In Mariano I trust

I was at a book presentation last night, so I only watched bits and pieces of the 3-2 loss to the Mariners.
I did see the horrible blown call by Gerry Davis (check out a screen cap at River Ave. Blues - http://riveraveblues.com/ - or Canyon of Heroes - http://canyonofheroes.blogspot.com/ ).

I think the Yankees would have won that game without that blown call (Mariano may never have faced Beltre), but that’s baseball for you. If nothing else, it keeps down those anti-Yankee fans who are always bitching about the Yankees get favorable calls.

As to Mariano’s loss, I actually thought that Mariano pitched very well. If you look at the pitch Beltre hit, it was a 96 MPH fastball. Jorge Posada was calling for an inside pitch, and Mariano threw it a little bit to the center.

HRs happen, even to Mariano. Personally, I don’t think this appearance by Mariano as comparable to his Oakland or Boston meltdowns or as a harbinger of prolonged shakiness by Mariano (we already had WWWMW).

Until further notice, I am still fully confident in Mariano this year (though arguably, his ERA is going to look horrible by the end of the year, unless you tease out the noise from those Oakland and Boston meltdowns).

JRVJ