Monthly Archives: September 2010

On the last Monday of the summer, so long as you’re not being technical about it, the Yankees dropped a ho-hum matinée to Buck Showalter and the Baltimore Orioles. A.J. Burnett was on the mound for the Yanks, and if we can all agree that CC Sabathia is the Sure Thing, Burnett is pretty much the opposite. He’s kind of like that hottie who sat next to you in history class. Most days she’d ignore you completely, but other days, for no apparent reason, she’d look in your direction and flash a smile that would make Galileo wonder if the sun really might not be the center of the universe.

To be fair to Mr. Burnett, he was decent last week against the A’s, and there was hope that he might be able to string a few good starts together to build some momentum for the playoffs.  What’s baseball, afterall, without the hope?

Burnett pitched fairly well, but just well-enough to lose.  The O’s scrapped together a few hits to take a 1-0 lead in the third, but Alex Rodríguez erased that deficit with a monster shot off the back of the bullpen wall in left.  It was his 100th RBI, which is historic.  This is A-Rod’s thirteenth straight season with a hundred RBIs, a streak matched only by Lou Gehrig and Ol’ Double-X, Jimmy Foxx.  It’s also is fourteenth time overall that he’s reached the century mark, something no one else in the history of the game has ever done.  Not bad.

But back to Burnett.  The Baltimore bats rang a bit louder in the fifth, but Burnett again escaped with just a single run allowed when Brian Roberts was nailed at second attempting to stretch his RBI-single into a double.  Things unravelled a bit more in the sixth when Burnett started the frame by allowing a single to Felix Pie and a walk to Nick Markakis.  Things like this happen, but Burnett compounded the problem by wild-pitching the runners to second and third.  He struck out Luke Scott, which was nice, but Matt Wieters followed with a sacrifice fly and it was 3-1.

The Yankees scored twice in the bottom half of the inning to level the score, but the tie didn’t last long.  In a virtual replay of the fifth inning, Brian Roberts delivered a two-out RBI-single (this time to right) and was thrown out at second.  The inning was over, but it didn’t really matter.  The Orioles had a 4-3 lead, and they’d bring it home from there.

Two quick notes before I go.  First, Derek Jeter is looking a bit better.  His final at-bat last night was a line drive out to right field, and he built on that by stroking a double off the wall in right center to lead off the game this afternoon.  Baby steps.

Second, Joe Girardi is, at least, consistent.  But as Ben Franklin once said, consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.  A-Rod walked with two outs in the eighth inning, and Girardi reflexively sent in a pinch runner.  I know I’ve complained about this before, but it still makes me absolutely crazy to see him take his best hitter out of a one-run game.

Okay, that’s all from here.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some aïoli to make and some burgers to grill.

And he’s bringing his upstart Boids with him. Time to start a new winning streak…

Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

I love this day in New York. It is so still, so calm (you can even find a parking space!). But not for long, just a few precious hours more. Tomorrow, everyone will be back to work, kids will cram the subways again. But for now, neighborhoods are sleepy. From my apartment I can hear the subway in the distance, softly chugging along. There, the sound of a stray bird. And that’s it. Silence. Happiness.

As Brett Cecil mastered the Yankees for the fourth time this year, the Yankee game lacked any drama after Phil Hughes served up a two-run gopher ball (already his second of the day) in the third inning. As the Bombers failed to mount a serious challenge in a 7-3 loss, Yankee fans watching the scoreboard were treated to a roller-coaster ride as Tampa and Boston played hot potato with the leads in their games with Baltimore and Chicago.

As the Yankees went quietly, Tampa was putting up a four spot on the Orioles in the sixth to overcome a three-run deficit. Luckily, the recently defiant Orioles answered back with four of their own in the bottom of the same inning. After Tampa scratched another two runs in the seventh, the Orioles held on tightly to the slim remaining margin. They sealed the win in impressive style as newly minted closer Koji Uehara made short work of the top of the Rays order, whiffing MVP candidate Evan Longoria to end it.

And that was nothing compared to what was going on in Boston. The Red Sox led 2-1 until Daniel Bard’s throwing error in the seventh gave Chicago a 3-2 lead. Boston struck back immediately to reclaim a 4-3 lead courtesy of a Victor Martinez two-run blast. After an insurance run in the eighth, Papelbon needed three outs to make up a game on both the Yanks and Rays. He only could get two. Eight white socks crossed the plate and Chicago ended up with a sweet comeback victory.

