Keefe To The City

Apr 19, 2012

Yankees, Rangers Trying to Find Their Way

“Thursday Thoughts” returns with the Yankees playing .500 baseball after 12 games and the Rangers needing to win the biggest game of the season on Saturday night at the Garden.

When does “early” become “late” in baseball? Everyone seems to have a different answer or opinion to the question on when it’s time to start evaluating teams and when games start to “matter.” Some think it’s Memorial Day or the All-Star break, and others think it’s after 40 games or after 33 percent of the season. But the real is answer is Opening Day.

“It’s still early” has become a line for managers of underachieving teams to spew to the media to avoid the fact that they currently suck. Joe Girardi (6-6) has pulled “it” out already. Bobby Valentine (4-8) has gone to “it.” And I haven’t heard any postgame quotes from Mike Scioscia (4-8) or Charlie Manuel (5-7) or Bruce Bochy (6-6), but I’m sure they have used “it” in some form as well.

“It’s still early” has become the go-to phrase for those teams not getting the job done in April, but at the same time, teams playing well and winning games (whether expected or unexpected) are commended for their great play, and there’s never any mention of the calendar or the game number. I don’t hear anyone mentioning that the season is still young for the Rangers or the Tigers or the Nationals or the Dodgers, but it’s constantly thrown around with the Yankees along with sentences like “Freddy Garcia won’t continue to be this bad” and “Eventually Mark Teixeira will come around” and “Hiroki Kuroda will eventually prove to be a viable No. 2 starter in the AL” and “A-Rod will find his power stroke.” But at what point do we stop waiting for things to happen and expecting success to arrive, and when does it become a concern?

It would sound ridiculous for me to write that 12 games into the season is the official measuring stick for the Yankees and all of baseball. It would also be ridiculous for me to say that April games don’t matter and that real baseball starts in May or June, or that only the second half means anything. And that’s why Opening Day is when “early” becomes “late.”

Prior to 2012, I guess you could make the case that games in the second half hold more stock than games in the first half after the standings have taken shape and positions have been established. (I wouldn’t have agreed with someone making this case, but I would have understood them using it since it seems to be a mainstream idea.) But not in 2012. Not when there will be a one-game playoff for two teams that didn’t win their division, but might have finished with better records than other division winners. Baseball changed their postseason format and the path to the World Series and everyone needs to change the way they view early-season baseball to match it.

“Late” became “early” when James Shields threw the first pitch of the Yankees’ season to Derek Jeter on April 6 at the Trop. Like I said after that series, “Game 1 of the season is as important as Game 57 and Game 89 and Game 123 and Game 162. A game against the Rays on Opening Day is equally as important as a game against the Red Sox the middle of the summer.” And while it might be the second full week of the season, watching Hiroki Kuroda and Freddy Garcia get torched by one of the weakest offensive teams in the league and watching Phil Hughes have at-bats extended by foul balls and watching the heart of the order struggle to hit for power or with runners in scoring position, these games matter, and they matter as much as the games in second-to-last full week of the season.

As for the Blueshirts, “early” became “late” when the postseason started and every shift, every shot, every goal, every penalty, every single thing turned into being the difference between getting a head start on the offseason and getting to play until June in hopes that Doc Emrick will scream your name followed by “SCOREEEEEEEEE!” And after blowing leads in Games 2 and 4 and losing in overtime both times, the Rangers find themselves in a best-of-3 series with home-ice advantage against a team that has outplayed them in every game except for Game 1.

It’s been a few weeks since the debut of “Thursday Thoughts,” but with the Yankees playing .500 baseball after 12 games and headed to Fenway Park this weekend and Texas next week, and the Rangers needing to win the biggest game of the season on Saturday night at the Garden, now seemed like a good time for the second installment.

– Does anyone have a good feeling about Freddy Garcia pitching in Boston on Saturday? Last season Garcia had the following line against Boston: 19 IP, 22 H, 11 R, 10 ER, 10 BB, 10 K, 3 HR, 4.74 ERA, 1.684 WHIP. And this came in a season when Garcia was actually good. When I found out during the offseason that I had a wedding on the first Saturday Yankees-Red Sox game of the season I was disappointed, but now I’m relieved.

– A year ago I didn’t want Bartolo Colon on the Yankees. Now I would be willing to carry him from Oakland to New York (I understand it might be physically impossible to carry him even one city block) to have him in the Yankees rotation. Colon dominated the Angels on Wednesday night (8 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 5 K) and threw 82 of his 108 for strikes, including 38 consecutive strikes at one point in the game. He’s now 3-1 on the year with a 2.63 ERA, and his three wins are one less than the entire Yankees’ rotation. He’s also making $2 million one his one-year deal with the A’s, which is $2 million less than Freddy “Smoke and Mirrors” Garcia.

– How do people get this amped for the release of the NFL schedule? You know who your favorite team is going to play once the previous seasons ends, so does finding out the dates and times of the games really get you that worked up? I asked WFAN’s own John Jastremski about this, and his response to me about finding out his Dolphins having their schedule released was similar to my reaction when the Giants won the Super Bowl.

– Derek Jeter has four home runs and 10 RBIs. Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano and Mark Teixeira have combined for two home runs and eight RBIs. Yes, that’s a problem.

– The Penguins-Flyers series has been epic. Even if both teams would probably elect to turn their nets around or play with a sixth skater rather than use a goalie, it has had everything you could want in a series between two rival teams that actually hate each other. I would rather see low-scoring defensive battles and overtime games in the postseason, but an old-fashioned five-alarm gongshow is always welcome.

– Brett Gardner is on the 15-day disabled list, which means the backup center fielder to Curtis Granderson is now … Nick Swisher! Yes, the Yankees have a 10-time Gold Glove winner on their bench, but after the way Andruw Jones played left field on Wednesday night against the Twins, as if he had a few too many beers in the dugout of a slow-pitch softball game, I’m not sure he should be anywhere other than DH ever. Please stay healthy, Grandy Man.

– How meaningless is a goaltender’s record in the NHL postseason? Entering these playoffs, Henrik Lundqvist had a 15-20 playoff record, and it’s now 17-22, and the TV broadcasts will remind you with the graphic. After Wednesday’s overtime loss, his overtime record is now 1-7. So yeah, it’s Lundqvist’s fault that his postseason win percentage is .436 and his overtime win percentage is .125. It has nothing to do with the Rangers’ inability to score goals or create offense, and it has nothing to do with their most talented scorers disappearing after Game 82.

– I don’t like that the Yankees are going to wear those throwback uniforms on Friday for the 100th Anniversary of Fenway Park. I understand why they’re doing it (to celebrate 100 years of baseball in Boston and to also make some more money), but let the Red Sox wear throwback uniforms if they want to, and stick to the Yankees tradition and don’t wear some alternate uniform for one game.

– I don’t think there’s anything left to say about Brendan Shanahan that I didn’t already say about him on Monday despite his most recent rulings, which were every bit as confusing as the ones for Carl Hagelin, Matt Carkner and Shea Weber. There’s nothing he can do that will surprise me and there’s no way of ever knowing what a suspension will be for a standard elbow or end-of-game instigator or headshot.

– I can’t wait to check on the Twins in a few weeks and see Justin Morneau either not playing or not producing. Morneau has hit three home runs in three days at the Stadium and still has one more game to go on Thursday night. He now has seven home runs in 12 games at the new Stadium and just five home runs in 80 games at Target Field. But it’s not every series that he gets to face Freddy Garcia and Hiroki Kuroda.

– It’s great that Brian Boyle has three postseason goals and two game-winners, but at some point Marian Gaborik is going to have to win a playoff game for the Rangers. And since there’s a chance that there might be only two or three games left in the season, he might want to get on that. Gaborik has two goals in nine playoff games for the Rangers, or one less than Boyle has in the last seven days. Gaborik has 14 career playoff goals, but nine of them came nine years ago when he was a 20-year-old on the Wild team that went to the conference finals. I remember the papers getting on Jaromir Jagr and comparing him to A-Rod by calling him J-Rod when he elected to not be a part of the Rangers’ shootouts, and if Gaborik is invisible for the rest of this series and the No. 1-seeded Rangers are eliminated, it’s going to be bad for Gaborik.

– Freddy Garcia has already pitched himself out of the rotation for when Michael Pineda or Andy Pettitte are ready to return, and if Phil Hughes doesn’t show up on Thursday night he will likely punch his ticket back to the bullpen or a bus ticket back to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Hughes has now been a five-inning or less pitcher for nearly a full calendar year since coming off the disabled list last July. And if you include his “dead arm” period at the beginning of the 2011 season and his awful performance in the 2010 ALCS and his 5.15 ERA over his last 18 starts and 20 appearances to finish the 2010 season then he has been bad for a lot longer. Sure, there are flashes of the No. 1 pick that we all expected to be a front-end starter for the Yankees for years, but they are rare and sandwiched between “Hey it’s the third inning of a Phil Hughes start, I hope there’s reruns of The Office on” starts. Everyone keeps saying, “Well if Hughes can return to his first-half form from 2010 or pitch the way he did against the Twins in the 2010 ALDS then the Yankees’ rotation is stacked.” But what if he can’t. There’s a lot more evidence that Phil Hughes won’t be the pitcher we expect him to be and want him to be than there is that he will a No. 1 or No. 2 starter for the Yankees. I have been a Hughes supporter and believer all along and that won’t change now, especially since he is still 25 years old, but if we’re talking about when “early” becomes “late,” Hughes is not only pitching for a rotation spot in 2012, but he’s pitching to avoid being banished to the bullpen for the rest of his career.

Blogs • NHL

Apr 16, 2012

Brendan Shanahan Is Ruining The NHL

I was satisfied with the decision to give the responsibilities of NHL Judge to Brendan Shanahan. But what I didn’t know was that he would become Colin Campbell.

This column was originally published on WFAN.com on April 16, 2012.

“I’m Brendan Shanahan of the National Hockey League’s Department of Player Safety … and I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.”

If you have never watched a Shanahan suspension video on NHL.com before, that’s how he opens the video by letting the viewer know who he is and what department he works for (except for the “I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing” part). But chances are if you’re watching one of his videos it’s because you’re interested in the infraction being reviewed. And if you’re interested in watching a video of an infraction it’s because you watch hockey. And if you watch hockey then you know who Brendan Shanahan is. And if you know who Brendan Shanahan is then you know why he is the Vice President of Player Safety and how he got the job.

I was ecstatic like everyone else when Shanahan took over for Colin Campbell, who was more incompetent than the Yankees’ Clay Rapada could ever be. Campbell had become a running joke around the NHL and any form of replacement would have been better than him. I was satisfied with the decision to give the responsibilities of NHL Judge to Shanahan, as he would become the head disciplinarian for the league. But what I didn’t know was that he would become Colin Campbell.

Does Brendan Shanahan think he’s doing a good job because he makes videos to explain the infractions and the punishments he determines for the infractions? Because, if anything, the videos make his decisions look even more nonsensical. At least when Campbell was recklessly throwing around suspensions (or sometimes a lack thereof), there wasn’t video evidence of him narrating plays so we could see inside his inconsistent mind.

In Game 2 of the Rangers-Senators series, Matt Carkner dressed with the mission of fighting Brian Boyle for getting physical with Erik Karlsson, and I have no problem with Carkner dressing for this purpose. But when Boyle decided he wasn’t going to fight Carkner on the first attempt, Carkner decided he was going to fight anyway and sucker-punched Boyle and then continued to punch him as he went down to the ice. In the process, Brandon Dubinsky went to the aid of his defenseless teammate and was given a game misconduct for not allowing Carkner to finish a job that could have ended Boyle’s season or maybe even his career.

Carkner was suspended one game for a pre-meditated attack (which once again I don’t have a problem with since it’s part of the game, but square up or take care of it in the correct setting), but an attack against a guy who didn’t square up with him and led to Carkner doing what he was set out to do anyway. One game! Here’s what Shanahan said in his NHL.com video review of Carkner’s infraction.

“Carkner is excessive in his approach. It is important to note that Carkner has acted similarly in the past and injured an opponent in the process. In a game at Ottawa on Dec. 31, 2009, in reaction to a bodycheck thrown at a teammate, Carkner got the jump on a New York Islander forward and punched him before he could react and defend himself, fracturing his orbital bone. We have taken into consideration that Boyle suffered no apparent injury as a result of this infraction and remained in the game.”

So, let’s recap. Because Boyle wasn’t hurt and because Carkner didn’t fracture yet another player’s orbital bone, the suspension is only one game. That seems fair. Punishments and consequences should definitely be based on the result of the player’s action and not the player’s action or intent. But here’s my question: Is there any doubt that Carkner was trying to break Boyle’s orbital bone and just failed to do so?

It’s only partially Shanahan’s fault that he makes decisions based on the result of the hit or punch or check. For years the NHL has awarded a four-minute power play for a high-sticking penalty that draws blood. Any amount of blood. It could be a scrape or a cut the size of a pencil tip, or it could be a gash that requires 18 stitches or a trip to the emergency room. It doesn’t matter. If there’s blood it’s four minutes. But you could high-stick an opponent and break their jaw or their cheek or their orbital bone or blind them and as long as any of these things don’t draw blood then it’s just a two-minute penalty. No big deal.

Now also in Game 2, Carl Hagelin finished a check high with his hands and elbow on Daniel Alfredsson, which resulted in Alfredsson suffering a concussion and leaving the game. And because Alfredsson was injured on the hit, Hagelin, who doesn’t have a history or a reputation of anything remotely close to being dirty, was suspended three games.

Now if Hagelin’s infraction had been the first infraction of the NHL season and we had no further knowledge or records of previous elbow infractions that result in head injuries then yes, you could make the case his punishment is just since it would set a precedent. (We’ll get to the word “precedent” and teach Shanahan the meaning of the word later on.) But when, in the same game, there is a more dangerous play from a more dangerous player after months and months of inconsistent suspensions from Shanahan, then yes, there’s a serious problem with claiming that Hagelin’s suspension is just.

