Experience Is Sometimes Just Bad Habits
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by Lenora X
OMG! Season Over! Impossible 20-Game Stretch Looming!!!!
Driving home today I heard a little of the Michael Kay show on ESPN radio. For those who may not know, Kay is a YES Network broadcaster in addition to hosting the ESPN Radio show.
In the snippet I heard tonight Kay was walking about the allegedly "tough stretch" the Yankees faced over their next 20 games. 17 of these 20 are against teams that are right now in playoff position, this will be a real test to see if the Yankees' run of late is for real blah blah blah.
Kay is not alone in buying into this nonsense I've heard other sports radio and TV hosts spouting similar stuff. Some I foolishly thought would have known better.
The simple truth is this: It doesn't matter who you play nearly as much as when you play them.
Has everyone forgotten that just a short time ago the Yankees were riding high, and were looking at nine games against three indifferent teams -- San Francisco, Colorado, and Baltimore. The result was 2-7. 2-7!!!!
So please. I don't want to hear about Cleveland, Detroit, and Boston coming up. None of those three are playing very well lately. Detroit in particular is playing hideous baseball. Eight games against them is a bad thing? Huh?
Cleveland isn't much better -- they've picked up some ground because they haven't played as badly as Detroit has of late.
Boston and the Yankees is almost always a 50-50 thing. They should flip a coin on opening Day to decide who wins 10 and who wins 9 and save us all a lot of needless hype every season.
Of the 20-game stretch coming up, the two toughest matchups for us are Baltimore and Anaheim. For whatever reason the Yankees have difficulty with Anaheim and Baltimore is playing everyone tough (although they are laying down nicely for Seattle this week).
So enough about how difficult the next 20 games are. It's as I said last week. Tonight's game is the toughest. Until tomorrow. Unfortunately that takes about 5 seconds to say, and then you're left with hours of sports talk radio show to fill.
Kay was speculating, as I was getting out of the car, what Yankee fans should expect from these next 20 games. He said that 14-6 would be a "giddy" expectation.
Rubbish. 14-6 over the next 20 is no more "giddy" than predicting 2-7 against SF, Colorado, and Baltimore would have been "irrationally negative." 19-1 would be giddy. 18-2 would be giddy. 14-6 is simply what the Yankees need to keep doing to stay on the 95 win track and not have to worry about the other clowns.
And it's very possible. The main obstacle to 14-6 (or better) is four games in Anaheim.
