Monthly Archives: August 2010

The Yankees haven’t looked right for weeks but the past two games have been particularly unsightly. With Justin Verlander on the mound for the Tigers tonight it sure doesn’t feel good for the Bombers. Feels like the Yanks have more bad ball in them. Here’s the line-up, fresh from the Lo Hud Yankee Oven.

Brett Gardner LF
Derek Jeter SS
Mark Teixeira 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Jorge Posada C
Marcus Thames DH
Curtis Granderson CF
Ramiro Pena 3B

…On the other hand, CC is pitching and the Yanks are the defending World Champs.

So hope is the thing soars. Like her:

Go, git ’em boys. We’ll be rooting you on, bitchin and kveting all the way.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

[Picture by Bags]

Dig this earnest–if overly self-depricating, at times–piece by Tim Kurkijan on the death of the newspaper box score:

Now I read the box scores most days on ESPN.com on my computer. I’m not comfortable doing it but I have no other choice. I have saved time, as well as money on scotch tape and scissors. Since 9/11, I estimate having lost at least six pair of scissors because I forgot to remove them from my bag and the security men and women at airports thought I might hijack the plane using scissors as dull as NFL preseason games.

But I still read box scores with the same vigor and interest every day for there is so much to learn in box scores, almost everything you need is in box scores, especially with the expanded ones that tell you, in some cases, more than you wanted to know. Twice a year, I have lunch and talk baseball with George Will and Dr. Charles Krauthammer, who write and speak about important issues in the world, such as war and gay marriage. At one lunch, Krauthammer said, “I read the front page for 30 seconds every day, then I go straight to the box scores.” To which Will said, “Why do you waste the 30 seconds?”

If I didn’t pick up the News and the Post for my subway commute most every morning, I don’t know how often I’d see the box scores anymore, either. Oh, I see them, and so much more, online, of course. I prefer the box scores in the News to the Post, though, and still find that it’s my favorite part of reading the paper each day.

[Photo Credit: The Baseball Analysts]

Who put the coke back in cocaine?

R.I.P.

Who is the more valuable Yankee since 1996: Mariano Rivera or Derek Jeter?

Joe Posnanski asks the question over at SI.com.

[Drawing by Larry Roibal]

Direct from Jane’s Sweets and Baking Journal, peep the lemon yogurt mini bundt cakes…with limoncello glaze (well, duh):

Yanks are livin’ it right now, man:

When you have a few extra minutes, do yourself a favor and check out this excellent piece by Mike Ashmore, beat writer for the Trenton Thunder. It’s about the less-than-glamorous life of a minor league ball player:

The minimum annual salary in Major League Baseball currently sits at $400,000. Meanwhile, most players at the minor league level who haven’t reached minor league free agency are lucky to make $10,000 over the course of a season; a survey of players revealed that those in rookie ball make $1,250-1,300 a month while players in Triple-A, the highest level of the minors, can make roughly $1,000 more per month while under the contracted amount.

“I think the way things are today, most people look at professional athletes and assume they’re rolling in money,” said New York Yankees Senior Vice President of Baseball Operations, Mark Newman.

“And these guys are not.”

Most players in the minor leagues — some estimates have the number as high as 90 percent — will not play in the big leagues. For most, dreams of a career at the highest level are nothing more than that, just dreams.

[Drawing by Robert Weaver, 1962]

If we are to believe that this is the post-steroids era, how much more can we reasonably expect from Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez? Sure, it is the middle of August when it makes most sense that older players–and in the Yankees’ case, younger ones too–slump. Still, Jeter and Rodriguez are both on the wrong side of 35 and are having the worst seasons of their respective careers. Older than 35, that used to spell the begining of the end of most players.  (Let’s not consider Mr. Rivera, okay; there are always exceptions.) The natural course of things.

Is this just a lull? The dog days of August when most every bat goes into a temporary funk? Will Jeter and Rodriguez finish the season strong and play deep into October? Can they bounce back next year? I think they’ve both got some good ball left in them, and perhaps even some surprises. But I also think it’s getting late early or at least earlier than it did ten years ago.

Open skies! Pour forth your cleansing draught. Purify this field, this team, this season. Wash away age and rust. Leave gleaming life where spread decay and rot. And quietly, gently carry away the dead in your bubbling floodwaters. Give us the promise of a new day, with blazing sun, clean slate and the hope of…

What’s that? It stopped raining? Oh crap, they kept playing.