Let’s look at three different incidents that happened this week with the two involving the Rangers happening on the same day and the one involving the Predators and Red Wings happening three days before.

Carl Hagelin, with no suspension history or reputation of dirty play, receives a three-game suspension for finishing a check and hitting star Daniel Alfredsson high that results in a concussion.

Matt Carkner, with a history of the same exact act, receives a one-game suspension for jumping non-star Brian Boyle, sucker-punching him and continuing to beat him while on the ice, but the incident doesn’t result in injury.

Shea Weber punches star Henrik Zetterberg’s in the back of the head and then uses the same hand that punched to drive Zetterberg’s head into the glass and dasher and receives a $2,500 fine, as the incident doesn’t result in an injury.

(I make sure to note who is considered a “star” and who isn’t since this also clearly impacts Shanahan’s decisions.)

Does anyone see a pattern here? Do any of these punishments have anything in common with each other? Does any of this make sense to anyone other than Brendan Shanahan?

On Monday morning, Shanahan went on Boomer and Carton to justify his suspension of Hagelin (which he failed to logically do). And if you plan on listening to the interview, which I strongly recommend if you think Shanahan is good at his job or makes sound decisions, then I also recommend investing in some of Mugatu’s “crazy pills” from Zoolander because Shanahan’s arguments and logic are so confusing that they will make you question if what he’s saying is actually real life. Here are some epic highlights that came from Shanahan’s mouth in the interview.

On why Carl Hagelin is suspended for three games and Matt Carkner is suspended for one game: “The biggest difference between the two plays is there is head injury and concussion on one and no injury on the other. Now that doesn’t mean that one guy gets off and the other guy doesn’t.”

(I almost feel like this quote should be written above the doors to the NHL offices entrance the way that “I would like to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee” used to be written across the front of Yankee Stadium.)

Actually that’s exactly what it means because you said that’s what it means just moments later. Shanahan had a chance to set a precedent at the beginning of the year, but he chose not to. I hate to reference arguably the worst movie ever made in 50 First Dates, but is there any denying that Shanahan is Drew Barrymore here? Actually he’s worse. Barrymore wakes up everyday forgetting who she is and the decisions she has made, but Shanahan can’t even make it through the day without erasing suspension decisions he has made since he makes multiple suspension decisions in the same day and they have no correlation to each other. But Shanahan didn’t set a precedent and now suspensions are made with what I like to think is a cootie catcher complete with the NHL shield on it. In most sports you know what a suspension will be for a certain infraction, but there’s no one in the hockey world that can tell you with any certainty what a suspension will be for a specific incident after it happens, and this includes Shanahan. (If you don’t believe me, listen to the interview when he sort of gets stuck answering about what the suspension would have been if Alfredsson didn’t get hurt or if it will be reduced if he comes back in the series.)

Shanahan has set the tone for the league by saying, “You can do whatever you want as long as it doesn’t result in an injury.” So if the Penguins trail big in Game 4 and a sweep is inevitable, it would be wise for Peter Laviolette to remove his players from the ice because if the Penguins have brushed up on their Marty McSorley, Claude Lemieux, Darcy Tucker and Tie Domi YouTube watching, they are free to duplicate any of the league’s all-time cheap shots … as long as they don’t injure or concuss anyone.

On Carkner not landing many punches to Boyle’s face: “He hits him with five more punches in the arm, shoulder and back and not in the head.”

Ah, and here’s Shanahan sticking up for Carkner. “Come on! Most of the punches didn’t even hit Boyle in the face! It wasn’t that bad!” Do you know how bad Carkner’s assault was? It was bad enough that when I saw the first replays of it during the game I figured Carkner would be gone for the rest of the series, if not the rest of the playoffs (not that he was going to play in anymore games for the Senators anyway). But one game? ONE GAME?!?!?! Does anyone think Carkner was trying to hit Boyle in the arm, shoulder and back? Or was it because Boyle was on the ice after taking a punch to the jaw before the follow-up punches?

On Shea Weber driving Henrik Zetterberg’s face into the glass: “I think that he pushed his face into the glass. I was very close to a one-game suspension on that.”

You “think” he pushed his face into the glass. You “think?!?!?!?!” You don’t “know?” You aren’t “sure?” Oh, but you were “close” to a one-game suspension for Weber trying to break Zetterberg’s face and neck. Well that makes everything better. But because Zetterberg wasn’t injured, Weber can pay $2,500 and try his luck breaking Zetterberg’s face and neck in Game 4.

What if Shanahan held his current job when Chris Simon tried to behead Ryan Hollweg as if he were Ned Stark in Game of Thrones? Because Hollweg was able to get back up on his own skate would Simon have avoided suspension and just been given a $2,500 citation for using his stick as a medieval sword?

There’s no time for Shanahan to learn his new job on the fly, which he is clearly tying to while he makes things up in his videos and interviews as he goes. The problem is his decisions and suspensions have long-lasting effects that go deeper than just changing the course of a game or a series. Shanahan’s job is more important than deciding who should lose pay for a couple of games or should or shouldn’t be allowed to dress. He has the ability to change the course of a playoff series or a championship or the history of the game, as well as influence the jobs and livelihoods of others, and that’s why it’s OK to call into question his job and his livelihood.

Let’s say Shanahan suspends Player X for a few games in a postseason series because he was involved in an infraction that resulted in an injury. Now Player X’s team loses their first-round playoff series because of Player X’s unwarranted suspension. Now Player X’s owner is upset that his team didn’t make it out of the first round after lofty expectations for several seasons and he fires Player X’s coach and general manager and trades away some of Player X’s teammates and uproots their lives and families’ lives because of another first-round postseason exit. Is this an extreme scenario for Shanahan’s decision making? Sure. Is it out of the realm of possibility? No.

At the end of Shanahan’s interview with Boomer and Carton, Boomer tells him he’s going to have a busy day today after the Penguins-Flyers gongshow from Game 3, and Shanahan responds about handing out more suspensions by saying, “I’m not done yet.” It’s too bad because I wish he was done, and I’m not talking about handing out suspensions.

Blogs • Yankees

Apr 9, 2012

Joe Girardi to Blame for Yankees’ Bad Start

It took just five Tampa Bay hitters and a bad weekend of baseball for the Season 3 premiere of my version of The Joe Girardi Show.

“It’s a long season.” “It’s just three games.” “It’s just 1.8518 percent of the season.” “It’s not that big of a deal.” These are the things I have been telling myself since Sunday afternoon as I try to make sense out of the Tragedy at the Trop.

I don’t know what that was this weekend in Tampa Bay. The Yankees’ vaunted offense failed to do anything with runners in scoring position. The Best Bullpen in Baseball blew a save (though I will never get upset with No. 42 about blowing a save), as the weakest members of the Best Bullpen in Baseball showed why they are the weakest members. And the stacked, new-look starting rotation put together this Chien-Ming Wang 2007 ALDS-like line: 16.1 IP, 21 H, 13 R, 11 ER, 9 BB, 14 K, 4 HR, 6.15 ERA, 1.840 WHIP.

I’m going to overreact to the three losses to open the season because that’s what I do. And when you’re baseball starved for six months and your most recent memory of Yankees baseball is Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher failing to get clutch hits in October, and it becomes your most recent Yankees baseball memory again in April, well I think you have a right to get upset.

I understand all the things I opened this column with about it just being three games, but I need to get my frustration out. I know the 1998 Yankees started their season 0-3 (and 1-4), but I’m pretty sure this team isn’t the ’98 Yankees. And I’m well aware of the Yankees-Kentucky basketball relationship and what it means to have the Wildcats as national champions. Right now none of that matters. The only thing that matters right now is that Ivan Nova and Freddy Garcia can’t put out this forest fire their manager started with the fifth hitter in the first inning of the 2012 season.

Starting in 2010, I did my own version of the The Joe Girardi Show whenever I felt there were questions for Joe Girardi that needed answers because I couldn’t fathom how someone could make such odd decisions, and the show continued for a second season in 2011. In the back of my mind I was secretly hoping my version of the show would be canceled for 2012, but I knew it wouldn’t be. Last season it took just five games (a disastrous loss in April against the Twins at the Stadium) for the first episode of the Show. This season it took just five Tampa Bay hitters for the Season 3 premiere.

Why did you intentionally walk Sean Rodriguez?
Mariano Rivera didn’t blow Opening Day. Joe Girardi did. Even though it was Rivera who blew the save in the bottom of the ninth in one of his annual April brain farts, it was Girardi who, in the first inning of the game, made a decision that might be the ultimate Joe Girardi Over-Managing Decision of 2012, and it happened about 15 minutes into the season.

CC Sabathia is the Yankees’ ace. He is in the top tier of starting pitchers in the majors, and Hal Steinbrenner is paying him $23 million in 2012 and essentially $646,470.88 per start (based on 34 starts) to be that ace. But apparently Sabathia, one of the game’s top lefties, can’t face Sean Rodriguez (career .229 hitter with 22 home runs in 908 at-bats) with runners on second and third and two outs in the first inning of the first game of the season. I’m well aware of Carlos Pena’s atrocious numbers against Sabathia (and lefties in general) and Rodriguez’s decent numbers against Sabathia and lefties, but there’s more to the situation on the field than what Joe Girardi’s trusty notebook tells him.

Sabathia hasn’t pitched like Midseason CC in any of his four season openers, including Friday. He usually struggles early in the season before going on an incredible run, and it was evident that his April struggles were with him early on Friday. Prior to Rodriguez, Sabathia had walked Desmond Jennings to open the inning, got Ben Zobrist to line out to center, gave up a single to Evan Longoria and got Jeff Keppinger to ground out to short. However, out of the 13 pitches he threw to these four hitters, seven of them were balls as his command appeared off. So, now instead of going after a weak No. 5 hitter, Girardi decides to put Rodriguez on base intentionally, giving Sabathia no wiggle room with a lack of command and a power-hitting lefty with a career average of 34 home runs per season at the plate. Once he got behind Pena 2-0 and then 3-1 and wasn’t locating pitches or getting a guy who will get himself out to swing, you just knew things weren’t going to end well with either the first run of the game being walked in or the worst possible thing, which ended up happening: the slam.

A lot of the outrage over the move was that Girardi shouldn’t be over-managing in the first inning of the first game of the season. I don’t like that argument because that means you’re saying it’s OK to over-mange later in the season, but just not right now. I hate that argument because Game 1 of the season is as important as Game 57 and Game 89 and Game 123 and Game 162. A game against the Rays on Opening Day is equally as important as a game against the Red Sox the middle of the summer. I never understood the idea that “It’s only April” or that “It’s early.” Sure a three-game losing streak in June sucks, but isn’t as publicized as one to open the season, but every game counts the same. Do you get additional wins or a better win percentage for winning games after the All-Star break than you do for winning games before it? And with the new wild-card system every game is that much more important unless you feel comfortable trusting Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher in a big spot in a single game because I don’t, and I don’t even trust them in a series.

Girardi should have never been at the mound talking to his ace in the first inning on Friday, and it’s not because of the inning of the game or because of which game it is in the season. It’s because it’s CC Sabathia, and CC Sabathia can get Sean Rodriguez out. And if he didn’t, it would have most likely been 2-0 instead of 4-0.

Why is Eduardo Nunez starting at shortstop in the second game of the season?
Yes, Derek Jeter is 37 and will be 38 in June. Yes, he will probably need more rest than usual and more time as the designated hitter this season than season’s past. But Jeter also just had the last SIX MONTHS off. THE LAST SIX MONTHS!

Nunez might be the worst infielder I have ever seen with the Yankees and they let Jason Giambi play first base in the 2000s as well as Johnny Damon. And Gary Sheffield even took over at third base and first base at times (after years in the outfield). It’s not like it’s July and he hasn’t played shortstop regularly for a few weeks and he can use the “not an everyday player” excuses for his blunder. Nunez is fresh off spring training and won’t be any more prepared to play the infield for the rest of the season than he is right now.

Sure, it’s only one error that cost the Yankees only one game, but how can the backup middle infielder on the team not be trustworthy on defense? If you can make an excuse for Nunez’s error that extended the inning, led to two Tampa Bay runs, forced Hiroki Kuroda to throw more pitches and caused fatigue for Kuroda then you would have to admit that fielding and throwing is clearly in Nunez’s head. No Yankees fan feels even remotely confident when the ball is hit to him (whether a routine play or not), and when it is, I get the same feeling I get when someone hands me a Jameson shot at the end of the night. There’s no telling what the result might be.

To top it off, Kuroda, a GROUNDBALL PITCHER, started the game, which was played on turf. So why would you elect to not have your best defensive infield on the field for a groundball pitcher?

If I ever find out the truth behind the Yankees/Mariners deal for Cliff Lee and find out that Nunez is indeed the player that held up the deal (this has been a rumor), I think I will go off the grid, move to the woods of Wyoming and live in solitude for the rest of my life.

Why did you leave Clay Rapada in to face Evan Longoria?
Let’s start with the simple fact that Clay Rapada shouldn’t be a Yankee. I don’t care if he’s the 25th man on the roster who made the team in the final hours of spring training. The team has the highest payroll in the league, and a minor league system. There’s no reason for Rapada to be on the team other than that he’s a lefty. The only good Rapada has done in three games as a Yankee and remind me that if I have a son, I will be tying his right arm behind his back until he is at least 16 to ensure that he throws lefty because if Rapada has taught us anything (other than that he doesn’t belong in MLB) is that if you can throw lefty there will always be a job for you in baseball.

Here’s Clay Rapada’s 2012 debut:

Picked off Reid Brignac to end the sixth.
Walked Carlos Pena (L).
Gave up double to Evan Longoria (R).
Gave up single to Matt Joyce (L).
Walked Ben Zobrist (L).
Got Luke Scott (L) to fly out.

Rapada faced four lefties and retired one and ends up getting touched up for two runs in 2/3 innings. What happens in the ninth? The Yankees score four runs thanks to a Nick Swisher “David Price is out of the game so it’s time to get to business” three-run home run. The Yankees lose 8-6. The difference? Rapada’s two earned runs. (I didn’t mean to pull Michael Kay’s “fallacy of the predetermined outcome” on you, but I did.)

