In New York and goin' to the game tonight. Woo-hoo!

From the Craig Calcaterra piece you linked, Alex:

Pearce was with the Yankees earlier this season, where he hit .318 with 11 home runs and 30 RBI in limited play before being traded to the Orioles.

Ummmm.
Really? Seems like we'd remember that.
Ohhhh, those Yankees!

Boatzilla!
Enjoy. Just think, some day you'll tell everyone you were there for the beginning of the Dave Phelps era.

So the Yankees are going to the birds?

[0] Bummer about Laird---I really thought he had a chance to hang on as a back-up corner guy. I assume the Yankees are not satisfied with McGehee?

And congratulations to Erin & David Robertson on the birth of their first kid today. Lohud is reporting David is available tonight.

Wow, just a few minutes late but Mission Impossible had an efficient first, huh?

[6] Must be a relief for Dave and especially Erin, huh?

(Best I could do. I'll keep thinking.)

LoHud doesn't say whether it's a son or daughter.

OK.

He's baaaaaaaaack!

Good to see you, Rob. I thought that was you this weekend.

Robbie golfed that one. FOUR!

Not ok.

I have to admit, I do not find Granderson pleasant to watch in CF.

If Phelps consistently started that comeback pitch at the knee of left handed hitters and have it hit the inside corner, well, that'd be nasty.

Hm, three strikeouts and a homer in two innings.
Hughesian.

Barehand = bad

A boy, okay.
Ohhhhhh, cute.

I think I'll call him Sledge.

[8] Can't think of a rejoinder.

[17] That works for a girl too. Needs a sibling so she can be Sister Sledge.

Speaking of bare handing the ball, did anyone catch Werth's catch from yesterday.
Pretty neat. Kevin Mitchell's was better, though.
http://tinyurl.com/9bfxqnl

Ibanez has been better overall than I anticipated---though that's not saying much. Still, it's hard to believe he's the Yankees could come up with.

[19] Hm, yeah, maybe better save 'Sledge' in case of a girl.

Okay, well, 'Jack' is obvious. 'Trip' works. 'Thor' would be tough to live up to.

[22] Why no Jack? Too common?

The summer has dulled my reading comprehension.

Ugly couple of games for Jeter.

[23] Jack = no Jack, interesting.

Leiter's kid is named 'Jack', apparently! Yes, very trendy, don't you think?
What's Li'l Hamma's actual name: 'Luke', right? Somewhat trendy, but biblical.

Question:

Blue Jays announcers have been talking up Omar Vizquel as a surefire hall of famer. Thoughts?

[27] In the tradition of Ozzie and Brooks Robinson, huh?

I think people who watched him a lot will be more inclined to vote for him; stat guys will surely line up strongly against.

[27] I've heard that talk elsewhere. Don't have his numbers in front of me. I guess he gets in but not a sure thing.

[29] He's got a lot of hits---around 2800, I think.

[28] He had such a long career that his counting numbers make him look borderline. And he was impressive to watch in the field. But his lifetime OPS is .688, and his best years were only around .750.

Robbie!

[30] 2869. That's a lot of hits. But at the same time he's been a shit awful offensive player, arguably worse than Ozzie Smith. I guess it hinges on his defensive reputation.

Hah, told ya. [10]

How are his defensive stats, as poorly as we understand them.

Maybe in the tradition of Rabbit Maranville?

[33] Worse given their run environments, anyway. And Oz was special.

It's like target practice.

[35] Hm, very good. There is no UZR for Oz, right? Because they just don't have the data. But Vizquel didn't pile up a whole lot of WAR (for a HoF infielder), so his defense as measured sabermetrically didn't overwhelm his weak bat. Brooks Robinson had double the WAR, just to give you a point of comparison.

[38] What's his grittiness factor? And good teammate rating.

So, I almost don't want to ask this question but: will anyone here be rooting for Josh Beckett to pitch well for the Dodgers?

Besides me, because I will.

He's starting in a few minutes at Coors.

Hey, don't lose it now, David.

Nothing comes easy. FFS!

Goddam it.

If Phelps and Ian Kennedy had a pissy face contest it would go down to the wire.

do we ever shout out a team right after an inning we score?

Geez!

Three hits, two of them out of the park. Only one walk, but unfortunately it was aboard for one of the blasts. Five K in five innings.

Strange performance.

Score isn't going to stay this way. My touchpad is acting up, mostly due to the heat. See you on the flip side.

I missed two taters from Cano! Wahhh!

[46] Hey, I think I had exactly the same problem. MacBook Air? (If you're still around.)

I had to get mine replaced. (Under warranty, though.)

If that dude spider manned the wall again I would have flipped. Atta boy, Swish!

[47] But you got to see that!

[38] I wonder if Vizquel has helped or hurt himself by lingering around as a part time player. He was a full time SS through 2008, when he ended the year with 2598 H and a career 84 OPS+. By playing another 5 seasons, he has added another 271 H, which has gotten him closer to the all-important 3000 H plateau, but his career OPS+ has dropped to 82.

[51] I think there's a real huge gap between Ozzie and Vizquel..maybe my memory is hazy but the Wizard was the greatest defensive player of the moder era, right?

[52] That's what everyone says, but I don't really remember him (those were the pre-MLB.tv days and he played in the NL). I watched a lot of Vizquel when he was in Cleveland (I lived in Ohio), and now that he is in Toronto and they talk him up, I hear a lot about him.

I remember him being very good defensively, with a flair for spectacular plays, but I don't have a good sense of just how good he *really* was. Offensively he was mostly dreadful, but he is helped by a .272 career BA, which doesn't *look* so bad. And to be fair, he did walk a bit, too.

