Yes, I am at twitter.
1. There are so many reasons that the Yankees have won 16 of their last 20 and soared to the AL’s best record. There is Mark Teixeira’s defense, what Alex Rodriguez had meant to the face of the offense and CC Sabathia behaving like a true ace.
But don’t ignore this: In the past 20 games Derek Jeter has hit .400 with a .474 on-base percentage and a .576 slugging percentage. He had three more hits and a walk Tuesday night in a 12-3 rout of the Rangers. He led off the first inning with a hit for the eighth time in nine games.
He has shown a greater willingness to pull the ball, steal a base and take a pitch. The overall result is that he has taken wonderfully to the leadoff role (a tip of the hat to Joe Girardi for that decision). He is right there with Texas’ Ian Kinsler and Seattle’s Ichiro Suzuki for the most effective leadoff hitters in the AL.
So in the month when Jeter will turn 35 (does that make anyone else feel old?), he is playing as well as ever. And, of course, we are talking about a Hall of Famer so as well as ever for Jeter is quite a thing to watch.
2. For the record, J.J. Putz joined the Mariners full-time in 2004. In Putz’s five full seasons in Seatttle, the Mariners finished fourth 29 games out, fourth 26 games out, fourth 15 games out, second six games out and fourth 39 games out. By the way, fourth in the AL West is a synonym for last. In three of those years, Seattle lost 93, 99 and 101 games.
So let’s stop talking about all that adrenaline that flowed closing for a team that bad. I would believe Putz has faced more pressure pitching in the eighth inning for the Mets the past two months than in his entire time as a Mariner. And you really can’t like how Putz has handled that pressure.
3. In baseball if you are nabbed with illegal performance enhancers, your career is soiled forever and you become a pariah during your retirement.
In the NFL, if you are nabbed with illegal performance enhancers, you get to move into the broadcast booth.
The Boston Herald reported on Wednesday that Rodney Harrison will be named to NBC’s NFL coverage team on Thursday.
Harrison admitted using HGH and was suspended for the first four games of the 2007 season. He said he took the stuff to heal quicker from injury, an alibi that has not exactly flown in MLB. Nothing sticks to the NFL, however, when it comes to illegal performance enhancers. Harrison was long one of the dirtiest players in the league and has this drug revelation, and yet he remained a face of the league on all the networks as a veteran spokesman for the Patriots. Shawne Merriman is another network darling, though he was suspended in 2006 for failing a steroid test. He was suspended four games and gave us the tainted supplement excuse.
The double standard between how illegal performance enhancer use is treated in baseball compared to the NFL remains staggering.
