Monthly Archives: April 2007

Okay, so that wasn’t exactly a “slugfest.” I was right about the Yankees having to rely on their bullpen, but for the wrong reasons. Ramon Oritiz hurled a gem at the Bombers, limiting them to one run on three hits and a walk over eight innings. That one run came in the fourth when Johnny Damon led off with a single, was pushed to second when Derek Jeter worked the only walk Ortiz issued all night, moved to third on a fly to right by Bobby Abreu, and was plated by an Alex Rodriguez sac fly.

Mike Mussina looked better than he had in his first outing, but pulled up lame in the third inning with what proved to be a balky left hamstring and removed himself from the game (more on Moose’s injury below). Mussina allowed a pair of singles before coming out of the game with a 2-1 count on Luis Castillo. Pressed into emergency duty, Sean Henn got Castillo to pop out on his first pitch, then escaped the inning thanks to a fabulous play by Derek Jeter. With Luis Rodriguez running from second on the pitch, Nick Punto hit a flair to shallow left. Jeter made a great over-the-shoulder, wide-receiver-style catch, then, in one continuous motion, spun and fired a strike to Robinson Cano at second to double up Rodriguez.

Henn turned in two more scoreless frames, but gave up a ringing double to Nick Punto to lead off the sixth. After Joe Mauer bunted Punto to third, Joe Torre went to Scott Proctor to face the right-handed Michael Cuddyer only to have Proctor give up a game-tying single on his second pitch. Proctor did manage to retire Justin Morneau and Torii Hunter to strand Cuddyer, and Luis Vizcaino contributed a perfect seventh inning with the help of a fantastic diving stop by Doug Mientkiewicz at first, but what was shaping up as a white-knuckle ballgame fell apart when Kyle Farnsworth took the mound in the eighth.

Farnsworth had nothing, walking Luis Castillo on four pitches to start the eighth. On Farnsworth’s fifth toss, a called strike to Nick Punto, Castillo stole second. Punto bunted Farnsworth’s next pitch foul and waved over top of a slider in the dirt for the first out, but Joe Mauer singled Castillo home three pitches later, taking second on Melky Cabrera’s throw home. Farnsworth’s first pitch to Michael Cuddyer was several feet away from Jorge Posada’s target, shooting between Cuddyer and Posada’s glove straight to the backstop to move Mauer to third. Cuddyer then singled Mauer home to run the score to 3-1. Justin Morneau cracked Farnsworth’s next pitch to deep right for a double, driving Cuddyer home with the fourth run, and Torii Hunter repeated the feat, knocking an 1-0 Farnsworth offering off the baggy for another RBI double. It was only then that Joe Torre relieved Farnsworth of his duties, bringing in Mike Myers to get the final two outs.

Down a seemingly insurmountable four runs against the man who, all due respect to Mariano Rivera, is likely the best closer in baseball, the Yankees did manage to mount a rally against Joe Nathan. Derek Jeter lead off the ninth with a single and, after Bobby Abreu hit a screaming liner at Castillo for the first out, Alex Rodriguez hit a booming ground rule double into the gap in left to put runners on second and third. That brought Jason Giambi to the plate with first base open and a chance to bring the tying run to the plate in the person of Jorge Posada, but Giambi hacked at Nathan’s first pitch, popping out to third. No longer in a position to tie the game, Posada took four pitches to run the count to 2-2, only to pop out to short to give the Twins a 5-1 win.

Consider this game a bit of stat correction for the Yankees’ unusually low bullpen ERA and unusually high number of runs scored per game. Heck, even Mussina’s two scoreless innings helped shed a few tenths of a run off the starters’ ERA. If there’s one lesson baseball teaches us, it’s that everything comes back to the center in time.

As for Mussina, he said that he felt his hamstring grab during the first batter of the third inning and, when it grabbed at him again later that inning, he decided to get out of there before he wound up with a long-term injury. On his last pitch of the game, you could see Mussina’s front leg stiffen up. Rather than ending up in his usual fielder’s stance, Moose hopped off to the third base side of the mound, at which point he shook his head in disappointment and gestured for Joe Torre and Gene Monhahan to come out and get him. Said Mussina after the game, “It was more than a cramp, but it’s not bad. I don’t limp, and I can still touch my toes.” The Yankees are hoping they won’t have to place Mussina on the disabled list, but it looks like Darrell Rasner will take Mussina’s next turn on Tuesday against the Indians at the Stadium. The Yanks won’t need a fifth starter until Sunday April 22 in Boston, so look for Mussina to make his return to the rotation during that weekend series at Fenway if he’s able to avoid the DL.

As for the other two pitchers the Yankees do have on the disabled list, both Jeff Karstens and Chien-Ming Wang threw bullpens down in Tampa earlier this week. Karstens is scheduled to throw three innings in a rehab game on Saturday. If that start goes well, he could be available to bump Rasner or fill in for Mussina at the end of next week. Wang, meanwhile, will need two rehab starts before being activated. Since the date of his first start has yet to be announced, it seems Wang will not be able to return any earlier than the team’s final homestand of the month, one turn through the rotation later than Karstens assuming both stay on pace.

There was reason to believe that Carl Pavano and Andy Pettitte would do what they did over the past two games, dropping the Yankee starters’ collective ERA more than three runs from 9.97 to 6.75 over the course of 13 stellar innings, but, I have to say, I’m a lot less enthusiastic about what we might see from Mike Mussina tonight. Unlike Pavano or Pettitte, Moose wasn’t hurt all that much by his defense in his first outing. Instead he was just plain roughed up, allowing eight hits, four of them doubles, walking three, and hitting a batter in a mere four innings. Moose allowed the Orioles to score in three of those four innings and in the lone exception he had runners on first and second and used up 21 pitches (and would have used more had Corey Patterson not laid down a successful sac bunt on the first pitch he saw). I suppose one could point to Moose’s four strikeouts in those four innings and respectable 62 percent strike rate as positive signs, but after seeing the way he struggled through spring training, I’m not convinced.

