But here we go.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT GO YANKEEEEEES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me.

After saying I was looking to post every couple of days, I went a few weeks without posting. My bad guys. I’ll hopefully be back with a new one in a couple of days. But I should really stop promising consistency huh!

Also here at the NMYF Blog I’m going to try a different type of format. Rather than bouncing around week-to-week with posts, I’ll try to make this more consistent, with posts every other day or every three days covering whatever I see fit to cover, with some random features or something to keep it at least semi-entertaining.

With this in mind, let’s jump into the first installment of the New Mexican Yankee Fan Report.

Rare Feat Of The Day:

In what will immortalize Phillies infielder Eric Bruntlett as the answer to a trivia question, he turned an unasissted triple play (add exclamation points as you see fit) in the Phils’ 9-7 win over the Mets. Incidentally, it was Pedro Martinez’s return to New York and his first start as a Phillie (I think). That’s pretty cool I guess.

Totally Over The Top And Ridiculous Celebration Of The Week (or last week, whatever):

I know he’s supposedly the best pitching prospect since Doc Gooden or something, but seriously, Nationals? Stephen Strasburg has not yet thrown a pitch in professional baseball, and they present him to a crowd who they sold $1 tickets to to celebrate his arrival. With fireworks. And a #37 jersey. Presented by Ryan Zimmerman.

In a hilarious and totally predictable side note, the Nationals lost that day’s game vs. the Brewers, 7-3.

Most Eerily Consistent Player Of The Past 9 Years:

Albert Pujols hit his 40th homer today. Need I say more?

Guy Who I Thought Had Fallen Off The Face Of The Earth Of The Day:

While I thought Scott Podsednik was floating around in the universe of socks lost in the wash and baseballs thrown into bushes, it turns out he was back in Chicago the whole time getting 400 at-bats and 20 steals! And a .293 average! Where was I when this happened?

Semi-Forgotten Feel Good Story Of The Year Of The Day:

Zack Greinke still has a 2.44 ERA, but he’s 11-8 and no one seems to care anymore. That’s what happens when you play for the Royals. Never make that mistake again, Zack.

Weekend Boskees Series Of The Weekend!

Last night was bad, as you can see. We’ll leave it at that.

However, the night before resulted in this scene, so the series is even going into tonight’s game, the finale of the Yankees’ penultimate Red Sox series of the year. We’ve got what looks like a pitching duel in the works, but we must keep in mind the winning team has scored double-digit wins in both games this series.

The matchup…

CC “The Big Brown Lion” Sabathia vs.

Josh “Blister Boy” Beckett.

WATCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Or in my case, listen. Should be a great game.

Trade Deadline 2009:

Just some of the faces of the swapping season are here!!

Nate McClouth was the first to be traded from the crumbling Pirates, to the Braves.

Mark DeRosa was traded from the Indians to St. Louis on June 27.

Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett were both shipped out of Pittsburgh in exchange for Lastings Milledge and Joel Hanrahan.

The next person out of Pittsburgh was Eric Hinske, sent to our beloved Yanks to help fill the void left by Xavier Nady.

Scott Hairston was sent to the A’s from San Diego.

On July 7, flamethrowing setup man Tony Pena was sent from the D’Backs to the White Sox.

The Braves and the Mets swapped outfielders, trading Jeff Francoeur and Ryan Church for each other.

Jack Hannahan was traded to the Mariners to fill in for Adrian Beltre.

Felipe Lopez got shipped out of Arizona and to Milwaukee.

Power-hitting first baseman Adam LaRoche was the next key Pirates player to go, to the Red Sox for depth.

Julio Lugo finally got traded away from the Red Sox, to the Cardinals for Chris Duncan.

Rafael Betancourt got traded out of Cleveland to the Rockies.

The next deal was a doozy, with the Cardinals acquiring Matt Holliday to protect Albert Pujols in the lineup. He’s back in the NL, where he put up huge numbers for the Rockies, after a three-month AL excursion.

Ryan Garko got traded from the Indians to the Giants, who are looking to bolster their offense and did so with this trade.

But yesterday was huge trade-wise for the Pittsburgh Pirates. They had already traded McClouth, Morgan, Burnett, Hinske and LaRoche but yesterday, July 29th, was the day the Pirates gave up on the next three years at least.

Jack Wilson and Ian Snell were traded to the Mariners for a package which included Ronny Cedeno and Jeff Clement. Freddy Sanchez was traded to the Giants. And John Grabow and Tom Gorzelanny were traded to the Cubs. 

So the Pirates are dead, basically.

Anyways other than that there were a couple of other trades…

Cliff Lee and Ben Francisco were sent away from Cleveland yesterday to the Philadelphia Phillies. That’s two straight years the Indians have traded the reigning Cy Young winner to the NL.

And today, George Sherrill was sent to the Dodgers to bolster their bullpen.