These happily wild endgames turned the Yankee loss into a minor annoyance, or possibly to the truly enlightened, a mere afterthought. Hughes was bad. Though he only allowed seven hits in six innings, the hits were all loud (six for extra bases) and the Jays hurt him with every kind of pitch. Hill doubled on a terrible curve and homered on a flubbed cutter. Wells homered on misplaced fastball. Buck touched up another bad cutter and Snider doubled on an ineffective change (pitch identification courtesy of mlb.com’s Gameday). When he needed an out, he didn’t know where to turn, and he mostly came up small.

The velocity charts on Fan Graphs don’t show a lot of deterioration on Phil’s offerings over the course of the year, but pitches that blew past bats in April and May are finding wood as the summer drags out. He is less precise with his location, less effective overall.

But the Jays are a clubbing squad. He avoided the walks, got five K’s and mixed in the change up a little bit more. And he lasted six innings. I don’t think Hughes has many big performances left in him this year, but I’m not going to forget the great start to the year either. Hope he contributes what he can down the stretch, and comes back stronger next year.

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At least that’s how these two see it. Our cats in the Bronx, waiting for the boids to show up.

The Yanks gun for the sweep today as well as their ninth win in a row. Phil Hughes will toe the rubber for the Bombers. Let’s hope he can put away hitters when he’s ahead of them and have a strong outing. Alex Rodriguez returns, Robinson Cano sits.

Fresh direct from the Lo-Hud Yankees oven, here’s the line-up:

Brett Gardner LF
Derek Jeter SS
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Marcus Thames DH
Jorge Posada C
Curtis Granderson CF
Greg Golson RF
Ramiro Pena 2B

Dudes, it is drop dead gorgeous in New York. Hope you all are enjoying it.

Let’s go Yan-Kees.

What a nice morning for Yankee fans. In New York, the sun is shinning but the humidity is gone, replaced by a cool breeze. A quick look at the standings is enough to make you smile–the Yanks hold a 2.5 game lead over the Rays in the AL East, and a seemingly insurmountable 10 game cushion over the Red Sox, who dropped two games (each by the score of 3-1) to the White Sox yesterday at Fenway Park.

Andy Pettitte threw three innings of a simulated game yesterday, an exercise where Alex Rodriguez got in his hacks, and there was nothing negative to report. The only Yankee who is out of sorts may be Javier Vazquez, and while I can appreciate his frustration, he hasn’t exactly earned anyone’s confidence lately. Does Girardi have too quick of a hook?

What do you think?

The roller coaster season of Javy Vazquez resumed today as he returned to the starting rotation for the second time in 2010.  His most recent rotation sabbatical resulted in two relief appearances (4.1 and 4.2 innings) in which he allowed a total of four hits and two walks.  Interestingly, those two appearances were each as long or longer than any of the last three starts prior to his banishment to the pen.  Perhaps manager Joe Girardi liked this matchup for Vazquez’s return to the hill, as Javy was 1-0 with a 2.38 ERA and only three hits allowed in 11 innings versus the Jays this season.  On the other hand, the wind was blowing out to right at 21 MPH at gametime, and “Homerun Javy” (27 allowed this season) has been a flyball pitcher his entire career.  In fact, his 0.54 GB:FB rate this season is his career worst.  The next worst season?  2004, when he pitched for … yes, the Yanks.

But the Yanks had hope as they faced Blue Jay starter Mark Rzepczynski.  He came into the game with a 6.03 ERA, and had been torched for six runs and eight hits in three innings by the Bombers just two weeks ago.

Vazquez started strong with a seven-pitch top of the first, getting Jose Bautista on a swinging strikeout to end the inning.  With one out in the  second, Lyle Overbay launched a meatball slider into the jetstream to right, and the Jays took a 1-0 lead.  After a walk to John Buck and an Adam Lind popout to short, John McDonald banged another misfired slider high off the left field foul pole, and all of a sudden it was 3-0.

Meanwhile, Rzepczynski sailed through the first two innings, save for a first inning leadoff single to Brett Gardner.  Gardner swiped his 4oth base of the year (though replays showed him to be out), but he was stranded there.

Then the bottom of the third came, and Rzepczynski remembered who and what he was and whom he was facing.  Eduardo Nunez grounded out to short, but Francisco Cervelli pulled a pitch to left, and hustled his way to a double thanks to a weak-armed Travis Snider.  Gardner walked, and then Derek Jeter also pulled one into left for a double, scoring Cervelli.  Mark Teixeira followed with a walk, and Robinson Cano, who had been in a 0-12 slide, bounced one up the middle, scoring Gardner and Jeter and tying the game at 3.

