Monthly Archives: July 2009

Mark Lamster, a longtime friend of Bronx Banter, has a long piece on the two new NYC ballparks over at Metropolis magazine:

For a certain kind of baseball enthusiast, the ultimate measure of these two parks rests on how they actually play. The new Yankee Stadium is a simulacra of the old, with dimensions that are roughly the same but different enough that it performs quite differently. (For the spectator, this lends it either an eerie cast or a pleasant familiarity.) In practice, shorter and closer outfield fences, a reduction of foul territory, and concourses open to the wind make Yankee Stadium one of the most hitter-friendly parks in baseball. Though the old yard always favored powerful lefties like Ruth, it now seems to favor anyone who shows up with a bat: its home-run rate is by far the highest in baseball. This has made it something of a laughingstock among seamheads, but what real detriment the hitter-friendly contours might pose, beyond making games longer, is a matter for debate. Some experts believe that hitters’ parks place undue stress on team pitching staffs, thereby reducing their chances at postseason success. Attendance, however, traditionally supports the validity of the league’s nineties-era marketing slogan: “Chicks dig the long ball.”

Regardless of gender, fans who want to see home runs would do well to avoid Citi Field, which seems as hostile to dingers as Yankee Stadium is friendly to them. Despite the Mets’ potent bats, their new home, with its prairie-scaled expanses, suppresses offense like no other in baseball. “The distances in the outfield and the power alleys, that’s where you can have some fun in establishing dimensions,” Barnert says. “You can create some unique areas where the ball can rattle around a bit.” It is that creativity, however, that many purists find aggravating. “It’s just so contrived,” says Jay Jaffe, a writer for Baseball Prospectus. “It drives me crazy.” The dimensions of the classic ballparks on which the Populous stadiums are modeled (such as Ebbets Field) were the product of their constrained urban lots. But Citi Field was built in the middle of a parking lot. And therein lies the strange paradox of the Populous stadiums: though they are painstakingly manufactured to appear idiosyncratic, the willfulness of their design is inescapable; and now that there are nearly 20 of them around the league, their heterogeneity has come to seem altogether homogenous.

When I first started attending games on my own, some 20 years ago, a ticket to the Yankee bleachers cost $1.50, pocket change even for a kid on a tight allowance. That same ticket now costs $14: not an unreasonable sum, but more than a movie and enough to keep a student on a limited budget from making it too much of a habit. The new stadium, for that matter, doesn’t beg that kind of relationship. It’s a special-occasion place, somewhere to visit a couple of times a season. Why empty your wallet for an entertainment event that might not be entertaining? (Even the best teams lose roughly 40 percent of their games.) When you’re stuck in the nosebleed seats, and a beer, a dog, and a bag of peanuts cost upward of 20 bucks, thoughts of exploitation inevitably percolate through the mind. It is in those moments that the fan-team compact seems hopelessly broken, and one begins to wonder about the difference between being a fan and being a chump. Sometimes it seems like there’s no difference at all.

Lamster’s second book, Master of Shadows, The Secret Diplomatic Career of the Painter Peter Paul Rubens is due out this fall. Dude, talk about well-rounded. Lamster is one of the best and brightest and I’m proud to call him a pal.

Today’s news is powered by . . . “You’re a Good Man, Carl Pavano AJ Burnett Charlie Brown”

• Joe Posnanski offers up the top 100 players you’d want if you had to win THIS year.  A-Rod still finds himself in the top ten:

6. Alex Rodriguez, 3B, Yankees
Disastrous first half splattered with injuries, rumors and a low batting average … and the guy STILL has a 145 OPS+, good for seventh in the AL.

• John Perrotto details a slightly-worried Joe Girardi:

The Yankees called up right-hander Sergio Mitre from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to start Tuesday night, and he beat the Orioles despite allowing four runs in 5 2/3 innings. However, Girardi worries what might happen if the Yankees lose another starter, particularly since right-handers Phil Hughes and Alfredo Aceves have been converted to relievers this season to strengthen a shaky bullpen. “If we have another injury, where do we go?” Girardi said.

• Christina Kahrl has some rotation concerns:

The problem is that the rotation in general hasn’t done very well. Consider Support-Neutral performances of the rotation (expected winning pct. assuming league-average run support):  only CC Sabathia‘s delivering anything like what you’d expect or pay his price for, providing a .560 Support-Neutral Winning Percentage and a dozen quality starts (through six innnings) in 20. A.J. Burnett‘s .527 SNWP is good enough to rate second on this team, but it might also understate his value down the stretch, since he’s given the club 13 quality starts in 19, including in eight of his last nine. But then things get less happy; Andy Pettitte (.476) is pitching in a way that suggests his next elaborate off-season mulling of retirement won’t involve anyone waiting on his doorstep, while Joba Chamberlain‘s upside might obscure that his work this season (.474) is the stuff fourth starters are made off.

