A Case of the Mondays

It's time to get back to the real world. Meaning its time to do some blogging during work. Joe Torre survived the weekend, but the rest of us barely made it through Sunday's debacle. Thankfully the Rangers were battling the Sabres at the same time.

Let us go back to Saturday for a moment. I walk in at about 4:05 and turn on the TV. Kei Igawa is warming up and all I could muster is "What the f*ck". Is this a ploy by Joe Torre? Has he pulled a page from the old Earl Weaver playbook (have one pitcher set up as starter until the other team sets their lineup, then pull him after 1 batter for the pitcher you really want it in there)?

Of course, then we found out what happened to Jeff Karstens, who by the way, will be out 6-8 with a broken bone in his fibula. Even odder, however, was Kei Igawa went from the penthouse to the outhouse and back again so quickly. Igawa stunned everyone with 6 shutout innings. The first batter he faced, David Ortiz, bounced in a 6-4-3 double play. Later, he would get Ortiz to hit into another twin killing.

Jorge Posada, who is 2nd only to A-Rod for team MVP thus far, smacked a big time HR off of Tim Wakefield and the pen came through. It only took until April 28 for Mariano Rivera to get a save. That was even odder than Igawa's performance.

Sunday went right back down the tube again though. Chien-Ming Wang, The Wanger, My Boy, looked quite ordinary again. His pitches were up in the zone all day, partly because of a cracked finger nail that could effect the status of his next start. Alex Cora is about 3 ft tall and weighs about 50 pounds, or twice as big as Dustin Pedroia, but he slammed a back breaking home run off of Wang and later added a triple.

Julian Tavarez has been a solid reliever throughout his career, but pretty much blows as a starter. At least he did until yesterday. The Yankees simply could not do anything against him, and again made Hideki Okajima look like Sandy Koufax.

Jason Giambi managed a lead off double in the 9th off of Jon Papelbon, but Papelbon kept his perfect April saves record in tact.

Which all makes us glad that today is again an off day.