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Tag: Mike Hurley

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Sep 2, 2014

The Rivalry Is Now Irrelevant

Yankees-Red Sox in September isn’t what it used to be and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be what it once was anytime soon.

Jacoby Ellsbury

The last time the Yankees and Red Sox met was 30 days ago at Fenway Park when the Yankees overcame two three-run deficits on Sunday Night Baseball and looked like they might be ready to go on an August and September run after back-to-back come-from-behind wins in Boston. They went on to win three of four against the Tigers at the Stadium and my wish of a run down the stretch from the Yankees was coming true. But that run has been put on hold as the Yankees are just 9-11 over their last 20 games and are 4 games out of the second wild card with 28 games to play. Fortunately, the Red Sox are in the Bronx this week and if the Yankees want to keep their postseason dreams alive, there isn’t a better opponent to begin what will need to be a memorable September.

With the Yankees still somewhat alive in the wild-card race and the Red Sox just counting down the days until their miserable season is finally over, I emailed Mike Hurley of CBS Boston because that’s what I do when the Yankees and Red Sox play each other.

Keefe: The start of second grade. For both of us, that’s the last time both the Yankees and Red Sox missed the postseason. The fall of 1993, 21 years ago, was the last time September was basically meaningless for the two superpowers that have spent two decades at or near the top of baseball. That’s remarkable and astonishing and also sad and depressing.

The Red Sox suck and are the team they were in 2012 and the team they should have been in 2013, while the Yankees are 4 games out of the second wild card, the same wild card I was adamantly against with you when instituted two seasons ago. And at this point it’s going to take a 20-8 September from the Yankees to possibly have a shot at the one-game playoff or a one-game playoff to get to the one-game playoff.

The Red Sox aren’t going to the playoffs. The Yankees are most likely not going to the playoffs. The Orioles and Royals most likely are and the Indians or Mariners could be. Is this a world you want to live in?

Hurley: I have distinct memories of being in second grade, sitting at my desk. I drew a hockey net on the front side of the box, and I wrote “MOOG 35” on the back of a little troll toy I had. Remember those? Those were messed up. Anyway, as you might imagine, I was a genius and I didn’t need to pay attention in school, so I kept myself busy by using a pencil to fire slappers at my troll Andy Moog.

Now for you to tell me that the last time the Red Sox and Yankees didn’t make the playoffs was when I was going top shelf in Mrs. Castiglione’s class, that’s pretty messed up. Though admittedly, it’s kind of misleading. I mean, that’s much more about the Yankees, who have made the postseason in 17 of the last 19 years, than it is about the Red Sox, who kind of pop in and out of the playoffs when they’re feeling good and then occasionally drop to last place.

I’ll tell you, and you’ll probably agree, that it’s easy to root for the Indians. Any time Terry Francona can make Red Sox ownership look bad for firing him for no reason, it’s going to be pretty funny.

But to answer your question, is this a world I want to live in? I believe Michael Scott said it best.

Keefe: I do like Terry Francona even if he was the man responsible for ruining the year 2004 for me. If only he hadn’t been so calm and composed and had been freaking out and going wild in the dugout and throwing things and skipping press conferences with the media, the Red Sox wouldn’t have come back. I hate you, Terry Francona. (But I also don’t.)

I was in Mrs. Lazar’s class, Don Mattingly was still playing first base for the Yankees, Mike Gallego was wearing No. 2 and splitting time at shortstop with Spike Owen (no wonder the Yankees didn’t make the playoffs) and I didn’t understand that the Whalers sucked and would finish 25th out of 26 in attendance that season. (The Islanders, Jets and Panthers outdrew the Whalers in 1993-94.) It’s been a long, long time since both teams were home in October. The problem is that this is going to become a frequent event thanks to teams locking up their players and ruining their chances at becoming free agents for the Yankees and Red Sox to fight over signing.

