U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi.

Friday, October 7, 2005
ALDS Game 3
Angels 11 Yankees 7
Subway Race Winner: WW
Cap Game: #2



#!@*?!

That was absofuckinglutely brutal. The night started with so much optimism. But the life was sucked right out of us in the first inning. Chants of "Aa-ron Sma-all" started in the third inning. Small finally came into the game (which was 5-0 at that point) in the 4th, with no outs, runners on the corners. He struck out the Kennedy and got Figgins to ground into a double play. Cano made a nice snag to prevent a single up the middle, flipped to Jeter for one, who then threw to first for the final out of the inning. It was a nice play that got the crowd out its funk. It seemed to wake up the Yankees' bats as well. They came back with 4 runs in the bottom of the inning and tacked on 2 more in the 5th to take a 1-run lead. But it was short lived as Small gave up 2 runs in the 6th. Still, I thought he did a pretty good job. The Yanks could easily overcome a 1-run deficit. But the bats went cold again. And the Angels tacked on 2 more in the 7th and 2 in the 8th. All the Yankees could muster was a solo shot by Jeter in the 8th. A miserable ending to a miserable night.

Before the game I met up with my friend Phil and we hit Billy's Sports Bar across from the Stadium to grab a beer and watch the last 3 innings of the Sox² game. The place was packed as usual. Actually the entire block was crowded as people tried to watch the tiny TVs that the beer stands had up. The crowd at Billy's was pretty pumped, watching El Duque turn in another fine post-season performance. When he struck out Ortiz chants of "Du-que Du-que" rose up. If the Yankees don't make it to the next round I'll be pulling for Chicago, if only because of him and Contreras. Sure, it would've been great if Jose made it in NY, but I like to see him do well (as long as it's not against the Yanks ;-)

During post-season games they have additional press boxes set up in the Loge seats in right field (the ones that over-look the bleachers.) They set up a speaker there so they can hear the stats and updates as they are read by Rick Cerone, the Yankees PR guy. (I'm pretty sure that's him that does it anyway.) I couldn't really make out much of what he was saying. I did hear the updates on Molina, who got nailed in the elbow by a Gordon pitch. (At that point in the game the Stadium was pretty quiet.) He has a contusion and was getting precautionary x-rays. Later they said that the x-rays were negative. I wonder if those press guys can hear what we say down there. Guess I'll have to scan the papers to see if anything was mentioned.

Well, it's now up to my man Chacón. I just hope he can keep them close and go as late into the game as he possible can. Mo is well rested and may be able to go a couple innings if need be.