It's Not Quite Jose-Mania Yet...

Sunday afternoon's make-up game had a storybook feel about it, with Jose Contreras tossing blanks at the Mets for six innings, whiffing 10, in front of his family in the Bronx, on his way to an 8-1 win.

It's beautiful, particularly the way that his teammates backed him up: Jeter doing two shots on the day after his birthday (homers, not tequila), Hideki Matsui taking Mike Stanton deep for a Grand Slam.

Back to the man of the hour: it was a great start. That forkball of his was doing some nasty stuff, and according to ESPN, Contreras supposedly hit 101 MPH on the Stadium gun. In the fifth inning, Jose allowed a hit and three walks -- teo-thirds of his total baserunners on the day -- but with the help of a caught stealing, he escaped the inning without a run scoring.

It's all very promising, but let's not give Miriam the key to the city, just yet. First of all, the Mets were the perfect team for Contreras to face on this emotional afternoon. The Mets field a really righthanded, hack-tastic lineup (the Mets have the fifth most strikeouts in the NL, and the second-lowest batting average). Even at his worst, Contreras is a strikeout pitcher.

The second proviso is that Contreras left the game with a "forearm cramp" which reminds one that Jose was rather fragile last year.

So what do you guys think? Is this the start of something, or a lot of hype about a flaky guy beating a bad lineup? And if Will's in the crowd, should we be worried that Jose's forearm might presage elbow problems?

Admiral Sunk?

Looks like the Brad Halsey era may be over, exactly a week after it began.

Didn't get to see the game, but the Admiral gave up 5 hits and 5 walks in 3 1/3 innings, good for six runs.

So what's the word on this Numba One? You were there, tell it like it is. Does the Admiral get a second chance?

Good News For Jose

Jose Contreras' wife and children have finally escaped Cuba, with Contreras taking off from the team yesterday to join them in Miami.

Myriam Contreras, who had been repeatedly denied a Visa to the U.S. since her husband defected from Cuba two years ago, was smuggled out of Cuba, avoiding the Coast Guard to reach the freedom of American soil (for those of you not in the know, Cubans who travel illegally to the U.S. get near-instant residency status, and are on a fast track to U.S. citizenship; the trick is they only get these things if they physically set foot on U.S. soil. If the Coast Guard catches you on the water, you get sent back to the loving arms of Fidel Castro).

I doubt many of us can imagine the kind of stress this situation put on Contreras. His family was left behind in the arms of a totalitarian administration that hated him. Not only was Jose denied the company of his wife and daughter, but rumors had the Castro government arresting Contreras' wife on charges of prostitution.

But the big question (from a baseball perspective) is, will this good news make any difference for Contreras' performance on the field? No one can doubt the strain Jose was under, but does that have anything to do with the lackluster performance Contreras has given the Yanks so far?

Delayed Reaction

More than 24 hours later, Eric Gagne's split-finger/changeup still hasn't come anywhere near the strike zone.

And yet, Hideki Matsui was still out.

Yankees/Dodgers was the best of Interleague play: packed houses at Chavez Ravine, rookie heroics from Brad Halsey, Japanese-on-Japanese action with Hideo Nomo and Hideki Matsui facing each other for the first time, Jeff Weaver getting some revenge against the pinstripers, and (in the finale) nailbiting action with Eric Gagne facing the heart of the Yankee order with the game on the line.

Still, there was a downside to all this baseball-y goodness. The Yankees played sloppy, helping the Dodgers to two wins on Javy Vazquez' error on Friday, and Matsui's insanifying two base error on speedy Dave Roberts on Sunday.

As I write this, ESPN is showing us another replay of the ball rolling through Matsui's legs.

Also, home plate ump Jeff Kellogg's strike zone swelled like a pregnant Roseanne Barr in the late innings of Sunday's game, leading to some calls that Yankee fans are still grouchy about. It wasn't anything that egregious -- as Alex Belth pointed out, those kinda calls just as frequently go the Yankees' way -- except that because of ESPN's K-Zone camera, a call that just plain sucked the first time you saw it became a super-slow-mo clear-as-day ball at least a foot outside.

But the worst thing about this series is this: these are two teams that could conceivably meet in the World Series. If that happened, wouldn't it be cooler if we hadn't had this series this weekend? Could you imagine the anticipation of seeing the Gagne/A-Rod matchup for the first time, of Nomo and Matsui's first big meeting happening on the game's biggest stage?

That's impossible now. Maybe this is over-romanticized, but I don't think anything can replace that feeling of the two World Series representatives being strangers to each other.

So what do you think, folks? Am I just nostalgic, or has Bud Selig robbed the postseason of its luster?