Disastrous Series vs. Red Sox Ticks Me Off

There's a comedian, originally from Brooklyn, now living not far away from me in New Jersey, named Vic DiBitetto. You may know him as the guy who did the video "They said snow! I gotta get the bread and milk!"

He's a big Yankee Fan, and a big fan of football's New York Giants. Occasionally, as shown in the photo above, he does videos where he puts on a Yankee cap and jersey, and pretend he's the team's "grand poobah" or "head of baseball (or football) operaish" (Italian-American for "operations") and give a nasty, profanity-laden press conference. And that's when they win!

He also does a series called "Ticked Off Vic," in which he sits in his car, so as not to disturb anybody, and says, "A very ticked-off Vic here. You know what ticks me off?" And then he explains what's ticking him off, and it's usually something stupid and/or annoying, something that would tick anybody off.

Lately, the Yankees have been ticking both of us off. Vic is ready to clobber manager Aaron Boone. I tend to blame general manager Brian Cashman. So we disagree on that. 

(We've talked online, but never actually met, despite living only 10 miles apart. Aside from being a raving lunatic, he's a decent guy, and I hope he'd say the same thing about me. That, aside from being a raving lunatic, I'm a decent guy.)

The Yankees losing to the Boston Red Sox: That's what ticks me off!

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Like we did on Thursday night, the start of a 4-game series at Yankee Stadium II. Keep in mind, both teams went in as potential Playoff teams. Luis Gil allowed 2 runs over 5 innings. But he needed 93 pitches to do it. So, instead of letting a starting pitcher continue to do a good job, Aaron Boone followed his stupid pitch limit, and brought in Camilo Doval, who blew a 3-1 lead that included a home run by Ben Rice. Luke Weaver also allowed a run, and ended up as the losing pitcher.

From the 6th inning onward, the Yankees got only 2 baserunners: A single by Aaron Judge in the 6th, and a triple by Rice in the 7th. By the time Yerry De los Santos allowed 2 runs in the 9th, it was pointless. Red Sox 6, Yankees 3. A game that should have been won was lost.

Boone did it again on Friday night. Max Fried was back to his 1st-half-of-the-season self, allowing no runs on 4 hits and 3 walks, striking out 7, over 6 innings. He had thrown 99 pitches. A real manager would have let him pitch the 7th inning. But Boone is not the real manager, Cashman is, and Boone took Fried out. This time, it was Mark Leiter who allowed a run.

So, what's the big deal? One run? One run is a big deal when you score none. Here's the Yankee baserunners in that game: A single by Rice with 1 out in the 1st, stranded; a walk by Jasson Domínguez with 1 out in the 2nd, stranded; a single by Trent Grisham with 1 out in the 3rd, eliminated when Rice grounded into a double play; and a single by Austin Wells in the 6th, eliminated when Grisham lined a shot to short that was turned into a double play. That's it: 4 baserunners, none after the 6th, none even got to 2nd base. Red Sox 1, Yankees 0. A game that should have been won was lost.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, it did. The Saturday game might have been the worst of the season. Atrocious Pun Alert: Garrett Crochet started for the Red Sox, and the Yankees couldn't hit hard enough for Red Sox manager Alex Cora -- a former Houston Astro, a cheater hired by a team known for cheating -- to give Crochet the hook. Aside from a home run by Garrett Crochet in the 4th, they only got 3 runners as far as 2nd base, and 1 of those was due to a Boston error.

Will Warren started, and allowed 5 runs in 4 innings. Trying to give the bullpen a break, Boone brought Tim Hill in for the 5th, but he ran into trouble in the 6th, and Paul Blackburn pitched the rest of the way. Again, to give everybody else a rest, Boone left Blackburn in until he finally got the 3rd out in the top of the 9th. That meant allowing 7 runs on 8 hits and 2 walks. Cliché Alert: He really took one for the team. Red Sox 12, Yankees 1.

So the Yankees had dropped the 1st 3 games. Even if they could salvage the 4th and last, this series would have been a disaster. Boone made one significant change: Benching shortstop Anthony Volpe, whose fielding isn't good enough to justify his .208 batting average and .274 on-base percentage, and replacing him with recent acquisition José Caballero. He went 0-for-3, but had an RBI on a sacrifice fly.