On the other side of the ledger, the Twins are throwing Ramon Ortiz to the wolves. Ortiz is a better pitcher than Sidney Ponson, but that’s not saying much. It’s comical to recall that Ortiz was dubbed “Little Pedro” when he emerged with the Angels last century. Ortiz aged three years in one winter as a result of the post-9/11 crack down on documentation. That year he surrendered 40 home runs. The next he posted a 5.20 ERA. In 2004, he lost his rotation spot. Jumping to the National League in 2005, Ortiz spent the next two seasons in two wildly disparate pitching environments in Cincinnati and Washington and was lit up in both (his home and away splits confirming that his ability to suck was uneffected by his home environment). Giving up 31 homers in 33 games while playing your home games in RFK Stadium is a nifty trick and one that doesn’t bode well for a pitcher facing the hottest offense in baseball (7.29 R/G) and the team tied for third in the majors in home runs.

Of course, Ortiz handled the Orioles in his last start (7 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 4 K, 0 HR), but I’m more interested in what the Yankees did to him when they met in the nation’s capitol last July, knocking him around for seven runs in 4 1/3 innings on eleven hits including homers by Jorge Posada and, you guessed it, Alex Rodriguez. That was the game in which Shawn Chacon, Matt Smith, T.J. Beam, Scott Proctor, and, shockingly, Mariano Rivera combined to blow a 9-2 lead. I don’t expect tonight will be quite as ugly, but I think we’re in store for another slugfest nonetheless. Fortunately, the Yankees have already taken the series (their first series win of the year), winning the first two games by a combined score of 18-3. They also have an off-day tomorrow, which means it could be all-in from their rebuilt bullpen, which posts the second-best bullpen ERA in the majors (1.27).

You could see the seeds of this story being planted back in the first weeks of spring training, and now, nearly two months later, Carl Pavano’s comeback is proceeding apace. In a nice bit of timing, his start on Monday — which was genuinely good, but looked brilliant thanks to the Yankee rotation’s abysmal opening week — fell immediately after Easter Sunday; I think you could probably find a workable metaphor in either the Resurrection or, if you prefer, the giant mythical bunny rabbit with candy.

The truth regarding Pavano’s last few seasons is elusive, and what’s more, it keeps changing. The better Pavano pitches now, the more he was a victim of bad luck; the higher his ERA this season, the more he was shamefully sitting around collecting a fat paycheck, unwilling to fight to return to the mound.

There’s nothing new about this: in sports, talent and achievement tend to morph into character. That’s why Ted Williams is known as a beloved icon instead of a total dick, and Joe DiMaggio is regarded as a symbol of class and lost elegance instead of an emotionally troubled loner. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this – we enjoy watching great players perform, and what they’re like off the field isn’t necessarily important. We’re not looking to Carl Pavano for life lessons, we’re looking to him for quality starts. But in any case, it’s probably not a good idea to make moral judgments based on WHIP.

We may never know exactly what happened with Pavano. Clearly he’s been legitimately injured, but equally clearly, his own teammates thought that he could be doing more to return; I don’t know if they were right, but I can’t recall ever seeing the Yankees disparage a teammate the way they publicly and on the record called out Pavano over the last year, taping the tabloids’ “Crash Test Dummy” headlines to his locker and dismissively joking about his wrecked Porsche. The result was brutal press coverage like this Bergen Record column, which called Pavano a gutless, lying weasel, more or less in those words. At this point you almost have to hope he was avoiding the mound last season – because if he tried his hardest and was simply too hurt to pitch, he’s been treated awfully unfairly.

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Hey gang, I’ll be subbing in as your recapper today. Andy Pettitte followed Carl Pavano’s lead (!) last night and gave the Yankees their second quality start of the season, while the offense, true to Cliff’s game preview, hurt Twins starter Boof "Boof" Bonser with the long ball: Yankees 10, Twins 1.

The game was actually decided in the first inning, when Derek Jeter singled to right and, after Bobby Abreu flied out, Alex Rodriguez stepped in. I’ll let Alex Belth, via stoked in-game email, take it from here:

"Boof started A-Rod with a slider (as he did in his second at bat too) and didn’t challenge him with the fastball until the count was full. I was at home saying, "Dude, you’re not going to try and get that sh** past A Rod, are you?" Sure enough, he came right into A Rod’s kitchen. Yo, A Rod just murdalized that ball. Goddamn, that was awesome."

Yes it was. There’s actually some difference of opinion as to what kind of pitch it was that A-Rod destroyed; Tyler Kepner agrees it was a fastball, but John Flaherty called it a slider, and Mike Mussina (per Kim Jones) claimed it was a changeup — after overhearing A-Rod tell reporters that he himself didn’t know. What I can tell you with certainty is that it ended up deep in the left field stands. Rodriguez now has six home runs on the season and a 1.107 slugging percentage; this homer, his 470th, tied him with Manny Ramirez, who is three years older. What’s changed since last year? His stance? His strategy? His mental health? I say it’s the socks.