In New York, Yankees fans are upset that the Yankees don’t have young, homegrown talent, while also being upset that the team isn’t competitive right now. These fans likely forget that the dynasty that began in the mid-90s was made possible because of a long period of losing in the Bronx. Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada didn’t magically appear in the Bronx one day on the 4 train. It’s somewhat impossible to build through the draft and also sign big-name free agents in 2014 and while Brian Cashman continues to try and plug both old and new holes on a sinking boat, it seems inevitable that at some point you just need a new boat.

What’s the mood in Boston when it comes to the Red Sox? Do people even care that they suck this year? I realize they won the World Series last year and their five-year grace period is just starting while the Yankees’ five-year grace period from 2009 is over this season. Now that the Patriots are five days away from beginning their season and the Bruins are a month away from beginning theirs, do people even care about the Red Sox? It pains me that they won last year because if they were still looking at no postseason since 2009 and another miserable finish, I would imagine that John Henry wouldn’t be showing his face on Newbury Street or going out to dinner in the North End.

Hurley: The mood in Boston is kind of ridiculous, to be honest with you. The Red Sox traded away Jon Lester because they were unwilling to even get serious when it came to contract negotiations. Four years and $70 million for a durable lefty who was a badass in winning a World Series last year? What is that?

So they didn’t want to pay him because he’ll be in his 30s, and apparently they believe that no pitcher has ever pitched well in his 30s.

Nevertheless, the Red Sox traded away their homegrown star pitcher and then leaked info that they’re going to go after him hard in the offseason. And so many people bought it. What the hell is that? You don’t let your best players see what life is like on the other side of the fence, and you sure as hell don’t let them go to free agency when you have a chance to lock him up forever. It’s insane. Yet people are like “Oh, well they’re going to sign him in the winter, and they got Cespedes, so that’s OK!”

It’s madness.

As for the Sox now, they’re kind of non-existent. Some no-name on the Rays slid into second base on Saturday night and elbowed Dustin Pedroia in the head, and nobody seems to care. Everyone’s busy talking about Ryan Mallett and Logan Mankins.

But I’ll tell you, it’s not entirely different from last year. It was about a year ago to the date that Mike Cole and I bought tickets for $12 the day of a game and waltzed right in. It was pretty insane that just a few weeks later, they were beating Verlander and Scherzer and then winning the World Series. So even though the Red Sox were good last year and basically owned first place all year, there wasn’t much “Red Sox fever” gripping the region. People might be Sox’d out, which is understandable if you’ve seen how freaking hard everything Sox-related gets pushed on you in Boston.

Keefe: So I’m guessing the Fenway bricks and that sing-along CD from a couple years ago didn’t go over so well? That’s too bad.

In 24 days, Derek Jeter will either be playing three meaningless games in Fenway Park or playing three games that could determine the Yankees’ postseason chances. Right now, Jeter will be playing his final baseball game on Sunday, Sept. 28 in Boston in what could be a game full of September call-ups mirroring more of a March Grapefruit League game rather than a Yankees-Red Sox Game 162. But if the Yankees are eliminated from the playoffs before Game 160 in Boston, maybe Jeter doesn’t play that weekend at all?

Just last year, Mariano Rivera pitched at Yankee Stadium for what would be his final appearance ever in the Bronx and then he went with the Yankees to Houston and made that Stadium appearance his final appearance ever by not pitching in the final three games of the year. It’s obviously different for a position player than a closer and Jeter doesn’t seem like the type of person who would sit out three games he could play in before riding off into the sunset on the back porch of his Tampa mansion, but it would be better if Jeter plays Game 159 at the Stadium against Baltimore and then doesn’t board the plane to Boston if the Yankees are eliminated.

I would prefer if Boston doesn’t get to say goodbye to Jeets and give him four Duck Tour tickets, a burned out bulb from the Citgo sign, an old T token, a $25 gift card to the Bell in Hand and a painting of Haymarket or whatever they were going to give him for his farewell tour.

