Week In Review: Hurtin'

Record for the Week: 3-3, 31 runs allowed, 20 runs scored
Overall Record: 21-14 (1st place tie, for real this time)

Player of the Week: Chien Ming Wang did a great job in his one start of the week, eight shutout innings without the benefit of a strikeout. He's the PotW, rare for a starter who only started once. Posada and A-Rod kept the offense running this week, although both had defensive lapses that aided Randy Johnson meltdowns: Rodriguez had two errors in Tuesday's loss against the Red Sox, and yesterday the A's ran at will against the Posada/Johnson battery.

Dregs of the Week: Things aren't perfect with the Yankee offense. Johnny Damon is banged up after yet another outfield wall collision, he only managed a .519 OPS for the week. Bernie Williams's OPS was better (.582) but his performance was worse (.182 OBP) at a time when the club needs him to step up. He did hit a big home run, however. As much as I complain about the Yanks not giving Andy Phillips a shot, Phillips is showing nothing in the scattered at bats he's able to scrounge up. Fans around the blogosphere have gone to the matt for Phillips, it'd be nice if he met us half way by getting a few hits in his half-dozen plate appearances per week.

But the dregs story isn't about the dead horse (Williams) or the banged-up mule (Damon). It's not even about the fishy injury to Tanyon Sturtze (20.25 ERA last week) or the sneaking suspicion that the faerie tale is over for Aaron Small (8.10 ERA last week). It's about the pitching staff's titular ace, Randy Johnson. Given two starts last week, Johnson rolled up two losses, surrendering a total of 11 runs (six earned) in nine and two-thirds innings of work on the week. Every indicator on Johnson is down--his strikeouts are down, his walks are up, he's hittable. For a guy who reigned for a decade with intimidation, batters have looked terribly comfortable at the plate during Johnson's Yankee tenure.

There are three options here. The one we discuss most often around here is that Johnson is injured. Since the Unit's got chronic back issues, and bone-on-bone in one knee, "hurt" might be an adjective that always applies to him, and will for the rest of his career. Johnson's had problems with his glove shoulder, and had a supposedly precautionary MRI on his $13 million left shoulder.

If Johnson's hurt, that might just be the best-case scenario. At least we'd have some idea what he's up against, face the possibility that rest and rehab, or perhaps some form of surgery can repair Johnson to his previous form. If there is no cure, at least the Yanks might get some insurance dough for the tens of millions of dollars still owed on his contract.

Option two is what I call the Contreras Situation, or "It's Not You, It's Me." In the Contreras situation, a player has special coaching needs to keep his mechanics in order, or his emotions in check, or both. Jay Jaffe mentions this possibility over at Futility Infielder. I say it's too soon to condemn Ron Guidry's tenure as pitching coach; but it's possible that Johnson and the Yanks simply are a bad match, like the Yanks and Jose Contreras were, or the Yanks and Javier Vazquez.

In that case, things are bad, but at least there's the possibility of mitigating the damage. It's unlikely that the Yanks will make the changes necessary to make an underperforming player great again, but if the Randy Johnson who dominated the game in 2003 is still in there, somewhere, some other club might approach the Yanks in trade, to try to get a future Hall of Famer on the cheap.

Option three, which is broached by Mike Celizik over on MSNBC (and which I mentioned in comments early last week) is that Johnson is simply old. According to Celizik, Johnson's velocity is consistently down 4 MPH, which looks about right. Now, that's plenty more velocity than many pitchers have, certainly more than most lefties. But it's probably not enough speed to be Randy Johnson. We've seen with Mike Mussina this season that a pitcher can re-invent himself to stay effective with age, but Johnson's a different animal than the analytical types, like Mussina, Maddux, or even Curt Schilling.

Johnson finally got his act together in the majors when he stopped trying to hit spots while simultaneously throwing the ball as hard as humanly possible. By easing off the gas pedal, he found better control and movement. Maybe what's the matter with Johnson now is that he's lost velocity, and the only way he can get back up to the mid 90's is by overthrowing the ball, like he did back in his 100 walk-per-season days.

Any way, the Yanks have to hope for Options One or Two, because to date, no one has found a cure for getting older.

The C/P Ratio: Stands at 5/7 on the week, overall 33/38. Only facing one lefty this week will do that, but it's also that the introduction of Melky Cabrera, as well as the renewed importance of Bernie Williams and Bubba Crosby, has changed the Cairo/Phillips dynamic. The team needs to find out which--if any--of the three outfielders can step into Matsui's shoes, immediately. The only way to find out is to give the outfield candidates plate appearances by the bushelful, and hope that one or more of them step up.

Story of the Week: Yeah, after reading all that, we still have a story of the week. Of course, it's the injury to Hideki Matsui.

Let's be brief. Despite 120 good plate appearances in Columbus this season, nobody's a Melky Cabrera believer; ditto for Bubba Crosby. Nothing that Bernie Williams has done this season suggests a resurgence. Even if one of those players was able to deliver the goods, the Yanks would still need help somewhere in the lineup.

Realizing this, folks are already complaining about the names that the Yanks are rumored to be interested in to replace Matsui, who can't be counted on to return (and be effective) this season. They're talking about Shannon Stewart (God, no...), Torii Hunter (woulda been nice before we got Damon), Bobby Abreu (even more of a pipe dream than the others).

This preemptive crying has got to stop. First of all, this is all just talk, and some of those names look to be more matters of reporters' imaginations than anything else (we were hearing these names within hours of Matsui hitting the turf on Tuesday. Second--since we're talking trades, here--it's only fair to point out that the Yanks still don't have much of anything the Twins or Phillies would want. Eric Duncan's got a .533 OPS at AAA. Philip Hughes should be untouchable, and might not be enough to land Abreu all on his own. Because just about everyone on the major league roster has such high price tags, you really don't have many tradeable chips--there's Cano, Wang, maybe Cabrera. Possibly Sheffield if you ate some salary. What else?

The point is, the Yanks couldn't make a trade this winter, when they were desperate for an outfielder and Coco Crisp and Jason Michaels were available. Now that things are much worse, do you think it's going to be any easier? Do you think the Sox won't do whatever's necessary to block the Yanks from making a move?

The fact is, the Yanks don't need to acquire a star outfielder. They, of all teams, would do pretty well picking up a complementary-type player. Think the Royals are having buyer's remorse about Reggie Sanders? Or Matt Stairs? Maybe if Craig Wilson's batting average dips another ten points, the Pirates might be willing to deal him at an affordable price? Maybe Raul Ibanez is available?

Are any of these great players? Heck no, all except Wilson are pretty old, and each is flawed. But they'd fit with this team, which doesn't need a great leftfielder to succeed. What this team, which is old and injury prone, needs is some versatility, the type you don't get from a star player. It needs folks who can play a role, and who aren't so expensive that you're forced to play them if they don't work out.

Hideki Matsui's games played streak never really resonated with me, for the reason that nobody cares how many consecutive games Cal Ripken or Lou Gehrig played in the minors before starting their major league streaks. But his reliability made it easy for Yankee fans to take him for granted--kind of like he was a left field public utility.

Now that he's gone, his absence will be felt. But the Yanks can certainly survive this, so long as they don't panic.

When the Heck Did You Sneak Back In?

Missed today's game, for which I had tickets, because 1) mom takes priority over baseball and 2) today was a rare double-feature, with Mother's Day falling on my brother's birthday.

So I've been busy. I didn't blog about yesterday's win--the A's managing to make Jaret Wright look like a decent pitcher--or Friday's gem of a game by Chien Ming Wang. I didn't even get to see today's matchup, yet another bad loss for Randy Johnson. But when I looked at the box score at the end of the day, I saw a presence that I thought banished from the Major Leagues.

Yes, Scott Erickson "contributed" to the A's Mother's Day 7-1 win, which took the brooms out of the hands of the Yankee Stadium faithful. Erickson pitched an inning and two thirds in the game, didn't allow a hit but was charged with a run after turning the game over to Ron Villone with two on and two out in the eighth.

How the heck did Scott Erickson get on the roster? I remembered that he'd gotten an NRI to Spring Training, but had the impression that he'd sucked. What gave me that impression? Only the fact that Scott Erickson has sucked for many, many, years.

Here's some stats on Erickson, starting as of his age 30 season:

Year Team(s) IP ERA ERA+ WARP
1999 BAL 230.3 4.81 100 5.0
2000 BAL 92.7 7.87 60 -0.3
2002 BAL 160.7 5.55 79 1.0
2004 NYM/TEX 27.0 6.67 72 0.0
2005 LAD 55.3 6.02 67 0.3

Now, he lost 2001 and 2003 to injury. Still, what part of this record makes anyone think this guy can hold down a major league job? In addition to the 55 plus bad innings Erickson put in with the Dodgers last year, he pitched another 40 innings in the Pacific Coast League--with an ERA of 7.20.

What'd Erickson do to merit a call-up this time? Well, first of all, Tanyon Sturtze went on the DL with a sudden case of shoulder tendonitis. You'll pardon a little cynicism, but over the course of the past six weeks, nobody mentioned Sturtze being injured. He just sucked. So it might be a case where he's suffering from "he sucks" and he's willing to go on the DL rather than getting released.

Back to Erickson. Looking at the pitchers at AAA Columbus, let's play a little game called "Player A, Player B":

IP H R ER BB K ERA
Player A 23.3 14 2 2 11 30 0.77
Player B 20.3 20 7 6 3 21 2.66
Player C 17.0 11 10 8 11 11 4.24

The player who gets called up to replace Sturtze is (no surprise here) Player C. Player B is Mark Corey, a former major leaguer who's the Clippers' closer. Player A, of course, is the perennially-disrespected reliever, Colter Bean. Just based on their performance in the minors, both Players A and B should get a call-up well before the ballclub gives Player C a shot.

But obviously, the Yankees organization doesn't want anyone to think that it's a meritocracy. What on earth they think Erickson can do, that Bean can't, I have no idea. Bean's on the 40 man roster, he's pitching well--if he doesn't get the call in this situation, then when will the call come?

Back tomorrow with the Week in Review.

Review: Mission: Impossible: III

There's two stories here, one about the mid-career crisis of a Hollywood star, and the other about the summer's first big blockbuster film.

