Yankees Waste A Great Tanaka Start And AROD Hits Number 30

NEW YORK — Let’s cut to the chase: With 25 games left in the season and a chance to regain first place in the their division, there is no way it is acceptable for the New York Yankees to lose a game to a last-place team on a night their starting pitcher throws eight innings of one-run, 10-strikeout ball.

And especially not when pitching performances like the one Masahiro Tanaka turned in Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium, rare enough over the course of 162 games, are going to be as scarce as black hairs on manager Joe Girardi’s head over the final four weeks of the season.

Last night was an easily winnable game but unfortunately every time we have one of these games something like last night happens. In a game where we desperately needed Tanaka to go deep into the game so we could rest our bullpen, he was able to deliver 8 innings of one run ball, but our offense – that should score 5 runs a game – couldn’t find 2 runs against Kevin Fucking Gausman. I know he made it to the big leagues and all that, but Kevin Gausman is not a good pitcher. Thats a game this team needs to  put up 5 runs in 5 innings and cruised to a win.

I know a lot of guys are banged up, and that’s to be expected late in the season, but its September. Thats baseball. Its a long season and timing is everything. Thats why you need to figure out how to get the offense and the pitching going at the same time. It sounds simple enough but with CC starting tonight, it seems like this one is going to fall on the shoulders of the offense. If we can’t get something going soon, we will be looking at a one game Wild Card, which doesn’t look promising. Overall, it’s tough to complain about a team that went 7-3 in their last 10. But its getting late early. Clock is ticking and this team needs to make a move.

In other, most exciting news, ARod hit his 30th home run last night. I’m an ARod guy, always have been and always will be. I hold no grudge against him for taking steroids because that was the culture when he came up and he was just putting poison in his body to play better for us fans. That is why in classic Portnoy fashion I am going to brag that I was the only person to predict he would have the season he is having. Lets just hope he gets to at least 35 because we are going to need each and every one of them.
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KFC Editor’s Note: Imagine if back in April you said Arod would be the hero and Matt Harvey would be the villain? Thats Baseball Suzyn.