Keefe To The City

Blogs • Rangers • Rangers Playoff Thoughts • Rangers Playoffs

Apr 30, 2014

Rangers-Flyers Game 6 Thoughts: It’s Never Easy

The Rangers will play in another Game 7 after their embarrassing effort in Philadelphia with a chance to eliminate the Flyers.

Two periods was enough. I couldn’t take any more Rangers hockey in Game 6 after the embarrassing performance and effort put on in the first 40 minutes. So I turned the game off. The only problem was CC Sabathia was busy blowing another lead (this time to the worst offense in baseball in the Mariners), so I was forced back to the Rangers, hoping that they would pull off a Bruins-like comeback from last year’s Game 7 against the Maple Leafs.

The Rangers have now lost 12 consecutive games when leading in a series and after dominating the first period in Game 6, they came out for a Sunday skate in the second period and a one-goal deficit quickly got out of hand. Now one game stands between the Rangers and the Penguins and the Rangers and the offseason. There’s a chance on Wednesday night, the hate-watching of the playoffs will begin for me with the next Rangers game not for over five months. With that notion and the notion that finality will be in the Garden for both teams on Wednesday, I don’t feel well enough to put together Thoughts on Game 6, but I will.

– Ladies and gentlemen, Dan Girardi! If you thought giving Girardi a six-year, $33 million extension was a bad idea then you must have had a fun time watching Game 6. Girardi was an embarrassment on defense watching plays develop in front of him and then letting players get behind him with little to no effort trying to clear out the front of the net. After Girardi’s disastrous Game 2 and now Game 6, he has been every bit as bad in this series as he was a year ago against the Bruins in the five-game loss. And aside from a few weeks during the post-Olympic break, Girardi has now been playing poorly consistently for an entire calendar year. For as good as Ryan McDonagh has been, imagine how good he might look if anyone other than Girardi was his defensive partner. Well, if his defensive partner were anybody other than …

– Ladies and gentlemen, Anton Stralman! If you’re Raphael Diaz and you keep getting scratched for Anton Stalman, how are you not showing up to playoff games drunk wearing a Flyers jersey? We are well past the point with Stralman where you have to point out when he does something good to justify his presence in the lineup and we are at the point where he can no longer dress for games. He is the biggest defensive liability on the team, which is saying a lot about a team that also has Dan Girardi and John Moore, and he provides zero offense (he now has one goal and 13 assists in 87 games this year). Alain Vigneault doesn’t need to scratch Anton Stralman for Game 7, he has to.

– I’m tired of hearing about Derek Stepan. Unless he’s sitting on the doorstep or the far post wide open on the power play and the puck is placed perfectly on his tape, he isn’t scoring. He has been soft on the puck for the entire series, has made horrible decisions at the blue line trying to create offense and has been unable to capitalize on what should be freebies. Then again, it’s not like he has missed as many opportunities as …

– Benoit Pouliot. When the Rangers signed Benoit Pouliot, my former college roommate and Bruins beat writer for The Hockey Writers Mike Miccoli told me, “He has 39 scoring chances a game and never scores then takes stupid penalties.” It was the most spot-on scouting report I have ever heard of a player in any sport. It’s incredible to think Pouliot has never scored more than 16 goals in an NHL season when you watch how many high-quality chances he has every game, but with the way he handles open looks in the slot, he never will score 20 goals in the NHL.

– Rick Nash isn’t Alex Rodriguez. He’s not even Mark Teixeira or Robinson Cano and certainly not Nick Swisher. He’s a player who just happens to have played six playoff game this year and has no goals and four assists. And even without Nash scoring a goal, the Rangers are one win away from advancing to the conference semifinals and hockey’s Elite Eight and playing the Penguins. But on Wednesday night at the Garden, the Rangers need Nash. They need Rick Nash to be the player I was willing to give up the farm for at the 2012 deadline and the player they traded for the following summer. If Nash doesn’t score in Game 7 and the Rangers don’t advance, he should be prepared for the criticism that will come with going goalless in a seven-game series against the hated Flyers. He will have earned it.

