Are the Giants done?

After a 5-0 start, it didn't look like the Giants would ever lose a game.

Now after losing four straight, you have to wonder if they'll ever find a way to win one, especially after watching them give away Sunday's game against the Chargers.

Even with a botched field goal attempt and a disgraceful 104 penalty yards, the Giants could (and probably should) have won that game. That's more of a commentary on Norv Turner than anything else, but I'll leave that for San Diego fans to analyze.

That being said, if you allow a team to drive 80 yards in 1:46 to score the go-ahead touchdown in the final moments, maybe you don't deserve to win anyway.

The only reason Phil Rivers had a chance to do that was a brutal sequence of events after Terrell Thomas's interception return to the Chargers 4-yard-line with about three minutes left.

A touchdown there and the Giants put the game away. Instead, Chris Snee got a holding penalty on first down which put them back at the 14. After a conservative pass play, two running plays suggested that Tom Coughlin would be satisfied with a field goal and a six point lead.

If you're a Giants fan, you should have known what would happen after that.

So what now? Clearly this is a flawed defensive team, and the offensive line isn't performing anywhere near as well as they should be. Eli Manning hasn't looked right since hurting his foot in the Raiders game, the running game hasn't gotten on track, and the secondary is a total disaster.

And while they're still in decent shape at 5-4, the fact remains that four of those wins have come against teams with a combined record of 6-26. We might have to consider the possibility that this Giants team simply isn't very good.

I really have no idea what to expect from this team after they have this week off. The bye obviously comes at a good time for a team on the verge of a freefall, and how they respond in the four games afterwards will tell the story of 2009.

They host the Falcons, go to Denver on Thanksgiving night, then are home for Philly and Dallas. All games they could win, and all games they could lose. At this point, anything is possible. Would it surprise you if they lost all four? Won all four? Nothing would surprise me at this point.

All I know right now is that the Giants are on the outside looking in at the playoff picture in the NFC. I'm not ready to give up on the season yet, but they need to get this right, quickly.

Twenty-seven

Is there anything better than the day AFTER your team wins a championship? As great as the moment of victory is, there's nothing I enjoy more than basking in the glory the day after.

The primary reasons I'm nursing a moderate hangover today (which would be a million times worse under normal circumstances) are Hideki Matsui and Andy Pettitte. Pettitte delivered exactly the kind of outing everyone should have expected, and Matsui went absolutely nuts with six RBI.

It's official, Godzilla is Pedro's daddy.

If it was Matsui's last game in pinstripes, he certainly went out in style. A two-run homer off Pedro in the second. A two-run single off Pedro in the third. A two-run double off J.A. Happ in the fifth. A World Series MVP trophy.

I don't know what's going to happen with Matsui beyond 2009, but there's one thing I do know, there is a HUGE Hideki fan who has assured me that she'll never let me live down any bad things I've ever said about her boy. And you know what, it's well worth it. What he did last night was mind-blowing, simply one of the best offensive performances in World Series history.

It was also a big night for Matsui's translator "Roger", who got a lot of facetime after the game. That guy must have felt like he won the MVP award.

While Godzilla was destroying the Phillies with his bat, Pettitte was answering all the questions about how a 38-year-old would handle pitching on three days rest. It was a typical Pettitte outing - not spectacular, but effective. There's nobody I would have rather given the ball in that game than him.

Amazingly enough, even after losing in six games, Phillies loudmouth Jimmy Rollins (who hit a whopping .217 in the Series) actually had the nerve to say that his team was still the better one. (From the Daily News)

"They were the better team this series," Rollins said Wednesday night. "Do I think we're the better team? I really do. They just executed. I think we weren't playing bad, but they were playing that much better. ... They got the hits, we didn't. It's that simple."

Pardon my French, but go F yourself, J-Roll. You did nothing in this series to earn the right to say a damn thing. If you want to see how a real city celebrates a championship, head down to lower Manhattan tomorrow.

There are a lot of other things I could (and will) say about the 2009 Yankees, but they're all too cluttered in my mind right now to get them out. Maybe after I get some sleep I'll flush them out later this week.

I do have to turn off my jerkiness for a final thought on last night's victory. This is the first championship won by the Yankees since my grandfather passed away more than three years ago. Nobody is more responsible for my Yankee fanhood than him, and I constantly tell people the story of how he explained to me when I was six years old that I was born into a Yankee family, and thus could not root for the Mets, even though they were the better team at that time.

As I was counting down the outs last night, I couldn't help but think of that wonderful man and how much he would have enjoyed seeing them win another title.

I miss you, RFOC. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Time to end the 2009 baseball season

It's been nine long years since the Yankees last parade down the Canyon of Heroes, an unacceptable gap between championships that has delighted Yankee haters around the world.

