Monthly Archives: May 2005

Chien-Ming Wang makes his third major league start tonight. Despite it resulting in a loss, his second outing, last week in Tampa, was not a total disaster. In fact, considering the fact that he is a groundball pitcher who was working on the slick turf of the Trop, and that one had to expect some regression after his excellent first start, he did just fine for someone making their second-ever start in the majors. Here’s hoping he will build on that performance tonight, particularly on the three strikeouts (two swinging). Wang struck out 7.16 men per nine innings in his minor league career, with his strikeout frequency increasing at each level as he moved from rookie ball to triple-A over the past two seasons.

His opponent is Aaron Sele, who had a nice run as a solid league-average or better innings eater for some successfull Texas and Seattle clubs from 1998 to 2001 (his age 28 to 31 seasons), but has been comfortably below league average ever since.

Yanks go for four-in-a-row tonight. As Alex always says . . .

Sele vs. Wang should mean that there will be some runs scored in the Bronx tonight. (Sele is one of those pitchers I always expect the Bombers to do well against; objects tend to get thrown when he shuts them down.) It should get chilly once the sun goes down, but this has one of those spring days in New York that you just want to mint. It is crisp and clean, no humidity to speak of, with a refreshing breeze, that just makes me happy to be alive. With a little less wind, this would be the ideal day to take a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. But who am I kidding? Like you need an excuse to walk over that great bridge.

Let’s Go Yanks!

Our labelmate Mike Carminati is undertaking a cool data-gathering project. He wants to assemble all of the free agent contract information from 1976-1984. Mike still has a ways to go, but he’s already compiled a boatload of great information. If anyone can help him fill in the blanks, head on over to his site and drop him a line. Meanwhile, here is a list of the Yankee free agent signings (for players who amassed ten Win Shares the year before inking a new deal):

Rudy May? Rawly Eastwick? Ah, dem wuz duh daze. Thanks, Mike.

The Yankees did it again, defeating the Mariners 4-3 behind eight strong innings from Randy Johnson, some clutch hitting by their worst hitters, and yet another Tino Martinez homer to push their current winning streak to three games, their longest of the season.

With last night’s win, the Yankees move past the Mariners and within 1/2 game of the A’s as they slowly claw their way back to respectability in the American League. You can thank the starting pitching for that. Here are the lines of the Yankee starters in their last four games:

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Seattle Mariners

2004 Record: 63-99 (.389)
2004 Pythagorean Record: 69-93 (.426)

Manager: Mike Hargrove
General Manager: Bill Bavasi

Ballpark (2004 park factors): Safeco Field (92/93)

Who’s replacing whom?

Adrian Beltre replaces Edgar Martinez
Richie Sexson replaces John Olerud and Justin Leon
Jeremy Reed replaces Rich Aurilia and Jose Lopez
Wilson Valdez replaces Jolbert Cabrera
Miguel Olivo takes the starting job from Dan Wilson
Bobby Madritsch inherits Freddy Garcia’s starts
Aaron Sele takes over Ron Villone’s starts
Jeff Nelson inherits Mike Myers’ playing time

Current Roster:

1B – Richie Sexson
2B – Bret Boone
SS – Wilson Valdez
3B – Adrian Beltre
C – Miguel Olivo
RF – Ichiro Suzuki
CF – Jeremy Reed
LF – Randy Winn
DH – Raul Ibanez

Bench:

L – Dave Hansen (1B/3B)
R – Willie Bloomquist (UT)
L – Greg Dobbs (3B)
R – Wiki Gonzalez (C)

Rotation:

L – Jamie Moyer
R – Joel Pineiro
R – Ryan Franklin
R – Gil Meche
R – Aaron Sele

Bullpen:

L – Eddie Guardado
R – J.J. Putz
L – Ron Villone
R – Shigetoshi Hasegawa
R – Julio Mateo
L – Matt Thornton
R – Jeff Nelson

60-day DL:

R – Dan Wilson (C)
R – Bucky Jacobsen (1B)
R – Pokey Reese (IF)
R – Rafael Soriano
R – Scott Atchison
L – Travis Blackley

