Michael Kay, Todd Helton, and other notes

Stone Cold Homer

• You remember last night's Yankees/O's game right? Its the one that Alex Rodriguez won by hitting a grand slam with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning. I bet you forgot that Jeter managed to draw a walk on a 3-2 pitch (if my memory serves) a few batters earlier. Well, Yankees announcer Michael Kay didn't. It took Kay just half an inning during today's broadcast to give Derek Jeter credit for being “clutch” in the ninth inning of last night’s game. You'll remember from two sentences ago, that A-Rod hit the grand slam home run to win the game. When Kay finally got to that fact, it was not described as a ‘clutch’ grand slam home run to win the game, and not even a grand slam home run to win the game, just a home run. Silly A-Rod… Didn’t he know he didn’t need to hit a grand slam homer? He should have hit a double. He’s always piling on. Jeter would have hit a double.

• Part of the reason the Red Sox are 2-3 right now is that they haven't shown any power. In fact, the entire Red Sox team has as many home runs as Paul Bako. Who, you say, is Paul Bako? Exactly.

• According to Kay, this season was the first time in Yankees history in which none of the first five starters made it into the fifth inning. That doesn't bode well for the Yankees post-season aspirations. They won’t be able to over-come terrible starting pitching no matter how good their hitting.

• According to Gordon Edes of the Boston Globe, the Red Sox are still interested in Todd Helton of the Colorado Rockies. It would be interesting to see what the Rockies are asking for to give up Helton. Helton is a good hitter, but he's older and has been on the DL a fair bit over the past few years. Probably even more problematic is the massive contract that the Rockies handed Helton, which has him signed through 2011 at $16.6 Million a season. I'm sure the Red Sox would be happy to have Helton, but not unless the Rockies pick up a vast majority of that contract.