Don't kid yourself, either, those people are armed with venom whether the Yankees win or lose this World Series.

If they close out the Phillies to win championship #27, prepare yourselves for the inevitable barrage of people complaining about how the Yankees "bought" another title. It's an argument made by people who don't grasp simple free-market economic concepts.

How dare the Yankees use their regional advantage to run a financially successful business, then use their vast resources to pay for the best available players? What a bunch of jerks.

These same people will also use the Yankees payroll against them in the event the Phillies come back to win this series.

"$200 million and they STILL can't win a title!!!"

This is the crap we've heard for the last nine years, and no matter what happens, you will hear it again in 2009.

With that in mind, the Yankees might as well just win the damn thing tonight. We're going to hear a bunch of nonsense from fans of the other 29 teams anyway, at least the noise of a parade would block some of it out.

I feel very confident in handing the ball to Andy Pettitte, even on three days rest. I feel very confident that Pedro Martinez is ready for a sound beating after a very good Game 2 performance.

I don't care how anybody has done up until tonight, one good game can erase a miserable postseason.

(Yes, I'm looking at you, Teixeira and Cano)

A-Rod, a big night tonight means the World Series MVP. After what he's done already in the playoffs, he should never have to hear another word about how he can't do it in the clutch, but a ring will guarantee it.

Get the ball to Mariano with the lead.

Don't let this series get to a Game 7, I don't know if I can take it.

Tonight is the night. Let's go.

Game six can't start soon enough

I guess all you jackass Yankee fans who spent the day before Game 5 saying asinine things like, "gee I really want the Yankees to win it at home" are happy, because you get a chance to get your moronic wish.

There's just no reasoning with people like that, who apparently think winning the fourth game of a series is a foregone conclusion that can be planned into their vision of a perfect celebration.

Here's my list of wishes for the 2009 season:

1) Win World Series

As I said yesterday, I don't care where that is accomplished as long as it is done as quickly and with as little drama as possible. Real Yankee fans understand this, which is why I get texts that say things like, "How awesome would it be to rub it in their faces and win on their turf?"

This is an example of a person who gets it.

But hey, some of you clowns like drama and apparently want me to need a quadruple bypass (and liver transplant) by the end of this thing, so let's bring it back to the Bronx, just for your amusement.

Remember the A.J. Burnett we saw in Game 2? Yeah, that isn't the one we got last night. We got the guy who started Game 5 of the Angels series and let four runs score before recording an out. I hate that guy. In his defense, maybe he heard the desperate pleas for the series to return to New York, and wanted to oblige those "fans" by making sure it happened.

A run in the first off Cliff Lee was exactly what the Yanks needed to get off on the right foot. What they didn't need was Burnett letting the first two hitters reach base before grooving a fastball to Chase Utley.

Speaking to my father after the game, he asked the rhetorical question: "what is the scouting report they have for Chase Utley?"

Apparently, it's to throw him nothing but thigh-high fastballs down the middle of the plate that end up in the rightfield seats. That's now happened five times in this series. Maybe move him off the plate some?

So congrats, Philly fans, your team managed to avoid being swept at home. Quite an accomplishment there.

Down 8-2 heading to the 8th thanks to the stellar relief work of Phil Coke - who allowed Utley's second homer and a Raul Ibanez rocket that landed in the Delaware River - the Yanks did manage to make a game of it with three runs to get to the 9th down by only three runs.

At that point, I was hoping for Brad Lidge, but it seems the Phillies have no faith whatsoever in their "closer" and went to Ryan Madson, who promptly allowed the first two runners to reach to bring the tying run to get to the plate in the form of Derek Jeter.

Captain Clutch then grounded into a rally-killing double play that nobody will talk about because he's Derek Jeter. If his name was something like, say, Alex Rodriguez, there would be four columns in the NY Post today about how he choked. I'll tell you this, Jeter clutched the hell out of the tailor-made 6-4-3 groundball.

In any event, another great at bat by Johnny Damon got the tying run to the plate once again, giving Mark Teixeira a chance to prove that he's not a total waste of a human life. Of course he swung at two changeups in the dirt and struck out to end the game, leaving A-Rod standing on deck.

It's funny, I found myself thinking before and during the 9th inning, "if only we can get A-Rod to the plate, we're going to win this game". As John Sterling would say, "isn't baseball amazing?" Two months ago nobody would have had such a thought. Now, 18 postseason RBI later, he's the man we want at the plate. Weird.

The highlight of the game from a viewing perspective was the two female Philly fans sitting in the middle of my favorite Upper East Side game-watching bar. As you might imagine, given the gene pool of the greater-Philadelphia area, they were "women" only in the most literal definition of the word.