15-day DL:

S – Scott Spezio (1B/3B)
L – Bobby Madritsch

Typical Line-up

L – Ichiro Suzuki (RF)
S – Randy Winn (LF)
R – Adrian Bletre (3B)
R – Richie Sexson (1B)
R – Bret Boone (2B)
L – Raul Ibaniez (DH)
L – Jeremy Reed (CF)
R – Miguel Olivo (C)
R – Wilson Valdez (SS)

Did the Yankees record consecutive shutouts this weekend because of their excellent pitching or the pathetic Oakland offense? Hard to say. Brown and Mussina both had one previous start this season that would indicate that this weekend was not a complete fluke, but surely the A’s ineptitude had something to do with it. How much, however, the Yankees are unlikely to figure out for a while, as they face the A’s again in Oakland this upcoming weekend sandwiched in between home and away series with the even more pathetic Seattle Mariners, who are a game behind the A’s in last place in the West and just 1/2 game better than the Yankees thus far.

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You have to admire Rickey Henderson’s passion for the game. He’ll be back in uniform again this year in the new class-A Golden Baseball League as the left fielder of the San Diego Surf Dawgs. Terry Kennedy will be his manager.

Last summer, I caught Rickey in a Newark Bears game. He lead off the game with a walk, stole second, moved to third on the first out and scored on the second. It was the closest I’ll ever come to watching Shoeless Joe tear up the South Carolina sandlots after being banned from the major leagues.

Fortunately, Cliff has done his usual fine job of recapping a game. Emily and I were also at the stadium, but our seats were so spectacular that is was actually hard to keep perspective on what was happening on the field. The seats my mom scored for us were just up the left field line from the visitor’s dugout, seats 11 and 12, in the front row! I mean, you’ve got to be kidding me, right? One step forward and we’re on the field. Third base coaches Ron Washington and Luis Sojo were close enough to touch, and Eric Chavez and Alex Rodriguez weren’t too far off either.

The seats were memorable, though they would not be my first choice if I could sit anywhere I’d like. Being so close, you lose perspective on the entire field a bit. More than that, you have to be alert on every pitch, in case a foul ball comes zipping your way. The first time Sheffield was up, he rocketed a foul ball over our heads and it scared the bejesus out of me. After that, I literally crouched down each time he came to bat. I didn’t bring my mitt, but we were lucky enough to have a guy sitting next to us who did. To be honest, I was more concerned about Emily than I was about myself. But you really had to be on guard. No keeping score, or drifting off here. We were in the firing line.

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I love taking my mom to the stadium. A huge (or actually, very tiny) Yankee fan, she gets a big kick out of attending games and cheers louder than I do once she’s there (which should surprise no one who knows her). About a month or so ago, I realized that there was a Yankee home game on Mother’s Day which was part of my season package, and Becky and I agreed that she would take her mom out separately so that I could take my mom to the game.

Then, some time last week, I realized that Kevin Brown would be the scheduled starter. Worse yet, he would be taking the mound against the A’s young ace, Rich Harden. As a result, despite my best intentions, I was not particularly looking forward to yesterday’s game.

Indeed, things got off to an ominous start. Brown worked a deceiving 1-2-3 inning in the first. Mark Kotsay lead off with a hard-hit fly out to left. Jason Kendall followed with a sharp grounder that would have been a typical Brown base hit through the middle had it not been for an excellent back-handed play by Robinson Cano, who just nabbed Jason Kendall at first with an off-balance jump throw of the kind Derek Jeter often makes in the hole at short. Brown then fell behind Eric Chavez 3-0 before recovering to a full count and getting Chavez to fly out to Womack in left.

Rich Harden had a much more convincing 1-2-3 in the bottom of the inning, ratcheting his fastball up to the upper 90s and finishing the inning by striking out Gary Sheffield swinging.

In the top of the second, Brown was up to his old tricks. Scott Hatteberg cracked Brown’s second pitch for a sharp single to center. Bobby Kielty then walked on four pitches. Brown’s next pitch, to Erubiel Durazo, was another ball. Durazo then singled on a 1-1 count to load the bases with no outs (Hatteberg had started back toward second, as Brown had checked him back before the pitch, and thus was unable to score). Brown’s first pitch to Keith Ginter was a ball about head high to the 5’10” second baseman.

