Sunday, August 28, 2005

Yankee-free October in Jeopardy

It was just 10 days ago when all was well for the Yankee haters of the world. The Junkees had lost a couple of sloppy ones to the Devil Rays, the usually calm Joe Snorre busted a gut, and the Red Sox had a pretty comfortable lead over the Junkees. And for the first time since 1993, perhaps we could really look forward to the postseason.

But now, the Junkees are looking like a threat once again. They beat the White Sox, took 3 from the Jays, and are poised for a sweep of the Royals. And the Juice man has hit two dingers today. I guess with Palmeiro out of the news again, he's back in true Giambaby form. Even though the Royals will probably go down with the '03 Tigers as one of the worst teams in history, I was hoping they could pull off a sweep like they did earlier in the year. But the rules of nature kicked in: if you go up against a team with 7 times the payroll you've got, chances are that you will not do too well.

The only hope I see now is the difficulty of the Yankees' upcoming schedule. I'm not too optimistic about the four-game set against the crappy Mariners; I'll be happy if the M's can split this one. Then there's Oakland, which should be an excellent series. The Junkees face those pesky Rays six times after that, with a Boston series in between. The Junkees have been streaky this year, and right now they're on a roll. Let's hope some tough opponents knock 'em off their feet.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Should be interesting to see what happens to the Yanks when they run into the M's rookie phenom, King Felix. I'd love to see the kid put the NY braggarts in their proper place.

I'm looking forward to the Oakland series as well. The A's are hot again...they won't roll over.

PizzaBagel said...

The one small bright spot of this past series was that the Royals knocked around Jaret Wright in the fifth inning of Saturday's game. If not for the sloppy play by an underachieving and overmatched team, they would have taken that game. They had several opportunities against Leiter in Sunday's game, too, but failed to put anything together. (I keep hoping that Leiter will revert to his form with the Marlins earlier this season. He gets into deep counts, puts a lot of men on base, but almost always seems to dance away from it all unscathed. Grrrr!)

But the Yankees, feeling the heat, seem to be back in "Late-Inning Heroics And Dramatic Come From Behind" mode as the season is winding down, while opponents such as the Royals, who could try to play spoiler, fall into "Roll Over And Die" mode.

If it's any consolation, I see that the Red Sox now have a three-game series at home against the D-Rays. The Indians host the Tigers for three games. The A's wrap up their series against the Orioles tomorrow, then head to Anaheim for a three-game set.

Anonymous said...

The Ms lost their four run lead last night to lose 7-4, but tonight they're up 7-2 in the third inning after scoring five in the second, so there's hope.

Anonymous said...

Now 8-2.