Meanwhile, Vazquez was continuing to find no command of his slider, instead relying on an 87-89 MPH fastball and a 72-75 MPH change.  He managed to avert further damage in the third and fourth, despite two more walks and a single.

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Back from the bullpen, Javier Vazquez gets the nod this afternoon on a bright and sunny day in New York. I’m taking the wife to the ballgame where we’ll be root-root-rooting for the home team.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

Here’s a little more cheese for you…

Manny Ramirez is in Boston this weekend as a member of the visiting Chicago White Sox. Here is a clip from a chat he had with reporters, via NESN:

Pete Abraham has the article in the Globe.

Pat Jordan is 69 years old and still writing. He jokingly refers to himself as the “Last Knight of the Freelance,” and it’s true, he’s the last guy of his generation to still make a living as a freelance magazine writer. He writes for the dough but he also writes because that’s what he does, that’s who he is–he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he wasn’t working.

Jordan takes on another old pro, William Shatner in a profile that appears in this week’s New York Times Magazine:

Shatner was interviewed once by a snarky British talk-show host, who showed scenes from Shatner’s TV cop show, “T. J. Hooker,” and asked, “What do you think about your acting?” Shatner replied: “Oh, I was terrible. How could I have played it that way?” Outside Starbucks, Shatner said to me: “If someone criticizes my acting, they may be right. Sometimes you shouldn’t work so hard” to entertain. Then, softly, he said: “I never thought of myself as a great actor, like Olivier. I was a working actor. I entertained people and always tried to be terrific at whatever it was.” His problem and his salvation. He played so many different roles that “people couldn’t define me like they could De Niro. I took whatever work came my way to pay the bills, even if it wasn’t a decent role.” His motto was “Work equals work,” which destroyed any hope he had of being taken seriously as an actor but also brought him longevity, wealth and fame. “I was always grubbing,” he said. “But I was saying the words somewhere.” He leaned toward me and said, with mock import, “I love to evoke the bones and meat and thoughts of characters.” He put his hand on my knee, squeezed gently, then said with breathless intimacy: “I said this one line for Priceline 20 times. I struggled to get the nuance. My silence reverberated in the ether.” His face was close to mine, as if imparting a great secret. “If you add a car and a hotel room, you will get an even better price from Priceline.com.” I nodded. “See! You got it!” Then, matter-of-factly, he straightened up and emphasized how much satisfaction that one line gave him. “A pro takes the job knowing it’s not a great role, just a paying job. But every word has music in it. My satisfaction is trying to reach that music.”

The Great One

Ivan Nova gave up a long home run to the second batter of the game but the Yanks jumped on Brandon Morrow for two runs in the first, two in the second and one in the third giving Nova something he’s been unaccustomed to so far in his brief Major League career–a lead.

Then in the third inning Lyle Overbay lead off with a double that fell in the right-center field gap between Curtis Granderson and Austin Kearns. Aaron Hill hit the next pitch even deeper into the same gap for an RBI double. Pitch after that was a ball outside, so Jorge Posada went out to the mound and stood on the outfield side of his young pitcher, uphill so they could see eye-to-eye, and handed him the ball. Posada didn’t take off the face mask. His back was to the TV camera. Before he was finished speaking, Posada placed his right hand flat on Nova’s chest, and left it there for a good five count.

It was a simple, calming gesture, a throwaway really. But it’s that small stuff, those kinds of details, that I find so compelling these days when we’ve got so much access to the games and the players but such limited access to really knowing them as personalities, at least in the way that we knew recent generations of jocks and celebrities, through the print media.

Of course, watching Mariano smile in the ninth inning, enjoying a laugh and handshakes all around once again is one of the distinct pleasures I’ll ever know. It never gets old and I appreciate it each and every time, knowing it will not last forever, knowing the bulk of his great career is behind us now.

Nova wasn’t terrific in his fourth start, didn’t pitch long enough to get the win, one out away. The bullpen didn’t give up a run, Curtis Granderson had two more hits and three RBI, and Fat Elvis had a couple of hits too, as did lil’ Nunez and Pena. Robbie Cano doesn’t look himself, and John Flaherty was on to something when he suggested that this might be a decent time for him to get a couple of days off. Otherwise, it was another happy day in Yankeeland, an ideal way to kick off the holiday weekend.

Final Score: Yanks 7, Jays 3

Hoo-Ha.

Feels so good…ya heard?

1-04 Dry Bones

[Photo Credit: AP Photo/Bill Kostroun, Bags]

Ivan Nova tries to stay souped-up against that formidable talent, Brandon Morrow this afternoon in the Bronx.