– Henrik Lundqvist is one loss away from having his ability to win in the playoffs called into question again. As ridiculous as it is, especially after Game 6 when he was hung out to dry, it’s going to happen. Non-Rangers fans love nothing more than to spit out the lazy idea that Lundqvist is a different goalie in the postseason than he is in the regular season even though the numbers prove he is the exact same and that it’s more about the Rangers even worse inability to score in Games 83 and beyond. Lundqvist still hasn’t stolen a game like I said he would at some point in this series and now he only has one chance left to do it. If the Rangers win Game 7 without Lundqvist stealing it then that means the offense carried the team to the second round and I can’t see that happening after the last two games. Henrik Lundqvist needs to close out the Flyers single-handedly or at least go into Game 7 thinking he needs to.

I really believed this postseason would be different. I really believed the Rangers would make quick work of the Flyers (I predicted the Rangers would win in five games). I really believed the Rangers would advance to the conference semis without facing elimination. But here we are. The Rangers are in the same place they were a year ago and the year before that and three years before that. Game 7 in the first round. Nothing is ever easy with the Rangers. Nothing.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Apr 29, 2014

The Yankees and Mariners Have More Connections Than Just Robinson Cano

Robinson Cano is back in the Bronx for the first time since signing with the Mariners and I still don’t blame him for leaving the Yankees for $240 million.

Robinson Cano is back in the Bronx for the first time since signing with the Seattle Mariners for 10 years and $240 million. When it comes to Cano’s decision to go to the highest bidder and saying the Yankees “disrespected” him, I’m still on his side. Cano would have been a Yankee if the Yankees really wanted him to be, but instead they chose to spend their money elsewhere. So far it’s worked out in their favor.

With the Yankees and Mariners meeting this week at the Stadium, I did an email exchange with Scott Weber of Lookout Landing to talk about Robinson Cano’s 10-year contract, what’s happened to Jesus Montero and if Mariners fan play out the way the Cliff Lee trade should have gone in their heads as much as I do.

Keefe: It’s going to be weird to see Robinson Cano playing against the Yankees for the first time on Tuesday night. Sure, I have already seen him in several games for the Mariners this season, but once you see him on the same field as the Yankees playing against the team he played nine seasons for, it will officially set it. Up to this point it has almost felt like he is just on the disabled list and we’re waiting for him to come back in the lineup. Unfortunately, that’s never going to happen.

Back in December when Cano chose the Mariners’ $240 million offer, I wrote this column based around the lyrics of Pearl Jam’s “Black” as I said goodbye to Cano. But I’m not mad at Cano, the same way I’m not mad at anyone who takes more money to do their job, especially when their former employer isn’t willing to up their dollars, or in this case, is more concerned about paying for outside talent. The Yankees could have afforded Cano if they weren’t so willing to overpay for Jacoby Ellsbury and Robinson Cano could have been a Yankee for life, if the Yankees really wanted him to be or cared for him to be. But now Cano is and will be a Mariner for 10 years, or until they trade him somewhere and agree to pay part of his salary.

What were your initial feelings on the Mariners’ negotiations with Cano and were you for the decision to sign him to such a lengthy and high-priced contract?

Weber: The Cano saga is really fairly simple to me. The Mariners have had trouble attracting free agents in the past thanks to stigmas about the pitcher-friendly ballpark and their recent string of failure on the field, so when they had a chance to sign a superstar, they just took it. They didn’t really need a second baseman as much as they needed a starting pitcher, first baseman, or outfielder, but there’s no guarantee you can land those players if you wait around. So, the Mariners blew Cano out of the water.

Nobody knows how he’ll age, but Cano profiles as such a pure, easy hitter that it’s likely he’ll be able to hold at least some sort of value in future years as a hitter. But I think we all know that his contract isn’t going to be worth it in years 6-10. For a franchise like Seattle, landing a guy like Cano is as much about changing the free agent culture as it is getting fair value in return. He’ll provide value in other ways to the franchise – at least that was surely the thought process. The money would have been wiser spent across multiple pieces, but the Mariners simply couldn’t plan like they could land the three pieces they wanted instead of Cano.