Those runs were all Pettitte needed, though he eventually got a lot more. He looked sharp throughout, cruising through six shutout innings, changing speeds and using both sides of the plate. He allowed singles to Punto and Mauer to lead off the fourth, but swiftly worked out of it with a double play on Cuddyer and a groundout from Mourneau… and that was about as tense as things got. If there’s anything to quibble about, it’s that he could have been more economical, since by the end of the sixth he’d already thrown 96 pitches (60 for strikes); but credit the Twins hitters with some patience there, as well as a knack for irritating two-strike fouls.

The Yankee offense, meanwhile, continued on its path to world domination. Melky Cabrera got his groove back, starting with a single up the middle that plated Cano in the second, and finishing the night 3-for-4 with a nifty running, jumping, twisting catch on a Cuddyer line drive in the eighth. In the fifth, Mientkiewicz and Melky were aboard for a booming Johnny Damon home run, his first of the year. Bonser only made a few significant mistakes, but he paid for all of them, and was removed for a string of Twins relievers of varying efficacy.

Later in the fifth, by the way, Rodriguez was intentionally walked for the first time this season; get used to that.

My favorite Twins reliever by far is "Sideshow Pat" Neshek (nickname via awesome Twins blogger Bat Girl), who has a truly odd, jerky, flailing sidearm delivery; at one point his elbows nearly hit each other behind his back, though I can’t explain how they get there. Think of a stork being violently tickled, but with much better control. Baseball Think Factory has the visuals and the breakdown.

In the Yankee seventh Torre turned to Scott Proctor, who, with the variety of reliable (knocking on wood) arms in the pen this year, needs a new nickname – Semiweekly Scott? You guys can come up with something, I’m sure. Proctor didn’t have it, though, walking Morneau and Hunter to lead off the inning, despite being staked to a then-six-run lead. He did manage two fly-ball outs, but after a broken-bat Jason Kubel single gave the Twins their first and only run, Torre called for Vizcaino.

Finally, Mariano Rivera came in to mop up in the ninth. You know, I realize the guy needed to get some work in, but it seems a little unfair to crush a team 10-1 and then trot out Rivera to top it off, doesn’t it? Mo dispatched Morneau and Tyner with a combined three pitches, then used unfortunate pinch-hitter Luis Rodriguez as a guinea pig for his new changeup — which missed badly, high — before popping him up. So the change isn’t quite ready for prime time yet. Alex Rodriguez, though, definitely was.

The Yankee starters finished their first trip through the rotation with a 9.97 ERA. That was no more likely to hold up than are the bullpen’s current 1.07 ERA or the offense’s 6.83 runs per game. Indeed, Carl Pavano began the correction of that starters’ ERA last night with seven innings of two-run baseball, dropping the figure nearly two runs to 8.16. Expect Andy Pettitte to continue that trend tonight.

Pettitte’s first outing was the best of those first five Yankee starts (an admittedly low standard), and only came to an end after four innings because he was on a strict pitch limit necessitated by the back problems that interrupted his spring training schedule. Looking back over the game log, Andy got a double play to end the third and set the Devil Rays down in order in the fourth only to run into his pitch limit. Prior to that, he was undone by three walks, a wild pitch, a passed ball, an error, a stolen base, and three singles, one of which didn’t leave the infield. A lot of that is his own fault, and he was similarly rescued by that double play and his own great sliding tag of B.J. Upton at home, but it’s significant that he didn’t get cuffed around like Mussina (four doubles), Igawa, or Rasner (two homers and a double each). The only extra base hit Pettitte allowed was a two-out Jonny Gomes double in the first, which he stranded by getting Ty Wigginton to fly out on the very next pitch, and that fly out was the only one of the game as Pettitte (as evidenced by the double play, infield single, and error) did an excellent job of keeping the ball on the ground.

So, while Pettitte’s first start wasn’t good by any stretch, there were a lot of positive indicators. Since then, he tossed a scoreless inning of relief on his throw day and, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, gotten in out of the cold. I like his chances to turn in a solid outing tonight.

In fact, tonight’s game has the potential to be something of a pitcher’s duel, as the Twins will counter Pettitte with 25-year-old sophomore Boof Bonser. Despite making 18 major league starts last year, Bonser has never faced the Yankees during the regular season. He did, however, face them this spring. In that game, Bonser allowed a pair of solo homers to Bobby Abreu and Josh Phelps, but held the Yankees to just two other hits over six innings while striking out seven. He had a similar outing in his first regular season start against the Orioles last week, striking out six in six innings while allowing just two runs on three hits, one of them a solo homer by Melvin Mora.

The most compelling thing about Bonser, however–other than the fact that he’s officially changed his name to Boof (his birth name was John)–is that his mannerisms on the mound make him a dead ringer for a young, right-handed David Wells. A sloppy, heavy-set fellow with a brown goatee, a baggy jersey, and a big overhand delivery, Boof recalls the Boomer of 1997 and 1998, the ace of the 1998 Yankees and author of a perfect game against none other than the Minnesota Twins. Bonser and Wells are opposites when it comes to pitching style, however. In addition to throwing with the opposite hands, Wells pitches to contact, with historically low walk rates and correspondingly high hit rates, while Bonser tends to miss bats both in and out of the strike zone, suppressing hits along the way. Bonser does give up his share of homers, however, and it will be up to the Yankees tonight to make sure they have a few men on base when that inevitable long ball leaves the park.

In other news, the Twins disabled two players yesterday, placing Jeff Cirillo and Rondell White (surprise) on the 15-day DL and recalling infielder Alexi Casilla and outfielder Josh “Broccoli” Rabe from triple-A (see Aaron Gleeman for more). Unfortunately, Rabe’s name is pronounced “RAY-bee,” so his nickname only works in print.