Why did you let Boone Logan face Jeff Keppinger?
Cory Wade was warmed up, and the YES broadcast team told us this. So, if your right-handed non-“A” reliever is prepared to go in and face a righty then why is Logan still in the game? Did Girardi try to get through the inning with only Logan and it backfired? Yup. Does it seem like most of the time when Girardi pushes the wrong button, he doesn’t get bailed out? Yup.

If you’re going to micro-manage and over-manage every situation of every game during the season (which you are clearly going to do since you did it in the bottom of the first of Game 1 with your ACE) then why are changing your thought process now? If you’re going to stay with 16 in blackjack with the dealer showing a face card (even though it’s the wrong play) then you need to stay every time you are presented with that situation. Don’t stay one time because you have a feeling or a hunch that the dealer is going to bust, and don’t not do it another time because you have a feeling or hunch that you are going to hit for a 5 or lower. If Girardi is going to micro-manage the way CC Sabathia faces hitters then he better be prepared to do it with the two left-handed (and worst) relievers on the team.

In one of his answers to a postgame press conference question over the weekend, Joe Girardi answered with the phrase, “That’s baseball.” And yes, thing are always going to happen that you can’t control and can’t explain, but it doesn’t help when there isn’t a good explanation for the things you can control.

Blogs • Yankees

Apr 5, 2012

Yankees’ Order of Importance for 2012

This column was originally published on WFAN.com on April 5, 2012. Christmas Eve. That’s the only day that can compare to the feelings of today and tonight as I anxiously await the start of the

This column was originally published on WFAN.com on April 5, 2012.

Christmas Eve. That’s the only day that can compare to the feelings of today and tonight as I anxiously await the start of the new Yankees season. And I know I won’t be able to sleep tonight with visions of Yankees baseball dancing in my head.

On Friday it will have been 183 days since Alex Rodriguez struck out against Jose Valverde and the 2011 season came to a crashing halt after the middle of the order failed to do anything against the Tigers in five games. But last season wasn’t meant to be for the Yankees. Instead we got to watch Lance “The Dance” Berkman take the Cardinals on a magical run and even single-handedly save their season in Game 6. (Will I ever get over how awful Lance The Dance was in 2010 and how good he became in 2011 for the Cardinals? Probably not.)

This season feels different. A year ago I was dreading the idea of A.J. Burnett and Freddy Garcia in the rotation, and I didn’t even like that Bartolo Colon was in the bullpen since I didn’t even want him on the team. Ivan Nova had yet to become a 16-game winner and Phil Hughes was coming off an 18-win season and we had to yet to find out that his “dead arm” would lead to one of the worst historical pitching starts to a season in baseball history.

I feel good about this Yankees team (because of their pitching depth) and I haven’t felt this good about the Yankees since at least 2009 and maybe even in the last eight to 10 years.

In February 2011, I wrote the “Yankees Order Of Importance” in which I ranked the 14 most important Yankees in reverse order based on what it would mean to the team if they missed significant time or performed so badly in 2011 that it was like they were missing time. How different were things all the way back in the Year 2011 (Conan O’Brien and Andy Richter voices)? Well let’s just say I ranked Phil Hughes as the second most important Yankee behind CC Sabathia and had Mark Teixeira third. I had A.J. Burnett ahead of Curtis Granderson for the sole reason that the season and rotation hinged on Burnett (this was obviously before Nova, Garcia and Colon became reliable). So yes, things were a lot different 13 1/2 months ago. Nova wasn’t even included on the list and Garcia and Colon were low-risk, high reward guys that were expected to land on the disabled list for good at some point.

Since so much has changed it’s necessary to revisit and update the “Order Of Importance” and adjust things to fit 2012. Here is the updated list in reverse order with 15 spots for 16 Yankees what it would mean to the team if they missed significant time or performed so badly in 2012 that it was like they were missing time. (There’s a quote in italics from last year’s “Order” for the players that were involved.)

Number 36, Freddy Garcia, Number 36
If Michael Pineda doesn’t have shoulder tendinitis or Andy Pettitte announces his comeback a few weeks earlier and is ready for Opening Day rather than May, Freddy Garcia is stuffed away into the bullpen for blowouts, routs and when Pineda, Phil Hughes or Ivan Nova can’t go five innings. Instead Garcia finds himself in the rotation after an awesome and shocking 2011 season that landed him a one-year, $4 million deal with the Yankees.

I enjoy watching Garcia pitch like I did Mike Mussina in 2008 and Orlando Hernandez in 2004. The repertoire Garcia uses to maneuver his way through AL lineups is masterful for a man who once threw hard with the best in the game. (And if you forgot how hard Garcia used to throw, Michael Kay will remind you on a broadcast, and likely during Garcia’s first start of the season.)

But Garcia is on borrowed time in the rotation unless he can pitch as good or better than he did a year ago. Garcia seems to be a smart guy, especially on the mound, and I don’t think a year of dominating (for the most part) the AL will cause hitters to adjust to him enough to knock him around. If his location is on, then his splitter works and if his splitter works, it’s going to be a lot like 2011. And if it isn’t, Pineda or Pettitte will be there to save the day soon enough.

Number 33, Nick Swisher, Number 33
Because when it comes down to it, if the Yankees are good enough to get back to October, I don’t know if I can sit through another postseason of his. I’d rather sit through Funny People again.

Well I sat through another one and I’m still here. This is Nick Swisher’s fourth season with the Yankees and it could be his last. It seems like 10 years ago rather than three that he was going to be a backup/platoon outfielder to spell Xavier Nady in right field. Swisher has been a valuable part of the lineup, an inconsistent defender (especially in Fenway Park’s right field) and a fan favorite … in the regular season. When the calendar turns to October, Swisher disappears. I know there are a lot of Yankees fans that don’t want to hear anything negative said about Swisher and that the postseason is a “small sample size” but when does it not become one?

Swisher is going to put up his 23-29 home runs and his 80-90 RBIs, but he’s ultimately going to be judged on his performance after Game 162 and beyond. Whether or not that’s fair that’s just the way it is, and his future and where he plays in 2013 will be determined by yet another “small sample size.”

Number 46, Andy Pettitte, Number 46 and Number 35, Michael Pineda, Number 35
(As of now these two guys aren’t being counted on to open the season, but that will likely change and they would climb the ladder toward the top of this list. Or go down the ladder to the bottom of this list since it’s written in reverse order.)

I thought Michael Pineda was going to be the Yankees’ No. 2 starter. I think a lot of people though he was going to be. Even if he wasn’t going to be slotted into the No. 2 spot, he was still going to be the Yankees’ second-best pitcher. Now Pineda is on the disabled list with shoulder tendinitis at a peculiar time when the Yankees were ready to announce their rotation. (Conspiracy?) I’m not saying that Pineda’s shoulder tightness has anything to do with him reporting to camp overweight and not throwing with the same velocity as he did last season, but I’m saying it’s a weird coincidence that he is now on the disabled list and temporarily out of the rotation.

I don’t think Andy Pettitte would be attempting a comeback and Roger Clemens’ his legacy if he didn’t think he could compete at the high level he did in 2010 while healthy. I believe in Pettitte and am anticipating his return to the rotation. I’m also still mad about him leaving the team hanging after 2010. If it wasn’t about his family, which he is saying now, then why did he say it was about that back then? (And yes, I still believe if Cliff Lee picks the Yankees over the Phillies, Pettitte comes back in 2011. And Lee would have picked the Yankees if the Mariners didn’t think Justin Smoak was better than Jesus Montero. AHHHHHHHHH!)

Number 11, Brett Gardner, Number 11
Some guys need just one season to prove they belong and don’t have to worry about job security. Gardner has had to prove it his whole career and will have to again this year.

A lot of people thought Brett Gardner could be the Yankees’ Jacoby Ellsbury or better. And if I remember correctly, two years ago Peter Gammons admitted that Gardner had passed Ellsbury. Well I think that race is over now.

Gardner doesn’t need to be Ellsbury for the Yankees with this lineup. He doesn’t even need to a spark plug for the offense or play a significant role. He just needs to play great defense and find ways to get on base and use his speed to change the game. If he can develop to be an even base stealer, that will be enough of an offensive contribution.

Number 55, Russell Martin, Number 55
This could be Jesus Montero too, but since we don’t know who the starting catcher will be, I’m going to go with Russell Martin since that’s what Brian Cashman told us at the breakfast and that’s what he’s sticking by.

Last year no one knew what to expect from Russell Martin. At the Hard Rock Café breakfast, Brian Cashman said Martin reminded him of Thurman Munson, but he also said he could end up trading Martin if Jesus Montero emerged during spring training and stole the job and became a viable big leaguer at such a young age.

Martin became the Yankees’ early season MVP with big hits (mostly home runs) to start the season and had a productive first year in New York with the bat and behind the plate. Martin doesn’t need to be counted on to produce offensively the way he was in Los Angeles, and in this lineup he doesn’t need to do anything other than worry about the pitching staff and playing defense. No, he can’t go hitting into inning-ending double plays all the time, but Martin anything he does with the bat is extra.

Number 65, Phil Hughes, Number 65
A year ago Hughes was the fifth starter. Today he is the No. 2 starter and essential to the 2011 Yankees. Let’s hope we see a lot of what we saw out of him at the beginning of 2010 and not a lot of what we saw out of him in his two starts against the Rangers in the playoffs.

A year ago I had Hughes as the most important Yankee not named CC Sabathia. He was going to be the Yankees’ second-best starter coming off an 18-win, All-Star season. He was finally putting it all together and realizing his full potential in the majors with a full healthy season. And how did Hughes repay my No. 2 ranking? With a “dead arm” and loss of velocity and this line in three April starts: 10.1 IP, 19 H, 16 R, 16 ER, 4 BB, 3 K, 4 HR, 13.94 ERA, 2.233 WHIP, .396 BAA.

Hughes was “pitching” for a spot in the rotation in spring training even if he really wasn’t since they Yankees weren’t about to send front-end potential back to the bullpen. However with Michael Pineda and Andy Pettitte set to return in the coming weeks, Hughes’ competition to stay in the rotation begins with his first start, and he will have to prove he is the pitcher from 2010 and not the pitcher from the 2010 ALCS or 2011 season.

Number 47, Ivan Nova, Number 47
At the end of April 2011, Nova was 1-2 with a 5.82 ERA in four starts (in two he lasted just 4 1/3 innings) and a relief appearance. On July 1 he was sent to Triple-A despite being 8-4 with a 4.12 ERA. He came back on July 30 and went 8-0 in his last 11 starts of the season, making his last lost of the 2011 regular season on June 3.

Nova’s spring training was U-G-L-Y. I feel like I need to take a shower after typing his spring training line: 22.1 IP, 31 H, 21 R, 20 ER, 5 BB, 17 K, 3 HR, 8.06 ERA, 1.614 WHIP, .323 BAA. OK, time to shower.

Thanks to the circus surrounding Pineda, the anticipation for Kuroda and everyone waiting to see what Hughes will do, Nova would have been able to fly under the radar at the beginning of the season. But with his bad spring and Pineda and Pettitte looming, everyone will be waiting to see if he continues this horrendous pitching, and if he does, the rookie that went 16-4 and shut down the Tigers in Game 1 of the ALDS will find out how bad New York can be when you’re struggling.

Number 42, Mariano Rivera, Number 42
What’s life like without Mariano Rivera? I don’t know. I don’t want to know. Whatever it is, it can’t be good.

I know it’s weird that Mariano went down a spot, but it’s understandable given how good David Robertson was in 2011.

No. 42 has hinted during spring training that this could be his last season with the Yankees, and while other Yankees know what his decision is, no one is tipping their hand to make it known whether or not this Friday will be the last Opening Day for the last man to wear No. 42 in Major League Baseball.

I won’t ever get used to not seeing No. 42 run out of the bullpen to come save the game and save the day for the Yankees if this is in fact the last season for the man that’s basically become a Greek myth.

Number 13, Alex Rodriguez, Number 13
A-Rod needs to be A-Rod this year. The 30-home run, 100-RBI streak is nice, but how about some consistency in 2011?

Like Sweeny Murti said, the most important category for A-Rod in 2012 will be games played. (Oh yeah, the Yankees only have six years left with A-Rod … no big deal.)

Number 2, Derek Jeter, Number 2
When Jeter got hurt on Opening Day in 2003 in Toronto, I was devastated. And since that day I have been scared to ever feel that way again if No. 2 were forced out of the lineup for an extended period of time.

How did Derek Jeter move up on this list while everyone continues to talk about an inevitable decline for his career? Maybe he moved up on this list just for that reason.

Jeter moved up because he is going to be a 38-year old starting shortstop in June and while that might be old to some he looks like a 21-year-old full of youth when you compare him to the defensive prowess of Eduardo Nunez. One DL stint for Jeter with Nunez starting at short was enough for me.

Number 14, Curtis Granderson, Number 14
I still wonder about what the Austin Jackson era in the Bronx would have been like after following his career in the minors and waiting for the call-up the way I wonder what Jason Street would have been like in college and the NFL if not for that unfortunate accident. Would the Panthers still have won State in 2006? Would they have won it easier? What would have become of Matt Saracen?

Curtis Granderson was so good last year that it’s ridiculous to expect him to duplicate that season and almost insane to think that he could. After a so-so opening campaign with the Yankees in 2010 that included a missed month with a hamstring injury all while Austin Jackson was hitting .293 and stealing 27 bases for the Tigers, Granderson made anyone who kept on debating the trade in their head forget about it. With A-Rod’s decline and the possibility of him missing extended time again as he ages, Granderson will be counted on to continue to put up power numbers.

Number 18, Hiroki Kuroda, Number 18
If the Dodgers had sorted out their ownership disaster a couple months earlier, Kuroda might still be a Dodger. Instead he takes his 3.45 career ERA and 1.187 WHIP to the Yankees revamped rotation.

