As miserable as his friend AJ was last night, Ivan Nova was spectacular today. It’s hard to believe sometimes that he’s in his first full rookie season – and that he was sent down to the minors just a couple of months ago. Great job.
A-Rod’s bat didn’t show up in his first game back with the team, but Granderson’s inside-the-parker was fun to watch and Tex’s old fashioned, back-to-back homer was sweet too. I love that the Yanks took three out of four in this series.
I’ve got to make this quick as we’re getting deluged by rain/thunder and lightning right now (what’s with this weather, you easterners?) and I’ll probably lose power, but I hope everybody will head over to the Mainly Jane blog for a recap of my day at the local county fair. You’ll find a sheep Yankee fan (seriously) and pig racing AND a Yankees bra with Michael wearing it. How can anybody resist that?
Btw, I read that AJ shaved his head? Oh, my.
Tags: Bridgewater County Fair, Curtis Granderson, Ivan Nova, Mark Teixeira, Twins, Yankees
Had to tune game out with score 1-0. My kids gave my wife a surprise brithday party. Nova was awesome.
Yes, weather was not good but the ground never moved!
Was your wife surprised, John? Hope so and that she had a nice birthday. Actually, the ground didn’t move but the house shook.
Wow…how is it that it’s typical lunchtime log-in for me, and yet I’m only Comment #3? Yipes. Either the weather is still REALLY bad up in Yankeeland, or everybody’s imitating the Europeans and you’ve all gone on vacation this week. Either way…sorry, Jane…since nature abhors a void, you gotta have…more MEEE…!
Said my g’byes to Mom on Thursday nite, all is well (long drive up to Orlando the next morning)…got home from Florida on Friday aft, but was quickly caught back up in X-treme Home Makeover Madness. Saturday was The Great (12-hour) Laundry Room Cleanup, featuring 28 years of cleanout. Plus we’re a-busy getting Son #2, The Yanks Fan (but NOT exactly “The Student,”) prepared yet again for one more year in the Halls (Hells?) of Academe. There4, precious little time to check up on Our Boyz…
Which is why this is such a Wonderful Oasis. Always some valuable Yankee News that I wouldn’t get (or want to get) anywhere else. Just b4 dinner at Ma-in-Law’s, I did see things get a bit dicey for Robertson in the 8th…two out, but two on with “Mr. 600″ Thome at-bat, as the dangerously potential game-tying 3-run Tater Maker, and he worked a walk. Then it was “turn off the TV — gotta go to Mom’s!” Glad to learn that he wriggled his way out of it. Frustrating to play scoreboard beisbol and see that every weekend W was matched by the Hoseheads…but, at least, when the Yanks lost, they did too. Sure feels like this really IS coming down to the wire, n’est-ce pas?
And now I’ll leave you alone, and go pester you again on ‘Mainly Jane.’ Michael in a YANKEES BRA?!? This I gotta see…!!!
I guess it’s a slow comment day, Dave. Either that or people have decided this blog is boring. In any case, glad you made it home from FL and got to catch a bit of yesterday’s game despite all the domestic tumult. Robertson does enjoy his high-wire acts, doesn’t he. I just hope we can increase our lead over the Sox before we face them at Fenway.
Okay, okay I’ll comment!
It was a great game. I watched it with one eye as I worked on a few months work of banking stuff. Granderson’s inside the parker was fun – the ball headed so far back to the infield it didn’t seem possible that someone could score, but the fielders were in the wrong place.
I love Nova’s presence on the mound. He doesn’t look flustered and has such nice posture.
While we were away, I purchased the MLB gameday app for my iPad. It was only $10 and allowed us to listen to Tues and Wed. night’s games. The place we stayed in Thursday charged for internet access, so we didn’t listen. The picture on the app comes through before the radio feed. I want to check how it matches up to the TV picture.
I just have one comment about the AJ/Girardi thing. I kinda believe their story. (But no, I won’t buy the bridge, Jane.) Why? Because of the body language and position of AJ. If he was going to say those words to Girardi, I think he would have said them as Joe approached the mound. It looked to me that as AJ walked away, Girardi and Martin could have been saying something about the pitch and AJ added his “colorful” comment as he left. The way he tossed the comment back over his shoulder doesn’t really seem like a guy who is angry at his manager. Just my human relations take on it.
Yesterday was a much happier day. Don’t you just love inside the park homers?
I do love inside the park homers, Melissa. And Granderson is just….Grandish! Okay, one more round on the Girardi/AJ thing. I disagree. I think AJ would absolutely have looked back and sniped at Joe because he’s done it before. Later, he admitted that Joe asked him what he said and why, which suggests to me that Joe knew it wasn’t about the pitch to Mauer. But who knows. I’m sure they’ve smoothed it out, whatever it was.
They can do what they want as long as:
1- they don’t have a fist fight in the dugout like Billy and his players
2- AJ starts pitching. And I mean something other than batting practice for the other team!!!! I’ve tried to have patience with the guy, I really have.
Jane, your blog is never boring! We just had my son visiting this weekend and time is precious with him now. I did check out Mainly Jane for that pic of Michael in the Yankees bra – I want one!
Loved Grandy’s homerun and Mark’s Tex message which immediately followed. Robinson was scary but I was really glad Girardi did not pull him – he seems to love working his way out of those situations, like he’s padding his numbers or something.
I’m glad the boys are coming home and hope they make the most of this homestand, short as it is. Sorry As, but we gotta sweep ya.
I’m good with both of those conditions, Melissa!
Nice that you’ve had time with your son, Audrey. How many kids do you have? I know so many people who want that Yankees bra! I think Victoria’s Secret should start selling them, since they already have a line of MLB clothes. I too hope the boys make the best of the upcoming homestand, especially on Thursday!
