Monthly Archives: April 2010

I remember watching Phil Hughes’ great, painfully cut-short start against Texas three years ago*, and thinking it was the most depressing 10-1 Yankees win I’d ever seen. Last night’s game was not nearly such a bummer: Hughes pitched the best game of his career, took his no-hitter into the eighth and was finally derailed by a comebacker bouncing off his glove, not by a key muscle making an unhappy popping noise. The Yankees won 3-1, and the Phenom/Phranchise nicknames would seem to be back in business.

Hughes walked Daric Barton on four pitches in the first inning, but put away the next 20 A’s he faced, 10 by strikeout, a career high. He got himself all the way into the eight inning with no hits and barely any drama – none of those dazzling close plays that Sabathia got in his no-hit innings of a few weeks ago. Everything was moving in exactly the way you’d want it to move, and while I don’t think his fastball topped 92 or 93 mph, that’s evidently plenty fast enough.

The Yankees scraped a pair of runs together in the fourth, when Alex Rodriguez tripled, and made it look like such a good idea that Robinson Cano decided to do the same immediately afterwards, later scoring on Posada’s groundout. Meanwhile, Hughes was being ostentatiously ignored in the dugout until the eighth, where with his pitch count still quite low and mostly made of strikes, he promptly allowed a hit to Eric Chavez. Well, kind of – the ball hit off Hughes’ arm and glove, and while he wasn’t hurt (PHEW… hey, can that be Hughes’ new nickname?), he also couldn’t find the ball for a few very long seconds. He regained his composure but as he reached 100 pitches with several runners on base, Girardi brought in Joba Chamberlain; one run scored before the Yanks could turn the game over to Mariano, who made things slightly more interesting that was strictly necessary in the ninth but, as usual, remained in control.

Pre-Mo, the Yankees got an ultimately unneeded but reassuring insurance run when Brett Gardner dunked a single into left to score Curtis Granderson (who, in case you were wondering, has been adjusting just fine to NYC off the field, too). Ken Singleton had just been saying, as Gardner faced a 3-1 count, “one more ball out of the zone and Jeter will come to the plate,” and I was thinking, hey, there is a chance Gardner will actually get a hit, you know. (I watched the Mets-Cubs game earlier in the evening and let me tell you, there is nothing like it to make you appreciate the Yankees’ lineup. The Cubs happened to win tonight with plenty of offense, but then they were facing Oliver Perez, and Lou Piniella still spent most of the game looking like he was watching someone strangle a koala… or, perhaps, like he would like to strangle a koala himself).

Anyway, as much as we all wanted to see a little history, it seems ridiculous to call this game disappointing. Hughes’ no-hitter interruptus didn’t bother me much, because it was just beautiful to see him pitch so well… and then to be available again in five days.

Now excuse while I go knock on all the wood within a mile radius.

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*Holy crap, was that really three years ago?

Tonight the Yankees look to go five-for-five in series in the young season and extend their current five-game winning streak to six. If that should happen thanks to another solid start from Phil Hughes, the latter would be as encouraging as the former. Hughes looked sharp early in his regular season debut against the Angels last Thursday. Though he ultimately walked five and ran up his pitch count in turn, limiting himself to five innings, he also held the Halos to two runs on three hits while striking out six. For all of my grousing about Joba Chamberlain being wasted in the bullpen, Hughes is every bit as important to the future of the Yankee rotation (and thus the Yankees’ future) and his time is now. His strong debut was more than just the cherry on top of the Yankees’ hot start.

Opposing Hughes will be Ben Sheets, who despite being a veteran All-Star, has something to prove himself coming off a season lost to elbow surgery and ill-timed free agency. After three starts, Sheets has a 2.65 ERA, but has walked two more than he’s struck out and hasn’t pitched past the sixth inning, leaving room for the A’s bullpen to blow his first two games. It’s a compelling matchup of talented hard-throwing right-handers at very different stages of their careers.

