Notes from a Baltimore Sweep

The Can't Pitch Carl Experience--I had a bit of criticism to levy on the Yanks' broadcast team over on BP: Unfiltered this morning, over a bit of medical misinformation. Here's a taste:

I was watching last night’s Carl Pavano start–his third Major League start in the last three years–on replay, when, in the first inning, the YES Network broadcast team hit upon a huge pet peeve. They were explaining Tommy John surgery to the audience, and Ken Singleton claimed that pitchers throw harder after the elbow reconstruction surgery because “they use a tendon that is actually stronger than the ligament that was replaced.”

I don’t mean to single Singleton out–he’s a quality broadcaster, and often the voice of reason in the Yankees‘ booth–but the myth that Tommy John surgery turns pitchers into supermen is a bit dangerous. Technically, what Singleton said was right: the tendon is better than the ligament being replaced (or overlaid), but only because the ulnar collateral ligament that requires surgery as a result of being torn or ruptured, while the replacement tendon is intact.

As for the start itself, Pavano's pitching line (1 walk and 5 strikeouts in 5 innings) belied the lack of command he showed (2 hit batters, lots of deep counts). This is normal for guys coming back from Tommy John surgery, particularly those who come back relatively quickly (Pavano's surgery was about 14 months ago, if I recall correctly). Of course, if he's able to be effective past this first start, that just raises stakes as to when he'll get hurt again. Will it be tomorrow? The second inning of his next scheduled start, against the Blue Jays? How can you keep Can't Pitch Carl's fragile body protected from the cold, harsh world. Bubble wrap? Styrofoam packing peanuts?

On to Today's Game--It says a lot that after today's game, despite all the injury concerns and questions, Pavano's likely passed Darrell Rasner on the rotation depth chart. Since May, Rasner hasn't had any luck at all trying to string a pair of quality starts together. The wounded look on his face when Girardi pulled him in the fourth was brutal.

Pornstache Wars--What exactly is the mustache look that O's firstbaseman Kevin Millar is going for? Is it Oliver Hardy? Hitler?

Sometimes I Wonder if This is On the Up and Up--Yesterday's YES promos were touting Robinson Cano against the Orioles today. There didn't seem to be much reason for this: he doesn't hit particularly well at Camden Yards, or against the Orioles. Wasn't on a hot streak either. But in today's game, he clouts four hits, including two doubles and a go-ahead solo homer. Weird, huh?

Sabado Gigante!

A quick breakdown of the Yankees' Arbitration asked/offered, and some notes. In reverse order of how interesting they are:

Brian Bruney: Asks: $845,000, Offered: $640,000

In the bigger scheme of things, $205,000 doesn't seem like a lot of money in Yankeeland, so this should settle. But, looked at another way, the Yankees are offering about 24% less than Bruney's asking--so in his world, this is pretty big. A bigger question is whether there's any room for Bruney in the Yankee bullpen, regardless of what pricepoint he receives.

Chien Ming Wang -- Asks: $4.6MM, Offered: $4MM

This settles. Has to. I'd think that the Yanks would be well-served to try to make a long-term deal here, but if not, they're still only $600,000 away on a bargain of a contract.

Robinson Cano -- Asks: $4.55MM, Offered: $3.2MM

Now, at $1.35 million, these folks are far enough apart that you don't just say "split the difference." The Yanks' figure seems criminally low for a player who might be the best-hitting second baseman in the AL, over the last two years; but it's important to remember that Cano, like Wang, is a "Super Two" arbitration-eligible player, who has less than 3 full years' playing time. As such, he's at a lower level of arbitration than a player with more playing time--still, it's hard to see the Yanks winning this arbitration, or the settlement turning out closer to their figure. Still, it's worth a second look.

NOTES:

Nice profile of Humberto Sanchez over at the MiLB.com site. Prospects tend to drop off the radar after they've had surgery, and the Yanks seem to have more pitching prospects recently under the knife than anyone else. Good to keep up.

Wilson Betemit is back with the club, with a $1.15MM contract. It's been a while since the team had a useful, legitimate four-position utility infielder, and Betemit gives them that. Like a number of other Yankees, he's vulnerable against lefthanded pitching--that's why the team is dishing out minor league contracts to guys like Jason Lane, and should consider approaching Chris Shelton, if he makes it through waivers.

This year, Time Warner Cable has finally given me my ESPN Deportes, which means that I'm mainlining winter league ball. Right now, my ancestral team, Licey, is getting rolled by their arch-rivals, las Agulas del Cibao, in the Dominican League finals. The Aguilas are up 3-0 in a best of nine, on the strength of an offensive explosion. Yankee Edwar Ramirez is with Licey and he took a whupping in the first game of the series; former Yankees playing in the series include Luis Polonia patrolling the outfield and Randy Choate coming out of the bullpen for the Aguilas, Wil Nieves playing behind the plate and D'Angelo Jimenez backing up in the infield for Licey. Check it out, if you have the chance.