Brown was back in his own personal hell, and the Yankee Stadium crowd was letting him know about it. Then Mel Stottlemyre came to the mound. Said Stottlemyre after the game:

“I told him the way to minimize damage was to stay down throughout the rest of the inning. He said, ‘I just threw a pitch down, and it was a base hit.’ I didn’t think the ball that Durazo hit was down [it was thigh-high, Brown is most effective at or below the knees -CJC], but I didn’t want to argue with him. I told him the only thing I could think of: ‘He’s a low-ball hitter; this next guy is a high-ball hitter.’ I was lying, [but] his stuff is so electric when it’s down. I wasn’t trying to feed him a line of bull; I just thought that was our best chance.”

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So Cliff is taking his mom to the ballpark today. Emily and I were lucky enough to be given two cherce corporate tickets–I’m not sure where they are, but they seem pretty fancy, as they come with V.I.P. parking pass, and two vouchers for the Stadium Club–by me mudda, who scored them through her office. She told me it’s her Mother’s Day gift to me. I told her to expect a dozen roses on my birthday.

Bronx Banter will be in the house, front and center to witness Kevin Brown’s latest outing. Pardon me if I’m not overcome with confidence, especially with young Mr. Harden going for the A’s. Still, stranger things have happened. And for now, it’s still nice that Mike Mussina tossed a complete-game shutout yesterday.

Rich Lederer, president of the Bert Blyleven Fan Club, sent me the following bit of Mussina information last night:

ACTIVE LEADERS IN CAREER SHUTOUTS

SHUTOUTS            SHO
1  Roger Clemens        46
2  Randy Johnson        37
3  Greg Maddux         35
4  Tom Glavine         23
5  Mike Mussina         22

The top three are first-ballot Hall of Famers. The fourth has a good shot at the HOF. And then there was Mike Mussina, the Bert Blyleven of modern-day pitchers.

Good call, Rich.

Hope everyone has a nice Sunday. Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

Off to the second worst start in franchise history and tied for last place after a crushing 3-1 series loss against the abysmal Devil Rays, the Yankees needed someone to step up against the A’s this weekend. Carl Pavano tried to be that person, but instead he discovered that even three runs allowed were too many for a team that seems to find a new way to loose every day.

Mike Mussina got the message. Yesterday afternoon he took the hill and turned in by far his best performance of the year, going the distance and shutting the A’s out to halt the Yankees’ losing streak at four games and lift them out of last place in the AL East.

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The Yanks look to Mike Mussina to end a four-game skid, and perhaps save Mel Stottlemyre’s hide. Remember, the Derby is today. When the dust clears from the track, my Spidey Sense tells me that Mt. Saint Steinbrenner is about to blow.

I’m calling it now. Oakland is going to sweep the Yankees this weekend. I’ll be pleased if I’m wrong, but before last night’s game I predicted a Yankee win followed by a pair of weekend loses. After seeing the way they performed in the most favorable pitching match-up of the weekend, I would be downright shocked if they won one of the remaining two.

For those who were privileged enough not to witness it, here’s what went down:

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Oakland A’s

2004 Record: 91-71 (.562)
2004 Pythagorean Record: 86-76 (.531)

Manager: Ken Macha
General Manager: Billy Beane

Ballpark (2004 park factors): McAfee Coliseum (101/101)

Who’s replacing whom?