The first story is kind of stupid. Tom Cruise always enjoyed a charmed existence in that his personal life was never a bigger story than his career; his publicists always kept the public eye fixed on Cruise on the screen--even as he married and divorced Nicole Kidman (albeit, before Kidman became a perennial Oscar contender), converted from Catholicism (he was once going to be a priest) to Scientology, and suffered all sorts of rumors that he's gay.

Now, like Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, and Jennifer Lopez, Cruise is points in the Bill Simmons's Us Weekly Fantasy League first, a superstar actor second. And not in a good way. "Jumping the couch" may just replace "jumping the shark," in our cultural vocabulary.

None of this has any relevance to Mission: Impossible: III, a film more offensive for its overuse of colons than for Tom Cruise's views on Scientology. Actually, the colons might be the only offensive thing about M:I:III, which is a bit of faint praise. The film's a competent popcorn diversion, consisting of chases, gunfights, explosions, and stunts. As they say on the shampoo bottle, "Lather, rinse, repeat." M:I:III exists entirely in the moment, and is forgotten almost as soon as the end credits start to roll.

The requisite plot summary: Cruise's super-spy/aerialist, Ethan Hunt, has gone all Maverick-at-the-end-of-Top-Gun on us, and given up the field for a job training recruits at the Impossible Missions Academy. He's even gone domestic, and gotten engaged to a nurse who thinks that he's a civil servant traffic consultant. Going back to the world outside the movie for just one second, it's a bit unfortunate that Michele Monaghan, who plays the nurse, is a dead ringer for Cruise's baby-momma--just a bit sexier, for certain.

If we simply count the number of summer action films about spies (lots) against the ones about teachers (few) and traffic consultants (none, I think), we get a fair feeling that this won't last. Needless to say, up shows Cruise's spy middle manager, Billy Crudup, to tell Hunt that even though he tries to get out, they keep pulling him back in!

It's not even as dramatic as that, but it brings up a question: if you're constantly meeting with your superiors, what's the point of receiving those mission briefings that will self-destruct in five seconds? Throughout the Mission: Impossible series, Cruise has always brought in Hunt's bosses, usually getting pretty high-profile actors for those roles (Henry Czerny in the first film; Anthony Hopkins in the second; Crudup and Laurence Fishburne in this installment). Now I know that all pretense that this Mission: Impossible has anything to do with the classic TV series went out the window in the second film; all that's left now is the self-destructing tapes, latex masks, and occassional use of the Lalo Shifrin theme music.

But one of the cooler things about the Mission: Impossible TV series was that Jim Phelps was pretty much his own boss. The Impossible Missions Force was America's introduction to freelance work: your employer communicates just by sending you notes; if you screw up, they'll put it all on you; if you need any help, hire it yourself, and they're your problem--the employer isn't going to be withholding social security or paying workers' comp for your guys. I'm not the world's foremost expert on the original series, but I don't remember Jim's superiors ever coming by to chew him out or tell him how to do his job.

Another cool thing about the original series was that they relied less on guns and violence than on deception and cunning. Usually, the gang didn't actually kill anyone, but rather tricked various bad guys into doing each other in. But you can't have the typical summer blockbuster action set pieces that way, so subtlety's out the window in M:I:III.

Most of the gunfire revolves around, but doesn't actually involve, a hammy and vengeful arms dealer, played by 2005 Best Actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and a super-secret...something. The fact that we never discover what the secret thing does is part of director JJ Abrams' contribution to the film, as M:I:III is constantly winking at the audience. We have a scene where Cruise rides a motorcycle onto an airfield that is straight out of Top Gun, a character laughing aloud over the absurd name of Hunt's super-secret agency, and the film's best action sequence involves an aerial assault on a bridge straight out of James Cameron's True Lies.

In the end, Abrams seems to say, what does it matter what the McGuffin everyone's fighting over actually is? It's really just an excuse for an action movie, chases and explosions. And that about says it all. Very mild recommend.

[Expletive Deleted]

At one point tonight, I just started dropping f-bombs. It was an f-carpet-bombing.

La Chiquita looked at me and said, "What's going on, you're scaring me."

"[Expletive deleted]" I replied, apologetically. I was like Hugh Grant at the beginning of Four Weddings and a Funeral. All I could say was the f-word; it had to stand in for all the rest of my vocabulary.

It started shortly after I got home from work. I worked late, so that was around the fifth inning.

No sooner had I walked through the door than Shawn Chacon loaded the bases, which meant Joe Torre had to go to the bullpen way early.

"[Expletive deleted]," I said, pensively. The man Torre summoned from the bullpen was Scott Proctor, once a feared option, but now, because he struck out Manny Ramirez in last night's game, and because Tanyon Sturtze is on the Joe-Torre-wants-to-wring-your-neck list, Joe's go-to guy. Like anyone else, shortly after the manager decides that Proctor's one of Torre's guys, Proctor will now be thrown out there every other day, whenever there's a tough moment, until he spits the bit or his arm falls off. Proctor got out of the jam, which meant he and Torre were happy, but his right arm was probably sad.

At that point, the Yanks led, 3-1.

At the end of the inning, they show the next three batters up, and I see that Bernie Williams is hitting between A-Rod and Posada. It doesn't really click, it just sounds like a picked out of a hat lineup.

During the largely impotent Yankees half of the inning, I see the MLB.com headline, which says, Matsui Injured, Streak Ends. It says that Matsui was injured in the top of the first inning, but seems more interested in the fact that Matsui's consecutive games streak--the one he began in Japan--had come to an end (since a player has to play a complete half-inning for a streak to continue, Matsui's game tonight counts as the game when the streak was broken.

Then, in the top of the sixth, with Proctor still in the game, the new ace in the bullpen gave up three consecutive hits, causing the Yanks to expend three more pitchers--Mike Myers, Sturtze, and Villone, just to escape the sixth. If you think that didn't earn a few expletives, you simply don't know me.

In the bottom of the sixth, the Yanks' C-boys--Cano, Cairo (starting at first, naturally), and Crosby--went down in order before Tim Wakefield's knuckler. In the top of the seventh, for some reason, the Yanks decided to show the video of Matsui getting injured.

The video is sickening. Matsui runs full-bore, trying to make a catch low against the grass. As he does so, he tumbles, falling on his glove hand with all his body's weight. As Matsui lies on the grass, he lifts up his arm, and the glove hand just hangs, flopping limply for a moment before Matsui braces his wrist with his throwing hand.

The YES Network is showing this over and over and over again, injury porn, as it were, and I'm watching with the sound off, so I have no idea what point they're trying to make by playing this clip on continuous loop. While the YESmen are showing Matsui writhe, the Red Sox are rallying, Alex Gonzalez--the much-maligned, former Marlin Gonzalez, hitting a ground rule double on a ball misplayed down the rightfield line by Bernie Williams. With two out and two on, secondbaseman Mark Loretta grounds one to the shortstop hole, which the Captain fields from his knees. Holding the ball means accepting the tying run scoring, so Jeter unleashes an off-line throw, which Cairo almost saves with a catch-and-tag up the first base line. The runner, however, knocks the ball out of Cairo's hand and the go-ahead run scores.

That's when I lost control of the f-bomb. There was simply nothing else I could say. The game, at least those parts of it I caught, was played by the Yankees with an air of desperation, despite the fact that they were the home team, with an alleged advantage. With the lead gone, the game went down the tubes. Mariano Rivera gave up another run in the ninth for a 5-3 final.

[Expletive deleted] it all.

I Guess We're Un-Tied Now...

MESSENGER: Mr. Johnson, I have a package for you.

RANDY JOHNSON: Who sent it? Not to sound paranoid, but a lot of people aren't fans of mine.

MESSENGER: It's from the Red Sox, sir. I'm sure they're not what you'd call fans, but I'm pretty sure you'll want what's in this package.

JOHNSON: I will, will I? Well, don't be shy, tell me what it is!

MESSENGER: I didn't want to have to say it aloud, but it's your backside, sir.

JOHNSON: What?

MESSENGER: Your backside. Your rump, sir. Your butt.

JOHNSON: Y'know, I thought my pants felt a little looser than usual. Well, just leave it on that chair, and I'll take care of it.

MESSENGER: I'm sorry, sir, but the Red Sox said I had to put this in your hands, personally.

JOHNSON: My ass? I'm getting my ass handed to me?

MESSENGER: Yes, sir. By the Red Sox.

JOHNSON: Well, you gotta do what you gotta do. [Accepts package.]

MESSENGER: Mr. Johnson, could you tell me where I can find Aaron Small and Tanyon Sturtze? I've got packages for them, too.

**********

I'm sure, just once Melky Cabrera would like to be called up by the Yankees, when they're facing the Royals, or the Devil Rays. Last year, the young outfielder was brought up during a four-game set against the Indians, started all four games, was a big leaguer for the All Star Break, then went with the Yanks to Boston, where he was promptly declared "not a major leaguer" as he made mistake after mistake in center field.

Now, he's up again, after hitting well again, in Columbus, this time, brought to the majors by an injury. Again, it's the Red Sox. And again, he's making fielding errors.

I hope this time they have some patience with Melky, because they need an outfield boost right now. Gary Sheffield's down, has-been Bernie Williams is the next option in right, followed by never-was Bubba Crosby. So if Joe Torre can just pull out one more mind trick, and convince Cabrera that he's with the team, thick or thin, and maybe get the kid to believe that he's not going back to AAA immediately after the next mistake he makes...well, he'd be doing the Yankee Faithful a service.

Not every rookie has the good fortune of a Derek Jeter, to hit right off the bat, save their first bad spell for after they've won a big league job.

Week In Review: That's More Like It

Record for the Week: 5-1
Overall Record: 18-11 (1st place)

Story of the Week: There is no tie for first place right now in the AL East. Typically, we think of the standings as a matter of how many games behind the leader each team is. The second-place Red Sox are 19-12, so they're zero games behind the Yankees. Zero games, but eight percentage points behind.

Last week, at Fenway, the Yanks came in under the same circumstances, and the Fenway scoreboard operator listed the Red Sox in first place and the Yanks in second. It was a pathetic display of mathematical ignorance. Last year, at the end of the season when the Yanks and Red Sox had identical records, and the Yanks "won" based on tiebreakers, you could argue that who should be listed at the top of the standings was a matter of opinion. Not last week. Not this time.

