The Red Sox beat the Yanks last night after a decent rain delay, 8-6. They had a 6-1 lead on a count of C.C. Sabathia was off his game but the Yanks tied it up in the bottom of the eighth inning when Mark Teixeira hit a two-run home run off his old pal Vicente Padilla. Tex admired his work too which isn’t like it (unless Padilla is pitching).
The way this season has gone you figured the Yanks would find a way to win but Curtis Granderson played a fly ball into a triple in the ninth, the Sox scored twice and, well, that’s just baseball, Suzyn, you can’t predict it.
Nuts.
[Photo Credit: WebMD; Seth Wenig/AP]
Teix's shot off Padilla following the eephus was exceptionally badass. My favorite home run this year I think.
A good round table discussion is just how good/bad Grandy is in CF. He does misjudge a lot of balls and often takes a false first step. Some have pointed to an very low DRS/UZR.
I have always believed Gritner should play CF.
As great as Grandy has been, between our 2014 payroll cap, his age, and what kind of contract he will command, I wonder if keeping Grandy past this contract is a good idea.
And AJax still has an OPS above .900. Did anyone see that coming???
2) to answer your last question, everybody saw this coming at some point. AJax was the pride of our farm system, and some of us here were against the trade.
Same thing with Montero. We could have used him last night for sure instead of Martin.
As for Grandy, as much as I didnt want the trade, he's a great player, and one of the most likable guys in the league. He more than compensates for a few misplayed balls in center with his bat. In fact, I think he's a great center fielder. We haven't seen enough of Gardy at that position to say he's a consistently better cf than Granderson.
Well, I've seen enough of Gardner in CF to *know* he's a better CF than Granderson. It's not particularily close. Granderson gets bad jumps, has particular trouble with in-between balls and balls hit right at him and doesn't take especially good routes. He's got good enough speed that he can compensate for some of his mistakes, but he isn't fast enough to overcome his poor instincts to be an elite defensive CF.
As to Gardner, I don't even have to reference the fact that he generally has displayed better instincts, better jumps and better routes in LF to advance his candidacy in CF over Granderson, I'll just note that even *if* Gardner was equally as deficient in his outfield instincts as Granderson is, he'd still be the logical choice to play CF, based on the simple, incontrovertible FACT that while Granderson has good speed, Gardner has GREAT speed and in CF speed is life in CF, speed is range, speed is the ability to compensate and overcome the mistakes that you or the other outfielders may make ...
[2] And AJax still has an OPS above .900. Did anyone see that coming?
I think plenty of people back in the day thought AJax was a future star.
[5] Hey... I was here for all the discussions at the time.
And on a number of other blogs too.
AJax, in 2 years of AAA, had a .752 OPS
In 6 years in the Minors, he had a .762 OPS.
We all hoped he could be an .800 OPS guys.
And we thought Granderson's .830 OPS was his high end.
Nobody saw .900.
Nobdoy even dared suggest it.
Montero... Yes. But AJax?