Carlos Rodón started last night's game with 5 shutout innings. He wasn't brilliant, but he was tough. Jazz Chisholm hit a home run, and Trent Grisham hit 2, staking him to a 5-0 lead.

Rodón ran into trouble in the top of the 6th, but Weaver was able to stop the bleeding. He pitched a scoreless 7th, and Devin Williams pitched a scoreless 8th. The Yankees got 2 more runs in the 8th, including Chisholm's 2nd homer of the game. Doval got into a little trouble in the 9th, but finished it off. Yankees 7, Red Sox 2.

It should have been 3 out of 4 won. Instead, it was 3 out of 4 lost. To The Scum.

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There are 32 games left in the regular season. The Yankees are 70-60, 5 1/2 games behind the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Eastern Division. If the current standings hold to the end of the season, they will be the 5th seed in the Playoffs -- and their opponent, the 4th seed, with home-field advantage, would be the Red Sox.

That possibility, and what it would likely lead to, a 1st-round exit at the hands of our hated rivals, for the 3rd time in 8 seasons, leading to a 16th consecutive season without a World Series win: That's what ticks me off!

Tonight, the Yankees start a home series with the Washington Nationals. Hopefully, it won't tick me off.

Last Night's Games Ticked Me Off

Comedian Vic DiBitetto, the man who made the famed "Bread and Milk" Video in 2013, and the creator of the "Ticked Off Vic" rants, is a fan of the Yankees and the New York Giants. I've never heard him mention hockey, but, given his Brooklyn origin, if he likes hockey at all, he's probably a New York Rangers fan. Well, everybody's entitled to one flaw.

I am a fan of the Yankees, and, for reasons I won't get into here, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Giants' arch-rivals. But I long ago reached the point where I had no problems with Giants fans, perhaps because they join us in our hatred of the Dallas Cowboys. Nor do I have problems with New York Jets fans, because they had the New England Patriots, and, as a Yankee Fan who hates the Boston Red Sox, I can relate.

When I was 12, the NHL version of the Colorado Rockies moved to the Meadowlands, and became the New Jersey Devils, and I became a fan of theirs. What team did I root for before that? The Rangers? No. Their regional arch-rivals, the Long Island-based New York Islanders? No. Not that far from me, in the other direction, the Philadelphia Flyers? No. All 3 were dirty teams, and I didn't like that. It was the Montreal Canadiens. The "Flying Frenchmen" were smooth, speedy, and classy, but still able to stand up for themselves when necessary, and they were the team that defined hockey in my youth, and indeed for the entire period from the late 1950s to the late 1970s.

The Canadiens have won only 2 Stanley Cups since 1979, none since 1993. The Devils went through 2 hard Playoff series with the Rangers, in 1992 and 1994, before winning their 1st Stanley Cup in 1995, and then again in 2000 and 2003. The Rangers' Cup of 1994 remains their only one since 1940, yet they act like it means more than the Canadiens' record of 24 Cups does.

The majority of people who are Yankee Fans from Spring to Autumn are also Ranger fans from Autumn to Spring. How can these people be so smart and reasonable half the year, and so dumb and jackassed the other half?

(As far as the other sports are concerned: To me, Devils fans seem to be about 3 to 1 Yankees to Mets, 5-1 Giants to Jets, and I can't judge their basketball fandom at all, because they don't seem to care about either the Knicks or the Nets all that much.)

The Devils, having made the Playoffs just once in the 10 years since reaching the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals, which was their 1st since moving to the Prudential Center in downtown Newark in 2007, put together one of their finest regular seasons, and got the 2nd seed in the NHL's Eastern Conference. That gave them home-ice advantage over the 7th seed -- the Rangers, the Broadway Boozehounds, The Scum.

We'd beaten them in the Playoffs in 2006 (a sweep) and 2012 (Adam Henrique's double-overtime goal to clinch the Conference Finals a counterpoint to the Stephane Matteau goal that beat us in the same round in 1994), but they'd beaten us in 1992, 1994 (still the most crushing defeat in Devils history), 1997, and 2008 (the 1st Playoff series at the Prudential). So it's 2-4 against them in Playoff series.

Last night's Game 1 was good from an attendance standpoint: Normally, Ranger fans buy up tickets for the games between us, because it's close to Manhattan, cheaper than Madison Square Garden, and we usually don't sell out. The result is that it sounds like a Ranger home game in our building. Not this time: It was about 80 percent Devils fans.

