Well, the Moose won his 19th game of the night going five innings, allowing 4 hits and striking out 6 (including one swinging, wowie!). He got hit in the arm with a linedrive in the third inning but managed to go two more before they took him out of the game.
There was some bullpen matchup insanity including the patented Damaso Marte no-out appearance, and Cody Ransom is apparently so bad at shortstop that Derek Jeter was brought in as a defensive replacement for the 9th inning but a win was eked out and the only goal worth hoping for this season stayed alive.
In more tragic news, Cliff Lee sucks against teams that can hit baseballs with any proficiency and the Red Sox won tonight officially booting the Yankees out of the playoffs. It was going to happen some day, I’m not terribly upset (other than the team under performing part of that deal) and now we can look forward to the off season and playing internet GM. Of course, the Yankees haven’t determined who their GM going forward is yet. If it’s not Brian Cashman hopefully it’s someone else who seems like they would be extremely competent like Kim Ng (who used to work for the team, even).
Out of tragedy is born hope, however, because with any luck Boston will sit a whole bunch of players for the last game of the season which happens to be the one Mussina is pitching! Even if it doesn’t happen, it’s really been awesome seeing him reinvent himself as a pitcher (which is an extremely tough thing to do). Because he is no longer dominating and amassing large amounts of strikeouts, he’s relying more on making contact which means like many pitchers he will have bad outings where he just gets smacked around. The most interesting thing about this season is that he has really cut down on the walks, which means less men on base when those hits do happen, which means less runs. His BB/9 and k/BB ratio are up there with his best statistical years. After tonight his K/BB ratio is over 5, which is really good. He is not the guy throwing 95mph with a killer curve anymore but it’s as great to watch him this year as it was frustrating last year.
In short: Go Moose! Get your 20 win season so the BBWAA won’t fret over it when they look at your name on the Hall of Fame ballot.
Hey just read over at http://yankees.lhblogs.com/ that Pettitte might get scratched in his last start this season. Sucks, but his possible last game as a Yankee would have been Sunday then, which makes a fitting last impression.