Keefe: I was excited for the Jesus Montero era in the Bronx after what he did in just 18 games during the 2011 regular season and then in the 2011 ALDS. I bought into the hype and Manny Ramirez-like comparisons and because of it, I wasn’t sure if I should be for or against the trade of him for Michael Pineda before the 2012 season. The Yankees did need young starting pitching and Pineda had been dominant for the majority of his rookie season, so I was fine with saying goodbye to what was supposed to be the the future heart of the order for the Yankees.

After the trade, Pineda spent the next two seasons not pitching and Montero spent that time regressing, getting sent down and then getting fat. But now Pineda has returned to his 2011 form (minus the pine tar disaster at Fenway) and Montero is playing in Triple-A.

What has happened to Jesus Montero since becoming a Mariner and how do you feel when you see Michael Pineda pitching like it’s 2011?

Weber: I’d like to see Pineda pitch without the pine tar before I anoint him back to form, but there’s no question that the Yankees look like they’re ahead on that trade now. For Montero, it was always about the bat, and if he could hit enough to stomach the defense. The bat was bad with flashes of brilliance, but the defense was miserable. Montero lacked basic fundamentals at the plate, all coming to a head when the Mariners lost a game on a force play at home by half a step. Montero’s positioning was set up for a sweep tag, with the wrong foot on the bag, glove side in. Had he been reaching out with the glove hand with his right foot on the plate, the Mariners might have salvaged that game. Basic stuff, just knowing the game situation and thinking about all possibilities before the pitch. It wasn’t long after that the Mariners bailed on Montero as a catcher, and not long after that he was popped with a 50-game suspension for his involvement with Biogenesis – after he repeatedly lied about it.

Then, Montero showed up to camp overweight, and the Mariners front office expressed their disappointment with him, reasonably so. But since then, he’s gone back to Triple-A, where he’s really hitting. He’s a first baseman and DH now, and while the power is impressive, the walk rate is not. He still has a lot to prove in order to get back into the conversation, but the Mariners don’t have any long-term options at 1B/DH. At the very least, he still probably has a future as a platoon bat in this league, and maybe more. He’s still only 24 years old, and doesn’t turn 25 until after the season is over. His future is up to him.

Keefe: Really, Jesus Montero should have been a Mariner long before he was traded to them after the 2011 season. He should have been one in July 2010 when the Yankees and Mariners seemed to have a deal in place that would have sent Cliff Lee to the Yankees and would have given the Yankees their second consecutive World Series. Instead a breakdown in talks because of Eduardo Nunez, who was DFA’d by the Yankees this season, and an injury to David Adams, who has played 43 games in the majors led to the Mariners sending Lee to the Rangers for Justin Smoak.

Do you ever think about what could have been if the Yankees and Mariners had completed their deal and Smoak never became a Mariner and Lee ended up in the Bronx? (I’m only wondering because I do daily.)

Weber: I’m not so sure you can automatically assign a World Series victory with Cliff Lee on the squad — Lee got shelled and lost both his games in the 2010 World Series — but surely it’s a move lamented by the Yankees. I’ve never been much of a Justin Smoak believer after his first two seasons, but there’s no doubt he’s provided more value than Jesus Montero has at this point, even if his contributions and eternal tease have prevented the Mariners from moving on. I don’t think about it much because both sides would have ended up pretty bad for Seattle. What I do think about is how the Mariners managed to get Cliff Lee in the first place for a bag of peanuts, and how they promptly managed to lose 101 games with him and Felix Hernandez pitching together. It was a fun three months, though.

Keefe: In 2010, Felix Hernandez went 3-0 against the Yankees with this line: 26 IP, 16 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 8 BB, 31 K. He made one mistake in 26 innings against the Yankees and it led to a Nick Swisher home run. They were three of the most dominant starting pitching performances in a single season I have ever seen and to me Felix had become the best pitcher in the world, taking over the title from Roy Halladay.

It’s insane that Felix first came into the league in 2005 and is just turned 28 this month. Given his age, dominance and health, I felt like his seven-year, $175 million deal was a steal for the Mariners and a bargain for the franchise.

What has it been like watching Felix grow in the majors from the time he was 19 to now and what are your thoughts on his contract?