The weatherman says a big storm might blow into town. Jays in town for three day games.

Never mind the picnic, Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

At the risk of turning into John Cusak, here’s a dopey tuneski from the Eighties:

Joe Pos drops science:

You know the deal. Jeter’s contract with the Yankees is up at the end of the year. Both sides understand that they HAVE no choice but to work out a deal. The Yankees cannot possibly let perhaps the most beloved Yankee of them all go somewhere else and get his 3,000th hit and retire to another place’s cheers and under another team’s cap. Can’t happen. And Derek Jeter cannot possibly go play for the Rockies or the Brewers or the Red Sox or the Mets, it’s simply unimaginable for the man who still has the voice of Bob Sheppard introduce him. Can’t happen.

So the Yankees have to keep him, and Jeter has to stay, and both sides fully understand. But it is also becoming more and more clear by the day that Derek Jeter is declining pretty rapidly as a player.

The Topps Company produced 11 different cards of Lou Piniella as a Yankee, ranging from a capless 1974 traded card to his final 1984 card, but the one shown here is my favorite. Part of the wondrous 1980 set, the card shows Piniella near the completion of one of his typically sweet swings. Looking at the position of his bat, it appears that Piniella has just used his patented opposite field swing to drop a line drive (or a bloop) into right field. Action cards are always the most desirable to have, but especially when they give you a snapshot of a player doing something for which he is best known. And I’ll always remember Piniella best for that flat, line-drive swing that often seemed pointed directly toward right field.

I feel a little bit sad now that Piniella has retired from the game, a game that he has served for 50 years, in a decision that was expedited last month. We had all expected that “Sweet Lou” would finish out the season with the Cubs before stepping aside, but his elderly mother’s illness mandated that he retire immediately. Family comes first, a decision made easier when the Cubs are hopelessly lost in the National League Central. It’s not as if Piniella was abandoning a team in the midst of a pennant race; if anything, he may have given the franchise a lift by allowing the Cubs to evaluate their interim manager, the unusually pronounced Mike Quade, as a potential fulltime replacement for 2011.

In some ways, Piniella was one of the last of a breed: the colorful and fiery manager. He spoke bluntly with the press–often too bluntly–and argued fervently with umpires–sometimes too much so. But with those qualities, he brought some old-fashioned personality to the table, a mix of John McGraw and Billy Martin, with a little Fred Hutchinson tossed in for good measure. (Hutchinson was simultaneously loved and feared by his players. After giving up a game-ending home run, one of Hutchinson’s pitchers refused to walk back to the dugout to face his manager. He instead walked toward the center field exit.) So many of today’s new managers are cut out of the same mold; they engage in politically correct managerspeak, afraid to ever criticize their players for poor play, and they stand motionless, even emotionless, in the dugout, while passively observing the game in front of them. I have trouble telling many of the new breed managers apart from one another: Manny Acta, Bob Geren, Ken Macha, Brad Mills. I know that they’re all intelligent baseball men, but they’re also so bland, so indistinct, so seemingly interchangeable.

I guess maybe they have to be that way, especially if they don’t have strong major league playing resumes to fall back on, like Piniella. Managers have never had it more difficult than they have it today. The salaries of the players dwarf their pay so many times over that they have been rendered virtually powerless. They can’t publicly scold their players, whose egos simply will not permit it. And they’re afraid to say anything minutely controversial in their interviews with the press, out of the fear that their words could be misconstrued or twisted into the latest installment of a never-ending soap opera.

Piniella was different; he just didn’t care about repercussions. As a longtime player, he had a body of work to fall back on, 18 seasons as a big league outfielder, in case his players sassed him. Unlike previous targets like John Boles and Fredi Gonzalez, he had played the game at the highest level, with a couple of world championship rings as proof. Piniella didn’t worry about becoming embroiled in controversies; if anything, he seemed to embrace the excitement brought about by the conflict.

Now sometimes Piniella went too far. He picked fights with reporters when they posed legitimate questions. He kicked dirt on umpires, something that no arbiter, no matter how incompetent, should have to endure. He could come across as a spoiled, petulant child, like he did two years ago when he carried on about the “suffering” the Cubs had to endure having to play in the Hall of Fame Game in mid-June while in the midst of a pennant race. So yes, Piniella could take his act of fire and brimstone too far, sometimes making himself smaller in the process.

