Failing to complete a sweep of the A’s, that was no big deal. Losing two of three to a good Angels team in Anaheim, you almost expect that. Losing the opener against a struggling Orioles team that had only won three games all season then looking back and realizing you have lost four of their last five, that’s a wake-up call. The Yankees need to win the next two games in Baltimore to avoid an embarrassing series loss to the lowly O’s as well as a losing record on their three-stop road trip. Fortunately, they have CC Sabathia on the mound tonight to help get the team back on track.
Sabathia’s last three games have been a near no-hitter and a pair of shortened complete games (six innings in a rain-shortened game, eight innings in a 4-2 loss), which makes this one of his better Aprils on record. One point of warning: CC has been pretty hit-lucky, holding opponents to an absurdly low .197 batting average on balls in play. As is typical for CC in April, his walks are up a bit, and his strikeout rate is no better than it was last year (which was a four-year low for the big lefty). We all know he’ll only get better from here, but those peripherals show there’s actually room for him to do so.
With Nick Johnson back in the lineup as the DH, Sabathia will pitch to Jorge Posada for the first time since Opening Day Night. That shouldn’t effect his performance, but Sabathia’s breakout game as a Yankee came here in Baltimore with Francisco Cervelli behind the plate just less than a year ago, on May 8, 2009. The opposing pitcher that night, Jeremy Guthrie, is on the hill for the O’s again tonight. All four of Guthrie’s starts this season have been quality (three of them against the Rays and Red Sox) and he has walked just five batters total. Despite that, the Orioles have lost all four of those games due to poor run and bullpen support. Guthrie faced the Yankees five times last year and turned in three quality starts, but his and the Orioles’ only win in those five games was Guthrie’s Opening Day matchup against, yes, CC Sabathia. In fact, tonight Guthrie and Sabathia face off for the fourth time dating back that Opening Day tilt. CC holds a 2-1 advantage in those matchups.
Grrrr... makes me angry thinking about the loss last night.
C'mon Yanks... light the offense up!
Congrats on tying Mattingly, Derek.
Missed almost an entire game last night. Glad I did. Yeesh.
attaboy, Captain!
Ooopsie!
[5] wait... what happened, exactly? (I'm at work and Sterling was blathering..)
A-Rod gets the job done.
[6] NJ took second on a E7.
[6] The ball bounced in front of the O's LFer, can't spell the name at the moment, but he let it get behind him. That let Jeter score, which is why NJ didn't get an rbi, it was the error that let Derek score.
well that's an auspicious start to game #2. C'mon CC - let's roll.
Damn fine play by Alex.
oh, yeah!
Hm.
Better.
And now we don't have all that no-hitter pressure.
That was intentional methinks.
[15] What for?
seems like the o's are always hitting the yanks
nice rip swish
Posada needed Access-a-Ride to get around the bases
[16] Guthrie stopped mid windup before the first pitch and Jorge walked to the front of the box and then took his ol' sweet time getting ready. Just a thought.....
Swishtastic! The O's don't impress me, defensively.
I am really enjoying the bottom half of our line-up. (I really meant bottom four, although Jorge is raking -- I think of him as Top Half.)
who is the emergency catcher?
[20] Could be. If so, he paid for it in ERA.
[23] ramiro pena
lemme present a question that's getting beaten into the carpet more and more these days -- how long before the Yankees have to make a switch behind the plate with Posada? And then what for Jorge? Most-day DH?
All due respect to the core four, and all. But it seems like he's just more and more of a liability back there.
[23, 25] LoHud wrote the other day that AJ also catches, but it'll NEVER happen. : )
[26]
Girardi would need to treat Posada like Francona has started to treat Papi, and nothing short of a major injury to Po is gonna make that happen.
[26] DH, occasional 1B (spelling Tex), occasional C (spelling Brains), starting next year? Or in two years.
[29] jesus, can he make it that far?
[28] yeah but Georgie can still, ya know...hit
Hmmm ... "Amber" ... the blonde hottie on the Orioles broadcast ... just used "rbi" for the plural ... I think I'm in LOVE!!!
[31] Right, as long as he hits like he's hitting (or even close), he can be a real contributor.
[33] amen to that. i know he stinks back there, but his hitting still makes up for his deficiencies.
now, rather than guthrie intentionally hitting posada on his own, any chance cc paid him to do it? :}
Good play, Grandpa. : )
[34] Funny!
[34] Yes! A conspiracy theory. : )
Damn, ARod can throw the ball hard when he wants to.
in the offseason, I felt a lil bad for fans of captain facemask cause theo went with victor "cant get a ball to 2B" mart over him as the everyday C. Secretly, I was happy about the captain getting humiliated a lil. Anyway, then '10 starts, and it's just getting more and more evident that PoPo is in decline defensively, too. Of course, the big difference 'tween the red sux and the yanks is that we don't have a paid pro DH (unless you count NJ.. which I guess you have to). hmmmm.
