The Season

Back for the Armageddon

2006-08-18T11:31:00.000-07:00

Vacation at the shore nearly wrecked this blog. But I’m back now after a long delay with apologies. You’re smart, I’m stupid; you’re the best, I’m the worst; you’re very good looking, I’m not attractive. As long as I’m willing to admit that, off with the show.

The last time I wrote here the Abreu/Lidle trade had just come across the wire, so we might as well start with that. It’s exciting to add a player of Abreu’s caliber and he looks good, but I’m not completely sold on him. I remember earlier when the Yankees played in Philadelphia that it seemed like he was swinging a sluggish bat. He has been playing very well offensively since arriving here. But his power has disappeared since the second half last year, which is never a good sign. He’s still a top-flight hitter at the moment, but you have to wonder if he’s in decline. And defensively he’s looked kind of rough so far—very good arm, but not much range. Cory Lidle came along with him, a journeyman pitcher who slides into the back of the rotation. Good job by Cashman to pluck Lidle away—he’ll never be a very good pitcher, but he’s good enough to give you a chance to win as a 4/5 starter.

So boil it down to this: this trade made the Yankees the favorite to win the World Series this year (forget the Tigers; nice story, but they’re toast in the playoffs). Abreu makes this the most dangerous lineup top-to-bottom anywhere. What you like about him is that he’s a multidimensional hitter who works counts better than anyone, which was the approach that was part of the 90s dynasty. And Lidle adds needed depth to the pitching staff. But one must hope that Abreu can maintain a high level of play for at least a few years beyond this. Cashman gave up Matt Smith plus 3 low-level prospects, including the top draft pick from last year (it’s not a good thing when giving up a top pick looks like nothing). You’ll wonder what might become of these guys in the future, but this is a trade Cashman had to make. Abreu is no Raul Mondesi, but we’ll see how he looks for the next couple years.

One other trade—adding Craig Wilson for Shawn Chacon. Wilson is a guy who was one of the better offensive players on the Pirates but is a bottom-of-the-order guy here. Good trade, but it’s sad to see Chacon go. Everyone loved what he and Aaron Small did for this team last year, and it was gut-wrenching to watch the two of them self-destruct in 2006. Happy trails.

Overall, Cashman came away from the deadline looking like a steely-eyed missile man. I question where Abreu is going, but the team right now should be primed for a run deep into the postseason.

Despite the job Cashman has done putting the team together, things have been choppy for the past couple of weeks. Coming off the deadline, the Yankees dismissed the Blue Jays from the pennant race with extreme prejudice. But they’ve been under .500 since then. The offense just hasn’t quite been consistent, as 4 of the 7 losses following the Toronto sweep have come at the hands of rookie opposing pitchers. But the starting pitching is still fine—Johnson is what he is, Mussina’s fine, Wang is very good, and Lidle and Wright (never mind the meltdown yesterday) are OK in the back. And the bullpen has been generally good, with the exception of the series at Chicago.
So here we are on the cusp of the armageddon series in Boston, with a 1.5 game lead going in. The matchups:

Friday Game 1: Wang v. Jason Johnson
Wang is coming into his own and Johnson is awful.
Friday Game 2: Ponson v. Jon Lester
Huge opportunity for Ponson, but don’t expect much. Lester is a highly-touted rookie and we’ll get our first up-close look at him. Saw him once and wasn’t overly impressed but a closer look will help.
Saturday: Johnson v. Josh Beckett
This game will be a good barometer for Randy Johnson. Beckett has been a colossal disappointment in Boston, leading the planet in home runs allowed. The low point of his season came in early June against the Yankees.
Sunday: Mussina v. Curt Schilling
Somewhere, an ESPN exec does a backflip.
Monday: Lidle v. David Wells
A big game for Lidle. Boomer is a couple weeks back from an injury and has a long history of success against the Yankees.

This looks like the kind of series where neither team is likely to do any significant damage in the standings. And if either does it should be the Yankees—these Sawx are just too pitching-thin. Sit back, relax and strap it down, because the Yankees are entering by far the most brutal stretch of their schedule, heading from Fenway to Seattle and then Anaheim without a day off. If they’re anywhere close to the division lead on August 28, they’ll take it home. 17 of 29 games in September are against the Royals, Devil Rays or Orioles. Here’s saying the Yankees will not see second place again this season.

Catch-up/Abreu

2006-07-30T11:21:00.000-07:00

With no time to write since Tuesday, I’ve left myself with quite a lot to cover from the past 3 games. Here goes.

Wednesday
Strange things have happened this year when the Yankees and Rangers get together; remember when the bullpen blew a 9-run Yankee comeback only to be picked up by Jorge Posada’s 2-run walkoff bomb? Wednesday night saw another ridiculous game. Jaret Wright scuffled through the first half, with the Yankees scoring early on Andy Phillips’s 2-out, 2-run single. The bats fell quiet until the 8th inning, when Alex Rodriguez launched an impressive shot to the grassy hill over the centerfield fence. After a Bernie Williams walk and a Phillips single, Melky Cabrera came to the plate with a sign to bunt. And he provided further evidence for something that we’ve noticed in the past: nobody in the Yankee system teaches prospects to bunt. Robinson Cano isn’t very good at bunting, but he’s not as much of a disaster as Melky; it’s clear that the latter has never had anybody say one word to him about bunt technique. You’re supposed to start with the bat high, around your eyes and over the plate, and try to “catch” the ball with the barrel—if you start high and have to move down, the ball will go down to the ground as desired. Melky squares with the bat at his belt and off the plate, and stabs at the pitch; the result is inevitably a foul ball. So after his first awful attempt, Joe took the bunt off. Yet Melky squared and fouled another bunt off. So Larry Bowa had a few choice words for him, and Joe said later that he turned to Lee Mazzilli after the second strike and said that if Melky squared again, he’d vomit. And with 2 strikes, sure enough, Melky ran his hand up to bunt. Joe didn’t lose his lunch, and luckily the pitch was a ball. Finally realizing that he wasn’t supposed to bunt anymore, Melky jumped on the next pitch and deposited it near the wall in left field, scoring Bernie and Andy to take the lead. Sal Fasano then put on a display of proper bunting technique to advance Melky, who scored on a wild pitch. One thing about Melky: he always seems to be right in the middle of these rallies.

With Kyle Farnsworth’s back locking up, TJ Beam was brought in to hold a 2-run lead. Beam continued to struggle, allowing a walk and a ground-rule double. And when Scott Proctor came in for the third consecutive night, there was no question that trouble was on the way, and it came in the form of 4 straight singles resulting in a 1-run deficit and a bases-loaded, none-out mess. Enter Shawn Chacon. He was bad as a starter and hadn’t been much better out of the pen. But he pulled the Houdini impersonation of the year on this night, striking out Mark DeRosa and then snaring a hard line drive by Brad Wilkerson, dancing like a quarterback and then finding Andy Phillips open at first base for the double play.

Captain Clutch came to the plate down a run in the ninth and promptly lined a single up the middle, bringing up the slumping Jason Giambi. It was the kind of situation where you could feel that Giambi would either take Akinori Otsuka deep or hit into a double play; nothing in between seemed possible. And to cap off the second absurd game these two teams have played this year, Giambi went with the first option and allowed Mariano Rivera to save a much-deserved win for Chacon.

So the Yankees escaped with a sweep of the Rangers, avoiding their typical fate of dropping the final game of a series. The Rangers have some very good hitters; Gary Matthews Jr. is coming into his own, Michael Young is probably the best hitter that nobody knows about, and Mark Teixeira appears to be regaining his power stroke after a disappointing first half. They also just brought in another masher in Carlos Lee. But it’s the same story with them as most other teams in the league: they just haven’t been able to produce much in the way of capable Major-League pitching. They brought in last season’s AL ERA leader, Kevin Millwood, and he has struggled. Maybe it’s the homer-happy ballpark, but it seems Arlington has replaced Denver as the park where good pitching careers go to die.

Friday
With so much to say about Wednesday night, luckily there’s not a lot to talk about with the first two against the Devil Rays. Chien-Ming Wang put together the most dominant performance this team has seen this year, not allowing a baserunner until the 5th inning and finishing with a complete-game shutout with 2 walks and 2 rather uninspiring singles against him. With this performance, Wang has now put himself in the upper echelon of pitchers in the American League, with a 12-4 record and 3.77 ERA.

Saturday
In Randy Johnson’s storied, Hall-of-Fame career, what team do you suppose he sports the worst track record against?

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays. And that was true even before this game. They own him.

And that is all I have to say about that.

Rumors
I had just begun writing a sentence about how things were heating up for Bobby Abreu when the news came across that the deal is done. It’s Abreu and Cory Lidle for CJ Henry (a shortstop who was the Yankees’ top pick in 2005) and Matt Smith, plus a player to be named later. This looks like one hell of a deal, not giving up a whole lot for a guy who is quite a player (despite having a down year in the power department). And Cory Lidle, who isn’t much of a pitcher but is capable enough to be a solid 5th starter. The only reservation is this: once Matsui comes back, what happens to Melky? I suppose you could DH Matsui and play Giambi at 1st, but he’s a liability there. Melky has a batting eye which you just don’t see from a 21-year-old Latin player. I’d very much like to see him get the chance to develop. But the trade itself looks like an absolute steal.

Keep in mind I wrote that in the exciting moments after the deal breaks. More to come after the dust settles.

"Going, Going, Guiel"

2006-07-26T08:12:00.000-07:00

Yes, I stole the title from the Post.

What looked like a fairly impressive win for the Yankees was actually just as much a gift from the Rangers, as the Yankees managed only 4 hits and took advantage of 6 walks, 2 hit batters and a critical error late in the game. Mike Mussina didn't quite have his A+ command but battled through 6 innings and held the Rangers to 3 runs for his 12th win. The offense continued to get major contributions from role players; in fact, they were the only real contributors last night. Aaron Guiel is having a bit of a power surge with homers in consecutive games including last night's 3-run gamebreaker. Miguel Cairo is just a machine--put him up with runners in scoring position and 2 out and you can take it to the bank that they'll score. Andy Phillips showed good discipline, something he normally lacks, to draw a walk with the bases loaded (although the plate umpire was out to lunch during that inning, as Adam Eaton got squeezed on several pitches and was given a bit too much latitude on others). Ron Villone didn't retire a batter, but Scott Proctor came on and pitched 2 perfect innings backed up by Mariano. Though his line was all zeros, the outs were a little louder against Proctor as Joe is already starting to overuse him again. Pitching for the second straight night, he didn't completely dominate hitters the way he has since the break. That's all for that game, a win that wasn't as impressive as it seemed, but one that you'll gladly take as the lineup now looks worse than ever with Johnny Damon missing time.

The trade rumors are out there without much real action yet. The Yankees did acquire Sal Fasano from the Phillies to replace Kelly Stinnett; Fasano is a journeyman with absurd facial hair, but pretty much anything would be better than Stinnett. It's still at the point where none of the names that have been kicked around are likely to actually end up here--just fodder for the mill. I'm trying to find out more about this George King from the Post, because he covers the Yankees and writes things that make you wonder if he knows who any of the players on the roster are. Check this out from today: "The Post has learned the Yankees and Braves have held discussions about the Yankees acquiring switch-hitting infielder Wilson Betemit and may be willing to give up reliever Scott Proctor." Instead of taking issue with the syntax gap in that sentence, I'll ask why the Yankees would make that trade. "The Yankees view Betemit as the ultimate utility man who can play second base in Robinson Cano's absence. Cano, who has missed a month due to a hamstring problem, is at least two weeks away and could be out longer." Oh, so Cashman is going to trade away a key pitcher from an already-weak bullpen to acquire a player who would help for less than 1 month? Cool. But it gets better: "Getting Betemit would allow the Yankees to entertain trade offers for Cano during the offseason, when they will be in the market for pitching." Why did you write that, George King? Are you ignoring the fact that Cano has been the Yankees' best trading chip this side of Phil Hughes since last season and that Cashman took him off the table at last year's deadline? Please, think before you write, or at least ask someone.

Sizzle

2006-07-24T21:22:00.000-07:00

Just what this team needed tonight: a crisp, clean, refreshing victory to open a new road series. Randy Johnson wasn’t exactly dominant, but provided 6 innings of quality work with 7 K’s for the win. The offense had a pretty decent showing, highlighted by another big hit from Miguel Cairo with 2 out and runners on 2nd and 3rd, and back to back triples by Melky and Jeter. Those two are really swinging the bat well right now.

A-Rod got back on track at the plate with a couple solid hits. The trade rumors have started swirling about him, which is just plain old yellow journalism. If his situation were to continue to get worse until by the end of the season it became unmanageable, then fine. Certainly that’s been a possibility, but it’s a long way off and we probably won’t get there. And please, Phil Rogers, if you want to suggest that A-Rod could be traded before the deadline (which is not even within the broadest realm of possibility; you are either dishonest or foolish), at least do better that Aramis Ramirez and Jacque Jones.

Don’t look now, but the Yankee bullpen has been close to spectacular since the break if you discount Sunday’s fireworks in long relief. Farnsworth has actually looked like a pitcher, especially in his past couple games. Yes, Mariano gave up the Vernon Wells bomb, but that’s been it. Villone and Myers are fine. And then there’s Scott Proctor, who is rested and simply untouchable. Since the break: 7 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 12 K. TJ Beam also got called up again today.

So enjoy the warm, fuzzy feeling that comes with the front end of the rotation—Moose tomorrow, then Wright and Wang and no worries about the 5th spot with an off day Thursday.

Goodnight Canada

2006-07-23T19:57:00.000-07:00

Maybe things aren’t quite as swell with the Yankees’ starting pitching as it seemed a week ago. Nobody knew what to expect from Sidney Ponson today and he was bad, but now Jaret Wright is scuffling again. The top 3 of this rotation still rivals anyone, as Chien-Ming Wang pitched well enough to win again Saturday, but if Ponson doesn’t make a statement in his next start it may be time to give Shawn Chacon another shot or look elsewhere. The good news on the pitching front is that Red Sox rookie Jon Lester, who hadn’t allowed more than 3 runs in a start, got roughed up today (5 earned over 5 innings).

The offense is struggling too, averaging 4 runs per game in the past 2 series. The focal point of the team’s problems is A-Rod, as usual. Joe better find him a lifeline, because he’s drowning. It’s pretty clear that his struggles in the field have affected his offensive performance which includes no hits in his past 10 at bats and a miserable 4 strikeout performance Saturday. Buster Olney wrote an excellent article in his ESPN.com blog today, comparing A-Rod’s struggles to the Chuck Knoblauch saga from a few years ago. Olney says he sees that A-Rod’s confidence is completely gone and that he is playing to avoid mistakes rather than trusting his ability. But he also points out that Knoblauch was a difficult personality, and that A-Rod is different in his willingness to acknowledge the problem and work through it. But no matter how hard he works, he is “spooked” and this kind of problem is mysterious and difficult to solve, and somebody better do something to get him back on track before he is completely wrecked. It’s coming to the point where my disdain for him is dissolving into pity and desperate hopes for success.

These Blue Jays are quite a team. Everybody’s been waiting for a few years now for them to finally contend in this division again. I’m not so sure about their pitching behind Halladay and Burnett, but if Burnett is healthy the Jays have as good a 1-2 punch as any team not called the Twins. You don’t even realize it but with the emergence of Vernon Wells as one of the most dangerous hitters in the league, this team has a deep, quality lineup. And that’s even without their breakout hitter, Alex Rios. Troy Glaus was a heck of a pickup, despite his low batting average. I suspect the lack of depth in their rotation will keep them from truly making the East a 3-team division this year, but they’re close.

It’s time to get the hell out of Toronto and try to get things straightened out on the next turn through the rotation against the Rangers and Devil Rays. The Sawx head to Oakland and draw Barry Zito and Danny Haren, meaning there could be a good opportunity to get back to the top of the division by the end of this week.

Canada

2006-07-22T00:18:00.000-07:00

Where did that winning streak go? The offense disappeared earlier this week and now the pitching isn’t there either. And with the Red Sox hot again (don’t get too worked up—they just hosted the Royals) that coziness of a ½ game deficit has disappeared. Jaret Wright didn’t have it tonight, and the Blue Jays have been putting on a pretty impressive offensive show. The kind of display that puts you to sleep for 4 or 5 innings if you’re a fan of the opposing team who is tired after work on a Friday. Equally impressive was AJ Burnett, throwing in the high-90s with a guillotine curve. If he somehow manages to stay healthy, that rotation will be scary and this will be a 3-team division by next year, or maybe even the end of this year.

A-Rod accounted for the only offense tonight with a 3-run laser, career home run 450. He also had another throwing error. Nobody in this lineup is doing much of anything right now, but the cure is about to be administered: Ted Lilly, whom the Yankees own, and Shaun Marcum, who has a grand total of 1 career start (although this team has been known to struggle with young starters they haven’t seen before).

The bullpen had some work to do tonight. Shawn Chacon was given a shot to get things together; he wasn’t bad but didn’t exactly run with it. Ron Villone was great and Kris Wilson allowed a bomb to Troy Glaus. I looked at some rumor stuff today and something I read rang my bell: how about looking inward for bullpen help? Finding relief pitching can often be a crapshoot, and there are enough young arms in Columbus to try to find the bullpen version of Chien-Ming Wang, Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera. Wilson had two outstanding relief appearances before tonight. Matt Smith looked promising while he was here, if he can cut down on the walks. I liked TJ Beam’s stuff. Jesus Colome is lighting people up in Columbus (Colome and Wilson aren’t original Yankee products, but no matter). Joe needs more arms out there, especially considering that it’s clear that Scott Proctor can be a lights-out reliever if (and only if) he is not overworked. I still have a soft spot for Chacon, but things should probably get sorted out soon between him and Sidney Ponson so that there aren’t any pitchers out there who aren’t really filling a role. Ponson starts Sunday in a game the Yankees will need, perhaps desperately. Chacon probably isn’t a good long man, and Villone can hold that spot down, so keeping both Chacon and Ponson won’t be helpful. Point is, Joe needs as much help as he can get out there, and you’re just as likely to find it on the farm as you would be in a trade. Nobody has any middle relief to trade.

I suspect things will once again turn around here as the Yankees catch the soft underbelly of the Jays rotation and the Sawx head out to the West Coast for 6 games, including the A’s, who recently took their lunch money at Fenway.

E-Rod

2006-07-20T21:51:00.000-07:00

Alex Rodriguez is in the middle of the toughest year of his career. He’s been drowning in pressure situations and getting booed out of the Stadium. He continues to be a completely different player in the clutch after it looked like he had things turned around before the break with a couple big hits. And now with things not going right at the plate, he looks like he’s developing a case of the yips in the field, with 4 throwing errors in as many games. A guy with one of the best arms in the world is flipping the ball sidearm instead of throwing it hard over the top like normal, and the results are ugly. Tonight’s boner was particularly costly—a rather easy play where he should have cut down the first run of the game turned into a nobody out, runner on 2nd situation with a run in. The floodgates opened from there, with 4 runs scoring in the inning. Some speculate that it is a physical problem causing the poor mechanics, but he’s still making some good throws too. There was a play in the 1st inning where he made a nice pickup and spiked the ball, throwing it on 3 hops to 1st, but there were several others that looked close to normal. Fragile as his psyche is, it seems like his mental block at the plate is spreading to his play in the field. This problem has just developed and it’s too early to tell what is going on, but this kind of issue has ruined careers (see: Chuck Knoblauch). I’m probably overreacting to all this, but with a headcase like A-Rod you never know. And what some of the radio guys have been saying is right: it’s become a kind of trendy thing to boo him. You can see it when you’re in the stands—the people who boo are the casual fans who don’t really know the game and don’t truly care about the team. Those who are devoted may be disgusted by his play but recognize that booing is only going to make his mental block worse.

