Monthly Archives: June 2006

R.I.P. Billy Preston.

When the Yankees dumped 13 runs on the Red Sox in the first three innings of Monday night’s contest it was the largest early-game outburst in the rivalry’s history. Last night’s game didn’t start out quite so promisingly for the Yanks. Chien-Ming Wang needed 47 pitches to get through first two innings, pitching into and out of jams in both frames. Then David Ortiz smacked Wang’s fourth pitch of the third inning off the facing of the upper deck in right to give the Red Sox an early lead 1-0. Red Sox rookie David Pauley, meanwhile, kept the Yankees scoreless through the first four innings, stranding four Yankee baserunners including the station-to-station Jorge Posada in scoring position twice.

But Wang settled down in the fourth, needing just sixteen pitches in the fourth and fifth combined and getting five of the six outs in those two innings on grounders. Bernie Williams then hit Pauley’s first pitch of the fifth over the fence in right center to knot things up at 1-1. The shot was Bernie’s first left-handed homer of the year and just his third overall.

From there, Wang and Pauley emptied their tanks to keep things locked up, Wang with a bit of help from Manny Ramirez, who decided to try to stretch a single into a double with one out in the sixth only to be easily thrown out by Johnny Damon of all people. Pauley again stranding Posada in the bottom of the sixth (Jorge was 2 for 3 with a double and a walk on the night).

Pauley finally ran into a mess he couldn’t escape in the bottom of the seventh. With two outs, Miguel Cairo hit a low hopper back to the mound that skipped right under Pauley’s glove for an infield single. As if distracted by the inning-ending play he should have made (after Cairo reached, Pauley stared at his glove searching for the hole that wasn’t there), Pauley proceeded to surrender a single to Damon and walk Melky Cabrera on four pitches to load the bases.

With the rookie up to 98 pitches, Terry Francona called on Rudy Seanez to face Jason Giambi, only to watch Seanez issue a full-count walk to the man with the highest on-base percentage in the American League, forcing in the go-ahead run. Seanez then struck out Alex Rodriguez on three pitches to end the threat.

With Wang having thrown his season-high 108th pitch to end the seventh–saving Scott Proctor, who leads the majors in relief innings and had been warming in the pen, from what would have been an American League-leading 29th appearance–Joe Torre turned to Kyle Farnsworth to face the heart of the Red Sox line-up in the ninth.

Mark Loretta flied out to Damon in center on Farnsworth’s first pitch, bringing Big Papi, the man responsible for the lone Red Sox run of the night to the plate. The highlight of Farnsworth’s season to this point has been his bases-loaded strike out of Ortiz in Boston on May 24. That K came on a high slider that dropped into the strike zone for called strike three. This time out, Farnsworth fed Papi cheese, pumping a pair of 97 mile per hour heaters past Ortiz up in the zone to come back from a 2-1 count and strike out the big man.

All seemed to be going the Yankees way. Then Manny Ramirez cracked a 1-0 pitch from Farnsworth some 400 feet to the gap in left center. As the ball rocketed off of Manny’s bat, Melky Cabrera broke for the gap, eventually leaping right at the 399 foot sign, colliding with the window in front of the Yankee bullpen and bringing Manny’s game-tying homer back, turning it into the third out of the inning as he landed back on the warning track and stumbled forward, landing chest-first on the grass, his glove extended with Manny’s shot tucked firmly in the webbing.

Johnny Damon, who had leapt at the wall several feet to the right of Cabrera (imagine and outfield defense that actually overlaps on a 400-plus-foot bomb), immediately started celebrating Cabrera’s catch, throwing his arms in the air as he came down on the warning track and throwing a round-house fist pump as Cabrera fell onto the outfield grass. Ramirez meanwhile had rounded second by the time Cabrera had completed the play and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw that Cabrera had the ball, removing his helmet in a daze and muttering to himself in Spanish.

At that, all that was left was for Mariano Rivera, showing no ill effects from the back spasms that held him out of action over the weekend, to set the Sox down on five pitches in the ninth, which he did. The 2-1 victory gives the Yankees a guaranteed split in the current series, wins in their last four confrontations with the Sox, a 5-4 lead in the season series, a game and a half lead in the AL East, and ties them with the White Sox for the second best record in the major leagues, just a game and a half behind the Tigers, from whom they just took three of four last week. The Yankees, who have won nine of their last eleven and eleven of their last fourteen, are the hottest team in baseball right now despite a list of injuries and illnesses that would make Def Leppard blanch.

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The 2006 Amateur Baseball Draft is underway. With the 21st pick in the first round (compensation from the Phillies for Tom Gordon, moving the Yankees up from their original 28th pick, which went to Boston for Johnny Damon), the Yankees have drafted Ian Kennedy, a righty pitcher out of USC. Kennedy throws a low-90s fastball along with a curve, change and a slider. He also is represented by Scott Boras.