Yet, on the whole, Lou Piniella as a manager was good for baseball. He taught hitters like few others I’ve ever seen, with his prized students including Don Mattingly and Edgar Martinez. Though he often lacked patience with his pitchers, he motivated most of his players, through his energy and his constant call for professionalism. He won a ton of games along the way, culminating in an unlikely world championship for the 1990 Reds. He had a degree of success everywhere, with the one exception being Tampa Bay, where only Joe Maddon has found the way. And let’s not forget that he brought some much-desired verve and allure to the dugout, where the manager is still the boss, even if some want the players to be.

Good-bye, Lou. Enjoy that retirement. But don’t lose that personality.

Bruce Markusen writes “Cooperstown Confidential” for The Hardball Times.

My man Dimelo sent this separated-at-birth call to me last night. Not bad…

After the game yesterday, A’s starter, Dallas Braden was disappointed by the lack of Bronx Cheer he received:

I was expecting more,” said Braden, who verbally sparred with Alex Rodriguez early this season before throwing a perfect game against Tampa Bay on May 9. “They get an ‘F’ in my book.”
(N.Y. Daily News)

Here’s the thing, Dallas. Yankee fans don’t boo sub-.500 pitchers on losing teams. You don’t matter enough to boo. Now, that’s a diss.

You know the best thing about CC Sabathia?  Not the strikeouts, not the innings, not even the dominance.  It’s the fact that he’s a Sure Thing.  A suuuure thing.  The Yankees have been blessed with a lot of great starting pitchers over the past sixteen years, including guys like Jimmy Key, Andy Pettitte, David Cone, Roger Clemens, El Duque, Mike Mussina, and probably someone else who’s slipping my mind, but there’s never been anyone like Mr. Sabathia.  All those other guys were great and played the role of ace at one point or another, but Sabathia lives the part.  When he takes the mound, he takes the game by its throat and doesn’t let go until either Girardi pries the ball from his meaty left hand or Posada squeezes the final out.

All of that is always a good thing, but it’s never been more valuable than this season.  As the other four starters have struggled with injury and inconsistency, Sabathia has been a rock, showing his brilliance not only with dominant outings like Thursday afternoon but with a measured consistency that makes him the solid front-runner for this year’s Cy Young Award winner in the American League.  When you look at his game log, all of this becomes clear.

His last three months have been ridiculous.  From June 3 to September 2 his numbers look like this:

18 GS  15-1  131.1 IP  113 H  42 BB  111 K  2.39 ERA  1.18 WHIP

Which isn’t bad.  But even during these past three months, Sabathia’s strength is that he’s been consistently… really, really good.  On Thursday afternoon he was dominant.  After the game Jorge Posada said that Sabathia had had no-hit stuff, and it almost translated to an actual no-no.  Mark Ellis punched a ground ball to right field to lead off the second, and that would be the only base hit surrendered by Sabathia over his eight innings.  (Our old friend Jonathan Albaladejo would pitch a scoreless ninth to finish the shutout.)

Sabathia allowed only six balls to be hit in the air, three lazy flies to the outfield and three pop-ups to Mark Teixeira at first.  He found himself in trouble only twice, but quelled the uprising both times without breaking a sweat.  Shortstop Cliff Pennington laid down a bunt to lead off the third inning and ended up on second after Posada air-mailed the throw down the right field line.  Pennington arrived at third with just one out after a tapper to the mound, but CC wriggled free by popping up Rajai Davis and striking out Kurt Suzuki.

CC faced the minimum twelve batters over the next four innings, but made things momentarily interesting when he followed a hit batsman (Jeff Larish) with a walk to Landon Powell.  He held a 4-0 lead, but with two men on and no 0ne out, suspense entered the equation for the first time all afternoon.  But don’t worry.  A quick strikeout, a floater out to right, and a ground ball to second, and the mini-crisis was averted.

For their parts, the hitters gave Sabathia what he needed for his nineteenth victory.  Posada homered in the second for the first run, Curtis Granderson (fresh off the bench for Nick Swisher, whose sore foot kicked him out of the game after the first inning) homered for the second run in the sixth and added a two-run jack in the seventh to make it 4-0.  A string of hits in the eighth inning started by Lance Berkman (whose helicoptering bat almost decapitated Posada in the on-deck circle) and finished by Austin Kearns closed out the scoring at 5-0.

The story, though, was Sabathia.  The Sure Thing.  With Sabathia going once every five days in September and pitching two or three times in each playoff series, I like the Yankees’ chances.

Still summertime, still scorching in the Rotten Apple.

CC Sabathia v. Dallas Braden today as the Yanks look to sweep the A’s.

We’ll be rootin’.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

[Picture by Bags]

Simple. Light. Tasty. From Whats Gaby Cooking: