Yankees Stumble

The Yankees blew it last night, with A-Rod leading the way (0-5, 7 LOB, and an error). Michael Kay pointed out a dumb but oddly interesting A-Rod statistic: in recent history, he’s played much better in odd-numbered years. He won his MVPs in 2003, 2005, 2007. He hit higher in each of those years than in 2004 and 2006. He was clutchclutchclutch last year (at least during the regular season), much to the disappointment of his haters. He was fantastic with RISP, which this season is the downfall of the entire team including him. His numbers across the board this year are down, although he is hitting .312. Gotta love baseball.

One guy who remains a mystery to me is Jose Molina. His numbers are not very good: .227, 2 HRs, 14 RBIs. I say without exaggeration that it must be that I have been watching when he’s hit both home runs and at least 12 of the 14 RBIs, because if I didn’t have the numbers in front of me, and wasn’t reminded by his stats and by Michael Kay every time he came to bat, I would say he’s having a good season.

Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post wrote an interesting if not a bit scatterbrained article about loving and hating baseball.

TMQ loves to point out instances in which sports announcers claim to be able to distinguish tenths or even hundredths of a second, claiming it is absurd. I agree with him. In this week’s edition, TMQ notes that Olympian Usain Bolt reportedly broke Michael Johnson’s record in the 200-meters by one-fiftieth of a second. He writes, “Bolt is great, but declaring him one-fiftieth of a second better than the previous record-holder seems absurd. Reader Ryan Stormo of Bellingham, Wash., adds that a Canadian announcer declared Bolt had "smashed" the record. By a 50th of a second? Bolt is great, but declaring him one-fiftieth of a second better than the previous record-holder seems absurd. Reader Ryan Stormo of Bellingham, Wash., adds that a Canadian announcer declared Bolt had ‘smashed’ the record. By a 50th of a second?” TMQ must read Middle Relief.