Javy Vazquez discharged pus for 105 pitches through four innings and made Sergio Mitre’s appearance a welcome sight. Until the ninth, the Yanks best offense was either a dropped pop-up or Francisco Cervelli’s feeble attempt to drive in the tying runs in the seventh (Granderson did have three hits, but batting in front Cervelli nullifies anything but a home run)

Just as Cervelli was failing in the seventh, Tampa was mounting a gutsy, late-inning comeback against Cliff Lee, the blazing sun, to settle the Rays into a first place tie in the AL East. They needn’t feel claustrophobic sharing the penthouse, the Yanks won’t be staying there long playing like this.

The ninth inning deserves its own paragraph. After Miguel Cabrera padded the lead to a really daunting 3-0, Valverde completely lost the strike zone and walked Cano, Cervelli and Gardner (none of them even took the bat off their shoulders) around one of Granderson’s singles. Derek Jeter’s season-long battle with his strike-zone judgment and weak ground balls reared its ugly head at the worst possible time. Instead of simply not swinging, he flailed at a 2-1 pitch out of the zone that would have made the count 3-1, and then tapped weakly into a game ending double play (amazing turn by Carlos Guillen) after the count ran full. By simply not swinging, I bet he would have walked and given the Yanks a real shot an undeserved victory.

Alex Rodriguez and Nick Swisher left the game with injuries. It seems the Yankees are really going to attempt to win the World Series with only a couple of guys having decent seasons. Color me skeptical. In losing to the reeling Tigers 3-1, they looked like a tired, broken-down mess.

After a herky-jerky motion Max Scherzer issues sick stuff from odd angles, so given the current state of the Yankee offense, he presented an insurmountable challenge. So much so that I was happy to see Curtis Granderson get a hit early, dispelling the very real chance of being no-hit. They looked slightly more comfortable against the bullpen, though they couldn’t break through until Valverde walked the park. As it was, that’s back-to-back games with eight total hits and one run. I ask that I be relieved of recapping duties until the Yankees produce a double-digit victory.

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Four game series against the Tigers starts tonight. Over at PB, our man Cliff breaks it down like only he can do. In the same space, Jay Jaffe takes a look at the Yankees’ catching situation. Not to be left-out, dig Steve Goldman’s post on Alex Rodriguez’s blustery RBI total.

Over at the Times, Ben Shpigel writes about Rodriguez’s season as well.

A friend passed along this cool tidbit from Jayson Stark (behind the paywall at ESPN):

Love this incredible note from the geniuses at our new favorite blog, You Can’t Predict Baseball: When Mariano Rivera gave up a leadoff ninth-inning triple to Elvis Andrus on Wednesday and then stranded him on third, it preserved one of baseball’s most amazing streaks. In the entire career of the great Mariano, when he’s allowed the tying run to reach third with nobody out, the other team has never gotten that run home.

[Picture by Bags]

Take it away, Jackie (and thanks to joejoejoe for the link):

Here’s another ideal spot for you sandwich heads.

Amazing, really.

What annoys New Yorkers the most?

The Gothamist has some fun with our daily pet peeves.

Joe Posnanski talks about Heart and Derek Jeter. He also talks about hustle (grit and guttiness!) and all sorts of words full of integrity signifiying…? You tell me.

Burnett was hardly burnt; he was very crisp. But the Yanks offense was left bruised and bloody as hell by this guy:

I replayed the game quickly after a long day in the city dodging raindrops and the early Kansas City run didn’t register as important on my radar screen. In fact, with Arod smacking what looked like his fourth straight homer to start the second, and a couple of other squared up outs from Swisher (in the first) and Berkman to end the second, I thought the game would play out much like the night before, with the Yanks piling up the homers in an easy victory.

They didn’t hit another ball really hard the entire game – maybe Swisher’s fly out in the fourth qualifies as hard-hit, but even still. A few grounders shot through the infield courtesy of Cano and Gardner, but that was it. And the first inning run stood up stiff, like a stubborn cowlick. Royals 1, Yanks 0.

Bullington had a passable fastball operating in the low 90s with just enough run on it to miss the sweet spot of the bat. He mixed in a low 80s breaking ball that was tough on lefties when ahead in the count. He saved his best fastball to strike out Arod in the eight, when Arod had a couple of good hacks to try to tie the game. It was an incredibly effective performance and a hard-earned first career victory for the former number one draft pick.

But when a guy gets brilliant results with less than impressive stuff, how much credit does he deserve? I thought the Yankees did a so-so job of getting into hitter’s counts and took some aggressive swings at hittable pitches, but always for naught. The guy just got it done. I wouldn’t bet on him getting by with the same stuff next time out, but what do I know?

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Yanks look to win the series today. AJ Delight is on the hill.

C’mon Score Truck, bring ’em home.

[Picture by Bags]