I feel very good about Kuroda in the rotation behind Sabathia to start the season, and even though most pitchers don’t handle the NL to AL transition well, I think Kuroda will. The trade for Pineda helped to ease the arrival and expectations for Kuroda since he isn’t viewed as the new “toy” for Yankees fans in 2012. All of the pressure has fallen on Pineda for being traded for Montero, and this allows Kuroda (who at one time didn’t want to pitch on the East Coast) to just go about his business and not worry about all of the extra stuff like people like me being concerned with the state of the rotation at all times.

I would also like to take this time to thank my friend Dusty and his Dodgers once again for Russell Martin and now for Hiroki Kuroda. Thank you for not having real ownership in time for these two players to join the Yankees!

Number 25, Mark Teixeira, Number 25
When Tex got hurt in the ALCS I wasn’t devastated. That’s a problem. You should ALWAYS be devastated when your No. 3 hitter will miss the rest of the ALCS and the postseason.

Mark, Mark Mark. What are we doing to do with? I guess let you play first base and hit in the middle of the order for the next five seasons since you’re under contract.

Teixeira needs to find the .306/.400/.563 guy from 2007 or the dominant .308/.410/.552 player from 2008 or the .292/.383/.565 MVP runner-up from 2009. I don’t think .248/.341/.494 is cutting it or acceptable for a guy making $22.5 million in 2012 and hitting in the middle of the best offense of the game (even if he hit 39 home runs and drove in 111 runs.) The Yankees will still likely make the playoffs and could win the division if he hits like he did the last two years and forgets that the left side of the field is also in play.

Last season when I wanted Teixeira to hit fifth prior to Opening Day (it took 162 games for Girardi to make the move), I compared his play to Jason Giambi’s and how Yankee Stadium and the short porch changed their games and their approach. Sweeny Murti called me crazy and when Teixeira hit four home runs in the first five games of the year from the three-hole, I felt stupid.

It took Girardi until the playoffs to flip Teixeira and Cano and while I understand the Yankees did have the best record in the AL with Teixeira hitting third, it’s like John Tortorella not playing Marian Gaborik and Brad Richards together until the end of the season, but still being the No. 1 seed in the NHL … maybe they could have been even better.

Number 24, Robinson Cano, Number 24
Cano was the best hitter on the Yankees last year. There’s no reason he can’t be the same in 2011. And now that he has Scott Boras representing him, I’m sure he can taste his next contract. He’s going to want to continue to stack his resume.

Robbie Cano … don’t ya know! (Sorry I had to do that.) Cano has become the most important hitter in the lineup and one of the best all-around hitters in the game. He’s taken over the No. 3 spot in the order as Teixeira has also helped with this decision by basically giving it away.

Number 52, CC Sabathia, Number 52
If CC Sabathia doesn’t take the ball every fifth day for the Yankees (and sometimes maybe on short rest), well like Mike Francesa says, “You can pack up the bats and balls.” CC knows how crucial he is to the 2011 Yankees and he knows that there’s a pot of gold waiting for him at the end of the year if he can duplicate 2010 in 2011 and opt out and make the Steinbrenners take out a second mortgage on their house to make sure that he’s a Yankee next year.

Sabathia might hold the No. 1 spot until his contract expires at the end of the 2017 season. The only way he would lose this spot is if he began a Johan Santana-like injury decline or Phil Hughes and/or Michael Pineda develop into the No. 1-type starters that the Yankees think they can be.

Sabathia has already won 59 games in three years with the Yankees and is averaging a 20-8 season with a 3.18 ERA over the three years. He’s easily the best free-agent pitcher Brian Cashman has ever signed (he could be half as good as he has been and still hold that title), and he’s without a doubt the most important and valuable Yankee.

NFL • NHL

Mar 29, 2012

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

With the city about to become sports crazy with the combination of early-season baseball games mixed with playoff hockey and basketball, it’s time for some random thoughts.

We made it! We made it through the dog days of the sports calendar that starts the day after the Super Bowl and ends with March Madness. Now it’s smooth sailing until the MLB All-Star break when the sports world shuts down and ESPN uses the week to replay every Home Run Derby from the last decade.

The Giants got me through the brutal winter months, which weren’t so brutal thanks to a lack of snow and this run of awesome weather that created a spring training-like atmosphere for the northeast. And now we have almost arrived at the greatest day of them all: Opening Day.

April presents the perfect storm of sports with Opening Day clashing with the beginning of the NHL and NBA postseasons. Well, unless you’re a Mets, Islanders and Nets fan, then I don’t know what you do to get your sports fix since waiting for the Jets’ season isn’t really an option. It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, and it has led me to want to remake this Staples commercial that my dad used to tease me with when the summer was coming to a close.

We are at the point where the Yankees are ready for their third attempt at No. 28, the Rangers are in a position they haven’t been in 15 years and the Knicks look like they might be able to win at least one playoff game. Yankee Stadium is ready to open in 15 days and Madison Square Garden might actually host sporting events in late April, possibly May and if we’re lucky June.

With New York City about to become sports crazy with the combination of the new-car smell of early-season baseball games mixed with the importance of playoff hockey and basketball, there really is no better time to start a weekly random thoughts column to make sure nothing gets lost in the shuffle throughout the week.

I decided to leave the Yankees out of this for now since there’s a lot to get to with them and I’ll get to it all next week leading up to Opening Day. For now, here are some non-baseball thoughts as I mentally prepare myself for next Friday at 3:10 p.m.

– Ryan Callahan is having a magical year as every shot he takes goes in or almost goes in. He doesn’t have the hands, offensive skills or talent of the premiere scorers in the league, but he certainly has the “goal scorer’s touch” and yes, it’s a real thing. It doesn’t matter if he’s scoring the most garbage of goals on a sloppy rebound or sniping bar down in a shootout, it seems like there isn’t a goalie when Callahan is shooting.

On Wednesday night, Callahan scored one of his patented “touch” goals when he missed an attempt on what would have been a pretty goal in front of the net, but instead of scoring, he shot it off a defenseman, and because he’s Ryan Callahan, the puck went right back to his stick blade rather than into the corner or to one of the other nine guys on the ice. Callahan knew what to do with it and found the back of the net. Moments later he came down and let one loose off the crossbar.

It’s things like Callahan’s goals, the way the team scores ugly goals as a whole and find ways to win games, and the play from the soon-to-be-Vezina-winner Henrik Lundqvist that makes me think if the Rangers can’t win it this season they might not get a chance like this with all the stars aligning again.

– There’s not much to think about Tim Tebow going to the Jets other than the Jets are an absolute joke. I like Tebow and like watching him play and like watching media members scramble to try and analyze and make sense of his success, so this might be the first Jets player I root for.

Woody, Mr. T and Rex continue to say that Mark Sanchez is their starting quarterback “period” but if that’s the case, who holds a press conference for their backup quarterback? However, the trio also tells us they didn’t bring Tim Tebow here to be a backup? Can I offer anyone some crazy pills?

The problem is that Sanchez isn’t the Jets’ starting quarterback “period.” The first time Sanchez throws an interception or a pick-six or the offense goes three-and-out at Giants Stadium (I’m dropping MetLife from the name), you’re going to hear the kind of “Tebow” chants that rained down on Mile High Stadium in Week 1 last year while Kyle Orton lost to the Raiders. Those chants are powerful, and they will carry over to sports radio and TV. And those same chants that pushed Kyle Orton out of town and gave John Elway and John Fox no choice but to start Tebow and give the people what they want will be infinitely more powerful in New York. Because let’s be honest, Mark Sanchez isn’t going to do anything to prevent or stifle them.

And how do you have a press conference for maybe the most polarizing athlete in the world with the New York media present and the owner, general manager and head coach are nowhere to be found? The only Jets representative that was present was Jared Winley. The same guy Jared Winley who told Darrelle Revis to hang up on Mike Francesa last October. J! E! T! S! JETS! JETS! JETS!

– For as dominant as the Rangers have been, they still aren’t the best team in the Eastern Conference. That title belongs to the Penguins. And for as dominant as the Rangers have been, they are in a tough situation as the No. 1 seed right now. Pittsburgh trails them by five points with a game in hand, and if Pittsburgh takes over the top seed, the Rangers will face the Flyers in the first round. Sure, the Rangers are undefeated against the Flyers, but the Flyers are 10-3-1 in March, a division rival and if you believe in being “due” or the law of averages, the Flyers are the worst possible first-round matchup for the Rangers.

If the Rangers come out as the No. 1 seed, which they are likely to do, then they will likely face the Senators (currently No. 7), Sabres (currently No. 8) or Capitals (currently No. 9). (There’s also a chance they could face the Devils if a series of insane events happens.)

The Senators looked like they might take over the No. 2 seed from the Bruins, but then they lost five of six over a two-week stretch this month, and now they are battling just to fend off the Sabres and Capitals. The Sabres have won five straight and have outscored opponents 22-5 in those five games (including a 4-1 win over the Rangers). The Capitals have been up and down in March, but does anyone really want to face the Capitals after what happened in 2008-09 and last year even if they aren’t exactly the same team?

This is tricky because the Rangers have a past with the Capitals even if they are the weakest team of the three, and the Rangers and Sabres play a very similar style, and Ryan Miller just happens to be getting 2010 Olympics hot right now.

Despite what Brian Monzo tells me about being scared of the Senators knocking off the Rangers, I think I would want to play Ottawa then Washington then Buffalo, but this has been changing daily.

– What’s Mike D’Antoni doing right now? Sure, he will have $24 million from the Knicks when all is said and done, but there’s no way he doesn’t look like Ron Burgundy (it’s a mustache thing) after being fired from Channel 4 as an unemployed drunk who’s hated by the city. The last thing you want to see your team do when you’re let go is win, and the Knicks beat the Trail Blazers by 42 on the same day D’Antoni “resigned” and now they’re 8-1 with Mike Woodson as the head coach.

– I’m happy to see Bartolo Colon continuing his great comeback (8 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K on Thursday morning against Seattle). I was 100-percent wrong a year ago when I said he was a bad idea for the Yankees to put on the roster, and this was even before he was put into the rotation. I do wish we got to see him start Game 2 of the ALDS.

– Thank you and goodbye to Brandon Jacobs. Even though I actually felt like Jacobs picked it up down the stretch and in the postseason he has clearly declined drastically since the 2007 run and his superb 2008 run. He became a locker room distraction, a loudmouth with the media and even entered the A.J. Burnett Zone from which there is no return. I will remember Jacobs for the good times and try to forget about the bad times (unless I need to reference them to draw comparison to something else that’s negative). He leaves New York for the 49ers as a two-time champion, and now I can only hope he fumbles against the Giants in next year’s NFC Championship Game.

Blogs • Rangers

Mar 16, 2012

Rangers Reeling Through Ides of March

The Rangers have the most points in the East, but the Penguins are the best team in the East and the best team in the league, and it’s not really up for debate either.

This column was originally published on WFAN.com on March 16, 2012.

The Rangers have to get out of the first round of the playoffs. Actually they have to get out of the second round too. They have to. John Tortorella can make all the excuses months before the playoffs that he wants by saying this team isn’t ready to win yet, but I think they are. I think the “best” team in either conference has a chance to win it all. Really, I think any playoff team in either conference has a chance to win it all.

The Rangers are the “best” team in the Eastern Conference right now. They have the most points so they are the “best,” but we all know the Penguins are the best team in the East and the best team in the league. It’s not really up for debate either. The Penguins have won 10 in a row, trail the Rangers by four points with a game in hand and have had this good of a season to date without their best player and without the best player in the world. Take the Rangers’ best player (Henrik Lundqvist) off the team for all but eight games this season, and the Rangers wouldn’t be trying to fend off teams from taking their No. 1 seed. They might be fending off the Canadiens and Islanders for the 16^th seed in the conference.

The Penguins haven’t lost since Feb. 19. They lost 6-2 to in Buffalo that day and then shut out the Rangers two days later, and have been picking up two points per game since. They have outscored their opponents 40-15 during the streak and seven of the wins over have come against playoff teams, and oh yeah, they are just now getting No. 87 back in the lineup. Do we even play the rest of the season out, or should we just give them the Stanley Cup now? (That’s only half reverse jinx because it’s also half true.)

Am I scared of the Rangers’ current status? Was Bobby Abreu scared of the right-field wall at Yankee Stadium? The injuries and illnesses on the Rangers are starting to pile up, the offense (aside from the first line) has disappeared and the defense has been off and on for about a month. You can either say this is happening at the worst time (down the stretch with the top seed on the line), or that’s it happening at an OK time (prior to the playoffs). Either way it’s happening and it needs to be fixed.

The Rangers don’t need the No. 1 seed. The No. 1 seed means nothing. Home-ice advantages no longer truly exist in the NHL with cookie-cutter rinks and suites and boxes filling arenas, and fans being priced out around the league as if Yankee Stadium has become the home for every good (or Canadian) NHL team. It’s always nice to have the extra home game in a best-of-7 series, but this isn’t the NBA where it’s a necessity. It’s only a luxury in the NHL.

If the Rangers are the No. 1 seed or the No. 4 seed (let’s keep giving away top seeds to division winners!), they’re going to have a tough first-round opponent. If you want to play Washington, winners of four straight, in the first round then maybe we can get together and I will show you some first-round footage from 2010-11 and 2008-09. And if you want to play Philadelphia, well it’s not something anyone should “want” whether or not the law of averages suggests the Rangers shouldn’t play the Flyers in the playoffs. Every team in the Eastern Conference Playoff Picture will be a tough test for the Rangers, and there’s no point of hoping to play one team over another since it usually doesn’t work out the way you want it to, and even if it does, it will likely backfire.

Thursday night was a disaster. The matchup did lose some of its luster knowing that Marty Biron would be playing instead of Henrik Lundqvist, but even so, the Rangers have now lost their last three meetings with the Penguins by a combined score of 11-3 and two of those games were when Lundqvist played. The Penguins are the class of the league right now, and the seemingly inevitable conference finals meeting between the Rangers and Bruins can be put on hold.