That’s two frustrating losses in a row brought on by inconsistent offense, although 4 runs against Roy Halladay and BJ Ryan is not horrible. But the lineup has been scuffling lately. A-Rod needs to get it together; Cano will help and hopefully you can get a little something out of Matsui. The Abreu thing looks dead and there isn’t much available for a team that chooses to keep its top prospects. Reggie Sanders and others of similar caliber are possible, but at this point it says here it’s probably best to just play the hand you’ve been dealt.

I think SportsCenter said this was the third walk-off homer allowed in Mariano Rivera’s career. Posada and Rivera were saying he didn’t miss, but it looked like a poorly located pitch to Vernon Wells. More importantly, it tells you all you need to know about Joe’s level of trust in Kyle Farnsworth to leave him in the pen and bring in the closer for 2 innings in a tie game on the road. That’s a vote of no confidence. Also worth noting was Scott Proctor’s dominant performance, once again lighting people up with his fastball. He ran out of gas after being completely overworked in the first half, but with rest he can still be effective it seems—he’s allowed only 1 hit, no walks and no runs while striking out 8 in 5 innings since the break.

Melky!

2006-07-20T16:12:00.000-07:00

After winning a game started by Sidney Ponson in dramatic fashion, you thought the Yankees were in the midst of a long winning streak. But what has been more typical this season than the Yankees putting themselves in position to sweep a series and then dropping the final game in disheartening fashion? And this game was disheartening as it came down to the offense not showing up and Ichiro Suzuki taking advantage of an inept backup catcher—reaching on a little dribbler in front of the plate and drawing a bad throw into centerfield to set up a sacrifice fly in the 8th. Ichiro racks up hits and is dangerous on the bases. He’s a productive player, I understand this. But he just really bugs me; I can’t stand the way he does it. Hit the ball out of the infield, please. Randy Johnson apparently shared those sentiments, staring Ichiro down when he reached base.

If yesterday was a tough game to lose, Tuesday was a heck of a game to win. Ponson was not great but he wasn’t horrible either, which is far better than anyone could have ever expected. Richie Sexson hit the ball to the moon in the 1st inning after 2 walks and things didn’t look good, but Ponson got it together and was outstanding after the homer. Everybody is eagerly anticipating his next start. The comeback in the 9th was a sight to see through the driving rain. I haven’t seen the Posada replay (I was in the bleachers), but word has it the call was clearly wrong, although the Met fan WFAN guys have sounded idiotic talking about it: “You know actually I thought he was safe when I watched it live…but it was clearly a blown call…when you watch 8 different replays and slow each one down frame by frame, you can see it is CLEAR that it was a bad, bad call.” What does that even mean? Tough spot for the umpires having to pull them off with 2 out and a 3-1 count, and even tougher for the players coming back after a 2-hour delay. Just imagine what was going on with A-Rod’s mind for all that time, knowing he was waiting with a chance to win the game. He struck out, of course, and after doing some heroic things before the break he’s reverted to his helpless self in big spots, looking as bad as ever in every important at-bat. But after not getting anything out of the middle of the lineup in the 10th, the Yankees looked to Melky Cabrera to start something in the 11th. Instead, Melky took a nice easy swing at the ball, and launched a game-winning rocket into the box seats in right field. This was the most special moment I’ve been in the Stadium for since the Jeter catch against the Sawx in 2004. Melky is doing all this for the first time, and he had the same awe-struck look as when he hit his first homer or his first grand slam. Despite the fact that he looks to be in disbelief when he does these things, he has shown a knack for producing in the clutch. And this is true of all the young, homegrown guys the Yankees are bringing up—Melky, Robinson Cano, and Andy Phillips (who started the rally in the 9th with a double) haven’t been fazed by pressure situations. Phillips is on the upswing right now, with a bunch of extra-base hits since the break.

I mentioned the Posada call; a blown judgment call isn’t as bad as what was done with Andy Phillips after he advanced to 3rd base while the catcher turned his back to argue a call in the 7th. The 3rd base umpire appeared to be saying that he called timeout before Phillips reached 3rd, but even if he did he was wrong. You can’t call timeout in that situation, with the ball in play and a runner advancing—it’s just against the rules. And a runner on 2nd instead of 3rd makes a big difference with less than 2 out. With the outcome of 2 games called into question, that’s a bad job by an umpiring crew.
The Yankee pitching rotation continues to look as strong as it has this season, with Sidney Ponson earning another start. The bullpen also did not allow a run in this series (the Seattle bullpen was impressive as well; they’ve some great arms out there in Sherrill, Lowe and Soriano). The offense did scuffle, and Joe hasn’t been able to run a good lineup out there at all recently. With Cano and Jorge Posada out you end up with a bottom 3 that resembles a National League lineup. Those two guys have been missed but Posada is back tonight and hopefully Cano will be soon, and we’ve heard nothing but great reports about Hideki Matsui’s progress. The way things are looking, Cashman really doesn’t need to do much except in the bullpen, as now Octavio Dotel had another setback today.

I managed to get to 4 of these 6 games—Friday night and the entire Seattle series. We were in the bleachers for 2 of them, and that is highly recommended. They guys out there are the most devoted fans in the Stadium, and they’re all hilarious. Not to mention getting to participate in the roll call for the first time was really cool. The bleachers used to be a place you wouldn’t want to take the kids but they’re alcohol free now so it’s all good, clean fun.

We’re just about to get underway here with what is one of the best pitching matchups you’ll see this season, Mike Mussina against Roy Halladay. Enjoy.

Insert A-Rod disparagement/psychoanalysis

2006-07-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

When you sweep the alleged best team in baseball and then commit 4 errors with your sinkerballer on the mound and still win you’re on your way to a long winning streak. Except, of course, when you’re running Sidney Ponson to the mound the next day. Regardless, the Yankees have been playing like a charmed team since coming back from the break. Tonight saw Alex Rodriguez’s worst game of the year—3 errors, plus an 0-4 including a bad-looking strikeout with the bases loaded in the 7th. Every time you think this guy has turned the corner he takes a huge step back. Walk-off against Atlanta and a big series against the Mets and then he goes hitless in Tampa. Good job against the White Sox and now this. He hurt his toe tonight with a foul ball and despite his enigmatic play, this team can’t afford another injury. Chien-Ming Wang had some kind of performance tonight—for a groundball pitcher like him to survive 4 errors and give his team 7 innings and allow only 2 runs is remarkable. If Cashman can get anything done for a 5th starter this team will be a force in the 2nd half (Robert just offered me Kyle Lohse for “a puerto rican transvestite hooker that will fight rondell white before a game”). Right now the top 4 starters can stack up with just about anybody.

Offensive nods tonight go to Johnny Damon with a tasty 3-4 game and especially to Miguel Cairo for his 2-out, 2-run single in the second. Cairo has only gotten regular time while Robinson Cano has been out; in limited action he has 38 hits and it sometimes seems like every one of them comes with runners in scoring position. The Mariners also provided a lot of help with 3 errors of their own (a 7 error game ending 4-2 in under 3 hours is rather odd).

The bullpen provided a quiet 8th from Myers and Proctor and a scoreless (although not smooth) 9th from Mariano. Everybody’s been saying all kinds of wonderful things about him and they’re mostly true, but he actually has been getting knocked around a bit since the break—2 runs Friday, a bit of a knotty situation yesterday and a couple hits tonight. Probably just a meaningless bump in the road, and he’s still getting the job done. And it’s true that he’s a wonderful individual and a wonderful baseball player. But if I hear one more Jon Sterling or Michael Kay comment about how he’s been the most important player to this team in the past 11 years, well, I won’t really do anything but I’ll continue to be pissed. Let’s not make ourselves sound ridiculous, guys—what happened to Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams? Kay even called him the greatest pitcher in the history of baseball. Yes, Rivera has been truly great and was dominant during the championship run. But he also was ineffective in 2 situations this team desperately needed to win—the World Series after the attacks in 2001, and obviously the 2004 ALCS. I have been a bit too hard on him in the past and I love what he does on a regular basis, not to mention the chills when the ominous chords of Enter Sandman fill the Stadium, but sometimes these guys just go over the top with their praise of him.

I will give Michael Kay some credit though, for one of the lines of the year. I may not remember the quote perfectly, but on his radio show coming back from a commercial: “I really hate the kid from the Taco Bell commercials…I want to punch him in his face.”

It was a funny day all around in New York sports talk, with Mad Dog Russo, normally anti-Yankee, actually going to bat for this team today. What a difference a weekend makes. Everybody seemed to realize two things: that the White Sox rotation isn’t as great as we all thought before the season; and that the Red Sox rotation is just plain lousy. One Sawx fan called in and tried to throw a little cold water on the Yankee euphoria, and Mad Dog summarily punked him and sent him on his way. It’s obvious that people could feel the tide turning over the weekend. I won’t mention that I’ve been saying these things about the respective situation for the Yankees and Red Sox for weeks now. Oh, I guess I just did.

Grab your helmet and buckle up—Sir Sidney makes his debut tomorrow.

You can put it on the board...Yes

2006-07-16T22:24:00.000-07:00

½ game. That’s all that’s separating the Yankees from the division lead after they put on a clinic against the so-called best team in baseball. I’m not convinced that these White Sox are worthy of that title this year—their pitching was supposed to be a great strength but they have underachieved; Mark Buehrle looks just plain lousy. But whether you want to crown them the best or not, they are certainly very good, and the Yankees ran circles around them the entire weekend playing nearly flawless baseball. This team had everything working this weekend. Three solid pitching performances from the Big Unit (7 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 6 K), Moose (6 IP, 8 H, 3 R, 5 K) and Wright (5.1 IP, 8 H, 3 R, 1 K). The bullpen had its shaky moments (Rivera making things interesting Friday and Farnsworth having trouble today) but got the job done including a great performance by Rivera today. The most encouraging facet was the offense, which exploded on the White Sox staff with a diverse attack. Friday night I was at the Stadium to see the Yankees string together a couple nice rallies with big hits by Jorge Posada, Aaron Guiel, Melky Cabrera and Johnny Damon. Saturday saw a 14-3 victory in which the Yankees’ first 11 runs were scored without a home run, just a flurry of bunts and doubles. One of the truly lovely sequences of this season occurred in the 4th inning. With Melky Cabrera on first with a single, the Yankees pressed the Chicago defense with a pair of bunts. Miguel Cairo put one down the third base line which surprised them so much that no one covered. Johnny Damon followed with a bloop bunt to Paul Konerko, whose throw was dropped at third by Alex Cintron. Damon’s bunt was actually kind of a bad one, but as the Angels showed the Yankees in last year’s division series, when you’ve got speed on the bases and fielders rushing to make plays, good things happen. And today the lineup jumped on Freddy Garcia with mammoth first-inning homers by Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter. A-Rod and company also gave the team a lift defensively, 3 very big double plays and OF assists by Melky Cabrera and Aaron Guiel. A-Rod came back from the break with a big series (5-12, 2 R, 3 RBI), as did Andy Phillips (3-8, 2 R, 4 RBI) and Jeter (4-12, 3 R, 4 RBI, first HR since mid-May).

So like I’ve been saying in every post for the past month or so: there’s nothing to worry about with this team. Tuesday will be interesting with Sir Sidney Ponson the Intoxicated taking the hill and probably not retiring a batter. Cashman will need to find someone to fill that hole, and something’s got to happen with the middle relief, but if this weekend is any indication the lineup is just fine. There’s been a lot of talk about Bobby Abreu—speculation is that the Phillies would be willing to take less than top-flight prospects if a team will take his contract off their hands. Whether or not that’s true is questionable and it’s not at all likely that Abreu will be in pinstripes this season. But just imagine Jason Giambi and Bobby Abreu, perhaps the two most discerning eyes at the plate in the world, two on-base machines, in the middle of a lineup. It would be something to see, but Cashman needs to focus on pitching for the time being, because Ponson won’t be around long. With two weeks until the deadline things will start heating up, and you can expect to see more names popping up.

But for right now, the glow remains from the best series this team has had this season. What a show. The Kansas City Triple-A’s roll into Boston this week so don’t expect any help like Oakland provided over the weekend, but if the Yankees continue playing the way they did this weekend they’ll be in the driver’s seat before long.

Midseason Report Card

2006-07-13T21:46:00.000-07:00

With one semester of the 2006 season complete, here’s how the Yankees grade out:

CATCHER
Jorge Posada: B+
His offensive production has been steady if unspectacular. As usual he has been in the middle of the pack defensively, while remaining a consistent anchor behind the plate for the pitching staff and the offense. Outlook: Steady
Kelly Stinnett: F
Dreadful. He can’t throw, can’t hit, can’t do anything worthwhile. Outlook: Who cares

1ST BASE
Jason Giambi: B+
Yes, he’s probably been the team’s offensive MVP. But you’ve got to play defense in this league too. He is a fright with the glove on, having committed the second most errors (7) at his position in the Major Leagues while playing half as many innings in the field as mostly everyone else. He was exposed as a liability in last year’s Division Series and continues to be. Also, his remarkable turnaround at the plate raises serious HGH questions; unfortunately, I have my suspicions. Outlook: Steady
Andy Phillips: C
He’s an extremely likable player and has shown flashes of brilliance, but has been too inconsistent at the plate and his numbers reflect it (.250 AVG, .277 OBP, .405 SLG). And he’s not quite the polished, slick-fielding first baseman we all think he is, with a relatively high error total (4) for the amount of time he’s seen. I want to give him a higher grade and I think he’ll improve, but right now the consistency isn’t there. Outlook: Improvement

2ND BASE
Robinson Cano: A-
He’s hitting the crap out of the ball, has good range and one of the best infield arms anywhere. The minus is only because his hands have failed him at times this year. But great job by Cashman hanging on to a guy that has a good chance to be a batting champion someday. Outlook: Slight cooling possible, but should be fairly steady
Miguel Cairo: A
Never much of a hitter, but that’s not what he’s here for. As the utility man off the bench he can play any position in the field and play it well. He’s had to play a bit more regularly than you want with all the injuries and the numbers aren’t good, but he can produce in the clutch and steals bases. Outlook: Steady
Nick Green: incomplete
Probably won’t be around long.

3RD BASE
Alex Rodriguez: B-
I always kill him but it’s gotten to the point where I feel sorry for him. In this enigma of a season you thought he was ready to break out after big games against the Braves and Mets, and then he spends the entire weekend in Tampa Bay striking out. I’ll subscribe to the trendy notion that he’ll have a big second half, but with his mysterious psyche it’s hard to know what to expect from him. Outlook: Nowhere to go but up

SHORTSTOP
Derek Jeter: A+
He’s been a dominant offensive player this year, on his way to his best season and maybe the batting championship. You knew he’d score a load of runs, but he’s also driving in a ton. His defense is solid but not spectacular, as he has struggled maybe a bit more than usual with balls to his left. But overall this is a wonderful season for a truly great player. Outlook: Steady

OUTFIELD
Gary Sheffield/Hideki Matsui: incomplete
It’s rather astounding that this team has stayed afloat after two of its best hitters went down. They’re saying they’ll be back but it’s tough to expect any production from them this year.
Johnny Damon: A-
He’s been everything you could hope for after throwing a ton of money at him. He gets on base and steals and makes things happen. He hits for power, scores runs and drives them in too. He and gets to everything in centerfield. I was 100% opposed to signing him but now that he’s here you can’t help but love it. Not to mention that the guy I wanted, Juan Pierre, has been nothing but awful for the Cubs. Outlook: Possible improvement
Bernie Williams: B
The allegedly washed-up Yankee star has been a nice surprise this year, hitting the ball well and producing in big spots. He’s not much in the field and he’s long past his good years, but he’s given this team more than they could have expected. Outlook: Possible decline
Melky Cabrera: B+
Best surprise of the year. He’s been up and down at the plate but goes into the 2nd half with a .358 OBP, impressive for a player his age. Still hasn’t found his power, but when he’s on he looks more than capable with a bat in his hands. And the biggest revelation has been in the field—after looking worse than most Little Leaguers last year in centerfield, he has been nothing short of excellent in the corners, displaying an outstanding arm and making one of the great plays you’ll ever see on Manny Ramirez. Outlook: Improvement
Bubba Crosby: incomplete
Hasn’t been around much and hasn’t hit a lick when he has gotten to play. We’ll see how Joe works his lineup in the second half, but he can’t afford a hole in the lineup like this.
Terrence Long: F
Thanks for trying.
Kevin Thompson: incomplete
Not enough at-bats yet, but I’d like to see him get some more because he looks like he can play a little.
Aaron Guiel/Kevin Reese: incomplete
Too early to tell.

STARTING PITCHER
Mike Mussina: A+
Anchoring the staff with one of the best years of his career. After he was written off because of how old he looked last year, his stuff has been electric this year. We can only hope he doesn’t burn out late in the year. Outlook: Uncertain
Randy Johnson: C
Your guess is as good as mine.
Chien-Ming Wang: B+
Never blows anyone away but always keeps his team in the game. Another example of a great job by Cashman reaping the benefits of the Yankee farm system. His stuff is very good and as long as his elbow stays intact he’ll be a fixture for a lot of years in the middle of the rotation. Outlook: Steady, slight improvement possible
Jaret Wright: B
His starts have been mostly good, but conditioning is a major issue. He’ll give you 5 strong innings, 6 on a good night, but that’s not enough when you’re not capable of going further. Outlook: Improvement
Shawn Chacon/Aaron Small: F
I put them together because it’s the same really sad story for both. Together they saved this team last year, and just couldn’t get anyone out this year. Everyone loved these guys and desperately wanted them to succeed, but the magic ran out.

BULLPEN
Mariano Rivera: A
A couple blips on the radar here and there, but for the most part he’s continued his dominance from last year. Outlook: Steady
Kyle Farnsworth: D
Wildly inconsistent as a setup man. He allows far too many baserunners and often chokes the ball in big spots. Cashman needs to do something with this if this team is going to go anywhere. Outlook: Look out
Scott Proctor: C
He was dominant early on but was overused and ran out of gas around the beginning of June. When rested his stuff is very good, but he’s lost some juice on his fastball and has really struggled lately. Outlook: Needs more rest
Ron Villone: B+
He’s had a rather strange season, some good and some bad, but hasn’t really gotten much of a chance in a big spot; Joe apparently doesn’t trust him. Outlook: Needs a shot
Mike Myers: B
He’s been decent in his limited capacity as situational lefty, but any such pitcher for the Yankees is judged by his performance against one man, David Ortiz. The line: 2-4, HR, 3 RBI. Outlook: Steady
Matt Smith: B+
Too many walks, but he didn’t allow any runs and not many hits. He was sent back down but expect to hear from him again.
Tanyon Sturtze: F
He’d do anything Joe asked of him but threw too many innings over the past few years and his arm finally fell off.
Scott Erickson: D-
I will not fail a man who managed to marry Lisa Guerrero.
Darrell Rasner/TJ Beam/Kris Wilson/Colter Bean: incomplete
Cool names, but not enough of a sample size for any of these guys. Of the group Beam was most impressive, with his ERA bloated by the 4th of July fireworks in Cleveland. He’s got the stuff to have a chance to be a reliable middle reliever, which is hard to find.

MANAGEMENT/COACHES
Joe Torre: A-
You’ve got to give the manager at least some credit when a team is so ravaged by injuries but is able to keep it together. He enjoys talking on the phone with the bullpen too much sometimes, but that’s the only problem. He’s Joe and we love him.
Don Mattingly: A
It’s hard to know how much of an impact a hitting or pitching coach has, but the players rave about Mattingly’s program and it seems like he’s done some good things with A-Rod and Giambi especially.
Ron Guidry: B+
Same deal; the grades for these two are pretty arbitrary, especially Gator, as it’s especially hard to know how much credit to give him for Moose’s success, Johnson’s inconsistency, and Small and Chacon’s failure.
Tony Pena/Larry Bowa: A+
Two former managers as base coaches. Okay, I really only put them in here so that I could mention that Bowa’s wheel is the stuff that dreams are made of.
Brian Cashman: A-
His year is backloaded in terms of graded assignments, but what he’s done so far has been mostly gold. The bullpen situation hasn’t worked out as Farnsworth was a major blunder. But what Cashman has been able to do in taking control of the organization and injecting life into the farm system has come just in the nick of time.
George Steinbrenner: A
One can only hope he stays true to his pledge to stop meddling and let Cashman run the show. So far so good.

