Ending a six game slide, by beating the Yankees, in extra innings, with a walk off homerun by Brian Roberts; dare I say it?! Priceless! As I was deafening my wife with my clapping, whistling and screaming after the victory, I told her, “This was almost better than Christmas!”
Apparently Brian Roberts agreed with me, "We had a little sense of urgency tonight, more so than in the past week. There was more emotion, more excitement, more energy than we've had in the past couple days."
If someone told me that the Birds would be a game a half out of first place in the AL East by the All-Star break at the beginning of the season, I would have been pretty happy. With several games more to go before the actual All-star break, it is completely possible we will regain first place. I realize we could go the opposite direction, but I’m an optimist!
A return of Javy Lopez, BJ Surhoff and Melvin Mora to the lineup and solidifying our bullpen we will be looking pretty good. The 6 game slide came at a time when our starting pitching went south and no one was hitting, in addition the Sox took 7 of their last 10 games. Most of our losses were close games and we had a fighting chance to win them. Last nights game was the perfect way to end a losing streak and kick back into gear.
"That's the way to do it," Mazzilli said. "We had our backs against the wall, losing six straight, playing this team. We came back."
The Yankees manager had some insight on playing the odds with a switch hitter. "We saw enough of Roberts hitting left-handed. We just wanted to turn him around and see if it made a difference," Torre said. "I guess it didn't." Thanks for those precious words of wisdom Joe!
Posted by price at June 29, 2005 04:45 PM | TrackBack