With three games scheduled at the Stadium this week, one way or another, the AL East should be "untied" by Thursday, clear enough that even a Red Sox fan will be able to tell who's actually in first place. The Yanks will probably have to play the series without Gary Sheffield, who's had a stiff wrist for nearly two weeks.

Player of the Week: Hideki Matsui got off the slide .348/.464/.696 week, two homers and six RBI. He was the only Yank to slug .500 on the week, a week when the Yanks scored over six runs per game despite a .360 team slugging percentage (the team OBP was .362). On the pitching side, Mike Mussina added another excellent start to his record allowing two runs off three hits and no walks in seven innings on the week. Every season Scott Proctor has a week or two where it looks like he's finally put it all together. Just because it never lasts doesn't mean that his performance last week should be ignored: four and a third scoreless innings, three hits, one walk, four strikeouts.

Dregs of the Week: Aaron Small went undefeated, 10-0 last season. Small collected his first Yankee loss this season (his first regular season loss, anyway) and has gotten completely slagged in each of his appearances so far, giving up five runs in two and two thirds, good for a 16.88 ERA. Tanyon Sturtze is another pitcher the Yanks picked up from the scrap heap, and it looks like back to the scrap heap he should go. Over four appearances this week he only pitched one inning, which shows how well he was doing. On the offensive side, Derek Jeter had a week to forget, .154/.241/.154. In a performance that doesn't really merit "dregs" consideration--but is just plain weird--Jason Giambi batted .118 last week, and had a .464 OBP. Oh, and of his two hits on the week, one was a homer.

The C/P Ratio: On the week it was 5/3, to bring us to an overall 28/31. If these guys are wondering where the playing time went, they should look at their pals, Bernie Williams and Bubba Crosby, and they should credit the hot bat of Robinson Cano (.360/.385/.440 on the week).

Single-Town

The Yanks won last night, 8-7, almost managing to blow a big 7-1 lead in the 8th inning when first Aaron Small and then Kyle Farnsworth couldn't hold the Rangers offense down. Finally, Mariano Rivera had to be summoned with the bases loaded and two outs in the eighth, Yanks up 8-4.

Rivera, who hasn't really hit his stride this season, yet, allowed two singles to Hank Blaloch and Kevin Mench to bring the score to 8-7, and then hit a batter with a pitch to load the bases, before the Yanks got out of the jam.

Sheesh.

Anyway, the title of the piece comes from an odd detail about last night's game. Between the Yanks and the Rangers, in the confines of the Ballpark at Arlington (I know, it has some stupid corporate name now, right?) there were 19 hits in last night's game...and 16 singles. One Texas batter hit a single, and two Yanks doubled.

Overall, it was a nice job by Mike Mussina to hold the Rangers to one run through seven innings (Moose left on a batter in the 8th, who came 'round to score). Alex Rodriguez, dropped to fifth in the lineup just as he returns to his old haunts (but on the road, and prior to the Yanks' big mid-week series against Boston) capped the Yanks' 5-run 4th inning with a 2 run single.

So Shawn Chacon goes today, with Chien Ming Wang pitching tomorrow. That sets things up for Boston with Randy Johnson, Mussina and Chacon going against Beckett, Clement, and Schilling. But it's important not to look past the next two games, despite all the temptations. More on this tomorrow.

*******

Meanwhile, I've been busy over at the Baseball Prospectus website. Yesterday, my take on the Marlins went to press. Here's the taste:

As a May 15 deadline approaches for the Marlins to commit to San Antonio, and the Florida legislature mulls a tasty bit of subsidy swag to keep the team from moving, it would be easy for folks to forget that they’re still playing ballgames and not just politics in southern Florida. Judging by the attendance, many have forgotten.

For those few who have braved a trip to Pro Player/Dolphin/Wayne-Huizenga-Sucks-Away-All-Your-Profits Stadium, the Marlins have certainly put a forgettable product on the field. The team is 2-9 at home, 8-18 overall, a hair below the Washington Nationals for the bottom spot in the NL East, just above the Pittsburgh Pirates for worst record in the league.

What’s gone wrong? It starts with the pitching. Going into last night’s game, the Marlins had the worst pitching in the league, by RA+ (0.87) and VORP (9.0), despite ranking 12th in the league in ERA (4.67). The Marlins also ranked last in strikeout to walk ratio (1.35), a far cry from last season, when Marlins pitchers struck out two men for each one given a free pass.

Last week, I forgot to mention, I covered another one of my semi-regular teams, the Pirates:

Well, this hardly feels like progress, does it? Last year, through 23 games, the Bucs were 8-15. This year, carrying a payroll that is some $8 million higher, the Pirates have started 5-18. They have already had two long losing streaks--six games to start the season, seven games and counting as we go to press.

Perhaps some of this can be chalked up to a punishing schedule. In contrast to most teams in April, the Pirates didn’t have an off-day until April 20, after their 17th game. No other National League team went through the second week without a scheduled off-day. All but two of their opponents have been in the top half of NL teams per the PECOTA-powered preseason Hit List rankings.

Some of it has been bad luck. Sean Casey was posting a solid .296 EqA prior to fracturing two vertebrae in a collision with the Cubs’ John Mabry. Depending upon how you look at things, the Pirates’ 2-6 record in one-run games and .334 BABIP--second worst in the league, after the Phillies--could also be considered symptoms of misfortune.

However, a much larger portion of it has been plain old bad baseball. While Casey was doing well prior to his injuries, new arrivals Jeromy Burnitz and Joe Randa have each contributed to the teams’ .313 OBP (13th in the league) with on-base percentages below .260. The Pirates’ offense has no middle class, with four players sporting EqAs over .290, and eight players under .240; among the position players, only catchers Ryan Doumit (.286) and Ronny Paulino (.276) fall in between.

Part of what is appealing to me about covering the Pirates and Marlins (as well as the Yanks) for Notebook is that it serves as a bit of a reality check. Whenever I feel like getting too wound up about the number of at bats Bernie Williams is getting, or the C/P Ratio, or Jaret Wright starting, or anything like that, I am reminded that many teams wish they had these kind of problems, and many fans as well. Even when the Yanks were at their worst, the talk was only ever of them moving across the river to New Jersey, not moving thousands of miles away to Texas.

It's something to keep in mind.

Bits and Pieces

For the most part, I've missed out on the last couple of games, which meant I didn't get to see Jaret Wright hold his own against the Devil Rays Wednesday night, or Randy Johnson fail to do so last night, yet still escape with a win due to some immense run support.

The only moment of the last two games I actually caught, live, was Alex Rodriguez stepping in to the batter's box in the 10th inning of Wednesday's game. He still looked so uptight that I was worried he might explode, but he was able to loosen up enough to loop a single, enough to drive in the go-ahead run.

While I'm glad for him, I'm worried about Randy. Basically, Johnson is the pitching staff. Without Johnson in good order, things will get ugly in Yankeeland, quick.

*****

Elsewhere, I'll admit that I'm no opponent of the death penalty, but I applaud the Moussaoui jury for showing a sophistication no one credits American juries with. The story was that the jury, simple minded and impressionable, would abandon reason when presented with emotional testimony of 9/11 phone calls and family witnesses. Emotion, racism and xenophobia would inexorably cause them to have the would-be terrorist put to death.

But the Federal jury convened to determine if Moussaoui would live or die saw through the emotions and came to the conclusion that Moussaoui was only a minor player in the September 11 attacks. In contrast to the stereotype of the bloodthirsty Americans, jurors questioned "whether the death penalty was the appropriate punishment for lying."

Amazing.

In the United States, we treat juries like children--we're awfully concerned that they might hear or see things which we believe will cloud their impressionable judgment. The problem is, jurors are adults, and they tend to want to think for themselves. Sometimes, the self-enclosed, artificial world of information created for them at trial is woefully incomplete, and they reach outside of that world to decide the case. That, by the way, is bad. Sometimes, as in the Moussaoui case, they use their judgment to cut through tangles of emotion and politics that would daunt anybody.

Because of the jury's good judgment, Moussaoui is denied his wish, his fanatasy, of being a martyr for the anti-American cause. He doesn't get to die, and thus perhaps inspire others to terrorism and violence. Instead, he gets to rot. That's never inspirational.

*****

By the way, the idea that the U.S. should transfer Moussaoui to France, to serve his life sentence there is cracked. It's straight out of the Bad Idea Jeans commercial.

No Solution for Big Papi

...Except, Maybe, the Rain.

We here in Yankeeland have been suffering a plague; the name for our pain is David Ortiz.

Ortiz has punished the Yanks since he joined the Sox in 2003. He's batted .317/.390/.618, in about 225 regular-season PA against the Yanks, with 14 homers, 16 doubles, and 44 RBI. The rate stats aren't much higher than what he's averaged over that span, but it sure hasn't felt that way.

It became apparent as the 2004 playoffs approached that the Yankees needed a pitcher who could get Ortiz out. They thought Felix Heredia was the man. By the time they figured out that was a bad idea, they tried to convince themselves that Tom Gordon's curveball was so good, it didn't matter if the hitter he faced was lefthanded or righthanded.

Um, no.

In 2005, the lefty parade included Buddy Groom, Mike Stanton, Wayne Franklyn, Alan Embree, and Al Leiter. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong.

The latest in the line of Ortiz-killers brought on by the Yanks is Mike Myers, a guy with the devil's own platoon split, and a funky submarine motion that lefties just can't pick up. Surely, this would work against Ortiz, a guy who the Sox used to hide against lefties when he first joined the team?

Nope.

Yesterday, I watched the Yankees try the shift on Ortiz, with the groundball machine, Chien Ming Wang, on the mound. Knew from the jump it wouldn't work, even before Ortiz punched a looping liner right over the place Jeter normally would've been standing. Boston took a 1-0 lead.

Maybe it was a hit regardless of the shift. Maybe if the Captain was at his usual post, he would've used his mad hops to pluck the liner out of the air. Dunno. All I know is the next time Ortiz came up, the shift was still on. Again, he stroked the ball into left field.

The point is that Ortiz isn't Jason Giambi. He won't ground ball after ball into a crowd of fielders lined up on the right side of the field. He won't beat himself. The only time the Bombers have gotten the best of him, he was betrayed by his glove. Now he doesn't take the field anymore, and you never hear any complaints from him about it. He won't beat himself that way, either.

