We made it to Friday!
- Wang stays in the rotation . . . for now:
Despite having a 21.61 ERA as a starter, Yankees right-hander Chien-Ming Wang is expected to remain in the rotation, a source told ESPN The Magazine’s Buster Olney.
He is scheduled to start Wednesday against the Washington Nationals, a source told ESPN.
Manager Joe Girardi suggested Thursday that Wang would lose his place in the rotation if he did not pitch well on Wednesday.
“As I told him, it’s important that he has a real good start,” Girardi said to The New York Times. “He needs to show us that he’s back and he’s fully back, because at some point, production is important.”
- Wang has been consistently inconsistent:
In the bullpen and before games, Eiland said he likes what he sees. Then the game starts and Wang loses his consistent arm slot.
“I can’t go stand behind the mound with him during the game,” Eiland said. “He’s got to go out there.”
The Yankees could do worse than call on the former pitching coach Ron Guidry as a troubleshooter, as Peter Abraham suggested on his blog during the game. It’s hard to argue with the results from Wang during Guidry’s tenure: consecutive 19-win seasons and a strong working relationship with the pitching coach, which seems to be missing now. Maybe another set of eyes and a familiar, friendly face could help. At this point, it couldn’t hurt.
- Yankees’ streaming deal analysis:
After years of negotiations and infighting, local MLB games are finally coming to a PC near you. That is, as long as you live in New York, subscribe to Cablevision, and root for the Yankees. The team, via the YES Network, signed a deal with Cablevision earlier this spring to stream games online within the team’s local broadcast area at some point this year, a first for any major American sports team. There will presumably be a subscription fee, and the games will likely be shown on yankees.com, yesnetwork.com, and cablevision.com.
. . . This deal could set an enormously important precedent, especially for small market teams: how much local digital revenue will be shared among the thirty teams, via MLBAM? The company is supplying the technology, and possibly even paying the streaming costs, so it certainly seems entitled to a sizable fee.
There haven’t been many hints yet, but 15-25 percent for BAM seems like a reasonable guess—after all, the Yankees probably had to convince MLB to allow this deal in the first place. The higher it is, the better it will be for small market teams, who could really end up benefiting from this arrangement in five to ten years. . . .
Poll time!
[poll id=”32″]
- Hideki Matsui turns 35 today. Now in his seventh (and likely last) season with the Bombers, Matsui has compiled a line of .292/.369/.478 with 120 HRs and 530 RBI in 792 games.
- On this date in 1928, Lou Gehrig collected 14 bases with two triples and two home runs in a 15 – 7 victory over the White Sox.
See you all on Monday!
"On this date in 1928, Lou Gehrig collected 14 bases with two triples and two home runs in a 15 - 7 victory over the White Sox."
They sure don't make 'em like they used to...
aj should be on that poll
[2] If they were going to make him into a 3 or 4 inning super reliever, then I might go with that.
The more I think about, the more I wish Girardi would handle the pitching staff like Stengel did in the 50s - sub guys in and out from the rotation to the pen as needed, mix and match to maximize appearances (eg, AJ pitches against teams likely to hack, but avoids teams likely to be patient), and drop a reliever (coughVERAScough) to add another bench bat.
Never gonna happen though. Sigh.
On a totally different note - this is for anyone who bemoans the lack of players doing the little things - from Rob Neyer's blog this morning:
"In 1977 and '78, batters moved the runner -- runner on second base, nobody out -- to third base with a grounder to the right side 12 percent of the time.
In 1987 and '88, they moved them over 13 percent of the time.
If 1997 and '98, they moved them over 12 percent of the time.
In 2007 and '08, they moved them over 12 percent of the time."
BTW - holy crap, 810 posts last night? I shut my computer down with 470 posts or so, and turned the game off after Scrappy McGritty walked and I saw Girardi headed to the mound. "OK," I said to my wife, "he's pulling CC and bringing Mo in. Time for bed, no worries here." Whoops . . .
[3] Nice. I might bookmark that entry, Shaun. The chance that it comes in useful is, well, high (according to my advanced sabermetric analysis).
Nice pic, I must admit
http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2009/06/12/alg_damon-reacts.jpg
Ah, well, there's time when even we of the 'long season' and 'a win over anyone is a win' and 'season doesn't = playoffs' and 'we're still a playoff team as of today' gets tougher. Last night was painful and lingers this morning. I hated wasting such a terrific start AND a major blow by Alex. I have NOT (per usual) checked the monstrous game thread, but it felt to me like a case of no trust in his bullpen by Girardi plus a memory of CC last year throwing 130 a game down the stretch. It was rainy, it was Fenway, it isn't the stretch. I'd have rather seen Aceves and Coke try for 3 outs together, and use Mo for 4 if they couldn't deliver. Obviously that's second guessing in the worst way, because CC was really lights-out to the 8th..
Me, I say 'I'm taking my ball and going home.' We'll see how this weekend plays out.
[5] In light of some of the conversations that I skimmed/skipped in last night's game thread, I thought you in particular might enjoy that one, RI.
This one, from the great Posnanski, however, is for Mattpat (wherever he is).
Something to take our minds off of last night's loss. (Thanks, Pete Abe!)
She's wearing the wrong cap, though. But its not a bad one.
[1] Not before or since, IMHO.
[7] All those clichés are true. However, you can't really follow a baseball season that way, at least not as a die hard, which most of here are.
Baseball is such a long season, that it's easy to say things like "it's only three games"; "the season is a marathon"; and "we're still only 2 games out". Ironically, I think the opposite is true. Because baseball is such a long season, you have to hone in on some battles within the battle. That could be games against a rival or even individual and team statistics. Otherwise, the baseball season would become like an NBA game...just tune in starting in late August and see how the pennant race plays out.
One reason I have never been a fan of the “World Series or bust" mantra is because the regular season takes up six months, while the post season only takes up one. As a result, there is a much greater opportunity for enjoyment and disappointment in the regular season. Well, 0-8 against Boston, a mark that will stand until August, really takes away from the enjoyment of the season. It stands there like a big fat Scarlet Letter on the chest of every Yankee fan. Regardless of how well the team plays from now until the next Boston series, that 0-8 brand will still be there as a reminder.