Here are a few thoughts on the Rangers following Thursday night’s loss to the Penguins.

Henrik Lundqvist
Prior to getting sick and missing the last two games, Henrik Lundqvist had been in a funk. It wasn’t a Mike Dunham-like funk or whatever-is-going-on-with-the-Boston-goalies-right-now funk, but when you’re the best goalie in the league with a 1.88 GAA any kind of letdown is noticeable.

When I first heard that the Rangers were calling up Chad Johnson from the AHL, I hoped that Lundqvist wasn’t hurt or injured (yes, there’s a difference between the two). And while you never want someone to have the flu, I’m just glad it wasn’t anything serious because if Lundqvist is out for any extended period of time or (knock on wood) the playoffs, you might as well pack up the locker room and we’ll you in 2012-13. Lundqvist is the best player on the team and has been now since Jaromir Jagr left, and he might have been even when Jagr was still here. The team is built around him, and without him in net, the game against the Penguins on Thursday night lost its luster and the result is easier to accept knowing that the King wasn’t in the net.

The Lines
Remember the conversations about how “deep” the Rangers are? Was that this year? If we’re going to talk about depth, let’s keep it to defensive depth.

Brad Richards came to the Rangers to feed Marian Gaborik the puck. That’s why he got a nine-year deal worth $60 million. After a rocky start to the season and a lack of chemistry, John Tortorella split them up, and that was that. Why give them any time to learn to play together? Now after five months on separate lines, Tortorella has decided to put his best goal scorer and best playmaker on the same line. What a concept!

I have a love/hate relationship with Tortorella. I’m not into his press conference and media personality the way that some people. But these same people love Sean Avery’s so-called “effectiveness” on the ice. (And isn’t it ironic that these two guys don’t like each other?) Tortorella has this sense of entitlement around him that you get with winning the Stanley Cup even if he can thank Richards for his ring. Winning in the major sports has evolved into the same result as winning an election as a campaign manager. You will always have that one win to fall back on and you can always get a job because of it. In Tortorella’s case, I guess winning the Cup once lets you act however you want (just ask Tim Thomas), but Tortorella isn’t Scotty Bowman. I’m not sure he’s even Terry Crisp. I don’t expect him to change his ways now or ever, and I’m sure the beat writers and reporters who are in love with his personality would be upset with me for even suggesting it.

The first line has now scored six consecutive goals for the Rangers. The good news is that the Rangers finally have a line that other teams fear and a line that makes opposing fans say, “Oh eff!” when they’re on the ice. The bad news is the first line has scored the last six goals for the Rangers, and the depth of scoring starts and ends with them right now.

I know that Ryan Callahan will certainly help the offense on the second line and that will bump someone out of the lineup from one of the bottom two lines, but it shouldn’t be…

Mats Zuccarello
Let’s get this out of the way, so everyone knows where I stand: I love Mats Zuccarello. I love his style of play and what he brings offensively to the team. (Sorry, Monzo.) I know John Tortorella doesn’t like him since he stuck him in Hartford all season to play with the Whale, and he isn’t one of Tortorella’s “favorites.” But now all of a sudden the team needs “offensive creativity” so they call up the 5-foot-7 wing that they cast off to the AHL after three games with the team back in October.

Zuccarello has now played in six games for the Rangers this season, or the same amount of games as John Scott. No one will fight Scott (or at least he won’t get anyone to go consistently he claims) because of his size, and he has complained openly about this. He isn’t someone who can play and he isn’t on the ice fighting or changing the momentum or giving the team a spark when he was playing, so why was he ever playing in the first place? The idea that “he’s a big body that takes up space” isn’t cutting it for a first-place team in the best league in the world. I have to wonder if Marian Gaborik sees John Scott in practice and wonders if he’s even in the NHL anymore, and I would set the money line that John Scott has even scored one goal in a practice shooting drill on Henrik Lundqvist at +730.

Zuccarello deserved to be on this team for more of the season than he has been whether or not they did fine without him, and now he deserves to play more than he is playing. I know that nothing will change because he isn’t one of Tortorella’s “boys” but the idea that some of the other names that have rolled through this roster were given a chance before him is disgusting. He doesn’t belong buried on the bench barely getting 7:37 of ice time like he did on Thursday. He’s here to help jumpstart an offense that goes into hiding, so let him do that.

No. 87
The game is better when Crosby plays. It’s so much better that I feel like it might be necessary for the Penguins to sign Dave Semenko and Marty McSorley to make sure Crosby isn’t sidelined for a year again.

No. 87 is the textbook example of why fighting is needed in the NHL. Everyone knows about his concussion-related problems and there isn’t a team in the league that doesn’t have plans to try and put Crosby on the shelf again as bad as it sounds. (I know other fans are looking for it from conversations and Twitter and Facebook.) Without players being allowed to police themselves, there’s no doubt that players would take shots at Crosby and that someone would try to run him. Even though he’s the poster boy for scoring, he might also be it for fighting.

Blogs • KTTC Archive • Yankees

Feb 18, 2012

Goodbye to A.J. Burnett and His ‘Great Stuff’

The Season 4 finale of The Office has one of my favorite scenes in the show’s history. That scene is when Toby leaves the office for Costa Rica and Michael’s bids him farewell by singing

The Season 4 finale of The Office has one of my favorite scenes in the show’s history. That scene is when Toby leaves the office for Costa Rica and Michael’s bids him farewell by singing Supertramp’s “Goodbye Stranger” with the new title “Goodbye Toby” and new lyrics tailored to Toby.

I have always envisioned myself singing the song with the title changed to “Goodbye A.J.” on the steps of Babe Ruth Plaza before a night game at the Stadium with Yankees fans crowded around singing and celebrating the trade or release of A.J. Burnett. Burnett is no longer a Yankee, but it’s the middle of February and there are no games to be played at the Stadium until April, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to rent a backup band and belt out my own rendition of Supertramp’s hit in the Bronx.

I have written for WFAN.com since Feb. 1, 2010 and I have written more words about A.J. Burnett than anyone other sports figure. (Type “Neil Keefe A.J. Burnett” into Google if you think I’m kidding.) I have dedicated entire columns to him, made a system for measuring his starts and grading his performances, referenced him in columns about the Rangers and joked about him in columns about the Giants. I have used his name in every possible way and want to thank him for the countless material and also for Game 2 of the 2009 World Series. Since there won’t be a performance in Babe Ruth Plaza, I decided the next best thing was to go back through all of my columns about A.J. Burnett over the last two years and share some of my favorite moments from my columns about him.

April 7, 2010
Watching A.J. Burnett pitch is harder to watch than the scene in Casino where Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) and his brother Dominick are beaten within an inch of their lives by baseball bats and then buried alive. Sure it’s only one start, but it’s not like we didn’t also see this last year. Burnett is either going to come within reach of a no-no or have a start that includes that one letdown inning. On Tuesday, he had the latter and the letdown inning was the fifth.

June 22, 2010
This time I decided to take what I have learned about A.J. Burnett since he became a Yankee and take it out a step further. I think its necessary that we have a unit of measurement for Burnett’s starts and a way to categorize his many meltdowns and losses. So like the Richter scale, here is a way to measure another type of natural disaster: A.J. Burnett meltdowns.

Grade 1
Example: June 10 vs. Baltimore

Getting through the first inning with A.J. Burnett is key. If you can get through the first, there’s a chance he will be able to get you through a lot more. A.J. is usually good for allowing at least one run before the Yankees have time to get on the board, but if he can hold the opposition scoreless so the Yankees can take an early lead, you’re in good shape. The problem is you aren’t out of the water yet since there isn’t a lead that is safe with A.J. on the hill.

The meltdown usually starts once the Yankees have given him a lead and he feels it necessary to give it right back. Andy Pettitte did a lot of this in the second half of 2008 before we later found out that he was injured. A.J. Burnett might be the only pitcher that I don’t feel confident with getting out of an inning unscathed with two outs and no one on. Once he gets those first two outs, things can unfold pretty quickly. And when they do, you can no longer control a Grade 1 implosion from becoming …

Grade 2
Example: April 23 vs. Angels

If AJ doesn’t come with his best stuff (which he never does anymore), then there is without a doubt going to be an inning where he allows at least a three spot.

Most starters prepare for games with the mindset that they are going to go out and win the game for their team. A.J. goes out with the idea that he is going to throw a perfect game. The only problem is that after that first walk, he starts to think, “OK, the no-hitter is still intact.” Then after that first hit, he thinks “Well, now I am just going to strike out every hitter.” It’s this mentality that gets A.J. Burnett in trouble. Instead of pitching the way he finally learned how to under Roy Halladay at the end of his Toronto days, A.J. becomes the oft-injured pitcher he was in Florida, trying to knock down the catcher with his fastball like Steve Nebraska.

A.J. Burnett isn’t capable of limiting damage and working through men on base the way Andy Pettitte has made a career of doing, and he isn’t capable of working through a game without his best stuff the way CC Sabathia can grind through a start. It’s all or nothing with A.J. Burnett and when it’s nothing, it turns into this …

Grade 3
Examples: May 9 vs. Red Sox and June 21 vs. Diamondbacks

This is what we saw on Monday and what we have seen for most of June. It’s like an uncontrollable California forest fire. You think A.J. has had his bad inning for the night and that he will enter cruise control, only to have the game unravel in a matter of pitches (on Monday night it took 15) and once that second crooked number starts to take shape, there is no stopping it until he is removed from the game. The only problem with that is that the game is out of hand by this point and likely out of reach for the offense, so the “loser” relievers (I call them this because they only pitch when the Yankees are losing and also happens to be prime examples of the word) like Chad Gaudin and Boone Logan and Chan Ho Park start to get loose in the ‘pen.

The entire scene is enough to make you think about picking up your remote control and throwing a two-seamer right through the TV screen, or at the very least it’s enough to make you make yourself a strong cocktail.

September 1, 2010
“Great stuff” is a tag that has become synonymous with hard throwing pitchers that have no control and really just throw since they don’t know how to actually pitch. If some recent call-up is facing the Yankees and is throwing in the high 90s, but walks the first two hitters he faces, you can bet your life that John Flaherty will talk about the pitcher’s “great stuff” when he breaks down the pitch-by-pitch sequence. That’s right, the pitcher that just walked the first two hitters of the inning on eight pitches has “great stuff!”

How many times have you heard someone say A.J. Burnett has “great stuff?” Listen to Michael Kay or John Sterling call a game, or listen to sports radio or talk to a random Yankees fan about Burnett and the phrase will come up. And when A.J. starts an uncontrollable forest fire in the third of fourth inning of one of his starts when it seems like he might never record another out, Kay or whoever has the play-by-play duties for the game (or John Sterling if you are listening on the radio) will start to wonder out loud what is wrong with A.J.

“He throws so hard and has such great stuff — some of the best stuff in the league. It just doesn’t make any sense why he struggles the way he does.”

It actually makes perfect sense as to why A.J. Burnett has the problems he has. It’s because he doesn’t have “great stuff.” Roy Halladay has great stuff. Felix Hernandez has great stuff. CC Sabathia has great stuff. Josh Johnson has great stuff. A.J. Burnett has average stuff.

Yes, A.J. Burnett throws hard and yes, he has a breaking ball that can buckle someone’s knees like a Ronnie one-punch, but that doesn’t make his stuff “great.” Being able to control your stuff and being able to dominate on a consistent basis and grind through a start when you aren’t at your best is what makes someone’s stuff “great.” Leaving the game in the fourth inning with the bases loaded and one out and burning the bullpen in the first game of a three-game series with your team not having an off-day for another 12 days for some reason to me just shouldn’t be classified as having “great stuff.”

October 1, 2010
I thought A.J Burnett could be good down the stretch (well, maybe it was more of hope). I thought he could turn around what has been the worst season of any Yankee pitcher since David Cone when 4-14 in 2000. I said I wouldn’t say anything negative about him for the rest of the season. I gave him a chance, but he took the mound in Toronto with his ALDS roster spot on the line and gave the Blue Jays a chance to pad their 2010 stats in the final week of the season. So like Stevie Janowski once said, “I have tried to be your friend, but you will not listen to me, so you invited this monster.”

It’s obvious at this point that A.J. Burnett is in denial about his abilities. Maybe it’s because everyone around him tells him he has “great stuff” like delusional parents telling their kid that they are the best despite the truth. Since June 1, Burnett has made 21 starts and has won four of them. He’s 4-13 over that time with a 6.67 ERA, and is now 23-24 with a 4.64 ERA in 65 starts as a Yankee. If I’m Joe Girardi and I’m managing for a championship and for a hefty contract this offseason, the last person I want deciding my salary for the next few years is a pitcher who found a way to lose at least 15 games for a 94-plus win team.

Here is Burnett’s line from Monday night’s loss:

2.1 IP, 7 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 1 BB, 1K, 2 HR

Now, here is a quote from Burnett following that pitching line:

“Joe’s going to make a decision on his own. I don’t have anything to prove. He saw what I did last year in the postseason. Everybody always says that the season doesn’t matter here and the postseason does. He makes the decisions and I want the ball whenever he gives it to me.”

Does that sound like a pitcher who lost for the seventh time in 11 starts and who has just one win since September 28th? That’s right, one win in 65 days. Give him the ball, Joe!

What’s even more puzzling than Burnett thinking that losing in the regular season at $500,000 a start, are the words he chose to describe his current state of mind.

“I don’t have anything to prove. He saw what I did last year in the postseason.”

Yes, A.J. Burnett won Game 2 of the World Series, and it was a must-win game for the Yankees. But let’s not forget he started four other games in the postseason and either lost or earned no decisions. Not to mention his meltdowns in two potential clinchers (Game 5 of the ALCS and Game 5 of the World Series).