So when you saw Ortiz come up to the plate against Myers in the 8th inning, Boston ahead by one, a couple of runners on, you kind of knew the Yankees didn't have the solution for the Papi problem. If you didn't think it when he came to the plate, you were pretty darn sure as he was rounding the bases.

How do you beat someone like that? Maybe you don't. Maybe you just hope for rain.

Month In Review: April, 2006

The Week of April 24-30

Record for the Week: 4-2

Player of the Week: Mike Mussina went 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA in two games started this week. In 12 innings pitched, the Moose allowed two runs on 11 hits and two walks and 14 strikeouts. While some may decry the death of the complete game, noting that the Yanks' player of the week went only six innings in each of his starts, there is something old-school to the way Mussina pitched--changing speeds, changing the batter's eye level, and occasionally blowing 88 MpH heat past them. In Sunday's game, Mussina waged an epic battle in the fifth inning, loading the bases prior to striking out Shea Hillebrand in an at bat that showed off every trick in Mussina's arsenal. Watching that fifth inning, you had the feeling that Mussina was walking a highwire, after having a couple of Bailey's with Brother Joe. Sure, he's terrifying, but watching Mussina has gone from a pretty boring experience back when he was at his best, to a very exciting experience now that Moose's margin of error has worn down to nothing.

Lost in my waxing rhapsodic about Moose: a powerful comeback performance by Johnny Damon, .429/.552/.810 with ten runs scored, five steals, and two homers in Saturday's game; continued excellence by Derek Jeter (.458/.552/.708) and Jason Giambi (.400/.615/.867 with a team-leading ten RBI and nine walks).

Dregs of the Week: Pitchers first. Sometimes even when you win, you lose, and that was Randy Johnson in his start this week--allowing six runs in five innings in Saturday's game. He was just brutal, and was saved from further damage by a few good defensive plays, including one great one by Jorge Posada. We've already talked about the Great Mistake, Jaret Wright.

On the hitting side Alex Rodriguez gets first mention because he's been hearing the boos, although his .182/.357/.227 isn't that bad (I mean...at least he got on base). Worse job by Robbie Cano (.188/.235/.250 in 17 PA) and Bernie Williams (.133/.188/.333, 1 homer in 16 PA), and Matsui's not much better (.208/.296/.292 in 27 PA). But when you're the reigning MVP, the highest-paid player in the game, and whatnot, people don't want to hear about your .357 OBP.

The C/P Ratio: The Ratio stands at 8/10 on the week, implying that perhaps Phillips and Cairo can coexist peacefully...

Story of the Week: Probably the news from last week that has the largest on-the-field impact is Gary Sheffield's injury. Sheff apparently injured every single piece of his body in a first base collision with Shea Hillebrand on Saturday. It's here that the Yanks' lack of depth afield comes into sharp relief. With Sheffield out, either Bubba Crosby or Bernie Williams is forced to take the field, and possibly both forced into the lineup, if Joe Torre wants to continue hiding Jason Giambi's glove. Hopefully, Sheff at 37 maintains the recuperative powers he's shown in his last two seasons as a Yankee, where he's consistently played in pain. Hopefully, this will be the situation that convinces the Yanks to start looking for some depth, preferably righthanded and able to play all three outfield postitions.

EXTRA: AWARDS FOR APRIL

Record for the Month: 13-10, 1st Place (virtual tie with Boston)

Player of the Month: Giambi. He batted .344/.554/.852 with 9 homers and 27 RBI for April. Giambi's .416 EqA leads the majors, pitchers are back to tip-toeing their way around Jason during his at-bats. Very nice. Honorable mention goes to Derek Jeter, whose .359 EqA is 14th in baseball.

The Pitcher of the Month: Mussina. With a 4-1 record and 2.38 ERA, Mussina is fifth in the majors in support-neutral value added--third in the American League behind former Yankees washouts Jose Contreras and Kenny Rogers.

Dregs of the Month: Bernie Williams's .209 EqA in April is 65 plate appearances the team will never get back. Jaret Wright's allowed 12 runs in his 10 innings, working very hard to virtually cement losses in all three of the games in which he appeared. Tanyon Sturtze has allowed three homers in less than nine innings, which one hopes would put the gloss off of him as a go-to man in the bullpen. Sadly--as you can probably tell by the fact I post a C/P Ratio here, I want Andy Phillips to do well--all he has managed in sporadic duty (28 PA) is a .172 EqA. That just won't do.

Story of the Month: The death of Steve Howe. For all I criticize him usually, Bill Madden has a pretty good piece on this in the Sunday Daily News--I'd forgotten all about Fay Vincent's threats to ban Buck Showalter, Gene Michael, and Yankee VP Jack Lawn when they decided to testify on Howe's behalf at the hearing on Howe's 1992 drug suspension. Howe's a reminder of the bad old days--the love-hate relationship Yankees fans had with the players on those losing teams.

Howe could hardly warm up in the bullpen or take the mound without catcalls about him possibly sniffing up one of the foul lines--one guy who sat in my and Brother J's section back when we were on the Sunday plan used to think it was the height of humor to yell, "Hey, it's snowin'!" whenever Howe took the mound.

I'll admit, J and I used to call Howe "Cokehead!", although it was an ironic, affectionate shout-out. Howe was the posterboy--more than Doc Gooden, more than Darryl Strawberry or Keith Hernandez and even more than Tony Phillips--of the days when MLB's drug policy meant a crack-down on partying, moreso than performance enhancement. Steve Howe failed to stay sober so often, and was suspended so frequently, you almost wondered why Howe kept on coming back.

Of course, the obvious answer was "money." Cocaine ain't cheap, after all. The fact was, also, that Howe had a live left arm. In twelve seasons spread out over sixteen years, Howe posted a 3.03 ERA, good for an ERA+ of 129. When the Yankees acquired Howe, after more than three years out of baseball, in 1991, Howe responded with 48 innings and a 1.68 ERA. In 1994, in his last good year, Howe was the Yankees' closer, with a 1.80 ERA and 15 saves--good for ninth in the league--at the time of the strike that ended the '94 season. After the strike, Howe was 37, and his pitches seemed to have lost their zip. When the players returned for 1995, John Wetteland had been acquired to close for the Pinstripers, and Howe had a pretty weak season (4.96 ERA, 92 ERA+) as the primary lefty in the pen. He failed badly in games 3 and 4 of the ALDS, against the Mariners. The Yanks signed him to a make-good deal after the season, but by June he was out of baseball.

When news came last week, that almost ten years after the Yanks showed him the door, that he was dead, in a single-vehicle truck accident, there was one question--were drugs or alcohol involved in Howe's death? At this point, we don't know, and it isn't terribly relevant. Regardless of what the toxicology screens show, drugs dominated his life, and his career, and now will dominate all discussion of his death. In the game, and possibly without, drug abuse is his legacy, and his epitaph. Still as someone who was once a great fan of Howe's arm, I feel very sad at his passing, and pass my condolences on to the family he left behind.

NEXT: The Red Sox...

Looking at it Half-Empty

Confusing week in Yankeeland, frustrating losses and decisive wins alternating. Today's game leaves things on the edge of a knife, the difference between a winning record on the week or .500.

The frustration comes from some really weak baseball on Wednesday and Friday. Wednesday, the Yanks lost 4-2 against the Devil Rays, may be be an all-time frustrating game.

(Brief digression, before I continue this rant. I've always wondered if its' just me that thinks the Tampa team's name is horrible; I was heartened by this exchange with La Chiquita as I watched Tuesday's game--"Who are they playing?" "The Devil Rays," "Really? That's really their name?" "Yep," "What the heck is that, anyway?" "It's a ray. It's like a manta," "What, did they run out of fish to name things after?")

Anyway, on Wednesday, the Yanks got 20 baserunners--14 walks, six hits. As you can tell by the score above, they only managed to produce two runs. I only got to see the tail end of this one in strobe fashion at the pool hall (awful experience all around, this week) and it seems like every inning the Yanks had a couple of people on base, and every inning the Rays got out of it. Chien Ming Wang pitched well, two runs in his seven innings of work, but he couldn't help the Yanks with their offensive futility. The Rays won the game in the 10th against Mariano Rivera, working his second inning. That in itself has sprouted a tempest in a teapot, from folks who don't seem to know much about baseball.

One random comment about the Yanks this season, which is applicable to Wednesday's game--this is a brutal baserunning squad. I haven't seen so many senseless run-downs in a season as I've seen from this team this April. Wasn't Larry Bowa supposed to beat the Yanks' runners into shape? Isn't that why he replaced the largely-inoffensive Luis Sojo?

Frustration on Friday was primarily about Jaret Wright. In terms of adjusted dollars, I wonder if Wright is a bigger bust than Pascual Perez, another fellow who signed a big-dollar deal with the Yanks despite a bum wing. Wright has been miserable, and his line on Friday--five innings, six hits, four walks, four runs, no strikeouts--has been pretty typical of his performance as a Yankee. Just awful.

Carl Pavano got more money than Wright, but Wright's the bigger bust. You couldn't really see Pavano's injuries coming, except in a TINSTAAPP-type way (TINSTAAPP stands for "There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect" which means that generally speaking pitchers, particularly young ones, get injured often enough that it's hard to rely on them). Wright sucked and was unhealthy for a number of years prior to pitching for the Leo Mazzone Braves in 2004, failed his medical exam when the Yanks signed him in December, 2004, and the Yanks signed him, anyway. That's just a class in mismanagement.

On Friday, the Yanks again had some chances against the Blue Jays, and they simply couldn't get things done. Aside from Wright, a lot of the blame has been doled out to Alex Rodriguez, who had a bad week.

Now, Alex has been hearing the boos at the Stadium, even though he didn't quite have the worst week among Yankee batters. He just hasn't looked good at the plate lately, and he's a frustrating guy to watch when he's not in sync.

After Wednesday's game, folks I spoke to were angry--out of all proportion to the Yanks' record. At the office, a title company rep who sometimes offers me tickets was simply livid, "...everyone trying to hit home runs..." he hissed. The Yanks took two out of three against the D-Rays, and are in a position to do the same to the Jays today. Sure, it's not dominance, but it's not last April.

Back later tonight or early tomorrow with the Week in Review.