In the next 17 hours or so, Jarrod Washburn or Roy Halladay or more Pirates may be traded, but it has already been a busy deadline.  

Yanks are on a rollllll:

These are just pictures from the Yankees win last night, one of 11 (!!!) in their last 13 games while the Red Sox have stumbled out of the post-All Star Game gate, so we’re up 3 games on them right now.

  Oh yeah and Mark Buehrle threw a pretty good game a couple days ago.

Oh wow that last picture doesn’t look weird at all…

Oh yes and how could I forget Jonathan Sanchez, who threw a pretty decent game himself. It wasn’t as good as Buehrle’s, but a no-hitter’s a no-hitter.

All right this next thing I’m going to write is basically for my own pleasure, rather than your reading enjoyment, unless you are a fan of heavy metal music, then you may enjoy this!

I’m going to review Metallica’s latest album, because I would like to and it’s my blog, so there.

My opinion on their latest album is that it should have been released 20 years ago. Instead of the Black Album, which was a good rock album (but not really a metal album!) Metallica should have released Death Magnetic, a true metal album. From the Black Album, a rock album, to Load and ReLoad, kind of metalbilly albums, to Garage, Inc., a cover album, to St. Anger, an annoyingly over-aggressive, ridiculous Metallica album, about 20 years passed. In 1988 they released their last metal album until last year, …And Justice For All. That was a great album, as were Master Of Puppets, Ride The Lightning, and Kill ‘Em All. But with Death Magnetic they’re back to the old logo, back to metal!

1. That Was Just Your Life

2. The End Of The Line

3. Broken, Beat, And Scarred

4. The Day That Never Comes

5. All Nightmare Long

6. Cyanide

7. The Unforgiven III

8. The Judas Kiss

9. Suicide & Redemption

10. My Apocalypse

10 great songs!!! They pick up the tradition of having an instrumental again with Suicide & Redemption, a great song to space out to and enjoy. All Nightmare Long is a great song too!!!!!!!! What a great album. Buy it if you like metal music. Buy it all!!!! Haha.

Uhm yeah this is all I can write right now. I’m happy to be back to the blogosphere guys. Thanks for reading.

1. I have a job now. An amazingly boring job, but I’m making money for it. This is consuming most of my days.

2. I can’t come up with anything new or creative for these posts, so I feel like I’m writing the same post basically every time.

3. My life outside of my job and home life is kinda booming, and I’m consumed in lots of things, including the pursuit of more musical knowledge to take to my band so we can create.

4. I just haven’t been on the Internet much lately.

5. And of course, since my parents still control me for 3 more years, they’re kind of putting all kinds of strange rules and limitations on a lot of things, and lots of chores every single day.

With all these things factoring in, I haven’t had much time to be on my computer and when I have been on, I’ve been brain dead. So hopefully with a break from this (I’m also taking hiatuses on lots of online things), I’ll be able to get my life into some kind of rhythm and get back to this (and be able to actually give some level of entertainment in my posts). Could be a week or even a month or two, but hopefully it will be sooner rather than later. 

Of course, I will still be listening to the Yankees games and watching them when I can. Thanks for understanding guys, and thank you for reading my little blog, and GO YANKEES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S. E.J., sorry for not stopping in to your in-gamer last week.

P.P.S. Warped Tour is coming to New Mexico on Wednesday, and me and a bunch of people from school are gonna go check it out. I’m super psyched and it should be fun!!!

Last time, I promise:

Thank you all. I will be back

Now let’s continue the Boskees comparison I’ve been doing. Today we have shortstops.

Derek Jeter vs. Jed Lowrie/Julio Lugo

Derek Jeter:

The Captain, one of the greatest Yankees in history. While he has been on a steady decline, he is still a solid shortstop. There has been some controversy concerning his defense lately. Some of the statistics come up with by Bill James to measure defensive prowess have rated Jeter as the worst defensive shortstop in the league, despite the fact that his peers voted him to win each of his 3 Gold Gloves. I don’t buy into stats being everything, but I also think Jeter won his first Gold Glove off of one single catch, and possibly his second. You all know the catch. This one?

So my opinion of DJ’s defense is that he’s just about average. Maybe a teensy bit below, but not worst-shortstop-in-the-league below. Offensively I think Derek is, at this point, basically a singles hitter most of the time. He can tear it up every now and then, but overall at this point in his career he’s a useful tool, but not a middle-of-the-lineup or offense leader type. He is one of the, if not the leader of the team. He brings invaluable experience and leadership skills to the team, which is why he is the captain, one of the three in the American League (Red Sox’ Jason Varitek, White Sox’ Paul Konerko). Tends to catch fire in key spots, and The Captain’s incredibly clutch in the playoffs.