Weber: I feel a lot better about Felix’s contract than Cano’s simply because of his age. Felix has also shown that he can pitch without his velocity, which is more than I can say for some of the pitchers who signed mega-deals after Felix inked his. Felix doesn’t thrown that mid/high 90’s heat anymore, but he’s striking out more batters every single year. He just knows how to pitch, and he’s a joy to watch. I’m thrilled that he’s here, and even more thrilled that he loves Seattle as much as he loves us. It was unbelievably exhausting to hear Yankee fans constantly pepper Mariner fans with “can’t wait until Felix is a Yankee in X number of years.” Not to associate you or your readers with that kind of fan — every city has them — but in Seattle, we took extra pleasure in keeping him out of pinstripes. As we say on the site, Felix is ours and you can’t have him.

Keefe: After their 85-77 finish in 2009, it looked like the Mariners might finally be heading back to being the team they were at the beginning of the decade, but instead they finished last in the AL West in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and if it weren’t for the Astros joining the AL last year, they would have finished last again in 2013. While the Rangers have grown to be a contender in recent years, the A’s have rebounded after a few down seasons and the Angels have been in the mix, the Mariners are the one AL West team (we won’t count the Astros in this conversation) who have been unable to regain their relevance and make a legitimate push for the postseason. Normally I don’t care about the success or failure of teams not named the Yankees, but I feel like I need to see Felix pitch in a postseason game (unless the Yankees and Mariners meet in the postseason during his career).

What are your expectations for the Mariners this season and the direction of the team? When will they finally get back to where they were 11-plus years ago?

Weber: The future of the franchise rests squarely on the young players. While I’m not a fan of the path the front office took to get to this point, long and winding with a lot of needless mistakes along the way, the talent around the field is all there. Now it’s up to them to perform, avoid injury, and take steps forward as this franchise grows. The team the Mariners assembled this year is their best in years, and looked like a .500 team on paper before all the injuries to Hisashi Iwakuma, James Paxton, and Taijuan Walker. For three major pitching contributions, their losses have been devastating. There’s just so much variability here. The Mariners could win 85 games as easily as they could love 85, and I wouldn’t be surprised either way. This slow start hasn’t helped, but if they can keep things respectable until their rotation gets back into shape, they could make some noise — but again, it’s up to the kids. They will be a playoff team at some point, but I’m unconvinced it’ll ever happen with GM Jack Zduriencik at the helm.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Apr 25, 2014

The Angels No Longer Own the Yankees

The Angels are in the Bronx for the first time this season and not so long ago that would have been worrisome, but the Angels’ days of owning the Yankees are over.

The last three seasons the Yankees have had a winning record each year against the Angels. That might not seem like a big deal, but before 2011, the Yankees’ last winning season against the Angels was in 2003. The Angels not only beat up on the Yankees in the regular season for the entire Joe Torre era, but they knocked them out in the ALDS in 2002 and 2005. But since the 2009 ALCS, everything has changed between the two teams.

With the Yankees and Angels meeting for the first time this season, I did an email exchange with Mat Gleason of Halos Heaven to talk about the contracts for Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton, if Mike Scioscia’s time with the Angels is running out and what’s happened to the Angels since Yankees beat them in six games in the 2009 ALCS.

Keefe: The stories about the Yankees supposedly expecting to draft Mike Trout in 2009 draft, but losing the pick to the Angels, who drafted him, because of the Mark Teixeira signing will forever make me sick. Mark Teixeira has turned into Jason Giambi 2.0 because of the short porch at the Stadium, making him a pull-only hitter who won’t under any circumstances go the other way as a left-handed hitter. Good thing he’s only making $22.5 million this year as an average first baseman … and next year … and the year after.

Meanwhile, Trout has gone on to become Mickey Mantle 2.0. His numbers are ridiculous and he won’t turn 23 until this August. 23! That’s 23! I was hoping the Angels would somehow screw up any chance to sign him to a long-term deal and he would want to return back to the Tri-state area and play for the team he grew up rooting for: the Yankees. But Trout got his six-year, $144.5 million deal, so I guess I’m going to have to wait until 2021 for him to become a Yankee.

What has it been like watching the best young player in baseball develop as an Angel? What were your thoughts on his contract?