Jason Kendall replaces Damian Miller
Nick Swisher replaces Jermaine Dye
Mark Ellis returns to take playing time from Marco Scutaro and replaces Eric Karros
Keith Ginter replaces Mark McLemore
Charles Thomas replaces Eric Karros and Billy McMillon
Jermaine Clark last year’s spare parts
Joe Blanton inherits Tim Hudson’s starts
Dan Haren replaces Mark Mulder
Kirk Saarloos inherits Mark Redman’s starts
Hudson Street replaces Chad Bradford (back surgery)
Kiko Calero replaces Jim Mecir and Arthur Rhodes
Keiichi Yabu replaces Chris Hammonds

Current Roster:

1B – Scott Hatteberg
2B – Mark Ellis
SS – Marco Scutaro
3B – Eric Chavez
C – Jason Kendall
RF – Bobby Kielty
CF – Mark Kotsay
LF – Eric Byrnes
DH – Erubiel Durazo

Bench:

R – Keith Ginter (IF)
S – Adam Melhuse (C)
L – Charles Thomas (OF)
L – Jermaine Clark (UT)

Rotation:

L – Barry Zito
R – Joe Blanton
R – Rich Harden
R – Kirk Saarloos
R – Dan Haren

Bullpen:

R – Octavio Dotel
R – Huston Street
L – Ricardo Rincon
R – Justin Duchscherer
R – Kiko Calero
R – Juan Cruz
R – Keiichi Yabu

DL:

R – Chad Bradford [60-day]
R – Bobby Crosby (SS)
S – Nick Swisher (OF)

Typical Line-up

L – Mark Kotsay (CF)
R – Jason Kendall (C)
L – Eric Chavez (3B)
L – Scott Hatteberg (1B)
L – Erubiel Durazo (DH)
R – Mark Ellis (2B)
S – Bobby Kielty (RF)
R – Eric Byrnes (LF)
R – Marco Scutaro (SS)

Hey, this just in: the Yankees are terrible. But guess what? So are the A’s.

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I don’t think much about the Red Sox this early in the season when they aren’t playing the Yanks. I’m actively avoiding thinking about them these days, just imagining how delighted Sox fans must be at how poorly the Bombers are doing. That said, I just felt the need to state that I miss Edward Cossette.

In “Annie Hall,” Woody Allen’s character complains that in Los Angeles all they do is give out awards (“Greatest Fascist Dictator: Adolph Hitler.”). These days, all the Yankees do is lose and have meetings. The back cover of the New York Post says it all. There is a photograph of frowing Joe Torre, and the headline reads “Stinko De Mayo.” The Yankees lost to the Devil Rays, 6-2, and are now tied with Tampa Bay for last place in the American League East.

Chien-Ming Wang allowed five runs in his second start but from top-to-bottom, the Bombers looked defeated. Gary Sheffield hit a two-run home run; otherwise, the Yankees are playing like a stunned team, unable to get out of their own way. They hit a half a dozen balls on the screws over the past few innings but had nothing to show for it. (The Devil Rays infield made plays the Yankees haven’t been able to convert.) Even worse, there were a few mental errors that suggested just how lost the team is. Jorge Posada doubled with one out in the sixth inning. Matsui followed and hit a sharp ground ball to third base. Posada got caught well off second base and was tagged out, an inexusable error. With two outs in the eighth, Aubrey Huff stole second base, and Posada’s throw bounced into center field. Why? Nobody covered the bag. The run didn’t score, but it was an embarassing moment for Jeter and Cano. One that summed up another awful night for the team.

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“You’d have to be there,” General Manager Brian Cashman said, when asked about Steinbrenner’s mood. “It’s not a good time if you’re with the Yankees right now.” (N.Y. Times)

The Yankees look as if they are playing under water. Everything is slowed down, dulled, arduous. The Headline in the Times today reads: “Sinking Yankees Nearly Hit Bottom.” I wonder when they’ll get there all ready. Hear that ticking? We know what that’s about. At this point, Yankee fans must be thinking: When will Steinbrenner finally explode? (Yeah, firing the first base coach, now that’s the answer).

The Devil Rays made short work of Sean Henn last night (a key error by Robinson Cano didn’t help matters, but Henn looked doomed regardless). Though the Yankee offense battled back, the Devil Rays continued to tack on runs against the Bomber pen, as Tampa beat New York, 11-8. Eight runs should be enough to win. Heck, you should feel good when your team puts up eight runs, but that wasn’t the case last night. It’s hard to get too excited when your pitching staff can’t retire the Devil Rays in order.