Hurley: See, in my ideal scenario, the Red Sox sign Pedro Martinez to a one-day contract and let him start on that Sunday. Jeter can bat leadoff and Pedro can go in on the hands with the first pitch, in on the hands again with pitch two, up at the chin with ball three, and then square in the back. Benches will clear, Boston and New York will be enraged, and for one fleeting moment, baseball will feel like it used to feel.

Do you think that can happen? Oh, and it would all come immediately after an over-the-top standing ovation from the Fenway crowd as Jeter is digging into the box. Tell me that wouldn’t be infinitely more exciting than whatever boring-as-crap reality is more likely to play out.

Keefe: I would sign up for that. Well, if the Yankees signed Roger Clemens and Jorge Posada for the day as well and we made things even more interesting. You can have Gabe Kapler too.

It disgusts me that Fenway Park is going to give Jeter an ovation every time he comes to the plate that series. Have some pride, Boston. This is a player who was the face of everything you hate for the last 19 years. He was a main reason for a lot of heartache and devastation your team and the focal point of many explicit T-shirts being sold outside the Kenmore T stop. Boo him, shout obscenities at him, feel free to bring batteries and golf balls to throw at him.

Let’s use David Ortiz as an example. Let’s say David Ortiz never used steroids and was even 10 percent as respectable of an athlete and person as Derek Jeter. Now let’s say David Ortiz is having a farewell tour and it’s coming to Yankee Stadium. There is no chance people are cheering for David Ortiz and thanking him and saluting him for the 2004 ALCS or any form of RE2PECT for him. And if they are, they should be held without bail in a Bronx jail for no less than a week.

Yankees-Red Sox used to mean something and in September it meant everything. Now not only might it not mean anything for both teams, but the face of the rivalry for the last two decades might be cheered the way Ortiz, Bobby Orr, Larry Bird and Tom Brady are in Boston. What an embarrassment.

Hurley: Yeah, sure thing. I bet if Jeter came and got booed, you’d be ranting and raving about how everyone from Boston is scum. So it’s kind of a lose-lose situation as far as Boston is concerned — well, that’s if anyone in Boston cared what Neil Keefe thinks about them.

Also, it’ll be 90% Yankee fans at Fenway on that Sunday. Ticket prices are absurd right now because my smart Boston brethren are fleecing you fools for a game in which Jeter might not even attend. Man, after saying that, I really hope he doesn’t make the trip. A bunch of jabronis spending $400 per ticket to fill Fenway, only to see Stephen Drew and Will Middlebrooks play baseball. That’d be classic.

I like how you praise Jeter as a great human too even though he agreed to star in a commercial where literally everyone in the world just tells him he’s the greatest thing to ever happen, and he’s just like, “Yeah, guys, I know it. Looks, Michael Jordan, I know, I’m the best. Thanks for the hat tip.” What a goober.

Nevertheless, you cheer the guy, because he was a good player who was a worthy rival for a long-ass time. People here won’t be cheering for him the way they cheer for Orr and Bird and Brady — people here would cheer when those guys fart. “Wow! Best fart of all time!!” Instead, people here will begrudgingly cheer for Jeter because A) it’s the right thing to do, and B) they’ll never have to see him send a dinky bloop single over the first baseman’s head to drive in another run.

Keefe: That was harsh. You won’t have to worry about those bloops even in September because he isn’t hitting the ball anywhere other than to short at this point. In the ninth inning on Sunday with the tying run on third and two outs, he hit his patented bloop to right and I thought at first it would fall and the Yankees would tie the game. But instead it fell at second base and the game was over. Not even the bloops are blooping anymore.

Since baseball has been over in Boston for a while now and the summer became more about you trying to get tickets for $2 and waiting until Week 1 of the NFL season, we are now there. It’s Week 1!

Even though you didn’t have much of a baseball season, at least you know your football team is going to walk through the regular season once again and end up with a first-round bye because the Jets still suck, the Dolphins somehow haven’t improved and the Bills are the Bills. You have at least five wins from your division before the opening kickoff of the season and then you just have to go .500 against the rest of the schedule and you have January football once again. It’s disgusting. Vegas has the Patriots over/under wins at 11 even though the last time the team won less than 11 games was Brady’s first season back from ACL surgery. Is there anyway the Patriots don’t win at least 12 games barring anything happening to TB12? Let me know so I can get a wager in on since is the last time I plan on talking to you until Sept. 26.