[30] You'll have to ask Jesus - Montero, that.
[23] Dan Quayle
[34] Hah!
Well, CC can afford it.
Speaking of which, Ryan Howard homered today in a game that the Phils won by a run. So I figure that's already about $5M.
YA KNOW!
Robbie, dontchaknow!
Robbie-Flavored Cano!!
Da RIPPER!!!!
Robbie, I think I LOVES you!!!
I'll have me some Robbie, please. MVP!
Oh, man.
I was just about to say, a lot of our outs are blasts, and then Rob shows the true meaning of 'blast'.
Ah, so that's what it takes to bring Chyll Will out of the woodwork.
Late to the party...what happened to Posada?
[50] HBP, back of knee.
[49] Nah, I've been super-busy with crisis management after finishing a month-long gig. I'll be in and out for the next few days, maybe a couple weeks until I sort this out. >;)
Bad play, Grandpa.
[52] I'm never 100% sure whether your >;) is a winking smile with a squinty forehead, or more like a sober dude with a droopy mustache.
[50] His pi-mesons were disrupted by proximity to Brett "The Singularity" Gardner.
[54] doesn't that indicate angry eyebrows?
The Camden Yard infield. It is a hybrid. This is a cross, ah, of Bluegrass, Kentucky Bluegrass, Featherbed Bent, and Northern California Sensemilia. The amazing stuff about this is, that you can play 9 innings afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt that night on this stuff. Courtesy of Caddyshack of course.
[54] More like a devilish grin, "nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say no more"... yunnow when the bad guy in movies puts on the charm...
[58] Okay. So the parenthesis is the bottom of his/your face. That's what I suspected, but I couldn't quite decide. Turn it over and he's kind of fu-manchu.
C'mon Stick!!!
RIP IT!!!
[57] I haven't seen grass that high since I sat in the Yankee Stadium bleachers in the 1980s.
Ow.
That was a nasty pitch.
All of a sudden Jeremy Guthrie is a good pitcher.
He does have a good ERA. Well, he did until a little over an hour ago.
GRITTY!!!!!
[59] Yeah, but then he/I looks kinda sad. Interesting though, never would've looked at him/myself that way...
Here we go-go Gardiner.
Well, that was worth FUCK-ALL.
[65] Yes. I would have said "droopy" more than "sad".
[55] Brett “The Singularity” Gardner
I like.
Per Suzyn, Jorge has a right knee contusion -- no tests being performed.
Gotta luv dat change!
Judge Reimold k's on the changeup...
CC's got that peaceful, easy inning.
[73] Now I'm picturing CC driving home blaring The Eagles on his car stereo.
Get the fuck outta my cab.
[74] No, that's Swish, driving the Score Truck! Hm, I think he has some of that good old Camden Yards Gold smoldering away, too.
Wow. I think Baby Ruth got away with about 3 actual strikes ...
[76] Heh. Beats that Panama Red any day.
No es bueno Alex.
Meh.
[77] [76] = [75]. And I haven't touched that stuff in decades.
[76] another interesting point... do you guys think some umps give the benefit of doubt to batters who are known to have a good eye? A la a close pitch, and since NJ never even offered or flinched, then they'll call it a ball?
Heh.
Hendrickson vs Cano???
I'm betting Cano ...
Yeah, like I said ...
[81] +1
[80] The old time announcers (like Scooter, Frank White, etc) used to claim that all the time, for both the pitcher and the batter ("so-and-so is gonna get that call".
Oh, Brains!
Brains!
I'm fast becoming a zombie.
Uh, *no* Kay ... Cano and Utley aren't comparable.
As good as Robbie is, he *isn't* Chase.
I tell you, Cervelli "gets it".
[86] I like it. Consider me a zombie (FOFB)
Um, having Johnny Walker sponsor anything with Billy Martin, is that in good taste?
[89] Thanks. There should be a zombie club.
c'mon CC ... pound it like it's 2-1.
Ugh.
Strikes, CC, strikes. Save Our Bullpen.
Yes. Like that. Good.
[87] The World Weries was the most I have seen of Utley. He was insane. I am sure he is pretty good the other 162 games as well. But who wants to watch the Phils that much? ha. Good dp.
Da Scoop!
That was a SHIT throw from Cano.
Let's just be thankful we have Teix manning 1st, instead of Giambi, or the like ...
[92] S.O.B. >;)
[96] You forget, Giambi could scoop pretty well.
Still glad to have Teix there, I'm just saying.
[96],[98] Teix with the pooper-scooper...
[99] ...okay, it was waiting to be said.