(more…)

The Yankees  scored four runs in the first inning against Baltimore starter Jason Berken Wednesday afternoon, A.J. Burnett held the O’s scoreless through the first six innings, and that was about that. Jorge Posada added a solo home run in the third and an RBI double in the eighth. The O’s scratched out a pair of runs against Burnett in the top of the seventh and got two more on back-to back homers by Adam Jones and Nick Markakis off Brian Bruney with two outs in the top of the ninth. Mariano Rivera came in to get the last out and nail down the 6-4 win, and with that the Yankees completed a three-game sweep of the Orioles and ran their second-half record to 6-0.

For Burnett, it was his seventh-straight quality start and his ninth out of his last ten starts. The Yankees are 8-2 in those ten games, the two loses coming against the Red Sox and the Marlins’ Josh Johnson, the later by a score of 2-1. As for Bruney, he struck out Robert Andino and Brian Roberts before giving up the two homers and both he and Joe Girardi said they though he was throwing the ball particularly well. Said Bruney, “two outs in the the ninth, four-run lead, of course I’m gonna throw a heater.” To his credit, the homers were hit by the Orioles two best hitters. Baseball men always say it’s better to challenge a hitter in that situation than to walk him and Bruney didn’t allow the first homer to force him to start nibbling to Jones. Still, I’m a long way from convinced that Bruney’s back to being a viable late-inning reliever.

Given the fact that the Yankees salted the game early, the highlight of the game came in the top of the third. Brian Roberts led off by lifting a fly to deep right. Nick Swisher trotted over, lifted his glove, and just flat missed the ball, putting Roberts on second. It was a flat gaffe, and a humiliating one at that. Adam Jones followed with a single, pushing Roberts to third, but Burnett got Markakis to foul out to shallow left and struck out Aubrey Huff to put him on the verge of getting out of the Swisher-created jam. Ty Wigginton then worked the count full and laced a pitch to Swisher’s left in deep right. It looked like an easy two-RBI double that would cut the Yankee lead in half, but Swisher raced over and made a fine, inning-ending leaping catch, allowing his momentum to carry him up the right-field wall in celebration. A.J. dropped this one on him in response:

I wonder if A.J. realized how well he and Swisher fit those roles.

AJ Burnett likes to mash pies in his teammates’ grill. Let’s hope he gives them reason to return the favor this afternoon.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

I had some fun over at SI.com yesterday taking a look at the 2008 Gold Glove winners through the lense of UZR and The Fielding Bible. Along the way I name the best and worst defender at every position on the diamond according to those metrics and point out some surprises. Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, Johnny Damon, Jose Molina, and Mike Mussina all make appearances. Derek Jeter comes up too, but only in passing.

Let’s get right to it:

• Hello Mitre, Goodbye Tomko:

Needing to clear roster space for Tuesday’s starting pitcher, Sergio Mitre, the Yankees designated Tomko for assignment, likely ending his time with the club. Tomko, a 13-year veteran of eight big league teams, posted a 5.23 ERA for the Yankees, pitching just 20 2/3 innings — many of them in lopsided games — over the span of 2 1/2 months.

“A lot of it was circumstance,” manager Joe Girardi said. “We played in a lot of tight games, and we went with the guys that we were using in those innings. He didn’t pitch a lot. There were times when he had a lot of days off, and it can be hard to stay sharp that way.”

Tomko hadn’t pitched since July 11, giving up runs in five of his final eight appearances with the team. After earning a callup thanks to a strong Spring Training showing and some sparkling Triple-A numbers — namely a 0.64 ERA in 10 games — Tomko began to crumble with irregular use around mid-May.

• No Halladay in the Yanks future, it appears:

A Blue Jays official involved in the Roy Halladay discussions told The Post that both New York teams are not serious pursuers of the ace right-hander.

The official confirmed what several Yankee executives already had told the Post: That since an initial phone conversation about two weeks ago between Brian Cashman and his Blue Jays counterpart J.P. Ricciardi to let the Yankees know that Halladay is available there have been no further discussions. Yankees executives have told the Post that the finances in adding Halladay don’t work, especially if it means giving up the best of their farm system, also, which is what keeping Halladay in the AL East would necessitate.

• Loosey-goosey Matsui?:

Out of the corner of his eye, Hideki Matsui caught the sight of several teammates frantically using their arms to make a tossing motion. The gestures seemed foreign at first. But as Matsui jogged toward the plate, moments after slamming a walk-off homer in the Yankees’ 2-1 victory against the Orioles on Monday, it all started to make sense.

“I was just going to step on home plate, normally,” said the typically reserved Matsui through his translator. “But they told me to throw my helmet so I threw my helmet. I’ve never done it before, so in that sense, it felt a little uncomfortable. But I like to follow whatever the team rules are.”

