The US 189 million Dollar New York Yankees are in trouble. They lost 22-0 to the Cleveland Indians, setting the franchise record for worst loss. Ever. How did this happen? The mind boggles, but basically, the starting pitching faltered, then the relief pitching staggered and the last guy out of the bullpen, let it all slip into the sea of ink. This is the most expensive roter assembled in baseball history. 8 players on the 9 starting position are All-Stars from the last few years. This is supposed to be a stacked team, and yet one night in September, they found the worst form to drop the worst game in their franchise history on the lap of their owner. The New York Times has this description:
And the tale of the tape says, 22 hits, 22runs to 5 hits and no runs. Ouch. Worse still, Boston gained another game on them, shrinking the Yankee lead down to 3.5games from the once mighty 10.5 games on the 16th of August. Yankee starters have not recorded a win in that period. Is it time to panic? Or was it the dog days of August catching up with a veteran-laden team?It would be difficult to pinpoint the most teeth-grinding moment for the Yankees owner or for any of the 51,777 in attendance who had to painfully watch this game. Was it Vazquez raising red flags once again about the team's starting pitching? Was it Kenny Lofton staggering after an Omar Vizquel double, misreading the flight of the ball until it was too late? It could have been Hideki Matsui, after scratching out one of the team's five hits, being picked off second base as he leaned too far after Indians' pitcher Jake Westbrook mishandled a Posada ground ball. Was it when Vizquel picked up his sixth hit of the night, in the eighth inning, giving him one more than the Yanks to that point? Or was it just the numbing task of staring blankly at the scoreboard?
Tanyon Sturtze topped Vazquez for futility, giving up seven runs in three innings and Nitkowski allowed three runs in an inning and two-thirds. Then Esteban Loaiza, who was an All-Star a year ago, was handed the task usually reserved for a backup infielder, finishing off the embarrassing loss.
While the Yankees could not find a way to get the Indians out, Westbrook, the former Yankee farmhand, coasted as he retired the first 11 hitters before Gary Sheffield softly lined an 0-1 pitch into the left-field corner for a double. But there was never a hint that the Yankees would mount a rally, much less a comeback. Westbrook pitched seven masterful innings, surrendering just five hits, and never allowed a runner to reach third base.
By the sixth inning, Manager Joe Torre was yanking starters from the lineup, sending the white flag up with the removal of Matsui, Posada and Jeter.
I sure don't want to be in the vicinity of King George right now. I guess this is the day the colossal sporting monster came to a shuddering halt. Something is wrong in the evil Empire, and nobody is able to pinpoint the blame. How did this day come to be? The fall out from this is going to be interesting to say the least; but it's been that kind of year. Even if they had managed to land Randy Johnson, this day would have happened, given the cast of characters out there. Which goes to show, a 162-game season can produce some mighty fine interesting results. Earlier today, I tried to get onto Baseball Think Factory, but their server was overloaded. The simple fact is, the AL East race is back on; the quesstion now is how will this team regroup, with Boston yapping at their heels?
- Art Neuro
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