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The newly twenty-four-year-old Fort Worth, Texas native Sean Michael Henn is a sturdy, six-foot-five lefty who was drafted by the Yankees not once, but twice, in the 30th round of the 1999 amateur draft and the 26th round of the 2000 draft. The Yanks finally signed him to a record $1.701 million bonus as a draft-and-follow in 2001 (he attended McLennan Community College in Texas in the interim). According to an informative post over at Off the Façade, at the time Henn was drafted, “He sported an upper-90s fastball along with some nasty breaking pitches,” but did not throw a pitch as a Yankee farmhand before having to undergo Tommy John surgery later in 2001.

Henn finally got to take the mound as a professional ballplayer in 2003, when he made two dominant rookie league appearances before moving on to make sixteen starts for single-A Tampa, in which he had moderate success. Last year, Henn made a brief appearance in spring training with the big club before spending the entire season with double-A Trenton, posting a 4.41 ERA, a 1.44 WHIP and an equally middling 1.87 K/BB ratio (6.50 K/9 and 3.47 BB/9, both slight improvements over his single-A numbers) in 27 starts. This year, he again spent the spring with the major league club before returning to Trenton, where he has posted the following line in four starts:

25.1 IP, 16 H, 2 ER, 1 HR, 9 BB, 21 K

That translates into the following rate stats: 7.46 K/9, 3.19 BB/9, 2.33 K/BB, all of which show a continuation of the improvements he made in those categories in 2004. Those improvements would support the suggestion that Henn is still rebuilding his arm strength coming off his 2001 surgery. Of course they could also suggest that Henn is simply improving as a pitcher. As it stands, he’s not a dominating prospect, but a pitcher with potential who’s a bit old for double-A (though that’s the fault of the surgery). With that in mind, as much as I’d love to see Henn pitch well enough to allow the Yankees send Kevin Brown to the DL or Tampa to work out his problems, I’d much rather see Henn return to the minors, work his way to Columbus this season and throw his hat into the ring for next year’s rotation, if not 2007’s.

I attended my first ball game of the year last night out at Shea. It wasn’t much of a game at all as the Phillies battered Tom Glavine on the field and the Mets fans booed him off it. The highlight of the evening for the hometown fans–other than Cliff Floyd’s line drive homer–came in the ninth inning when Jose Reyes drew his first walk of the season, on four pitches no less. The fact that it came with the bases loaded and earned him an RBI was a nice touch.

Carlos Beltran threw a runner out at home plate, but earlier in the game he made a strong throw to third base after catching a fly ball. There was a man on second base who thought better of trying to tag, and it was just one of those plays that make baseball such a great game to watch live. It didn’t show up in any box score, yet it was just an impressive athletic feat. The throw attracted the appreciation of the crowd. For me, it was just reminder of what could have been.

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Despite the fact that I didn’t expect to catch much of it due to playing in my first softball game of the year (1 for 2 with a nice ranging catch in my only chance in right field), Alex asked me to write the recap of last night’s game in Tampa because he was going to be at Shea taking in his first ballgame of the year. As it turns out, we were both treated to similar games. At Shea, Alex witnessed a 10-3 thrashing of the Mets by the Phillies, with Tom Glavine suffering his third dreadful outing in six starts (3 2/3 IP, 6 H, 8 R, 7 ER, 6 BB, 1 K, 53 percent of 93 pitches for strikes). It is only in comparison to that line, which pushed Glavine’s ERA over 7.00, that Kevin Brown’s performance in the Yankees 11-4 loss to the Devil Rays last night can look like anything other than a disaster.

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As per the division of labor here at Bronx Banter, now that Alex has hipped you to the changes the Yankees announced after last night’s 6-2 victory over the Devil Rays, its my turn to try to figure out what effects they will have on the team’s performance.

To begin with, the announced changes occur in three areas, defense, offense, and roster construction:

Defense: Robinson Cano replaces Tony Womack at second who replaces Hideki Matsui in left who replaces Bernie Williams in center.
Offense: Cano replaces Bernie Williams
Roster: Cano replaces Steve Karsay

Let’s take them in order.

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