The Angles drafted Hyun Choi Conger, a switch-hitting catcher considered the best backstop in the draft with the 25th pick. The Dodgers then nabbed Preston Mattingly, Donnie Baseball’s shortstop son, with the 31st pick.

You can “watch” the draft live with MLB’s DraftCaster linked on this page and chat it up here, or over on The Griddle.

The Yanks supplemental round pick for Gordon (overall #41) is on deck.

Update: The Yanks’ supplemental round pick is another college righty, Joba Chaimberlain out of the University of Nebraska. He sounds like Kennedy minus the curve.

Update: The Yanks didn’t have a pick in the second round (it went to the Braves for Kyle Farnsworth), and in the third round they’ve chosen high-school hurler Zachary MacAllister, a 6’5″ righty from Illinios with the same repertoire as Chaimberlain.

Will Weiss wrote a nice piece on Melky Cabrera last week over at YESNetwork.com. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to put up a link to it, but in light of last night’s Bad News Bears play, there’s no better time than the present, right?

A few weeks ago Alex Rodriguez was taking a beating for his slow start. Dag, I guess even when he “sucks” he’s pretty good. Rodriguez won the AL Player of the Month award for May. [Insert Dave Winfield joke here.]

Mike Mussina had his worst outing of the year on Monday night and yet he still came away with a “w.” A nice turn of fortune for “the unlucky one,” as Mussina improves to 8-1. Josh Beckett, however, didn’t make it out of the second inning. The Yankees collected at least 10 hits for the 12th straight game, a team record. The Baby Bombers pulled a Gashouse Gorillas Conga-Line on Beckett, capped by two three-run home runs–one by Andy Phillips, the other by Jason Giambi.

But the most exciting play for the Yankees occured in the first inning. With one out, Melky Cabrera was on first and Giambi was at the plate. Beckett, who could not locate his curve ball, threw a breaking pitch in the dirt. It skipped away from Jason Varitek and Cabrera took off for second. Varitek’s throw was wild and went into the outfield. Melky ducked as he reached second and then took off for third. But since Boston had the shift on for Giambi, there was nobody covering third. Instead, Varitek had travelled half-way up the third base line. At Larry Bowa’s prompting, and without skipping a beat, Melky suddenly broke for home. So did Varitek. Cabrera won the race, beating the catcher and the throw to the plate for the Yankees’ first run. Boston’s sloppy fielding and Cabrera’s alert base-running made for perhaps the most joyous Yankee run of the season:

“The way we got that first run today, that may never happen again,” Mussina said. “That was just pure youth and speed and recklessness. That’s why we play these games: to see something new every day.”
(Kepner, N.Y. Times)

It is the kind of play that Jose Reyes has been making across town for a couple of seasons now, but one we haven’t seen from a Yankee player in some time. The game was a laugher through and through for the Yanks last night and a snoozer for Sox fans. Boston throws a rookie tonight against Chien-Ming Wang, who was far from stellar last week in Detroit. There is a long way to go in this series but the Bombers sure managed to get off on the good foot.

Pair of aces on the menu tonight as the Yankees and the Red Sox sqaure off in the Bronx. If the glass is half-empty for you Yankee fans, you are probably convinced that Mussina will suffer his first bad outing of the year tonight. If you are a Sox fan, you can only hope that Beckett feeds off of his first performance against the Yanks, and not how he pitched against Toronto recently. Course the Sox also hope that Mussina finally slips. Mikey Moose has been brilliant so far, every bit the ace of the staff. With the Yankees at less than full snuff he’s more important that ever. It’s a cool spring evening in New York. It should be a fun one.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

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Aaron Small didn’t have much on Sunday afternoon and was thoroughly beat-up by the Orioles who sailed to a tension-free 11-4 against the Yankees. David Ortiz, move over–Miguel Tejada has simply murdered the Yanks this year (16-26 this year).

Jason Giambi sat for a second straight game with a stomach virus. Alex Rodriguez returned from his bout with the bug and looked far from crisp. Worse still, Derek Jeter had to leave the game after being hit by a pitch in the right thumb. The initial x-rays were negative and Jeter is listed as day-to-day. With a whopping four-game series with the Red Sox kicking off tomorrow, the Replacement Level Yankees can ill-afford to lose their captain.

With the meat of the Lumber Company–Matsui, Sheffield, Rodriguez and Giambi—unavailable yesterday, it looked like it’d be an uphill battle all afternoon for the Bronx Bombers. When Randy Johnson allowed three runs in the first I wondered if Miguel Cairo might get some mound time before the game was through. But Johnson settled down nicely and pitched into the eighth inning. Scott Proctor blew a two-run lead but Johnny Damon hit a line drive, solo home run against Chris Ray in the top of the 10th, and Chien-Ming Wang survived some tension in the bottom of the frame as the Yankees beat the Orioles, 6-5.