Can we finally start hearing some Rookie of the Year talk for Nova already? He’s 13-4 and is such a pro out there. He’s easily our second best pitcher and if he wasn’t sent down for a month he might have 15 wins at least. Trumbo, Walden, and Alburquerque are the only other candidates that come close. And while they are having great years themselves, their teams may be ok without them. Imagine if we didn’t have Nova the whole season. Scary thought. And he actually was gone for a month. About the same time we dropped from first to second, behind Boston. And now he’s back, and we’re in first place once more. You could even argue that he’s our best pitcher now, with CC’s woes. (funny, because CC’s “woes” make him a slightly above average pitcher, lol!)
I thought I finally heard a mention on the post game show. Hopefully that’s just the beginning of a successful campaign to get this guy his due award. These MLB writers need to pay attention to how important this kid is to our team.
Wow, that was rant… lol.
http://yankeecase.mlblogs.com/
You’ve been Nova’s champion for ROY for awhile, YankeeCase, and it could certainly happen based on his stats. The only question I have (other than it’s hard for a Yankee to get votes for any award) is whether he had too many innings last season to qualify? If he’s fine on that front, then I’d certainly vote for him. As you point out, this team would not be where it is without him.
The rookie qualifications are 50 innings pitched or 150 at bats in a season. Last year Nova had 42 innings pitched, so he’s definitely considered a rookie for 2011.
It’s true that you need overwhelming numbers to win an award if you’re a Yankee, but hopefully these guys who have a vote can see that this kid would be talked about as the new ace of the staff were he anywhere else. All that hype over Pineda has gone away, yet we’ve got Nova blowing up now.
Same thing is going to apply to Granderson. Remember around the middle of May how I was calling him the AL MVP? Well Bautista and Adrian Gonzalez quickly took over that show. But we didn’t know he would still be holding onto his Runs lead and take over in RBI’s. He’s probably going to end up with about 150 runs and maybe 120 RBI’s. So all by himself he’s going to contribute almost 300 runs to to the total team season mark! That’s crazy to think about. And not to mention he’s in all likelihood going to end up with more than 40 home runs and may end up on top of this category, possibly lead the league in triples, he’ll end up with more than 30 stolen bases, and he’s playing a great center field. If he had his average over .300, I think it’s a no-brainer. But then again we’ve seen Yankees robbed of their due hardware before… (*ahem* jeter’s mvp in 2006, cc’s cy young 2010, matsui’s ROY in 2003, cano’s ROY – 2005, and even cano’s mvp for 2010 maybe?) But it’s not like I think about such things or anything….. O_o
http://yankeecase.mlblogs.com/
so saturday i got to watch my first yankee game in weeks and i couldn’t even stand to watch it and then i saw the red sox were winning so i went into a mild freak about thinking we lost 1st place because of aj. thankfully kc saved me from the freak out. i have been saying that the decision about hughes or nova was take them both and get rid of aj but i know that is hard to do. yesterday i got to watch again and it was so much fun! nova was in control and there is nobody i am more confident with the bases loaded than robertson. he is the star of the team. my dad got me some device that gives baseball scores on it. so now when i am at work and not at the computer i have access to scores all the time. between clients in my private practice office (where i should be treating aj and have no computer) i now will know scores! my dad is going tomorrow. so go colon and the offense!
Hi Jane,
I’ ve been away from Florida since the end of July with my significant other – 12day cruise of the Greek Isles and now we are staying at a Marriott Residence Inn in West Orange, NJ. We have tickets to the Yankee-Oakland game tomorrow night and I am delighted that we won’t be seeing AJ. I hope Colon has one of his good games since I don’t get to more than one game a year, if that.
How great that Jeter has silenced his critics and has been one of the top hitters on the team. Granderson continues to impress and I think the MVP race will be between him and Gonzalez. I guess Verlander is a sure thing for the Cy Young award and Detroit will be tough to face in the playoffs.
Thanks to my iPad I am able. To keep up with your blog and all things Yankee.
Harold
Thanks for the clarification on ROY, YankeeCase. Nova has to be a strong candidate, barring a bad September. And Granderson for MVP is a lock in my humble opinion. How could he not win with those gaudy numbers? He’s been amazing in every way.
Barbara, you really need to get AJ into your office. I’m sure you could talk some sense into him. If you did, we would all owe you big time. Right now I have zero faith in him, and I don’t like feeling that way about a Yankee.
Welcome back, Harold. I bet the cruise was a delight. But I’m so disappointed that I’ll miss seeing you at the Stadium by just a couple of days! I’m going to Thursday’s game (we picked a day game because of the long drive back to CT). Oh well. I hope you see a good performance from Colon and the boys. I do think Verlander is a lock for the Cy Young, especially since Weaver and CC have both had less-than-stellar results lately.
Hey, if my calculations are correct we should have Hughes pitching on Thursday, right? For a minute I thought it was going to be AJ and my stomach dropped. Maybe AJ can handle Baltimore on Friday (but I doubt it).
Harold,
It’s always good to hear from you!
That’s what I’m assuming, Audrey – that it’ll be Hughes on the mound on Thursday, not AJ, who is scheduled to pitch over the weekend. At least that’s the current plan.
Melissa, are you still thinking of coming to the game on Thurs?
I will no longer mention the ground shaking. It just shook her a few minutes ago! My daughter was in a tall building in New Haven and she was scared to death. Building was evacuated.
I will never mention the ground shaking again. My daughter just called from New Haven. She was in a tall building and it started to sway. They evacuated in a panic. I felt nothing here in Meriden.