Throughout the game, they would cheer every time a Phillie made contact or fielded a ball, regardless of the end result of the play. Several routine flyballs were applauded, as was a grounder that Jimmy Rollins fielded but made no throw.

At the conclusion of the game, as these two were whooping it up, a comment came from a table behind us that summed up the situation so perfectly, I wish I had been the one to make it.

A gentleman, apparently auditioning for the role of my new best friend, waited for the noise to subside just enough for everyone to hear him, before matter-of-factly unleashing this nugget:

"You're still ugly."

I love New York.

Anyway, Game 6, Wednesday night. Possible preview coming tomorrow.

One.

Thank you, Brad Lidge.

Thank you, Johnny Damon.

Thank you, Alex Rodriguez.

Does anybody still want to talk about how un-clutch A-Rod is? Yeah, I didn't think so. He's got two hits in the World Series: the first a two-run homer to start the Yanks comeback in Game 3, the second was last night's go-ahead RBI double off Lidge to put them a win away from winning their 27th title.

Yeah, clutch.

A-Rod wouldn't have even been in that position without the ridiculous at bat put together by Johnny Damon to start the rally against Lidge. Fouling off all those pitches before finally dropping a single into left. Then stealing second AND third on one play while the entire Phillies team was sleeping.

At that point, Lidge shifted into "deer-in-headlights" mode, and was freaked out about throwing his slider in the dirt that would score the go-ahead run. After hitting Teixeira, it was fastball-fastball to A-Rod, the second of which ended up in the left field corner.

Hey Philly fans, what's it like having such an emotionally fragile mess of a closer? That can't be fun.

The great thing about how the Yankees managed to win last night was that they did it after the Phillies took all the momentum by rallying from a 4-2 deficit. When Pedro Feliz took Joba deep to tie it in the 8th, it was looking like we could be headed for a 2-2 series.

Enter Lidge, and here we are at 3-1 after punching every Philly fan in the gut, which is about a foot higher from where they deserved to be punched.

So here we are. One game away. AJ Burnett on short rest against Cliff Lee, who has been lights out for the entire postseason. I don't care about that, I want to light him up. The Phillies are down, and it's time to put them and their fans out of their misery.

I heard a few people say last night that they want the Yankees to win it back at home in New York, and to that I say: stop being such a moron.

I want them to win ASAP, I don't care if it's in New York, on the moon, in Haiti, or someplace truly terrible like Philadelphia.

Finish this tonight.

******
I was just alerted to this wonderful ad from one of the Philly papers today



I guess they wanted to give any of their third-world readers a preview of the new fall fashions heading their way, since that's where the "loser" shirts typically end up after a championship series.

Call me crazy, but I think a kid in Nicaragua would rather not wear a shirt than put on something with a Phillies logo on it anyway. They've got their pride.

Two. Now let's ruin Philly's Sunday

Well, Jimmy Rollins is clearly no prophet, that much we know. His pre-World Series prediction of "Phillies in five" is now out the window, and the Yanks are just two wins from #27.

Go F yourself, J-Roll.

It definitely didn't look good early. Andy Pettitte had nothing and seemed like he had allergy to the strike zone in the first few innings. Trailing 3-0 and without a hit heading into the 4th, the Yanks looked dead against Cole Hamels.

And then, A-Rod showed up again with another home run, this one off a ludicrously-placed camera above the wall in the rightfield corner. Why you would hang the camera OVER the wall is beyond me, but they got the call right and suddenly it was 3-2. Some people were just waiting to play the "choke" card for A-Rod after two bad games. Hopefully this gets him going for however long this series goes, which hopefully is only two more games.

Pettitte settled down and delivered a classic Andy performance getting through six, AND delivered the game-tying hit in the 5th -- National League baseball, you've gotta love it. That seemed to wake up the rest of the lineup, finally, including Nick Swisher, who was something like 4-for-50 in the playoffs before his double/homer performance in Game 3.

Pettitte now has as many hits in this series as Robinson Cano, who looks clueless at the plate right now.

It's funny, after Game 1, Charlie Manuel took a shot at Yankee fans who left early by saying that Phillies fans would NEVER do such a thing.

If that's true, a lot of people at tonight's game had the same idea for a Halloween costume, because there were several dressed as empty blue seats during the last two innings. And keep waving your towels, because that's just so intimidating.

Oh, and to the guy with the non-stop wolf-whistle: shut the hell up. What is that accomplishing other than deafening the people sitting on either side of you?

Anyway, with tonight's win, the Yankees accomplished their first goal for the three games in Philly: make sure the series goes back to the Bronx.

