Monthly Archives: May 2010

Bill Madden’s new book, Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball will be released next week. I’m not sure what new ground the book will cover, but Madden was given access to the personal musings of former Yankees GM Gabe Paul–who tape recorded his thoughts–by Paul’s son, Gabe Jr. Early buzz has it that Madden’s book is especially strong on Steinbrenner’s early years in New York (again, I’m curious how it’ll be an improvement on Dick Schaap’s outstanding, Steinbrenner!)

The Daily News has two excerpts from the book: one and two.

Madden will be out at the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center this Thursday to discuss the book. If you are in the vicinity, stop by and check him out. Should be fun.

In a rare turn of events, I didn’t take a swipe at A.J. Burnett’s reliability in my preview of Sunday night’s finale at Fenway. Burnett was a key contributor to the Yankees’ 27th world championship in his first year with the team and had gotten off to a strong start in Year Two (4-0, 1.99 ERA entering last nights game). I was finally beginning to soften on the guy.

Then, with a chance to push his team into first place following a Rays loss earlier in day (to a perfect game by Dallas Braden, of all people), he shows up on the hill at Fenway without his fastball command and coughs up nine runs in 4 1/3 innings, setting the Yankees up for a 9-3 loss.

After dominating the Red Sox in his walk year with the Blue Jays, Burnett gave up 22 runs in 12 2/3 innings across three starts at Fenway Park last year, but in his first game of 2010, which also came in Boston, he pitched relatively well, allowing just four runs, three earned, in five innings as his team won 6-4. Sunday night was 2009 at Fenway all over again.

To be fair, Marcus Thames helped the Sox get on the board for the first time in the second by misplaying a catchable Jeremy Hermida fly ball that would have been the third out of the inning, taking a bad route, then having the ball glance off his glove for a two-base error that allowed J.D. Drew to score. Then again, Drew was in scoring position after singling and moving to second on a wild pitch by Burnett, and though Hermida’s drive was catchable, it was struck well and did require Thames to retreat toward the warning track in left.

Thames’s day wasn’t quite as bad as Burnett’s, but that error was ugly, he went 0-for-3 with a hit-by-pitch at the plate, and after his inning-ending strikeout in the fourth, he got his manager ejected by starting an argument with homeplate umpire Tim McClelland over the called third strike.

The Sox did the bulk of their damage in the third, loading the bases on walks to Marco Scutaro and Kevin Youkilis sandwiched around a Victor Martinez double. With one out, Drew scored Scutaro with a sac fly. David Ortiz then hit a ground-rule double to deep rightfield that plated Pedroia. Youkilis had to hold at third because the ball hopped into the stands, but he and Ortiz both came around on Adrian Beltre’s subsequent double, and Jeremy Hermida, who later drove Burnett from the game with a two-run homer over the Green Monster in the fifth, singled home Beltre to put the Sox up 6-0.

Nick Swisher and Alex Rodriguez got two back with solo homers over the Monster in the bottom of the third, but that was all the Yankees were able to get against Boston starter Jon Lester, who struck out seven and allowed just two other hits in his seven innings of work.

If there was a positive to this game, it was the 3 2/3 innings of one-hit relief provided by Romulo Sanchez, who not only pitched well, but finished the game for Burnett, saving the rest of the bullpen. Then again, with Sergio Mitre and Javier Vazquez starting the next two games, it would have been nice if the Yankees could have saved Sanchez for one of those two games.

So, Friday night I try to explain that the Red Sox don’t suck, and then they go and lose the first two games of this weekend series by a combined score of 24-6 against a Yankees team that is suddenly as fragile as Nick Johnson’s wrists (Alfredo Aceves, come on down . . .). Ingrates.

Not that I’m complaining. The Yankees have won four of five against the Sox and clinched yet another series win. All that remains in this set is for them to complete a sweep on national TV.

The Sox have their best chance at a win in this series tonight, not because the Yankees are throwing A.J. Burnett, but because the Sox have Jon Lester on the hill. Lester has been untouchable in his last three outings, allowing just one run in 20 2/3 innings while striking out 23 and not allowing a single home run.