So, Matsui fired his helmet into the air the way a newlywed bride would toss a bouquet. And Melky Cabrera, Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada — the three giddy teammates who waved frantically at Matsui — all leaped after it like a group bachelors at a wedding reception diving after the garter belt.

• Will Carroll on CMW:

Between the foot, the hips, and now the shoulder, Wang has undergone a full-system breakdown in just a year. That’s very unusual, and points strongly to some sort of mechanical issue. With all the money the Yankees spend on things, you’d figure they’d be at the front of everything, including biomechanics, but they’re not. They used to have a real edge in how they managed rehabilitation, especially with Tommy John recoveries, but while they’re still very good, the rest of the league has caught up. . . Wang seems to be done for the season, with the question being whether this is a permanent or temporary stop.

(more…)

I missed Sergio Mitre’s Yankee debut last night. By the time I got home, Alfredo Aceves was pitching. But Mitre kept his team in the game and left with the Yanks ahead 6-4. Aceves, Phil Coke, and Mariano Rivera did not allow a run and that was how the score stood as the Yanks moved into sole possession of first place (the Rangers beat the Red Sox 4-2 in Texas).

“We don’t get caught up in who’s in first place, who’s in second place,” Derek Jeter said. “Yeah, it’s great that nobody’s in front of us. But it doesn’t mean anything at this point.”
(Kepner, N.Y.Times)

The Bombers didn’t hit much but they took advantage of eight walks issued by Baltimore’s pitching staff. Alex Rodriguez had a productive night. In the second, he led off with a walk, stole second, advanced to third on a fly ball and then scored on a sac fly. The following inning, with two out, Rodriguez drove in two runs with a single, putting the Yanks ahead for good.

That’s five straight for the Bombers who play an afternoon game today. Looking at the standings, it sure seems as if we’re going to have some excitement on our hands this summer. The Rays, Sox, Yanks, Angels and Rangers are all having fine seasons–only three will make the playoffs. Ya gotta love it.

There’s been a lot of eye rolling and hand wringing about the fact that Sergio Mitre has been chosen to take the injured Chien-Ming Wang’s start against the Orioles tonight. I’ve seen Sidney Ponson’s name tossed about as a comparison, a short-cut for the sort of proven major league failure the Yankees  should no longer need to resort to given the depth of pitching in their system and the presence of two quality starting pitchers in their bullpen in Phil Hughes and Alfredo Aceves. I would, of course, much prefer to see the Yankees stretch Hughes back out should Wang’s current DL stay project to be a long one, but with regards to Ponson, I’m here to say that Mitre is not that.

Sidney Ponson had posted a below average ERA in 235 major league starts before joining the Yankees for the first time in 2006 and arrived in the Bronx in July 2006 having just posted a 5.24 ERA in 13 starts for the Cardinals during the first half of the season. Mitre, by comparison, has made just 52 major league starts and just once made more than nine in a single season. He has not thrown a major league pitch since 2007 due to Tommy John surgery and was just 26 in that, his only full season as a major league starter. Mitre’s career line in the majors is certainly unimpressive (5.36 ERA, 1.54 WHIP, 5.4 K/9), but he was rushed to the majors in just his third professional season at age 22, jerked between the majors, minors, rotation, and bullpen in each of his three seasons with the Cubs, and came down with shoulder problems in May of his first season with the Marlins in 2006. Given all of that, I’m tempted to just toss out those first four partial major league seasons in which Mitre went 5-15 with a 6.01 ERA in 25 starts and 26 relief appearances.

Instead, I look at what Mitre did with a healthy arm and a rotation spot in the first half of the 2007 season under manager Joe Girardi. In 16 starts (not counting one aborted start in which he tore a blister during the first inning), Mitre posted a 2.82 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, and a 3.1 K/9. Ten of those outings were quality starts and two others were scoreless but cut short by a tight hamstring. Mitre’s season fell apart in late July due to the elbow problems that led to his Tommy John surgery and wiped out his 2008 season.

As you can see, Mitre’s problems have had far more to do with health than effectiveness. That’s a red flag when a team throws $80-million, five-year contracts at a pitcher, but when the pitcher in question comes in on a make-good minor league deal, health concerns don’t concern me as there’s nothing there but upside. Mitre will make a pro-rated portion of a $1.25 million salary while in the majors this year, well worth the gamble that he can recapture the effectiveness he had in the first half of 2007.

Like the pitcher he replaces, Mitre is a groundballer, which makes him well-suited to the Yankees’ homer-happy new ballpark. In his minor league rehab work this year, Mitre has induced roughly three groundouts for every fly out, a rate comparable to Wang’s at his peak. Mitre has also shown tremendous control, walking just seven men in nine starts or 1.16 per nine innings, a rate that recalls another ex-Cub Tommy John rehab project that worked out well for the Yankees, Jon Lieber. In those first 16 starts in 2007, Mitre’s walk rate was 1.76, compared to 3.7 in his first four partial major league seasons, another indication that the Mitre we see tonight is more likely to be the early 2007 model. Six of Mitre’s seven starts for Triple-A Scranton have been quality starts, and his work for Scranton has yielded a 2.40 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, and 7.00 K/BB.