The next goal is to put a stranglehold on this series by winning Game 4 on Sunday. CC (even on short rest) has an advantage over Joe Blanton, and with the Yankee bats suddenly waking up, they have a big chance to step on Philly's necks.

That of course is the nightcap in a phenomenal day in sports, with the Giants playing the Eagles early. Philly has had a lot of bad sports days in its history, let's make sure tomorrow is the worst.

Couple of other notes from the game tonight:

-Tim McCarver apparently doesn't understand Daylight Savings. After reminding viewers to set their clocks back tonight, he added that he wouldn't want any of us to be late tuning in tomorrow night's game. Of course, if anybody failed to set their clocks back, they would be an hour early, and FOX might actually get a ratings point for their pregame show.

-The Trident Layers commercial is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. "Do you mind if I pay you in gum?" Uhhh, yeah I mind. I can buy gum with the money you give me.

Two to go.

Three. Now the World Series is officially on

As I mentioned in the previous post, there is "good" AJ and "bad" AJ, but I left out, "filthy" AJ, and that's the one we got last night.

Let's not gloss over the importance of last night's game, if the Yankees fell into a 2-0 hole against the defending champs, the chances of them winning their 27th championship would have been incredibly slim. Burnett made sure that didn't happen with his best start in a Yankee uniform.

It's really hard to argue with the performance of the starting pitching so far in the Series, CC and AJ have thrown 14 innings and have allowed only 3 runs while striking out 15. I can live with that.

As good as Burnett was tonight during his 7-inning, 9-strikeout performance, it would have been wasted if the Yankee bats didn't finally wake up in the middle innings.

Mark Teixeira (who SOME people apparently think is the baseball-playing equivalent of Raymond Babbit) finally decided to participate with a bomb of a home run off Pedro Martinez to tie the game in the 4th.

Two innings later, Hideki Matsui ended his streak of strikeouts and choppers to second with another solo shot off Pedro, and thanks to Burnett and Mariano Rivera, that was all the Yanks needed from the offense.

Much as I'd like to make a "who's your daddy?" joke about Pedro, the man pitched a damn good game, and reminded everyone how unhittable he used to be with 10 more MPH on his fastball. Still, the Yankees found a way to beat him like they usually do, and we've got a tied series heading to the cesspool known as Philadelphia for Game 3 on Saturday.

By the way, how much must it suck for Mets fans to see Pedro pitching this way in the playoffs after they watched him decompose during his career in Queens? This series just keeps getting worse for those poor bastards.

And of course, as I finished the complimentary paragraph about him, Pedro was at the podium complaining about a Yankee fan verbally harassing him as he walked off the mound, which I find amusing considering that he used to play in Boston, and currently plays in front of the mongrel idiots that live in Philly.

Yeah, Pedro, I'm sure nobody at Fenway or Citizens Bank park has ever cursed in front of a small child. On the bright side, it's nice to know the residents of the $1200 seats at the new Stadium have a little life.

Meanwhile, I have to give Joe Girardi some credit since I spend a lot of time pointing out his many managerial head-scratchers. The way he handled the 7th inning was excellent, I loved Melky's fake bunt followed by a hit-and-run on the 1-0 count to start the rally. Jorge's RBI single was a nice insurance run, and if Jeter hadn't made the unusual decision to bunt with two strikes, there could have been a big inning in the works.

Still, despite the win, there are some areas of concern. I don't think they can expect to go straight from the starting pitcher to Rivera three more times in this series, so they're going to have to find someone to bridge the 7th and 8th innings at some point if they hope to do that.

A-Rod seems lost at the plate, and under normal circumstances, his 0-for-8 with 6 strikeouts would be enough for an entire post, but the guy carried the Yankees offensively for the first 9 games of the playoffs, so I'll let it go for now. I actually like him to bust out against Cole Hamels on Saturday, provided we can get Kate Hudson to do whatever it is she did to turn him into a clutch-hitting terror against the Twins and Angels.

Finally, we come to the FOX broadcast pair of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, who don't even pretend to be impartial at this point. In the bottom of the 7th, the 1st base umpire blew a call that cost the Yankees when a ball that Ryan Howard trapped was ruled a catch, and resulted in a double-play to end the inning.

Joe and Tim gave the ump a break, saying it was a tough play to see and let him off easy.

In the next half-inning, Mo got Chase Utley to hit into a double-play to end a Phillies rally. As it turned out, Utley was safe at first by a matter of a few inches, and naturally Buck and McCarver (with help from the Coors Light Freeze Cam) decided to point out how dearly it cost the Phillies because Ryan Howard didn't get to come to the plate with two runners on.

Give me a break.

In any event, it's now a best-of-five series, and I'll take my chances with Andy Pettitte against Hamels in Game 3 any time.

Three to go.