CHOKERS?!?!

CC, Teixeira Gag in Yanks Debuts, CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira fail to live up to the hype in Yanks debuts...

These are just two of the national headlines that I saw today.  The first one courtesy of espn.com, the latter courtesy of cnnsi.com.  Seriously?!?!  It's funny because the NY media gets a rap for "the sky is falling" type of coverage when it comes to local baseball.  Yet a quick check of national headlines this morning shows that they aren't much better.

Anyway, I am not worried.  Just a reminder, Sabathia was 1-5 on May 3rd last year.  He went on to become the best pitcher in baseball.  Teixeira, a notorious slow starter, went 0-4 with 5 runners stranded.  You know what?  That's probably not the last time he'll do that this year either.  But more often he is going to wear down pitchers with long counts, draw walks, and give the Yankees the best switch hitter they have had in a while.  So everybody should calm down.  There are 161 games left.

That being said, there were some things that should be cause for alarm, or at least concern:

1. Brian Bruney couldn't throw strikes.  This may have been the most disconcerting thing of the day for me.  Sabathia couldn't throw strikes, but he has a long track record of success.  Bruney, who we are leaning heavily on, has a track record of overthrowing.  The poorer Bruney performs, the more we will hear the shrieks of "WE NEED JOBA IN THE PEN!!!!" 
2. Cody Ransom makes a key error on a double play ball in the 5th and we get no outs out of it.  Then he goes 0-3.  If this guy isn't gonna hit then maybe people will start to realize it's actually an advantage to have a third baseman who has hit  .306/.389/.578 over parts of 15 seasons.
3. Xavier Nady, our 4th best outfielder, as the starting rightfielder (sorry I just can't help bringing this up continually).

Now, hopefully tomorrow Wang will throw 8 innings of 1 run ball, filled with ground balls hit right at Derek Jeter (wink, wink), Swish will get a start and contribute to a5-1 Yankees win...

-Brian