Cano K.O.

I guess I should start by telling the Red Sox trolls not to worry. The Yanks are still extremely, massively out of position to win the division. More importantly, the division is a bit irrelevant. Sure, it's nice to have home field advantage for a round or so, but you can go ahead and ask David Ortiz or Manny Ramirez if their rings are any less real because they earned them from the Wild Card spot.

So the game for the Yanks isn't really looking at Boston. It's Seattle, and Detroit, and to an extent Cleveland and L.A. So the big news for the Yanks is that they've won three in a row, while the M's were getting swept by the Angels, and the Tigers were dropping two of three in Kansas City. That the three wins came against the Red Sox is good--it's more of the tough part of the schedule out of the way--but it's not much more meaningful than that.

I mean, even after a sweep the Red Sox lead is five. The Yankees could sweep them again in their next series, in a couple of weeks at Fenway, and it still it wouldn't matter so long as the Sox stay even with the Yanks in all their other matchups.

But still, you have to think that Wednesday's win, and the 5 1/3 no-hit innings he threw at the Sox were big for Roger Clemens. It wasn't so many weeks ago that Sox fans were bragging about how happy they'd be to see the Rocket a broken down old man playing out the end of his career in front of...how was it that Bill Simmons put it? "Twelve thousand fans watching an under-.500 ballclub?"

So that must have felt nice for him. Today's win must have felt nice for the Wormkiller, pitching wonderfully with what looked like a sizeable Taiwanese contingent catching the afternoon action. This time, too, it looked like we were in for a special day, until the whole thing was undone by the Captain, who looked like he rushed a throw to catch the slow-as-molasses Mohel of Swat (as Steven Goldman once dubbed him) Kevin Youkilis.

It was definitely a good day for Robinson Cano, whose two dingers were pretty much the offense against Curt Schilling. After a lackluster first half (and that's putting it kindly) Cano's come on with a vengeance. He's one of the most perplexing pieces of this team--he obviously nonchallants some plays, some game, even. Then, just as you get frustrated with him, he'll put on some bizarre bit of hustle. Or he'll hit the ball like it was slow-pitch softball.

*****

On to the notes:

Schilling, to his credit, really did a good job aside from the blasts he gave up to Cano. Wang was just better, and the Yanks were able to put the game away against the vaunted Red Sox bullpen.

Yes, Youkilis was out in the seventh. YES kept on showing the rule on running outside the baseline to avoid a tag Rule 7.08--but I think they had an old copy of the rule book. (I can't be sure. I was watching the game with the sound off--my wife and I work at home together, and while I will sometimes turn on the TV during the workday, it would be a total breach of etiquette to subject her to Michael Kay.) Rule 7.08, which was re-written during the off-season, specifies that the player can't go more than three feet away from his baseline--that is, the straight line from the path he is running when the play happens to the base he's trying to reach. In the replays, you see Youkilis running on the outfield side of the baseline, then dramatically swerved all the way to the infield grass. If you consider where he started the play, Youkilis wasn't just barely out of the baseline, he was a good 5-6 feet out of his personal baseline.

To answer three other questions--yes, Alex Rodriguez should have gone for the around-the-horn DP, although that's 20/20 hindsight; yes, Youkilis was safe on his first set of evasive maneuvers, avoiding Giambi's tag on Jeter's error; and no, I don't think Joba was throwing at the Basepaths Ninja in the ninth inning. I don't have a psychic link to Chamberlain or anything, but his demeanor didn't seem like he was throwing at someone. He looked puzzled after both of the high/inside pitches--sure maybe he was asking himself "why didn't that hit him in the head?" but it just didn't look like that kind of party.

Speaking of Joba, can anyone tell me if there was theme music for this appearance? I'd read a disturbing story from Peter Abraham that Joba had requested "Indian Outlaw" by Tim McGraw as his entrance music. Based on the snippet of the song I heard on iTunes, I sure hope someone had the wisdom to veto that selection. This is New York baseball, not the Country Music Awards--I don't think that listening to McGraw drawl out a rhyme between "outlaw" and "choctaw" really send the message,"Here comes a complete and total badass to shut your offense down."

Yes, I know Joba's a Native American, and likely a country music fan, to boot. Quite honestly, I think things got out of control when the position players got to pick the music that plays before their at bats. It puts the whole thing backward--the music at the ballpark is for the fans, not the players. Given his choice, do you think that Mariano Rivera would ever have selected "Enter Sandman" as his music. He's made it clear that he didn't know from Metallica before hearing it every day on his run in from the bullpen.

Whoever chose the music for him, made a good choice. I hope someone makes a good choice in entrance music for Joba. I keep thinking that if he wants to honor his heritage with his entrance music, there has to be a song that would actually get a New York crowd excited, that accomplishes that purpose, too. I just couldn't think of any cool pop or rock songs about Native Americans. If you have any ideas in that regard, use the comments section (that's what it's there for!).