Hurley: 16-0. See you in Glendale, baby.

The Patriots have never played a bad game in Arizona after an undefeated regular season, have they? Didn’t think so! All right, now I’m ready for kickoff.

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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.

Boston Red Sox v New York Yankees

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.

Double

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.

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Podcasts • Team USA

Feb 24, 2014

Podcast: Mike Hurley

Mike Hurley of CBS Boston joins me to talk about Team USA’s disappointing finish in Sochi and why Gary Bettman and the NHL would be making a mistake to not allow players to compete in future Olympics.

After a perfect start to the 2014 Olympics, Team USA was unable to score against Canada to advance to the gold-medal game and was unable to score against Finland in the bronze-medal game. So now we will have to four more years to end the gold-medal drought, which will be at 38 years in 2018.

With the Olympics now over, Mike Hurley of CBS Boston joined me talk about Team USA’s disappointing finish in Sochi, Dan Bylsma being the wrong coach for the team and why Gary Bettman and the NHL would be making a mistake to not allow players to compete in future Olympics.

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Podcasts • Yankees

Feb 12, 2014

Podcast: Mike Hurley

Mike Hurley of CBS Boston joins me to talk about Derek Jeter announcing his retirement and how he will an end an era of baseball for a generation of fans.

I knew this day would come, I just never really wanted to believe it would. Derek Jeter won’t be a Yankee in 2015 after announcing he will retire at the end of the 2014 season. Writing that doesn’t feel right and I’m not sure it will until a year from now when the Yankees get ready to head to spring training without Jeter as their starting shortstop for the first time in 20 seasons. Maybe then I will be ready to accept this news. Maybe.

With Jeter announcing his retirement and taking a piece of my childhood and the game of baseball with him, Mike Hurley of CBS Boston joined me to talk about ending an era of baseball for a generation of fans, how his retirement will change how fans in their 20s watch the game and why it’s hard for outsiders to understand how big of a deal this retirement is.

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Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Sep 5, 2013

The Yankees’ Last Chance to Make a Run at the Red Sox

The Red Sox are in New York for the last time this season unless the Yankees can continue their winning ways to set up a postseason series against their rival. It’s time for an email exchange with Mike Hurley.

The Yankees are 18-8 since they played the Tigers at home starting on Aug. 9. But even with a .692 winning percentage for nearly a month, the Yankees are still 2 1/2 games out for the second wild card and eight games out in the division. Their last chance to make a run at the division starts on Thursday night in the Bronx against the Red Sox. You know what that means. An email exchange with Mike Hurley.

Keefe: It seems like we don’t do one of these for months and then all of a sudden we are doing one a week since here I am talking to you just 19 days since our last one. I guess that’s a good job by Bud Selig and the MLB schedulers for stacking Yankees-Red Sox games and not spreading them out over the six-month season. Between the scheduling, the wild-card format and the replay system, which will put more value on innings 7-9 over 1-6 because that’s logical, well I would say that Bud’s legacy will be about being an innovator and genius and not the man who watched the PED era grow and blossom under his watch. I don’t think we have to worry about him reading this though since it’s an “email exchange” and contains the word “email” and Bud has never sent an email in his life. If there’s one thing I have learned in life it’s that you can’t trust a man who’s never sent an email. And since he’s never sent an email, he’s probably never been on YouTube either since he doesn’t allow MLB videos on YouTube and if we can’t trust someone who’s never sent an email, I don’t even want to know that a grown man that has never been on YouTube exists.