BROADCASTERS
Michael Kay: F
His opinions are inane and his style is repetitive and irritating. Still trying to figure out how this guy is gaining so much popularity.
Ken Singleton/Jim Kaat/Bobby Murcer/Al Leiter: A+
Better than anyone I’ve ever seen and head and shoulders better than Joe Morgan or anyone else on ESPN. They have the perspective of former players and use it to provide excellent insights. They all were better than average Major League players with long careers, but they are genuinely humble and self-deprecating about it. Joe Morgan could learn so much from these guys. Leiter has come on the scene and was shaky at the beginning, but has settled in and is doing a good job.
Jon Sterling/Suzyn Waldman: C-
Sterling has a great voice and could be an outstanding radio personality but he’s just not that good at it. Doesn’t really paint a picture for you and makes mistakes. His home run catch-phrases (An AAAA-bomb! For AAAAA-Rod!) have gone too far; I cringe every time I hear one. Suzyn is fine but doesn’t get to say much with Sterling dominating the booth. Also, with all the advertisements, their broadcasts have come to sound like one long commercial. It’s almost unbearable.

OUTLOOK
If you’ve heard New York sports talk radio over the past couple weeks you know the Yankees have some work ahead of them; you might even think it’s already time for Derek Jeter to make some plans in October for the first time in 11 years. It’s true that there will probably only be one team from the AL East in the playoffs in this year, and I’m OK with that. There was an interesting piece on ESPN.com today with Sean McAdam and Bob Klapisch debating who takes the division; McAdam points to Boston’s strong bullpen, defense, and favorable schedule while Klapisch leans on starting pitching and the potential for a big second half from A-Rod. I’m comfortable with the way things look right now. I think people are overestimating a Red Sox team that just came off a very long win streak. These Sawx have a strong offense and an all-time defense. But their starting rotation just isn’t very good. You’ve got Schilling and he’ll be there. But you can bank on Beckett missing time at some point. Wakefield is not good. I saw just a little bit of Lester tonight and wasn’t overwhelmed; way too many walks. And their mess at the 5th starter spot is no better than the Yankees’. On the Yankees side you’ve got Moose in vintage form, Johnson (hopefully) ready to be more consistent in the second half, Wang becoming more and more reliable, and Wright still improving. They picked up Sir Sidney Ponson today, but don’t expect much out of a guy who had a .308 batting average against him in the National League. It’s hard to have a really strong feeling one way or the other right now, because so much will depend on what players these two teams are able to add. If either team adds a decent starter they’ll take a commanding position in the division. If the Yankees can find a solid bullpen arm (unlikely) or a bat they’ll be in even better shape. No doubt this will be a good race and probably will come right down to the wire. But I feel fine about this team at the moment; we’ll see how Cashman does this month.

Baseball

2006-07-11T19:42:00.000-07:00

Not much to complain about this season; it’s been an exciting first half and at the break there are no more than a handful of teams that are out of contention. There are changes—the Tigers are great, the Reds are contenders and the Braves are lousy. There are the usual suspects, the Yankees, Sawx, Cardinals, and yes, the White Sox. There have been great performances by young players (Ryan Howard, David Wright, Francisco Liriano, Jonathan Papelbon) and resurgent veterans (Kenny Rogers, Mike Mussina, Tom Glavine, Jim Thome). A fun spring has set up a good pennant race in both leagues. With that out of the way, the first half awards:

Note: This is based solely on the first half and not on whom I expect to win the actual award at the end of the year.

AL MVP: David Ortiz
It kills me to give it to him, especially when my all-time favorite player merits consideration. But you just can’t avoid giving it to this guy. He’s up in the 9th inning of every game and always does something. He leads the planet in homers and RBI, and by the end of his career will likely be known as one of the greatest clutch performers in the history of this sport. It’s that combination of overall production and clutch delivery which makes him the runaway choice.
Also receiving votes: Derek Jeter, Jason Giambi, Jim Thome, Jonathan Papelbon

AL Cy Young: Jonathan Papelbon
3 runs allowed in 46 innings. More saves (26) than hits allowed (25). 0.59 ERA. It takes something truly exceptional to give this to a reliever, and I don’t expect him to win the award at the end of the year, but with the run he’s had this is another one where I grit my teeth and give it to him. So who will end up winning it? Put your money on a Twins lefty.
Also receiving votes: Johan Santana, Francisco Liriano, Roy Halladay, BJ Ryan, Justin Verlander

AL Rookie: Jonathan Papelbon
How does this taste? A blog dedicated to the Yankees and the awards are swept by Red Sox. The Cy Young is arguable, but this one is not, at least not yet. By the end of the year although I suspect Ortiz will probably still be at the head of the MVP discussion, Papelbon will be edged out of both awards. Santana and his typical ridiculous second half will probably take the Cy Young. And if Francisco Liriano had been in the Twins’ rotation since the beginning of the season, he would have taken both these instead of Papelbon. But as things stand I’ve got to bite the bullet and let these Red Sox have their due. At least no one will question my objectivity.
Also receiving votes: Liriano, Verlander

AL Manager: Jim Leyland
No argument here. Nobody expected this team to be a serious competitor and they’ve got the best record in the Majors at the break.

NL MVP: David Wright
Probably my most controversial pick—Albert Pujols was running away with it before his injury, and would still be just as good a choice. But Wright is the best player on the best team in the league, he's in the lineup every day and has had as many big hits as anyone this side of Big Papi. He gets on base, hits for power, produces runs, and steals bases. Brightest young star in the game.
Also receiving votes: Pujols, Lance Berkman, Carlos Beltran

NL Cy Young: Brandon Webb
Nobody really stands out here and Webb had a couple rough games recently, but he’s been dominant for the most part and has emerged as a true ace. Only got to see him briefly against the Mets, but that sinker is tough.
Also receiving votes: Jason Schmidt, Brad Penny

NL Rookie: Ryan Zimmerman
His numbers are respectable across the board, he plays a tough position well, and like Wright and Ortiz it seems like he’s on SportsCenter every night with a game-winning hit (and a Web Gem, for that matter).
Also receiving votes: Dan Uggla, Josh Johnson

NL Manager: Willie Randolph
So I ended up picking chalk for the managers, and that’s fine. The Mets are the only team in the National League who could stay afloat if they were in the AL. Met fans still kill him regularly on WFAN, but he’s been a great success so far.

What to watch for: AL
First of all, to answer the question that everyone’s asking—the Tigers aren’t going away. Not with a deep rotation, 2 young studs in the bullpen, and a well-rounded lineup. They’ll be in the playoffs but won’t get past the first round—if you go into the postseason with Kenny Rogers as your #1 starter, you’re in big, big trouble. Of course, that changes if they swing a trade for John Smoltz. The White Sox are on their way to the playoffs too. They have the best lineup in the league, and although their deep rotation has underachieved a bit they’ll be right in the thick of it in October. People are writing off the Yankees, but look for them to take the East once again. The Red Sox got themselves into first with an incredible hot streak, but they’ll fade in the 2nd half. They’ve gotten by with their pitching, but it won’t last with this rotation, especially once Josh Beckett develops his annual blister problem. Wakefield hasn’t been great, Matt Clement doesn’t add anything, and you don’t know what you’re getting with their rookies. The Yankees have a gaping hole at the fifth position in the rotation and serious bullpen issues, but their top 4 starters are solid and improving. The Sawx don’t have that. The West is there for whoever wants it. The A’s have the best starting staff and are the pick at this point, but it’s nearly impossible to handicap right now. Also—look for the Twins to be a big spoiler this year, with Santana and Liriano throwing wrenches into the pennant race. Darting, unhittable wrenches.

What to watch for: NL
The Mets will win the pennant in this ugly excuse for a league; you can take that to the bank. You know the Cardinals will be there too, but aside from that the races are wide open. A lot will depend on the trading season as the Reds, Astros, Brewers (if Ben Sheets returns strong), and all 5 teams in the West have a legitimate chance of making the postseason either as the Wild Card or West winner. Dontrelle Willis isn’t going anywhere and Barry Zito probably isn’t either, so teams will need to get creative to fill their needs without much out there. Chances are the players that actually are moved will not be the names you’ve been hearing on the radio and the internet.

So sit back, relax and strap it down for another fun half of baseball (after the worst day in sports tomorrow). Later in the week we’ll have Yankees midseason stuff.

All Stars

2006-07-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

This time since the 4th of July weekend has been much busier than I would have liked, and I haven’t gotten to watch enough baseball over the past week. But things will quiet down after the sports tribulation of the All-Star break and I’ll actually get to some games.

The Tampa series was more or less a capsule of the Yankees’ season thus far: inconsistent offense with key pieces missing, erratic relief pitching, a hole in the starting rotation, and the last game of a series lost. Jaret Wright had his best game of the season on Friday (6 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 10 K) and the Proctor-Farnsworth-Rivera connection did not allow a baserunner in 3 innings of work as Bernie Williams’ RBI single was the only offense in the game. Saturday saw an equally impressive performance from Chien Ming Wang (8.2 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 2 K) and a better showing for the Yankee lineup with 5 runs late in the game highlighted by Johnny Damon’s 2-run triple. Sunday was a bad job, with the guns falling silent after a Jason Giambi grand slam in the 3rd and Kris Wilson, Ron Villone and Scott Proctor combining to blow a 5-run lead. With the Sawx losing a 19-inning affair, this became a blown chance to get within 2 games at the break. Instead the Yankees sit 3 back, their biggest deficit at the break since 1997, the last time they did not win the division. More to come on the midseason situation in posts to follow.

But first, some All-Star stuff. As always, there were some issues with the selections, some notable snubs. First of all, on the AL side, if ever there was a case for eliminating the silly rule that every team be represented, this year is it. You’ve got Mark Redman and his flashy 5.27 ERA on the All-Star team because the Royals are a minor league team. If you want to encourage managers to represent all the teams, fine. But requiring it is just a bad rule. If an organization refuses to field a team with even one decent Major League player on the roster, it’s pretty simple: they don’t deserve to be represented. Most of the picks by Ozzie and the players were unassailable, with one major exception: Mark Buehrle. Mark Buehrle? Over Curt Schilling, Mike Mussina, Justin Verlander, and Francisco Liriano (who was added tonight, thankfully), all of whom are having far superior seasons? A manager wants to reward his players who win the World Series. I understand this. But when there are 4 pitchers who the guy doesn’t even compare with, you’ve got to be reasonable. I understand Joe always liked his Yankees, but he picked guys who deserved it. I didn’t really care about the whole Jay Mariotti fag thing with Ozzie, but the Buehrle pick offended me. It was quite satisfying when Buehrle gave up 10 earned runs on the same day his ridiculous selection was announced (despite the fact that it killed my fantasy team’s ERA). And fan voting is a great thing except when a guy like Joe Mauer doesn’t get the votes because he plays in a smaller market and people don’t know about him. I’d take Robinson Cano over Mark Loretta, but it’s not enough of a disparity to overcome my bias, and I’m just glad Cano was selected somehow. There ended up being 5 problematic snubs from the AL team: Schilling, Mussina, Verlander, Travis Hafner and Ramon Hernandez all deserve to be there. The NL team looks fine—the starters are actually dead on, as you really can’t argue with the fans’ selections except maybe Paul Lo Duca, but the NL catcher situation is bare. And the most notable snub might be Nick Johnson; he’s having a good year but leaving him off isn’t so bad. The other players who have no business at the game besides Buehrle and Redman are AJ Pierzynski, who shockingly won the last spot over 4 players who actually deserved it, and David Eckstein who is just an annoying little player who doesn’t really do anything. One final note to close out this monster of a paragraph: what a horrendous pitching matchup for an All-Star game. Kenny Rogers vs. Brady Penny? Yuk.

The Home Run Derby was a fun time tonight, although having 47 commentators from 13 different locations got to be a little problematic. Joe Morgan’s overly serious and repetitive analysis of the Derby was pretty funny, as was David Wright being bleeped repeatedly. With the messy commentator situation, it seemed like Boomer didn’t get very far down his list of nearby towns where the ball might land; he was just a bit off tonight. But it was a good show by Wright and Ryan Howard, two guys who will be fun to watch for a long time.

So tomorrow is the Midsummer Classic. Then strap yourself in for the worst day of the year for the sports fan—All-Star Wednesday (this year it’s 2 days for most of us, including the Yankees). With the time off I plan to do some typical midseason stuff—a general look at the Yankees’ season, individual report card, and league-wide awards. But that’s later in the week.

One more thing—the extent of my World Cup viewing consisted of about half of the SportsCenter highlight of the final, which included the Zidane headbutt. Awesome stuff. If there was more of that going on, I’d watch.

Return

2006-07-07T21:31:00.000-07:00

This could be my toughest post of the year, with 7 wild games since my last effort. After I predicted the team would catch fire and win 11 straight going into the break, they went 4-3 including a 19-1 beatdown. I’ll just go game-by-game.

Friday
Five Yankee pitchers combined for a 1-hit masterpiece, with the bullpen carrying the load as a rain delay drove Mike Mussina out after 4 hitless innings. Offensive highlights in a 2-0 game came from Jason Giambi (1-4, solo HR) and Bernie Williams (2-3, R, SB).

Saturday
Randy Johnson got thoroughly outpitched on national television by Steve Trachsel, one of the most mediocre pitchers in the Majors. The Big Unit had looked great against the Braves, and then got shelled in this one. He’s always been a better 2nd-half pitcher, but he was brought here to be the ace this team has needed in the playoffs, and was not that last year. Getting shut down by Trachsel is not acceptable—the offense completely deflated after a potentially big rally in the 3rd was killed by a Jorge Posada double play ball.

Sunday
The A-Rod game. After his walk-off shot on Wednesday, he almost single-handedly wins the rubber game against the Mets on ESPN, bringing the team back from an early 4-0 deficit with a monstrous grand slam. These are the kind of clutch performances he needs, and he looked completely different in those two at-bats than the look we’d become accustomed to. With the pileup of injuries making you feel like you’re a Cubs fan, this team needs him to step up. Paul Lo Duca gave him the business crossing the plate, which was completely uncalled for. A-Rod may have styled a bit but it was certainly nothing bad and Lo Duca was out of line. Nice piece of managing by Joe getting the ineffective Jaret Wright out of the game before it got out of hand, allowing the offense to light up the scoreboard. The bullpen wasn’t particularly good but it didn’t matter on this night with A-Rod highlighting an outstanding offensive performance.

Monday
The offense looked sluggish after a late night Sunday, and Chien Ming Wang had a rough outing capped off by a homer by the latest Yankee killer, Todd Hollandsworth. It’s strange how these Yankees seem to struggle against pitchers they haven’t seen before like Jeremy Sowers. They did put 2 on in the 9th against Bob Wickman, and Kevin Reese, who grounded out to end it, should have been on 1st with a walk but was victimized by one of the worst strike calls you’ll ever see.

Tuesday
Tuesday? What happened Tuesday? Was there a game? I’m not aware of anything that happened on Tuesday.

Wednesday
An all around strong performance for this team—Mussina looked sharp, and the offense hung an 8-run inning on Paul Byrd including a Melky Cabrera grand slam. Johnny Damon hopped on the injury bus now; we’re running out of things to say about this situation, but the lineup can’t lose him. The Yankees also took advantage of what has become an awful Cleveland defense, with 2 errors and 6 stolen bases against Victor Martinez, who couldn’t throw anyone out to save his life. The Indians have a couple really nice players in Travis Hafner and Grady Sizemore, but they’re not going anywhere with this pitching and defense.

Thursday
Randy Johnson got back on it for the series split, as his stuff was electric early on. The offense was steady, had a couple rallies, and again took advantage of bad defense. Melky has gotten it back together to pull his average up from the depths a bit, with a 5-15 series with 6 RBI.

So with a little help from the Devil Rays, the Yankees have survived the Sawx win streak and remain within striking distance of the division lead (although you wouldn’t know it from New York talk radio, as people were scared by the Sawx run and the thought that the Yankees might actually have to—gasp!—win the division outright this year). I was wrong about the pitching staff coming together: Moose is indeed looking extremely sharp again, Wang had one rough outing but should stay reliable, Johnson has been more good than bad his last several starts, Wright continues improving, but Chacon has pitched himself out of the rotation. Kris Wilson, who looked awesome in 2 perfect innings of relief Wednesday, will take his start. Great as Wilson looked, one can only hope he’s this year’s Aaron Small, but we’ll see how Sunday’s start goes. Cashman has some work ahead of him, but things are still looking ok for this team. Anytime you think things look bad, remember this one fact: Jason Johnson is in the Red Sox starting rotation.

Back Sunday with a D-Rays wrap up and then later with some all-star/midseason stuff. My apologies for the overall suckage of this post.

Sit tight

2006-07-05T21:00:00.000-07:00

To my loyal following which to my knowledge at this point consists of my brother, my girlfriend, my cousin, and a couple friends from home and Notre Dame: I will be back soon. Been away for the weekend and I figure it doesn't make sense to write a catch-up post in the middle of a series so I'm waiting at least until the Cleveland series is over. Or maybe I'm just lazy. I'll get caught up on the Mets, the Tribe, the worries and the rumors after a fairly wild week in Yankeeland. After the Devil Rays I plan to do some mid-year stuff: Yankee report card, midseason awards, maybe even a few predictions (which haven't gone well so far as the team is 3-3 since I predicted they wouldn't lose before the break). Anyway, I'll be back in the next couple days.

Redemption

2006-06-29T22:21:00.000-07:00

There are two ends to the spectrum of feelings toward Alex Rodriguez. In one camp you’ve got the A-Rod bashers who hate everything he stands for and have been booing him off the field recently. On the other side are the A-Rod apologists, who simply point to his MVP and his all-time great talent. Some of us, like me, you’ll find somewhere in between. Sure, I dislike watching his joyless play and have been knocking him since last year’s Division Series. Yes, I dubbed him Double Play-Rod. And I’ll say with no hesitation that there’s another third baseman in New York who I’d rather have on my team. But I do recognize the talent. And I’ll never boo him, because as much as I dislike the fact that he’s on this team, one can’t ignore the things he is capable of doing if he gets over this inability to maintain his approach in a big spot, and booing isn’t going to help him get over his mental block. It’s ok to dislike him, but letting him know it is only going to make things worse.

So yesterday’s homer. I was expecting him to do it in the 10th inning when he instead grounded out weakly to 2nd. But the fact that the Yankees were actually near defeat and not tied when he finally did it made it even bigger for him. And the way he reacted—he put up his hands like someone who was completely exasperated, as if he was asking himself the same rhetorical question everyone else was asking: what took so long? If you ever wonder about the expression “weight of the world on his shoulders,” take a look at what it looks like when someone gets the weight of the world off his shoulders as the joy swept over him. Emotional play—real emotion, not those fake facial contortions he makes after a strikeout—was nice to see. Now, the haters will say that this was just an interleague game in June against a last-place team. But I’m on A-Rod’s side on this one. This was a huge home run. Save for a similar game-winner against the Sawx, this was as big a home run as a Yankee could have hit in the middle of the season. Although I’ve consistently argued that there’s nothing to worry about, there is no denying that this team has been in a tailspin and the offense has looked bad. Though I don’t trust George King’s judgment I’ll trust his quoting of statistics: 118 runners left on base in 12 games, including 12 yesterday. Alarms were starting to go off after the offense went silent again on Tuesday, and would only have gotten louder had the Yankees lost after another dismal offensive showing. Yesterday was still a bad showing for the offense, A-Rod or no A-Rod. But with that swing he not only quieted his own critics (temporarily at least) but also provided a much-needed win and got his team primed to get things straight. A-Rod needed that home run more desperately than anyone, but this was a game the team needed pretty badly too.

