For those of you left homeless and/or hopeless by the devastation Hurricane Cliff caused last night, it's probably no consolation that the sun is shining today. No consolation that yes, the Series will go on, at least for a few days more. No consolation that there's still a chance to even up the Series, no consolation that last night might be the last time we see Brian Bruney in 2009.
All you can think about is the horror. The sight of the Yankees never really being in the game, all on account of a pitcher they used to kick around pretty regularly for most of his career. Suddenly, last year he went from fringy finesse lefty to combine harvester of doom (as a professor of mine used to say), and last night he was so locked in that everything--crowd, drizzle, batters, batted balls--was just a nuisance.
As I said on Twitter, it was a lousy feeling. It made me recall the last time I felt so bad about Game 1 of the World Series--back in 1996. Like this time, we were facing an NL team touted for its starting staff. Like last night, there was a player who looked like we wouldn't be able to get him out all series--that year Andruw Jones, this year Chase Utley--hitting a pair of dingers. And, I worry that, like the 1996 World Series, it may get worse before it gets better. AJ Burnett is going for the Yanks tonight, and unless the boys manage to show Pedro Martinez who his daddy is early and often, it'll be a night where I'm chowing down on antacids like they're tic tacs.
Still, the 1996 World Series turned out OK for Yankee fans. Keep the faith, and let's go Yankees.
****
Aside from Cliff Lee turning into an unstoppable creature from legend, the worst development last night was the continued downward spiral of Phil Hughes, whose postseason has been a completely different creature from his regular season in the pen. Hughes walked both batters he faced and barked at the umpire, even though he didn't come close to the plate with the majority of his offerings. Part of the problem, as Brother Joe notes today at Baseball Prospectus, is that Girardi changed the way he used Hughes, and it's not a fashion that complements Phil's style. Another issue is that Hughes looks like his mechanics are coming apart and his confidence is shot. They say George Steinbrenner was in the house last night, but I can't believe that's so. The George I grew up with would have gone to the clubhouse and fired Dave Eiland immediately after the game, if not earlier.
Not saying it would have been the right thing to do. Just saying that's what would've happened.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Last Minute World Series Preview*
* weather permitting...
I was there on Sunday, the beneficiary of a friend feeling under the weather, when the Yanks clinched American League pennant #40. It was made all the tastier because of the measure of payback the Yanks got against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in California of the West Coast of the United States, who'd sent the Yanks to some early October golfing in 2002 and 2005. Andy Pettitte, who's pretty much been Good Andy full-time since mid-July (he's 8-3 with 12 quality starts in his last 17 games) was on the money once again. A Yankee rally in the fourth gave him the lead, and in the eighth, everyone was surprised to hear the opening notes of Enter Sandman as Girardi took no chances on the last six outs. There was some excitement that inning, because a gork and a Vlad Guerrero single shaved the lead down to one against Rivera. However, Angels deadline pickup Scott Kazmir literally threw that momentum away in the bottom of the inning, when he couldn't throw a strike to the plate or to the first baseman. Boogie down time in the Bronx.
But pennant number 40 means that now it's time to worry about what could be championship number 27--and it's going to be a grind. The Phils won 93 games to the Yanks' 103, playing in a weaker league and arguably weaker division, but that's all out the window right now. The Phils remind me a bit of the 2002 Yankees, a team that was built on big peak performances which were meant to cover for some soft spots in the lineup. However, the starting rotation matches or betters anything the Yankees have put out there since 1998. (Even though the Yanks and Phils were neck-and-neck in SNVAR this season, the mid-season acquisitions of Cliff Lee and Pedro Martinez, and the mid-season degradation of Joba Chamberlain, pushes the Pennsylvanians over the top.) The Yankees' bullpen is an off-setting advantage, so I see this as close to a 50/50 series as possible. The keys to this series:
Starting Pitcher: CC Sabathia and Cole Hamels -- These two aren't likely to hook up in any one game of this series, but each shoulders a great responsibility for his team's success. CC should start three games if this World Series goes the full seven, something we haven't seen since Curt Schilling against the Yanks in 2001. Again, this is what he got the big money from the Yanks for. Meanwhile, Hamels was the ace of last season's World Champions, and a big part of the Phils' rotation superiority is the idea that he can snap back to that form, which he showed intermittently this season. In three postseason starts, however, Hamels was nothing special, and seemed to push everyone's frustration threshold--he got pulled in the fifth inning of the NLCS clincher against the Dodgers. Good Cole versus Bad Cole is a big swing for the Phils.
Right Field: Jayson Werth and Nick Swisher -- With the Yanks possibly starting lefties in five of seven games, Werth is going to have to pick up whatever slack the power lefties in the Phils' lineup (Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Raul Ibanez) leave behind. In his first season as a full-timer, Werth was the righty counterpart to Howard, punishing lefties to the tune of a homer every 13.4 plate appearances. Meanwhile, in the Yankees' more balanced lineup, a functional Swisher is the difference between the Yankee lineup being a relentless on base machine that drives pitchers up the wall, or not.
