BRONX, NY – From the Timing is Everything Department; Jacob deGrom “Garden Gnome” Giveaway Day is Saturday, May 2nd at CitiField and coincidently, comes after Mark Teixeira hit a pair of homers to Nome, Alaska off of the reigning NL Rookie of the Year, in the opening game of the Subway Series Friday at Yankee Stadium. The second dinger was a moon shot that landed with a louder thud than the fall of the Mets eleven game winning streak.
A Mets fan never wants to lose to the Yankees but when the Evil Empire ended the giddiness of this MLB season’s fastest start, it stung right to the Blue & Orange core. Add in the win streak of four in a row and seven of the last eight, and you have obnoxious Pinstripe fans bullying scrawny Mets supporters and kicking sand in their faces – in the way it has been over the years.
Even with the aging bats and holes in the batting order the Yankees sucked the juice out of what was supposed to be, according to Short Matt, “the most important Subway Series ever.” The more things change , the more they stay the same is how the saying goes and while I can’t stomach the Yankees, the Mets still have work to do in order for this to be their town, despite the restoring some order behind Matt Harvey yesterday .
A louder tremor absorbed around the Long Island area occurred Wednesday night, when the New York Islanders looked like road kill in a 5-1 loss in Game 5 of their series against the Washington Capitals. The Isles have officially shit the bed since blowing a 3-1 lead in Game 2 and even though enjoying a series lead at two games to one, have scored just five goals in the last four games heading into yesterday. Saturday afternoon looked to be closing time at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, where the Isles won their first Cup on an early Spring matinee game courtesy of Bobby Nystrom’s stick but with a few greenhorns on defense, all the home team accomplished was merely a stay of execution.
It’s customary for Rangers fans to revel in Islander misfortune (Potvin sucks!) but before Blueshirts fans gloat too much remember that your first round bye came against a Penguins team that couldn’t get out of their own way down the regular season stretch. Pittsburgh, despite having two of the greatest players on the planet in Crosby and Malkin, were more offensively impotent than a castrated bull. The reason? Transition on offense starts in the defensive zone by defensemen–which the Pens were without three of their top six blueliners including offense-minded Kris Letang. Rather than make excuses Pittsburgh sucked it up behind Marc Andre Fleury and made the Rangers work for all four of the 2-1 wins. The New York power play was dreadful. Henrik Lundqvist was rarely tested. The Penguins dictated the slow pace counterintuitive to the Rangers style. Had this series been against any other playoff team you can bet your sweet ass it would have gone six or seven games with the winner up for debate.
That’s all for now, come back tomorrow for Doc Diz – and you can find me on Twitter at @CheesyBruin.