So I’m feeling something coming on here. A dramatic finish like that is the kind of thing than can get a team rolling. And if A-Rod gets going, the offense will get back on track despite missing Robinson Cano’s steady bat. There are 10 games left before the break, 3 vs. the Mets, 4 at Cleveland and 3 at Tampa. My bold yet firm prediction is that the Yankees will win every one of them. I know people aren’t buying Chacon, but I think he’s on his way back and if so this starting rotation could be on the verge of coming together as a very strong unit. Anyway, I was wrong about the Mets in Boston as they couldn’t get out of the way of the Sawx steamroller. But I have a good feeling about this. And I’m not worried about a thing.

Well, nothing except the bullpen.

The Panic Button

2006-06-28T11:33:00.000-07:00

Another loss, another night and spent forecasting the doom of the Yankees by the media. David Justice gets on the postgame and says the Yankees will be in trouble if they go into the break 6 or 7 games back of the Sawx, talking as if they’re already that far back. George King, another idiot New York writer, calls for Cashman to alter his shopping list and prioritize offense (I wonder if he’s watched Kyle Farnsworth pitch lately). Michael Kay will no doubt say something inane on the radio, and when he likes the way it sounds, he’ll repeat it over and over again and try to harp on it during a later YES broadcast and promptly be put in his place by Kaat, Singleton and co. You’d think the team was just swept by the Red Sox in September the way people react to a loss in June.

Altogether now: breathe in, breathe out. The Sawx have ripped off 10 straight. I understand this. The Yankees are 8-10 since losing to Schilling and have been scuffling to score. Relax. The lineup is fine, and the chances of dropping another 2.5 games before the break are remote. The Mets will not be swept in Boston, not with Pedro and Glavine taking the hill the next 2 nights. And when it comes right down to it, despite the recent stretch which has short-sighted observers panicking as usual, the Yankees may be in better shape long-term than the Sawx. Johnson, Chacon, and Wright are all improving, Mussina appears to be back on track and Wang is going steady. On Friday the Sawx will be sending out Jason Johnson, who couldn’t even hack it in the Indians’ awful rotation. Boston will stop winning at some point, probably tonight. And the Yankees will go on a little “market-correcting” run of their own while the Sawx come back down to Earth.

Whenever the panic starts to creep in, my practice this year has been to provide a reminder of where this team was last year. After 75 games last season, the Yankees were 38-37 after losing 7 of 10, standing 6.5 games back of the first-place Sawx. The issues for that team looked far more crippling than anything this year. What happened? They dropped a couple more before ripping 6 in a row and staying hot the rest of the year and winning the division.

Don’t doubt for a second that this is a playoff team, because there’s simply no reason to doubt it at this point. Having said that, don’t expect them to be a World Series team. The offense is fine, but the starting pitching you don’t know—Wang and Chacon were great against the Angels last year, and Johnson and Mussina were awful. This year that could be reversed, or the same, or they could all be great or all awful. No way of knowing. But you’re not going deep into the postseason with this bullpen, that’s for sure. There’s no middle relief, no setup man, nothing but Mariano Rivera hoping the scoreboard doesn’t blow up before the game gets to him. If Cashman can get another capable arm or 2 in there maybe they will have a shot, but I’m not expecting any parades this year, and I can live with that.

So what of last night’s game? We’ll start with the good, since there wasn’t much of it. Jaret Wright had another fine outing (6 IP, 5 H, 2 BB, 1 R, 4 K), and showed signs of being able to go deeper into games. Melky got back on track with 3 hits, including his 2nd homer, which serves as a segue to what didn’t go well—too little too late for the offense, as they made another young, unproven starter look like an all-star. As I said, it’s ugly, but slumps happen. The real problem is the bullpen. Villone got knocked around, Farnsworth couldn’t get anyone out, even Matt Smith walked a couple in his short outing. TJ Beam did allow an inherited runner to score, but he was impressive. His command looks impeccable—every outing I’ve seen so far, the catcher rarely has to move his glove at all, and he throws hard with good movement. The one hit he did allow was Jeff Francoeur reaching out and hitting a pretty good pitch for a little popup into no-man’s land in right. He’s not going to cure all the bullpen’s woes, but he could be part of the answer.

Robinson Cano is on the DL now, which hurts. Ridiculous year for injuries. But he won’t need more than the 15 days so hopefully he’ll be able to take his place as the starting 2nd baseman for the AL All Stars.

Finally made it

2006-06-27T13:23:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to umpire last night and my brother had a summer game scheduled, both were rained out, so I said let’s get in the car and go, figuring a dreary Monday night would stave of the crowds (wrong—great crowd, around 54,000). After getting our proverbial lunch money taken by the GW and nearly turning back, we parked and went looking, and finally found a scalper shilling $20 tickets. Crazy trip, and we were in our seats just in time to see Giambi’s second homer soaring towards us. Great to be back and it was about damn time.

I had wondered when I’d ever make it this year, and this was a good game to start with, Randy Johnson’s best of the year (7 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 9 K). He looked like his old dominant self, and we were actually shocked when Joe took him out after 7 innings and after he made hitters look more and more foolish as the game progressed. What can you say? The man likes that bullpen phone.

Giambi of course provided all the fireworks, a 2-run shot in the first and 3-run shot in the second of Tim Hudson which would be all that the Big Unit needed.

I’ve already waxed about Yankee Stadium once and don’t feel the need to do it again just yet. One thing—it was nice to hear Bob Sheppard as always, but it was very quiet and eventually not there at all. Not sure why there was nothing in the late innings, but hopefully the dullness of the sound was just a result of where we were sitting relative to the speakers. I actually didn’t mind Proctor blowing the shutout, as it meant we got to hear the ominous chords fill the night as Mariano jogged in to close.

Thank you Rick Reed and ESPN

2006-06-26T08:49:00.000-07:00

Game 1
As expected, Mike Mussina finally got back on the horse with a strong outing against the inexperienced Marlins, toying with them at times on his way to a win with 7 IP, 5 H, 2 BB, 1 ER, 6 K. He looked strong enough at the beginning to go even deeper into the game, not allowing a baserunner until 2 out in the 4th inning, but ran into trouble in the 5th and 6th. He allowed a frustrating walk to leadoff man Alfredo Amezaga in the 6th, which came around to score the only run. So Moose is back, but it will be interesting to see what happens in his next start against the Mets, one of the best lineups out there—he looked unhittable at the beginning today but made some so-so pitches as the game went on. One note, he also benefited from a fair-sized strike zone from Rick Reed, after seeing very small zones in his past 2 starts.

Farnsworth had his typical scary inning but somehow managed to escape, and Mariano slammed the door. Offense came from Johnny Damon, who drove in both runs with an early sac fly and a solo homer in the 7th. After a bit of a slump, Damon is really coming on these days—now above .300 with double-digit homers and steals, near the top of the league in runs (57), and driving in a lot of runs from the leadoff spot (42) especially late in games.

Dontrelle Willis pitched well too, just hung a slider to Damon. He’s fun to watch out there—wild, animated, talented. Most pitchers nod approval to a catcher’s signs; it looks like Dontrelle actually shouts something as he nods. This start heated up the rumor mill among the idiot writers in New York and elsewhere—the Yankees would be foolish to not go get him, they say. Wrong. All reports from Trenton are that Phil Hughes is looking more and more like a future ace, and up in the Bronx Robinson Cano is looking like a future batting champion. It would take those guys to land Dontrelle, and the only possible way they would be moved is a meltdown profound enough to cause the Boss to once again seize control from Cashman. Don’t count on it.

Game 2
I say thank you to ESPN for cutting through the idiotic television contract red tape and letting us see the game, despite the fact that this was among the least pleasant games to watch this year. For the first time this season, the Yankees did not score a run—the last team in the Majors to be shutout this year. And it was done by a guy just called up, Anibal Sanchez (5.2 IP, 7 H, 0 BB, 2 K) and a bunch of no-names from the bullpen. Sanchez’s stuff isn’t even that impressive; he just hit his spots all night and the Yankees seemed overanxious and didn’t show much discipline—maybe his stuff actually was better than it looked on TV.

The Yankees are going to have to keep Andy Phillips around and play him at 1st base in the playoffs; Jason Giambi is just too much of a defensive liability. He cost them last year against the Angels in the Division Series. Last night he had 2 hideous, crucial errors. You need his presence in the lineup, but the drop-off in production when he is the DH from when he plays the field is negligible. He can dig low throws out of the dirt, but if you ask him to do anything else you’re asking to be hurt. Can’t have than in the postseason.

Says here Shawn Chacon is going to be fine. He really didn’t pitch badly last night, and probably could have gone deeper into the game if not for the defensive ineptitude of Giambi and Kelly Stinnett (who allowed an unbelievable steal of home by throwing to 2nd base without ever looking at the runner on third, although Cano didn’t help either by giving up the out at 2nd for a hopeless play at home). I was hoping Joe would let Chacon come out for the 6th, but the safe play is to let him get out with something to build on (5 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 1 BB). We’ll see if he can do that, but the positive signs were there as he threw more strikes (84 pitches, 53 strikes, still not quite enough but better) and was able to get his off-speed stuff over.

Also got a better look at TJ Beam last night (1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 BB, 1 K). He looked good—hard fastball with movement, and he hit his spots down in the zone. Here’s hoping Joe continues to get him chances out of the pen.

The Sawx are on fire right now (8 straight) but the Yankees are keeping them in sight at 2.5 back. In come the reeling Braves, who will miss the playoffs for the first time in about 8 million years.

Dependable

2006-06-24T13:29:00.000-07:00

With a beleaguered bullpen, what the Yankees need more than anything is innings from their starters. Chien-Ming Wang rarely dominates a game but has become the most dependable starter on this staff, now 4th in the league in innings pitched with 104.1 after going at least 7 innings in his past 4 starts. Last night was again not a dominant performance (7 IP, 9 H, 4 ER, 2 K, 0 BB) but he gave the team needed innings and pitched well enough to win.

Top offensive performers were Jorge Posada (3-5, 3 RBI), Alex Rodriguez (3-5, 2B, RBI, R, once again comfortable at the plate, letting it rip and allowing his talent to rise above his over-thinking), and Andy Phillips (3-4, 3B, swinging well in his return to the lineup).

The young Marlins, who had been on fire coming in, looked bad. 3 errors in the 1st inning, and at least 2 or 3 other plays later in the game which were inexplicably not ruled errors, including A-Rod’s liner to left which went through Cody Ross’s legs and was ruled a double. They do have some young pitchers who have been doing the job, including Josh Johnson who is scheduled today. But they’re waiting for a stadium deal in Miami before they make a serious run again. Joe Girardi is down there, a guy who all you ever heard about him was how he’d make a great manager.

Crisp

2006-06-22T08:24:00.000-07:00

As in, that was a crisply played game last night. The job by the bullpen left you wondering why it can’t be so easy all the time (then you remember they're terribly overworked, but still). Jaret Wright looked the best he has all year, although he still lost his command around the 80-pitch mark and could only do it for 5 innings again. But Joe got one quiet inning apiece from Villone, Proctor, Farnsworth, and Mariano, who combined to strike out 5 and allow only 1 baserunner, a walk.

The offense scratched out 5 runs with solid, timely hitting which was nice to see, opening the scoring with a Jaret Wright sac fly and finishing with lovely rallies in the 7th and 8th innings (except when Melky took off for the plate on a grounder to shortstop with the infield drawn in, that was ugly). Other major contributors were Jeter (2-5, RBI), Melky (2-4, 2B, R, RBI, swinging the bat much better), Damon (3-3, 2 BB, RBI), and your Player of the Game, Miguel Cairo (2-3, 3B, 2 R, RBI).

You don’t even realize until you look at this Phillies lineup, but they’re as fearsome as any in either League. A couple problems though—Jimmy Rollins as a leadoff man with a .313 OBP is not good, and Bobby Abreu, despite the numbers he’s capable of putting up, looks like he’s swinging a sluggish bat, like he just can’t catch up with a good fastball or isn’t putting in the effort to do so. Tough to accuse a player you don’t really know of not trying, but from the way he’s swinging he doesn’t look like he’s that interested in hitting the ball. The real problem for this team, like most others, is pitching. Good for the Phillies to get an impressive young pitcher in there. Cole Hamels gave them 7 good-looking innings, allowing 2 runs and striking out 6. With the pitches he throws you see why he’s highly thought of: mid-90’s fastball that looks tough to pick up with his delivery, devastating changeup, decent breaking ball. With Hamels and Brett Myers they have an excellent young 1-2 punch; problem is they don’t have any other capable starters and not much in the bullpen.

Tonight on ESPN Roger Clemens returns for the Astros, but the more exciting pitcher is his opponent, the Twins’ Francisco Liriano. Will be tuning in to see if the young gun with the ridiculous stuff can outshine the Rocket.

The Ryan Howard Show

2006-06-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

The feeling going into last night’s game was that Mike Mussina might have a hard time at the Philly launching pad against a very good lefty-stacked lineup. The focus of that fear was Ryan Howard, and it was realized with two ridiculous home runs. I was umpiring a game during the first couple innings so I only saw replays of the first one, the kind of replays that didn’t show where the thing landed and only showed the pitch enough for you to see that it was one of the worst groove pitches in history. I didn’t see the 3-1 to Pat Burrell that Moose apparently was bitching about; he has been getting squeezed a lot lately but has a very bad tendency to allow close calls to affect what he’s doing. That’s just a bad job by him, letting something like that cause him to throw an absolute cookie to Ryan Howard who summarily ate it. The second homer was absurd in its own right—not a great pitch but certainly not a terrible one either. It was up just a little, but still away and (you thought) down enough to keep Howard in the park. But he was sitting breaking ball and lunged across the plate to deposit it over the cozy left-centerfield fence.

Moose’s struggles continue, and though his results last night were not particularly surprising, his performance was alarming. If he had stayed the course and sustained the approach he’s been taking all this year, attacking with his fastball and keeping guys off-balance with the off-speed stuff, then you would chalk this one up to a dominant performance by the best young masher this side of Albert Pujols and move on. But Moose was different last night. He threw almost exclusively junk for the 3 innings I was able to see, just one changeup or curve after another. They’re great pitches and he executed them fine for the most part, but when hitters don’t have to worry about your fastball it doesn’t matter how good your other pitches are (see: Howard’s 2nd homer). Maybe he got gun shy after Howard hit a fastball halfway to Camden, although calling that particular offering as such may be an insult to fastballs everywhere. Regardless, one can only hope he gets back to using all his pitches effectively like earlier in the season. His next start is likely to be against the Marlins, who even during their recent surge haven’t exactly been blowing up the scoreboard (4.78 runs/game in their current 9 game win streak). That’s a lineup full of rookies, which should play into Moose’s hands. If he doesn’t get back on track there, red flags fly.

Though Moose scuffled, the offense picked him up. The headline performances came from Johnny Damon (2-5, 2 R, 2 RBI triple to cement the lead), Bernie Williams (5-5, 2 2B, average up to .294), and Melky Cabrera (1 for his last 18, comes off the bench to go 1-2, delivering the big hit down the first base line past the less-than-nimble Howard to put the Yankees ahead).

The bullpen also struggled a bit; Villone was ok, but Proctor was yanked after walking the first man he faced and Mike Myers, the lefty specialist, was victimized by Howard’s 2-RBI triple. TJ Beam retired the only man he faced to earn his first Major League win. With such a short outing there wasn’t opportunity to get much of a look at him, but it did look like he was throwing hard with movement. Joe again showed how much faith he doesn’t have in his middle relief, bringing in Mariano for the 6-out save. Here’s the daily appeal to Cashman to go find another arm.

No help for the pen in sight as Jaret Wright takes the mound in the series finale; we get a look at the Phillies’ heralded rookie Cole Hamels.

Phrozen

2006-06-20T08:54:00.000-07:00

Brett Myers is a very good pitcher. He’s got some outstanding stuff. Falling to a good pitching performance happens, but it is not OK when that performance includes 6 walks and you strand 11 baserunners. Randy Johnson looked fine once again but had his performance wasted. The offensive ineptitude began in the first inning, when Myers walked 2 and loaded the bases only to be bailed out by Jorge Posada inexplicably swinging at the first pitch he saw after 4 straight balls to A-Rod. Two other opportunities with runners on were wasted by A-Rod and Cano in the 5th and 7th innings. The team is going through the doldrums right now, losing 8 of 11 and scoring 4.18 runs per game during that stretch. But I’ve said I’m not ready to panic, and I’m not changing. Funny stretches happen. The Marlins have won 8 straight.

No reason to worry here. A-Rod is coming out of his misery, showing last night that he had regained his patience and the plate and swinging with more authority (although another strikeout with runners on, which he’s been doing a ton lately). Melky is really struggling (0-5, 3 K) but may just need a day off. Everyone else will be fine. Unless the Sawx build a sizable lead in July (which they won’t because they don’t have a reliable starter besides Schilling and they’ve some bullpen issues of their own) the Boss hopefully won’t panic and the team will right itself. Moose may have a little trouble at this park with this Phillie lineup tonight, but Cory Lidle could be just what the doctor ordered for the Yankee offense. Now watch, it'll be a 2-1 game...

Mike and the Mad Dog were doing exclusively golf while I was listening yesterday, so I had Michael Kay on for the ride home. I don’t know how this dummy got a radio show; in fact I have never known how such an annoying broadcaster is so popular. Yesterday was his Aaron Small radio dirge, bitterly lamenting management for cutting Small. Listen, Michael, I loved what Aaron Small did last year too, teaming up with Chacon to save this team. And I too was saddened this year every time he got roughed up. But you watch all these games—have you been paying attention to the way Small has looked? He can’t keep the ball away from the fat part of the bat. So why should he be kept around, Michael? What’s that? You want me to tell you that Jaret Wright is a better starting pitcher than Aaron Small? OK, well here you go: Jaret Wright is a better starting pitcher than Aaron Small (he actually put that challenge out there on the air). Oh, Small went 10-0 last year, you say? That couldn’t have all been a fluke, huh? Well I’m sure it wasn’t, but I’m sure his 10.50 ERA as a starter this year isn’t either, nor is what your eyes tell you when you watch him pitch. But apparently what the numbers and your eyes tell you is overridden by your emotional attachment to a guy who had a Cinderella season for the Yankees, because that’s the only possible explanation for your unsubstantiated rant. Yea, I heard those callers you had calling for Joe to be fired, and you were right: they were saying things that were just plain wrong, driven by their emotion. But so were you, Mike. Oh, and the guy that was called up from Columbus to replace Small—his name is TJ Beam, not “JT” or “JD” or whatever you were calling him yesterday. And you’re one of the Yankees’ eminent broadcast personalities. Yikes.

Catching up, Nationals style

2006-06-19T11:37:00.000-07:00

Followed the team to DC this weekend to take in Saturday's mess at RFK and visit Pete and Eakins down there. It was a fun weekend, the parts I remember at least, but a lot has happened in the time I was away. So I'll go item-by-item.

Cleveland Series Wrapup
Mike Mussina got shelled in a very strange way--the damage done exclusively by Ronnie Belliard, Jhonny Peralta, and your 1996 NL Rookie of the Year, Todd Hollandsworth. While the rest of the lineup managed only 1 hit off Moose, those three, batting 6-7-8, were 8-9 with 3 doubles, a homer, all 6 runs scored and all 6 RBI. Impossible to explain—this Cleveland lineup looked like it could give him trouble going into the game, but not in the way it did. He made bad pitches to those 3 guys and they made him pay. He’s encountered a rough patch here and with his next start at the Philly launching pad against a lefty-stacked lineup he may not get back on track yet. But there’s no reason over the long term for him to not continue the resurgent season he has had. And taking 2 of 3 from the Tribe is acceptable.

The Indians
Disappointing team, it seemed like they were poised to be in a battle for the Central. But replacing Kevin Millwood with Jason Johnson hasn’t worked out and the pitching isn’t there. Johnson has been awful. Paul Byrd and Jake Westbrook both have been up and down, putting together a few decent starts lately. Cliff Lee, who last year had maybe the quietest 18-win season in history, has been a disappointment. The bright spot for a while was CC Sabathia, who looked to be coming into his own but has been roughed up in 2 of his last 3 starts. With mediocre starting pitching and a bad bullpen, this team is off to a rough start, although the offense is near the top of the Majors. Grady Sizemore is a really nice looking young player, and Travis Hafner is now among the elite hitters in the game, a guy that is menacing at the plate and a lot of fun to watch swing the bat.