Randy Winn will start in right field tonight as Nick Swisher gets a curiously-timed day off after returning to his old haunt and breaking an extended 0-fer. Maybe he was proving it all night, too.

Standing Couple, By David Park (1958)

Rhubarb-Strawberry Jam via Saveur.

Yes, please.

Some disturbing news via Glenn Stout’s blog, Verbal Plow:

Red Sox history is being sent in exile. The city wants to close the Microtext Department at the BPL which cares for, services and houses newspapers and other collections on microfilm, the department that literally provides access to the history of not only the Red Sox, but the Bruins, the Patriots, the Boston Marathon, the Boston Garden, Fenway Park, the old Boston Arena, the Huntington Avenue Grounds, Harvard Stadium, Boston College,…you get the idea. The city wants to close the department, move some of the film to West Roxbury, disperse the rest to other BPL departments, can the staff, squander decades of institutional knowledge, and use the space they recently spent gazillions renovating for the department, for, oh, I don’t know, weddings or cocktail parties. Once they do that the ability to do the kind of research it takes to write a serious book about Red Sox history becomes almost impossible – having the resources you need in one place, at one time, is invaluable and irreplaceable.

I know this not just from my own experience, but because when I was at the BPL I helped local sports writers like Steve Buckley and national guys like Sports Illustrated’s Frank Deford use these resources. I remember one guy in particular I helped – named Halberstam. Won a Pulitzer Prize that helped stop the Vietnam War and wrote a really great book about the Red Sox–Summer of ’49. Ever heard of him?

He could not have written that book without the BPL, and neither could Dan Shaughnessy have written The Curse of the Bambino, Howard Bryant Shut Out, Richard Johnson and I Red Sox Century, Ed Linn Hitter, Leigh Montville The Big Bam or any other author, like Buckley or Bill Nowlin or Bill Reynolds, who have written anything worthwhile about Red Sox history. None of these books – none – could have been done without the newspapers on microfilm at the Boston Public Library. Fenway 1912, which I just finished and comes out next year, would have been impossible.

And here’s the really, really awful part. This is supposed to save the city money. But this department, like much the Library, actually earns back every dime a hundred times over. I am just one of thousands of writers who use or have used the Library, who make special trips to Boston just to use the library and end up spending money on a lot of other things, or have lived in Boston, in part, because the Library was one of the places that make Boston a place worth living. Every book written by any writer on any subject who has used the Library – we’re talking thousands of books that have sold millions and millions of copies, here – pours money right back into city coffers every day of every week.

But if they get rid of the Microtext department and exile and disperse Red Sox history, this won’t happen. All those books still waiting to be written about the Red Sox just won’t get written. The neighborhood of baseball – and the City of Boston – will be poorer for it.

To complain, email, write or call Amy Ryan, President of the Boston Public Library aeryan@bpl.org, or Jamie McGlone, Clerk to the Board of Trustees jmcglone@bpl.org, 700 Boylston St., Boston MA 02116 617-536-5400, Mayor Thomas Menino,mayor@cityofboston.gov, 1 City Hall Square, Boston, MA 02201-2013 , 617.635.4500, or attend the BPL’s Annual Meeting on Tuesday, May 11, 2010, 8:30am, at the Copley Square Library.

Our man Chyll Will wrote an excellent appreciation of Guru over at Serious Consideration:

And here’s one of my favorites, in less than two-and-a-half-minutes to boot:

Dig this NPR interview with Reggie Jackson and Bob Gibson.

Prior to last night’s game, Nick Johnson had walked in slightly better than one of every four plate appearances this season.  With 14 walks in his first 12 games, he was on a pace which would eclipse the all-time franchise record of 170 by Babe Ruth in 1923.

Now of course, Nick is a DL stint just waiting to happen, so that all-time mark is highly unlikely.  But he could more reasonably eclipse the more recent high-water mark of Jason Giambi, who got a free pass 129 times in 2003.

