Since the Yankees and Indians split a four-game series in Cleveland a week ago, the Yankees split a pair of three-game sweeps and the Tribe went 2-3. All five wins, by both teams, came against the hapless Mariners, who are now nursing a five-game losing streak. The rain erased a sixth Cleveland contest, conveniently pushing C.C. Sabathia out of this week’s three-game set in the Bronx by pushing his last start up a day.
Still, things won’t be easy for the Yankees this week. Lefty Cliff Lee, who starts tomorrow, is off to a literally unbelievable start, going 5-0 with a 0.96 ERA and a 0.56 WHIP. Tonight, the Yanks will have to face Fausto Carmona. Carmona’s an interesting case. He’s 3-1 with a 2.60 ERA, but an alarming 1.73 WHIP and a backwards 1:2 K/BB ratio. Carmona’s allowed less than a hit per inning, has given up just one home run in six starts, and he’s still getting his groundballs, so it seems his only real problem is those darn walks. Since he’s been able to win while wild, odds are he’ll settle down and return to his overall dominance before too long. The Yankees certainly hope that doesn’t start tonight. The Yankees found Carmona unhittable in the ALDS last year, but won both of his starts against them in the regular season.
On the other side of the ball, the Indians have responded to their inconsistent and generally underperforming offense by rejiggering their lineup in the last week, dropping Travis Hafner and his Perdue pop-up timer to sixth and moving right fielder Franklin Gutierrez up to second on the heels of a hot start to last week. That puts David Dellucci, still the team’s hottest hitter, in the third spot and pushes the slumping Ryan Garko down to seventh. Finally, today they designated Dellucci’s platoon partner Jason Michaels for assignment in favor of 26-year-old rookie right-handed outfielder Ben Francisco despite the fact that Francisco is hitting a mere .228/.308/.315 with triple-A Buffalo. I guess folks are desperate all over.
As for the Yankees, they have a decision to make this week. With nine men in the bullpen, but just four in the rotation and three on the bench, the Yankees will have to regulate that imbalance no later than Saturday, when they’ll need a fifth starter. That fifth starter is all but officially going to be Kei Igawa, and Igawa’s arrival on the roster will force the Yankees to pair the pen down.
Looking over the bullpen nine, three are veterans on multi-million-dollar contracts (Mariano Rivera, Kyle Farnsworth, LaTroy Hawkins) and six are twenty-somethings with options remaining (Joba Chamberlain, Ross Ohlendorf, Jonathan Albaladejo, Edwar Ramirez, Chris Britton, and Jose Veras). Taking the last six first, Ramirez, Britton, and Veras have yet to give up a run in the majors this year. Of course, Britton and Veras have only had one appearance each, but Britton didn’t allow a hit and Veras didn’t allow a baserunner. All three were somewhere between very good (Britton) and dominant (Ramirez, Veras) in Scranton and deserve a chance to pitch themselves off the roster. To that end, Joe Girardi should make an effort to get all three into more games this week. If they continue to throw up zeros, they should stay put.
Chamberlain is dominating in the primary set-up role (1.46 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, 12 1/3 IP, 14 K, 3 BB), and thus won’t be anywhere until the team’s secret plan to convert him back to starting takes effect, which won’t be soon. That just leaves Ohlendorf and Albaladejo.
Both have been used as long relievers. Both have been solid save for one ugly outing. Albaladejo’s was his last (four runs vs. five outs against the Tigers). Ohlendorf’s came back in Chicago (five runs vs. six outs against the White Sox). Ohlendorf’s been strong since then, including an excellent 3 1/3-inning outing in which he struck out five Tigers, but he’s on a 103-inning pace, which is by far the heaviest workload among the Yankee relievers. Then again, Ohlendorf was just converted from starting last year and threw 89 2/3 innings between the minors, majors and postseason last year and 183 innings in the minors the year before that, so that 103-inning pace may be something he could handle. Both Ohlendorf and Alabaladejo are striking out at least one man per inning, and Albaladejo had a 2.08 ERA and 1.04 WHIP before that one bad outing, but if the decision had to be made to day, it would come down to them, as Ohlendorf could do with a breather, and Albaladejo has been the only other pitcher with options who has struggled at all.
