Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice

Because The Monk has his priorities straight, he watched game 2 of the ALCS, not debate 3. The Wongdoer seemed to have his priorities straight too, he went to the game, and may even have stayed for the finish, unlike last week. The key thought here is that I like Jon-John better than John-John. That is, Lieberud more than Kedwards. Now, some thoughts from game 2.

(1) When he's on, Lieber is great to watch. Get ball, throw ball, P-O hitter, repeat, and all with dispatch. Yesterday's game took 3:15 but that's not Jon L's fault: the Yanks' 7-4 home win over the Angels in May when Lieber was perfect for 7 of his 8 innings took 2:23. Pedro and Varitek had more conference calls than IBM. If you measured time of possession for the hitting team, the Yanks would've more than doubled the RedSawx last night.

(2) I won't complain, but I don't understand Johnny Damon so far. He went from clueless to having a great 16-pitch at bat against Lieber -- more pitches in one at bat than Lieber had in any other full inning. Then Damon took a clear strike 3 from Mo in the eighth. This year, Damon became the hitter that the Blosax thought they would get when they plucked him from KC as a free agent. But his work in games 1 and 2 has been odd, at the least.

(3) Johnny Damon has a lot of hair. That's distracting. It is also not shampoo-commercial quality. That's foul.

(4) Biggest match-up of the night = Mo v. fatboy2 with fatboy1 on second and one out up 3-1 in the 9th. When Mo whiffed fatboy2, The Monk did a silent power dance on his couch. I also liked that Mo blew away fatboywannabe (Millar) right after he burned fatboy2.

(5) I still liked Varitek better when he was 0-for-the-Stadium.

(6) I wanna know what that thing on fatboywannabe's face eats. I think small children should stay away from it.

(7) As brilliant as Lieber was, the fact is that Pedro was very good AND had his #1 fastball. That's probably the best heat he's thrown at the Yanks in two years. If he had located his offspeed stuff better, he wouldn't have had those two walks (Jeter, Posada) that burned him.

(8) Give Johnny O lots of credit. Forget the scrap-heap crap, he got around on a 93 mph high-hard-one against Pedro for that 2-run bomb. Olerud's bat has been rumored to be slowing for years. Not that slow, I guess.

(9) No rest for the victorious -- with Brown and Vazquez/Duque, the Yanks have bigger question marks pitching in games 3 and 4 than the RedSawx, and the Yanks have sucked at the Ratden this year.

(10) Memo to Flash Gordon: don't be so surprised when Joe yanks your sorry arse in the 8th after you've put the Bosux in a position to tie the game with one swing. This isn't the regular season where Joe can afford for you to fark up the game (the Yanks' "8th inning closer" had six blown saves). And Mo's given up 8 ER in > 100 postseason innings, you're still trying to get your postseason ERA out of the Kenny Rogers vicinity.

Now, on to Boston for more agita.