Fortunately for the Yankees, Robinson Cano is back at second base, and Jorge Posada is taking Johnson’s place at DH, his first start at any position in almost a week. Following those two are Marcus Thames in left, the red-hot Francisco Cervelli, and Brett Gardner back in his customary nine hole thanks to Nick Swisher batting second. It says something about how well the Yankees are playing thus far, and how much every man on the roster is contributing, that this is a lineup I’m happy to see.

If Posada makes it through tonight in one piece, he should catch the opener in Detroit on Monday. That’s good news with regards to Posada’s health, but bad news with regard to lineup optimization as it will bench Cervelli and open the DH spot to a revolving door that means more starts for the rest of the bench.

Alfredo Aceves, who left Saturday’s game with a stiff lower back is day-to-day. Nick Johnson is on the 15-day DL with inflammation in a tendon in his right wrist. He missed most of the 2008 season due to a torn tendon in that wrist, so I wouldn’t expect him back soon, and the Yankees have already said he’ll be gone more than the minimum 15 days.

Kevin Russo takes Johnson’s place on the roster. Russo impressed in camp with a strong plate approach and the ability to hit the pitch he’s given. The 25-year-old second baseman can also play third and has been working at short and in the outfield, but he doesn’t have much power (as evidenced by his .302/.383/.425 line for Triple-A Scranton this year) and isn’t a natural defender. Still, he should provide some good at-bats and flexibility when needed. Russo had a nine game hitting streak going for Scranton when he was called up. His first appearance for the Yankees will be his major league debut.

Sending much love to all the moms out there. Hope everyone has a great day.

My cat Moe Green was sitting on the window sill in my office this afternoon when a gust of wind knocked his ass down. I heard him land and looked up to see him on the floor looking back over his shoulder at the window, slunk down low. I sat up to see if a bird had gotten to close to the window but this was no bird. Just the wind.

A few hours later, I walked up to Johnson Avenue where I saw parts of two big trees on the sidewalk–a huge branch was hanging on the telephone line above. Police barrier outside of the Hunan Balcony. I walked home with my groceries and heard a rumbling like the wheels on a skateboard. But it was a cluster of trees just behind me, thrashing.

It was some serious wind, man. And Moms Nature was ‘spressin her own bad ass self from Philadelphia to Boston this afternoon. The Mets won in extra innings again today against the Giants at Citifield and the sharp late afternoon light and shadows covered the field. In Philly, the shadows were just as daunting a short while later. I know about the Phillies because Fox cut to their game when the Yanks and Sox were delayed with two outs in fourth inning, Yanks up 6-3. CC Sabathia was on the mound pitching to his old catcher Victor Martinez. CC was in his rhythm, not rushing, and  didn’t anticipate how quickly the storm was going to hit. But it went from no rain to downpour within thirty seconds.

Cut to the Braves-Phils, and start grinding your teeth.

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The banged-up Yanks are even more banged-up today after a painful win on Friday night in Boston. Cano is out today; Nick Johnson is headed to the DL. But CC Sabathia is on the hill. He’ll go against Clay Buchholz, who has been Boston’s best starter this year.

Never mind the payback, just win, baby.

[photo credit: Yohei Yamashita]

It’s cool, gray and rainy in the Bronx this morning.

Reminds me of Belgium.

[photo credit: thepetitfour and Last Night’s Dinner]

The first five innings of Friday night’s series-opening tilt between the Yankees and Red Sox were crisp and closely contested. Josh Beckett came out blazing, spotting 96 mile-per-hour heaters and dropping hammer curves. He struck out the side in the first, two of three batters in the second, and struck out Derek Jeter for a second time to strand a Francisco Cervelli single in the third. Phil Hughes kept pace, retiring the first seven men he faced, then following a walk to Beckett’s personal catcher Jason Varitek with two strikeouts to strand him.

The Yankees finally broke through in the fourth when, with one out, Mark Teixeira battled back from 0-2 to work a walk and Alex Rodriguez followed with a single that moved Teixeira to second. Beckett rallied to strike out Robinson Cano on four pitches, then made Nick Swisher look silly on a check swing on a cutter inside before spotting a 96 mph heater on the outside corner for strike two.