Carl Pavano gave the Yankees exactly what they were looking for last night: a solid performance from a starting pitcher. The Yanks beat up on the Twins, 8-2. Pavano gave up just two runs over seven innings. He got ten ground ball outs and pitched aggresively (he pitched to contact as they like to say). Even in the seventh inning, when Joe Mauer and Torii Hunter roped line drives against him, Pavano kept his composure, and challenged hitters. He got out of the inning having given up just one run.

“When he was on the Marlins, he was pretty aggressive on the mound,” said Abreu, who faced Pavano when both played in the National League East. “That’s the way I saw him back in the day. Today was a pretty good start to going back.”
(Tyler Kepner, N.Y. Times)

It helped that the Yankee offense jumped all over Sir Sidney Ponson early. Bobby Abreu had four RBI an a homer, and later, Alex Rodriguez hit an absolute rocket over the right field fence that was still going up when it crashed into the seats. It was Rodriguez’s fifth home run in six games. (When he’s going the opposite way, you know he’s locked-in.) Jorge Posada added two RBI of his own, Johnny Damon had a couple of hits, and Derek Jeter had three (Melky Cabrera is one of the few regulars who are struggling offensively). Even better, the Yankee defense finally had a good night. Jeter made two nifty plays–going up-the-middle to snag a base hit away from Mike Redmond in the third, and charging a high-bouncer from Luis Castillo in the sixth.

But Pavano was the story. After he was taken out of the game, he sat next to Andy Pettitte in the dugout. I always felt that Pavano could be related to Pettitte. Maybe they could be cousins. Both are big guys, with big legs and big rumps, and somewhat narrow shoulders (at least it looks that way when they pitch). They both have dark, good looks. Andy’s got the Roman nose, Pavano’s got that classic chin. You could make pretty good busts out of those mugs. Anyhow, the announcers mentioned that the two have become pals. That should be fun to watch as the season unfolds.

Mel at Yogi

Speaking of classic Yankee pitchers, Mel Stottlemyre will be at the Yogi Berra Museum tonight between 6-8 promoting his new book, Pride and Pinstripes. If you are out in Jers, roll on through and check it out.

The Yankees play just seven games against the central-division Twins this year, and it’s rather advantageous that they’re getting three of them out of the way now. That may seem an odd statement given that the Yankees are 2-3 and have yet to get a quality start (or anything even close) from their starting rotation, while the Twins are 4-1 and have allowed just 2.4 runs per game, but a quick look at the pitching probables for this series shows that the Twins are repeating their mistakes from a year ago.

Last year, the Twins broke camp with Tony Batista at third base, Juan Castro at shortstop, and Kyle Lohse and Carlos Silva in the starting rotation. It wasn’t until mid-May that the team began to figure out that they had to do better, eventually ridding themselves of Batista, Castro, and Lohse, and benching underperforming right fielder Lew Ford. While their solutions in right field (Michael Cuddyer) and the left side of the infield (Nick Punto and Jason Bartlett) are still in place (though Punto is unlikely to be a long-term fix at the hot corner), the Twins have taken a step backwards in the rotation. Silva continues to hold a spot and, in place of the retired Brad Radke, the injured Francisco Liriano, and 2006 solution Matt Garza, who had an excellent spring, they’ve turned to proven patsies Ramon Ortiz and, believe it or not, Sidney Ponson.

Admittedly, Garza got roughed up pretty good last year, but that came late in the year as he was inching toward his career mark for innings in a single season (he ultimately threw 185 2/3 over four levels, just surpassing his total from the previous season split between Fresno State, rookie ball, and low-A). One could argue that Garza’s on the Phil Hughes plan, but there are three key differences. Garza, a first-round draft pick out of Fresno State in 2005, is nearly three years older than Hughes. Hughes is on a 180-inning limit this year, but Garza has already passed that in each of the last two seasons. Finally, Hughes had never pitched above double-A coming into 2007, while Garza threw 50 major league innings at the end of last season. Also unlike Hughes, Garza sailed through spring training with a 1.50 ERA. Garza’s a top prospect who’s ready to join the major league rotation. So who do the Twins block him with? Sidney Ponson, a man who was relased by three teams in a 12-month span from September 1, 2005 to September 1, 2006 and this spring had a WHIP of 1.56 and struck out just 6 men in 16 innings. They must have been really blown away by Sir Sidney’s 3.94 ERA.

That or they plan to skip the fifth spot in their rotation as often as possible and wanted Garza to get regular work in the minors. Fortunately for the Yankees, one of the times the defending AL Central Champs need their fifth starter is tonight. Meanwhile, Johan Santana, who’s officially the greatest pitcher on the planet, pitched last night. So, you see, it’s rather advantageous that the Yanks are getting three of their games against the Twins out of the way now, because the Twinks will surely haved wise up by the time they come to the Bronx around Independence Day, and it’s unlikely that the Yanks will miss Santana again in that four-game set. It will also benefit the Yankees to come in from the cold to the climate-controlled Metrodome. In both cases (and I never thought I’d say this about the Hubert H. Homerdome, but given the weather in the Bronx of late . . .) the Yankees should enjoy it while you can.

Carl Pavano takes his second turn tonight. He actually looked pretty good through his first four innings on Opening Day, allowing just one unearned run following Derek Jeter’s throwing error. In fact, if you convert that error to an out and erase the remainder of that second inning in which Pavano allowed a walk and an RBI single before getting the final out, Meat’s line through four innings would have been 4 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K. Even as played, his four-inning line was a very respectable 4 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 2 K. The fact of the matter is he flat ran out of gas in the fifth, which is not unusual considering how long it’s been since he’s pitched regularly. That fatigue is yet another reason to trade Pavano in late May, assuming he pitches well enough to fetch a good return and the rest of the rotation shapes up, of course. Between his injury risk and lack of stamina, the chances of Pavano continuing to pitch well all year (if he gets there at all) are very slim. His chances of outlasting his opponent tonight are much better. Sidney Ponson is bad.