Gleason: The contract was a huge relief. Angels fans have been losing faith in this franchise after many many boneheaded moves so it was just a huge relief. Watching Trout every night has been the most entertaining thing in decades for me as an Angels fan. No matter where you are in the game you count the lineup to see how many at-bats away he is before you decide to make dinner or go to the bathroom, one of those “must-see” moments.

Keefe: After playing in just 99 games last year, Albert Pujols looks to be back to his usual ways, leading the league in home runs early with eight at age 34. And after hitting .250/.307/.432 in his first season with the Angels last year, Josh Hamilton looked to be back on track through eight games this year before tearing a ligament in his thumb, which could keep him out for two months.

I pair these two together because the Angels gave Pujols a 10-year, $240 million deal before the 2012 season and then gave Hamilton a five-year, $125 million deal before the 2013 season. At the time, it looked like the Angels stole the franchise player from the Cardinals and then stole the franchise player from the Rangers, but after 2013, it just looked like they spent $365 million on two aging, broken-down players.

What were your thoughts on the contracts when they were signed compared to now? What are the expectations now for these two?

Gleason: I had faith that Pujols would be great once he got healthy. I have no faith in Josh Hamilton. Sometimes it is not a good thing to be right all the time, you know what I mean?

Hamilton actually might come around this year. The contracts don’t bother me at all, in fact Seattle offered Hamilton more money and I believe Albert will be worth the dough. If inflation takes off in hte larger economy he might be a bargain in six years!

Keefe: Mike Scioscia has been called “the best manager in baseball” in the past and this seemed like a generally agreed upon rhetoric through the 2009 season. But after the last few years, Scioscia’s abilities and whether his time has run its course with the Angels has been called into question.

Scioscia is signed through the 2018 season, but does have an opt-out clause after the 2015 season as part of his 10-year deal. Is Scioscia on the hot seat this season with the Angels? Are you a Scioscia fan, or would a postseason-less season mean it’s time to move on?

Gleason: There are managers who are managing at a higher level than Mike. When he came into the league he was the chessmaster but he is now playing checkers compared to younger managers who have read and understood basic Bill James.

His biggest weaknesses are the rigid roles he assigns relievers, his willingness to stick to veterans in the lineup over rookies who might benefit from playing time, his assertion that the major league level is not a teaching level, which deprives young pitchers of developing new pitches, among other things. He has been bunting less than ever, runs players less than ever and seems overmatched by simple concepts of high leverage and on-base percentage. Fifteen years is a long time and he really is a testament to how the game has changed radically in that time. He just hasn’t kept up. But I have no faith in the front office to keep up. A new hire is no guarantee that things would be any different so in that regard a manager is a manager is a manager, why not have the guy who will generate the least controversy?

Keefe: The Angels haven’t been in the playoffs since 2009 when they lost to the Yankees in the ALCS. Since then, they have 80-82, 86-76, 89-73 and 78-84. Five years it felt like the Angels would just keep on making the playoffs and winning the AL West forever before the Rangers and then A’s became relevant again. Despite their free-agent signings and spending, the Angels haven’t been able to rekindle the winning ways of the 2000s when they were the one team to have a winning record against the Yankees and knocked them out of the playoffs in 2002 and 2005. But then it seems like there was a shift in power between the Yankees and Angels after the 2009 ALCS.

What has made the Angels so hard for the Yankees to beat? After years of beating up on both the Joe Torre and Joe Girardi Yankees, and two postseason series wins, are Angels fans still confident when they play the Yankees?

Gleason: 2009 was a big punch to our gut. Our nemesis has really been the Red Sox and we finally beat them in the playoffs after losing to them in 1986, 2004, 2007 and 2008 and then the Yankees knocked us down in the 2009 ALCS, so the decade where we dominated the Yankees is over, psychologically, for us. Maybe it left with Joe Torre. Don’t get me wrong, we always get up the hate for the Bronx Bombers and there is a lingering confidence that we can win in New York that other tams and their fans might not have (you don’t intimidate us), but we carried much more swagger last decade than this one.

Keefe: When you look at the Angels lineup and the front-end of their rotation, you can’t help but think that this should be a playoff team. But after these recent postseason-less seasons for the Angels, what have your expectations become for the Angels?