At that, Swisher spun on his heel and took a walk out of the batters box, seemingly to gather himself. Swisher has a deserved reputation as a flake because he’s a motormouth and a goofball, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a smart ballplayer. In the bottom of the inning, he made a great play in right, sliding in front of a would-be double to cut it off and hold J.D. Drew to a single. On this occasion it was obvious that Swisher was determined to win the mental battle with Beckett as well as the physical one.

After stepping back in, Swisher took a fastball well high, then took a curve in the dirt and stepped out again. Bat under his right arm, lips drawn tight, eyes peeking out toward Beckett, Swisher had a look on his face like he had figured something out, as if he thought he knew something Beckett didn’t. He then stepped back in the box and hit a curve up in the zone over the wall in straight-away center to give the Yankees a 3-0 lead. After the game, Swisher said he was lucky to run into one. He’s humble, too.

The Sox got one back in the bottom of the fourth on Drew’s single (the first Boston hit in the game), another by Kevin Youkilis, and sac fly by David Ortiz, but when Boston threatened again in the fifth with two out singles by Darnell McDonald and Marco Scutaro that put runners on the corners, Hughes got Dustin Pedroia to fly out to center to strand them.

Then came the top of the sixth. Alex Rodriguez led off with a low line-drive through the shortstop hole that was hit so hard it rolled all the way to the wall for a double. Beckett then threw a 1-0 cutter down and into Robinson Cano and hit the Yankee second baseman on the top of the right knee. The impact was loud and frightening as Cano let out an audible shout. After a visit from the trainer, Cano took his base, but two pitches later he took himself out of the game (he’s day-to-day and likely won’t play Saturday).

Beckett’s 1-1 pitch to Swisher was a fastball, but Varitek, expecting a curve, lowered his glove and the ball hit off his left arm and rolled toward the Yankee dugout, moving the runners (Rodriguez and pinch-runner Ramiro Peña) up. After the Red Sox’s trainer visited Varitek (who later came out with a bruised left forearm), Beckett struck out Swisher, but then curiously intentionally walked Brett Gardner to face Francisco Cervelli with the bases loaded and one out.

Here’s where things got weird. In his previous at-bat, Cervelli had called time while Beckett was taking a long set to freeze Gardner at first. Beckett responded by coming up and in to Cervelli and making him jump out of the way. In this at-bat, Cervelli battled the count full, then called time on Beckett again. Again Beckett’s next pitch was up and in, but this time it was ball four and forced in a run. The first time it was clearly intentional, but Beckett wouldn’t throw at a guy to force in a run in a two-run game . . . would he?

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This just in: the Red Sox don’t suck. Sure, they stumbled out of the gate, losing the opening series to the Yankees and falling six games out of first place just 13 games into the season after being swept by the Rays and falling to 4-9. Sure, they suffered an embarrassing sweep at the hands of the Orioles last weekend that dropped them to seven games behind the surging Rays.

Yet, over their last 15 games, the Red Sox are 10-5, the exact same record as the Yankees over their last 15, and if you push it to 16 games, the Sox are 11-5 to the Yankees’ 10-6. Setting aside the fluky Baltimore series, in which two of the O’s wins were one-run victories in extra innings, the Sox have lost just three other series all year, to the Yankees, Rays, and Twins, the cream of the American League who enter today’s action with a combined .702 winning percentage. The Sox followed up their embarrassment in Baltimore by sweeping a four game set at home against the Angels, which pushed their record over .500 for the first time since the second day of the season, and prior to their trip to Baltimore, the Sox had won seven of their last nine games. Oh, and they’re doing all of that with two thirds of their outfield on the disabled list.

Yes, the Sox got off to a bad start, but they’re not a bad team, and the Yankees and the rest of baseball would be foolish to write them off this early. Remember when everyone was wondering what was wrong with Jon Lester? Well he’s a perennial slow starter (5.40 ERA through six starts in 2008, 6.07 ERA through ten starts last year). After three duds, he has put up the following line over his last three starts: 3-0, 0.44 ERA, 0.87 WHIP, 20 2/3 IP, 10 H, 1R, 8 BB, 23 K, 0 HR. He faces A.J. Burnett on Sunday.