Friday night
Didn’t see much of the game. It was the culmination of a nice little tear for Bernie, with a big home run in the 9th. Jaret Wright struggled and exited early again. Comeback wins are nice, especially when they’re done with rallies and not the home run—one of the hallmarks of the great 90s teams.

Saturday
Attended the game, one of the crazier ones this season. That’s a ridiculous game to lose, the way the offense performed, Johnny Damon with the game of his Yankee career (4-6, 2 2B, GS, 2 R, 5 RBI) and strong contributions from A-Rod, Jeter, Posada, and Cano. Chacon’s command was horrible, and by the 5th inning he couldn’t get anyone out. The bullpen was equally bad, with Proctor, Mariano, and newcomer TJ Beam finishing the blow for Chacon. Chalk another one up to overuse of the pen, and go get another arm.

Sunday
Yikes. Chien-Ming Wang gave the team exactly what it needed, a complete game, but ended it with a walk-off bomb to rookie Ryan Zimmerman. No second-guessing of Joe here, it seemed like Wang could get the job done and it just didn’t happen for him. But that is another deep, quality start for Wang—he’s had a few in a row now, which is important with the bullpen in shambles. This should have been a sweep for the Yankees, and instead ended up as a series loss.

The Nationals
They don’t have the talent to contend for the playoffs at this point, but there are some bright spots there. Alf Soriano of course is setting the world on fire with his season, but he’ll be gone after this year if not before the trading deadline. Nick Johnson has really become a hitter, a guy you can’t help but wish was still with the Yankees, although we didn’t get to see much of him this weekend. And Zimmerman is a highly touted player who is heating up right now and should be in the thick of things for the NL Rookie of the Year. The pitching just isn’t there—Livan Hernandez has been bad, Tony Armas has been up and down, Ramon Ortiz is mediocre. John Patterson is their best pitcher and returns to the rotation this week. A couple young guys they’ve called up, Mike O’Connor and Shawn Hill have gotten the job done, but there isn’t enough talent on offense or depth on the pitching staff for this team to succeed yet.

A-Rod
Coming out of it, 2-5 with a homer Saturday and 2-2 with a double Sunday. They’re saying he has been working with Donnie Baseball on keeping his weight back and not jumping at the ball and it looks to be working.

Cano
On fire. Had his 15 game hit streak broken Sunday, but has the average up to .327. Thank goodness Cashman steered this organization’s philosophy in time to not trade him. Should be a lock for the All-Star start at this point.

Columbus Watch/Roster shakeup
Aaron Small was demoted to Columbus to make room for reliever TJ Beam. It’s sad to see after Small was the feel-good story of the Yankees last year, but he wasn’t getting it done out of the pen and there’s no room for him in the rotation. He could be back at some point. Beam is a guy who has shot like a rocket through the farm system this year. The report is he’s got a great slider and good splitter, though the early returns are obviously not good; Daryle Ward hit probably the most tremendous home run I’ve ever seen off him. But this team’s illness is the bullpen, and with the success of recent call-ups, Cashman will look within the organization for help first. Jose Veras was also called up in Kevin Thompson’s spot. Not much known about this guy, a free agent signed before this year, so we’ll just have to watch and see what he and Beam can do. I had wanted to see more of Thompson, but Joe needs as many arms in that bullpen as he can have. Melky’s slump continues, hitting .183 in June. He’s still playing capably in left field, and the hits will come. Finally got that first homer out of the way on Thursday, and his face lit up the Stadium. With interleague season in full swing, Andy Phillips is not going to see much time.

Rumors
Jayson Stark provides a good opening look at trading season in his column from Friday, shoving it to ignorant sportswriters around the nation by explaining why most of the big names being mindlessly kicked around by them are probably not going anywhere. He also gives a list of less high-profile players who could be available, which for the Yankees would include the following, to name a few:

Tony Armas (not mentioned by Stark)
Kip Wells
Oliver Perez
Damaso Marte
Joe Borowski
Craig Wilson
Reggie Sanders
Jay Payton

Looking ahead
Off to the launching pad in Philadelphia to meet the ice-cold Phillies who are now 9.5 games back of the Mets (the Mets, the best team on the planet, who look more and more like they’ll run away with the NL pennant). Randy Johnson tries to put together another good start while awaiting word on the appeal of his suspension for the Eduardo Perez incident. I didn’t mention that to this point, 5 games, and 1 for Joe. The whole thing was pretty silly, but it’s not a big deal.

Back on track

2006-06-14T19:05:00.000-07:00

Heap another question mark on to Randy Johnson's season. He went out there tonight and once again showed that he is still capable of dominating. He's 100% mystery at this point--the team never knows what it's getting with him. But tonight's results speak for themselves, and he was still going strong when he got tossed in the 7th inning.

This whole incident tonight was pretty silly. An example of "how the game has changed" if you ask anyone who played before 1980. Posada gets hit (clearly unintentional), says some things to the pitcher, and the warnings fly. It's no secret that umpires have become too liberal with warnings these days, and there's something to be said for letting the players police themselves. The problem, though, is that the Yankees really don't do any policing. If there's any time a guy gets hit and you don't need to retaliate, tonight was it. OK, so at least Randy showed he's willing to do it, but where was that when he faced Manny the day after the Proctor Stare? It's one of the most perplexing things about this team, the unwillingness to throw inside. At any rate, although the warning may have been too early, the bottom line is that Posada gets the blame for tonight's incident. He's a tough, intense, proud player, one of the beloved core players, but he was out of line tonight and has got to know better than that.

With the pitching shutting down the best offense in the Majors beside the Yankees, this lineup got its act together with contributions from everyone. Robinson Cano (3-4, RBI, 12 game hit streak), when he's going good like right now, makes hitting look as easy as anyone. Jeter added 2 hits, Damon had a homer, and Bernie had a big double. Andy Phillips looked more comfortable at the plate, 1-4 but the 1 was a hanger from Jason Johnson that Andy nuked. Also made an outstanding if unecessarily perilous play to end the game, laying out into the stands for a popup and being rewarded with a faceful of armrest. A-Rod still looks bad at the plate but did come through with a hit and an RBI. He was less robotic in his postgame than the usual crappy interview, almost sounding like he was ready to get over the boos. His play doesn't show that, but he will turn the corner sometime soon. Like I've said before, there's no need to be overly concerned with this lineup.

1-0

2006-06-13T19:36:00.000-07:00

Chien-Ming Wang has had inconsistent results this season, but all along he's had the stuff and the makeup to be the type of pitcher who could hold down the middle of a rotation--he doesn't dominate, but is capable of going out and giving you 7-8 decent innings on a given night. He's now posted back-to-back excellent starts, 1 run allowed in 14 1/3 innings vs. the Sawx and the Indians, two of the best offenses around (interestingly enough, the Indians and Yankees came into this game tied for the most runs scored in the Major Leagues and combined to score 1 run). Wang has the sinker and can get the ball up there in the mid-90s with a lot of movement; the key for him is keeping the sinker down and getting his token off-speed stuff over the plate, which he did tonight, with precision strikes to Posada’s mitt. We’ll keep an eye on him, because consistent results from him could go a long way toward solidifying the rotation and giving the bullpen some rest. Speaking of the bullpen, they were quite effective too--the Mariano-Hafner matchup was a good one, and Mariano actually got away with a hanger than Hafner could have hit a long way. But the pitches he was making to Eduardo Perez afterward were unfair--darting down and away or tantalizing him and then exploding up to his eyes.

Poor results for the offense again tonight, against junkballer Paul Byrd. Robinson Cano busted out of a slump when the calendar turned to June, now riding an 11 game hit streak and batting .463 so far this month. This is his 2nd double-digit hit streak this season and the 4th of 5 or more games; it's no surprise when you watch the way he hits with that quiet, easy swing along with his ability and willingness to take what the pitcher gives him and hit to all fields. His home run along with Jeter’s 2-4 in his return to shortstop were the only positives. The Baby Bombers continue to struggle. Melky went 1-3 with a walk but isn’t hitting with as much authority as at the end of May. Did have another impressive play in the field, getting a great jump to the left field line to basket catch a Travis Hafner fly ball in the first inning. Kevin Thompson took an 0-3; he looks OK at the plate but seems like he needs to learn to take the ball the other way. Andy Phillips is really struggling right now, 0-3 with 2 K’s. He has the look of a guy who knows he needs to prove himself and is trying far too hard to do too much, and bad looking at-bats are the result. These guys will be the key to determining whether Cashman needs to look for offensive help, but expect this lineup to hit enough that there won’t be any long periods of losing caused by lack of production.

Speaking of bad at-bats, Alex Rodriguez is proving that he lied when he said he was used to the fans’ negative response. Watch him at the plate, you can hear the chorus of boos echoing in his brain, pushing him to swing at a pitch at his ankles or freezing him on a pitch he should be hitting. My feelings about the way he plays are well documented, but it’s hard not to pity him at this point. He’s drowning, that much is clear. He’ll get out of it—he’s too talented not to—but right now it’s hard to watch him hit, even harder to watch him walk back to the dugout with that trademark empty look on his face while the boos rain on him. Who knows, maybe once he hits rock bottom and gets out of it he’ll be able to relax and let his ability shine through.

Weekend Sweep

2006-06-12T12:17:00.000-07:00

A sweep by the A's at the Stadium and suddenly the Yankees are on the verge of collapse, if you listen to what's being written and said out there. OK, so you've lost 4 straight and looked pretty bad doing it, and the Baby Bombers have come back down to earth a bit, plus Randy Johnson's progress took a screeching turn back to ineffectiveness. Yes, the injuries are mounting, the starting pitching has been up and down and the bullpen is a horror show. But I'm not panicking, not even close. Why? This team has never given me a reason to. 61 games into the season, with just under two-thirds left to play, they're at 35-26, 1 game behind the East-leading Sawx, who have problems of their own.

Remember last season? After 62 games, the Yankees were reeling, having lost 11 of 14 to drop to 30-32, 6 games back of the division-leading Orioles. You think the 2006 Yankees have pitching issues? Last season saw Tim Redding take his 9.10 ERA to the mound at Fenway on July 15. The Yankees didn't even have a viable 5-man rotation last year until the emergence of Shawn Chacon and Aaron Small at the end of July. So yes, this year’s team has its issues. But the issues last year seemed much more insurmountable, and were surmounted.

The offense will be fine. Sure the, Baby Bombers have cooled off (Melky and Andy combined have 5 hits in their last 39 at-bats), but everyone knew their first slump would be around the corner—that’s just the game, and now will be the test to see if they pull themselves out and prove once and for all that they belong (Melky really has already done so; the onus is more on Andy to prove that his recent hot streak wasn’t a fluke). Even without Sheffield and Matsui, Joe can put together a lineup that at worst is above average and capable of winning games.

As I said previously, what this team needs is pitching. And we’re not talking about selling the future to go out and get Barry Zito or Dontrelle Willis. We’re talking about finding this year’s Chacon, the guy who isn’t big name but can come in and stabilize and strengthen an inconsistent rotation. Randy Johnson is no longer any more reliable than a back of the rotation guy, as his hanging sliders and mediocre fastballs over the middle of the plate are once again getting hammered. Mike Mussina continues to anchor the rotation despite less than superb results in his last two outings; he really should only have given up 2 runs on Saturday—the third run reached on an error and the fourth was Marco Scutaro, who reached on a double after taking a two-strike pitch at the knees that got all of the outside part of the plate, an astonishing non-call. You watch Moose and he’s still hitting his spots, making good pitches, which is borne out statistically in his 15 K/3 BB ratio over 13 innings in those last two starts. Chien-Ming Wang has had his share of bad outings, but for the most part has kept his team in the game and is capable of giving you some much needed innings. Jaret Wright deserves a little more credit for what he’s done—still can’t get past the 6th inning, which is a problem, but he also gives the team a chance. And Chacon is back now—not a great start yesterday but he didn’t look horrible, especially as Damon and Melky played a Nick Swisher flyout into an inside the park homer. People on the radio talk as if Chacon can’t help this team, but I’m waiting for him to notch a couple starts and solidify the rotation once again. One can’t forget how he pitched down the stretch last year, nor in the playoffs. With that said, you can’t have too much pitching and with only one consistently good starter in Moose, the rotation could use a little veteran help.

The bigger need is another arm out of the bullpen. Scott Proctor was used far too much early on and it shows, as he’s lost the zip on his fastball and is having trouble getting people out. Kyle Farnsworth is not someone you want as your 8th inning guy in the playoffs. Ron Villone has pitched well but hasn’t been tested in a big spot. Octavio Dotel is back by the end of the month, and may take over as Mariano’s setup man, but is a question mark until we see what he looks like. So there’s only 1 guy in the bullpen that you trust right now, and that’s been a big problem in the postseason recently.

I’m talking about the problems; I don’t have the solutions. I suggested a couple names in my last post, but it’s still far too early to know who might be available for Cashman. He came through in a big way last year—he’s really proven himself as an outstanding GM when left free of the Tampa faction’s meddling. Here’s hoping he finds the deadline magic again this year.

In other news, the struggles continue for Double Play-Rod, as he got booed off the field this weekend. You hear the soundbites from him: "I don't have any complaints. All I can do is take my approach ... my work ethic and come out and play hard every day." Fluffy, empty, meaningless. And here’s the winner: "I'm used to it now. If my wife and my daughter don't boo me, I'm good." Ah, Barry Bonds-ese, the language of the overly image-conscious athlete, waxing about how little the fans' opinions mean to him, all the while proving just how much they do affect him. Translation: “I’m so overwhelmed by the negative treatment of the fans that I’m frozen and can’t use my ridiculous talent to perform when I desperately want and need to.” Superb column about this in the Post today by Joel Sherman, who for the most part really seems to know what he’s talking about, unlike many other columnists in the New York papers. I love that he takes on the sabermetrics cult:

"This is not a subject I tackle with naivete. We live in an era of advanced statistical analysis and, en masse, that group would tell me - is probably writing e-mails to tell me - there is no such thing as clutch or non-clutch, and that qualities such as IT are media-generated hogwash. I take the research seriously and, I agree, intangible qualities have been thrown around far too much in baseball coverage. But how do you disregard your eyes completely? How do you ignore that at the most intense moments Rodriguez seems to be carrying his 32-ounce bat and the weight of the world into each at-bat?"

Sure statistics are great, but these people don’t seem to understand that baseball players are human, that there is more to the game than what your computer tells you, that certain players are much more likely to rise to the occasion than others. And as Sherman points out, A-Rod’s struggles create a vicious cycle where the more he fails the more he overthinks the game and presses, causing him to continue to falter. He has unbelievable power in his swing when he stops thinking and lets it rip—a swing you don’t see against the Sawx or in any other pressure situation. The computer geeks can throw all the nifty acronym stats at me they want; convoluted numbers don’t tell the story of a player like this the way his face and his swing do.

Been a while

2006-06-09T17:27:00.001-07:00

Rainout Wednesday, and another series closing loss last night. Again there's really not much of a story to tell here so we'll go Mad Dog Russo style: Wright labored again, Schilling was very good and Papelbon was unhittable, the bullpen got lit up and the Yankees had 4 hits and three were solo homers, off you go. Taking 2 of 3 from the Sawx is fine, but this 3-series trend of impressive wins early in the series followed by bad losses to close them out is a bit annoying. The light-hitting A's come in for 3 as Jeter returns to the lineup.

I'd rather do a little draft/rumor type stuff since last night was a rather nondescript game. The Yankees selected 25 pitchers and 25 position players, concentrating on pitching early. With their first two picks they went safe with solid college pitchers. In the first round they took Ian Kennedy, a righty out of Southern Cal. This was a guy who was highly regarded coming out of high school and was outstanding his first two college seasons before taking a step back. 3.90 ERA, 100 hits, 102 K, .258 BAA in 101.2 innings this year. He's said to have lost a bit of zip on his fastball but still was successful against strong college competition. The next pick was Joba Chamberlain, a big guy (6'2", 230) out of Nebraska known for having a bulldog mentality. This season 89.1 IP, 3.93 ERA, 84 hits, .255 BAA, and 102 K which is an impressive number. The top position player taken was Colin Curtis, a cancer survivor out of Arizona State who posted a .335 BA, .515 SLG, .432 OBP with 6 HR. 54 RBI, and 21-25 steals in 239 AB. One pick I liked was Tim Norton in round 7, also with great size (6'5", 230) and said to have a nasty splitter. He put up impressive numbers against Big East Competition, 2.04 ERA, 62 hits, 24 BB, 96 K and .190 BAA in 92.2 IP. One other player to mention is Dellin Betances, a New York high school pitcher taken in the 8th round, who was formerly projected as a potential first-rounder but dropped because of signability concerns, and who now is being touted as the steal of the draft. What we know about him is that he's got a great body (6'8", 215) throws hard and has been said to have the potential to develop ace-caliber stuff.

We all know that baseball's amateur draft is a crapshoot as players are much more difficult to project than other sports, but the early impression of this one is positive. You like taking college pitchers early--much more projectable, and a shorter road to the majors than high school guys. You look at the success of Justin Verlander and Jered Weaver this season, both drafted in 2004, and can't help but look forward to seeing if Kennedy, Chamberlain, Norton and company will be able to hack it. And drafting high-upside guys like Betances after going conservative in the early rounds seems to be a viable strategy.

As I said, this stuff is a crapshoot, but that doesn't excuse the results the Yankees have had in recent years. They have not drafted a player that has made any impact for them since Derek Jeter in 1992. Granted, several players they drafted were traded, and Mark Prior was drafted but did not sign, but even of those who were traded the only notables were Mike Lowell, Eric Milton, and Nick Johnson, players who have been serviceable Major Leaguers but certainly not spectacular. The past three drafts, starting with 2003, have begun to produce more prospects, notably Phil Hughes, touted as far and away the gem of the Yankees' farm system. Point is, although projecting future Major Leaguers is an extremely difficult business, there is no excuse for a decade of utter futility.

Interestingly enough, the last productive draft, in 1992, was one year before George Steinbrenner was reinstated from his suspension. We all know the story of how the dynasty was built: with the Boss out of the picture, Gene Michael was free to oversee the organization's operations without Steinbrenner forcing him into foolish trades, and he held onto the prospects who would form the core of the championship teams--names like Jeter, Rivera, Bernie, Posada, Pettitte. Now, the history of the inner workings of the organization is a bit muddled so I'm going to be speculating here and this should be taken with a grain of salt. But we do know that there has been a split between the New York front office, led by Brian Cashman, and the so-called Tampa faction of Billy Connors, Lin Garrett, Bill Emslie, and Damon Oppenheimer. It's also well documented that the Tampa faction is a bunch of bumbling Steinbrenner yes-men who don't have a clue about running a baseball team. So it's worth noting that the period of futility in player development began when the Boss was reinstated and presumably the Tampa faction began gaining power, which would last into the new century. And over the past couple of years, Brian Cashman has worked his way gradually to seizing complete control and now (at least until Steinbrenner goes berserk) makes all the decisions, and has begun to build the Yankee farm system back toward respectability. The team is now reaping the benefits on the field with Robinson Cano, Chien-Ming Wang, Melky Cabrera, and (maybe) Andy Phillips.

With that said, the team this year is not going to go deep into the playoffs with the rotation and bullpen as they are. This team could desperately use a middle of the rotation starter and another power arm out of the bullpen (which they’ll get with Octavio Dotel, but coming off elbow surgery he’s far from a sure thing). Problem is, there just isn’t much out there right now. Kelvim Escobar would have been a fine target as a guy with playoff experience who might be had cheap, but the Angels locked him up. Rumors have centered on Dontrelle Willis, but he’s probably not going anywhere, plus the Yankees probably don’t have the prospects to go get him. And even if they do, Cashman is too smart to deal Cano and Hughes, which is probably the minimum he’d have to give up. No, his mission is to go find this year’s Shawn Chacon. The system has enough prospects of the Matt DeSalvo/Sean Henn mold that Cashman can go out and get someone without mortgaging the future of the team—the difficulty is finding the right guy.