Gleason: The mob is ready with pre-lit torches. Attendance and season ticket sales have taken a huge hit. I expect the team to make the playoffs this year and I am way more confident in them than I have been in recent years, but as Pee Wee Herman said, “There is always a big but …” there is no depth and there is no chance of a big trade/acquisition due to the luxury tax concerns. So a few bumps and bruises and I can put my hope for October on the shelf for 2014. This organization will have to earn back the buzz that fans had for them. There is no buzz these days. Its like O’Douls in Anaheim: no buzz.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Apr 22, 2014

Jacoby Ellsbury Doesn’t Get the Johnny Damon Treatment

It’s the first Yankees-Red Sox series of the season in Boston and the first time Jacoby Ellsbury will play in Fenway Park for another team and that means it’s time for an email exchange with Mike Hurley.

After this week in Boston, the Yankees and Red Sox won’t meet again for two months and they won’t meet again in Boston until the first weekend in August. (Never change, Major League Baseball schedule, never change.) But this week in Boston is not only the first meeting between the two teams at Fenway Park this season, it’s the first time Jacoby Ellsbury will be in the third-base dugout at Fenway Park.

With Ellsbury making his Yankees debut in Boston and the teams playing a three-game series before a two-month break, you know what that means. An email exchange with Mike Hurley.

Keefe: It’s been only 12 days since we last talked and after this it will be over two months until the Yankees and Red Sox meet again. There’s nothing quite like seven Yankees-Red Sox games in April and then none for basically half the summer. It makes sense though, right? I mean it makes more sense than Major League Baseball’s replay/review/challenge system, doesn’t it?

Last week you sent me a series of videos showing how the transfer play is no longer being called in baseball the way it has been since the invention of the game. I laughed watching umpires and the umpires in the New York offices decide games on balls being dropped “during the transfer” but I wasn’t laughing anymore when the Yankees nearly lost on Sunday to the Rays because of a transfer call involving Brian Roberts at second base.

I was all for replay in baseball and I didn’t and still don’t care about the length of review time or extending games because of replays as long as the calls are made correctly. But that’s clearly not what’s happening right now with no one knowing what a catch in baseball is anymore, the umpires in New York not having the same views and angles as those watching at home and ancient baseball rules being changed overnight.

Hurley: Replay in baseball is utterly useless.

I was never strongly for or against it. I’ve always been able to live with a missed call on a bang-bang play, the same way you have to live with a bad strike call. But I also watched disasters like the Jim Joyce botching of Armando Galarraga’s perfect game or Phil Cuzzi blowing his only job of calling balls fair or foul in the 11th inning of a playoff game at Yankee Stadium, and mistakes like that were just so egregious that I supported a system that could easily correct those obvious screw-ups.

As it turns out, we got a system that neither fixes the obvious mistakes or fine-tunes the close plays. We just got a stupid, stupid, stupid system that has tried to change the sport for absolutely no reason.

The new emphasis on the transfer rule is not only nonsensical (a catch and a throw are two different actions; how a bobble on the throw negates a catch that has already been completed is beyond me) but also far more common than I think anyone anticipated it would be. It reminds me of the NHL’s crackdown on toes in the crease in the late ’90s, a rule that may be the worst in sports history. I remember the Bruins losing a playoff game because Tim Taylor’s toe was just barely touching the blue paint on the opposite side of Olaf Kolzig’s crease.

After that season and after the Brett Hull/Dominik Hasek controversy, the NHL came out and were like, “Oh, well, yeah, you see … that is a terrible rule and we will get rid of it. Because it’s stupid.”

If MLB doesn’t have the same sense as a league led by Gary Bettman, then baseball is in bigger trouble than I thought.