It’s entirely possible that Mitre will pull a Kei Igawa upon returning to the major leagues, but given that Triple-A performance and his decided lack of a meaningfully poor major league history, I think he deserves at least this one chance to prove he won’t. Unlike with Ponson, the Yankees won’t know what they have in Mitre unless they give him a chance to show them.

That said, if the pain Wang felt in his shoulder during his throwing session yesterday does indeed indicate a longer-than-anticipated DL stay and Mitre is anything less than excellent tonight, the Yankees should immediately begin stretching Hughes back out as a long-term solution to the hole in their rotation.

Mitre’s opposition tonight will be another ex-Cub, lefty Rich Hill. Hill had an excellent season in the Cubs’ rotation in 2007, but lost the strikezone last year, pitching his way off the team and out of the organization. Picked up by the Orioles in February, Hill has been wildly erratic for Baltimore this season, swinging from seven shutout innings with seven strikeouts against the Mariners on June 1 to three runs on a hit, four walks, and a hit batter and a first-inning hook his next time out. Anything within that range is possible tonight.

It’s better to be lucky than good. It’s an old saying. The first time I heard it was from Tommy Lasorda in 1988 when the Dodgers beat the heavily favored Mets and then the A’s to become World Champs.

I’ll go one further–it’s better to be lucky and good. The Yankees have won three straight games by the score of 2-1. Andy Pettitte, not wanting to be the odd man out, picked up where Joba Chamberlain and CC Sabathia left off, and threw a fine game last night.

Sure, there has been some luck–how did Jose Molina manage to keep that snow-coned ball in his mitt last night?–and if they’d been losing games 3-2 we’d be moaning about the lack of hitting. But they’ve been winning and so we are heppy kets for the moment.

Win it all, or else. That’s the philosophy in the Bronx. Championship or mud. Sometimes it is difficult to appreciate what you’ve got when you live by this motto. Sure, the World Serious is the thing. It has to be. But the Yankees give us more pleasure than disappointment, no matter how much more pleasure we demand from them. (At these prices, they had better win.)  

They are tied for first place now. There is still a long way to go.  We haven’t hit the dog days yet. The latest set-back for Chien-Ming Wang presents a problem. But they are playing well and right now, the breaks are going there way. Time to stop, take it in, and appreciate what we’ve got. There is no guarantee that it’s gunna last.

But after seeing Godzilla hit a game-winning homer last night I bet there are a lot of fans around the country cursing, Damn Yankees.

Today’s news is powered by Grand Funk Railroad, circa 1971:

• Hal Steinbrenner . . . foresees greatness:

“I think we’ve got a championship-caliber team,” he said. “I absolutely believe that we have the team that can win the championship.”

Making his first extensive public comments about the New York Yankees since Opening Day, the new controlling owner praised his players, manager Joe Girardi and general manager Brian Cashman. And, already, he’s looking ahead to Aug. 6-9, when the Boston Red Sox come to Yankee Stadium.

“That four-game series is going to be a big one,” he said. “But the guys believe they can beat anybody, and that has not changed, and that’s an important thing.”

. . . “We expect to win every year. We’ve said that. We always say that,” he said. “Our job is to field a championship-caliber team every year, and that’s what we strive to do. So, Joe knows who he’s working for.”

“I’m seeing some looseness this year in the players, I’m seeing some, you know, some emotion, and that’s a great thing,” Steinbrenner said. “We’ve managed to limit the injuries — we’re doing a little bit better than last year in that area. And I just think there’s a lot of motivation. I think these guys are pumped, and I think they’re showing it. We’re firing on all cylinders at times and struggling a little bit at other times in certain areas. But overall, pretty happy.”

• Mike Mussina is staying retired.
• Wang banged up again:

(Chien Ming) Wang’s biceps felt tender when he played catch before Monday night’s game against Baltimore and won’t attempt to throw again until Friday.

“It’s not exactly the news that I wanted,” Joe Girardi said. “It’s not what you want to hear because we were hoping that two weeks’ rest is enough for him to get on a throwing program.”

. . . “We’re going to give him a few more days and some more strengthening before he goes back out,” Girardi said. “I think anything you’re dealing with cuff issues or shoulder tendinitis or whatever you want to describe it as, I mean, there’s concern. And whatever he’s able to do, we would love to have. But I think any time someone is injured and you’re not sure when they’re exactly going to be back, you can’t really count on them in a sense.”