As for the veterans, Mariano Rivera wouldn’t be going anywhere, even if he hadn’t held the competition scoreless to this point. Don’t look now, but Kyle Farnsworth has pulled out of his nosedive. All of Farnsworth’s peripherals had declined in each of his first two seasons with the Yankees, but this year his walks are way down and his strikeouts are back up over one per inning. In his last nine appearances, each exactly one inning in length, he’s struck out ten and allowed just eight baserunners (five hits, three walks) while posting a 2.00 ERA. The only problem is that those two runs were both home runs and Kyle’s HR/9 this year is off the charts (2.35). Still, of the four homers he’s allowed this year, three of them were solo shots because he’s simply not putting anyone else on base. That makes a two-run lead Farnsworth-proof and makes Farns worth keeping around to see if he can solve the one remaining flaw in his game.
That leaves LaTroy Hawkins. Hawk has the worst ERA, WHIP, K/9 and K/BB among all Yankee relievers, and it’s not even close. Still, he has pitched five scoreless innings in his last four outings, allowing just three singles in that span. His walk rate is still a problem and he doesn’t strike anyone out, but he’s not hurting the team right now. Still, his signing was something of a hedge against betting everything on the team’s younger arms, and with nearly all of those kids coming through, Hawkins could simply find himself in the way, particularly as he can’t be shuttled on and off the roster the way everyone else save Rivera and Farnsworth can be.
Right now the Yankee bullpen is fourth in the AL in WHIP and both lowest batting average and lowest OPS against and fourth in the majors in K/BB. If the team is smart about who they remove from the pen this weekend and the shuffle at the back of the rotation allows them to recede from their place atop the AL in relief innings per game, the Yankees could find themselves with the best bullpen in baseball.
In other roster news, Wilson Betemit was just activated from his rehab assignment and Alberto Gonzalez was sent down. Betemit will start at third base tonight and could cut into Morgan Ensberg’s playing time significantly as Betemit was getting in a groove in Scranton and Ensberg has been struggling. Morgan has been playing almost daily since April 19 and has hit a mere .174 with just two walks and no extra base hits in those 13 games. Alex Rodriguez could be back in about a week, so this is Betemit’s big chance to solidify his spot on the roster. Remember, before Rodriguez mended his fences, Betemit was the leading candidate to be the Yankees starter at the hot corner.
Cleveland Indians
2008 Record: 14-17 (.452)
2008 Pythagorean Record: 16-15 (.515)
Manager: Eric Wedge
General Manager: Mark Shapiro
Home Ballpark (multi-year Park Factors): Jacobs Field (103/102)
25-man Roster:
1B – Ryan Garko (R)
2B – Asdrubal Cabrera (S)
SS – Jhonny Peralta (R)
3B – Casey Blake (R)
C – Victor Martinez (S)
RF – Franklin Gutierrez (R)
CF – Grady Sizemore (L)
LF – David Dellucci (L)
DH – Travis Hafner (L)
Bench:
R – Jamey Carroll (IF)
R – Kelly Shoppach (C)
R – Andy Marte (3B)
R – Ben Francisco (OF)
Rotation:
L – C.C. Sabathia
L – Aaron Laffey
R – Fausto Carmona
L – Cliff Lee
R – Paul Byrd
Bullpen:
R – Rafael Betancourt
L – Rafael Perez
R – Jensen Lewis
R – Masahide Kobayashi
R – Jorge Julio
L – Craig Breslow
R – Tom Mastny
15-day DL: R – Jake Westbrook, R – Joe Borowski, L – Shin-Soo Choo (OF)
Typical Lineup:
L – Grady Sizemore (CF)
R – Franklin Gutierrez (RF)
L – David Dellucci (LF)
S – Victor Martinez (C)
R – Jhonny Peralta (SS)
L – Travis Hafner (DH)
R – Ryan Garko (1B)
R – Casey Blake (3B)
S – Asdrubal Cabrera (2B)
