Hey, readers! It's been a while, and I'm sorry for my absence. I've been pretty busy, and going through a little crisis of faith. I'll tell you all about that sometime. But not today, because today is reserved for one thing and one thing only: the opening of the new Yankee Stadium!
Suffice it to say, it is killing me not to be there. I've got a pair of bleacher seats for a game in August, but there's no way I can make it until then. I'm going to do my damnedest to get down there in the next month or so. I'll even go myself. In fact, I think I'd prefer to go myself. The better to go and explore this baby and see everything I want to see.
I think I have a new favorite player: Nick Swisher. My good friend and mentor, Locker, who has forgotten more about baseball than I will ever know, trashed this acquisition all winter. I tried to tell him -- this is a good pickup. It's a fun guy who gets on base -- Swisher's named was mentioned frequently in "Moneyball" as an object of Billy Beane's statistical affection.
We are going to find out, however, a lot more than we expected to about Swisher. Xavier Nady is going to be out for a long time -- possibly the whole season. That makes Swisher the everyday right fielder. And he's going to go through those things that everyday players go through -- slumps. We know he's not going to keep up the pace he has set for the first nine games of the season, but when he hits his inevitable rough patches, will he be able to handle the scrutiny that only the New York media can inflict upon a player of whom not much was expected to begin with? It's not a fair test, but life isn't fair. Swisher is about to be a big key to how the Yankees fare in the AL East. Welcome to New York, buddy.
CC Sabathia just walked Grady Sizemore with one out. I give Sizemore two pitches before he runs on Posada. Maybe three, with a lefty on the mound. I was not the least bit alarmed after CC's awful start last Monday. Nor did I get all giddy after one great start over the weekend, because CC has a history of crappy Aprils. But I will say this: CC is now 3-0 on Mark DeRosa. He's been falling behind EVERYONE from the first batter of the game. Time to knock that off.
I was a little off. Sizemore ran on 3-1, but it was ball four, anyway. Get it together, CC.
There's a gift strike call for CC on Martinez. Gotta go. Not going to blog the whole game. You all have the excellent Peter Abraham for that. But I'll be back later to talk about the MLB Network's coverage. Let's just say, I don't watch much ESPN these days.
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