(more…)

Maybe I should be wondering where the usually stellar Yankee offense has been the last few days, but I think instead I’ll just enjoy the relief that comes whenever the new Stadium hosts tight, low-scoring games. The Yankees beat the Orioles 2-1 tonight, thanks to an old-school performance from Andy Pettitte and some pretty defense and, okay, yes, two home runs to right.

It feels like it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to write that Andy Pettitte pitched really well – not “didn’t have his best stuff but kept them in the game” or “made a few big mistakes but was able to limit the damage,” but was just plain good. He was tonight, though, pitching into the eighth inning with six strikeouts and two walks; he allowed six hits but also induced two double plays. Run-wise he allowed a first-inning home run to Nick Markakis and that was all.

Meanwhile Orioles rookie David Hernandez, after a tiring and rocky beginning, soon got into a groove of his own. The Yankees scored in the second on an Eric “All or Nothing” Hinske solo shot that tied the game (Hinske’s fourth of the season for New York, out of five total hits), but he was the last Yank to cross home plate for quite a while.

So it was a good thing that the Yankees helped themselves on defense tonight, making a few really excellent/lucky plays. Robinson Cano apparently deked out poor Cesar Izturis not once but twice, and also saved the day when a grounder bounced off the heel of Mark Teixeira’s glove, snatching it out of midair and tossing to Pettitte just ahead of the runner (“the old 3-4-1…”).

The most impressive fielding came in the eighth, though, after Pettitte left the game in Phil Coke’s hands with two runners on and one out. First Nick Markakis hit a shrill liner to Teixeira, who fired it back to Molina, who managed to tag out the runner at the plate – a lightning-fast play all around. I wasn’t expecting it and I doubt the runner, poor Cesar Izturis, was either (it was just not his game). Then Brian Roberts tried to score on a wild pitch, but Molina, moving faster than a Molina is built to move, got the ball back to Phil Coke in time for him to awkwardly lunge and tag out Brian Roberts, who missed the plate – saving the run and ending the inning.

With one out in the bottom of the ninth, Hideki Matsui, who has been largely overshadowed this season, apparently decided he wanted a little more attention and whacked a 2-2 Jim Johnson fastball into the right field bleachers. This was no New Stadium cheapie either, but a big no-doubt blast. Cue the helmet-tossing and the jumping around and the grinning and the whipped-cream pie.

The Red Sox lost tonight, and so the Yankees are now clutching their very own piece of first place. Tomorrow Sergio Mitre will try to defend it… and I was going to make a couple cracks about that because, well, you know. But Cliff seems to think that he might not actually be so bad, and Cliff is usually right, so I’ll hold off on the Mitre-mocking.

—

When Worlds Collide: the most recent headline on my FiveThirtyEight.com RSS feed reads: “Teixeira Says Culture Wars Ending, GOP Needs New Playbook.” I don’t know what initially confused me more, the idea that Mark Teixeiria of all people would suddenly start talking political strategy, or that FiveThirtyEight would quote him as an authority. Of course it turns out the post is actually referring to a demographics expert named Ruy Teixeira, but that was sure a baffling ten seconds.

Play a patsy.

To be fair, the Baltimore Orioles aren’t a complete pushover. There seven teams in the major leagues with worse records and the free-falling Mets are just two games better. In fact, for the first time perhaps since I started blogging, I’m actually looking forward to the Yankees matchups with the Orioles. That’s because of the exciting young talent the Orioles have in their lineup.

Nick Markakis is in his fourth season as the O’s right fielder, but he’s still just 25, and though his production has dipped down to his rookie-year level, he’s been a strong second-half performer in his young career, hitting .316/.388/.529 after the All-Star break. Adam Jones, who had the game-winning RBI in the All-Star Game, is having a big breakout season at age 23, though he’s slumped since the beginning of June, hitting .253/.307/.333. Those two have been joined by 25-year-old Nolan Reimold in left field. Reimold was called up in mid-May and made an immediate impact, hitting .296/.375/.533 with nine homers through the end of June. He’s scuffled thus far in July (.191/.269/.234, no homers), so it will be interesting to see if he can make the necessary adjustments to stay in the league.

Perhaps overshadowing those three is rookie backstop Matt Wieters, not because of his performance, but because of his blue-chip status. Wieters was supposed to be this year’s Evan Longoria, but with the Orioles out of contention they were able to wait a bit longer to bring Wieters up, thereby protecting his arbitration status. The fifth-overall pick in the 2007 draft, the 6-foot-5 Wieters hit .343/.438/.576 while burning through the Orioles’ minor league system in a little more than a year. Called up in late May, soon after his 23rd birthday, Wieters has yet to really settle in as a major leaguer. Even tossing out his rough first week in the bigs, he’s hit just .270/.330/.416 since June 9. Still, the potential is there for a huge breakout, and Wieters has the potential to develop into one of the best hitters in the league at any position.

