Morning: 3 Days of Hell

1) Should have seen this coming...

Day 1, Sunday: AJ pitching in Fenway, where he's always terrible.
Day 2, Monday: Sergio Mitre taking Andy Pettitte's start in Detroit.
Day 3, Tuesday: Javy Vazquez. Enough said.

It lined up nicely for our first 3-loss stretch of the season, and we're now 2/3 of the way there. Ugly baseball by Yankee standards.

2) Robbie on the Slide

After peaking at .407 on April 29th and finishing the month at .400, he's 8 for his last 34, batting .235 for May with only two extra base hits. These slumps are gonna happen, but it'd be nice if they didn't happen right when Teixeira and A-Rod are heating up in front of him. The clutch-birds are about to start chattering, too: he's .267 with 2 outs and runners in scoring position, a traditional weak point. The sample size is still small at 18 plate appearances, but it can grow in a hurry. He may be on the cusp of emerging from the slump, with 4 singles in the last 3 games, but it'd be nice to see him drive the ball again.

3) Boone Logan stinks

I don't care if he can hit 97. Send him down, Joe. 11 baserunners in 5 innings of action does not a professional pitcher make. And the four-pitch walks are starting to drive me really crazy.

4) We Need Grandy

Randy Winn and Marcus Thames are absolutely awful in left field. You might has well just have Gardner stand in left-center and cover both fields. Thames is useful as a DH against lefties, but should never be allowed to wear a glove, and Winn should be on the first bus to Little Rock, or wherever the Yanks keep their sub-single-A minor league franchise. Granderson going down kills our outfield defense. Swisher and the left field platoon have no range, and Gardner is all by himself in center.

Also, Winn had a chance to take out Victor Martinez on a play at the plate Saturday, and instead made a weak-ass slide and was tagged out. And something about the way he looks makes me angry. I can't explain it, but see if you agree:


5) Cervelli needs to be catcher until he goes cold

That way, Posada can DH, save his legs, and contribue with the bat. And we'll actually have a chance to throw a baserunner out once in a while.

Okay, enough Yankee stuff. Miguel Cabrera will hit 4 home runs tonight and we'll lose 11-8. Then it's Hughes time and we can all relax.

On to something more important: ENGLAND BASHING. We're almost exactly one month away from...

JUNE 12

WORLD CUP

UNITED STATES VS. ENGLAND

That's a painting of Cornwallis surrendering the last time the Brits tried to mess with our shit. At the bottom of this post back in December, I promised that I'd start taking the fight to England early and often. It kinda fell by the wayside; Duke won a national title, if you hadn't heard. But it's time to get back in the saddle. Here are 10 reasons that England sucks:

1) All their people have to constantly say these clever one-liners after they make a point. Every time you meet an English dude, he's always like "Actually, I believe the last time the British had a set-to with the Yanks was in 1812." But that's not the end of it. Then they sip their tea, give you a long look, and go: "QED, I believe." And you have to sit there and let them smirk at you, because you're in their parlour room. It's maddening.

2) They don't fight fair. Everyone knows that if you get in a street tussle with an English guy, he's going to have a watch that shoots bobby pins or something. You'll have him pinned to the ground, and he'll go "I believe I don't give up," and all the sudden the buttons on his shirt spray acid on your skin.

3) They all walk with canes. But they don't even twirl them around in fancy ways like a pimp, they just totter around like a geriatric. The main cool thing in England is seeming like you're 80 years old.

4) They say things like "capital!" and "topping!" whenever a new dictionary edition comes out, and they get all short of breath at opera houses. But if something funny happens, like a person getting stuck in a tar patch or an animal walking on its hindlegs, they blush and mutter and start fiddling with their pockets.

5) They're all obsessed with stamps and the smell of tweed. It's a common rite of passage for young women to make their own 'tweed lamps' and show them off at community gatherings on St. Elspeth's Day.

6) They're so reserved and have such small penises that their locker rooms don't even have group showers. But at the same time, the men send each other roses on the 15th of every month.

7) The most beloved athlete in the country is a guy who breeds tea leaves. His name is Everett Stevenson Everett, and he stirred up controversy in 2007 when he batted his eyes at a poster of Rene Zellwegger. Some fans still have not forgiven him.

8) You can always tell who the poor people are because they can't balance a pipe on their mustache.

9) It's considered shameful to appear at masquerades or to accidentally curtsy in the presence of a Catholic.

10) The main premise of most of their comedies is that the main character thinks it's normal to drive a car backwards through town, and when the cops chase him he always thinks they're going the wrong way since the cop car is facing him, and they both start beeping at each other until the main character backs into a croquet game and the guy about to hit the ball goes "that's one way to strike a wicket!" and grins at the camera while the song "Cardigans and Daffodils" plays.

BEAT ENGLAND!