There are names which no one has really considered to this point, and this is pure speculation on my part (after all, none of us knew anything about Chacon at this time last year). First is Tony Armas. The trade talk here has focused on Livan Hernandez and Alfonso Soriano, and there’s no guarantee Armas will be part of the potential Washington firesale, but if he’s available he may be the guy. Having a good year, lots of experience, and 28 years old. A real long shot is Kip Wells of the Pirates, who is expected to join their rotation soon after missing the first half of the season with a blood clot in his arm. The injury is what makes him unlikely, but he’s a guy with good stuff who’s never really gotten it together, like Chacon was last year (although Chacon’s situation in Colorado was much different, so don’t go too far with that comparison). The reliever situation is even more difficult to foresee—hard to know where help might come from, maybe even the farm. One name that’s been kicked around is Juan Rincon of the Twins.

No telling whether these guys will get any consideration, but I’d rather think out of the box than get onboard with these columnists from the Star-Ledger, Newsday, the Post and the Daily News who focus on Dontrelle, Bobby Abreu, Pat Burell, and Alfonso Soriano—none of whom will be in pinstripes this season. These writers either just don’t know what they’re talking about or they’re just trying to attract readers with gaudy trade suggestions. Losing two of your top 3 run producers hurts, but this lineup is still talented and capable of winning, albeit in different ways (which some of us prefer). The pressing need for this team is pitching. Reggie Sanders would probably come cheap and is playoff tested, so he could be a good pickup, but Cashman may only have enough ammo for one or two good trades. If that’s the case, he’s good enough to recognize (and has said) that the primary target is going to be pitching.

Play of the year

2006-06-06T19:26:00.000-07:00

I've gone from calling Melky Cabrera more suspect than prospect, to wondering what might happen if he was allowed to get his feet wet, to watching him daily and finally recognizing with the rest of the Yankee world that he is a player and that he would established himself in this lineup. He showed fairly early that he can hit and has a superb arm; he's been gradually establishing that he is a capable fielder as well. After an outstanding play on the bases last night, he made the single most impressive (and most important) defensive play the Yankees have had this season. Manny Ramirez destroyed a Kyle Farnsworth fastball toward left-centerfield; Melky got an Aaron Rowand-esque jump on the ball, raced to his left and leapt in stride to climb the wall and pluck a would-be game-tying home out of its Monument Park trajectory. He bounced off the wall with enough momentum to send him sprawling to the grass, before raising his glove to display the ball and then giving an awestruck glance into the glove to confirm that it actually was there. Johnny Damon had also climbed the wall and while still in flight raised his arms in triumph. Manny muttered something to himself between 2nd and 3rd base; Farnsworth exclaimed a more profane version of "Holy smokes!" It was a play that would be outstanding at any time, but the situation and the way it broke the Sawx made it that much more special.

I got a late start on this game having to umpire tonight, so I missed the first half of the game and only got to see a couple innings of the impressive performance by this Pauley guy. From what I saw he's got some pretty good stuff--good curve, change, and a sinker with a ton of movement. Hadn't heard of him as a prospect for this organization, but his debut was impressive.

Anytime you win a 2-1 game you know you've had some great pitching. Wang apparently labored a bit early, but ended up putting together a fine performance, 7 IP, 8 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 2 K. Nice to see Farnsworth throw strikes and have an efficient outing with no walks, even if it did take a gem of a defensive play to hold the lead. Rivera was lights out again.

Another electric crowd at the Stadium tonight; it's always nice to see the kind of well-deserved love Bernie Williams gets for anything he does, let alone a big home run against the Sawx. And Melky getting a curtain call for his play, after being given the go-ahead from Lee Mazzilli to take it. With the Sawx having an opportunity to bury the battered Yankees, a split is now guaranteed at a minimum, with a strong chance for more. Two very impressive wins so far; tomorrow's an unfavorable matchup with Schilling going against Jaret Wright, but Thursday we get the chance to see whether or not Randy Johnson is truly back on track. Imagine being told in March that this team would be playing a June series against the Sawx without Gary Sheffield, Hideki Matsui, Derek Jeter, and Shawn Chacon, and with a Randy Johnson who'd been mostly ineffective to this point--you'd have written off any chance at even smelling the top of the division. It's been simply remarkable how this team has continued to win no matter what happens.

Tonight was a rough night offensively for the Columbus Watch, combined 0-7 with 1 BB and 2 K for Andy and Melky, but they made up for it with the glove. Already talked about Melky's play, and Andy made two very good plays on line drives as well.

BEATDOWN

2006-06-05T19:29:00.000-07:00

There are not many pitchers I like to see get their brains beat in more than Josh Beckett. The YES guys, Jim Kaat and Bobby Murcer (who along with Ken Singleton are better than any crew ESPN puts in the booth), had it pegged before the big inning: Beckett couldn't throw his curve for strikes, so the Yankees would be able to sit on his fastball. That they did, and the result was 6 straight base hits, including a 3 run bomb by Andy Phillips and capped off by Jason Giambi with one of his own. All Mike and the Mad Dog and Michael Kay (how he got his own radio show I'll never know) said regarding this series was that the Sawx needed to bury the injury-depleted Yankees in this series. But the "Baby Bombers" continue to play like they belong here, and in spite of all the injuries the Yankee offense looks as healthy as it has in quite some time. Can't say enough about the way these young guys are playing ball; the Yankee farm system has been much maligned recently, but the past 2 seasons have seen a rich harvest. The sample size is still relatively small, especially for Andy Phillips, so there is likely to come a time when the pitchers around the league take notice and catch up with him. But he's putting a hurt on everything thrown at him right now, fastballs and off speed stuff. Like Melky, he's now played his way into the lineup everyday as long as the big guns are injured. One can't forget Shane Spencer's major league debut in 1998, 10 HR in 67 AB, and the way the league soon figured out how to pitch to him. We'll see soon enough whether Phillips follows Spencer's career path or if he is the real deal.

Not the best start of the year for Moose tonight, but that's not saying much and it's hard to take anything a pitcher does with a double-digit lead at face value. He still looked impressive overall, starting off with a leadoff double to Coco Crisp before completing the nearly impossible feat of striking out Mark Loretta, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez 1-2-3. Still hitting his spots, and continuing to use his fastball better than he has in years, getting hitters with 2 strikes to swing through fastballs at their eyes. A high pitch count prevented him from going deeper into the game, but no signs of his monster year slowing down, and it says something about a pitcher when a 4 earned run performance in this kind of win seems like an off night for him. At this rate he's your starting pitcher for the American League all stars this year (and if there's any justice in all-star voting, the current leaderboard will change and he'll be received by Joe Mauer and pitch against David Wright, who are currently the best players in MLB at their positions and according to the latest releases are ranked 6th and 2nd respectively in fan voting). Moose also gets the nod for consistently being one of the strangest, most awkward postgame interviews. Tonight they asked him about tying Jack Morris on the all-time strikeout list and why he didn't want the ball from it, and he joked that he wasn't "playing to tie anyone" and then hemorrhaged something about how he hoped there would be a few more strikeouts for him and there are a bunch more people above him on that list and he didn't want to tie any of them either. The guy is an artist and it's a beautiful sight to watch him throw a baseball, but he is one odd dude.

Along that same line, I counted Mariano Rivera thanking God no less than 4 times in his postgame tonight, very possibly more.

David Ortiz & Manny Ramirez: combined 0-5, BB, 2 K.

Columbus Watch
Melky Cabrera: 1-5, 2B, 2 RBI, 3 R. Impressive show on the bases, scoring on a wild pitch from 1st base.
Andy Phillips: 2-5, HR, 3 RBI.

I still haven't been to a game yet this year, and watching tonight on YES I really missed the Stadium. Great, electric crowd tonight, as always for these games. I was disappointed to not be there when Moose struck out the side in the 1st, and by the time Melky circled the bases on a wild pitch I was downright pissed. There's no gameday experience like Notre Dame football, but for pure ballpark atmosphere, nothing compares to a big game at Yankee Stadium. There's a smell of history, success, and confidence in the air and if you're a Yankee fan it fills your chest the moment you get out of your car. And when you feel the Stadium shake ever-so-slightly with celebration, you are flooded with memories of all the playoff and World Series games, Sawx and Mets games you've been to. Surely the new stadium will be an awesome place, but anyone who's been to a big game in the Bronx has to worry that the Mystique and Aura might be missing.

Ouch

2006-06-04T17:08:00.000-07:00

Nothing much to say about this one, tough to drop another potential sweep but still an impressive series overall given the injury situation. Jeter goes down again today, but it's a bruised thumb and hopefully he won't miss much time. Aaron Small is just pitching badly, hanging breaking balls and grooving fastballs to good hitters. He moves back to the bullpen this week with Shawn Chacon's return.

Columbus Watch
Melky Cabrera: 1-4, R, BB
Andy Phillips: 2-4, R
Kevin Thompson: 1-1, BB, 2B, 3 RBI. Forget Terrence Long; learn from what happened when you got Melky and Phillips some consistent playing time and keep this guy in the lineup.
Matt Smith: 1.1 IP, 0 H, BB, K. With the Sawx coming in for 4, wouldn't mind seeing what this guy can do against David Ortiz. Has allowed only 1 baserunner (walk) in 3.2 innings.

Big series coming up, a half game behind the Sawx as they come in for 4 games. Let's see if the staff changes their approach against these hitters the way that Randy Johnson did in his start in Detroit.

Nice pitching matchup tonight on the Joe Morgan Show, CC Sabathia against John Lackey. Looking forward to that.

Getting it done

2006-06-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

The Patchwork Yankees continue to win games as a new star seems to drop out of the lineup every day--yesterday Giambi getting sick. Maybe the kids are just hot right now, or maybe the Yankees actually do have some viable prospects left. Either way, the job they've done filling in for the injured stars has been wonderful. One hit apiece yesterday for the Columbus Contingent, including another bomb from Andy Phillips and Kevin Thompson's first career hit, an infield single where he displayed his impressive wheels--this guy can fly. Melky Cabrera also had another assist, now at the top of the league with 6. I'm going to have to change my Melky Watch to a Columbus Watch.

Randy Johnson continues his recovery with another impressive start (7.1 IP, 3 H, 4 R, 3 BB, 8 K). He didn't move hitters off the plate as much as you saw in Detroit and he grooved a couple fastballs, but his stuff continues to look better. Unfortunately he didn't get the win as Scott Proctor continues to struggle, undoubtedly from overuse. Impressive as Proctor was early on, the workload he's had has just been too much to ask. Chien-Ming Wang with a harrowing save.

I wrote about the Orioles' pitching yesterday; with 3 errors in yesterday's game and 1 crucial error Friday night, their defense has been exposed as well. These guys just look lackluster in the field, as if they are uninterested and don't care about making the play. And it's no wonder, as the team continues to struggle without any real pitching. There have been whispers that Miguel Tejada is soon to be a full-time DH, and you can see why. He looks terribly fat and can barely move at shortstop anymore. He's still one of the best hitters around, but has become a liability in the field.

Jeter being Jeter

2006-06-03T13:41:00.000-07:00

As the stars continue to drop around him, Derek Jeter bounced back from his own minor injury and gave the Yankees the lift they needed. Business as usual for the Captain, providing the go-ahead RBI single not once but twice late in the game. And this from the most overrated player in the game, according to a Sports Illustrated players' poll. Hard to figure how the players don't recognize how special the face of the latest Yankee dynasty is, but those of us who have watched his entire career do.

Business as usuall as well for Jaret Wright, another quality start but unable to go deep into the game. He labored early with a lot of pitches, although in the end his pitch count was 89, not particularly high. The fact that he runs out of gas after that many pitches signals a clear problem with conditioning.

Kyle Farnsworth gets credited with another blown save, although he pitched much better and really didn't deserve to be saddled with the blow--got a groundball which came up on Miguel Cairo at 3rd to prevent the double play. He still looked a little shaky at times, but didn't allow a hit and finally got the job done in a pressure situation.

The young guys continue to hit: Melky 1-3, R, 2 BB; Andy Phillips 2-4, HR, R, RBI, SB. Phillips continues to kill the ball, best batting average in the league over the past week (.526).

The Orioles still can't figure things out; Leo Mazzone was brought in but can't cure the fact that this organization doesn't seem to understand that you need quality veteran pitching to win. The guy had all the success in the world in Atlanta, but obviously can't turn coal into diamonds--Daniel Cabrera, Kris Benson and Erik Bedard are not John Smoltz, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine. Until the organization changes its philosophy, this team will continue to struggle.

Blown

2006-06-02T15:40:00.000-07:00

A game the Yankees didn't really need turned into a loss they couldn't bear. With one call to the bullpen, the story of this series changed from the surging Yankees storming into Detroit to dominate league-leading Tigers to the gritty Tigers battling back to prevent the sweep. Going in you'll take 3 of 4, but once you're in position for the sweep you've got to finish it. Wang was far from good, but the story of the game is Kyle Farnsworth. Bringing him in this year, you were aware of his track record and knew he wouldn't be particularly reliable as a late inning guy. Last night the jury came back, and Farnsworth has proven beyond all doubt that he does not have the guts to handle a big situation. He has such great stuff, his mental block when it comes to throwing strikes when he needs to is frustrating. It's similar to what Double Play-Rod's problem is--when the pressure is on, everything tightens up and you try to do to much. Knowing that Farnsworth can't be trusted, this bullpen is looking worse and worse. Maybe once Octavio Dotel returns from injury he'll be the guy, but don't count on it. Right now there is no guy to get the lead to Mariano. The value of a power bullpen in the playoffs is proven year after year, and this team does not have it. With the increasingly ridiculous rash of injuries (Mariano's just sounds made up--strained back from putting on a shoe?), the Yankees are developing more and more holes. Trade season has started and the rumors are flying, but at this point there are so many problems with this team that Cashman can't possibly make enough trades to fill them. I plan to do some rumor stuff in the next couple days, but suffice it to say at this point that you've got to hope any of the Yankees' serious prospects are still in the system in August.

Speaking of prospects, Justin Verlander was disappointing last night. His fastball is explosive and his curve is devastating, so the stuff is there. But you had to find yourself wondering what Pudge Rodriguez was doing behind the plate last night, because he wasn't calling pitches. In the 3rd inning, when the Yankees scored 4 and the only time Verlander was in trouble, he threw almost exclusively changeups. His changeup might be a decent pitch, but it was hard to tell--no way to know whether it got hit so much because it's not a good pitch or just because he threw so many and the hitters got used to it. Honestly I've never seen anything like it--a guy with a 99 mph fastball and a great curve throwing changeup after changeup and getting hammered. He was having issues with a blister which may have had something to do with it, but who knows. Last night was a disappointment, but he has the stuff to be an outstanding pitcher.

With Melky settled comfortably into the lineup, the talk now is Andy Phillips. He's a very good to outstanding defensive first baseman, but we already knew he could do that. Now he's hitting too, 7-12 with 6 RBI in 3 games. He may never be much more than a role player, but it's nice to see the way the young guys are filling in for the Yankee MASH unit.

About to get underway in Baltimore, with Jaret Wright looking to give Joe and the bullpen more length to his starts in the opener.

the Moooooooooose

2006-05-31T20:18:00.000-07:00

Mike Mussina is officially the poster boy for the resurgent aging pitchers of this season. With a masterpiece tonight, he is 7-1 and has blown past Justin Verlander to 2nd place on the AL ERA leaderboard. Tonight epitomized what he has done this season, using all of his pitches effectively, hitting his spots, and showing confidence in his fastball--in fact getting hitters to bite on fastballs at their eyes for strikeouts. His pitch count was remarkable: 101 pitches in a complete game, 72 of them strikes. His going the distance also gave the overextended bullpen a big lift. Joe actually was on his way to get him after he gave up the sole run, and the YES cameras caught Moose shouting, "Joe, stay there!" and Joe obliged. Moose's starts this year have all been within the range of good to outstanding, and he'll get consideration for an all-star start although Ozzie Guillen might go with his guy, Jose Contreras, leading the league in ERA. Regardless, he looks younger this year than he has in a long time and has anchored an otherwise shaky pitching staff. At age 37 you wonder if he can sustain it, but so far no signs of slowing down. It will be interesting to see how he looks down the stretch, since he ran out of gas in August last year and had nothing left in the playoffs. This team will need him to continue his vintage performance through October this year if there is to be any hope of a run deep into the postseason.

Another fine performance from the offense against a tough pitcher who threw better than his line looks (8.2 IP, 10 H, 6 ER, 2 BB, 7 K). Nice to see a patchwork lineup come together in the wake of all the injuries and put 6 on the board, and without a home run, just with rallies. Production came from the middle of the order, Giambi and A-Rod (combined 6-8, 3 R, 3 RBI, BB, 2 2B, 3B). Every game the contributions come from somewhere different, which is nice to see, especially the way guys have filled in for injuries--Andy Phillips, since being forced into the lineup for Sheffield, has gone 4-8 with a walk and 2 runs along with solid defense at 1st base. And speaking of which...

Melky watch: 1-5, R, SB. Closest he's come to putting one over the fence, but Magglio Ordonez made a nice play on him. One issue: he showed tonight he can't bunt. It's dismaying to see that these guys coming up from the farm aren't learning--Cano has been hit or miss bunting as well.

Caught a little of the Twins on mlb.tv during commercials on YES, wanted to see Francisco Liriano. The guy has some hellacious stuff--here's hoping he keeps it together, because he'll be fun to watch.

5 game win streak, and a series win over the hottest team in the game. Looking forward to Justin Verlander and a the chance at an extremely impressive sweep tomorrow.

Boom

2006-05-31T17:41:00.000-07:00

You can't give up 5 run leads, but bouncing back to win the way the Yankees did last night shows you something about a team. Giambi hadn't looked good in a couple days until destroying hanging breaking ball from Todd Jones before the offense put the game out of reach. Aaron Small worked out of some rough spots; he's looking a little better with each outing. The bullpen was OK, but Farnsworth just does not look like he can be trusted to throw strikes when he needs to. Joe's got to find a way to get these guys some rest--Proctor has more innings than any reliever in the world, Farnsworth is throwing a lot, and you don't like to see Mariano going three innings, even if it was only 25 dominant pitches. Superb production from the bottom of the order, Bernie, Terrence Long, and Andy Phillips (combined 7-15, 5 R, 6 RBI, 2 BB).

The bodies continue to hit the floor with Damon's foot barking, Jeter not looking right with the hand and not in the lineup tonight, and Sheffield going to have his wrist re-examined. You've got to expect some injuries with an aging team including (hopefully) former steroid users in the case of Giambi and probably Sheffield, but it's getting to be extreme. The team is talented enough to sustain a few short term injuries, hopefully in the case of Damon and Jeter. A lot depends on the pitching staff, which hasn't been hit too hard with Shawn Chacon coming back within the month. Also returning fairly soon should be Octavio Dotel, who could go a long way to help keep the bullpen fresh.

The Yankees have been playing well against this talented Tigers team. The Tigers haven't been able to do to much offensively with the exception of Pudge Rodriguez, who came up a double short of the cycle last night. Their starter, Roman Colon, was just a stopgap measure for injured Mike Maroth, and he got knocked around. But this team has a couple great arms in the bullpen, one of whom should probably be closing instead of Todd Jones. Fernando Rodney (1.1 IP, 0 R, 0 H, 2 BB, 1 K) throws hard with good movement on his pitches, throws a heavy ball, just needs to throw strikes more. The guy that's really something is Joel Zumaya (2.1 IP, 0 R, 1 H, 4 K). He's got the explosive fastball, regularly lighting up the radar gun reading at 100+ mph. But he also throws a breaking ball that is simply unhittable, and he throws it for strikes. His stuff reminds you of Frankie Rodriguez with 5 extra miles of giddyup on his fastball; he should have a bright future as a closer. Speaking of bright futures, Thursday we get our first look at one of the top pitching prospects in the league, starter Justin Verlander, second in the AL in ERA behind Jose Contreras. He's given this team one great outing after another in this first half, and barring a total collapse is likely to be an all-star and run away with the AL Rookie of the Year. He's another young gun who throws very hard, and it will be fun to see what the man putting up these outstanding numbers is made of.