Damon had three hits, Jeter had two, while Bernie drove in three and Andy Phillips popped another dinger. But the big story was that Johnson gave his team the length they were looking for. Though he did not figure in the decision, it was an encouraging performance. And another “W” for the Relacement Level Yankees? Yo Snoops, we’ll take it.

The Yankees won a back-and-forth contest against the Orioles on a damp Friday night in Baltimore, 6-5. The Bombers’ bullpen could not hold a two-run lead late in the game but a bit of good base running fortune involving Johnny Damon and then a key single by Derek Jeter in the ninth was enough to put the Yanks on top to stay. Kyle Farnsworth redeemed himself after Thursday’s outing in Detroit, pitched effectively and earned the win.

Offensively, Damon and Jeter had nice games, and so did Andy Phillips and Jason Giambi (who both hit home runs). Giambi’s dinger was a rainmaker to right and he’s swinging the bat considerably better than he was just a week ago. Phillips has caught fire at the right time too. Jaret Wright pitched relatively well and Melky Cabrera made a good throw home to nail Javey Lopez in the second inning.

With the score tied at 5 in the ninth, Johnny Damon reached base with a two-out single off of Baltimore’s closer, the gangly hard-thrower, Chris Ray. He then tried to steal second. Ramon Hernandez’s throw beat him to the bag but second baseman Brian Roberts could not hold onto the throw. Damon slid into Roberts’ glove. As the Orioles ran off the field and the TV prepared to go to commerical, the umpire changed his initial call of “out” to “safe.” The ball fell to the ground as Roberts still tried to sell the call to no avail.

The play kept the inning alive. Jeter then sliced a low fastball into right for a single–his signature base hit and his third hit of the game. In all, it was a satisfying win for the Yanks. With all of the injuries the team is facing, and with the likes of T. Long (who didn’t play tonight) and Scott Erickson (who did pitch, and pitched poorly) playing vital roles for the Bombers at the moment, every win feels that much sweeter (while every loss feels that much worse). Alex Rodriguez missed the game due to a stomach virus but Jeter, Giambi and company held it down.

The team will look to the Big Unit tomorrow to live up to his moniker and give them some length, just as Mike Mussina did the other night against the Tigers. Camden Yards is a far cry from Comerica so it should be interesting to see how he performs.

The Orioles are a bad team. But unlike the Devil Rays, who have some exciting young players, or the Royals, who are historically awful, they’re also dull. Their pitching is somehwere between nonedescript (tonight’s starter Kris Benson) and awful (the re-pumpkinized Bruce Chen). Their best pitchers are young relievers, which won’t get them anywhere. As for their hitting, it’s the same old story, stop Tejada and Mora and you’re in good shape. The only interesting story here is that Corey Patterson is thriving as their starting centerfielder, hitting .291/.342/.496 with a whopping 21 steals in 22 tries.

Oops.

Jaret Wright opposes Benson tonight looking to build on his strong May (3-1, 3.25 ERA).

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Unimpressed by the Tigers’ young ace Justin Verlander, the Yankees staked Chien-Ming Wang to a 5-0 lead in the third inning last night, but the Yankee sinkerballer couldn’t hold it, giving back three in the fourth and loading the bases with no outs to start the fifth. Though a Jason Giambi solo home run had increased the Yankee lead to 6-3, Joe Torre had seen enough, Yanking Wang in favor of rookie Darrell Rasner.

It was a hell of a position for Rasner to make his Yankee debut in, and somewhat reminiscent of Torre bringing in a struggling and homer-prone Javier Vazquez in a similar situation in the seventh game of the 2004 ALCS. Indeed, Magglio Ordoñez laced Rasner’s first pitch into center to bring the Tigers within one, but Rasner recovered to set the next three men down in order and preserve the lead, finishing the inning by getting Omar Infante waiving at a nasty breaking ball.

The Yankees loaded the bases themselves with one out in the seventh against fireballer Joel Zumaya, but because of the injuries to Derek Jeter and Gary Sheffield, had Terrence Long and Miguel Cairo due up. Long fouled out on the first pitch he saw and Cairo grounded out to end the threat.

Scott Proctor and Fernando Rodney then traded pairs of scoreless innings, leaving it up to Kyle Farnsworth to protect the Yankees’ one-run lead in the bottom of the ninth because Mariano Rivera–two days after pitching three innings in a regular season game for the first time since 1996, the third of which came with a five-run lead–strained his back putting on his spikes before the game.