Somewhere in that last paragraph I mentioned the wild-card format. The decision to have two wild cards and a one-game playoff to advance to the division series was a decision made by MLB that I was strongly against and spent thousands of words destroying in a way that I have only ever destroyed A.J. Burnett, John Tortorella, Joe Girardi, Boone Logan, Nick Johnson and Brian Cashman. But here are the Yankees just 2 1/2 games out of playing in the wild-card game in a season that had it been pre-2012 they would be five games out of the only wild-card spot. So guess what, Michael Hurley … I love the wild-card format! I love it so much that I wish there was a third wild-card team. Can we get a third wild-card team? That way the Yankees make the playoffs and the top wild-card team could play the second and third wild-card teams in a one-game playoff before the one-game playoff. More one-game playoffs! Are you with me? Who doesn’t love one-game playoffs? I know Bud does. It’s too bad he can’t remember his AOL password to sign on and read this exchange.

Hurley: The funny part about Bud (just kidding, there’s nothing funny about Bud except for his Google image results page) is that prior to last year, I’m sure adding the wild card back in ’95 would have been near the top of the list of his proudest achievements. But now he’s completely thrown that system in the garbage, even though he used to think it was great, only to force some team that otherwise would have been in the ALDS to participate in a one-game playoff against a team that otherwise would be golfing.

For comparison with other sports, a one-game playoff in MLB accounts for a 0.6 percent representation of the regular season determining a playoff series. You may say, “Well, football has one-game playoffs, and that league is pretty good,” but one NFL game accounts for a 6.25 percent representation of the regular season. That would be a 10-game series in baseball. And in hockey and basketball, a playoff series lasts between four and seven games, which is between 4.9 percent and 8.5 percent of the regular season.

And the “just win your division!” argument is for dopes. The Braves could literally play the rest of the season with each player tying one hand behind his own back and still cruise to an NL East title, while the Cubs, Cardinals and Pirates will battle like crazy to avoid the stupid one-game playoff. All three of those teams could end up winning around 93 games, which could end up being enough to win the NL East and maybe even the AL West, but JUST WIN YOUR DIVISION! Even if the schedules are imbalanced and you play 90-win teams 36 times while another division leader gets to play four of the worst teams in baseball 72 times, I don’t care, just win your division!

So, sorry about that. Did you ask me a question?

Keefe: The last time we did this was on Aug. 16 and you said this regarding the Yankees’ playoff chances:

Do I think the Yankees can outplay the Royals, Indians and Orioles from now until Sept. 29? Absolutely. The Yankees have some soft opponents on the schedule, and they’re destined by a higher power to always split their season series with the Red Sox, so it won’t take an otherworldly effort for them to gain 5 1/2 games in a month and a half.

Since then the Yankees jumped the Royals, Indians and Orioles in the standings and the only thing that is between them and a playoff game is the Rays, who have lost seven of their last 10 games and still have five games left on the West Coast before returning home to host the Red Sox. Everything is falling in to place just like you had predicted and I want to thank you for that.

But before I buy a respirator, a defibrillator, steal someone inhaler, pick up two handles of Jack Daniels and a case of Bud Heavy for a potential one-game playoff involving the Yankees, the Yankees have to do some work against the Red Sox during this four-game series at the Stadium this week. And by work I mean they need to do what they did in August 2009 in the Bronx when they swept the Red Sox and put away the AL East and changed the way that season had been going. OK, so they don’t need to sweep, but they do need to win at least three games here at home in order to keep up with the wild-card race and even slowly drag the division back in the picture.

With the Red Sox holding a 5 1/2-game lead in the division over the Rays are you at all nervous about their postseason chances or can we put the clinched “x” next to them in the standings?

Hurley: To answer your question, yes I am very smart and yes I did nail that and yes I rule.

If 2011 taught me anything, it’s that nothing’s ever clinched. Those Red Sox had a much more daunting lineup than this year’s edition, and the ’11 Sox were 1.5 games up on the Yankees and nine games up on the Rays when September began. On Sept. 6, even after the Red Sox started the month 2-4, they still had an eight-game lead over the Rays for the wild card. Obviously you know that things didn’t turn out too well for the 2011 Red Sox, so no I don’t think anything’s clinched.