Here is Burnett’s line from Game 5 of the ALCS:

6 IP, 8 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 3 BB, 3 K

And here is his line from Game 5 of the World Series, a game in which the first four Phillies reached base and had a 3-0 lead before Burnett recorded an out:

2 IP, 4 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 4 BB, 2K, 1 HR

And in case you forgot, here is how Game 5 went down for Burnett, batter by batter:

First inning: Single, hit by pitch, home run, walk, strikeout, groundout, groundout

Second inning: Strikeout, groundout, walk, pop-out

Fourth inning: Walk, walk, single, single

So, yeah we all saw what you did in the postseason last year.

October 19, 2010
Let’s forget the No. 1 reason why A.J. Burnett shouldn’t start Game 4, which is because he isn’t consistent, trustworthy or reliable (that’s the nice way of saying he isn’t a good pitcher). If those miserable qualities aren’t enough to make you change your mind about who should start Game 4, consider the elephant in the room that not one person ever mentions or talks about: Joe Girardi has no idea how to handle A.J. Burnett.

I’m not saying Girardi doesn’t know how to make Burnett a good pitcher because after 12 years and three teams in the majors, it’s clear that no one does. Let’s not pretend like Burnett has only been bad as a Yankee because, truthfully, he was never very good. The Yankees paid $82.5 million for an 87-76 pitcher because they missed the playoffs the year before and because Burnett was 3-1 with a 1.64 ERA against the Yankees in 2008. They didn’t get him for his postseason pedigree and October experience since he had never pitched in the postseason before 2009, and they certainly didn’t get him for his résumé, which aside from a nine-walk no hitter in 2001, included nothing worth giving him $16.5 million a year.

So, no I’m not saying it’s Girardi’s fault that Burnett lost 15 games on a 95-win team, what I’m saying is that the problem with Girardi and his utilization of Burnett is that he has no idea when to pull the plug on him or when to keep him plugged in. Take for instance what Girardi did on Monday night in Game 3: Trailing 2-0 and with Cliff Lee close to being finished for the night, it looked like Joe Girardi wanted to keep the Rangers right there hoping that the Yankees could come back against the Rangers bullpen. So, Joe had Kerry Wood pitch the eighth, which would only mean that Mariano Rivera would pitch the ninth (since Joe was using his primary setup man) since he had pitched just one inning in nine days. But to start the ninth, Girardi went with Boone Logan who allowed a leadoff single to Josh Hamilton. Then he brought in David Robertson who faced seven batters and retired just one of them. Sergio Mitre relived Robertson and at the end of the inning the Rangers’ lead went from 2-0 to 8-0, and the game was over. Why did Girardi save Mariano Rivera? He saved him because he managed for Game 4 during Game 3. The same manager who told the media following Game 2 that, “If we worry about Game 4 before Game 3, we are going to be in trouble.” And that’s exactly what he did and now the Yankees are in trouble.

What does Girardi’s handling of the bullpen in Game 3 have to do with Girardi’s handling of A.J. Burnett? Everything! Because if Girardi doesn’t know the leash of each of his relievers in the bullpen (a strength of the team), then how is he going to handle Burnett in Game 4 when the game begins to unravel? In case you aren’t aware, when A.J. Burnett begins to go south, it happens in seconds not minutes. Following a walk, in three pitches, you could have three consecutive doubles and if you don’t see Burnett entering his famous “Eff It” mode quick enough, the game could be out of hand before you have even called down to the bullpen. Girardi has no idea how to judge when Burnett is about to begin an epic meltdown, and aside from Burnett being the worst pitcher on the team and my least favorite player, Girardi’s inability to understand his momentum swings on the mound is the unnerving part of him staring Game 4.

There are the fans, the ones who watched A.J. Burnett’s 2010 season and watched him lose all five of his starts in June and record just 14 quality starts in 33 starts. The fans that watched a 95-67 team get 22 percent of their losses from one pitcher making the equivalent of 30 percent of the 2010 Rangers’ payroll. These are the fans like me. These are the fans that are realists and know that even though Tommy Hunter might be as bad as Burnett, the Yankees are going to likely need to hang a six-spot on the Rangers in Game 4, and even then it might not be enough.

Then there are the fans that have started the AJ Burnett movement. These are the fans who even though deep down they know Burnett has about as good of a chance of winning Game 4 as Don Larsen would at 81 years of age, they have proclaimed they “believe in Burnett.” These are the fans that don’t get worried when the Yankees trail by five runs in an ALCS game because the night before the Yankees erased the same deficit as if the chance that the same result might happen again has any relevance to the current game. These are the fans that will say, “I told you so” when Burnett pitches well, but I don’t need someone to tell me when a guy who makes $16.5 million finally does his job.

and more from this same column…

No, the Yankees won’t be eliminated with a loss in Game 4 on Tuesday, but they might as well be. The five-game series against the Rangers I was worried about in the ALDS ended up happening in the ALCS after the Yankees split the first two games. Cliff Lee started Game 1 of the best-of-five series on Monday and now he is waiting to start Game 5 of the series, if the Yankees can get it there. I don’t know if I can physically and emotionally handle the Yankees coming back to force a Game 7 only to have Lee strike out another dozen Yankees and sprint off the mound after seven-pitches innings knowing that the Yankees were so close to acquiring him three months ago.

I want nothing more than the Burnett enthusiasts to tell me after Game 4 that I was wrong. I want to be wrong. I want A.J. Burnett to pitch well and I want the Yankees to win Game 4, the ALCS and the World Series. But like Winnie Gecko warns her fiancé Jacob about her father, Gordon, in Wall Street 2, “He’s not who you think he is Jake. He’ll hurt us,” I am reminding you of who A.J. Burnett is and what he is capable of.

I was hoping for a couple of Yankees fans to kidnap Burnett last night the way Mike O’Hara and Jimmy Flaherty kidnap Lewis Scott before the Celtics play the Jazz in the NBA Finals in Celtic Pride, but it looks like that didn’t happen. So now I have to believe in A.J. Burnett. I have no other choice.

July 19, 2011
The thing about Burnett is that I can’t blame him for his contract. If Cashman wanted to give him the fifth year that no one else would at $16.5 million per year, you can’t blame him for accepting it. Why wouldn’t he take that deal? And I understand that he stands there and takes his losses like he should in front of the media and in front of the cameras, and that he seems to be an important clubhouse presence and someone who genuinely cares about winning and wants to succeed. All of those things are nice, but at the end of the day it’s his performance on the field that matters and only that.

A.J. Burnett doesn’t suck. Well, not completely. He’s not as bad as Jaret Wright was or as much of a bust as Carl Pavano was or as crazy as Kevin Brown. He is what he is. He’s a .500 pitcher with a 4.00 ERA who sometimes will be lights out and sometimes be lights on. He doesn’t suck. He’s just inconsistent.

August 11, 2011
So, knowing that the Cashman and Girardi ONLY care about winning and will do WHATEVER it takes to win, this decision seems like a rather easy one to me: A.J. Burnett is out of the rotation.

It’s not like this is a decision made hastily or without a large sample size. This is a decision based on lots of results. But to be onboard with taking the Yankees’ most ineffective starter and putting him in the bullpen (for now), you first have to identify and understand the two common misconceptions about him.

1. He has “great stuff.” Every time I hear this is it’s like someone pulling their nails from the top left corner to the bottom right corner of a chalkboard. It makes me cringe and hate baseball. Am I watching a different game than everyone else when Burnett pitches? Am I really taking crazy pills like Mugatu? What’s so great about an 8-9 record and 4.60 ERA? Is it because he throws hard? Is it because he has a curveball that drops off the table that has led to a league-leading 15 wild pitches, or basically the equivalent of throwing an entire inning of wild pitches?

Sabathia and Roy Halladay and Felix Hernandez and Tim Lincecum and Justin Verlander have GREAT stuff. A.J. Burnett has the type of “great stuff” that Jeff Weaver had. The only reason Weaver isn’t pitching in the league anymore is because no team was stupid enough to give him $82.5 million.

2. He has the ability to throw a shutout. I LOVE this one. I LOVE IT! I LOVE that people think because once in a while when the night is right and the temperature is perfect and the lineup is just bad enough and the stars align, A.J. Burnett pitches a great game.

I understand that you need swing-and-miss stuff in the postseason, but you also don’t need free-pass stuff in the postseason and under .500 stuff and 4.60 stuff. So, if you’re going to tell me Burnett has the ability (which I don’t think he does) to shut down the Red Sox, Rangers, Angels, Tigers or Indians in a must-win game, you better be able to tell me he also has the ability to put the Yankees in an inescapable hole before they even hit for the first time in the game.

and more from this same column…

Let’s look at and dissect some of the answers that Burnett gave after his start on Tuesday:

“Before the sixth, I kept my team in it the best I could. And that’s what I’m going to continue to keep doing.”

It’s always something with Burnett and everyone is always making excuses for him. He’s always talking about if he “could have one pitch back” or that he “only made one mistake” or that “he left it all on the field.” You know who uses the line “I left it all on the field?” People who lose.

Burnett pinpoints the place where he stopped pitching well and started pitching like a guy who makes $500,000 per start whether he’s good or not. But hey, EFF IT! Only the first six inning matter and if you did “the best you could” well, I can’t argue you with that. Except there’s no place for who did their “best” on the scoreboard. Just runs, hits and errors.

“I wouldn’t change a lot.”

Oh, OK! You wouldn’t change the double you gave up to Hall of Famer Jeff Mathis. Or how about the 50-foot curveball you threw to Erick Aybar with a runner on third? Well, if you wouldn’t change them, I can’t argue with that.

“I haven’t won in a long time. I think I’ve pitched a lot of games that I could have won. I think a lot of things are out of my hands and are out of my control. I’ve given [up] three runs in [14] of my starts. If that is not good enough to win, I don’t know what is.”

When I went out to eat for my dad’s birthday on June 29, I kept looking over my sister’s head to try and see the TV at the bar at the restaurant to check the Yankees-Brewers score. A.J. Burnett was pitching. I didn’t think that when he won that game that night I would still be waiting for him to win another one 43 days later.

This is my favorite part. Burnett says the way he has pitched should be good enough to be undefeated or at least close to undefeated and then tries to sneaky throw his offense (currently the 2nd best offense in baseball) under the bus. The Yankees have scored more runs than 28 other teams, so yeah, it must be the offense’s fault!

He’s right, he’s give up three runs or less in 14 starts (it’s actually 15). But did you notice that he didn’t say that in those 15 starts he failed to go six innings in or that he didn’t mention the three times he has given up six or more earned runs? Why did he forget to mention that just last Wednesday he had a 13-1 lead to work with in Chicago and couldn’t even get through five innings and qualify for the win? 13 hits in 4 1/3 innings to the White Sox? If that is not enough to get you kicked out of the rotation, I don’t know what is.

“I’m going to stay positive. I threw the ball well tonight, I kept my team in it.”

If that is throwing the ball well, I don’t want to know what throwing the ball poorly is. OK, that was the last one of those.

August 22, 2011
At the end of Good Will Hunting, Ben Affleck’s character (Chuckie Sullivan) tells Matt Damon’s character (Will Hunting), “You know what the best part of my day is? The ten seconds before I knock on the door ’cause I let myself think I might get there, and you’d be gone. I’d knock on the door and you just wouldn’t be there. You just left.”

I live this every day. You know what the best part of my day is? Every day when I sign online, or go on Twitter, or turn on the TV or the radio ‘cause I let myself think that I will see the headline or hear the phrase, “A.J. Burnett removed from Yankees rotation.” I’m not foolish enough to think that I might hear, “Yankees release A.J. Burnett” because of the money he is owed this season and the $33 million for the next two years. But I let myself think that maybe, just maybe he will be sent to the bullpen and given the Jorge Posada treatment in that he doesn’t fit the team’s plan in putting the best team on the field. I think we’re getting there.

Burnett faced 12 batters. Eight of them reached base. Five of them were named Ben Revere, Trevor Plouffe, Danny Valencia Rene Tosoni and Luke Hughes (they are still named those names too). This isn’t the Red Sox, Rangers or Tigers or a team that has postseason aspirations. This is a team that outside of Burnett’s start scored five runs total in the other three games of the series. It’s a team that is 16 games under .500 and 13 games out of it in the weak Central. Let’s face it: The Twins suck.

But no one sucks when A.J. Burnett is pitching. Here’s how Burnett’s night went on Saturday:

Groundout
Double
Double
Sacrifice Fly
Strikeout
Home run
Walk
Double
Groundout
Single
Walk
Walk

One last time … Ladies and gentlemen, A.J. Burnett!

Blogs • Giants

Feb 13, 2012

Super Bowl XLVI Final Thoughts

After a week of digesting the Super Bowl win and everything that has come with it and from it, Neil Keefe gives his final thoughts on the Giants’ improbable run.

It’s been eight days since the Giants won the Super Bowl and it still hasn’t really set in yet, and maybe it never will. How did the team cruising on the Second-Half Collapse train at 200 mph without any brakes turn into world champions? How did the team that lost to Rex Grossman twice, Charvaris Whiteson and Vince Young beat Aaron Rodgers and the 49ers’ defense on the road and then decapitate Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the Patriots’ dynasty in the postseason? The answer is: expectations.

All season long I talked about how poorly the Giants play with expectations and how well they play when everyone throws dirt on them. People want to make the connections between the end of the 2011 season and the end of the 2007 season, but I think the connections go all the way back to the beginning of the season.

The 2007 Giants started the season 0-2 and allowed 80 points in those two games and I remember telling my roommates that they might not win a game all year. They were a goal-line stand in Washington away from being 0-3 and basically eliminating themselves from the postseason before September ended. This season I lost all expectations when all the key free agents went elsewhere and the entire team suffered season-ending injuries in preseason. After the Giants lost to the Redskins in Week 1 and let Grossman throw for 305 yards on them I thought the season was over.

The Giants’ season came so close to ending so many times during the regular season, but oddly enough it never really came close to ending in the postseason until Wes Welker couldn’t catch Tom Brady’s poorly thrown pass. What we witnessed since the comeback with 5:41 left in Dallas in Week 14 up until Tom Brady’s Hail Mary attempt hit the ground last Sunday night was more miraculous and more improbable than what we saw in 2007.