But the game was a total wipeout. The Rangers are experienced, whereas most of the Devils are young, and hadn't played in a game this big. The Rangers won, 5-1, and the Devils were never really in it. They didn't make the effort, and they threw away the home-ice advantage. That ticked me off.

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Last night was also the 100th Anniversary of the opening of the original Yankee Stadium. Which, of course, is now gone. That ticks me off.

The new Yankee Stadium has had its moments. Last night was not one I'd like to remember. Once again, one of the injury-caused holes in the rotation came up, only to be filled by Clarke Schmidt, who can't pitch. He didn't get out of the 4th inning, allowing 4 runs on 6 hits, although he didn't walk anybody and struck out 5. Good control, bad command.

This included giving up a home run to Shohei Ohtani. For those of you who keep track of such things, on the night, Ohtani went 1-for-3, the hit being his 4th home run of the season, and 2 RBIs; Mike Trout went 2-for-4; and former Yankee Gio Urshela went 0-for-4 for the Halos.

Gerrit Cole gave the bullpen a day off on Sunday, and there was already a day off on Monday, and, perhaps sensing that his game was already lost, Aaron Boone gave the good relievers another day off last night, letting guys who had something to prove try to prove it. Greg Weissert got us out of the 4th. Ron Marinaccio pitched the 5th and the 6th, allowing an unearned run (albeit on his own throwing error). Jimmy Cordero pitched a scoreless 7th and 8th, and Albert Abreu a scoreless 9th. So, nice jobs done by some guys who needed to show they could do it. No ticking-me-off there.

But the Brian Cashman philosophy of "Bomb them out of the yard, and you don't have to pitch well" didn't get backed up last night. The Yankees left the bases loaded in the 1st inning, and did it again in the 2nd.

In the 4th, they responded to a 4-run Angels inning with 2 of their own, but neither RBI was a hit: Anthony Volpe drew a bases-loaded walk, the 3rd walk of the inning for Angel starter José Suarez, and Aaron Judge, whom the entire Stadium was hoping would hit a grand slam to give the Yankees a 5-4 lead, could only manage a sacrifice fly, and it was 4-2.

The Angels took a run back in the 5th. And, after the Judge sac fly, the only Yankee baserunner for the rest of the game was Oswaldo Cabrera beating out a grounder to 3rd in the 8th.

Angels 5, Yankees 2. WP: Andrew Wantz (1-0 -- Suarez didn't get out of the 4th, either, and the rule states that a starting pitcher has to go at least 5 innings to get credit for the win. SV: José Quijada (3). LP: Schmidt (0-1, but his ERA rose to 8.79, and his WHIP to 1.884).

The Yankees are 1-3 in games that Schmidt had started this season. In all other games, they are 9-4. This is what another comedian, Arsenio Hall, would have called one of things that make you go, "Hmmm... "

Losing. Seeing Clarke Schmidt as the starting pitcher. Not hitting. Not seeming to even make an effort. That's what ticks me off!

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Also last night, the Mets lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-0 at Dodger Stadium. That did not tick me off, although I usually don't like seeing what I have come to start calling "The Los Angeles Baseball Team" win.

I point this out not to rub it in, but to point out that Clayton Kershaw, his Hall of Fame ticket pretty much already punched, pitched 7 innings of 3-hit ball, while 2 relievers finished the 4-hit shutout -- meaning the Mets got the same number of hits as the Yankees, albeit against a real starting pitcher.

I note it because it was the 200th win of Kershaw's career. With the way pitching is handled by MLB organizations today, we may not see many more 200-game winners, let alone the 300 that once seemed to be tantamount to election to Cooperstown.

Kershaw joins Justin Verlander (244), Zack Grienke (223) and Max Scherzer (203) as the only active pitchers with at least 200 wins. At 35, Kershaw is easily the youngest of them, and the most durable, never having missed a significant stretch of a season due to an injury. Adam Wainwright, who has said this will be his last season, is knocking on the door at 195. The next-closest is all the way back at 163, and it's Cole Hamels. I forgot he was still pitching. He's pitched only 3 1/3 innings in the majors since 2019, and none since 2020. But there he is, trying to work his way back into the majors with the San Diego Padres at age 39.

