Not really worth interrupting Mike Lowell’s at-bat now, are you?
(Photo By Dave Sandford/Getty Images)
Thanks to Jere and John for the updates on how Wake pitched. I feel better about the entire night now. The wins will come. Let the Jays fans have their special night. (We’re done with that now, right? Screw the Jays fans now – not you Steve – and beat, beat, BEAT their team!)
During my short bursts of baseball viewing last night, I happened to be watching the Yankees game when Ian Kennedy was taken out.
Kennedy is 23 years old. 23. He was one of the players the Yankee deemed “untouchable” during the Santana trade talks.  So he’s Clay Buchholz without the no-hitter behind him.
And as he left the mound (actually, it started BEFORE he left the mound, after the last pitch he threw which produced a bases-clearing, three-run double to pinch hitter Shawn Riggans) the fabulous fans in the Bronx BOOED a rookie pitcher.
They booed a 23 year-old kid off the mound. A kid who, by all accounts, will probably go on to have a very successful career as a pitcher in MLB. During the fourth game of the friggin’ season, those fans booed the kid off the field for struggling.
How do you even come up with that? How do you NOT watch a rookie pitch, and struggle, and be sympathetic toward him?
I missed the game, but I’m told that in Cla Meredith’s infamous debut at Fenway, he received a similar response from Sox fans. Which disappoints the hell out of me. What would possess you to boo a kid (let’s not even get into my argument that I don’t think you should EVER boo someone on your own team)? HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY THINK THAT WILL HELP?
Damn you, Yankees fans, for making me sympathetic toward one of your players.  – Actually TWO. While LaTroy Hawkins pitched last night, I’ve read, the Yankees fans were chanting “Paul O’Neill” because Hawkins has the audacity to wear the number 21. The fan support from the Bronx – can’t you just FEEL it Yankees players? (On the link I’ve provided, there’s a good explanation of why Hawkins is wearing number 21. Not that it seems to matter to many Yankees fans – save for the one who wrote the entry there and, I’m guessing, a few others.)
Clay pitches today. If he even reads one of the local papers (or anything online) the poor kid is probably a mess. Basically it’s all “Clay better perform because Bartolo Colon is waiting to take his spot!”.  How about a little more pressure, folks, maybe this kid isn’t a total mess yet. You might still have work to do.
It isn’t Clay’s ‘fault’ that the threw that no-hitter last year (and pitched well in his other start of the season too) and now everyone seems to expect him to be a number 2 pitcher. People forget he was pitching in Portland last year. There’s a possibility the kid still needs time in the minors, no? If Clay doesn’t pitch well today, I’m not writing him off forever. I certainly hope HE doesn’t bother to read the coverage on himself. I get enough agita for both of us by doing that.
1:07pm game today. I love these random start times. Why not 1:03? Or 1:22? Nope, it’s 1:07pm. Be there.
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