The Futility Infielder

"If they're going to lose this game, I don't want to be around to see it." Those words, uttered on several occasions by my pal Nick, ran through my head during the top of the eighth inning of Wednesday's Yanks-Royals game. Having watched 16 innings of the Yanks kicking Royal butt over the previous 18 hours, I decided that the Bombers' 8-3 lead was safe enough for me to slip out early and run some important errands in anticipation of my upcoming trip. If the bullpen was going to collapse, I had better things to do.

It's a good thing I left. The Yankee bullpen did collapse, enough so that they allowed four ninth-inning runs. Joe Torre tried to give his a-listers a rest by starting off the ninth with Sterling Hitchcock, who gave up three hits and one run while getting one out. That was enough for Joe to look for alternatives, and with Jesse Orosco and Antonio Osuna (the Oh-Oh Brothers, as opposed to the 0-0 Brothers) done for the day and Jeff Nelson off limits because he'd pitched two straight days, Joe went for the easy decision to bring in Mariano Rivera, who'd at least had two days off. Mo made mo' trouble, allowing four straight singles. Carlos Beltran was thrown out rounding second base by Juan Rivera on the third of those four singles, and Mo finally struck out Desi Relaford to end the game. Ugggggly. Ugly enough that I'm grateful I missed it.

Juan Rivera was one of the bright spots for the Yanks, with an RBI double in their four-run second and an solo homer in the fifth, as well as his pivotal assist. Maybe he's a prospect after all, despite my disparaging comments. Aaron Boone started two rallies, leading off the second with a double and the fifth with a single. Nick Johnson poked a two-run homer following Boone's single. He was also hit by a pitch for the second game in a row after having gone unscathed all year. Recall that Johnson was notorious for getting hit by pitches both in the minors (he set an Eastern League record with 37 in 1999) and the majors (16 in 529 PA coming into this season).

Speaking of Johnson, B-Pro's Will Carroll really Yanked every Bomber fan's chain with this little snippet: "No one's talking about Nick Johnson's bones this week. Yet." I hurriedly emailed Will to ask if he knew something and he said that no, he just enjoyed reminding Yank fans of his fragility.

Or words to those effect; the actual response is on my seriously ill hard drive. I endured a cascade of computer disasters on Thursday, everything from a busted letter R on my laptop (new keyboard: $60) to the dreaded flashing question mark on my desktop computer to my girlfriend damn near chasing me around the East Village with a rolling pin when I applied my Reverse Midas touch to her iMac. I believe the term "shitrain" was invented to describe such days.

Before it all came down, I'd intended to do a more in-depth look at the chamber of horrors that is the Yankee bullpen. Just as well. Instead, I'll note only a couple of points. First, the Yankee bullpen's Adjusted Runs Prevented rating (a Baseball Prospectus stat) fell almost two runs based on Wednesday's game, from -4.8 to -6.7, meaning that they're now 6.7 runs below average in preventing inherited runners from scoring, 17th in the majors and hardly the stuff of the patented Yankee October magic. Second, that pen seems to screw Roger Clemens on a regular basis. Eight times in his 26 starts, the pen has allowed three runs or more of its own, which is pretty sick even if I don't have anything else to compare it to right now. Those eight collapses include two notorious failures in June when Rocket was in pursuit of win number 300. Alas, I don't have time to examine how well the runners he left behind have fared, but my guess is that it would be worse than average as well.

So anyway, I'm headed out of town for the next twelve days, to Salt Lake City and then the wilds of Wyoming's Wind Rivers region for some backpacking. I might get a post or two in on the weekends, but I'll be far from the daily box scores in between. Maybe that's a good thing right now. Like the Yankee bullpen, the less I get my hands on, the better.