Week In Review: Treading Water

Record for the Week: 3-2
Overall Record: 9-8

Story of the Week: Was there a story for last week? The Yanks battled the middle of the division, Toronto and Baltimore. Unlike last year, Baltimore isn't making exciting noises; for all the noise the Blue Jays made in the off-season, some of their improvements have not yet taken, and might not any time soon. A.J. Burnett is making a return trip to the DL, which is looking like a re-run of a few of Burnett's more frustrating seasons with the Marlins. Against this competition, the Yanks finished just above .500, losing what seemed to be a particularly winnable game on Friday. It's not the end of the world, but it's not much progress either, given that the Red Sox are 12-7, and Curt Schilling looks like his reconstructed ankle is all better now. On to the awards.

Player of the Week: A tie between Jason Giambi (.286/.500/1.000, 3 HR in 20 PA) and Derek Jeter (.471/.591/.824, 2 3B in 22 PA). Mike Mussina and Shawn Chacon did well in their respective starts this past week, winning easily--although Chacon's good start was paired with a poor relief outing.

Dregs of the Week: Anemic doesn't begin to describe Johnny Damon's efforts this past week: .136/.208/.136 in 24 PA. He still managed to play good defense, however. Not sure that Hideki Matsui can say the same, with a performance (.200/.273/.300, including the last out in Friday's game) that was rather feeble. Chien Ming Wang went from a good start last week, to being a source of concern again against the Orioles.

The C/P Ratio: STOP THE PRESSES! This week's Ratio was 1/11(!), bringing the overall C/P Ratio to 15/18. The good news is, that it seems that either a) Miguel Cairo is suffering from an injury which is keeping him out of action, b) Cairo drank the last of Joe Torre's green tea, and wouldn't go to the store to buy more, so he's in the dog house, or c) Torre has realized that with Carlos Pena in AAA last week, he needs to get a real idea of what Andy Phillips can do. The bad news is, Phillips only managed two singles and a walk in his 11 plate appearances--although Pena isn't doing much better (.200/.429/.267 in 21 PA) with the Clippers. Phillips isn't getting a fair shake, but he needs to do more with the opportunities he's been given, fair or not.

The Ballpark, Finally

After both Brother J and I having to pass up on our tickets to Opening Day, our Sunday ticket plan finally kicked in for a matchup we could attend--today's matchup between the Yanks and the Orioles.

Now, at first this didn't look like a matchup we would actually attend. It's been a rainy weekend in the Big Apple, and it showered pretty hard overnight from Saturday to Sunday. In the old days, this game wouldn't've been playable--Yankee Stadium used to flood pretty easily, and a rain like we had this weekend would've left standing puddles in the Stadium outfield the size of Lake Victoria.

A few years ago, they fixed the drainage under the field, making it relevant that the forecast called for the rain to stop right around game time, with "scattered showers" for the rest of the day. So, soggy or not, J and I trekked up to the Bronx armed with umbrellas and plastic sheeting for the seats.

Stepping into the Stadium, it seemed lots of people hadn't gotten the memo about Yankee Stadium's drainage system, or the forecast. The place was about half-empty, although tellingly, both bleachers were mostly full. How many empty seats you see in the bleachers is probably the best indicator of a game's paid attendance (48,000, at least a third of whom were cleverly disguised as blue plastic seats).

Our seats were in fair territory behind the rightfield fence. As we walked in--after the announced game time--Randy Johnson was still doing his long tossing in front of the gate to the bullpens. The sight of Randy made me worried, since he looked like something was very much wrong with him--after each throw, he was shaking his arm, as if trying to loosen up the shoulder. He walked slowly and uncomfortably. Between the Unit's discomfort and the bad weather I turned to J and said, "Why are they taking a chance, here? Why not start Jaret Wright? He's an animal anyway, who cares if he loses his soul?"

Nonetheless, Johnson was going to start the game. A quick National Anthem later (the flag was at half staff, likely in honor of the deaths of Acosta and Trejo in the Dominican Republic), we were ready to go: the battery of Johnson and Posada, Andy Phillips with a start at first against the lefty, Bruce Chen, and otherwise the lineup pretty much as you'd expect: Cano, Jeter and Alex Rodriguez filling out the infield, Matsui, Damon, and Sheffield from left to right in the outfield. Once the time for first pitch came, Johnson was transformed. He had back his usual windup--if with a slightly lower arm angle than usual, and from the start the gun had his fastball at 92-93 MPH. He struck out his first batter, center fielder Luis Terrero, setting him up with a slider that Terrero must've swung a foot over, followed by heat high and outside.

After Johnson retired the side in order, and the Yanks stranded Gary Sheffield in the bottom of the inning, Miguel Tejada guessed right on a pitch, popping it high down the right field line. From our vantage point, the ball looked to be going foul, foul, and then just curling in to hit the netting on the foul pole. One-nil O's.

Little did we know that that would be the Orioles only run of the day. Giambi took things in hand leading off the bottom of the second, with a line drive homer to right center. Afterward, the bottom of the lineup strung together three singles to give the Pinstripers a 2-1 lead. An inning later, the Yanks ran themselves out of the inning--Jeter getting picked off following a leadoff single, Gary Sheffield caught stealing after a single of his own. With a bizarre sense of equanimity, Melvin "Hands of Stone" Mora couldn't handle Alex Rodriguez's inning-ending grounder. This allowed Giambi another chance at Chen...with the same result as before. 4-1 Yanks.

The highlight of the fourth inning was Johnson's strikeout of Jay Gibbons, who comically swung through the slider so badly I almost expected him to screw his way into the dirt, like a Buggs Bunny cartoon. In the fifth, Jeter followed up a Damon infield single with a double, and Damon ultimately came around to score on an Alex Rodriguez sac fly. The Orioles were then bailed out of the inning by the Yankees second lineout double play of the game (a similar play had saved the O's in the second inning).

Now, by the fifth inning, a steady drizzle was falling, and there looked to be no let-up to the weather. I was looking for the inning to finish so that we could have an official game, while hiding my scorecard underneath my coat between pitches, so it wouldn't get soaked. The rain continued through the sixth inning, coming to an end during the home half of the frame. Once the seventh inning rolled around, the rain was replaced by the sun, suddenly and decisively burning its way through the cloud cover, and beating down on all us poor souls who were wearing layer upon layer of clothing for protection from the elements. As we stripped off our coats, the Yanks put together a rally, on a Derek Jeter single--on which Tejada made a great stop, followed by a horrible throw to the first base seats--a walk by Rodriguez, and an opposite field blast from Giambi to score the runners. That was all the scoring. The Unit went eight innings, throwing fewer than 100 pitches. Mariano Rivera came out and struggled a bit through the ninth. The Yanks take 2 of 3 from a division rival. A good time all around.

***

Tejada had all four of his team's hits on the afternoon. The only other Oriole to safely reach base was Chris Gomez.

Don't know why folks come to a Yankees-Orioles game wearing their Red Sox gear. I get the folks in their Orioles paraphenalia--they're present to back their team. In case the Sox Boys didn't notice, the Beantowners don't come to the Stadium for a few weeks, yet. Aside from perhaps being a show of support for "Fried Chicken Man" Kevin Millar, what's the message other than "I'm a big, fat jerk, who comes to someone else's ballpark to boo"?

Unintentional comedy in the third inning. Gary Sheffield is doing his foul ball thing, and Larry Bowa--so-called tough guy--keeps backing further and further away. He started off his usual 15 or so feet behind the coaches box, and gradually backed up until he was standing on the dirt track that surrounds the field, only a few feet in front of the bat boy's station. During this interlude, one foul sliced well over Bowa's head and into the stands, hitting some poor guy right in the ear. After the inning, they broadcast the "be alert about foul balls going into the stands" warning, the video now lead off by Johnny Damon, who had ad-libbed in the taped spot, "and if Gary Sheffield's at bat...be very careful."

Thanks for warning us, Johnny.

By the way, in the great Yankee Stadium Drinking Game, how many MGD's do you have to chug if Sheffield nails Bowa with one of those foul line drives?

We could call that one, "Pin the Tail on the Bowa."

I'll be back tomorrow with the week in review.

Off Day

Inspired by the Yanks' opponent of the last few days, I have a piece up at Baseball Prospectus. The obligatory taste:

When you don’t like a team’s chances of making the playoffs, the accusations of bias are a given. But when that team is Canada’s major league franchise, the claims of bias run toward nationality--we are accused of hating Canada.

The irony of such an accusation is that, here at Baseball Prospectus, we love Canadians, adoration that borders on worship. Hardly a Canadian has ever stepped into BP’s Palatial Headquarters without being crowded by supplicant statheads, shouting requests such as “Will you tell us what paradise is like?” or “Is it true that everyone has health care in Canada?” or the ever-popular “Canadian! Bless my child!”

You might ask, if we feel so strongly about Canadians, how can the Blue Jays only rank 12th on this week’s Hit List? How can such a poor showing be anything other than rank bias against our neighbors to the North? The answer is simple. While the Toronto franchise is technically Canadian, its players are not.

****

In other news, the Yanks lost two members of the family when GCL Yankees manager Oscar Acosta and Dominican Field Coordinator Humberto Trejo were killed in a car accident outside of Santo Domingo on Wednesday. Acosta had been a pitching coach of the Rangers and Cubs before taking the Rookie League managing job with the Yanks. Acosta was also pitching coach for the Yanks' Columbus team in the mid 90's. We send our condolences to both men's families in this awful, tragic time.

Oh. Canada.

Hellish week at the office so far, meaning that all the Yankee action I've caught has been courtesy of Yankees Encore on the YES Network. As a result, my comments won't be terribly detailed, as watching a game on replay is always a bit harder than watching live--specially when you're a geek like me who can't resist finding out the score before I catch the game.

Yesterday, I picked up the action in the second inning, with the Yanks up, 4-3. Saw a lefty on the mound, and immediately thought--Johnson must've been scratched, and they've got either Matt Smith or Ron Villone picking up the spot start.

Yes, I saw the "41" on the pitcher's back. I saw that he was a tallish lefthander. But the windup, the pitching motion, the look of his pitches--I wouldn't have guessed it was Johnson until I saw a closeup of the Big Unit's scraggly mug.