Keefe: I’m not sure that Bud Selig has more sense than Gary Bettman. We’re talking about a guy who allowed performance-enhancing drugs to revitalize his sport after a strike and then a decade later started to pretend that players who use performance-enhancing drugs are the worst people in the world, and he got the beat nerds to buy into it the way he got them to buy into the idea that having at least player a year hit 60 home runs (after two people had ever done it) was no big deal. He also still allows the All-Star Game — an exhibition game — to determine home-field advantage in the World Series after a six-month, 162-game daily grind. I like to think that the commissioners of the four leagues get together once a year and talk about their increased revenues and think about new ways to ruin their respective leagues while laughing at the expense of the fans. Then before they leave, they play credit card roulette to see which commissioner will have to impose the next lockout and Gary Bettman always loses.

In the last Yankees-Red Sox series, Dean Anna (I’m sure you’re aware by now that he is a real person) doubled and then when he slid into second base, he came off the base for a split second while the tag was still being applied to him. He was called safe on the field and then safe again after the umpires at the New York office apparently didn’t have the same views as those watching at home. I don’t think when expanded reply was instituted it was meant to make such ridiculous calls, but if it’s going to be used for those (and it shoudn’t be), how is it possible that fans watching at home have better information than the paid umpires and officials at the league’s headquarters? Real life?

Hurley: Yeah, precisely. We don’t need replay to break down every split-second of these plays. The Francisco Cervelli play at first base last Sunday night ended up being correctly made after a replay review, but we were all subjected to watching frame-by-frame breakdowns of the ball entering Mike Napoli’s glove, and we had to hear John Kruk blabber on about whether it’s a catch when the ball goes into the glove or when the glove is closed around the baseball. What are we really doing?

Replay should fix the aforementioned obvious mistakes, but on Friday night at Fenway, John Farrell challenged a Nick Markakis double, claiming the ball landed foul. Farrell believed this to be the case because the ball did in fact land foul. We all saw it on our televisions. There was a dirt mark where the ball landed in foul territory. It was a no-brainer.

Yet after review, the double stood. For some reason.

There is no point. It’s a disaster.

But not according to Selig, who said, “We’ve had really very little controversy overall” and “you’ll hear about the one or two controversies, but look at all the calls that have been overturned.”

The guy is an idiot.

The scenario you created got me thinking, I’d like to see a Celebrity Jeopardy! episode with Gary Bettman, Bud Selig and Kim Kardashian as the contestants. They would all obviously finish with negative money, and then Alex Trebek could spend the time normally reserved for Final Jeopardy to just berate them for being dopes.

Keefe: Speaking of “idiots,” let’s talk about Johnny Damon’s return to Fenway Park in 2006 because on Tuesday night, Jacoby Ellsbury will return to Fenway Park for the first time as a Yankee.

I was at Damon’s return and was actually surprised by the amount of cheers he received from Boston fans. He had been the face of the Red Sox’ culture change and the symbol of their change from losers to winners and there he was wearing a Yankees uniform and tipping his helmet to Red Sox fans before his first at-bat. Sure, there were people throwing fake money at him once he took his position in center field, but for the most part, Johnny got about as many cheers as anyone could get in his position.

When it comes to Ellsbury, I think he will receive a better ovation than Damon because he wasn’t as iconic of a figure in Boston, even if helped them win two World Series, and it felt like during his entire time with the Red Sox, everyone knew once he became a free agent that he would bolt for the highest bidder. People will boo on Tuesday night in the first inning just to boo and they will continue to for every Ellsbury at-bat for the rest of his career, but are Red Sox fans upset that he signed with the Yankees as a free agent?

Hurley: It’s a weird thing. I don’t think many people, aside from maybe the folks who think Fever Pitch is a good movie, are actually “upset” with him for going to the Yankees. I think if anyone knows Ellsbury, it’s those of us in Boston who have seen him come up and develop over the past seven years. And I don’t think anyone here thought Ellsbury would be worth the money he’d be getting on the free-agent market. And knowing he was going to the free-agent market, and knowing the Angels had already spent a billion dollars, how many realistic suitors were really in play for him?

So obviously, there was a good chance he’d be going to New York, and obviously, players on the Yankees get booed at Fenway Park. He’s going to get booed, and for a lot of people, just the sight of a former Red Sox player in a Yankees uniform is enough to boil up some rage. But in terms of people being really mad, I don’t think that’s the common feeling.

At the same time, the Red Sox leadoff situation is so dire this season, there might be some extra boos rained down that are coming from a place of frustration.

