Yanks seep Twins, head to Anaheim (sound familiar?)

One can make the case that the true end of the Yankee dynasty was their dispirited, ugly 3-1 Divisional Playoff loss to the whatever-they-were Angels in the 2002 playoffs. This was the series where they lost Game 3 after leading 6-0 with a rested Mike Mussina on the mound. Worse yet, this was the fulcrum. Between 1996 and 2001, only two close calls went against the Yankees: Sandy Alomar's homer in the 1997 playoffs and Mo Rivera's errant would-have-been-a-double-play throw that pulled Jeter off the bag in . . . well, you remember.

Those two bad brekas seemed to turn into a dozen; one remembers, from that Game 4, Derek Jeter missing a home run two feet to the left of the foul pole, or Robin Ventura missing a three-run homer when his line drive hit the padding of the center field wall, instead of three feet horizontally to the left.

With the exception of the 2003 Championship Series with the Red Sox, think of Alex Gonzalez' home run against Jeff Weaver, over the precise portion of the outfield wall that was lower than all the rest, Bernie Williams' tying home run the following night, hit fifty feet longer than Alex's but to the deepest part of Dolphins' Stadium . . . then, the following year, Brian Roberts beating Posada's throw by a thousandth of a second . . . Tony Clark's line drive bounding into the Fenway Park bleachers, thus freezing the runner at third . . . Randy Johnson's left arm sputtering to a halt precisely when the Yankees acquired him . . . Joba's adventires in ectymology . . . then last year, season-ending injuries to three of the seven (at the time) most important Yankees. And so on.

Joel Sherman sets up the weekend:

Truly fascinating road trip for the Yanks as they are in the midst of playing the team they always beat (the Twins) and the team they never beat (the Angels). By winning Thursday, the Yanks swept all seven games against Minnesota this year. It is the third time since 2002 that the Yanks swept a season series against Minnesota. In that time, the Yanks have never lost a season series to the Twins and beat them twice in the playoffs.

The Yanks lead their season series against the Angels 2-1 going into this weekend. They have not won a season series from the Angels since 2003. Since 2004, they are 20-31 vs. the Angels and have lost to them twice in the playoffs in this decade.

The Yanks have seven games left this season vs. the Angels, so they cannot win the season series this weekend. But what a great symbol it would be for the Yanks to close the first half with another winning series against the team they can't beat.

Blue Jays 7, Yankees 6

Just well enough to lose.

Yankees 10, Blue Jays 8

I go away for a week . . .

. . . and hey, not bad.

Only question: Is it better to watch the Yankees win or the Mets stumble around?

Yeah, I know, but it's closer than you think.

By the way:

I had given up on tennis since the heydey of Borg-Connors-McEnroe. Two days ago, I sat and watched the last set of Andy vs. Andy.

Today, for the first time in 27 years, I sat with Astro-Girl and watched an entire men's tennis match from start to finish.

And my innocence in such matters precludes agreeing with John McEnroe's conclusion.

It just sounds right.

Such is the talent of Roger Federer that this happened:

Back to back, Andy Roddick played the two best matches of his life.

And came in second.

Yankees 9, Mets 1

Some quick thoughts (and I've waited months to type this) before I go catch a plane:

1. CC as Yankee is a work in progress. You play the whole season and look at the numbers.

2. Same is true for Brett Gardner, but if he's the real deal, is makes the Yankees (Brett, Melky, Jeter, Damon still) in the class of the fastest Yankee teams of my lifetime, right along side the Mickey Rivers-Willie Randolph-Roy White-Reggie Jackson teams of the late 70s. People forget: Jackson, in his 20s, could fly, so much so the A's had him in centerfield for awhile, even though he couldn't catch the ball.

The week that was

And I missed most of it. Oh well, back tomorrow.

It seems like I'm always writing, "Bring on the Mets."

Yankees 5, Marlins 1

Anyone notice Andy Pettitte--though he is surely the beneficiary of some titanic Yankee power--is 7-3 as we speak?

ERA is a better predictor of future wins and losses than wins and losses, if you get my drift. But a pitcher's career comes down to wins and losses. Tom Boswell: "They give you the ball. You win. You lose."

Nolan Ryan, for all his heat and strikeouts and no-hitters, was a .500 pitcher until the last half-dozen years of his career. Catfish Hunter, though he couldn't come within a dozen mph of where Ryan topped out, was, at his peak, a far better pitcher than Ryan ever was. Preacher Roe would give up three home runs in one start and win 4-3.

And Andy Pettitte is 7-3.

Oh, and this, from Old Testament scold Phil Muschnick, who I've been waiting a week to come out emphatically on the Castillo-Tex pop-up:

Friday, the Yanks beat the Mets not only because Luis Castillo failed to make a one-handed catch of a pop-up, but because Mark Teixeira busted it from first, scoring on the botch. One play told plenty about both teams' sense of fundamentals.

The next day, Castillo was praised for taking the heat, for standing up and facing the questions. OK, but if he hadn't regularly chosen to play minimalist ball from the day he became a Met, he wouldn't be in position to take such heat.

Yes, and yes. Lot a talk this sumkmer about the price of Yankee and Met tickets. The Yankees may be overpriced, but if the Mets charge anyone over five bucks for that easy-riding middle-of-the-pack squad that seems content, again, to loaf away a half-dozen wins and give up the division to the Phillies, they ought to be wearings masks.

In the late nineties, as the John Robinson II era seamlessly merged, after a fashion, with the Paul Hackett era, I simply gave up on the USC Trojans. There is always a built-in front-runner quality to rooting for USC--why deny it? Unless USC is contending for at least the Rose Bowl, there are simply too many better ways to spend an October Saturday in Southern California than driving into the ghetto to sit in an 80 year-old stadium originally constructed for track meets. The Dodgers are down at Chavez Ravine, the beach is at the end of I-10, and Disneyland is 25 miles from the 50 yard-line.

But my distaste--and eventual trial separation--from USC went deeper than the USC fan mentality. It wasn't that USC was bad. They were worse than bad; they were punk-ass. They were unwatchable. They had learned all the wrong lessons from Keyshawn Johnson, and it showed. They seemingly got up for one game a year, Notre Dame, and even then in their zeal they would kill themselves by piling up the personal fouls. Anything less than a top-tier (meaning Rose) Bowl and they barely showed up.

I'm not against watching overmatched, dogged teams. I'm the man who cheered for the 1991 Houston Astros, as they scratched and clawed their way to 65 wins, led by a youth core of Bagwell, Biggio, and Caminiti.

But if a team doesn't apply the fundamentals or try--if a team doesn't seem to care--why should I?

Lose two of three to the Nats

Too depressing to contemplate.