Johnson had nothing, which immediately became evident as the Jays swatted him like a pinata. The claim is that he's not hurt, but I simply can't believe that--I mean, you're asking me to believe that after sixteen years of success, Johnson just decided to completely change the way he pitches, voluntarily?

The Yanks never recovered from the Unit's bad start, going on to lose, 10-5. There was a moment in the fourth inning which stood out, because I think it was the first time I started to "get" the Johnny Damon phenomenon. With Scott Proctor relieving Johnson, Vernon Wells hit a hard shot to right center, which Damon tracked down at full speed on the warning track. After the catch, Damon went on to slam head first into the thankfully-padded wall. It was just a violent collision, with Damon's head snapping back as he made contact with the wall.

The thing was, after he picked himself up, Damon had this grin on his face. The thought that came to my mind, in the most affectionate way possible, was "thank god he hit that wall head-first--otherwise, he might have damaged something vital."

Maybe you just had to be there.

By the way, for all I appreciate Damon's reaction, I'd like it if the pitchers would stop trying to kille the Yankee outfielders. The Blue Jays were hitting the ball on the screws all night, so Yankees were constantly and recklessly racing around the outfield trying to corral those hard-hit shots--it's dangerous, I tell you.

***

Watching the replay of today's game as I type. Mussina's a stark contrast to Johnson, in that his pitches and pitching style are entirely different than in his prime, but his mechanics and windup are all the same--he still does the deep bend from the waist when he's pitching from the stretch, he still holds his glove close to his body, for the most part he uses the same arm slot when he throws. Just that where he was once a power pitcher, now he's a pure junkballer. He's a guy with a half-dozen breaking pitches and changeups, each thrown at a variety of different speeds.

When he's on--and today, he was on--he is all about breaking up the batter's tempo, and moving his eye level. Mussina lives on no margin, every pitch he throws in the strike zone could be blasted into the next state (or, in yesterday's case, province), if the batter connects. But it's hard to make that kind of connection when the next pitch could be thrown anywhere from 62 to 85 miles per hour, and could feature any form of movement imaginable.

That said, I don't think Mussina sticks with this team after the season.

Week In Review: Thank Heaven for the Royals

Record for the Week: 4-2
Overall Record: 6-6

Without the Royals, the Yanks would have a 3-6 record--albeit all road games against expected contenders (the Twins, A's, and Angels). Still, eventually the Yanks have to start beating good teams if they're hoping to make it to October, much less make any noise when they get there. Not sure if there are many enduring lessons from today's game, aside from basic things like "bunting is bad," "Bernie Williams still looks done," and "this pitching staff is kind of scary--and not in a good way."

Player of the Week: Even with a DNP in Saturday's game, Jason Giambi was the best hitter on the Bombers' squad this week, batting .571/.684/.929 with 4 homers and 10 RBI on the week. On the pitching side, there's not much consistency over the week, other than a few scoreless appearances by Scott Proctor and Mike Myers.

Dregs of the Week: Tanyon Sturtze allowed three runs in one and two thirds innings, which sucks pretty bad; Jaret Wright faced an eight-hit barrage from the Twins on Saturday, allowing four runs (one unearned) in three innings.

Story of the Week: Other than the Royals suck and the Twins don't? Maybe it's the small roster moves the Yanks made this week. The era of the third catcher comes to an end in the Bronx, as the Yanks got Wil Nieves through waivers, and have now designated Koyie Hill. If Hill makes it through waivers, the Yanks will have real depth at the catcher position--which doesn't mean they'd be able to replace Jorge Posada's production if Hip-Hip-Jorge had to hit the DL, but at least they wouldn't have to scramble just to fill a spot in case of an injury to Posada or even extreme suckitude by current backup catcher Kelly Stinett. Those moves made, the Yanks picked up a couple more castoffs from other organizations--first baseman Carlos Pena out of Detroit, and reliever Jesus Colome from the Devil Rays.

None of these moves are for world-beaters. Pena projects as a defensive replacement and competition for Bernie Williams for spot duty in the lineup. Nieves and Hill project as backup catchers, maybe. Colome may be damaged goods. But the impressive thing is the change in direction, where the Yanks are looking for freely available talent, and depth. Next thing you know, Brian Cashman might actually find a righthanded hitting backup for the outfield, without having to eat an eight figure contract. Wouldn't that be something?

The C/P Ratio: 9/5 this week, 14/7 overall. Miguel Cairo got two starts this week, including another start at first base. Phillips also got a start, which is progress--but only against the toughest lefthander in the majors, Johan Santana. The result? Three strikeouts, and Joe Torre's assurance that he gave Andy a fair chance, and the kid just didn't produce. Pena's acquisition could render the C/P Ratio moot, by eventually sending Phillips through waivers and (he hopes) out of the organization.

UPDATE:

Just realized that I shorted Giambi on his Player of the Week numbers--the Giambino actually hit .571/.700/1.571 on the week. Some honorable mention should go to the boys at the top of the order--Damon and Jeter each scored seven runs on the week, Damon with a 1.054 OPS, Jetes with a .970 mark.

Another noteworthy performance, Dregs-wise, came courtesy of Bernie Williams. Bernie hit a truly empty .300 last week--6 for 20 with no extra base hits, and no walks, good for a .600 OPS.

A Bad Feeling...

Here's a turning point for a game for you.

Bottom of the 8th, Mariano Rivera comes in and shuts the door on the Twins, who're down 5-4 and had a man on first. Mariano gets Shannon Stewart to tap into a 6-3 double play. Everything's good.

Then, in the top of the ninth, Johnny Damon draws a leadoff walk against Twins' phenom Francisco Liriano. That brings the Captain to the plate, and in comes, Juan Rincon, he of the steroid bust last year.

Rincon pitches out, then throws another ball to Jeter, as Damon steals second base. So Damon's in scoring position, with no outs; Jeter's got a 2-0 count; and yeah, Jeter's also 3-3 with a walk on the day.

So naturally, the Captain bunts Damon over to third.

Sometimes a bad move makes you curse, or throw your remote at the TV. This...astounding moment hit me like a sucker shot to the gut. I couldn't even process what happened, it was so surprising. And right then, the feeling struck me, they're going to lose this game.

Sheffield came up, almost lost his at bat early on when a pop-up hit a speaker in the Metrodome and went foul. Then the at bat took on an epic feel, as Sheffield fouled off pitch after pitch after pitch, with the YES crew (who, indeed, had praised the Captain's decision to give himself up prior to this at bat) throwing silly affirmations at Sheff like "you know, usually in this kind of situation, the longer the at bat goes, the more advantage to the batter" and "what's important is that these foul balls have given Sheffield a chance to get his timing down against Rincon." Then, on the 14th pitch of the at-bat, Sheffield whiffed.

Two outs, the advantage of moving Damon to third completely gone, Alex Rodriguez at the plate. No runs score.

Now, I know that the decision to bunt had nothing to do with the Yanks' failings--and the Twins' hard work--in the bottom of the ninth. Luis Castillo deserves a ton of credit for his Baltimore-shop base hit (hat tip to the ump who called the 2-2 pitch a ball). Joe Mauer deserves a ton of credit for his at bat against Rivera--and Hideki Matsui deserves a tongue-lashing for throwing to the wrong base, and allowing Mauer to go to second. Rivera deserves a ton of credit for masterful back-to-back strikeouts of ex-Yank Rondell White and Torii Hunter, and for (it looked to me) breaking Morneau's bat on the final pitch of the game (a blooper past Cano).

But back to Jeter's bunt. I don't know how that possibly makes sense to anyone. Want to stay out of the double play? Damon was already on second, and he's the fastest guy on the team, able to score on a single. Maybe Jeter's not swinging the bat well? He was 3-3, batting in a great hitter's count. Forget run expectation charts and all that stathead stuff--how is it a good baseball play to not even make Rincon throw Jeter a strike before letting him off the hook for that at-bat.

The Yanks' six sacrifice bunts so far this season lead the American League. This is an offense that was supposed to score 1,000 runs in 2006, which just leaves me scratching my head, and thinking that tonight's game could have, and should have, been won.

Grouchy Friday

All right. After some unnecessary Home Opener excitement, the Yanks swept the Royals, and headed out of town. Picked a good time, too, because they skipped out to the Midwest just as some Spring showers hit the area. Yesterday was a perfect baseball day. Today was a good day to stay indoors.

Despite the victories over the Missourians, I find myself in a testy mood. Part of it was Randy Johnson leaving the game after five yesterday--the words "shoulder stiffness" form a profanity in my household, even if the brain trust doesn't seem too concerned.

Another part of it was the greeting I got this morning, when I picked up the newspaper. La Chiquita subscribes to the New York Times, so most mornings on my way out the door, I stop in our vestibule, pick the sports section out of the newspaper, and leave the rest of it there for her to pick up when she comes downstairs.

This morning, I spotted a Yankee story on the front page of the Metro section, so I grabbed that, as well. I should have known better. The story was entitled "Yankee Fans Only a Brewer Could Love." I really didn't know what to expect--a story about a microbrewery in the Bronx?

Um, no. Here's how the story begins:

FOR the planned new Yankee Stadium, attention has focused mostly on concerns like gobbled-up parkland, parking garages, a Metro-North station and team spending in the Bronx. One matter has not been raised, not in public anyway, but it does seem worth mentioning.

It is called jail. How many holding cells will the new ballpark have to contain the hopelessly oafish fans who will inevitably be arrested through the course of the baseball season?

So I wonder, what this all about? Did some incident occur at the stadium during the homestand? No. What happened is that last October, the author of the story, Clyde Haberman, wrote a piece entitled "Throw Out the Bums...In the Stands." (To give you an idea of the author's balanced take, here's what can be seen of the article, from outside the Times Select iron curtain: "NOW that their season is over, the New York Yankees are likely to shop for new players over the winter, and may even (gasp!) seek a new manager to take over from the estimable Joseph Paul Torre. What they really should look for are new fans.") Turns out that Haberman's fan-baiting from last year spawned some email--presumably also from last year--which the author thought would be good for an easy column, plus or minus a month from Opening Day.

Now, Haberman's a hack. Even before he decided to talk trash about Yankee fans, I had no patience for his "stylings," which are a lot like a those of a comedy club burnout whose act is so weak, he spends all his time insulting the audience to make up for it.