Josh Beckett, who starts against Phil Hughes tonight, got off to an even worst start, but his last time out he held the O’s to two runs over seven innings, striking out six against no walks or homers. Twenty-five-year-old Clay Buchholz, who starts Saturday against CC Sabathia, has been very good for a fourth starter, posting a 2.97 ERA with solid peripherals. The Yankees are going to miss John Lackey in this series, but five of his six starts this season have been quaility, and if you take out his one dud against the Rays, his ERA drops to 2.14.

At the plate, J.D. Drew got off to a miserable start, but has hit .352/.422/.667 over his last 14 games. David Ortiz homered just once in April, but has three jacks already in May and is finally being platooned with Mike Lowell (a move I had been expecting all winter). Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia remain among the most productive players at their positions (Robinson Cano has nine homers and 21 RBIs, Pedroia has seven taters and has driven in 21 as well). Adrian Beltre is hitting .343, and Jason Varitek has found new life coming off the bench (11-for-34 with five homers), which is important as Victor Martinez is one of the few Boston hitters still scuffling (though he did go 6-for-17 with two doubles and a homer in the Angels series).

Mike Cameron, out with a sports hernia, and Jacoby Ellsbury, out with broken ribs, have both resumed baseball activities, and though he hasn’t pitched well in two starts, Daisuke Matsuzaka has returned from the disabled list, pushing Tim Wakefield to the bullpen and assorted detritus (Scott Atchison, Fabio Castro, Alan Embree) off the roster. The Red Sox are righting their ship. Given that they’ve been keeping pace with the Yankees for more than half of the season despite the struggles of various individual players, that’s a legitimate concern.

The Yankees enter this weekend’s series in Boston with a five-game lead on the Sox, but there are 135 games left on the Yankees’ schedule. Certainly those five games give the Yankees some margin for error, but with injuries cascading through the roster, they just might need it. Meanwhile, with the Rays off to a blinding start (in addition to their major league best 21-7 record and .750 winning percentage, they have tied the 1984 Tigers with the best run differential after 28 games by any team since 1961 [hat tip: @lonestarball]), the three-way battle in the AL East that we expected each of the last two years but didn’t get due to the shortcomings of the Yankees and Rays, respectively, looks like it will be a reality this year.

I still like the Yankees’ chances of taking this series, because of the starters they have lined up and because of how well they’ve been playing all year, but any thoughts of being able to kick Boston while they’re down are misguided. The Red Sox are good. You heard it here first. (more…)

I just like the lines.

Long time Banterite Bags took this picture. Gunna be showing a lot more of his pictures from now on. So, lucky us ya hoid?

;

Sripraphai could be my favorite restaurant in New York these days (they’ve just opened a second location). I’ve been about a dozen times over the past three or four years and still have yet to try so much on their extensive menu.

If you like Thai food, what are you waiting for already?

[Photo Credit: Kelly Bone and ext212]

In filling the Glenallen Hill role for the 2010 Yankee, Marcus Thames has been terrorizing left-handed pitchers to the tune of obscene on-base and slugging percentages. If he could continue this pace for the balance of the season, he would boast one of those monstrous Strat-O-Matic cards that would have you tempted to play him every day. But, then again, you’d probably want to restrict him to DH duty because of his dreadful defensive play in the outfield. Thames would likely grade out as a ‘4’ on the Strat card. For those not familiar with Strat-O-Matic, that’s the absolutely worst fielding grade you can achieve.

How badly has Thames played in the outfield for the Yankees? Every time the ball is hit in his direction, diehard Yankee fans begin to clutch their chests. Thames gets bad breaks on the ball, struggles in trying to track the ball, and then, even if he reaches the ball, has trouble holding on to it. That, friends, is the Triple Crown of fielding incompetence.