Add to those four Brian Roberts, having a slightly down year at age 31, but still leading the majors in doubles, and a strong showing from fellow-31-year-old Luke Scott (.298/.380/.579 and hitting lefties even better than righties), and the Orioles have an offense worth watching.

What makes them a patsy is their pitching staff. The names have changed from when I wrote something very similar prior to the Yankees’ season-opening series in Baltimore. Adam Eaton has been released, Koji Uehara and Alfredo Simon are on the DL, and Mark Hendrickson has been banished to the bullpen, but the Orioles rotation is still awful. Would-be ace Jeremy Guthrie, whom the Yankees will miss, has a 5.12 ERA. The rest of their rotation made a combined five starts above double-A in 2008, all of them by Cubs castoff Rich Hill. Hill, who starts against Sergio Mitre tomorrow, has a 7.22 ERA thus far this year. Rookie Jason Berken, who will face A.J. Burnett on Wednesday night, is 1-7 with a 6.44 ERA.

The Orioles have had more encouraging results from 23-year-old rookie groundballer Brad Bergesen, though he won’t pitch in this series either. Bergesen has been solid (6-4, 3.51 ERA and a 2.41 ERA over his last ten starts), but his low strikeout rate remains a concern. The fifth spot in the rotation is being filled tonight by 24-year-old rookie David Hernandez. Hernandez. Hernandez has struck out 10.4 men per nine innings in his five-year minor league career, but save for his lone major league relief outing (2 2/3 IP, 0 R, 4 K), has yet to find the same success in the majors after five starts. Despite his middling major league strikeout rate, Hernandez turned in quality starts against the Mariners and Angels his last two times out and fell just one out shy of a quality start in two of his other three outings. The catch is that he’s a fly-ball pitcher coming to the new Yankee Stadium with a reputation for grooving pitches when behind in the count.

Facing Hernandez will be Andy Pettitte. Pettitte had always been a strong second-half performer prior to his second-half collapse last year. Even with last year factored in, he sports a second-half ERA of 3.64 and winning percentage of .687 compared to 4.17 and .578 in the first half. In 2007, Pettitte helped pitch the Yankees into the playoffs, coming out of the All-Star break to go 8-1 witha 2.61 ERA in his first nine starts of the second half. Pettitte claimed his poor second half last year was due to poor off-season conditioning, which he blamed on his desire to keep a low profile after his name surfaced in the Mitchell Report. Assuming Andy got back to his normal routine this past winter, it’s time for it to start paying off, particularly given his disappointing first-half performance.

Eric Hinske starts over Nick Swisher in right tonight against the righty Hernandez. Melky Cabrera starts in center. That’s four post-break starts for Melky to one by Brett Gardner. I don’t like that trend. Melky had a six-game hitting streak going, but it was snapped yesterday. He’s hitting .256/.319/.372 in July and was 2-for-10 with no walks or extra base hits against the Tigers over the weekend. Then again, Gardner is hitting .219/.265/.281 with just two walks and one extra-base hit on the month. Both players have taken advantage of slumps by the other this season. There’s no telling who will step up now, but Gardner needs to play to have a chance.

(more…)

Later this week, the roll call of Yankees in the Hall of Fame will grow by two. While most of the mass media will treat Sunday’s induction of the late (but deserving) Joe Gordon as an afterthought, there’s little doubt that the other former Yankee will grab the center of attention. We all know that Rickey Henderson is the game’s greateast leadoff batter and most prolific basestealer; he was also a legitimate four-tool talent whose throwing arm was his only attribute to elude greatness.

Henderson was also that rare breed of superstar who happened to be a colorful and clownish character. Through his unusual habits and sayings, Henderson became one of baseball’s leading eccentrics of the late 20th century. In my mind, that’s the aspect of his career that is just as worthwhile as exploring as his on-base percentage and his “Man of Steal” persona on the basepaths.

Even the beginning of Henderson’s life involved an uncommon occurrence; he was born in the backseat of an Oldsmobile on Christmas Day in downtown Chicago. He simply couldn’t wait for the car to reach the hospital, where a more conventional birth would have taken place.

As a ballplayer, Henderson brought some unorthodox qualities to the field. He batted right-handed and threw left-handed, an unusual combination for most non-pitching ballplayers. (Of all major league players with 4,000 or more at-bats in their careers, only two others—Hal Chase and Cleon Jones—batted right and threw left.) At the plate, Henderson batted out of a severely exaggerated crouch, which looked uncomfortable but created the illusion of a particularly small strike zone.

During the course of his major league journeys, Henderson gained notoriety for several peculiar tendencies, along with a few incidents best described as strange. Let’s consider the following from the Henderson files:

*Known for his deep voice and habit of slurring his words, Henderson enjoyed speaking in the third person. Rarely using the word “I,” he often referred to himself as Rickey. While most athletes who spoke in such a fashion received criticism for being arrogant and overbearing, the mumbling Henderson came across comically, giving himself an appealing, almost innocent quality.