In the DH era, there have been only ten occurrences of a Yankee drawing 100 or more walks in a season, and Giambi has four of them.

Johnson’s .158 batting average (prior to last night’s game) will of course come back to more-normal levels, as he is a career .271 hitter.  Since 1990, there have been 78 occurrences of an American League batting title qualifier amassing 100 or more walks, and the median batting average of that group is .285, with a range of .223 (Mickey Tettleton in 1990) to .363 (John Olerud in 1993).

It’s not exactly Christmas morning as a kid, starting the day by finding out your team won while you were sleeping is a small, rewarding pleasure. Especially when one one of your favorite players had a great night. Alex Rodriguez’s three-run home run in the fifth gave the Yanks a 6-0 lead, and although Javy Vazquez wasn’t great, the bullpen was as the Yanks cruised, 7-3 over the A’s.

Here are more details on the game from Jonathan Abrams in the Times; Mark Feinsand in the News; George King in the Post; Mike Axisa at River Ave Blues; and Jay at Fack Youk.

[Photo Credit: Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images]

The A’s team the Yankees will face over the next three days is currently in first place in the American League West. That doesn’t mean they’re any good.  The A’s are 9-5, with six of those wins having come at home. Thus far they have gone 4-3 against the Mariners, 3-1 against the Orioles, and taken two of three from the Angels. That’s a solid intra-division showing, but the Mariners are missing Cliff Lee, and one of the A’s wins against the Halos came against replacement starter Matt Palmer.I’d say the A’s are headed for a fall, but they haven’t really climbed to any great height just yet. The Angels and Rangers, the real cream of their division, are just two games behind them in the standings, and with the Yankees coming to town, things are about to get serious.

The A’s have some pitching. Justin Duchscherer and Ben Sheets are currently healthy. Twenty-two-year-old lefty Brett Anderson is an emerging ace. Twenty-six-year-old lefty Dallas Braden, who will face CC Sabathia on Thursday, is emerging as a nice, team-controlled mid-rotation innings eater, and tonight’s starter, 24-year-old lefty Gio Gonzalez, is a prospect with good stuff, a nice high-upside option for the fifth spot. That rotation has posted a 2.70 ERA thus far, second only to the Cardinals in the majors, and home-grown arms such as Trevor Cahill (currently rehabbing an injury to his non-throwing shoulder) and Rutherford, New Jersey’s Vin Mazzaro provide depth with major league experience at Triple-A. The A’s bullpen, headed by 2009 Rookie of the Year closer Andrew Bailey, has been solid as well and should continue to be so.

That the A’s have been the stingiest team in the American League in the early going is particularly impressive given that they’re nothing special on defense. That their pitching has carried them to the top of their division is similarly impressive given that they can’t hit. In terms of runs scored per game, the A’s have been roughly league average in the early going, but their component performances, especially their .362 team slugging percentage (third worst in the AL and sixth-worst in baseball), are unimpressive. There is worse to come.

Here’s a question: who is the A’s best hitter? Is it Daric Barton, the first base prospect who finally seems to be clicking? Barton is an on-base machine, but he doesn’t have much power. His ceiling seems to be something like a healthy Nick Johnson. Is that their best hitter? Is it Kevin Kouzmanoff, the power-hitting third baseman acquired from the Padres? The right-handed Kouzmanoff has finally escaped Petco Park only to find himself playing his home games in a stadium that had a 77 park factor for right-handed home runs over the past three years per The Bill James Handbook (Petco’s was 86). Kouzmanoff has hit .284/.328/.477 on the road in his career. Is he their best hitter? Is it Eric Chavez, the man once tagged as the A’s franchise player whose bad back limited him to 31 games over the past two years and who, having returned as a designated hitter, has yet to start hitting again? Chavez has hit .249/.323/.439 over the last six seasons. Is he their best hitter? Their third-place hitter is Ryan Sweeney, a righty-swinging outfielder with a career .286/.343/.388 line in 1,109 plate appearances in the major leagues. Is he their best hitter?