Relief Pitcher: Mariano Rivera and Brad Lidge -- We've seen already in this postseason that Joe Girardi is going to lean on Mariano Rivera like there is no tomorrow--it's one of the few things Joe's done in the playoffs we approve of. The question is whether the Sandman, a month shy of his 40th birthday, can continue to answer the call if Girardi loses faith in Phil Hughes and needs him for extended appearances night after night. Meanwhile, Lidge's issues are well-documented (7.21 ERA this year!) but Charlie Manuel has staked a lot on trying to get him back on track. The Yanks have made a lot of their hay against bullpens this year, so it's unlikely that Lidge will go untested.
If I have to make a call, it's Yanks in six, but I think that overstates how close this series is, and is going to be. Happy baseball, everyone!
I was there on Sunday, the beneficiary of a friend feeling under the weather, when the Yanks clinched American League pennant #40. It was made all the tastier because of the measure of payback the Yanks got against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in California of the West Coast of the United States, who'd sent the Yanks to some early October golfing in 2002 and 2005. Andy Pettitte, who's pretty much been Good Andy full-time since mid-July (he's 8-3 with 12 quality starts in his last 17 games) was on the money once again. A Yankee rally in the fourth gave him the lead, and in the eighth, everyone was surprised to hear the opening notes of Enter Sandman as Girardi took no chances on the last six outs. There was some excitement that inning, because a gork and a Vlad Guerrero single shaved the lead down to one against Rivera. However, Angels deadline pickup Scott Kazmir literally threw that momentum away in the bottom of the inning, when he couldn't throw a strike to the plate or to the first baseman. Boogie down time in the Bronx.
But pennant number 40 means that now it's time to worry about what could be championship number 27--and it's going to be a grind. The Phils won 93 games to the Yanks' 103, playing in a weaker league and arguably weaker division, but that's all out the window right now. The Phils remind me a bit of the 2002 Yankees, a team that was built on big peak performances which were meant to cover for some soft spots in the lineup. However, the starting rotation matches or betters anything the Yankees have put out there since 1998. (Even though the Yanks and Phils were neck-and-neck in SNVAR this season, the mid-season acquisitions of Cliff Lee and Pedro Martinez, and the mid-season degradation of Joba Chamberlain, pushes the Pennsylvanians over the top.) The Yankees' bullpen is an off-setting advantage, so I see this as close to a 50/50 series as possible. The keys to this series:
Starting Pitcher: CC Sabathia and Cole Hamels -- These two aren't likely to hook up in any one game of this series, but each shoulders a great responsibility for his team's success. CC should start three games if this World Series goes the full seven, something we haven't seen since Curt Schilling against the Yanks in 2001. Again, this is what he got the big money from the Yanks for. Meanwhile, Hamels was the ace of last season's World Champions, and a big part of the Phils' rotation superiority is the idea that he can snap back to that form, which he showed intermittently this season. In three postseason starts, however, Hamels was nothing special, and seemed to push everyone's frustration threshold--he got pulled in the fifth inning of the NLCS clincher against the Dodgers. Good Cole versus Bad Cole is a big swing for the Phils.
Right Field: Jayson Werth and Nick Swisher -- With the Yanks possibly starting lefties in five of seven games, Werth is going to have to pick up whatever slack the power lefties in the Phils' lineup (Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Raul Ibanez) leave behind. In his first season as a full-timer, Werth was the righty counterpart to Howard, punishing lefties to the tune of a homer every 13.4 plate appearances. Meanwhile, in the Yankees' more balanced lineup, a functional Swisher is the difference between the Yankee lineup being a relentless on base machine that drives pitchers up the wall, or not.
Relief Pitcher: Mariano Rivera and Brad Lidge -- We've seen already in this postseason that Joe Girardi is going to lean on Mariano Rivera like there is no tomorrow--it's one of the few things Joe's done in the playoffs we approve of. The question is whether the Sandman, a month shy of his 40th birthday, can continue to answer the call if Girardi loses faith in Phil Hughes and needs him for extended appearances night after night. Meanwhile, Lidge's issues are well-documented (7.21 ERA this year!) but Charlie Manuel has staked a lot on trying to get him back on track. The Yanks have made a lot of their hay against bullpens this year, so it's unlikely that Lidge will go untested.
If I have to make a call, it's Yanks in six, but I think that overstates how close this series is, and is going to be. Happy baseball, everyone!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Joe Girardi: Super Genius
Game 1, which I attended, was a pure delight--chilly and a bit wet, but damn near perfect. Game 2 was a test of endurance for all involved. With a healthy assist from Alex Rodriguez, and despite the fact that Joe Girardi managed himself into a Chad Gaudin-or-bust situation at the end of the game, things turned out well. Then there was Game 3, where Joba Chamberlain, Girardi, and the Yanks in general managed to spoil a Mariano Rivera performance for the ages. And it only got weirder from there.