Jed Lowrie/Julio Lugo:

The two JL’s will be sharing shortstop this year with the majority of the time going to Lowrie once he comes off the disabled list. Lowrie is in his second year, and while he has strong potential, he’s unpolished and inexperienced at this point. He played just about exactly half a season last year (double his stats and it comes to 162 games, 520 at-bats, 144 hits, a .258 average, 4 home runs, 92 RBIs, and an impressive 50 doubles (with a .258 average!). Julio Lugo, thus far, has been a bust and done very little to deserve his 4-year, multimillion dollar contract. The Red Sox signed him after one of the better years in his career (.276 average, 12 homers, 24 stolen bases). Since then he has been basically a one-dimensional player, with only speed. Lugo is filling in for the rehabilitating Lowrie, which is kinda — um – a bad starting shortstop to have. Once Lowrie’s back, it will be solid but unpolished still, with Lugo providing speed off the bench.

Advantage: Yankees

Likely you Yankee fans know what has happened lately, so I actually won’t be reviewing those games. Today we’re in Texas with Andy Pettitte starting. I’ll be reviewing that game later on, I suppose.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be posting more often.

UPDATE: My bad, last night’s game was in New York. Yes, I knew that, I just screwed up.

So, the other day I was commenting on another great MLBlog, The Squad, and I ran down the Red Sox’ pitching rotation. Well, long story short, I scared myself and now I must do a comparison between The Yanks and the red sox. So I’m gonna run down each team, position by position, post by post. Rather than making it a super duper long post I’m going to do it one position-each-post style.

Catcher

Jorge Posada vs. Jason Varitek

Both of these backstops have long histories with their teams and against the other team.

A brief history of Varitek vs. Yankees…

And a brief history of Posada vs. Red Sox.

Jorge Posada:

Though he’s an injury risk this year, Jorgie, if healthy, will once more lead the team behind the plate, his 12th straight year as our Opening Day backstop. As you can tell by the above photo, he can sometimes lose his cool, but the majority of the time he’s a calm, quiet leader. In 2007 he had a career year, hitting .338, his only time hitting .300, with 20 home runs and 90 RBIs. He’s always had that pop. Since 2000 his low in homers is 19, in 2005. His 222nd career homer, hit on Opening Day this year, tied him with Don Mattingly. The 37-year old may not have a ton of real productive years in front of him, if any. But his leadership is still needed in the clubhouse. Posada will likely be the next to go of the group of Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, and Andy Pettitte. He will be sorely missed in the Yankee clubhouse when the day comes that he decides he is done.

Jason Varitek:

Varitek is another huge leader behind the plate and in the clubhouse, though he’s probably a bit more fiery in his attittude than Posada. He’s caught an MLB-record 4 no-hitters. He is one of the 3 team captains in baseball, with our very own Derek Jeter and the White Sox’ Paul Konerko. However, he is not a great hitter anymore. His career really kicked off in 1999 with a 20-homer season and a .269 average in 144 games. That would turn out to be the third-highest home run total of his career. Some would say Varitek peaked in 2004, with the highest average of his career, .296, and 18 homers with 73 RBIs and a .390 OBP. His average has gone down steadily since then, and he hit .220 last year, proving that the All-Star Game really is a popularity contest. Has he hit the bottom? No one can know for sure, but all signs point to yes. His leadership will keep him in the lineup and behind the plate, though.

Advantage: Yankees

This next part of the post will have to be abbreviated some, since I have not too much time to write it.

First of all, I’m sorry I haven’t posted lately. I’ll try to cover the rest of the season better.

Secondly, the Yankees are now 3-3 after losing to the Kansas City Royals this afternoon. I’ll give a brief look at what has happened since I last posted, when the Yanks were 0-1. They lost the second game of the series to the Orioles, with Wang giving up 7 runs in his return to the mound.

Just when things looked really bad, A.J. Burnett came through with a stellar series finale, pitching 5.1 innings and giving up 2 runs on 7 hits with 6 strikeouts. Fellow newcomers Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira homered, as did Robby Cano, and the Yanks cruised, 11-2. Swisher drove in 5 runs and doubled as well, starting the tear he’s been on since then.  

We then went to Kansas City, and in the first game Andy Pettitte was vintage, pitching 7 innings and giving up 1 run on 3 hits with 6 strikeouts. Mo got his first save, Swish doubled, Robby went 2 for 3 to raise his average to .571, and the Yanks emerged with a 4-1 win.

 Yesterday, the Yankees pulled their record up to 3-2 with a 6-1 win. Much to the relief of Yanks fans who saw our season opener, CC Sabathia was dominant, shutting the Royals out for 7.2 innings, giving up 6 hits and striking out 6. Hitting 3rd in the absence of A-Rod and Tex (Teixeira had arm soreness or something like that), Nick Swisher again dominated the opposing pitching, going 2 for 3 with a home run, a triple, and two walks. Jorge also homered and doubled for us, driving in 3, same as Swish.

