Tuesday, October 03, 2006

It's A Small World After All



Mike Lupica is at it again. Spouting his Yankee hating bulls#@t, that the Daily News for some reason allows him to print. Today he said that the Yankees have no excuse for not winning the World Series this year. He had this to say about Joe Torre:

"If Joe Torre can't win with this lineup, with this kind of insane financial advantage over any American League team they are going to come up against, if Torre can't win with the deepest and most diversified and most talented batting order in baseball history, then when does he win again? If this isn't enough for him, what is?"

First of all, anyone who knows anything about baseball knows that there are no guarantees in the post season. A five game series does not prove who the better team is, it just proves who played the best over those five games. Do the Yankees have a ridiculous lineup? Of course they do. I've already stated that I think it's the best of all time. Does that guarantee a win? Absolutely not. We only have to look to a few days ago when the Yankees came within two outs of being no-hit.

Lupica is really trying to set the Yankees up for the big fall. He can't wait to tear them apart if they don't win the series. The key to playoff baseball is pitching. He dismisses the fact that Randy Johnson is not 100%. He makes this statement:

"They are supposed to win it all, and do it without much sweat. With or without Randy Johnson. They shouldn't lose a game in the first round and they should handle the Twins or A's easily in the ALCS, and they should win the World Series even if it is against the Mets, who played them tough in this year's regular-season version of the Subway Series."

They shouldn't lose a game in the first round? Says who? The Tigers won 95 games this year. For the first half of the season, they played as well as any team ever has. They reeled off multiple double digit win streaks. Why on earth should they now roll over for the Yankees in playoffs. They should handle the Twins or A's easily? The Yankees split the season series agains the Twins and lost the season series to the A's. The Twins have the best starting pitching and bullpen in the league. The A's starters are also very good. The Yankees have the worst team ERA of any of the teams in the playoffs. Why exactly are the Yankees supposed to steamroll through the playoffs again? Oh, that's right. Because Mike Lupica says so. And of course what he says goes. Just to show you what a complete and absolute idiot Lupica is he makes this statement:

"The Yankees have Chien-Ming Wang, as much a Cy Young candidate as anybody in the American League"

Johan Santana of the Twins won the pitching triple crown for Christ's sake. He led the majors in wins, strikeouts, ERA and a few other categories as well. There is only one Cy Young candidate in the American League and he pitches for Minnesota. I understand that Lupica is trying to build the Yankees up to mythic proportions at this point, but seriously, only an absolute moron would make a statement like that.

I can understand how painful the Yankees dominance of the late 90's must have been for Lupica. As I understand the absolute joy that only someone who is a Boston Red Sox fan must feel at the continued failures of the Yankees in the postseason. He just can't wait to blast Torre and the rest of the Yankees in the press. Here's another comment:

"Barring another injury to Rivera, there are no excuses. None."

I'm sure if the Yankees lose they will not make excuses. They never do. But it is certainly possible that they will lose. The White Sox ran the table last year with extraordinary starting pitching. Could the Yankees run into a similar buzzsaw this year? Of course they could. As has already been seen, good pitching will beat good hitting. The Yankee lineup is great, but they can be shut down for a few nights by stellar starting pitching. Even with a lineup full of .300 hitters, they are still going to fail 70% of the time. Baseball is not a game of guarantees. The breaks have to go your way along with timely hitting and good pitching. The stars must align in your favor. And sometimes it's just not your day. Even with the greatest lineup in history, the Yankees are assured of nothing, except the gloating and "I told you so" nonsense from Lupica should they lose.

I assure that Lupica is rooting for a Yankees loss with all the desire that his cold, little heart can muster. I always hope that someone at the Daily News would sit lupica down in his booster seat and explain to him that openly rooting against the home town team is probably not the right thing to do. Well, Mike, I hope you enjoy shopping in the "husky" boys section of your local clothing outlet, because while the Yankees winning is not a certainty, your remaining a midget is.

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