Wrighting the Ship

Jaret Wright has been very good lately….well, maybe not VERY good, but certainly good. I’ve posted after each of his last few starts and I believe my most frequent comment has been, “Jaret Wright was so-so today, but I’ll take it every time.” Something along those lines. Today he was good. The only thing left to get out of him is length. 5 innings is the bare minimum for praise. If he can go 6, I’ll send him a thank you card. If he can manage 7, I’ll bake him a cake.

It seems that he’s staying healthy (knock wood) and getting a little rhythm to his starts. That’s key for a pitcher. I won’t look for him to be this good each start, but as long as he keeps us in ballgames, I think we should be happy as Yankee fans. Fortunately, one of the two busts from last off season is starting to earn his paycheck. The other one may as well be buried in the endzone at Giants Stadium with Jimmy Hoffa. He’s been just as much a stiff.

I don’t know what to make of Scott Proctor. I want to say “bad outing”, but it’s hard to know if what we’ve seen so far is the emergence of a good pitcher, or a fluke. Maybe he’s reverting to form. Coming back to Earth. Only time will tell, but I’ll forgive him his poor performance as the Yankees had a huge lead and we still managed to win in Fenway. That buys a guy a lot of patience that he wouldn’t get otherwise. The bullpen in general gets the same assessment today. Mariano notwithstanding.

Poor Colter Bean. He gets so little respect. One fair outing, one poor outing, and he’s back to Columbus. If only the Yankees had that short a leash on Sturtze and Erickson. He wasn’t great, but for Pete’s sake give him a month to show what he can do. Anyway, it gives me something to write about next time Lee Majors takes the mound and craps himself.

Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez played “anything you can do, I can do better.” Thankfully, Manny was the only Red Stockings hitter to show up today, whereas Damon and Jeter contributed for the Yankees. Keeping Ortiz in check is always key, but his 0-4 probably saved the victory for us. The Yankees need to get Terrence Long out of the lineup as quickly as is humanly possible, before his “sucking” finally hurts us. Having Sheff back and putting Giambi in the lineup makes us whole again and almost necessitates eliminating Long from the equation. Hidalgo is a better option, and Durazo is the best option. Pena is a nice player, but I like Phillips at 1st and I don’t think he’s as good as Erubiel at the plate.

Let’s see Sheff do something tomorrow and announce his return to the AL East.

Note to Albert Pujols: Slow down. There’s plenty of season to go!