Where I do think the 2013 Red Sox are worlds apart from the ’11 version is just in guts. I’m sure the real stat-driven baseball analysts would laugh if they heard that, but I didn’t see any of them calling for this team to be a World Series contender when they assembled in Fort Myers in March. It’s a team that just has guts. They never feel like they’re out of a game, they fight and claw for wins, they pull for each other and they care about winning. Obviously they still need to hit and field the ball, but that type of effort is why I don’t anticipate they find themselves in another 2011 nightmare collapse.

I do see that the Red Sox are 7-5 against the Yankees though, so Boston is due to go either 3-4 or 2-5 against the Yankees the rest of the way. That’s just fact.

Keefe: That is just fact. The season series will end 10-9 one way whether one of the two teams only plays three fielders for the rest of the games against each other.

The last time we talked we also talked about how the rivalry had grown quiet because of the turnover on the rosters and because the Red Sox had been bad for the last few seasons. Then Ryan Dempster goes and throws at A-Rod three times before finally hitting him on the fourth try. The benches cleared, but unfortunately no punches were thrown because either A-Rod knew he might be 1-on-25 or because he realized that he’s appealing a 211-game suspension and he doesn’t need to give MLB any other reason to try and keep him off the field.

A lot was made about the incident since Dempster isn’t exactly Mr. Baseball with a career of mediocrity and A-Rod’s PED use and suspension appeal didn’t have any impact on Dempster’s career or life. On top of that, Dempster plays with David Ortiz, Boston’s own PED user, and I don’t think he threw at Ortiz in any simulated games or live BP in Fort Myers. But even though Dempster didn’t display his hatred for PED users against Ortiz, that didn’t stop Ortiz from taking A-Rod’s side in the incident and saying that Dempster was out of line.

Did Dempster drilling A-Rod lead the Yankees’ comeback in the game (they were down 2-0 when he got hit)? Probably not. Dempster not being a very good pitcher was really the reason for the Yankees’ comeback, but don’t you think Dempster ended up being a joke following the whole thing when you know that going into the game he thought he was going to be a hero?

And how about Ortiz? Why say anything about what happened? And if you’re going to, why go against your teammate? Is it because Ortiz is friends with A-Rod (because he is)? Or is it because Ortiz doesn’t give an eff about what he says since he did call Boston a “sh-thole” last season, which Boston has forgotten about along with his PED use.

Hurley: Good to know the tears still haven’t dried from your face since A-Rod got hit. Wah. Ever think Dempster wasn’t taking some stand against PED users and instead just thinks, like the rest of the world, that Alex Rodriguez is a dink? I honestly don’t know how or why more pitchers don’t throw at A-Rod more often. The man essentially is involved in litigation against the league and the team that pays him $30 million per year and is on his way to becoming the biggest sociopath in sports history. I’d put one in his back every chance I got if I could throw 90 mph. (I can throw about 60 mph.)

As for Ortiz saying something stupid, that’s what he does every year. Sometimes he calls Boston a “shit hole” even though he’s never once been booed at Fenway, even when he was hitting .050 for a couple of Aprils. Sometimes in July he complains about his contract negotiations from the previous winter. Even though he ended up getting more than he wanted, he claims the process was “embarrassing.” Now, he doesn’t agree with what his teammate did, probably because he likes A-Rod as a friend but more so because he hadn’t said anything stupid this year. But because the Red Sox kept winning, and because Dempster essentially received double his suspension because the Red Sox didn’t want him to pitch, it didn’t really blow up into a huge story this year.

You sound like such a sad loser, by the way. Go back and read what you wrote. It has “sad loser” written all over it.

Keefe: I don’t care that people throw at A-Rod, I care that Dempster did for no reason and you made my point. What does A-Rod making $29 million and suing the Yankees have to do with Dempster? Is Dempster’s aunt a member of the Yankees’ legal team and has to work late now to research and go over paperwork because of A-Rod’s lawsuit? Is Ryan Dempster suddenly baseball’s sheriff for no real reason other than that he wants to be?