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It was freaking cold in the Bronx on Sunday. The box score says it was 41 degrees, but it was overcast with a 20-mile-per-hour wind and snow flurries filled Yankee Stadium off and on throughout the game. Undeterred, Becky and I had the perfect plan.

A hearty meal at the Court Deli:

And lots and lots of layers:

To be perfectly honest, our plan worked about as well as the Yankees’, which was based around getting a solid outing from Darrell Rasner. Rasner looked sharp in the first, and the Yankees jumped out to a 3-0 lead when Melky Cabrera and Derek Jeter singled, Bobby Abreu plated Melky with a sac fly and Alex Rodriguez launched his first pitch to the Armitron sign in right field to give him two home runs and six RBIs on his last two swings.

Already freezing, Becky turned to me and said, "So that’s it, right? They won and we can go home?" If only.

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Is only as good as the next day’s starting pitcher. Fortunately, Darrell Rasner has a very real chance to turn in the best start by a Yankee thus far this season. Of course, everything’s relative.

After four games:

Yankee offense: 7.25 R/G

Yankee bullpen: 1.44 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, 18 2/3 IP

Yankee rotation: 9.87 ERA, 2.25 WHIP, 17 1/3 IP

Eric Bedard was lit up by the Twins in his first start (6 ER, 10 H, 4 2/3 IP). Here’s hoping the Yankee offense, which will get Damon back today, but has lost Matsui to a hamstring injury until Friday at the earliest and will likely be without Jorge Posada, who hasn’t had a day off yet this season and played a day game after a night game yesterday, can keep on keeping on.

It was another sluggish day for the Yankees’ starting pitching and their fielding. Hideki Matsui left the game with a tight hamstring (early reports indicate that he’ll be okay). Kei Igawa became the first Yankee starter this season to make it through the fifth inning. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it to the sixth, allowing seven runs, all of them earned, off of eight hits and three walks. A forgettable debut, indeed.

Alex Rodriguez’s two-run dinger in the first got the Yankees on the board; he doubled in the fourth and scored on Jorge Posada’s RBI single (one of those line drives to right at the Stadium that narrowly missed being a homer), then walked and scored on Jason Giambi’s three-run bomb in the eighth. But would any of that matter to the uncompromisingly tough New York fans if Rodriguez failed in the ninth? Trailing by just one run, Rodriguez came to the plate with two men out and the bases juiced. He took a ball from Chris Ray and then swung through two fastballs.

Emily and I always hold our breath when Rodriguez comes up late in the game in big spots. I don’t know if there is any Yankee player since Reggie that I root for in exactly the same way. I feel like I’m a kid again as far as he’s concerned. My heart pumps faster when he’s up, and I’m almost physically pained when he fails. I guess I respond to Rodriguez’s neediness. As with Reggie, I feel like he really needs me.

I sat on the floor and prayed with Emily. “Just get a single, bro, nice and easy.” Instead, Rodriguez launched Ray’s 1-2 pitch into the black seats in center field for a grand slam home run. Sweet Georgia Brown. Final Score: Yanks 10, O’s 7. I jumped up and down and yelled and hugged Emily, who will officially be my wife in less than two weeks. Rodriguez had a huge smile on his face as he circled the bases. His teammates mobbed him and when they all returned to the dugout, Derek Jeter pushed Rodriguez back-up the steps for a curtain call.

According to our pal, Pete:

Alex Rodriguez is one of three players in history with three walk-off slams. The others are Vern Stephens of the old St. Louis Browns and Cy Williams of Philadelphia. Nobody has done it since 1950.

There was more general lousiness from the Yanks today, but Rodriguez was the star, from soup-to-nuts (Em says tomorrow’s headlines should be directed at Rodriguez’s detractors: “F*** All of You,” or “Shut Your Pie-Hole”). And that, my friends, is a beautiful thing.

It is an overcast, brisk spring day in New York. The sun is trying to peak out. Kei Igawa is on the hill for the Yanks this afternoon. Time for the bats to bomb away.

For the second consecutive night, the Yankees looked old, flat, and old. Mike Mussina allowed six runs off eight hits and three walks over four innings as the Bombers fell to the Orioles, 6-4. The game lasted three hours and fifteen minutes, brief considering this was New York vs. Baltimore, but it seemed longer. The Yanks seemed out-of-it mentally. In the fourth inning, Melvin Mora stole second and neither Robinson Cano or Derek Jeter, who limped for most of the game after fouling a ball off his right foot in his first at-bat, covered the bag. When was the last time you remember Jeter making a mental mistake like that? The Yankee shortstop was removed in the ninth inning. Again, something you don’t normally see.

Sean Henn pitched well in relief, but the Yankees sorely need a strong outing from a starter:

“Every team in the league counts on its rotation, but we count on our rotation a lot,” said Mussina, who gave up six runs in four innings. “It’s going to make or break our season, and we didn’t do very well the first handful of starts here. It’s disappointing. We’ve got to improve.”
(Kepner, N.Y. Times)

Mussina nibbled all night and couldn’t hit his spots. In light of that, I’m not overwhelmed with confidence in Kei Igawa this afternoon. This might be one of those days were the bats have to carry the team.

Meanwhile, in Dunder Mifflin Land, Phillip Hughes pitched well in his Triple A debut.

