For the first time in my life I feel sorry for New York….

On the bright side, the Iron Giant finally put one in the seats and awakened Tommy from his millennial slumber but, of course, it was too little, too late. The Feesh are in real danger of tanking (Feesh tanking – get it? Hah…hah….) this season before they get through June.

They’ve been pulling good crowds at Macondo Banana Massacre Field so far but they got pretty solidly booed yesterday during their fifth and sixth inning meltdowns, and booing is the last stage before staying home and watching the Heat in the playoffs or, worse comes to worst, seeing if there’s any torque left in wives or long term girlfriends instead. Will theFeesh snap out of it? Well, sort of – but they still need to make some key lineup changes and find themselves a good situational hitter / ribby guy. If they think they can take advantage of the Feelies’ power shortage, they’re going to be in for an unhappy surprise when the Gnats and the Braves motor past them. And if Josh Johnson really has some intractable issues, they’re flat-out dead in the water unless they can talk Roy Oswalt down off the fence or make a trade for some more rotation help. They blew their opportunity to unload Tweeter this offseason – still can’t figure out why they hung on to him like Ishmael to Queequeeg’s coffin – so the patches they need are likely going to be more expensive this time around.

For the A’s, today starts a stretch of Boston, Toronto, Tampa and Detroit for 12 games. By the time they host Detroit no doubt the Tigers will be back to their normal selves, so the real prospect of the A’s being 4-5 games further below the Strange Attractor looms large.

Yesterday Colon put himself squarely into the AL East conversation as a fill-in by lasting 8.1 and dropping his ERA to 2.53. We all know he won’t last the entire season. But how much would Boston be willing to pay for 10 or more starts like Colon had yesterday? They could send Buchholz down, get him squared away, and steady the ship until July. If Colon blew up then, so what, he’s cheap now. The same scenario would play out for the Yankees and the Jays. Anyway, the Great and Powerful Beane is no doubt lighting up the cellular air with calls this morning.

The key is proper communication before fighting happens. Often times, this can all be prevented. Though, God bless em, some players/coaches just can’t seem to help themselves.

BTW, I wonder what has happened to Ari my favorite Red Sox fan. Haven’t seen much of him this season. I wonder if it has something to do with the lackluster performance of the Red Sox so far?

Green should have been going as soon as the ball left the catcher’s hand…and the probably makes it…that is a play that requires a player totally commit ASAP or you don’t make it…..and Yeah, Yadi probably doesn’t swing at a head high FB if that play isn’t on.

It isn’t clear what happened on the Garcia play. Replays seemed to show Oquendo yelling “GO!” on contact, which Garcia did….but he didn’t find the ball in time to get back to the bag to tag up.

Just a poorly played game with a little bad luck thrown in….they had some innings where they hit 5 balls hard but 3 would be right at guys….it happens.

My question; Are blackout rules put in place just to spite those who ardently follow baseball? In their infinite wisdom, do those who decide such things actually fear that by airing games to residents 650 miles away that they are protecting the Mariners from those of us who decide to stay home and watch, rather than hop in the car and take in a home game?

Wouldn’t fans, of all persuasions be more apt to attend games as they become more interested or hooked on Mariner baseball, by actually watching alot of games? And lastly do they not know that I can most regularly tune into most Mariner games on my TV?

So Freese should have walked, bases loaded no body out, and Molina who also chased a couple of pitches out of the zone, most likely would have taken a different approach, knowing that a walk would tie the game, and at that point it did not look like Axford could find the plate.

Of course St. Louis botched a sure scoring chance earlier, when Garcia inexplicably broke for home on Holliday’s obviously deep enough fly ball, thereby robbing St. Louis of a 2-0 lead, flummoxing Garcia for the next inning, spoiling what up until that point was his most impressive outing of the year.

And then there was the final play, the much discussed, practiced, and ill-advised double steal attempt. IMHO, it caused Molina to chase a pitch way out of the zone, for strike 3, and put Tyler Greene in a decision making position, Much like the new DirecTV adds, don’t put Tyler Greene in a crucial decision making position. The result was hesitation, being hung up in the proverbial “no-man’s land”, and then an awful slide attempt. Sometimes that strategy might work, but not when you trail by a run in the ninth, and the runner on third has a reputation for a less than stellar mental acuity.

Yesterday in the Cardinal game, in the bottom of the 9th with men on 1st and 3rd, no out, and Freese at the plate. He took the first 4 pitches from Axford, none were particularly close to the strike zone. At that point, the count was 2-2 with the ump calling off of each side of the plate strikes…nothing like a 24 inch strike zone to speed things along.

There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

The reason why Columbus is Pirates territory is that the Pirates’ owner back in the 60s (and into the 70s) was John Galbreath, and he lived and was based in Columbus. As was the Pirates’ AAA team, then known as the Columbus Jets. I suspect that Glabreath had visions of making central Ohio a Pirates stronghold. It never really happened, but the TV territory legacy remains.