Before we go on … Koji Uehara hasn’t given up a run since June 30, has retired 73 of his last 80 batters, throws a splitter basically every pitch and is 38 years old. Is Koji Uehara real life?

Hurley: You continue to cry like a school child. That’s weird to me.

I don’t understand the Koji thing. I mean, I understand it, but when you watch him pitch, he hardly looks like a dominant closer might look in your mind. What’s gotten it done for him is his splitter. Jarrod Saltalamacchia was saying last week that he doesn’t even know what the splitter is going to do. It’s got a lot of movement, and it’s not always the same, so hitters have just been baffled. I don’t know how someone hasn’t gotten into one over the past few months, and I don’t know how much longer it can continue, but to answer your question, no, he’s not real life. He was the team’s fourth choice at closer, behind Joel Hanrahan, Andrew Bailey and Junichi Tazawa. I don’t think a team has ever lucked into a dominant closer quite like this before.

Keefe: Ah, the Red Sox just lucking in to more things like going to Los Angeles for a three-game series and not facing Clayton Kershaw or Zack Greinke or getting Rick Porcello in the series finale against the Tigers or even getting the Dodgers to bail them out and stopping what looked like five-plus years of more bad baseball in Boston. And now a dominant closer down the stretch that they didn’t even consider for the role earlier this season?

On Thursday night the Yankees will face Jake Peavy for the first time with the Red Sox. Peavy has been very good in five of his six starts with Boston with the exception of one clunker against the Royals on Aug. 9. The Red Sox will face Ivan Nova 2.0 who has been dominant since returning from Triple-A and was just named AL Pitcher of the Month after going 4-0 in six August starts with a 2.08 ERA. On Friday we get Andy Pettitte and Felix Doubront, on Saturday we get David Huff in what would have been Phil Hughes’ spot and John Lackey and on Sunday we get Hiroki Kuroda and Jon Lester. Sadly, CC Sabathia will miss out on the chance to put the Yankees in an early hole and blow a lead and there won’t be a Ryan Dempster reunion.

When it comes to these two teams the pitching matchups never seem to matter. The Pettitte-Doubront game will end up being the 1-0 affair and the Kuroda-Lester game will turn in a 12-10 gongshow. But even knowing that the starters don’t matter since long gone are the days of Roger Clemens-Pedro Martinez games, which matchup or matchups intrigue you this weekend?

Hurley: You’re leaving out the fact that Miguel Cabrera missed two of the three games against Boston this week. That was pretty lucky too.

I don’t know which game will be best, but what is up with Sunday’s game being at 1 p.m.? I believe there is a sport called football on at that time. I wish that game was at 4 p.m., when there’s only one good football game on, but such is life.

I’m looking forward to seeing Jake Peavy pitch in Yankee Stadium. That dude gets charged up and drops F-bombs on the mound for throwing one ball. It’s nuts. I guess I like watching guys who look like Mutant Jeremy Renners curse angrily on live TV.

Keefe: Speaking of guys you like watching, I have somehow never ask you what your obsession with Cliff Pennington is. So what is it?

Like you said, the Yankees are due to win at least four of the last seven games of the season series because that’s just how it goes. When these two teams meet for important four-game series (or five in the case of 2005), crazy things tend to happen. And with the Rays playing the Angels on Thursday and then the Mariners over the weekend, the Yankees need to win this series or even do what they did in August 2009 in the four-game series in the Bronx that changed the division and the season.

The Yankees need three or four of these games this week to keep the pressure on the Rays and to even put some pressure on the Red Sox. And if that happens I will see you (well, your inbox) next week for the final three game of the season series.

Hurley: Cliff Pennington has a rocket arm. You should see that guy throw. Best player ever. No competition. He hasn’t figured out hitting yet, but maybe in his 30s he’ll get there.

I’m rooting hard for the Red Sox because if they win three of four and send the Yankees onto a slide, that means you won’t be invading my city next weekend. And any time you can stay away from me, I’m happy.

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