I’m exhausted from the last eight days between watching the game, celebrating the victory, attending the parade, listening to every possible Giants interview and consuming every piece of content regarding the team. I’m still running on fumes from last Sunday and drafting off fumes from the Super Bowl victory. I thought about doing a What Went Wrong And Right from my columns on the Giants throughout the season the way I did for the Yankees at the end of their season, but when you win a championship, there’s nothing worthy of complaining about. (Yes, even Kevin Gilbride gets a pass here.)

After a week of digesting the Super Bowl win and everything that has come with it and from it, I have decided to follow up my Super Bowl XLVI Thoughts with my Super Bowl XLVI Final Thoughts. Just picture Jerry Springer sitting on the stool at the end of his show trying to explain what just happened on his Stamford, Conn. stage, except I’m going to try and explain what happened over the last month and a half after letting the idea that the Giants are world champions again settle in.

– Last Tuesday I sprinted down Church St. to get to Broadway, high-stepped some horse manure, got some Dos Equis splashed on me, weaved in and out of thousands of people and rode a crowded subway that had the stench of an element not yet discovered just to see the Lombardi Trophy make its way up the Canyon of Heroes. It was worth it.

– I don’t know who had cheesier lines at the City Hall celebration between Mayor Bloomberg and Steve Tisch? I’m going to go with Bloomberg since Tisch is part owner of the team, so he gets a pass, while Bloomberg decided to start inducting people into the Hall of Fame as awkwardly as possible and predicting another Giants’ championship next season.

– How badly does Michael Strahan wish he played for the Giants this season? Part of me thinks that he thinks he did play for the Giants this season. I was waiting for him to have the final word at City Hall and “stomp out” the Patriots again. I kind of wish he did.

– Eli Manning killed it in Disney World, on David Letterman, at City Hall and at MetLife. There’s no one left that refers to him as “Aw, Shucks” or anyone who doesn’t think he’s elite anymore. This pleases me.

– I’m not sure how many relationships and marriages have been destroyed because of the NFL Network’s existence (and also the MLB, NHL and NBA Networks), but it has to be staggering.

– I spent the weekend in Boston, and it’s always fun to head to the rival city after a devastating defeat, especially one that came out the hands of a New York team. And while in Boston I saw an elementary school in South Boston with huge Patriots logos on the front windows of the building, and I couldn’t help but think about the seven-year-old kids in that school who wonder if their Patriots will ever win the Super Bowl, and whether or not they are becoming the Bills.

– The Giants were incredibly lucky the way their two fumbles bounced, and that the first fumbled was negated by a Patriots’ penalty, and I can’t get over how luck they were. The biggest asset of Hakeem Nicks and Victor Cruz is their ability to make that one big play that can change a game (or save the season like Cruz did against the Jets), but their biggest flaw is their attempt to make that one big play that leaves them vulnerable to get stripped or hit from behind for a fumble. The same goes for Ahmad Bradshaw.

The Giants kept running the ball and trying to dink and dunk their way to victory over an embarrassing pass defense, and I tweeted during the game that “Running the ball with Bradshaw/Jacobs over passing & letting Tynes kick field goals is like having unprotected sex. Eventually you will lose.” The Giants made a few trips to Planned Parenthood last Sunday, but fortunately got the results they wanted.

– Last week I said…

“Here are some other things we learned this season that no one can do or should do against the Patriots.

1. The Patriots don’t lose in Heinz Field.

2. The Patriots don’t lose back-to-back games.

3. The Patriots don’t lose at Gillette Stadium.

4. Tom Brady never has back-to-back bad games.

5. You don’t want to give Bill Belichick two weeks to prepare a game plan. (This is my favorite because Belichick lost in XLII.)

All of these are now fairytales.”

Now I’m thinking of turning these fairytales into a series of children’s book. If anyone knows a good illustrator, please let me know.

– When I watch the final play of the game I keep thinking Rob Gronkowski is going to catch the Hail Mary attempt and I get this worried sensation that he will. It’s the same feeling I get when I re-watch XLII and see Randy Moss racing down the sideline trying to haul in Brady’s last attempt at perfection. But like Moss, Gronkowski never makes the catch no matter how many times I watch it.

– I’m going to say Tom Brady is more at fault for the missed catch by Wes Welker since he could have thrown a better ball, and I know he could have since he’s Tom Brady. (Don’t tell Gisele.)

– Jake Ballard didn’t do his knee any favors when he tried to come back in the game since he tore his ACL, but I admire him for trying to get back on the field in the Super Bowl despite having a TORN ACL! No one seems to be talking about how the Giants lost Travis Beckum earlier in the game to a torn ACL and then lost Ballard to the same injury. Maybe that many people just aren’t aware of it since Kevin Gilbride wasn’t. Here’s an excerpt from a story on ESPN.com.

Kevin Gilbride was discussing plays with Manning on the sideline when the quarterback blurted, “We can’t run those plays. We don’t have any more tight ends.” He didn’t smile or roll his eyes. He was nonchalantly matter-of-fact, as always, and Gilbride silently nodded, scanning the rest of his play card.

It’s never a good thing when your offensive coordinator doesn’t know which personnel are available in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. No big deal.

– I love the idea of Bradying. I love it so much that I decided to get in on the fun last week.

– Mario Manningham’s catch wasn’t David Tyree’s catch and shouldn’t be compared to it since it was a perfect throw and a perfect catch in the smallest of windows. The Tyree catch was the result of a combination of a missed sack attempt, absolute chaos, an insane pass and a miracle catch in the middle of four Patriots defenders. Most people think Manningham will leave the giants since they won’t want to pay him to be the No. 3 receiver, and Paul Dottino told Mike Francesa on WFAN last week that Manningham wants to play in a warm-weather city after playing in college at Michigan and then playing for the Giants. If Manningham’s last game as a Giant was XLVI, we’ll always have his touchdown in the NFC Championship Game and the most important catch of XLVI to remember his time with the Giants,

– Rob Gronkowski partying like he won the Super Bowl after his team lost the Super Bowl isn’t that big of a deal since he’s 22 years old and it’s just another reminder that not every athlete reacts to a devastating loss like fans do. (And no one on the Patriots cared as much Tom Brady and Bill Belichick since they had the most at stake). All I can say is that if Alex Rodriguez were out dancing with his shirt off after losing Game 7 of the World Series, it would be the end of the world. (I mean a shirtless Alex Rodriguez in Central Park during the season was headline worthy.)

– Why all the talk about Tom Brady missing the chance to be “immortal” by not winning XLVI since it would have been his fourth? He also had a chance to win his fourth in XLII and finish the perfect season and didn’t but I don’t remember this much talk about missing out on immortality then. Maybe it’s because this might have been his last chance to get back to the Super Bowl or because he’s getting near that age where quarterbacks start to decline and throw passes to wide-open receivers over the wrong shoulder with a chance to potentially clinch a championship. Nothing would have been more immortal than being 4-0 in the Super Bowl with a 19-0 season on your resume. Why are people acting like this Super Bowl caused him to miss out on immortality? He has missed the train twice now.

– I was a big fan of “Written in the Stars” by Tinie Tempah when it came out. I overplayed it on iTunes and my iPod as if the song was Scott proctor in 2006 and I was Joe Torre. I didn’t kill it by overplaying it like FM radio did with Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” but I played it enough. Then when the song became the anthem for the 2011 MLB playoffs (playoffs the Yankees would be eliminated in) I didn’t think I could ever listen to it the same way again. Then when the Giants came out to the song for XLVI I thought it was a bad omen after what happened in the 2011 ALDS. But the Giants won the game and now I can enjoy the song again. “Seasons come and go, but I will never change, and I’m on way!”

– Why are the Jets taking out a full-page newspaper ad to congratulate the Giants on winning the Super Bowl? It’s very weird. We all know that both teams don’t like each other and their fan bases certainly don’t like each other, so I’m not really sure who thought this was a good idea. Maybe the same people that thought it was a good idea to have Darrelle Revis hang up in the middle of a phone interview? If the Mets took out a full-page ad to congratulate the Yankees on winning the World Series, their fans would go crazy. (Obviously there isn’t a hypothetical where the Yankees would be congratulating the Mets since the Mets aren’t winning anytime soon.)

Before the season in an email exchange with Ralph Vacchiano of the Daily News, I said:

“All I can hope for is that the season ends better than it did the last two years. And with the way it ended in 2009 and 2010, I will take any playoff berth in any possible way. Give me the No. 6 seed and a path to the Super Bowl built around road games. I don’t care. I just want to watch the playoffs with the Giants in it, and I’m not sure if I can emotionally and physically take another collapse that forces the “Should Tom Coughlin be fired?” discussion for weeks after the season.”

Once they made the playoffs, all I wanted them to do was extend the season for as long as possible. They took us through January and into February (the worst two months for sports and weather in the Tri-State area), and now they pass the baton to the dominant Rangers and surging Knicks as we’re just days away from pitchers and catchers. If the Garden’s teams falter or if February actually turns into February, it won’t matter because I’ll have Super Bowl XLVI to draft off of.

Blogs • Giants

Feb 6, 2012

Super Bowl XLVI Thoughts

Sunday night was epic. Here are some thoughts from the day after the Giants’ win in Super Bowl XLVI.

“Welcome to the longest 57 seconds of your 2012.”

That’s what my brother texted me when Tom Brady and the Patriots walked up to their 20-yard line with 57 seconds left in their season and trailing by four points in Super Bowl XLVI. It felt like the end of Super Bowl XLII and it ended in almost the same exact fashion. Except this time Eli Manning didn’t need to kneel the ball to clinch the victory. This time the ball bounced around the end zone as the Patriots hopelessly watched their Hail Mary attempt fail. Both endings worked for me as they both ended with the New York Football Giants as champions.

Sunday night was epic, and because of it I’m running on three hours of sleep, have a minor headache and I’m typing this with my left eye closed since that’s the side of my head (right above my eye) where the pain is. But I don’t care that I’m running on fumes because I feel like I can draft off this Super Bowl win until at least Opening Day.

There’s so much to talk about from Sunday night, and so much I want to talk about, but with the win so fresh, and fatigue setting in like I’m half-heartedly backchecking in the sixth overtime of an NHL playoff game, I decided to take things a different route than usual for the day after another Super Bowl win.

My “friend” Mike Hurley of CBS Boston, who is no longer my friend thanks to the Giants’ win over his Patriots, writes weekly “leftover thoughts” columns about the Patriots where he writes down, well, his thoughts from that week’s game. I felt like it would be nice of me to dedicate a Giants’ Super Bowl XLVI column with the same concept to him since he will forever be scarred by the letters “X,” “L,” “V,” and “I” and likely will never reference Feb. 5, 2012 again for the rest of his life. It’s important that I continue to remind him about the fall of the Patriots and this is a great place to start.

Here are some thoughts from the day after the Giants’ win in Super Bowl XLVI.

– I have been supporting and arguing for Eli Manning for years to his critics and doubters (mostly Patriots and Jets fans), but I don’t need to anymore. He is a two-time Super Bowl champion and MVP.

– Last week I had a tweet argument with WFAN sister station, 98.5 The Sports Hub, in Boston’s mid-day hosts Gresh and Zo about their logic that “You can’t beat Tom Brady and Bill Belichick twice in the same season.” I guess you can do it.

Here are some other things we learned this season that no one can do or should do against the Patriots.

1. The Patriots don’t lose in Heinz Field.

2. The Patriots don’t lose back-to-back games.

3. The Patriots don’t lose at Gillette Stadium.

4. Tom Brady never has back-to-back bad games.

5. You don’t want to give Bill Belichick two weeks to prepare a game plan. (This is my favorite because Belichick lost in XLII.)

All of these are now fairytales.

– Here’s a big difference between Eli Manning and Tom Brady: Eli can succeed with pressure and chaos around him like he did in San Francisco against a great defense in a hostile environment in miserable weather. Tom Brady can’t succeed without ideal conditions and a strong pocket to protect him.

– Tom Coughlin will be getting a contract extension and millions of dollars, and he deserves it. He has put up with more crap (I’m part of that) than any coach that has won in this city (except for maybe Joe Torre at the end of this Yankees tenure). Up until a month ago, most people would have rather had Rex Ryan coaching their team than Tom Coughlin, now there might be seven or eight people that feel that way.

– There are few things better than making the rounds on the Boston sites and sports radio shows after a devastating defeat. The last time this was possible was four months ago after the Red Sox’ loss in Game 162, and that four months has felt like way too long. I could listen to Murph from Charlestown call 98.5 to complain about Wes Welker all day for weeks, and I just might.

– I remember maybe one or two commercials from the game, but that’s partially because there weren’t any worth paying attention to. It still blows my mind that people get paid to sit around conference tables to come up with commercial ideas and then higher-ups approve these ideas to be made into multi-million dollar commercials and that there can be so many bad ones. But really I didn’t pay attention to the commercials because I was busy during TV timeouts checking Twitter and pacing. I was also trying to text message Kevin Gilbride some possible plays to run that didn’t involve having Ahmad Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs run directly into the defensive line.

– Kevin Gilbride has earned immunity from me for the 2012 season. However, in the fine print of this agreement it says: “Subject to change if a third-and-7 draw play for D.J. Ware is called at any point during the 2012 season.”

– I would like to take this time to thank the following non-Giants for making this miracle run possible: Miles Austin, Jim Leonard, Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan, Rex Ryan, Tony Romo, Mark Sanchez, Alex Smith, Eric Smith, Mike Smith, Mike Westhoff and Kyle Williams. If I forgot anyone that helped the Giants go from five minutes and 41 seconds away from elimination in Dallas in Week 14 to become Super Bowl champions, I apologize, but you’re every bit as important to this championship run as the rest of the goats. And mostly, I would like to thank the New England Patriots, especially Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, for making this possible. Thank you!

– Cris Collinsworth said, “Wes Welker makes that catch 100 times out of 100.” If 100 times out of 100 equals 100 percent then what was that missed catch?