Farnsworth was greeted by lead-off hitter Curtis Granderson, who worked him over for nine pitches before flying out to left. Marcus Thames did the same, but instead worked a walk, thanks in part to the small strike zone of home-plate umpire Laz Diaz. Farnsworth then got ahead of Ivan Rodriguez 0-2 on a called strike and a checked swing only to have Rodriguez yank a ball out of the dirt and into left field for a single pushing Thames to second. That man Ordoñez then poked Farnsworth’s next pitch into right for an RBI single, tying the game and pushing the winning run to second with one out. Farnsworth then fell behind Carlos Guillen 3-1. Guillen sent Farnsworth’s 27th pitch of the inning into right to score Rodriguez for the win, preventing a four-game Yankee sweep.

Hey, tough knocks. Whatchugonnado? The Yankees have bigger problems than taking three of four from the team with the best record in the majors. Gary Sheffield has a torn ligament and a dislocating tendon in his left wrist that, if it doesn’t respond to a few weeks of therapy, will require surgery that could keep the Yankee right fielder out for the remainder of the season. Derek Jeter was useless in Tuesday’s game after jamming a finger on Monday and hasn’t played the last two days. The severity of Rivera’s back problems is unknown, and Johnny Damon and Jorge Posada are both playing hurt, the latter’s torn hamstring tendon costing the Yankees a crucial run in the seventh last night when Jorge was unable to score from second on an Andy Phillips single and was instead stranded at third by Long and Cairo.

The good news is that Damon, whose foot injury has finally been identified as a broken sesamoid bone in his right foot, is feeling better after sitting out Tuesday and Wednesday and that Jeter is expected to play against the Orioles tonight. In addition, Shawn Chacon’s rehab remains on schedule with him set to make a rehab start with the Trendon Thunder on Sunday and, if all goes well then, return from the DL to start on Thursday. The Yankees are also hoping Octavio Dotel will be ready to join the team a week later following a minor league rehab assignment that’s expected to begin next week.

Oh, and Bubba Crosby’s recovery from his hamstring injury has been slower than expected. He’s now expected back next weekend, which is at least good news for Kevin Thompson.

If yesterday’s win was gravy, a victory tonight to finish off a four-game sweep of the Tigers, who despite the last three games still have the majors’ best record, would be icing on the cake. It won’t be an easy task, however, as the Yankees will get their first look at the Tigers’ young ace, Justin Verlander.

Drafted out of Old Dominion second overall in the 2004 amateur draft, Verlander signed too late to play that year, instead making his pro debut in the Florida State League (high-A ball) in 2005. Verlander dominated in thirteen starts there, then turned it up a notch with double-A Erie, allowing just eleven hits and one run (on a homer) in 32.2 innings across seven starts. That earned him a September call-up in which the 22-year-old looked plenty human.

Verlander won the fifth starters spot out of spring training this year and has since emerged as the Tigers’ ace in just his second pro season. His only non-quality start of the year came in his second start when he was roughed up by the World Champion White Sox. In his last seven starts he’s compiled the following line: 50 1/3 IP (7+ IP/GS), 44 H, 3 HR, 10 BB, 25 K, 1.07 WHIP, 1.61 ERA, 6-1. Again, this is a 23-year-old in his second pro season. Sick.

Trying to keep pace with Verlander will be Chien-Ming Wang, who has won four of his last five games and got a hard-luck no-decision in his sixth.

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I was out at Shea Stadium last night, soaking in the cheerful noisiness of a decidedly motley crew in the upper deck, and missed all of Mike Mussina’s complete-game beauty in Detroit. Final score: Yanks 6, Tigers 1 (Moose missed a shutout due to an error by Alex Rodriguez, but it only took him 100 pitches on the nose, to finish the job regardless.) The Mets and the Diamondbacks featured a terrific billing–Pedro Martinez v. Brandon Webb. Both pitchers were excellent and neither team scored a run until Endy Chavez’s RBI single in the bottom of the 13th. By the time we filed out of Shea, the Yanks had a 4-0 lead in the eighth inning and that’s all I knew until I got home just past midnight.

What a game for Mussina. If the Tigers have one flaw it is that they are over-aggresive offensively and that obviously worked in Mussina’s favor. Andy Phillips and Miguel Cairo–who started in place of the aching Derek Jeter–flashed some leather, the defense turned three double plays, and Mussina cruised. He has pitched at least six innings in each start this season and has 12 consecutive “quality” starts (I know that stat isn’t especially impressive, but when you have a dozen straight in ain’t bubkus either). With Jeter, Sheffield and Damon all sitting and the young Verlander going tonight, Wednesday night’s victory was sweet for the Yankees. Jason Giambi and Rodriguez had three hits each and provided more than enough support for Mussina, undeniably the team’s ace this season.

So? What did I miss? What stood out to those of you who caught it?