Gonzalez has pitched well for a bad team. A club can control him for another 4 years, he’s lefthanded, and gifted. Try to get him. Try not to give up the crown jewel pitching prospects.

Take the good pitcher over the good hitter.

By the way, who cares about Burnett. The Yankees have wasted plenty of money on other players, at least we got Game 2 of the 2009 WS out of him. If I were Girardi, I would tell him (assuming we keep him), “So we tried to trade you, can you blame us? What are you going to do about it? Prove us wrong.” And hand him a ball.

Do not be mad at Jose Reyes for leaving. Your team never made an offer. Reyes went back to the Mets after the Marlins made their offer and it was met with silence. He can’t play for the Mets if they never offer him a contract and a position.

And, by the way, if you call talk radio and say you are never watching baseball again because Reyes is gone, then you never loved the game in the first place. The game should be enough.

That is all.

The interesting aspect to this is the tension that will occur between Bobby and the Sox front office team. The Red Sox after enjoying success over the past decade are now committed to the principles of sabermetrics fully. He said he didn’t believe in it when he was with Texas but has accepted it somewhat. He wasn’t fooling me any. He still doesn’t believe in it. It will be interesting to see that tension and when they meet up with the Yanks to see the mind of Bobby V go against Girardi’s “magic binder” which holds the secrets of Hogwarts and Mordor all in one easy to find index.

However, the stakes are high for Bobby because with the talent on the roster and the resources of the franchise, he’ll have no excuses. The Roundtable will be able to say to him just like Kirk said to Khan: “Khan, I’m laughing at the superior intellect.”

The Wild Card is fine, I like it too. But let’s face it, the format change is not for someone like me. I don’t need baseball jazzed up to be interested in it. I find it interesting on its own merits. It’s for the casual fan and for the younger generation that needs a little something extra.

I’m tired of having no pitching. The priority has to be pitching. Swisher, a nice guy good to have on your club, but guys like him are important in the post season because he’s going to come up with men on base time and time again because the pitchers are going to navigate the lineup. Why not convert Montero to a right fielder and let him just be all he can be as an offensive player. He may have to go in a deal though for a pitcher, but honestly, I would just like to see these young arms be developed – and stick with it this time! Kennedy is pitching game 5 for Arizona. Stay with it, don’t give up so quickly. We need to get younger.

I’m not going to get on Girardi so much – he said Nova tightened up, can’t expect him to go longer with him. I thought he had a pretty good plan for the game. It was close – he accomplished his goal and put the team in a position to come back. The hitters failed. To think this team could only muster 2 runs at home (without Verlander pitching) —– is a complete failure.

Fister. I know his record in the second half is very good, good ERA, everything. His record came against second division teams, and here’s the key part: The Yanks have seen him and saw him five days ago. This is not the unknown pitcher the Yanks have never seen and therefore “don’t know how his ball moves.”

Just a feeling. I think A-Rod has a good night. He’s close.

The thing I always worry about with a win like that, is when the bats get going, you don’t want a day off. Paul O’Neill used to say that. We want to keep it going let’s keep the bats hot.

Granderson, what else can you say? The guy is what you would call a “gamer.” If we can keep this going, I see big things from him – I love the way he’s playing the game. We’ll work on those strikeouts in the off season.

And, where has this defense been? Even without the Granderson grabs, the defense overall is performing very well. I haven’t counted how many double plays there have been overall, but it seems like they’re turning them every other inning. They are playing defense as a cohesive unit. I like it.

AJ tonight —- oh boy. Getting my Psych 101 book off the shelf tonight.

We’ve got to forget all that. Look, this was a weak pitching staff from the get-go. How they won 97 games will be one of life’s eternal mysteries, like the popularity of the Golden Girls, or the Bay City Rollers.

It boils down to this. Granderson- Cano-A-Rod-Tex. That’s it, that’s all. Bring the lumber or do the slumber. Grip it and rip it. For one night, and one night only do not make the game complicated. See the ball, tee it up and hit it some place hard. That is the only way out of this. I can’t believe I’m saying this but —- get it back to Nova on Thursday. I like Nova, but that tells you something right there.

If the situation calls for it, I think we’re getting a Valverde meltdown though. I’d prefer the score to be 8-2 Yanks, but if Valverde has to go through the Yanks’ meat of the order to close out the series, now that would be something!