I’ll be honest, the Orioles bore me to tears. Now nursing a nine-year run of losing records, the Orioles continue to rearrange the furniture, but without a meaningful youth movement, they’ll forever be the AL East’s fourth-place team (until the Devil Rays get enough pitching to pass them, that is). Nick Markakis might be the real deal in right field, but there’s no one behind him in the high minors and now that Melvin Mora’s fallen back to earth he’s less of a production addition than a production replacement. Erik Bedard, whom the Yankees will face on Sunday, is actually about a week older than Johan Santana. Chris Ray is nice and all, but he’s a band-aid on a severed limb. That just leaves the ongoing mystery that is Daniel Cabrera–who acquitted himself well over his last ten starts last year and his first outing of 2007, but still hasn’t shown the dominant form that’s long been predicted for him–and tonight’s starter Adam Loewen. As a rookie in 2006, Loewen faced the Yankees more than any other team, excelling in those four starts (2.62 ERA, 23 K in 24 IP), and Baseball Prospectus’s Kevin Goldstein likes him more than either Cabrera or Ray. Tonight marks his first start of 2007, and it will be interesting to see what he can do against the Yankees’ lefty-heavy lineup after so much exposure to same last year.

As for the O’s as a group, the were swept by the Twins in their opening series by a combined score of 17-8, with half of those runs coming off Johan Santana himself, and are punting the catcher position while trying to decide what to do about Ramon Hernandez’s strained oblique muscle. The Hernandez situation brings to mind the Yankees’ deliberations over Johnny Damon’s sexy calves, but with inferior stand-ins. Actually, Peter Abraham reports that Damon’s feeling better and could play tomorrow. Hernandez, however, is likely DL-bound.

The Orioles are ripe for the picking, but the Yankees have to help themselves first. After making six errors in their first two games, three of them coming from the Captain, who’s never looked worse in the field, their ability to pick anything in doubt.

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Sports Illustrated.com has started a new baseball blog on their site called Fungoes, which will rotate through seven writers and all six divisions over the course of each week of the 2007 baseball season. Among those seven writers are our founder Alex Belth, who will cover the AL East, fellow Toaster Jon Weiseman, who will cover the NL West, and myself as the seventh man tackling a random baseball topic of my choosing every Friday under the “Wild Card” header.

Alex’s posts will appear every Monday. Check out his first post from this past Monday, in which Alex muses about Opening Day from an AL East perspective. My first post is up today and takes a look at the historical significance of the Arizona Diamondback’s new uniforms (with apologies to Paul Lukas). Mr. Weisman’s first effort, meanwhile, focused on the underrated Colorado Rockies (with apologies to Mark T.R. Donohue, I’m sure).

I hope you’ll all join us over there in addition to your regularly scheduled programming here on Baseball Toaster. And don’t be shy about dropping some comments over at SI, either.

By Bruce Markusen

Two Games In The Books

At this writing, the Yankees have played a grand total of two games, which makes it difficult to detect any meaningful trends and patterns. Still, every game provides us with at least one storyline. As is usually the case in Yankeeland, there is no shortage of plots and themes as we evaluate the first series of the season.

*Sometimes Opening Day makes you feel very good about a pre-season prediction. I picked the Yankees to win the American League East, in large part because of their bullpen, which has far superior depth to the pen in Beantown. So what did the Yankee relievers do on Opening Day after Carl Pavano dropped the ball in the fifth inning? The five-man tag team of Brian Bruney, Sean Henn, Luis Vizcaino, Kyle Farnsworth, and Mariano Rivera combined for four and two-thirds innings of scoreless relief. That sort of pattern could become a trend in 2007. Given the depth at Joe Torre’s disposal, this might be the Yankees’ best bullpen since the dynasty days of Jeff Nelson and Mike Stanton.

(And just when I had finished patting my back after the opener, the Yankee bullpen allowed three runs in game two, including the game-winning run in the top of the eighth. Ah, so much for predictions.)

The improvement of Farnsworth could be the key to just how good the bullpen can be. Farnsworth has dipped into his pre-2006 arsenal and brought back a sinking fastball that provides a nice contrast to his rising 98 mile-per-hour four-seamer. If Farnsworth is willing to throw the sinker—and more importantly, is able to throw strikes with his sinker—he could be the eighth-inning force the Yankees thought they had acquired in 2006.

*For the first time since the first half of 1996, the Yankees appear to have enough versatility in their lineup to play “small ball”—or “Billy Ball,” in homage to a former Yankee skipper who had some fun with the A’s in the early eighties. The Yankees stole three bases and laid down two sacrifice bunts in the opener, giving them an extra dimension to a lineup that is already packed with power. With Alex Rodriguez having lost 12 pounds over the winter, he could resume being a significant basestealing threat. The Yankees now have four regulars capable of stealing 20 or more bases—the others are Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, and Bobby Abreu—which should erase the team’s image as being slow and plodding. When’s the last time the Yankee lineup could boast that many basestealers? You might have to go back to the failed speed experiment of 1982, when the Yankees brought in Dave Collins and Ken Griffey and tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to become the “Go-Go” Bombers.

*The Yankees’ defensive play has been atrocious through the first two games. I don’t care what their zone rating or range factor might be; six errors, a passed ball, and a near passed ball in 18 innings is horrifically bad. I’m willing to excuse some of the poor play because of the cold, but certainly not all of it. Derek Jeter has made several poor throws and has displayed less range than usual to his left, Josh Phelps looked like he’d been taking lessons from Jason Giambi with his Opening Day throw to second base, and even supposed glove wizard Doug Mientkiewicz has made an error. (By the way, if Mientkiewicz doesn’t play an absolutely brilliant first base this month, I want him out of the lineup by May 1.) What can the Yankees do about their defensive woes? Well, they’re going to have to live with Jeter and Alex Rodriguez on the left side of the infield, but they need to get Melky Cabrera as many innings as possible in the outfield. He is their best outfielder, both in terms of range and throwing arm—and it’s not even close.