Thames’ play in left field has been so historically bad that it has me thinking of the worst defensive outfielders I’ve ever seen. I’ve been watching baseball since the early 1970s, giving me a chance to observe about 40 years of horrific outfield play. All of the following players could hit, but they each managed to play the outfield with such a lack of skill that the results bordered on the comical.

(Left Field) Kevin Reimer: Remarkably, Reimer averaged an error for every ten games he played in the outfield. He was particularly bad on those rare occasions when his teams dared to put him in right field, where he posted an .875 fielding percentage. This former Rangers and Brewers outfielder tried real hard, but he had no instincts, couldn’t run, couldn’t catch, and couldn’t throw. When it comes to awful fielders, Reimer had it all.

(Left Field) Greg “The Bull” Luzinski: The Bull played like the proverbial “bull in a china shop,” in left field, combining incredibly slow feet with a weak arm and a general awkwardness. Having to play on the artificial turf of the old Veterans Stadium only underscored Luzinski’s lack of speed and coordination. It remains a mystery why the Phillies ever moved him from his original position at first base.

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The Sox come into the weekend series on the upswing, having just swept four from the Angels. But, as Tyler Kepner notes, so far in 2010, it’s not the same old Red Sox:

“You have to have enough time to get into the season, usually a couple of months, before you can draw any conclusions,” General Manager Theo Epstein said. “I don’t think anyone here was drawing any conclusions; we were just acknowledging that we weren’t playing sound baseball. We were beating ourselves. We were making a handful of mistakes a game, basically not doing the little things the right way that collectively put us in a tough position to win ballgames.”

The Red Sox focused last winter on preventing runs, tightening their defense at several positions and spending $82.5 million on a five-year contract for starter John Lackey. But results have been hard to quantify.

Through Wednesday, Boston’s 4.63 earned run average was about a half-run higher than the A.L. average, and their fielders had committed 20 errors, the most in their division. Statistically, errors can be misleading; range is more important. But the first inning Thursday showed why the Red Sox tried to emphasize defense in the first place.

Oh, yeah, and then there’s this: the Rays, who were 32-49 on the road last year, as 12-1 away from home to start the season.

From A.O. Scott’s review of Iron Man 2:

“Iron Man 2,” the first superhero sequel of the summer, fulfills the basic requirements of the genre, which can be summed up as more of the same, with emphasis on more. Having introduced its physically and intellectually gifted, emotionally tormented protagonist in both his regular and alter egos, a comic book franchise will typically set out, in the second installment, in search of new villains, bigger suits, brighter gadgets and tendrils of plot that can blossom in subsequent sequels.

But sometimes — for instance in the recent Spider-Man, X-Men and Batman cycles — the second time is a charm, as filmmakers and actors use the reasonable certainty of financial success to take chances and explore odd corners of their archetypal, juvenile stories. “Iron Man 2,” directed by Jon Favreau from a screenplay by Justin Theroux, doesn’t achieve the emotional complexity of “Spider-Man 2” or the operatic grandeur of “The Dark Knight,” but it does try something a little bit new and perhaps, given the solemnity that has overtaken so much comic-book-based filmed entertainment, a little bit risky. It’s funny.

Not funny. Anything but that. Nooooooooooooo.

I’m sitting on the train this morning, listening to my iPod, bopping my head, when I notice a six or seven-year old boy standing in the middle of the car. I recognize him, he’s a regular. He’s wearing a red shirt, shorts, standing next to a pole, leaning back and catching the pole just as it looks like he’s going to fall. Just entertaining himself, not showing off.

We make eye-contact and he half-waves to me with his right hand. I see that he recognizes me too and I try to remember if we’ve ever had any exchange other than a head-nod. I can’t remember but I tilt my head up and give him the Dude’s “what’s up” and then I look away. But when I look back I see the smile on his face. Couple of stops later we do it again. This time he’s more sure of his wave. Big eyes, nice smile.

Feels good to make a kid feel cool. Go figure that, old man.

[Photo Credit: BBC]

Costas and Smoltz are calling the Red Sox-Angels game. Angels got four in the first, Kazmir’s given half of it back.