Today’s game was okay until the bottom of the 8th, when Jose Veras and Phil Coke lost the game and spoiled Joba’s chance for a well-earned win. He threw 6 innings with 1 earned run on 4 hits, striking out 5 Royals. We seized the 4-3 lead in the top of the 7th with a 3-run rally, but KC scored 3 off Veras and Coke, and Joakim Soria struck out Hideki Matsui, Xavier Nady, and Robby Cano in a row in the 9th.

Sorry about not having as many pictures as usual, but like I said, not much time.

Robby and Swish will be leading us into Tampa Bay next, with their .400+ averages… Hopefully I’ll have a more in-depth look next time.

Thanks for reading!

The very first home run in the new Yankee Stadium was hit by none other than Robby Cano.

My favorite Yankee also made a couple of heads-up plays in the field and went 2 for 3 in the Yanks’ 7-4 win.

The second two-run shot of the game was hit by Godzilla, DH’ing and hitting in A-Rod’s spot in the order.

The third, which clanged off the foul pole in left, was by Cody Ransom, filling in at A-Rod’s position.

That was in the first game, which the Yanks won, 7-4. More on that one later.

One notable home run at the beginning of yesterday’s game was by old Yankee Alfonso Soriano.

The fourth home run was in the third inning of yesterday’s game, a three-run shot by our captain himself.

The fifth was in the same inning by some guy named Teixeira.

The next inning? He hit another shot, this one a three-run dinger, a laser into the second deck in right. He really made his “Mark”. Ha. Ha. See what I did there? Yeah.

The latest home run hit at the new Yankee Stadium was by my man Shelley Duncan, into the left field seats. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of him in the new stadium.

Let’s run down some of the unofficial firsts at the new Stadium.

First Hit: Aaron Miles, Cubs

First Yankees Hit: Derek Jeter, double in the first inning

First Run: Aaron Miles

First Yankee Run: Jorge Posada

First Home Run: Robinson Cano

First Stolen Base: Joey Gathright

First Yankee Stolen Base: Cody Ransom

First Pitch: Chien-Ming Wang

First Strikeout: Chien-Ming Wang, I think

First Save: Jonathan Albaladejo

In the first game, Wang pitched 5 solid innings, even though he was not on the very top of his game. He gave up 4 runs on 6 hits and struck out 3 with 2 walks. For the 6th inning, “Enter Sandman” came over the speakers and Mo trotted in and set ‘em down with a perfect inning, which included a strikeout. Jose Veras, Edwar Ramirez, and Jonathan Albaladejo followed with a perfect inning apiece, Ramirez picking up a K. Ted Lilly lasted only 4 innings for the Cubbies, giving up 7 runs on 8 hits. Aaron Heilman, Neal Cotts, Jason Berg, and Kevin Gregg all followed with scoreless innings, making each bullpen perfect for the game. Every single player in the Yankees starting lineup was substituted for. We started out with Jorge Posada, Mark Teixeira, Robinson Cano, Cody Ransom, Derek Jeter, Xavier Nady, Brett Gardner, Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui, and Chien-Ming Wang. We left the game with Jose Molina, Shelley Duncan, Angel Berroa, Justin Leone, Ramiro Pena, Todd Linden, Melky Cabrera, Nick Swisher, John Rodriguez, and Jonathan Albaladejo.

Yesterday’s game was a true blowout. 10-1 Yankees. Andy Pettitte started and was certainly sharp in 4 innings, setting down all but 7 of the hitters he faced, 6 of them with hits and one of them taking a walk. He struck out two and one of the hits was Soriano’s dinger. A.J. Burnett really impressed me in the next 4 innings. The first 3 were perfect, and in the fourth inning he surrendered two hits and walked one. Oh yeah, he struck out 6. In only 4 innings. Brian Bruney pitched 2/3 of the last inning, and Phil Coke closed it out. Rich Harden got bombed in 3.2 innings, surrendering 7 hits and 8 runs, 7 earned. He walked 4 and gave up one more home run than his two strikeouts. Carlos Marmol, David Patton, Angel Guzman, and Chad Gaudin held ‘em off for a while, but Luis Vizcaino gave up Duncan’s home run and gave up one more run. Jeff Samardzija was able to stop the bleeding for the final 2/3 of the inning. Once more every starting Yankee was gone by the end of the game, with Kevin Cash and Doug Bernier getting some playing time in this one.

Since, as you all know, I love them, here are some more photos of the Yanks.

That’s Reggie, in case you were wondering. He’s a good luck charm for some more championships!

Oh yeah, Citi Field looks pretty good too.

It’s Opening Night folks! Listening to it right now. Tune in tomorrow as the Yanks start the madness in Baltimore, CC versus Jeremy Guthrie!

Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?

Take me out to the ballgame…