Back to the article, which goes on to lambaste Yankee fans--and, save for a one-off mention of Fenway, only Yankee fans--for their "loutish" behavior. With no recent incidents for Haberman to talk about, obviously he'd give us some facts--y'know, statistics about fan arrests, or something of that sort--to back up his argument, right?

Wrong again. After all, who needs facts when you can simply quote anecdotal evidence from the self-declared smartest people in the world, the Newspaper of Record's readers?

Overwhelmingly, readers who weighed in agreed that the Yankees, their security guards and the New York Police Department could all be doing more to rein in the unpleasant number of fans who believe that ballgames are where you go to get royally plastered, scream obscenities, pick fights and yell at women to take their tops off.

"I have traveled with my kids to Baltimore, Boston, Shea, both fields in Chicago and San Francisco, and we go to baseball games frequently," wrote Arthur Lowenstein, a lawyer who lives in Hastings-on-Hudson. "In my experience, there is no park anywhere that is as bad as Yankee Stadium in terms of safety and security."

Now, this Mr. Lowenstein is such a ballpark security expert, that one of the exemplars of stadium security he chooses--U.S. Cellular Field--has twice in the last four years been the scene of fans trying to beat up on-field personnel. Don't remember that happening at Yankee Stadium. But then again, maybe Mr. Lowenstein felt he and his children were safe in Chicago, since, after all, they were in the stands, and not on the field.

Anyway, my initial reaction to Haberman's article was one which he would probably use as an example of Yankee fans' "lack of civility." I believe it's a little something the vice-president said to a member of congress last year. Then, when I was a bit calmer, I mused as to the sheer number of Yankee fans who must have, at some point, taken liberties with his mom to give him such a jaundiced and prejudicial view of the Pinstriped Faithful, as a whole.

But seriously, whenever a columnist argues about the need for "civility" at any sports arena, it's a fixed ballgame. It calls on anyone disagreeing with the columnist's view to argue against civility, and inspires some less-than-objective comments in agreement (for example a "New Jersey restauranteur" quoted in the article seems to mind Yankee fans, as a concept, more than he decries any specific behavior of theirs).

Yes, the Stadium can be a tough place to take kids. The fans are loud, often mean, and sometimes drunk. There are, however, a few things you can do about it:

Know Where You're Sitting: If you want to keep your kids (or even your adults) away from drunken "loutish" behavior, there are alcohol-prohibited areas in the Stadium. Take advantage of them. If you see someone drinking in a section where they shouldn't get security--which is plentiful at the Stadium, and much more cooperative than they were in the late 80's or early 90's, when Stadium security actually was horrible.

Know Who They're Playing: Matchups against the Mets and Red Sox are not family-friendly. Then again, neither are Dodgers-Giants games. At least I've never heard of anyone getting shot after a Yanks/Sox or Mets game, which is more than we can say for Giants/Dodgers.

Leave the Chip on Your Shoulder at the Door: Even in Yankee Stadium, courtesy begets courtesy. A lot of visitors and commuters to New York seem to think that as far as politeness goes, New York City is the Wild West. Folks who are devoted to "please" and "thank you" in their home communities cast that off when they get to the Big Apple. Instead, they choose to drop f-bombs on anyone and everyone who gets in their way, because "that's the way things are
done here." When these folks enter Yankee Stadium, they magnify that attitude by a factor of fifty.

If you're cheering for the visiting team at any arena, be smart. Have a sense of humor when your team is down, and don't gloat too much when your team's ahead. Approach potential confrontations from the point of view of someone who is extremely outnumbered.

I'm not saying this as anything profound. It's common sense, and nothing that should be too difficult if you're actually a devotee of "civility." If your aims are somewhat less lofty--say, wanting to put "entitled" Yankee fans in their place--obviously, you should expect to meet some hostility in return.

Something Missing...

Brother J and I had tickets to the home opener. In the way of such things, I had work, he had work--it just didn't work out.

We missed a heck of a ballgame. The Royals almost made me eat my "interlocking N-Y" cap over that "get healthy" crack I made on Sunday. Still, the Captain bailed us out, hitting a big homer in the bottom of the 8th that helped turn a 7-4 deficit into a 9-7 victory in the Bronx. I'm hoping that Brother T, who was actually at the game, can drop by for some guest-host time to fill you in on the details.

Meanwhile, J and I weren't the only ones who missed the game. Bob Sheppard, the fellow we Yankee fans modestly call The Voice of God, missed the opener with a hip injury. It's his first missed opener in 54 or so years, so I guess we can comp him a day off. Here's to a quick recovery for Mr. Sheppard, and some kindness and patience for his fill-in, Jim Hall, who now has to deal with the most spoiled fans on the face of the Earth--P.A. announcer-wise, at least.

*****

In Jamaica, I once saw a man take action from little kids on "racing crabs." It was a perfectly realized gambling operation, except the kids didn't know enough about betting yet to make the fellow give them odds.

Not that I'm much of a gambling man, but I'd put my money on Octavio Dotel (controversial Tommy John surgery last season) coming back before Carl Pavano (myriad mystery maladies, including bad shoulder, bad back, bad ass, and possibly shot nerves).

Looking at the AL East, none of the teams look like they currently have the team they'll finish the year with. The Yanks are at least one starting pitcher off--they could get relief help from Dotel, Ramiro Mendoza, and/or Colter Bean (if he wasn't in the Torre Doghouse, along with Andy Phillips), but the #2 starter this team needs probably isn't on the 40 man roster. The Red Sox will probably need help in the pen (Craig Hansen coming) and in the infield (Dustin Pedroia and Hee Seop Choi on their way). The Blue Jays will probably need help in the outfield, starting rotation and bullpen. The Orioles need relief pitching, help at first base and possibly right field. The Devil Rays need to make room for their incoming stars, BJ Upton and Delmon Young.

The thing that worries me is that of all those teams, the Yanks have the least to deal from. The most reasonable contract on the team probably belongs to Jorge Posada--but there's no one in the minors to replace Jorge. What the Yanks could deal is broken down starting pitchers, and mid-level minor leaguers.

This worries me.

Yankees Week In Review: Unbalanced Attack

One week into the 2006 season, the Bombers stand at two-and-four, salvaging a win in the last game of the California swing, defeating the Angels, 10-1. So, in the Yanks' two wins they scored 25 runs, crushing the titular aces of their opponents' starting pitching corps: Barry Zito in Oakland, Big Bartolo Colon in Los Angeles of Anaheim. That's twelve and a half runs per game. In the four losses bracketed by those two wins, the Yankees scored a total of ten runs--that's two and a half runs per game.

That doesn't mean anything, yet. It feels a little bit like last year, but it is only one week's worth of data, and the Yanks were facing the two powerhouse teams of the West. Things should get better, quickly, as the Pinstripers receive a nice big helping of Kansas City Royals for their home opening series in the Bronx.

Player of the Week: Hideki Matsui posted a .400/.444/.800 week, slamming three homers in 27 plate appearances, leading the Yanks in homers and OPS. Still, it was a close call, since Matsui's defense in the early going has been pretty scary--you see it most clearly when we look at Marco Scutaro's game-winning hit on Tuesday. Other candidates are Alex Rodriguez (.320/.393/.560, 2 HR) and Derek Jeter (.348/.464/.565, but a big error in Wednesday's game), and on the pitching side of the ledger, Randy Johnson (1-1, 2.44 ERA, 11K in 15 IP).

Dregs of the Week: Given all the stuff that went on in Scott Proctor's family over the last week-plus, he gets a pass. Shawn Chacon's start against the Angels belied research over at Baseball Prospectus by Marc Normandin (in the Yankees' Notebook slot usually used by yours truly) which shows that Chacon is less of a collapse risk than most projection systems indicate. Still, four runs in less than five innings is not the end of the world, yet. By default, then, Dreg of the Week honors go to Bernie Williams.

Bernie posted a .222/.300/.278 line in 20 plate appearances this week, starting four out of six games. I'm one of Bernie's biggest fans, and I have been since he was in the minors. Still, when I did my HACKING MASS team this week, and for some reason Bernie (along with some other projected DHs) was listed as a firstbaseman...I put him on the team. I worry that maybe this makes me a bad person.

Story of the Week: Mariano Rivera only gets into one game in Week One, which unless there's something wrong with Mariano that we don't know about, is an indictment of the "closer" usage pattern all on its own. The Yanks played two one-run losses, but because the Yanks were on the road, the closer could not be summoned.

The C/P Ratio: Stands at 5/2, which I think speaks for itself.

Wondering what the heck am I talking about? The C/P Ratio is the proportion of plate appearances given to Miguel Cairo relative to those given to Andy Phillips. This week, Cairo got five plate apperances, with a start at first base today against Colon(?!?), while Phillips got to be a defensive substitute in two blowout wins. The only position player to have fewer plate appearances on the roster is the third catcher platoon of Wil Nieves and Koyie Hill (the former was sent down in favor of the latter this week). That's where Phillips ranks in the big scheme of things.

Note to Phillips: whatever you've done to tick Joe Torre off (welsh on a bet, or make a pass at his wife, perhaps?), apologize. Please. Just to see if it works.

Review: Thank You for Smoking

In 1998, Aaron Eckhart broke onto the scene hard with a role in playwright Neil Labute's directorial debut, In the Company of Men. Eckhart's character, a sociopathic, backstabbing, son of a bitch known only as "Chad," was one of the best villains of the past twenty years--a smiling liar capable of romancing a deaf office worker, and in the exact same tone, mocking her voice in the very next scene. It was a scene-stealing, stand-up-and-take-notice role.

A star is born, right? Not so fast. For some reason, in LaBute's follow-up film, Your Friends and Neighbors, Eckhart didn't get to reprise the role of the sleek predator--instead, he was cast as the onanistic, overweight sap in a larger ensemble piece. While the abrupt shift in character type showed that Eckhart had range, it pretty much doomed the film. With Jason Patric doing a far more typical rendition of the bad guy role, Your Friends... didn't have any charisma to counterbalance the ugliness of LaBute's characters and script. From there he went on to a series of well-received supporting roles, before earning lead roles in flops such as Possession, The Core, and Suspect Zero.