*The nicest development of the first week involved an off-the-field concern, specifically someone who hasn’t played for the Yankees in more than two decades. The much-loved Bobby Murcer returned to Yankee Stadium for Opening Day, spending a couple of innings in the YES Network broadcast booth, after a winter filled with cancer diagnosis and chemotherapy treatments. I have to admit it was a bit odd to see the cancer-stricken Murcer sporting a bald look—he’s always had a full shock of hair, even in recent years—but he sounded very good during his stint in the booth. His voice came across as strong, as did his usual sense of humor. Murcer says he hopes to completely fulfill his broadcast schedule this year. I think it’s safe to say that every Yankee fan has the same wish for 2007.

Bruce Markusen is the author of A Baseball Dynasty: Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s and the writer of Cooperstown Confidential, a blog at MLB.com. Bruce, his wife Sue, and daughter Madeline reside in Cooperstown, NY.

The fans who stuck around for the entire game last night are bonafide die-hards, man, cause it was brick cold in the Bronx. Unfortunately, they didn’t go home happy as the Yankees lost an ugly game to the Devil Rays, 7-6. Andy Pettitte was far from sharp and the bullpen wasn’t much better. The Yankees made three errors, including two by Derek Jeter, and Jorge Posada had perhaps one of the worst defensive games of his career. Still, they had two men on with just one out in the bottom of the eighth. Jeter tapped a ground ball back to the pitcher, who inexplicably tried for the force at third. The throw was late, and bases were loaded. But Bobby Abreu was jammed, and grounded out to the pitcher before Alex Rodriguez missed a fat pitch and popped out to end the inning. Rodriguez threw his bat down in frustration, the cheers turned to boos, and the tabloids had their cover story.

All of this with wild snow flurries falling at different points throughout the game. In the seventh, the snow looked like a swarm of locusts, or, as YES announcer Michael Kay noted, a snowglobe turned upside down. Elijah Dukes, looking thuggish in a black mask–which many of the Devil Rays wore to keep warm–hit a line drive home run to left field which brought back memories of Winfield and Rice. Josh Paul was as good behind the plate for the Rays as Posada was terrible for the Yanks.

It’s too soon to get upset, right? That may be true, but my blood was angried-up well enough during the last few innings as the Yanks let one slip away. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks, eh?

There were snow flurries in Manhattan as I left work this evening. It’s April 5, the baseball season is well under way, the sun is shining, and here comes a cool cluster of snow crystals, curling down on the brisk breeze to perch on my proboscis.

Much as “sun flurries” (if such a thing truly exists and I wasn’t just dreaming) strike me as a siren-like omen of an impending natural apocalypse, it’s appropriate weather for tonight’s ballgame. A half a score and one more years ago, Andy Pettitte took the hill for the Yankees home opener amid a flock of snow flurries and beat the Kansas City Royals, setting the Yankees on their way to their first World Championship in 18 years and launching the most recent Yankee dynasty. Tonight, thanks to the rain-out yesterday (and I think we can all thank Gore and the Easter Bunny that it was rain and not snow that poured fourth from the heavens), Andy Pettitte will make the first start of his second stint as a Yankee tonight amid the flakes (that is, unless Johnny Damon’s calf strain keeps him out of the lineup).

But seriously, folks, it’s about freaking time. It seems like it’s been a week since the Yankees beat the D-Rays on Opening Day. I’ve had an empty seat at my table for Elijah Dukes for far too long.

Jae Seo starts for the Devil Rays, wondering where went his Weong. It remains to be seen what the Rays will reap from Seo, who seemed to hold so much promise when he signed with the Dodgers last year only to end the season as Mark Hendrickson’s replacement in Tampa. Those of you parsing that last clause for a pun can scratch those plans as there ain’t one.

As for Andy, in case you forgot, he’s sixth on the Yankees’ all-time list in games started, fifth all-time in strikeouts, and ninth all-time in wins as a Yankee. If he wins 15 games this year he’ll tie his former pitching coach, Mel Sottlemyre, for sixth on the all-time Yankee win list. None of those rankings will have any real effect on how he’ll perform tonight (other than the fact that they betray the mileage on his arm), but they’ll have a great deal of effect on how he’s received, and I don’t mean by Jorge Posada.

By Jon Kay

“The next stop is 161st Steet, Yankee Stadium.”

It won’t be long before many of us get to hear those sweet, automated words as the 4 train rumbles to The House that Ruth Built.

There is a longstanding link between professional baseball in New York City and its transit system. Ballparks past and present have all been built next to subway lines.

April 14th, 1906 was the date of Yankee opening day in Hilltop Park on 168th street and Broadway. A sellout crowd of 15,000 watched the Yankees defeat the Boston Americans 2-1 in 12 innings.

This date was also opening day for the 168th street subway station which is now served by the 1 train. The New York Times estimated 10,000 fans passed through the brand new station on their way to the ballpark. The subway crowd was too much for the station’s elevators which took riders from the platform, 125 feet underground, to the surface. Hundreds of fans had to make their way up to the street on foot via the stairs.

These hearty fans were rewarded with a pitchers’ duel between Happy Jack Chesbro for the Yankees and Cy Young for Boston. An unearned run in the 12th sealed the win for New York. Set up men, loogys and closers were not required as each starter pitched a complete game.

