Former overrated yankee and current yankee announcer (every fifty games or so) Joe Girardi had a real winner of a stat tonight: The yankees are 24-3 when Quantrill, Gordon, and Rivera pitch in the same game.

Okay, proverbial class, can anyone tell me why that stat is completely misleading, meaningless, and nearly as overrated as Girardi himself?

That's right, because that's their whole plan for a win, is to have what's his name pitch the 7th, and bla bla bla pitch the eighth, and the legend Mariano yadda yadda yadda the save. So when they can get those three into a game, it means evrything has gone according to plan, and chances are, they're going to win.

So that stat is like saying, "The yankees are undefeated when they hold the other team scoreless. Amazing. Only the yanks. Wow."

I can just hear Francesa tomorrow repeating that stat on the air tomorrow in that stupid accent of his. And by the time some overnight schmuck on the third-rated sports station is saying it, every yankee fan will know it by heart, not having a clue that it really means absolutely nothing.

The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it gets. I was gonna stop there, but now I'm thinking, If Mariano comes in the game, it means (95 percent of the time) that the yankees are winning and need three more outs to end the game. So you could probably say, "When Mariano and ANY two other pitchers pitch in a game, the yankees are, you know, whatever and three." The total number of losses will be roughly the number of Mariano's blown saves, so it will always be an "amazing" winning percentage.

Anyway, the stupid yankees lost tonight, thanks to Gordon's 6th blown save.

And we won big in Toronto, and now we go home for ten. I'm psyched to be going up there for Varitek's return, and Pedro on Saturday.

Back to 5 out in the loss column, and the magic number is all the way down to 43.