Keefe: I thought the Red Sox would survive fine without Ellsbury at the top of the lineup and they likely will once they sort it out, but I don’t think I realized how important he was to the top of their order and extending the lineup until now. Seeing just about everyone except for David Ortiz and Mike Napoli get a chance to hit leadoff for the Red Sox has shown how important Ellsbury was for them. John Farrell hasn’t been afraid to try anything and has even gone with Jonny Gomes in that spot and Jonny Gomes as a leadoff hitter in a lineup that wasn’t picked out of a hat is pretty comical.

Right now the Red Sox seem to be having the same problems the Yankees had last year with injuries and an inability to score runs. There were long stretches of time where I knew the Yankees would be lucky to score just two runs in a given game and that meant the pitching staff would have to be perfect to win. (Granted they had Vernon Wells and Lyle Overbay hitting in the heart of their order and not Ortiz and Napoli.)

It’s never good to have several hitters slumping at the same time, especially your best hitters, but that seems to be the Red Sox’ problem early this season.

Hurley: Yeah it’s pretty bizarre how a team that has averaged 860 runs per season since 2002 is on pace to score just 616 runs this season. They’re hitting .209 with RISP, which ranks 25th in MLB, just two points ahead of the Cubs, so that gives you a good indication of where they’re at.

Overall, they’re hitting just .238, which ranks 23rd. It’s largely the same roster as last year, save for A.J. Pierzynski taking Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s place (kind of a wash), Shane Victorino being injured and Daniel Nava looking like Neil Keefe if he was asked to play Major League Baseball. So it should all come around at some point.

I think Clay Buchholz is a much bigger problem. He took the mound on Marathon Monday and looked like he was throwing knuckleballs with a Wiffle Ball. He allowed five straight hits in the third and ended up leaving after allowing 6 runs in 2 1/3 innings. For as much time as he missed last year, he was a major reason why the Red Sox won 97 games. If they don’t have even that half-season of a contribution from him this year, they’re in serious trouble.

Keefe: I have never been a Clay Buchholz believer, even for as good as he has looked when he is healthy, mainly because he is never healthy. He’s going to be 30 in August and the most starts he has ever made in a season is 29, after that 28 and after that just 16. So I would say banking on just a half-season from him is a good bet since that is all the Red Sox are likely to get.

I’m headed to Boston for the series and when I looked at tickets, I was surprised at how cheap they are. In the past, I would be looking at spending at least $100 just to sit in the right-field grandstand, which are the worst seats in any stadium in the entire league. You might as well sit on your couch or in a bar somewhere and get 1,000 times the viewing experience than sit in a low-number section in Fenway. I thought that winning the World Series after a few disastrous seasons and the one-year Bobby Valentine era would bring Red Sox ticket prices back to what they were from 2003-2011, but that hasn’t happened. Maybe it’s because the Bruins’ Stanley Cup run just started or maybe it’s because the Red Sox aren’t what they were to the city of Boston a decade ago?

Either way, I can’t complain since I’m saving money. Maybe we’ll run into each other at Fenway this week and can finally settle these email exchange debates with our fists.

Hurley: You’ve been challenging me to a Lansdowne Street throwdown for years. Given how dormant the rivalry is right now, I don’t think it’s the best time to actually throw fists outside Fenway. If Ellsbury goes into second spikes up and takes out Dustin Pedroia, then maybe we can circle back and meet up outside Gate E.

Podcasts • Yankees

Apr 22, 2014

Podcast: Danny Picard

Danny Picard of “I’m Just Sayin’” and WEEI joined me to talk about if the Bruins have taken over Boston from the Red Sox and how to fix the replay system in baseball.

The Yankees and Red Sox met just 12 days ago in New York for four games and now they are meeting again before what will be a two-month hiatus from the rivalry. On Wednesday, the Yankees and Red Sox open a three-game series at Fenway Park and won’t return to Boston until the first weekend in August.

Danny Picard, host of I’m Just Sayin‘ and host of The Danny Picard Show on WEEI, joined me to talk about if the Bruins have taken over Boston from the Red Sox, the rotations of the Yankees and Red Sox this season and how to fix the replay system in baseball.