– Obviously Mario Manningham didn’t get to see Collinsworth ripping him on NBC (and rightfully so) and the broadcast showing a graphic of how Manningham should correctly run routes down the sideline, but Manningham fixed his route running the next time Eli went to him down the sideline, and it ended up being the most important offensive play of the game.

– If I were a white punt returner for the Patriots, would Al Michaels call me Wes Welker, Julian Edelman or Danny Woodhead? I guess it doesn’t matter since they’re apparently all the same player anyway.

– Why do we have to decide which Manning is better? And why does anyone care outside of Eli and Peyton (who I’m sure love to see each other succeed, but also love the brother rivalry)? Can’t Giants fans just be happy that Eli is a Giant, and can’t Colts fans just be thankful that they had Peyton for as long as they did (and maybe longer)? And can’t fans of teams that don’t have a Manning on their roster just worry about something else?

– I’m sure Aaron Hernandez looked great to Patriots fans catching a third-quarter touchdown pass and opening the vault and making it rain all over the end zone, but he looked even better to Giants fans dropping a wide-open pass on the Patriots’ final drive that cost the Patriots a lot of yards, a down and time on the clock.

– I love that it helped the Giants, but it’s another flaw in the NFL rules where the Giants could have 12 men on the field in the final seconds and Tom Brady throws an incomplete pass, and time still comes off the clock, but the Patriots get to replay the down. Why not just put 50 guys on the field and make sure it will be an incomplete, and watch the clock wind down play after play in the final seconds?

– I had XLII flashbacks at the end of the game screaming, “Get back! Get back! Get back!” with Tom Brady launching bombs toward the end zone to try and win the game.

– Thank you to Las Vegas for making the Giants +3 and +120. Thank you for also making them underdogs against San Francisco and Green Bay.

– The Giants fumbled three times, recovered the two that counted and lost the one that didn’t count because of a penalty for 12 men on the field against the Patriots. That’s a ridiculous amount of breaks, and no one can be mad about any missed holding or passed interference calls throughout the game since the Giants were lucky enough to not lose the game because of their carelessness with the ball.

– Speaking of luck, these fumbles remind us how hard and nearly impossible it is to win a championship, which makes it even more impressive that the Patriots won three in four years when every play has the potential to ruin your season. And it makes it that much more special that the Giants have now won twice in fours years.

– I don’t think we’ll be seeing “Philip Rivers is better than Eli Manning” written anywhere anymore unless we’re talking about the amount of flannel shirts in one’s closet.

– When are we going to start talking about how Tom Brady was fortunate to be part of good teams that won the Super Bowl? I think we should start now. Outside of the game against the “How The Eff Are They In The Divisional Round” Broncos, Brady was bad against the Ravens, and not good enough against the Giants. (Yes, I know going 16-for-16 at one point in a Super Bowl game is remarkable.) Brady’s first play of the game resulted in a safety after he had two weeks to create a game plan and script the first drive, and his interception after breaking free from a sack was as bad and ill-advised as his pick intended for Matthew Slater in the AFC Championship Game. Seven years ago, Brady had three rings in his first four years and people thought he might win 10 more. Now he hasn’t won in seven years when the team has been his team.

– What was with those weird Tom Brady poses and pictures NBC used when talking about TB12? How did he agree to do that, and who thought it was a good idea? I’m going to say he didn’t mind since he did sign up for that goat picture once, and I’m also going to say the idea came from an NBC staffer that’s a Giants fan. And yes, I just answered my own questions.

– I don’t care if Eli Manning ends up in the Hall of Fame or not. I’m not a fan of the Giants to root for guys to someday win a nonsensical vote to get into the Hall of Fame. I’m a Giants fan for nights like Sunday night. It seems like most people that care about the Hall of Fame passionately are those who are fans of teams that aren’t any good. That probably explains why my Twitter feed was full of Jets fans ecstatic about Curtis Martin getting in over the weekend.

– The only Patriots-related person I feel bad for is Mr. Kraft. The emotional stories about his wife, Myra, for who the season was dedicated to were touching, and to see him standing there after the game in his box alone (probably because no one knew what to say to him) and watching him just stare at the ground was hard to watch.

– Victor Cruz and Hakeem Nicks make up two-thirds of the best wide receiver trio in the NFL. They also are two of the most careless receivers with the ball in the NFL, always leaving the ball open to be stripped as they try to make that one extra move to gain one more foot while a defender gets them from behind. They are both fortunate that because of penalties and the right bounce that they didn’t cost the Giants yesterday, and they are heroes instead. (This goes for you too, Ahmad Bradshaw.)

– I have been hard on Brandon Jacobs all season. I said he entered the A.J. Burnett Zone and he did, but like Burnett stepping up in Game 4 of the ALDS, Jacobs stepped up on a much bigger stage in XLVI, and ran with more determination than he has since the 2008 season. A few months ago there was no way Jacobs was going to be with the Giants next year, but now I’m not so sure. If Sunday was his last game with the Giants, it was a good way for him to go out.

– I feel the same amount of comfort with No. 42 in the ninth inning as I do with Eli Manning in the two-minute drill or in the fourth quarter. 2005 Neil thinks 2012 Neil has lost it.

– Even though he said he was, Rob Gronkowski wasn’t 100 percent. If 100 percent of Rob Gronkowski means two catches for 26 yards in the Super Bowl, then I think WEEI’s Gerry Callahan needs to rethink his statement that Gronkowski is “the best tight end in history.”

– Wes Welker has earned a lot of credit and hype in his five seasons with the Patriots, so when he does something as bad as drop a potential game-ending pass, it’s good to see him taking the heat when something goes bad. He could have ended the game and didn’t, and he admitted it and blamed himself for the loss.

– I liked Danny Woodhead with the Jets in Hard Knocks, but I have hated him with the Patriots. I’m not sure why since I don’t like the Jets either.

– A quick brag: I didn’t know it was going to take a safety and missed two-point conversion for the Giants to get 21 points, but I did predict the Giants would win 21-17 here and here and in the Keefe To The City Super Bowl Podcasts last week.

– How about David Tyree, standing on the sideline, getting some camera time as the Giants’ started their final drive and right before Mario Manningham’s Tyree-like catch? It’s really hard not to be amazed by the strong comparisons between the 2007 and 2011 Giants with the way the season played out each week with nearly identical plays, final scores and results down the stretch and in the playoffs.

– I haven’t seen or heard many Bostonians counting down the days until Red Sox pitchers and catchers. I guess that’s what happens when your manager, general manager and closer leave and you new general manager is forced to hire a manager he didn’t want, and your starting shortstop is a Nick Punto-Mike Aviles platoon and you don’t have a right fielder on Feb. 6. If you thought there were a lot of new Bruins fans last spring, there are going to be that many more this spring. I really just hope NESN can dust off and update their piece about the 2011 Red Sox challenging the 1927 Yankees as the greatest team in the history baseball. It’s not that hard to change a few names and change 2011 to 2012 in the headline, is it?

– Why can’t Patriots fans just accept that they lost? Why does their need to be excuses? Tom Brady and Wes Welker and Bill Belichick didn’t make excuses, but the entire fan base seems to. It’s like with Rich Eisen referring to Aaron Hernandez as Adrian Hernandez throughout the postgame highlights and then saying on Twitter, ”If I said Adrian, it’s the end of a long week. Respectfully, back off.” We know it’s been a long week, Rich. Just say you effed up and that’s that. But Boston fans and Boston sports radio repeating “If Gronkowski was 100 percent…” or “If Welker caught the ball…” or “If the fumbles bounced the other way…” then the Patriots would have won is embarrassing. They didn’t do any of those things. The “if” game is a game for losers.

– The Packers, Patriots, Saints, Eagles, Steelers, Texans and Ravens all have better odds in Las Vegas to win Super Bowl XLVII than the Giants and that’s just the way I want it.

– I said, “I would have the Giants suck and not make the playoffs for the next decade if they beat the Patriots on Sunday,” and I meant it. But after 2007 when they won, and then when they were the best team in the league during the 2008 regular season, you can’t help but think about winning it again. It’s not until you don’t win that you forget how hard it is to win. (See: Yankees, 2001-2008.)

– I still have time to write my book, The Last Night of the Patriot Dynasty based off the idea of Buster Olney’s, The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty. Had the Patriots won on Sunday night, my idea would have been dead, but thankfully, it’s alive and well.

– I think I was more excited to watch the Giants’ defensive line dominate Tom Brady on Sunday night than anything else and they really didn’t until the fourth quarter. I was looking forward to Brady laying on his back and slowly getting up all night, but he went untouched for the most part until Justin Tuck clearly injured his left shoulder and then when Tuck pulled a “Jay Alford” on the final drive of the game. It’s interesting how Brady always references Tuck when speaking about problems with his game against the Giants every time they play. I have a feeling he closes his eyes and goes to sleep and envisions Tuck “bowing” after a sack. Either that or his supermodel wife next to him in bed.

– The Patriots’ dynasty is over (it’s been over since Champ Bailey picked off Tom Brady in Denver six years ago), but Brady and Belichick’s legacy hasn’t been completely tarnished. If their legacy were a car, their back windshield has been smashed in, their fender is hanging off, two of the tires have been slashed and someone keyed expletives on one side of it, but hey, it’s still drivable. And because the Patriots are no longer what they once were, I leave with you the words of Brandon Jacobs and his thoughts on the Patriots’ dynasty.

“We decapitated them. They can’t wear that crown no more.”

Blogs • Giants

Feb 3, 2012

Giants Have to Win Super Bowl XLVI

This is the Biggest Super Bowl Ever. It really is. The Giants have no other option than to win. And 269 games later, it’s the final pick for the season, so let’s go out on a winning note.

When the fourth-and-20 pass attempt from Tom Brady to Randy Moss hit the ground with two seconds left in Super Bowl XLII, I was in a state of ecstasy that not many people get to experience in their sports lives. Because of the final 2:39 of that game that started at the Giants’ 17 with them trailing 14-10, I have somewhat of an idea of what it feels like to win the lottery.

Four years ago today was the best night of my sports life. (If you don’t believe me, look at this picture from when the Patriots turned the ball over on downs with two seconds left. FYI: I might have had one or two beers during the game.) The Super Bowl win salvaged my college career in Boston after having to watch the Red Sox embarrass the Yankees freshman year and then win another championship to begin my senior year. The Giants’ 17-14 win made up for the devastation from the loss in the 2004 ALCS, but it didn’t erase what had happened (nothing ever will), however, it did put a dent into what happened. The same look on the faces of the Patriots fans that I watched Super Bowl XLII with after the game was the same look I had when Ruben Sierra grounded out to end Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS. It’s a look no sports fan ever wants. It’s a look I don’t want back on Sunday night.

One last time…

Super Bowl XLVI … let’s go!

(Home team in caps)

New York Giants +3 over NEW ENGLAND
This is the last game to be picked of the year. 269 games later, and there’s one left for the 2011 season. The regular season was a disaster (as you can see by the record below), but everything turned around in the playoffs for me, and the Giants.

I’m calling this the “Biggest Super Bowl Ever” and it is from the Giants’ perspective to save and preserve what happened four years ago today. From the Patriots’ perspective, Sunday is about revenge from that day. It has to be. Maybe not for 46 of the 53 guys on the roster who weren’t on the 2007 team, but for the ones that matter (Tom Brady and Bill Belichick), it’s totally about revenge, and if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t feel right. The 2011 Patriots can’t completely erase what the 2007 Giants accomplished, but they can put a serious dent in it the way the whole New York/Boston thing was dented and altered after Super Bowl XLII. But if the Giants win? If the Giants win, I will look the way I did after that pass intended for Moss hit the ground.

I have told my friends that to win this game and to beat Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, the Patriots and the city of Boston again on this stage, I would gladly take the Giants being awful for the next decade and never making the playoffs. That’s how significant this game is, and that’s how important winning this game is.

As a fan, you never know when your team is going to get back to this spot and back to the place where for two weeks everything you read, see and hear about revolves around your team. If you have never been here, you might never get to be. And if you have been here, you might never get back. I’m sure there are Jets fans who expected to be back in the big game the year after their win in Super Bowl III, or at least within a few years. But 43 years later, they’re still waiting for their chance to get back to this spot.

The longer I have had to sit around and listen to the same theories, ideas, analysis and predictions get reviewed and recycled, the more I have questioned my own personal views and opinions on this game. I feel like I took a standardized test right after the NFC Championship Game ended and I picked the Giants to win, but now for two weeks I have just been thinking and thinking and thinking some more about if my answer is right. It’s torture. Two weeks is too much, and at this point, I’m be willing to have the Yankees extend A.J. Burnett’s contract two additional years if the NFL outlaws any reports or sources commenting on Rob Gronkowski’s ankle between now and Sunday night.

Before the Giants’ divisional playoffs game against the Packers I turned to Coach Eric Taylor from Friday Night Lights for an inspirational and motivational preview, and then I did the same before the NFC Championship Game against the 49ers. It worked both times, but I’m not doing it this time even though if the Giants lose I’ll wish I did.

Instead of turning to Coach Taylor, I thought about getting up on a stool and recording myself doing the whole Rudy “We’re gonna go inside, we’re gonna go outside, inside and outside. We’re gonna get ’em on the run boys and once we get ’em on the run we’re gonna keep ’em on the run. And then we’re gonna go, go, go, go, go, go and we’re not gonna stop ’til we get across that goal line. This is a team they say is … is good, well I think we’re better than them. They can’t lick us, so what do you say men?” Fortunately, I decided against it.

There’s nothing left to be said about this game that I haven’t already said in previous columns and podcasts. I don’t think Tom Coughlin needs to say anything to his team either. I think a “You know what you have to do” from Coughlin and then him turning around and leaving the locker room will do on Sunday night.

I still can’t believe we’re here. And “we’re” is the New York Football Giants and their fans, and “here” is the Biggest Super Bowl Ever. The Giants have to win.

Giants 21, Patriots 17

Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!

Championship Week: 2-0
Postseason: 7-3
Regular Season: 118-129-12