The only active pitchers under age 35 with at least 100 wins are Gerrit Cole (134), Madison Bumgarner (also 134, but he looks done), Chris Sale (115) and Stephen Strasburg (113, and he's only pitched 31 1/3rd innings due to injuries since he led the Washington Nationals to the 2019 World Championship).

Yankees Blow It vs. Sox, Leave Their Fans Ticked Off

At the risk of sounding like Vic DiBitetto, the "Gotta get the bread and milk" comedian -- who is a Yankee Fan, and does live in Central Jersey, 3 towns away from me, although he's originally from Brooklyn...

You know what ticks me off? The Yankee hitters not hitting, the Yankee bullpen blowing a great starting pitching performance, and losing to the Boston Red Sox. Last night, all 3 of those things happened. So, yeah, I'm pretty ticked off.

Sometimes, when the Yankees or the football Giants lose, Vic stages a "postgame press conference" for his YouTube Channel. It's usually prime "Ticked Off Vic."

I didn't expect Domingo Germán to have a good start, especially at Fenway Park, but he did: 6 innings, 1 run on 5 hits and 2 walks. I didn't expect Scott Effross to pitch well, but he did: A perfect 7th inning. I didn't expect Aroldis Chapman to pitch well, especially with a 1-run lead at Fenway, but he did: Strikeout, flyout, strikeout.

I did expect the Yankees to score some runs at that ballpark, which I've often likened to a pinball machine. But when they bat against former Yankee Nathan Eovaldi, whom general manager Brian Cashman let go for nothing, they just don't hit.

They started out all right: With 1 out in the 1st, Aaron Judge drew a walk, Anthony Rizzo got him home with a double, and Josh Donaldson singled. But Rizzo couldn't score on the single. Given the dimensions of Fenway, that would have been understandable if he'd singled to left, but he'd singled to right. And then Gleyber Torres, Brian Cashman's very lazy golden boy, grounded into a double play. And that run that Donaldson couldn't score loomed large.

Jose Trevino and Isiah Kiner-Falefa singled with 1 out in the 2nd. But Aaron Hicks struck out, and DJ LeMahieu grounded out. Judge hit a home run to lead off the 3rd, his 46th of the season. (Current pace: 66.) Donaldson drew a walk, but then he made his 2nd baserunning mistake: He tried to steal 2nd, and got caught, and no more runs were scored by the Yankees in the inning -- or in the game.

Trevino and Hicks both singled in the 4th, but neither scored. Andrew Benintendi singled in the 6th, but was stranded. With 1 out in the 7th, LeMahieu singled, and Judge was hit with a pitch. Now, we know the Red Sox have a history of hitting the Yankees on purpose, but to do that at this point would have been stupid: If they didn't want to pitch to Judge, they could have intentionally walked him. Given this great opportunity, Rizzo and Donaldson both struck out. The Yankees really could have used Giancarlo Stanton here, and there was a rumor that he would be activated in time for the game, but he wasn't.

As strong as Chapman was in the 8th inning, given his history, I wouldn't have risked him in the bottom of the 9th. Nor did Aaron Boone. He sent out the new closer, Clay Holmes, who's been shaky lately. He was shaky again, getting Rafael Devers to ground out, then walking Xander Bogaerts and Alex Verdugo. Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you. Then he gave up a game-tying single to J.D. Martinez.

Boone brought Wandy Peralta in, and he got out of the inning without further damage. But, as our old friend Phil Rizzuto would have said, "But the damage is done. I tell ya, Bill White, this is unbelievable, I'm gettin' agita over this. Holy cow."

With Tim Locastro as the ghost runner for the top of the 10th, the Sox gave Judge what they should have given him in the 7th: "The old unintentional intentional walk." It worked: Rizzo lined to 1st, and Donaldson and Torres struck out. In the bottom of the 10th, Trivino allowed back-to-back singles to end it.

Red Sox 3, Yankees 2. WP: Garrett Whitlock (3-2). No save. LP: Trivino (1-7, but it was really Holmes who deserved the goat horns).

Yeah, I'm pretty damn ticked off.