*In the early 1980s, Henderson signed a contract with the Oakland A’s that included a $1 million bonus. Later that same year, Oakland accountants found an unexpected balance of $1 million in their ledgers. They soon discovered that Henderson had never cashed the sizeable check, instead putting it in a frame and hanging it on a wall in his home.

*After breaking Lou Brock’s all-time stolen base record in a 1991 game against the Yankees, Henderson addressed his home fans at Oakland’s Alameda County Coliseum. “Today, I am the greatest of all time,” said Henderson, doing an unintended imitation of Muhammad Ali. Although Henderson later said that his words came out the wrong way, he drew severe criticism for sounding less than humble on the national stage.

*According to many of his teammates, Henderson spent part of his time in the clubhouse before each game looking at himself in a full-length mirror—all while completely naked. As he soulfully admired his muscular physique, Henderson softly and repeatedly mouthed the words, “Rickey’s the best.”

*In a much-disputed incident (most observers consider the story to be false, but a few “eyewitnesses” claim otherwise), Henderson heard Seattle Mariners teammate John Olerud discussing his problems with a brain aneurism suffered in college, a medical condition that necessitated he wear a helmet at all times, even while playing first base. As Henderson listened to the explanation, he allegedly exclaimed that he had previously played with another player who also wore a helmet in the field—an amazing coincidence! Remarkably, Henderson didn’t remember that it was the same man—Olerud—who had played with him only one season earlier with the Mets. The two men had also been teammates with the 1993 world champion Blue Jays.

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Somehow, I missed this when it was originally posted. Maybe D linked to it already. If not, check out these personal letters, written by Lou Gehrig, that are up at ESPN.com.

Today’s news is powered by the one and only Frank McCourt, who passed away yesterday at 78.  I had him for three different classes during my years at Stuy (of course, before he became the best-selling author):

• Don’t expect a trade for a starting pitcher anytime soon:

Yankees GM Brian Cashman admits that the team’s starting rotation “as a whole did not perform well at the end of the first half” and acknowledges that a part of the team that was supposed to be a strength “didn’t play out that way” as the Bombers haven’t had any starter perform at a consistent level.

But, Cashman says, pursuing an outside option for starting help is “unlikely right now … I don’t feel we need a guy. We’re going internal and we’ll wait and see how that works out.” In fact, Cashman said, it would probably be easier to make a deal for a reliever, which would allow the Yankees to free up either Phil Hughes or Alfredo Aceves to go back into the rotation, if they decide they need more help than new No.5 starter Sergio Mitre, slated to start Tuesday against Baltimore.

Of course, with the July 31 trade deadline approaching and Toronto ace Roy Halladay available, Cashman could be playing coy. And, Cashman acknowledged his opinion could change if “our circumstances changed.”

But Cashman stressed that the Yankees are sticking to the don’t-pay-twice philosophy that he says they applied to Johan Santana’s availability before Santana became a Met. The Yanks, Cashman says, don’t want to both give up prospects and pay a megabucks contract extension.

• Old-Timers Day brought back Mike Mussina . . . and Don Zimmer:

. . . Zimmer, the 78-year-old baseball lifer who was permitting pinstripes to drape his body for the first time since the 2003 World Series.

Greeted with a kiss on the cheek from Andy Pettitte and a bear hug from Tony Pena, Zimmer had vowed never to return to Yankee Stadium after a spat with principal owner George M. Steinbrenner. Time has healed those wounds. He spent time around the batting cage chatting with Tigers manager Jim Leyland, one of his best friends in the game.

“I thought it’d be a good time to come back and see the guys, the Old-Timers,” Zimmer said. “I didn’t hesitate when they asked me. I didn’t even know the young kids who asked me. I just said, ‘Yes.'”

Now an advisor with the Rays, Zimmer said that he moved on immediately after that night in autumn 2003, but said that he feels badly about Steinbrenner’s declining health and said he had no words to say to him at this time. Yet Zimmer remains richly appreciative of his time serving as Joe Torre’s trusted bench lieutenant.

“Nobody will ever know how special it was,” Zimmer said, his eyes welling with tears.

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I took a round of live bp at the Uptown Sports Complext hitting cages in the Bronx on Saturday afternoon. It was a humbling experience–my mind remembered how to hit but the body wasn’t so willing (I lunged all over the place). I came away with blisters on my left hand, having worked up a good sweat swinging the bat for half-an-hour. It was a reminder of just how hard baseball is to play, something I thought of again watching Old Timers’ Day this afternoon.