Melky Watch: His best game yet, filling in for Damon in the leadoff spot. 4-6, 2B, 3B, BB, 2 RBI.

Tonight: Mussina vs. Nate Robertson, another of the Tigers' solid young starters.

Return of the Unit

2006-05-29T12:55:00.000-07:00

Been away at the shore for the weekend with very limited Internet access. Not a big problem; it's probably not worth talking at length about anything that happened this weekend. When you're playing against a team that's barely triple-A caliber, it's hard to gain any insight into what your team is doing. It's a shame that any Major League Baseball team looks like these Royals; there isn't another team anywhere that starts and finishes every season without a glimmer of hope to even come close to contention. We hear of the big-market/small-market issue, but being in a small market does not preclude a team from having a chance. This is a team that has been successful in the past, and they need to figure things out, at least to have something to give to their fans.

And with a team as bad as they are, it's rough to have them come in and drop one of the games. The problems this weekend fall to the bullpen, which was bad overall, with Farnsworth giving Friday night's game away and combining with Proctor to make Sunday's much closer than it needed to be. The starting pitching was ok, and the offense was mostly as it should have been against these Royals, scoring 27 runs in 3 games (although it would have been nice to hit Scott Elarton a little harder and the 9th inning Friday was a letdown with Giambi's double play ball).

Now it's on to Detroit, with a highly-anticipated 4-game series with the best team in the Major Leagues. It'll be fun to see what these Tigers are actually made of. Everyone knows about the pitching, but this lineup is loaded with guys who are not superstars, but can really hit, like Pudge Rodriguez, Magglio Ordonez, and Carlos Guillen. They're no fluke at this point--they've got a solid offense and a great manager in Jim Leyland; so much will depend on their pitching staying on track with veteran Kenny Rogers, young gun Justin Verlander and company.

The series got off on the right foot today with Randy Johnson finally returning to form and dominating this team, not allowing a hit until the 6th inning. There were a number of changes you might have noticed in him today. First off, the stuff looked as consistently good as it has in a while, with the sliders diving and the fastballs exploding a bit more than they have been. His command was also excellent, working the entire hitting zone and hitting his spots with all his different pitches. He also seemed to have found a little of the nastiness which made him great in the past, throwing inside and brushing hitters off the plate, making them dance a little bit. In his last 2 starts against los Metos and the Sawx, every hitter looked comfortable in the box against him, and often hit the ball with authority. Different story today. The Tigers were off balance and didn't get many good swings at him at all. These aren't the Mets or Red Sox--few lineups have the kind of firepower that those teams do--but this is not a bad offense by any stretch of the imagination. Where in his past 2 starts hitters had been allowed to sit and wait on a fastball over the plate, the Tigers were forced to be just a touch behind, and those fastballs were fouled back or missed. The two hits he did allow were still good pitches, actually both out of the strike zone, just good hitting by a couple of good hitters in Pudge and Guillen. Put all the factors together and you get the kind of overall dominant performance Randy Johnson is apparently still capable of.

Melky Watch, Memorial Day Weekend Edition: 2-11 vs. the Royals with a double, 1 walk, 2 runs and 3 RBI. Continuing to look more comfortable in the field, except when he has to get a ball out of the left field corner and falls down often. But he's the left fielder now, and continues to impress. 1-4 today with a run scored.

Quick hits
-Robinson Cano has been in a bad slump but may have broken out with a 3-4 effort today.
-Nice job by the bullpen today after a rough weekend. Ron Villone was particularly good, and as long as he cuts down the walks, Joe will look to get him in the mix with Proctor and Farnsworth, who are showing that they have been overworked.

Series victory, gutless staff

2006-05-25T09:51:00.000-07:00

It's hard to come away from a tough series victory against the Sawx feeling disappointed. The offense revived itself and carried this team to 2 good wins. But the pitching staff showed an utter lack of anything hanging between its collective legs with the way it handled this Manny situation. After listening to the New York talk radio yesterday, you might have foolishly thought they would actually do something. And they had two perfect opportunities, Johnson in the first inning and Proctor in the seventh. They didn't just decide not to send him the message they needed to; no, instead they both put the ball on a tee for him to destroy. Does Scott Proctor not have an ounce of pride? Rivera actually made him move his feet in the ninth which was at least something, but far from enough. In this day when batters feel free to hang over the plate without fear of being pitched inside, Ortiz and Manny against the Yankees are an extreme example. These guys couldn't be more comfortable in the box, and the results speak for themselves. Look at what happened when Rivera did brush Manny back: the same kind of pitch that he had been hammering all series, he pulled off a bit and flied out harmlessly. Everybody can see the problem, and it's been talked about exhaustively. It's just mind-boggling that this staff doesn't get it.

Another horrible start for Johnson. He's running out of things to say, and so is everyone else who's watching him. Still grooving his now-average fastball to good hitters, and the slider is sharp only half the time, the other half either hanging or flattening out. Can't do anything but wait and see at this point, but he looks scary right now and not in the way he used to.

Melky Watch: back in the lineup at the leadoff spot, and garnered Player of the Game honors (2-4, 4 RBI, BB). Also made an outstanding running play in the right field corner. The experiment is paying off--this guy is looking like a player.

Farnsworth looked sloppy again, but made the big pitch when he needed it most, catching Ortiz looking at a slider. Lost from the box score is Wily Mo Pena freezing on third base when he could have walked home backwards on a wild pitch.

Again, you've got to feel good about the way this offense picked up the mediocre efforts by the pitching staff. But you've also got to be alarmed: this staff is not going to get past the first round of the playoffs the way they look right now. Mussina is the ace right now, but he has faltered at the end of each of the past 2 years. With Johnson unable to right himself, this team could desperately use a true ace like Roger Clemens. Not only would he give the staff the anchor it needs, he'd solve their guts problem and take care of business with Manny and Ortiz. Chances are he'll wind up with the Astros, but if they don't right themselves the door could be wide open for a real contender. And the good thing about him is all he would cost would be money, which the Yankees have, as opposed to prospects, which they don't. Cashman is smart enough not to further bankrupt the farm system by going after a player like Dontrelle Wilis; let's hope the Boss doesn't retake control and force a bad deal. It's not quite trading season yet, but I'll plan to start doing some rumor posts once we get a little bit into June.

Manny's Earhole

2006-05-23T19:39:00.000-07:00

I can't help but dread tomorrow's game, and I'm not referring to Randy Johnson's recent exploits. It's because I know that the gentlemanly Yankees will do absolutely nothing to send Manny Ramirez a message, and I'll be just as furious as I was when Manny stood at the plate and watched his homer leave. We're not talking about styling after the swing; we're talking dropping the bat, staring and standing still until after the ball was gone. Regardless of where you draw the line between what is acceptable and what is not, he was not even in sight of it. Unfortunately Manny's at-bat following the homer came in a situation where you could not put another runner on. It's too bad it didn't work out for him to come up in a different situation against Kyle Farnsworth, because though Farnsworth is a nutty walk machine, he's the only pitcher on this staff that I would believe in to take care of business. I've already talked about how this staff needs to make David Ortiz dance; now they have a new mission, and this one can't wait: Manny's first at bat tomorrow, first pitch, without question needs to be Randy Johnson's best fastball between the top of the 2 and the 4 on Manny's jersey. And yet the same pitching staff which will not get in Ortiz's head will do nothing to Manny, and it's completely frustrating to watch the two of them get away with murder, albeit in more or less respectable ways. You respect the fact that Ortiz is a superb hitter and so you don't want to hit him, just make him aware of the inside pitch. But Manny needs to know that the crap he does cannot be tolerated. You sit here and listen to the talking heads about how the game has changed, and they're right. Wish we could see Manny do what he did against Bob Gibson. Gibson wouldn't have waited until his next at-bat, he'd have given him the ass-beating of the century on the spot. I never was a big Roger Clemens fan when he was here mainly because of the garbage with Mike Piazza, but at this point any Yankee fan watching these games longs to have an intimidator on the mound. Maybe Randy Johnson will shock me and do what is needed (like I'm sure he would have earlier in his career), but I'm going to try not to hope for anything.

At least the team got a much-needed victory. Mount Steinbrenner was probably about ready to erupt if it had gotten away. Jaret Wright turned in another solid performance, although unfortunately a groin tweak limited him to only 5 innings. After an excellent weekend of work, the middle relief corps was awful today, from Proctor getting shelled (1.1 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 4 ER) to Farnsworth walking everyone (1 IP, 3 BB). Luckily Rivera was strong again, getting Ortiz out and doing damage control in the wake of Farnsworth's mess. Double Play-Rod actually hit a big home run that meant something, one which should have put the game out of reach but almost didn't. Sheffield got back in the lineup, and the offense finally got back on track for the win.

Quick hits
-After a month and a half of stellar defense, Robinson Cano looks very shaky right now. 3 errors in a week and another bad play that went for a hit tonight. He's slumping at the plate too.
-Melky Watch: DNP. I was pissed when I saw the lineup; can't imagine what Joe is thinking benching Melky for Terrence Long as soon as Sheffield gets back. Terrence Long is not the answer. He's 30 years old and can't hit a lick. Melky has had some impressive at-bats lately (working a walk off Billy Wagner, singling off Wagner, doubling off Curt Schilling) and is gradually looking more comfortable in the field. The guy probably won't be a superstar, but he could be a decent everyday player if he's given some time. But he's not going to develop into anything sitting on the bench. Hard to figure.

Punchless

2006-05-23T16:29:00.000-07:00

Somebody get the memo to Randy Johnson for the finale of this series: when in the name of Bob Gibson is somebody going to put David Ortiz on his back? The guy dominates the plate, more comfortable in the batter's box than he is at an all-you-can-eat buffet--come to think of it, each game against the Yankees is an just that at the plate for him. And he eats all the pitches he can. This has been going on since the guy came over from the Twins 3 years ago, and he seems to get more comfortable with every at bat. Everybody in the world seems to realize except the Yankees; Mike and the Mad Dog have talked about it so much they refuse to even bring it up anymore. You don't need to head-hunt or try to hurt anyone--just put a fastball under the guy's chin every once in a while; make him hit the dirt and get a little more light on his feet at the plate.

Mussina won't do it and Wang is too young to be the guy. Jaret Wright used to be a head-hunter, but somehow it just needs to be Randy Johnson. Or, better still, pull out all the stops and get Roger Clemens back in pinstripes--don't doubt that the first pitch that Ortiz would see from the Rocket, well, he wouldn't see it, because he'd be hitting the deck. Either way, this pitching staff needs to let the guy know he doesn't own the plate.

Rough game for Wang last night, and alarming for him to get shelled by the Sawx when the team needs a win. He's had an up and down season, and just got beat up by the Sawx' big boys last night. He did show last year that he can pitch in the playoffs, and he's a key part of the rotation right now. Before last night he'd put together a couple gems in a row and you thought he was on the verge of going on a run. Now, you're not sure where he's at.

Quick hits
-Funny little rally in the 9th inning, the proverbial too little too late. Keith Foulke has really fallen far--the Yankees used to never be able to touch him.
-No post would be complete with out the Double Play-Rod bashing. He's so frustratingly predictable at this point: like Sunday night when everyone here was discussing the double play he was about to hit into, last night in the 9th I turned to my brother and said here comes the 2-run bomb. In a meaningless at-bat, he just cuts it loose, nice easy swing, destroys the ball. It's remarkable--he looks completely different at the plate when the game is on the line than when it's not.
-The offense still has enough firepower to win, but it's drowning right now. Sheffield may be getting back in the lineup just in time.
-Melky Watch: 1-3, 2B, R. First baserunner of the game and first run scored against Schilling with an impressive double, the first extra-base hit of his career.

Jaret Wright can make a statement tonight in a game this team desperately needs to win.

Double Play-Rod

2006-05-21T20:22:00.000-07:00

People wonder why Yankee fans are so hard on Alex Rodriguez. Maybe it's one of those things you can't understand from the outside. Put it to you this way: imagine having your cleanup hitter, the guy with the most pure talent on your team come up with two on and 1 out in the 8th inning, best chance you'll have to tie the game, and you know without a shadow of a doubt that he's going to hit into a double play. Oh, you couldn't know that, you say? It's hard to imagine, I understand. But check the play-by-play. Or, better yet, sit in a room of four Yankee fans who know he's coming up and can tell you exactly what's going to happen: Duaner Sanchez just needs to throw that changeup and the inning is over (as I said to my father before the at-bat); then watch it unfold. You've just got to see him every day to understand how excruciating it is to watch him play. Want to see a person have as little fun as possible playing the game? He's it. And he knows how helpless he is in big situations, you can see that. Sabermetricians will tell you that there's no such thing as a clutch player, than any player is as likely to fail in the clutch as any other. They're wrong. Sabermetrics is the science of contriving baseball statistics which can make any player look as good or as bad as you want; all it takes is a little creativity and some manipulation of the numbers. Statistics are helpful--baseball is a numbers game--but you've got to watch the game and follow a team or a player over a long period to get a feel for what the numbers mean. Do that, and you'll see how Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez (the anti-Jeter) prove that there are certain things in baseball that just aren't right for "objective" analysis.

Of course, it's not fair to only single out A-Rod's choke and not point out that it was part of a team effort. His was only the most notable of several gifts to Mets pitchers tonight. Strand 15 baserunners and you richly deserve a loss. The Yankee offense was an exercise in futility tonight, letting Tom Glavine and company off the hook time after time after time. Aaron Small pitched OK, actually looked pretty good until he threw a couple spicy meatballs to the Mets' two most dangerous hitters, Carlos Delgado and David Wright, who summarily throttled them. All around a well-deserved loss and a very poorly played series at Shea; not much to say beyond that.

Quick hits
-Bernie Williams: 3-3, 2 2B, R, 2 BB. Plus one of the most interesting scoring situations you'll see: "B Williams doubled to catcher." Great hustle.
-Joe Morgan made a point about how Miguel Cairo stealing third yesterday forced Jorge Julio to ditch his slider and throw fastballs to Andy Phillips. Then he made the point again. And again. And again. And again. And again. For the entire inning.
-I'd like to write more about Joe Morgan but we all now how utterly terrible he is as a broadcaster so I'll leave it there.
-Melky Watch: 1-4, BB. The hit came against Billy Wagner, who was throwing rocks. Still looking for that elusive extra-base hit.
-Johnny Damon gets back on the horse with a 3-4 game.
-Another superb effort by the Yankee pen: 3.2 IP, 0 R, 0 H, 1 BB, 1 HBP, 4 K. This included a man with a top-5 name in the Major Leagues, Colter Bean, and Scott Erickson, formerly of the Baltimore Orioles and People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People list and currently married to Lisa Guerrero.

On to Fenway, down 1.5 games. Strangely favorable pitching matchup tomorrow with Chien-Ming Wang coming off four very good to excellent starts in a row against the struggling Curt Schilling.

"Total meltdown"

2006-05-20T17:12:00.000-07:00

Tim McCarver said in extra innings that a baseball game does not have to be well-played for it to be fun and exciting. Today at Shea was one of the worst-played games you'll ever see (7 total errors, Billy Wagner's meltdown in the 9th inning). Both starting pitchers pitched well; Pedro was dominant for his entire outing. The Mets were in complete control until the 9th inning when Wagner just didn't have it. There's not much you can say about the comeback, if you want to call it a comeback--the Yankees didn't actually do much besides go to the plate with discipline. One thing--you take the win, but this game should not have even gone to extra innings. When Billy Wagner hands the game over to you with the top of the batting order coming up you've got to bury it; Damon missed being doubled up by half a step and Jeter didn't do any better. Joe Buck was right when he said that it would be fitting for a player like Andy Phillips to be the hero in a game like this. Nice job by Rivera slamming the door. Who's more worthy of Enter Sandman now?

Quick hits
-Besides the starting pitchers, the only effective unit was the Yankees bullpen (4 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 7 K). Scott Proctor continues to impress.
-The defense is unacceptable. Errors in 8 straight games, and 22 errors in 13 games.
-Melky watch: 1-4, R, BB, SB, 2 K. Had one rough play in the field, made an aggressive attempt and played the ball into a double. But the walk in the 9th was impressive; Melky looked overmatched against Wagner but worked him from 0-2 for a walk. After this at bat was where Wagner completely spun off the earth.
-Bonds' 714th: Nothing to say that hasn't already been said. Shameful.
-Chicago brawl: sorry Spangler, AJ was playing ball and Barrett was out of line. Way out of line.

Sunday night baseball tomorrow, with Aaron Small getting the start for Chacon against Tom Glavine. Unfortunately we'll have to put up with Joe Morgan for 3 hours.

Nice pitch

2006-05-19T22:14:00.000-07:00

Fact of life: throw a belt-high fastball to Carlos Beltran and he's going to hit it a long, long way. Randy Johnson continues to look every bit of 42+ years old, with another awful performance today (5 IP, 8 H, 6 ER, 3 BB, 5 K, 2 HR) raising the ERA to 5.62. His overpowering stuff is gone, yet he continues to challenge hitters as if he still has it. Fastballs over the plate which would have been fouled off or missed in the Unit's younger days are now getting hammered over the wall (see: Beltran, Nady). He was brought here to be the ace the Yankees haven't had since Clemens left, and despite a 17-win season he's been anything but that, especially in the playoffs. He still has some decent stuff, enough that he should be effective, but it seems like he forgets sometimes that he's not the pitcher he once was. When he spots his pitches he's fine, but he can't just rear back and fire the ball anymore.

Jaret Wright has put together a few decent starts in a row now. He had all his pitches working early and threw strikes on Thursday which was encouraging. But he loses effectiveness after the 6th inning--hasn't gotten through the 7th once this year. You'll take 6 innings and 3 runs from the bottom of the rotation, but Wright isn't the pitcher the Yankees threw a bunch of money at before last year. He's always been a bit of a head case and you wouldn't want to trust him with the ball in the playoffs, especially considering his postseason track record (3-5, 7.24 ERA, 1.75 baserunners per inning in 51 innings).

In other news, Melky Cabrera may be settling in at this point. Joe noticed that he looks more comfortable in right than in left, and Melky seems to be getting over the jitters that were obviously affecting him in his first handful of games. He doesn't have outstanding range, but probably enough for a corner OF, and he's shown a strong, accurate arm. He's also swinging the bat a little better (4 hits in his last 10 AB's with 2 R and 2 BB); you'd like to see him drive the ball for extra bases here and there, but he doesn't look hopeless in the field or at the plate anymore. Given the outfield tub club the Yankees have (Bubba Crosby out now), Melky and Bernie are going to be playing every day. I wrote a couple days ago that Melky looked more suspect than prospect, but that it might be interesting to see what he can do with some consistent playing time. He's not this year's Robinson Cano yet, but keep an eye on him.

Quick hits:
-Another good game for Jeter (2-5, 2B, 2 R, RBI, SB).
-Another error for A-Rod, and a rough week in the field for Cano (3 errors, bad play on a rundown tonight).
-Proctor gets back on track (2 IP, 0 R, 0 H, 1 BB, 1 K).
-Yankee radio broadcasts are sounding more and more like continuous commercials. I chose the Mets broadcast in the car tonight; those guys do a much better job.
-On Thursday at the end of the game, Jon Sterling seemed to forget that the Yankees had lost. Started his usual jubilant "Yankees win" call, "Ballgame over, Yankees..." then trailed off into an awkward pause and recovered.
-Reason #37 Shea Stadium sucks: when Paul Lo Duca hits a big double in the 9th inning, the stadium disc jockey gets the crowd going with Cascada's "Every Time We Touch." Somewhere, Keith Hernandez cringes.