So now, after more than seven years spent trying to break through (again) Eckhart has finally found a vehicle worthy of his talents--as the lead in Thank You for Smoking, director Jason Reitman's adaptation of Christopher Buckley's satirical novel. In the movie, Eckhart is Nick Naylor, mouthpiece for the Tobacco industry. Nick's a bit like what you suspect Chad would be, if he had a soul. Like Chad, Nick is armed with limitless self-confidence and not so much of a conscience. However, Nick isn't malicious--even though he proudly points out to his alcohol and firearms lobbyist friends that his product has the highest death toll--he's just a guy who likes to argue, and influence people, and get paid for it.

In the movie, we follow Nick as he runs errands for Big Tobacco--appearing on talk shows, delivering bribes, and jousting with a Vermont Senator (William H. Macy) who wants all cigarette packs labeled "poison" with a skull and crossbones--while balancing his time as a divorced dad with a young son (Cameron Bright).

Reitman keeps the pace brisk, relentlessly cutting from scene to scene rather than allowing a joke or situation to run past the point where it's humorous. The result is a comedy with relatively few big laughs, but a constant stream of smaller ones. While this approach leaves some of the scenes feeling like they never reached their full comedic potential, the most common crime in 21st century comedies is the tendency to beat any functional gag to death--tune into Saturday Night Live any given weekend if you want to see examples.

Eckhart's supporting cast is excellent, particularly Rob Lowe as an Ovitz-like Hollywood agent, and Maria Bello and David Koechner as Nick's fellow "merchants of death." Bright does a nice, if creepy job as the apple that hasn't fallen far from the tree, but Tom Cruise's baby-momma (Katie Holmes) is a bit over her head as a supposed sexpot reporter.

But really, Thank You for Smoking is Eckhart's show, and he makes the film worth watching. In the hands of many actors, including most of today's leading men, Nick would be a one-dimensional cartoon character, over-played for laughs. Eckhart makes Nick human, without ever letting the story fall into the pit of sentimentality. I heartily recommend the movie.

Channel Surfing

All over the place now, "inspired" by Chien Ming Wang's outing against the A's:

The first five innings of tonight's game have straddled the Exhiliration/Exasperation Line (the Ex-Ex Line, as we like to call it). The first three innings featured the Yanks scoring quick, decisive runs via the longball. The next two innings featured Wang giving back the lead as slowly as possible. To some extent, I appreciate the methodical nature of Wang's efforts, as he did mitigate the damage of the ten baserunners he allowed in his four and two-thirds innings. Also, it should be noted that Wang was victimized by a fourth-inning error by Jeter.

Still, Wang's pace when things are going wrong is agonizing. It's Trachsel-like. Speeding him up a bit should be one of Ron Guidry's priorities this season.

Speaking of Mets, I caught a bit of ther game with the Nats prior to the Yankee game starting. I'll go to the bullet points, here:

• I was going to mention this the other day, but the Mets' new helmets are absurd. They've got this two-tone stylized thing going on that makes the boy's heads look like they were ripped out of an Astro-Boy cartoon.

• Anderson Hernandez has got an amazing glove. A shame that in the same game where he made a great diving play on a blooper to the outfield, he also swung the bat like he was Stevie Wonder.

• Not a Met, but still an item of interest--Ryan Zimmerman looks like the real deal. Given that the Mets have a stud at third in David Wright, you could be looking at the next generation of Hot Corner stars in the NL East.

• Yeah, Wagner had Enter Sandman first. I'm biased, but I think that Mariano's done it more justice. I think they should settle this on the field, with a simple bet: whoever posts the most saves keeps the theme song, and gets to pick the other guy's new theme song.

Pinstripers Oaklanding

Opening Day opened and closed, leaving the Bombers one win richer in Oakland. The Yanks victory was of the blowout variety, with the Yanks slapping Barry Zito like a redheaded stepchild in the second inning, to the tune of seven runs, including a grand slam by A-Rod. The Unit managed to keep the affair from becoming suspenseful by allowing only five hits over his seven innings of work, and the only run on a solo jack by the Big Hurt. In all, it was good for a 15-2 win over the top team in Baseball Prospectus's preseason Hit List.

I feel bashful writing about this, since last night's game was covered up the wazoo. Over at BP, they ran a roundtable on last night's game, as well as the afternoon matchup between the Mets and Los Nationales. Home sick (yeah, still) I watched both games but didn't get my chat on with the BP boys (tough to do witty banter when you're slipping in and out of consciousness).

Also, Bill Simmons did a diary of Red Sox-Rangers tilt Monday afternoon, followed with a diary of Yanks/A's that night. Now, what is it that makes Red Sox fans do this? Sure, it's a chance to call Yankees players infantile names (and, if you're Simmons, to get paid for it), but how many Yankees bloggers (not big, influential columnists now, just bloggers) go out of their way to watch and document a Red Sox game, which has no bearing on their team?

It's like an ex-girlfriend who is very conspicuously dating someone new, yet obsessively knows every detail of your private life she can get her hands on. I thought you'd be over this by now. You've got your rings, now get your own identity to go with them.

I'm not going to go into the "there is no rivalry" riff, since that died in 2004 (maybe even 2003). When the teams are playing each other, I'll happily admit that it does mean more than your typical tilt against the Royals or Devil Rays. But given that the Yanks are stuck playing about 12% of their schedule against the Red Sox, I really don't care to see the Beantowners in their 143 other regular season games. I don't need to "check on the rivalry" during the few weeks of the season that don't feature a Yanks/Red Sox series.

Complaints aside, Simmons' piece is pretty funny.

*****
A few notes on tonight's game:

Mike Myers is a one-trick pony (hey guys, it's coming belt-high or lower, and off a corner!). Still, it's a pretty neat trick.

Jeez, I'd forgotten how much Street's fastball moves. I pity the ump that has to figure out if that thing darted through the strike zone.

Man, they play shallow on Cano. On a fly to not-so-deep center field, Kotsay had to do some bigtime backpedalling to make the catch.

WHYWHYWHY is Scott Proctor in a tie game? Scott Walkamatic Proctor! Walks the first batter, of course! WHY!

I mean, yesterday the Yanks were up by fourteen runs. That was Scott Proctor Time! Not the tie game, when the next opposition run wins the game!

It'd kill Farnsworth to come out for one more inning? What about Sturtze? Why on Earth is Jaret Wright on the roster?

Sac bunt, intentional walk (why bother?), and a long double later, it's over. Four batters, twelve pitches, three strikes. The Proctor will see you now.

Bad, bad, stupid loss. Mussina gave the Yanks more than expected tonight. The Yanks got enough guys on base against Rich Harden and the A's bullpen (fifteen baserunners). Men in scoring position in each of the last three innings. They just couldn't convert. This game goes into the file of anyone who hates Alex Rodriguez--two hits and a run scored, but five men left on base, strikeouts with runners in scoring position in the first and seventh innings, getting caught off first base in the third inning. An ugly performance.

As much as I like Alex, as great a player as he is, people pitch to him. It's not like Ortiz, or Bonds, or Manny Ramirez, or Albert Pujols, where in big spots, you can see the pitcher saying "Where the heck am I going to pitch this guy?" and suddenly every pitcher becomes a nibbler, trying to stay away from the guy's power. Heck, Frank Thomas--a guy the A's picked up on liquidation sale--gets that type of respect from Mussina in the sixth.

I haven't seen anyone do that for Rodriguez as a Yankee. Pitchers seem to sweat Sheffield's at bats more than Alex's. Back-to-back reigning MVP, and there's still room for improvement.

Opening It Up

This weekend fetured some pretty mild weather in the Big Apple, meaning, as the night follows the day, that I was due to get sick. After spending about 38 of my 48 weekend hours sleeping, my eyes fluttered open just in time to catch Opening Night, Indians at White Sox. A few thoughts:

I'm not a big fan of Opening Night (as opposed to Opening Day), as it is, but if you're going to insist on it, do something smart. For example, make the night opener a West Coast affair, or put it somewhere south, where there is some hope of good weather. Tonight's opener was delayed by rain, and looked pretty cold, to boot. Sure, those fans that stuck around looked like they were real diehards, but they also looked like they might require hospitalization on Monday morning.

Good introductions. America, Brian Anderson. Brian, this is America. Brian's the guy that made Aaron Rowand expendable, in a move which ultimately netted the Sox Jim Thome. Brian went 2-3 with a walk, a double, and two RBI in the White Sox 10-4 win. It's a nice way to say hello.

During the rain delay, La Chiquita and I found ourselves getting sucked in to AMC's presentation of the Godfather. It was quite a reminder of how powerful this film is, that after just about every scene, La Chiquita would gush "What a great scene!"

It's like, "Yeah, it's the Godfather."

What strikes me are the little flaws in the movie. At one point in the iconic scene where James Caan is beating on Carlo Rizzo, there's an obviously missed punch--the camera's at such an angle that the only way that the actors could have maintained the illusion would have been by Caan actually giving the actor playing Rizzo a shiner. I like the fact that that stayed in, that through a number of director's cuts and special editions, Francis Ford Coppola never went back to take that error off the books.

(I wish all edits could be so kind. Watching the Godfather with commercials, and edited for TV, was pretty weird. The strangest part of the edit was overdubs not only for truly salty language, but for the word "banging" and sicilian cursewords. That's extra effort in censorship!)

Most anticipated first pitch of tomorrow's openers will come in the bottom of the first, with Cris Carpenter dealing to Jimmy Rollins. Rollins hit in 36 consecutive games last season, a streak which he hopes to continue for at least 20 more games to reach Joe Dimaggio's record. While I don't think Rollins will take down the Yankee Clipper, I'd be more than happy to see Rollins hit in nine more, erasing Pete Rose's NL record.

Season predictions, Blink-style--virtually no forethought has been put into this:

AL EAST

Yankees
Red Sox
Orioles
Blue Jays
Devil Rays

AL CENTRAL

White Sox
Twins (WC)
Indians
Tigers
Royals

AL WEST

A's
Angels
Rangers
Mariners

AL Cy Young: J. Santana
AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez
AL Rookie: Brian Anderson

NL EAST

Braves
Phillies (WC)
Mets
Nats
Marlins

NL CENTRAL

Cardinals
Brewers
Cubs
Pirates
Astros
Reds

NL WEST

Dodgers
Padres
Giants
Diamondbacks
Rockies

NL Cy Young: Roy Oswalt
NL MVP: Albert Pujols
NL Rookie: Ryan Zimmerman