Sum Kwik Hitz

IT'S EARLY YET, but Yanks off to pretty good start at 9-6 after yesterday's almost 5-hour extra-innings 9-7 win at home over Oakland. Melky Cabrera went deep from both sides of the plate, the last one a game winner from the left side in the bottom of the 14th.

N.Y. Manager Joe Girardi has to at least be thinking real long and hard about platooning Cabrera (4 HRs, 7 RBI in just 23 at-bats) in centerfield with slap-hitting Brett Gardner batting a powerless .240 with only 3 RBI in 50 ABs.

You can only carry so many automatic outs in a lineup. Alex Rodriguez's replacement at 3B Cody Ransom is struggling at the plate big-time so far, "hitting" an anemic .170 with 0 HRs. Obviously whatever's responsible for the record pace of long balls leaving the new Stadium -- with speculation ranging from wind tunnels and seating angles to early-season weather patterns -- it isn't rescuing Ransom any when he's in the batter's box. Five more were hit yesterday: the 2 by Cabrera, 1 each by Hidecki Matsui and Derek Jeter (playing in his 2,000th game as a Yankee), and 1 by Oakland's Kurt Suzuki.

John Sterling, too-long-time radio voice of Yanks, has lowered his own lame standards with new home run call for 1B Mark Teixeira. It starts with the usual unspontaneous "It is high, it is far, it is gone" before the cringe-worthy "Mark sends a Tex message!" Weak.

Mets at 6-8 are playing even worse than their record, and with their legions of neurotic fans, you just know that the psychiatric business will be thriving now despite the recession.

WFAN and ESPN-Radio phone lines are burning up already, with talk show hosts fielding complaints about everything from Dan Murphy's defensive struggles in left field and the shaky starting pitching after Johan Santana to the lack of clutch hitting and the stunning lack of Met history on display at the new Mets home, Jackie Robinson Stadium, uh, Citi Field.
What were the odds? The Pittsburgh Pirates are having a much better year than the Somali Pirates. After a modern sports record 15 straight losing seasons, the revamped Bucs have started off 9-6, with an astounding 4 pitched shutouts on the young '09 season. They just completed an impressive dismantling of the surprising 11-4 Marlins, outscoring Florida 18-6 over the 3-game sweep in Pittsburgh.

Nobody can explain why the homers are flying out out of new Yankee Stadium, with 26 hit over the first 6 games of the homestand (only 160 were hit over 8o games last year at the old Stadium). Moreover, another design flaw has been on display at the new park: two HRs already have been disputed because it's so easy for fans to reach down over the wall and interfere with outfielders. One umpire conference lasted over 7 minutes before upholding the HR ruling. It's just bush league.

Another common sight at the new Yankee Stadium is row upon row of empty box seats, the ones priced at thousands of dollars per game. Wherever fans are sitting, they can expect to be routinely gouged by the obscene food and beverage prices, to the tune of up to 15 bucks a beer if you're foolish enough to enter the Stadium's Hard Rock Cafe.

Also an inordinate number of grand slams and cycles hit this year already. Over the first 15 games, there's been something like 15 Slams and 3 cycles, which for the uninitiated is a player hitting for a single, double, triple and HR in the same game. Cycles are usually much more rare, with 3 about an average full season's worth, if I had to guess. Thank god I don't...














He'd rather be in Pittsburgh
"The pirate suspect arrested in the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama was all smiles on arriving in New York City late Monday, escorted by a phalanx of law enforcement officers."