The Times reported the bleacher creatures gave Young a good pre-game razzing and Chesbro’s spitball was in peak form. It is safe to say the post-game walk down to the subway was a much more enjoyable one than the pre-game hike up 12 flights.

When the Yankees moved to the Polo Grounds in 1913, the 9th Avenue El became the train of choice for Yankee fans. The 9th Avenue line was one of the city’s original train lines dating back to 1867. In 1880, the line was extended to 155th street, the future site of the Polo Grounds. In 1918, the 9th Avenue line was connected to the Woodlawn line in the Bronx via an existing railroad bridge operated by the Putnam branch of the New York Central. This extension was the precursor for what would become the Polo Grounds Shuttle and passed near the future site of Yankee Stadium.

The most popular song in baseball history, Take Me Out to the Ballgame was inspired by a ride on the 9th Avenue El. In 1908, Jack Norworth was riding the el past the Polo Grounds. He saw a sign, “Baseball Today – Polo Grounds”, which prompted him to write the famous lyrics. It may have been the most productive ride in mass transit history.

In 1921, Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert had to look no further than the 4 train when scouting potential locations for a new ballpark. It was The House that Ruth Built but it was the IRT that decided where The House would be.

Over the years, Yankee fans have been well served by the 4 train as well as the B and D IND lines which were added in 1933. These three trains are given proper respect at every Yankee home game via the great subway race. I usually root for the 4 train, but being a Bronx native, I have to confess to occasionally rooting for the Bx1 bus.

The new Yankee Stadium, currently under construction, is already steeped in transit lore.

The new Stadium will sit along the route of the old Polo Grounds shuttle. In 1940, the 9th Avenue El was shut down. Construction of the underground IND line had made the 9th Avenue El obsolete. Shuttle service was maintained between the Polo Grounds on 155th street and the 4 train stop on 167th street. After the Giants left town in 1958, the shuttle was closed for good.

If you walk to River Ave and 162nd street, you can still see a small piece of the shuttle’s structure. My good buddy, and Bronx historian, Dave Levy pointed out the remnant of the shuttle to me a few years back. It was a Bronx boy’s version of an archeological dig.

Parking facilities for the new Stadium are being built on the site of Macomb’s Dam Park. Anyone who presently takes the ferry to the Stadium sails by the former location of Robert Macomb’s dam. Back in 1813, Macomb was allowed to build a dam in the Harlem River and collect tolls. The dam caused flooding uptown and shippers refused to pay the toll. In 1838, a judge deemed it a public nuisance and ordered it removed. In spite of all of this, a park and a bridge were named after him.

I was pleased to hear the new Yankee Stadium would make transit history with a Metro North station. This is a great idea which should have been done 30 years ago. Unfortunately, recent news about the station is not good. We can only hope that Metro North will be included in the subway race for many years to come.

Jon grew up in the Bronx and is a lifelong Yankee fan. He can often be spotted on the 4 train on his way to upper reserved seats at the Stadium.

While there’s no make-up date scheduled for yesterday’s game just yet, there were a few drips of news yesterday. Well, three to be exact. Johnny Damon, who left Monday’s game with cramps in his calves now appears to have something closer to a strain, which puts his availability in doubt for the time being. Melky Cabrera was going to start in center field in yesterday’s game until it got rained out. Ron Villone, who was officially released at the end of spring training, signed a minor league deal with the Yankees yesterday and will report to triple-A Scranton. He can opt out of the deal if he’s not on the 25-man roster by May 1. Finally, Chein-Ming Wang’s rehab continues to move swiftly. He’s been throwing in the bullpen and might throw a simulated game this weekend.

By Bryan Smith

Read Alex Belth long enough, and you start to pick up the guy’s biases. I’m not talking his love for rap, Ken Burns or Central Park, but the Yankees that command most of his ink: Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera. Notice the trend.

I’m not bashing my friend Alex here, as I think any team diehard (myself included) does the same thing. As baseball fans, or really, as sports fans, we are drawn to the players we can only imagine in one uniform. Bernie, Rivera, Derek Jeter, these guys are Yankees. Being homegrown is to be one step closer to being a fan favorite. As loved as Paul O’Neil was, he was half a Red. As dominant as Roger Clemens was, he had shoved it for years with the Beaneaters.

If the Major League Baseball draft was different, and trading up in the draft allowed, Derek Jeter would not be New York’s captain. Heck, he probably wouldn’t be their shortstop. Because if trading were allowed, George Steinbrenner would have moved up in the 1993 draft after reading his staff’s reports on a young stud in Miami. Despite taking Jeter the previous year, the Yankees would have bought the top pick from Seattle and drafted Alex Rodriguez.

After suffering through 1994 with Mike Gallego, the Yankees would have never signed Tony Fernandez. Rather, they would have opened 1995 with A-Rod at short, and New York would have fallen in love with him over the next 464 home runs. Jeter would be one helluva leadoff hitter, still loved in New York, but always second fiddle to the Bronx shortstop.

That’s what is funny to be about baseball: although we don’t realize it, fan allegiances to players are as determined by player development as they are effort and media friendliness.

Alex has asked me to write about the Yankees farm system once a month this season because I think he senses a new era with this organization. Starved to end this World Series drought, the Yankees are returning to what defined their ’90s dynasty: scouting. The Yankees demanded their farm system provide them with a foundation – and it did in spades, with all the aforementioned homegrown talents – and then leaned on Brian Cashman (and Steinbrenner’s wallet) to decorate the interior.

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