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Woman with Dark Blue Sky, By Elmer Bischoff (1959)

So, I thought I’d do a thing where, every so often at the end of a home stand or road trip, I’d pop in to take a look at how things are going for the Yankees. Call it “Howzit Goin’?,” make it a casual, quick-hit look at the team. Figured it would give me an opportunity to address what’s going right and wrong for the Bombers at that particular point in time. So here’s my first attempt, but I have a problem: everything’s going right.

What’s there to say? The Yankees have won their first four series of the season for the first time since 1926, doing it against their two primary division rivals (believed to be the best teams in the league if not the majors other than the Yankees themselves), as well as my pick to repeat as the AL West champs and one of their primary rivals. They open a new road trip tonight on a four-game winning streak having gone 5-1 on their just-completed homestand and 9-2 since their Opening Day loss to the Red Sox in Boston. Overall they’re 9-3, a record better than all but one team in the American League, that being the 10-3 Tampa Bay Rays, whom the Yankees took two of three from in Tampa the weekend before last.

The Yankees’ three losses break down this way: On Opening Day in Boston, they took and early 5-1 lead on the Red Sox, but CC Sabathia and the bullpen gave the lead back and then some, resulting in a 9-7 loss. In their first game in Tampa, the Yankees took a 2-0 lead in the top of the fourth, but Javier Vazquez, making his regular season debut, fell apart immediately after, giving up eight runs in an eventual 9-3 loss. In Vazquez’s next start, against the Angels in the Bronx, he again took a loss, but in that game, the Yankee offense was stymied by Joel Piñeiro and was unable to give Vazquez a lead. Trailing 2-1 after five, Vazquez gave up two more runs in the top of the sixth which sealed the Angels’ eventual 5-3 win (note that two of those three Yankee runs came against the Angel bullpen).

That last loss was the only one that could really be pinned on the offense, which leads the league with 5.75 runs scored per game and has yet to score fewer than three runs a single game this season. John Lackey actually had the best starting performance against the Yankees in the early going, holding them scoreless for six innings, but Andy Pettitte kept the Red Sox in check in that game and Lackey’s bullpen quickly blew his slim one-run lead and ultimately the game in ten innings (the Yankees’ only extra-inning game thus far). In addition to Piñeiro and Lackey, the Rays’ David Price, who beat Vazquez in his first start, was impressive, but did give up both an early lead and three runs on seven hits and three walks in total.

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Salute.

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Okay, got a mouth-watering food blog for you guys to check out: Last Night’s Dinner.

This girl’s got it going on.

Peace to Dimelo for hipping me to this: Say word.

In the spirit of spring and Mother’s Day–which is just around the corner–the wife is having a sale (15% off ) on her photography note cards now through 5/9/10.

She’s added a number of new sets including orchids and cherry blossoms.

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Number, numbers, and more numbers.

In New York Magazine, Will Leitch examines fielding metrics; in the Boston Globe, Charles Pierce tells your statistics to shut up.

Horrible news from the world of Hip Hop. Guru passed away yesterday at 43. Cancer. This one hits close to home:

In the Boston Globe, Nick Cafardo writes about a disappointing start for the Red Sox:

“Of course I’m concerned,’’ wrote Sox owner John Henry in an e-mail. “We can’t dig ourselves too deep a hole. The Yankees and Tampa Bay are so strong.’’

…There are no such things as major shakeups in baseball because there are guaranteed contracts and it’s hard to sit a player making $12 million. Injuries certainly take their toll on any team, and the Sox have been without their leadoff hitter/igniter Jacoby Ellsbury. The Sox are 1-6 since Ellsbury exited the lineup after a collision with teammate Adrian Beltre last Sunday in Kansas City. They lost two out of three to the Twins, then were swept in four games by the Rays.

Henry wouldn’t comment on whether he believes there needs to be a shake-up, indicating that was more general manager Theo Epstein’s responsibility.

One of my favorite places at the Met: