lost the season to us by losing to the rays?

Heh.

Nicely played, Rob.

So, should I send the pic directly to your PM box...?

You can send it to me!