Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Finally

It's the bottom of the eighth inning. The New York Yankees lead the Atlanta Braves by a score of 6-3. Brain Bruney is pitching for New York. He's been good this year, but tonight he starts out the inning by walking Chipper Jones. Not to worry, he promptly strikes out Brian McCann and induces a groundball to first from Garret Anderson.

Then things go south. Bruney walks Casey Kotchman and then gives up a run scoring single to Jeff Francoeur. Suddenly, it's 6-4 with two on and two out. The go ahead run is coming to the plate. The Yankees have been scuffling. They can't afford to let this one get away. So...

They go get Mariano Rivera.

YES!

YES!

YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!

Why wait!? He's rested! He's awesome! He can get four outs! Don't let him rot while the game slips away. Go get him. You have him pitch to Kelly Johnson right now. Not tomorrow. Not next inning. Now.

And the result?

Mo struck him out.

Then he struck the next guy out.

Then he struck the next guy out.

Then he struck the next guy out.

Game over.

6 comments:

Robert Lynch said...

I was watching. It was awesome. 'Nuf said.

James said...

I think Mo's AB got me more excited than the win.

That guy's got a mean cut.

Robert Lynch said...

Did you also see the clip ESPN showed of him catching balls during BP? I guess the man likes to grab his glove and, like I say, catch BP. And while it was funny to see, I didn't entirely like the idea of the greatest closer of all time crashing into the outfield wall because he wants to catch BP. Maybe he swings a little too?

The best part though was when an interviewer asks Rivera if he thinks he could play center field and he sort of grins and nods his head. My first thought was the idea of having a pitcher in the outfield switch back and forth with a pitcher on the mound, but unfortunately that won't work because when don't you want Rivera in the game?

John Lynch said...

I was indeed aware of Mo's predilection for shagging flies in advance of the game. I figure that he's in such great shape, we might as well let him do what he's been doing. It seems to work.

Rivera the hitter, unfortunately, is 0-5 in his career (including postseason).

D.Cous. said...

I think you should add a tag to your posts entitled "when to play Mariano Rivera," and then when you realize that 90% of your posts are about this, you should consider renaming your blog :)

John Lynch said...

Touché.