The series continues tonight. Frankie Montas starts against Kutter Crawford. It's Montas' 2nd start since coming to the Yankees, and he'd better pitch a hell of a lot better than he did in his 1st. They say Montas wasn't really with it in his start, because he'd just come off the bereavement list, as his mother-in-law had died. That's no excuse: Paul O'Neill found out his father had died on the morning of Game 4 of the World Series, and he played. And while he didn't get a hit, he did draw a walk and play an errorless game in the field. Anyway, we are counting on Montas to have his head in the game this time.

Top 10 Groundhog Day Jokes

This morning, in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, about 75 miles northeast of Pittsburgh and 300 miles west of New York, the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil came out of his hole, and did not see his shadow. Supposedly, that means an early Spring.

If he had seen his shadow, it would have meant 6 more weeks of Winter. Six weeks after February 2 is March 16 -- March 15 in leap years like 2016.

The first day of Spring is March 20 or 21. So, already, he's a little off. And, here in the New York Tri-State Area, we've been hit with snow as late as April 20. And there's no specific definition of "an early Spring": It could be tomorrow, or it could be just under the six-week threshold. Gee, thanks, Phil, ya dirty rodent!

(Well, groundhogs are rodents, and they do tend to be dirty. After all, he's coming out of a hole.)

According to the website Stormfax.com, from the first prediction in 1886 through 2015, the various Punxsutawney Phils (contrary to the legend of a Santa Claus-like immortality, they live an average of 6 years) have made 120 predictions, with an early Spring (no shadow) predicted 18 times -- 15 percent. The site states (without evidence or corroborative references) that the predictions have proved correct 39 percent of the time.

This is significantly worse than chance (p = 0.008), and, if the accuracy figure is correct, suggests the traditional interpretation of Punxsutawney Phil's predictions should be reversed.

So where does this silly legend come from, anyway? Some people have suggested a Celtic origin, which says if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on February 2, the Pagan holiday of Imbolc, Winter will last another 6 weeks. If no shadow was seen, legend says Spring would come early.

Given Pennsylvania's heavy ethnic German origins, this version is probably more accurate: Clear skies on Candlemas, February 2, were said to herald cold weather ahead. In Germany, the tradition morphed into a myth that if the sun came out on Candlemas, a hedgehog would cast its shadow, predicting snow all the way into May. When German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania, they transferred the tradition onto a local animal, replacing hedgehogs with groundhogs.

So we can blame Ze Germans for it. But, hey, they can win penalty shootouts, so these things average out, right?

Around here, there have been conflicting reports. At the Staten Island Zoo, Staten Island Chuck -- "real name," Charles G. Hogg -- also failed to see a shadow: Early Spring. But in New Jersey, at the Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange, Essex County, Essex Ed did see his shadow: Six more weeks of Winter. This was backed up in Middlesex County by Milltown Mel.

There's also an "official groundhog" in Sussex County, named Stonewall Jackson after the Confederate general of the Civil War. But the ceremony was canceled for today, because the groundhog died. Just like Stonewall himself, who was killed by "friendly fire."

Here's a link to a record of the Jersey groundhogs' recent accuracies, or lack thereof.

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Top 10 Groundhog Day Jokes

10. Punxsutawney Phil makes conservatives out of us all. Every time it snows after February 2, I rethink my position on gun control: "I'm gonna kill that damn groundhog!"

9. Punxsutawney Phil refused to come out. "Gimme just five minutes more!" he said.

8. Punxsutawney Phil came out and said, "Brace yourself: Six more weeks of Winter is coming!"

7. Punxsutawney Phil came out of his hole with a film camera. That means that Bill Murray will be coming back for six weeks to film Groundhog Day 2: Do It Again... and Again... and Again! (Why not, they're doing a reboot of Ghostbusters.)

6. Punxsutawney Phil came out and threw his hat in the air. That means six more weeks of Mary Tyler Moore Show reruns.

5. Darth Vader choked Punxsutawney Phil, saying, "I find your lack of an early Spring disturbing."

4. Punxsutawney Phil died. That means the woman who took the test will be pregnant before Spring.

3. Punxsutawney Phil is still around in the 23rd Century. Captain Kirk visited, and asked him if he saw his shadow, and Phil said, "Damn it, Jim, I'm a groundhog, not a weatherman!"

2. Punxsutawney Phil came out with his hair messed up. That means six more weeks of Donald Trump running for President.

And finally...

1. Punxsutawney Phil came out and saw a dozen shadows. That means the worst Winter ever! Oh my God! Gotta get the bread and milk!