Baseball is not meant to be played by old men. (The same cannot be said about Golf, as Tom Watson nearly became the oldest man to ever win the British Open; a great story, Watson fell short, proving that no age is too old to experience the agony of defeat). Sure, some former players can still swing–Jesse Barfield had a couple of good hacks, Lee Maz knocked a Ron Guidry pitch deep but foul before Gator came back and stuck him out on a slider–and a couple can even move–Jeff Nelson shagging a fly in left, Mickey Rivers turning it on and legging out a double, but mostly, old players just look old trying to play.

Mariano Rivera, yeah, he’s old, but he’s still got the Midas Touch. Rivera saved a game for the third consecutive day as the Yankees completed the sweep of the Tigers, winning 2-1. Joba Chamberlain threw a nice game–hitting the upper 90s on the radar gun–going 6 2/3 strong innings. He worked out of a trouble in the fifth; five or his last six outs came on strikeouts (he had eight in all). Phil Coke threw one pitch to get out of the seventh and Phil Hughes mowed ’em down in the eighth setting the stage for Rivera, who worked around a two out walk (only his fourth base on balls of the year), to earn his 26th save of the year. Rivera lowered his ERA to 2.25.

Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira hit solo home runs and that was the difference. Roy Halladay and the Jays beat the Red Sox and the Yanks are now just one game behind Boston.

In all, a swell start to the second half, wouldn’t you say?

Saturday was a great day for a baseball game. It was a gorgeous, sunny, breezy, summer day and the Yankees and Tigers each had their ace on the hill. CC Sabathia and Justin Verlander delivered on the matchup’s promise, each holding their opponent scoreless for six innings.

Verlander actually out-pitched Sabathia for those first six frames, but CC continually fought his way out of jams. He needed 51 pitches to get through the first two innings, but stranded a pair of runners in each, then got inning-ending double plays in the third and fourth before finally working a 1-2-3 fifth inning. The Tigers got two men in scoring position in the sixth when Marcus Thames beat out an infield single to the shortstop hole and Magglio Ordoñez doubled him to third, but Sabathia got Ryan Rayburn to fly out to shallow left, holding Thames, and got Brandon Inge to pop out to strand both runners. He then worked a 1-2-3 seventh, finishing his day after 114 pitches.

The Yankees managed just two singles and walk off Verlander over the first five innings. In the sixth, Johnny Damon doubled off the base of the right-field wall with two outs, but was stranded when Verlander got a favorable high strike call on a fastball to get Mark Teixeira looking for his sixth strikeout of the game. Alex Rodriguez led off the bottom of the seventh, took ball one, fouled off strike one, then lifted Verlander’s 92nd pitch to the first row in right field for a stalemate-breaking homer that gave the Yankees a 1-0 lead. With two outs in the inning, Robinson Cano singled up the middle, moved to second on a Nick Swisher double to left, and scored when Melky Cabrera beat out a grounder to deep short.

That extra run proved crucial when Thames connected for a two-out homer off Alfredo Aceves in the eighth. In to protect the slim 2-1 lead, Mariano Rivera worked a perfect ninth to give the Yankees the game, series, and season series over the Tigers. It was a crisp, two-hour 39-minute game on a crisp, beautiful afternoon. Nice.

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Friday night’s win was a thoroughly rewarding one for the Yankees. Mark Teixeira came through with a big three-run homer to cap a comeback. Phil Hughes helped nail it down by striking out the side in two scoreless innings of relief. Mariano Rivera got the save, and everyone in the Bronx went home happy.

The win also clinched a tie in the season series with leaders of the AL Central, and most importantly, gave the Yankees the game they needed to have with the Tigers two All-Stars, Justin Verlander and Edwin Jackson, scheduled to pitch the final two games of the series. Verlander goes today in a rematch with CC Sabathia. Those two last faced off in Detroit on April 27, the first game of the season series. Entering that game, Verlander was 0-2 with a 9.00 ERA. That night, he shut the Yankees out for seven innings, striking out nine and walking none as the Tigers prevailed 4-2. Dating back to that start, Verlander has gone 10-2 with a 2.22 ERA, 124 strikeouts in 101 1/3 innings, a 0.99 WHIP, and a 4.26 K/BB. He’s been a bit more human of late, however, posting a 4.25 ERA over his last six starts with a 1.42 WHIP.

CC Sabathia pitched well in that April game as well, striking out seven in eight innings, but a three-run sixth inning, keyed by a two run home run by Magglio Ordoñez, cost him and the Yankees the game. After a mediocre April, CC was great in May, but has been a bit erratic since then, going 3-3 with a 4.47 ERA. In his last start, he coughed up five runs in 6 2/3 innings in Anaheim and two starts before that he allowed six runs in 5 2/3 against the weak-hitting Mariners. Like the Yankees other big-ticket free agent, Mark Teixeira, CC has a history of strong second-halves. Tex got off on the right foot last night. It’s CC turn today.