Tough to drop the first one to los Metos (David Wright is a stud though), but look for a matchup of two aging pitchers having renaissance seasons as Moose takes on Pedro.

Wang

2006-05-17T22:10:00.000-07:00

Another one-run victory, although it didn't even have to be that close. Wang was brilliant again tonight, pitching better than even the 3-run 8-inning stat line indicates. For a guy with a hard sinker like him you're going to get ground balls, and the defense really could have killed him tonight. But he overcame with help from 3 double play balls and gave the bullpen the night off it needed, especially with Jaret Wright going tomorrow. Like Joe said, "His pitch count is remarkable," 81 pitches over 8 strong innings.

Cano came back to earth defensively with 2 errors (nearly 3).

Jeter's back from a slump, with last night's masterpiece and 2 more hits tonight, the average back over .350.

Posada is a force right now.

Good that the Giambi thing was nothing serious, got him back in the lineup which gives it a completely different dynamic. I have my issues with the guy and the steroid use, but at least he came clean (and one can only hope he stayed clean, although I'm not sure), and he is a very good hitter. It will be interesting to see what Joe does when Sheffield gets back; essentially it's a choice between keeping Andy Phillips or Bubba Crosby in the lineup with either Giambi or Sheffield at DH. Bubba isn't hitting much, but neither is Phillips, and Bubba has looked pretty good in the outfield. The defense probably loses more with the immobile Sheffield in right than with Giambi at first. So you'd like to see Sheffield DH most of the time, with Giambi at first and Bernie and Bubba filling the corner outfield spots. Although Bernie's range isn't what it used to be, he has generally been fine in right. It might be interesting to give Melky Cabrera a chance to really get his feet wet--Cano did go 4-26 (.154) in his first 9 games last year before he started killing the ball--but at this point Melky looks more suspect than prospect (except when he throws the ball--the YES guys pointed out he's tied for the league lead in assists).

Back into a tie with the Sawx. I have to travel tomorrow so I'll be trying to catch the game on the radio on the road (which may not be a bad thing considering it's not so fun watching Jaret Wright pitch).

Oh Doctor

2006-05-16T21:49:00.000-07:00

Dear friends, my plan for this thing has already fallen apart. As busy as the semester in Washington was, it just wasn't possible for me to put in the time. I've gotten to watch most of the games on the computer, mlb.tv, which is less than ideal but gets the job done. But I'm home now and I might as well give a shot at starting now; tonight's game was ridiculous enough to inspire anyone to write something.

But first, I might as well try to take a quick look at what's happened so far. We're looking at 7 games over .500, 1 game back of the Sawx at this point--a great place to be considering the way things started.

The pitching staff has been up and down to this point. First of all, Mussina is back with a vengeance--looking like vintage Moose, using all his pitches and actually showing enough confidence in his fastball to challenge hitters by keeping them off balance and hitting his spots. Chances are he'll burn out towards the end of the season again, but hopefully Joe can use him in such a way as to keep something for the postseason. The Unit continues to falter. He just looks like he's 42 at this point. Old pitchers around the league are experiencing a rebirth; Randy's stuff seems to be dying. That trade was already a failure with the way he pitched in the Division Series last year, but who knows what else we might expect. Chacon has been spotty, just walking too many people, still battling and putting together some good starts, but tonight was just a disaster. He's got good stuff and works out of jams like no one you've ever seen--just needs to throw more strikes. Not much to worry about here; once he gets it together he'll be fine and last year he showed the mettle to give this team what it needs in the playoffs. Speaking of playoff mettle, Chien Ming Wang has quietly been solid this year as well. Jaret Wright...sucks.

The bullpen still isn't near where it needs to be. Farnsworth is all over the place, let's just say less than reliable. Mike Myers has actually pitched well but already gave up a big home run to David Ortiz which has to throw up a red flag--the main purpose for situational lefties on the Yankees is to get that specific guy out. Scott Proctor has been blowing people away but is a strong burnout candidate, as he showed tonight. Ron Villone has been fine, just hasn't been used in any big spots. Sturtze is done, and Aaron Small sadly hasn't been able to find the magic from last year. Rivera has had a few bad games, especially when he's had to go more than 1 inning. Hopefully Dotel will be back strong to solidify things, but this bullpen makes you uneasy at this point

Offensively, let's start at the top. The Damon signing has worked out nicely as he's adjusted well, putting together a solid if unspectacular season thus far. The numbers aren't what you'd call gaudy, but as I talked about before the season you've got to like the general effect he has--making a lineup full of power hitters less one-dimensional. Joe seems to have rediscovered the sacrifice bunt, and there can be little doubt that Damon's presence helped him find it again. Can't say enough about Derek Jeter, got off to one of the best starts of his illustrious career then slumped for a couple weeks but busted out in a huge way tonight. He's back in the 2 hole where he belongs, and is using that opposite field stroke as wonderfully as he ever as. As always, it's a privelege to watch him play the game. Sheffield was hitting the ball well when he went down; hopefully he'll get back in the lineup within another week or so. But when you load up your lineup with aging (probably) steroid users, you've got to expect them to go down. Speaking of which, Giambi has been back strong--one can't help but wonder if he's back on the juice. A-Rod continues to be the anti-Jeter. Jeter plays the game with passion and seems to have a great time doing it, and the results speak for themselves; A-Rod plays like a statue. The utterly joyless play makes him difficult to watch at this point. Matsui was having a below average year for him, but he's still a key cog in the lineup, a more well-rounded hitter than the other mashers, and the injury does hurt. Posada continues to produce despite the toll of years behind the plate, and woke up a few ghosts from the 90's with one swing tonight. Robinson Cano is an example of an endangered species these days: a gem produced by the Yankee farm system. The guy really knows how to hit--doesn't try to do too much, takes what he's given and can hit to all fields.

Interjecting here: I just saw a Reds highlight in which Adam Dunn broke his bat without making contact. Kory said it best: "he's a unique player"

So we're looking forward to a possible all-star start for Cano and to what he can do for years to come. Bernie's in the twilight of his career, but is riding a wave of goodwill at the Stadium and can still come up with a big hit here and there. It's nice to see the way he's being treated by the fans--well deserved. The bench players have been pretty ok. Gotta love Miguel Cairo, the uber-utility man, the consummate fundamentally sound ballplayer. Nobody will ever accuse Bubba Crosby of being a particularly talented player, but he's a scrapper and is holding his own out there. Andy Phillips and Melky Cabrera look helpless at this point.

The defense has been ok but not great. The left side of the infield has been struggling, particularly A-Rod--as with everything else he does, he looks tentative in the field. Jeter looks fine, just a couple more errors than you'd like but nothing alarming. Cano, on the other hand, has quietly been spectacular. He might have the strongest arm of any second sacker in either league, and has shown good range and greatly improved hands from last year, committing only one error so far. Giambi is not a good defensive player. The outfield defense depends on who's playing on a given day. Sheffield can barely move anymore. Bernie is a little better but has seen better range in his career. Bubba is a better fielder than either of them--he's actually looked pretty good out there. Damon's range is an improvement over Bernie, if only a moderate one, but he can't throw at all. And with Matsui out, Melky has been playing out there and looks lost; maybe once he gets his feet wet he'll get it together. It did take Cano a while to get into the swing of things last year.

So that's where we're at. Despite the injuries in the lineup, the biggest concern right now is pitching. Johnson just doesn't have it right now, you can't expect Moose to keep this going all season, and we're waiting for Chacon to get right. Can't expect anything out of Pavano. And the bullpen is not reliable. Cashman may need to move on this at some point, but that's a whole different topic. This team looks capable of getting into the playoffs even with the injuries at this point, but we'll see what effect they have over the long haul. So much depends on the starting pitchers getting straight.

On to tonight's hilarity. Forgive me for always going back to the 90s, but this just had that feeling. Somehow a 9-run deficit never seemed so small. Interesting how none of the RBI's or big hits came from players named Rodriguez, Giambi or Sheffield. Without those guys swinging for the fences and making outs, the team was able to chip away at the lead in the early innings and finally bring it crumbling down in the 6th (sure A-Rod was in the lineup making outs, but Jeter's awe-inspiring performance had him covered). OK, so my ire is really just directed at A-Rod. He didn't contribute much that meant anything (as usual), but imagine how many runs might have scored tonight if Giambi and Sheffield had played. Obviously you have to worry about Chacon looking helpless out there and the bullpen unconscionably giving up the lead once the offense finally took it, but we already know about these concerns.

What you want to focus on is another concern that was answered tonight: the rash of injuries. When a team overcomes a 9-run lead and scores 14 runs, you have to believe the offense is healthy. Everything just fell into place tonight. And maybe, just maybe, it was because they weren't trying to kill the ball, just working counts and putting it in play. Right now this team doesn't look like it needs to bring in a replacement for Matsui. Sure you can't expect this to keep up, and Sheffield and Giambi will be coming back. I knock them a lot for being one-dimensional, but they are much more capable of producing when it counts than A-Rod, and the offense is better when you get Melky Cabrera and Phillips out of there. This is where Damon comes in. When you surround the one-dimensional guys with players like Damon, Jeter and Cano who can do a lot of different things, you've got an explosive offense. It's just what made the offenses of the 90s great: they were multi-talented and did the little things to win, relying on rallies rather than home runs. And once in a while, they got a little magic from one of their reliable veterans. Think two run homer with two out in the bottom of the ninth, down a run in a game they simply couldn't bear to lose.

BUS

2006-02-05T20:14:00.000-08:00

The Steelers have won the Super Bowl. The Bus and Bill Cowher are champions. I'm sitting here at my home computer, having to be up at 4AM for a train back to Washington, and I don't even know what to do. It's weird--I haven't seen one of my teams win since the Yankees in 2000, and never the Steelers.

This was a pretty crappy game, really. Both quarterbacks played poorly, neither team ever really got any offense going. But Cowher loves his gadget plays, and got flawless execution on one to break the game. Hines Ward was the MVP and certainly deserved it despite the drops (which never happens to him), but let's not forget that throw by Randle El--on the run, a perfect dart through the heart of Seattle. And there's Fast Willie, straight ahead for 75 easy yards. These were the big plays, but in the NFL these days it takes a team clicking all together to make it all the way. So the defense certainly bent but didn't break. The offensive line held up and opened some holes, especially in the second half. And Big Ben--can't say he played well, he was having a tough time finding people open and made some bad throws--but he and his receivers made enough plays to hold up their end.

So I'm trying to sum up my feelings. Going in, I didn't know what my reaction would be after the game--it was that feeling like before Charlie's first game with the Irish: you just can't comprehend the possibility of a loss. And with all the emotion for Bettis and Cowher, I wasn't sure if I'd cry or scream or whatever else afterward. But in the end, there was the ball dropping on the Seahawks' last play. There was Ben dropping his knee and pausing there. And there was Cowher standing on the field, taking it all in, clearly overcome with emotion and fittingly shouting, "Where's the Bus?" And I just sat there with a feeling I can best describe as half euphoria and half relief--for Bettis and Cowher, and for the rest of the team who were completely devoted to winning the big one for those two guys who so richly deserved it. So Bussie retires, a dream ending to a wonderful career. And Cowher, Ben, Hines Ward and the rest come back with a ring and a title to defend. I'm going to bed now, for the first time since 2000, with the emotion of a championship. This was one hell of a run, and it took a special team to do it. Steeler Nation gets a ring on the thumb.

Damon

2005-12-23T20:28:00.000-08:00

The Yankees introduced Johnny Damon as their new centerfielder today. Damon stressed that he could have taken more money from this "mystery team" that he won't tell anyone about, but what the Yankees offered him was winning. He understands what he's bringing to the table and how he'll fit into the system. It was nice to see him talk about what he'll be able to do along with the rest of the lineup as a whole. Also loved him giving love to my man Robinson Cano and the rest of the bottom of the lineup.

The man looked absolutely terrified at this press conference. It was almost like he was afraid of saying the wrong thing--reminded you of a guy meeting his girlfriend's overbearing parents. This is a guy who apparently has overcome a speech impediment, a very serious stutter. But it reared its head a little bit today as he was clearly overcome by the moment. But he said the right things and really sounded like he gets what this team is about. He's coming from the ultimate loose clubhouse atmostphere to the opposite end of the spectrum. Can't help but wonder what will happen when Jeter and Sheffield are sitting in the clubhouse and Damon starts running around naked and doing his naked pullups. But by all accounts this guy is a great presence in the clubhouse, personable, easy to get along with and dedicated to his team and its success. That's the Yankee way, and the early returns are that he'll thrive with this team and in this city.

When this deal broke the other night I was violently opposed to him coming here. As often happens, the dust has settled and New York talk radio has made me feel better about this deal. There's something about bringing a guy you've bagged on for so many years into the fold. If he was coming from anywhere else, I'd probably be all for it. But look at Babe Ruth, Sparky Lyle, Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs...Sawx castoffs who found success in pinstripes. At this point I'm looking forward to seeing what he brings here.

I only hope he can continue producing at a high level while he's here. If so, he could really help this offense a lot. Derek Jeter gets the job done wherever you put him in the lineup, but his approach is ideal to the 2 hole. And this offense needs some guys who can do more than swing for the fences every time they're up. Between 96-2000 you always felt that whoever was up in a key situation would get the job done, because they always did. That feeling isn't there anymore except for when Jeter's up. Now, one guy isn't going to bring back the magic of Paul O'Neill, Tino Martinez and Scottie Brosius. But the teams that seem to succeed in the playoffs offensively are those that have a lineup that can do a lot of different things, rather than sit back and wait for a three run homer. Relying strictly on power has worked fine for this team in the regular season, but they disappear in the playoffs. So many times you wish they could just manufacture a run or two in a game. Look at the Angels series. Steve Finley can't hit anymore, but it was like he sacrificed every damn time he came to the plate. And they made it hurt. The Yankees didn't have that.

So what's the point? Well, bringing in a guy like Damon changes things. Now, you've still got Sheffield and A-Rod in the middle of the lineup who are going to swing for the fences. You've got Matsui and Giambi who can hit the home run but will also shorten up and just hit the ball. Posada and Bernie are headed downhill but can still hit a little bit. But you've now got three guys in Cano, Damon and Jeter, 9-1-2, who can do a lot of different things. They'll bunt, they'll hit the home run, move runners along, hit the ball in the gap. And hopefully it'll get more runners in scoring position for the middle of the lineup, and hopefully sometimes those guys will go with what the pitcher gives them and just try to get the runner in. I can't remember ever seeing the 2005 Yankees try to manufacture a run. Hopefully bringing a legitimate leadoff hitter in, the first since Chuck Knoblauch, will bring that back.

Beginning and Damon

2005-12-22T21:55:00.000-08:00

I too have entered the blog world. I don't plan on writing generally about life here. Last season I told Spangler I would post an away message with observations after each Yankee game; it lasted no more than 5 games into the season. So here is my hope to start something similar in a more structured and worthwhile way. During hot stove season I don't expect to write frequently--I will write some about Notre Dame football and the Steelers, the other two teams in my life, and anything else that might happen to move me. But this blog is about the Yankees, its purpose to give my take on each game and everything else that might happen during the 2006 season.

I should start with a look back and a look forward. Last season was what we'll call a disappointment--although for any other team a division title after such a tumultuous season would be a great success.

Two significant additions to the rotation turned out to be nothing short of a disaster. Carl Pavano, before falling to a mysterious shoulder injury, at one point led the league in hits allowed. Just couldn't figure this guy out--he'd be cruising along, pitching fine, and suddenly it was like he would lose focus and couldn't get anyone out, then next thing you knew he'd given up a 3 run bomb to Nick Green. No idea what we'll get out of him this year, but I ain't expecting much. Randy Johnson won a few games, but that trade can't be viewed as anything but an utter failure. He was brought here for one reason only: to be the ace this rotation desperately needed, the dominant postseason stopper. When he was shelled in his only playoff start, it killed this team.

Out of the ashes of the star-crossed rotation that began last season, new hope arose. Chien-Ming Wang is part of the new movement to keep young talent from the farm system on board. With a 90+ sinker, we can only hope his shoulder holds up and he holds down the middle of the rotation for years to come. Then there's Shawn Chacon. In Brian Cashman's best move since the David Justice trade in 2000, he found the starter who injected life into a dead rotation and saved the Yankees' season along with the great Aaron Small. Chacon is only 27 and figures to be a fixture along with Wang. He stepped up when the team needed him most in game 4, although it was not enough to clean up Johnson and Mussina's mess. Regardless, he proved himself a Yankee pitcher.

Speaking of the infusion of youth, I can't say enough about Robinson Cano. I expect his concentration on defense to improve; his range and arm strength are second to none at his position. He also proved himself in the playoffs, with consistency and a couple key hits. I don't know how this movement to keep young players like back in the 90's came about, but it's exciting.

So what happened against the Angels? There were a few problems. Obviously, Johnson's performance in game 3 stands out. I love Mike Mussina, but the two of them really let this team down. Now, there's letting your team down, and then there's Alex Rodriguez. When Jeter hit that rocket into left off K-Rod in the 9th inning, there was no doubt in my mind the series was ours. A-Rod had other plans. I initially hated the trade and wanted Soriano back, then during last season recognized A-Rod's talent and accepted it. At this point I'd prefer not to have either of them. They've both become the type of one-dimensional, all-or-nothing players who make an offense disappear as the Yankees have done in their last 2 playoff series.

Enter Johnny Damon. When this deal was announced last night, I was in pissed-off disbelief. I'm beginning to accept it. Although I've always thought he was overrated, he is at the very least a serviceable leadoff man, which we haven't had since Chuck Knoblauch. He'll move Jeter to the 2-spot where he really belongs, and create a more multifaceted lineup. We'll see how he looks as a normal human being at the press conference tomorrow. Anyway, this lineup is scary...

1. CF Damon
2. SS Jeter
3. RF Sheffield
4. LF Matsui
5. 3B Rodriguez
6. 1B Giambi
7. C Posada
8. DH Williams
9. 2B Cano

I didn't intially think Damon was much of a defensive upgrade over Bernie, but he may be better than I realized from watching him in 19-26 games each year. It's no secret he throws like a girl, but apparently he gets a good jump and can cover some ground--tops in the league in chances and putouts last year. Sheffield can't get to anything anymore and Matsui is solid but has lapses. The infield defense should be excellent with the exception of Giambi.

The rotation is deep but has question marks. You just don't know what you'll get out of Johnson and Moose at this point in their careers. Pavano is a complete mystery. I am confident in Wang and Chacon to anchor the rotation. Jaret Wright doesn't belong anywhere near the mound, but with that contract Joe's gotta keep running him out there. Then there's Aaron Small to fill in the holes when they come up. This Phil Hughes kid sounds exciting, but probably not ready for another couple of years. So there are problems here, but after recovering from last year's disaster, things are looking up.

Losing out on the BJ Ryan sweepstakes hurt. There's nothing like having a deep, hard-throwing bullpen in the playoffs. But this unit is already vastly improved from last year, trading out the burned-out Flash Gordon for Kyle Farnsworth and Octavio Dotel. These guys haven't proven themselves dependable by any stretch of the imagination, but I just like that Cashman is stockpiling arms for Joe to use in the late innings. I wish he'd make a run at Julian Tavarez and find a quality lefty from somewhere, although I don't know where that could be. The real Mariano Rivera returned last year and replaced that impostor who was closing from 2001-2004; hopefully he won't disappear again.

All things considered, there's a lot to look forward to, with the continued development of Cano, Wang, and Chacon. The Sawx are in shambles at this point and I'm not convinced about Toronto yet, although they have the potential to be a force. But the Yankees have a murderous offense, and with the addition of Damon they are much less one-dimensional now. If the rotation doesn't completely fall apart again, everything will be in good shape. I've been missing full-time baseball since the end of game 5, and I'm already eager for the season to start.

Must sleep now. Damon press conference tomorrow at 1.