I didn't have high hopes for a win last night and I wasn't disappointed.  I started out listening to the game on XM while watching the Phillies-Mets game on ESPN.  As someone last night mentioned, Chis Coste, the 33 year old rookie I wrote about a few weeks ago started at catcher for the Phils.  While he didn't get a hit (he's now 0-12 in his ML career), he gunned down Jose Reyes, the ML leader in stolen bases, from his knees...a perfect throw.  The thing is Coste plays mostly 3B and 1B and rarely caught recently in the minors.

As an aside, the Phillies were lousy!  Bobbling ground bals (badly), baserunning errors, poor routes to fly balls, dropped flies, etc.

Fortunately the rains came in Phillie in the 4th inning and ESPN eventually switched to the Yankee-Indian game and I got to see Jason Johnson pitch.  There are good reasons why many of us are down on Jason, but when he hit Posada I was pleased to see he didn't back down from Posada's antics. It was obvious to everyone that it was not intentional and I'm glad Johnson returned Posada's gestures. I was also impressed that Johnson's first pitch to the next batter moved him off the plate to show he wasn't intimidated.  I liked that. Johnson may have trouble with his control, but he doesn't lack cojones.

What really, really irks me is what happened next.  Like Pavlov's dogs, the next inning Randy Johnson retaliated by throwing at Perez. I understand why, but it was still an intential brushback for an unintentional hit batter and the Indians should have been pissed (I know I was - as Randy Johnson walked off the field to the crowd's cheering I wanted to stuff my foot off his a**).  But it didn't seem to be able to wake the Indians from their stupor.

Look, what is beginning to get to me is not the Indians poor play so much as their acceptance of it. This would have been a perfect time to show the Yankee crowd, who cheered Randy for trying to hit one of our players intentionally.  What does it take to wake Wedge and the Indians fromt their uninspired play?  Doesn't anyone on the team have any fire in their gut?  I watched Eduardo being held back by Posada, POSADA for Gods sake, and he seemingly made no effort to get away.  He should have thrown Posada to the ground (it was Posada's juvenile antics that started the whole thing).  Sure, Eduardo - and maybe Wedge - would have been thrown out and probably fined, but c'mon guys unless we wake up from our slumber soon, this season is toast.  Show some damn emotion. The Yankees and their fans dissed you and you took it like the well-behaved mediocre team that you've become.

Anyone else getting fed up with this team's passive acceptance of losing?