[53] I watched a lot of Mets games in those days on WWOR (back when Timmah Mac was still a good annoucner!) and the Wizard was ridiculous. And on turf with a faster ball!

I'm not opposed to Vizquel and "compilers" in geenral though. It's might impressive to play baseball at that level for so many years, a la Harold Baines.

Beckett's second pitch left the building.

Hardball Times gives Ozzie Smith 133 runs saved through 1986. That's only half his career, but presumably the better half. So he saved far, far more runs than Vizquel (who I think saved about 70).

These are crude measures, but the difference seems to be enormous.

Apparently the Yankees have adopted a sort of basebrawl (http://tinyurl.com/9n2jpo3) tactic for knocking out opposing pitchers this evening.

Giving Phelps the hook? Hm. I'm not sure I agree with this.

Cripes, it's shoot the pitcher night at the stadium.

Smart, Cody.

Yeah, this is working out well.

I just checked: 88 pitches for Phelps. Seriously??

Boy, platoon splits for Cody are so easy to believe when you see that weird delivery.

[62] Well, he hasn't been a starter very long.

I tried to look up his inning splits, which tell a really scary story about the fifth and sixth innings, but of course it's a very small sample. And late innings are useless because BR doesn't separate the relief appearances. (And anyway I don't think he's ever pitched even the seventh before as a starter, has he?)

[64] True, but he threw 95 last time out and 78 the time before. If 80+ pitches is his limit, why even let him start the inning?

Surely he's pitched into the 7th in MiL.

[64] He went 6.2 against the Red Sox earlier this month.

[66] Okay, forgot that one.
I dunno, maybe Girardi doesn't quite see him as a guy who can go deep into a game. Or maybe there's some reason to think he deteriorates fast.

[67] or maybe Girardi doesn't want to risk him imploding a game and having his confidence hit.

[67] Yeah, I get that, and I guess I can see the ol' "steal a couple of outs" mentality. On the other hand, I truly hate when a pitcher is going more or less fine and gives up a bloop or a 43 hooper and then gets the instahook. The hit that knocked Phelps out was not well struck, but it was the excuse for Girardi to go to his mix-n'-match binder middle relief binder, which predictably backfired.

I haven't followed so closely this year, but Girardi *seems* to be rather too cutesy this season.

[68] OK, but again, if that's the thinking, why let him start the inning? And why yank him after a squib base hit? Couldn't that hurt his fragile ego?

I was slightly worried that D-Rob was going to have a hard time concentrating. But, so far, so good.

Yeah, not great location...

Baby needs a new pair of shoes!

Hammered.

He doesn't really need great location.

OK, I have a comment awaiting moderation. It comprises a single sentence, a famous phrase used in old movies by men playing dice games or the like, suggesting that a small child requires a piece or foot apparel that has not been worn before. Followed by an exclamation point.

Now, why did that get spam filtered??

Posting on the Banter...it's like rouxlette!

Hit a pitcher, win a prize!

[70] doesn't mean his ego is fragile. Managing confidence is a big part of management. I don't know many people who don't struggle with confidence now and then.

This is ridiculous!

this pitcher hitting thing is out of control. i've never seen anything like it.

[74] I think it's very highly sensitive to gambling phrases. Probably because of those idiot sites that spam blogs like crazy.

[80] I guess so. Who woulda thunk that bâbê nêdz a nu pear uv shus would trigger the filter.

[74][79] I'm dopey this morning.. what is the phrase? Give us a better hint.

[80] Of course! D'oh!

[77] Of course I was being facetious. But might it not also hurt a player's confidence to yank him at the first sign of trouble? Especially when he's "proven" that he can go deeper (into the pitch count) against a superior offensive team?

Look, we can play armchair psychologist and speculate, coming up with many theories as to why Girardi would yank Phelps there. But from a "normal" baseball perspective, as I see it, it seemed pretty premature. And it's it not like his matchup maneuver really worked out, in retrospect.

(Monkeypants, keep in mind that your numbering is off now.)

Why the hell didn't the pitcher throw to third? Very odd.

[80] Really am dopey this morning..my first thought reading that was "Wow, monkeypants knows Turkish."

I'm going to get a fruit juice.. Let's go Yankees!

[83] yeah i was just offering a possible explanation. obviously i'm not Girardi so don't know his reasoning.

Omar played for 24 years and has a carrer WAR of 40. That's barely MLB ready. Yes, WAR may not be fair to a defensive specialist, but still, Vizquel isn't within sniffing distance of the HOF. In terms of his longevity, in his last SIX years, he has a cummulative WAR under 0! Career OPS+ of 82.

I wonder how many HOFers played on 6 different teams?

SOIS JEUNE ET TAIS TOI.

[84] Ah yes. Between the comment in moderation and the repeated violations of space-time, I get pretty confused.

ok just wanted to see if the spam filter was xenophobic.

Many years ago we had a comment that got lost. Nevr figured it out. The 'missing number' became a meme for a long time.

A walk is not ideal here...

Wow, that was some slider. Damn. He does have some good pitches.

[90] haha, I remember that...well, the incident, but not the number or the poster.

[92] We never knew who the poster was.
I wish I could remember what the number was. It was a 3-digit number, right?

[93] This maybe before my time..no memory of it. What happened exactly?

Ouch...thats' a ball someone not-38-year-old-Jeter gets to.

Mother fucker!

Ahh, Soriano's recent Wetteland impersonation finally gets the best of him.

fuck