Like I said [22], the bottom of our line-up rocks.
The DC hangover is gone.
By the way, Dallas Braden just got chased in the bottom of the 5th losing to the Rays. In about 5 minutes of watching between Yankee innings, I noticed him go into the batter's box about 4 times to cover the plate, back-up, etc, including his last play he was in. Obviously there is nothing wrong with that it just would have been funny to hear the announcers mention it just to bring home the absurdity of his complaint.
Top doesn't suck either.
I think Brett was waiting for Swisher to score so he can steal home from second...
[98] I just don't think Giambi was anywhere near Teix in terms of his scooping ... even though that might have been Giambi's best attribute ...
[105] On a pitch out.
Swing the f#$%ing bat.
Nope, it doesn't hurt to mix and match when you're down 8-1, no sir...
Oh, it's Big Pla Cla.
Clam Eredith, your new crustacean pitcher
[87] Cano going to have a better career than Hair-gel Utley..
Is CC taking care of business? Too early to bust this out? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj_abOomcac
Hello All,
Ahh...this is what we expected from this series.
It was the Yankees who were the zombies last night. Too much social pressure for them; after all they are athletes who had to wear suits and meet the President and all. Combine that with the long flight, and just playing the Angels.
And...Cano is en fuego!
[107] His singularity would create a vortex that disrupts the pitcher-catcher continuum... WARP speed, Mr. Gardner!
I know there's a ballgame going on and all, but if anyone's interested in hearing a great orcestra, my alma mater has their concert sreaming online right now. http://recording.music.unt.edu/index.php/live/hd
[111] Pssst: mollusc.
[115] bah! I meant orchestra.
That was almost So Awesome™...
I'm dying here without Matsui..this morning's game on NHK (national tv) is Seatlle - Kansas City..other than Ichiro this is unwatchable..
[117] As long as you didn't mean orcastra...
[112] Yuck.
I kept thinking the bottles were from Sabathia's MLB random drug test sessions.
[120] ...a sreaming orcastra at that.
[120] ...or OrKestra, the ELO tribute band.
That fan in the audio sounds like a sreaming orcastra...
[123] Orks are... well...
[112] Cano going to have a better career than Hair-gel Utley
Maybe. Cano got started earlier, but Utley has been an absolute beast from age 26 through 31.
Cano going to have a better career than Hair-gel Utley..
Yeah ... gonna say ... no ... and it won't be especially close ...
[120], [122], [123] Those are whales of puns.
[128] Maybe a pun, but definitely a real (though now defunct) group:
http://www.face-the-music.de/orkest_e.html
I think Swisher has upped his game by embracing going the other way. I think his BA will be much better the next few years then it has been before.
Lester is just destroying the Blue Jays. High pitch count as he finishes up the seventh.
If the Sox win two games by scoring four runs, that will be annoying.
So, does CC return for the 8th? And who's next -- Joba?
Yep.
CC looked like he was laboring last inning, too.
CC's a horse & all, but I wonder if you put some limits on him (say June & July) to save him for October.
[135] Didn't last year, and he was pretty strong in October. Of course, he did get some extra rest in September.
[135] Girardi did that last year, although more in Aug/Sept. then June. But I agree we should not take CC's 'horseability' for granted. But as Kenny just said, the BP needs to step up a bit.
[136] I'll take September rest. Just want something in the tank for October.
Dan Bard throwing lightning bolts.
C.C. did a fine job despite having subpar stuff...he is a real luxury.
[135] I guess 110 is the magic number. He pulled Hughes with 109 and CC with 111. I hope that's not the case because another formula in Girardi's hands would be dangerous. Yesterday, it seemed as if Hughes was at a comfortable 109, while tonight CC threw a hard 111. I wish Girardi could tell the difference.
TB is really playing well. They lead, by far, MLB is RS/RA Diff, and have posted a 9-1 record on the Road.
Is Joba allowed to pitch the ninth?
Dag, he made Granderson look like a Little Leaguer...
140. "... another formula in Girardi’s hands would be dangerous."
Haha, true, true.
Uh-oh. Gameday says 'injury delay.' What's up?
That looked like an Ozzie Smith flip, only on the ground...
[145] Nuthin'. Swish tapped one off his instep and Girardi and Donahue started to come out, then changed their minds so they could mess with Gameday...
I think when it comes to handling pitchers, Girardi has done a good job. Phil is young and on an innings limit. 110 pitches is a healthy amount. Why push things. Better to 'err' on the conservative side.
If CC has any arm problems, everyone here will bemoan all those 'one last inning' CC has pitched.
Meat Tray mopping up. That sounds unsanitary...
[141] They've also played 6 games against the Orioles, although after last night, that's not as strong an argument.
[149] Or rather "closing out" as in a close-out sale...