It’s much cooler in the Bronx tonight. Ideal, really. Only a handful of nights this lovely every year in the city.

The picture was taken by Bags.

Early Sunday Morning, By Edward Hopper (1930)

There is a big Hopper exhibition in Rome right now. Last weekend, there was an interesting piece in the Times by Michael Kimmelman about the the show:

I quizzed some Italians and also a few New Yorkers at the exhibition, and it wasn’t that the Italians didn’t “get” Hopper, or didn’t like him. He’s world famous by now, beloved, and the Italians easily brought up the links to film noir and Antonioni. But New Yorkers, naturally, spoke quite differently about him.

…It’s about projection, in other words, which all good art provokes, whether by Sargent, Zille, Moore or Hopper, whose laconic and merciless drawings can, seen by a New Yorker passing through Rome, have a kind of Proustian eloquence. I stared at the ones he did of summer in the city and the sun splashing across Lower Manhattan before carrying my tracings of two of them to a favorite Sicilian bakery a few blocks away from the Piazza Colonna. It was unconscious, deciding to go there, but I realized it was because the cannoli reminded me of ones I fetched as a boy from a cafe on MacDougal Street, where the owner used to pack them in little white cardboard boxes tied with striped red string. I carried the pastries home to my family, past the Hopper-like brownstones, through the concrete park that faced our house, and across Sixth Avenue to our apartment, under what in my memory was forever a dusky Hopper sky.

Since the Yanks are headed up to Boston for the weekend and all…

The Yankees have gone 10-5 since I introduced this feature on April 19. On the season, they have won eight of their nine series, sweeping two. Their only series loss came in Anaheim against the Angels two weekends ago, a series in which both teams scored 15 runs in three games. The Yankees visited the White House and the Walter Reed Army Medical Center the Monday after that series and seemed to have a bit of a hangover from that day in their loss to the Orioles on Tuesday. Since then, they’ve won seven of eight despite a mounting list of aches and pains and one major injury to an every day player.

Curtis Granderson suffered a Grade 2 strain of his left groin in the Yankees’ one loss in the last eight days and is expected to be on the shelf for at least a month. With Brett Gardener shifting over to center field, Granderson’s place in the lineup is being filled by a left-field platoon of Randy Winn and Marcus Thames, while his place on the roster is being taken by Greg Golson. Golson has thus far made just one appearance, as a defensive replacement in center pushing Gardner back to left (a head-scratcher of a move, but one that seemed to pay off with Golson making a key eighth-inning catch up against the Yankee bullpen to preserve a 3-1 lead, though I imagine Gardner could have easily made the same catch).

Winn had made just three starts before Granderson’s injury and had just one hit in 13 plate appearances, but in his two start since, he’s gone 2-for-6 with a stolen base and a three-run home run that was the difference in a 4-1 win over the Orioles. In the game after Granderson’s injury, Thames took his first 0-fer of the season, but did get on base via a hit-by-pitch and is still hitting .429/.515/.643 on the season.

Gardner, meanwhile, is 12-for-27 in his active eight-game hitting streak, homered the day after Granderson’s injury, is second in the American League in steals (and has only been caught once), and is hitting .346/.430/.432 on the season. Rounding out the outfield, Nick Swisher seems to have finally conquered his home park, going 9-for-23 with three homers on the just-completed home stand, raising his season line to .295/.380/.547.

The Yankee offense as a whole has been remarkably reliable. Just once in their first 27 games have the Yankees scored as few as two runs in a game and they are averaging 5.6 runs per game, second only to the world-beating Rays in all of baseball. Robinson Cano remains among the league-leaders in most major categories, having hit .379/.446/.707 since I last checked in. Derek Jeter is off to another fine start (.310/.341/.474), is on pace for 25 homers and 130 RBIs (the latter thanks to strong performances from the bottom of the order, Gardner in particular), and has gone hitless just five times in 26 games. Mark Teixeira, a slow-starter who had his worst April ever (.136/.300/.259), has gone 7-for-20 since the calendar flipped to May. Alex Rodriguez, however, remains cold, having hit just .208/.241/.264 since last homering on April 20.

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