To some extent, Yankee fans are going a little hard on Girardi. At worst, he can only claim partial credit for the many machinations that turned Joba Chamberlain from the Yanks' most promising young starter since Andy Pettitte* into...whatever the heck he is right now. The Master Plan of converting Joba from pen to starting rotation, now in its second year, was a top-down organizational decision. Since August, at the very least, it's had a whiff of fiasco to it, and in common-sense terms, it seems like something doomed to failure from the start: start his season in the starting rotation, then just when he seems to have gotten a rhythm going, make his rest between starts long and random, then put him on a strict five-day schedule, but shorten his appearances so that in September--when perhaps a starter should be building his endurance for the playoffs--he's making 3- and 4-inning starts. Then, in the last week of the season, put him in the bullpen as a short reliever. Finally, act surprised when Joba, who hasn't been consistent since all the experimentation started more than two months ago, craps the bed in a playoff game.
So, the whole organization gets to take a bow for Joba's debacle in the seventh inning of Game 3. The whole lineup--the 7-8-9 batters in particular--screwed the pooch, limiting the offense to just the runs that the Captain, A-Rod, Johnny Damon, and Jorge Posada could produce on solo homers. But Girardi gets sole credit for the Tony-LaRussa-on-crack way he's been overmanaging since the regular season ended. The game was lost in the bottom of the 11th inning--an inning which in which Dave Robertson took over for Rivera, got two outs, and was inexplicably replaced with Alfredo Aceves, who allowed a single to Howie Kendrick and a double to Jeff Mathis to blow the game.**
As Pete Abraham put it, it looks like Girardi's being paid by the pitching change, given the nutty and senseless way he's been playing matchups even in games that have no set end point. The Yanks have had three extra inning games (out of six total) in the postseason, and Girardi's managed to use seven relievers in each of those games. Of those 21 relief appearances, almost two-thirds (13) have featured a pitcher throwing less than a full inning.
The big problem is, this isn't the way that Girardi managed during the season. By my calculations, Joe's relievers had the eighth-highest ratio of innings pitched to games appeared (1.12 IP/G), which is an indication that you're not micromanaging and playing matchups. For the sake of comparison, Tony LaRussa's Cardinals relievers got the second-fewest innings pitched per game (0.91) after the Rays (0.90).
Now, it's true that you manage the playoffs differently from the regular season. Joe Torre was a master of this in his years with the Yanks--his bullpen became much, much smaller in October, and his usage of Mariano Rivera much more flexible. Girardi's kept the flexible and intelligent use of Rivera from the Joe Torre era, but turned the rest of his bench and bullpen usage into a showcase for his managerial "genius." After being a fairly laissez-faire tactical manager all season long (he found a good thing with Brett Gardner as a baserunning weapon, but otherwise he managed a fairly standard AL game), Girardi's decided to get showy. Given the deepest bench the Yankees have taken into the postseason since the 70s, Girardi's opted for a roster that gives him a non-hitting third catcher and a second pinch-runner/outfielder, rather than carrying Eric Hinske or Ramiro Pena. After using just one lefthander (Phil Coke) in the bullpen most of the year, he's now carrying two. And he seems to be choking under the weight of all these options.
You see, while it's true that you manage a bit differently in the playoffs, it's not really the time to completely re-make yourself as a manager, either. Joe Girardi won 103 games this season, managing with a much lighter touch than he's shown through five playoff wins. He was far from the perfect manager for those 103 wins, but he should trust the managing style that got him here.
****
The odd coda to all this is Mariano Rivera. He came into the game in the 10th inning, after Phil Hughes allowed a leadoff double to Angels catcher Jeff Mathis. He soon found himself in a first-and-third, no out situation, when he tried and failed to get the lead runner on a sac bunt. With the top of the Angels lineup due up, Rivera did some of the best pitching of his career, holding the Angels scoreless with the winning run 90 feet away. The fine job Rivera did in the tenth was largely forgotten after Aceves came in to lose the game the following inning. But then it was back in everyone's thoughts again...because some douchetards thought he was throwing a spitter.
Not the opposing team, mind you, or the umps, or anyone in attendance at the game. Some guys, who apparently think the name of Los Angeles of Anaheim's franchise is the "Angles," recorded and posted on YouTube a moment, apparently between pitches, where Rivera, while holding a baseball, spits. From the angle of the camera, it looks like he spits toward the baseball, but the camera cuts away so you can't see where the stream of spittle goes.
Now, when I saw this, I thought it was a joke. Folks like getting Yankee fans' goats, and crave the bit of attention that you can get by having Red Sox fans with time on their hands propagate the video around the Internet, and Yankee fans waste their time denouncing it. The joke stopped being funny when MLB had to issue a statement refuting the charges. Still some bloggers kept on acting like this was for real. Never mind that no one uses spit to load up the ball anymore. Never mind that if someone did, they wouldn't do it by spitting on the ball from nearly an arm's length away, in the open, with live cameras rolling, in front of the Angels team and some 45,000 of their fans. Never mind that some folks have made up things (like where the second base ump was or wasn't looking when the fateful loogy was spewed) to fit this idiotic claim.
Then again, just never mind. We have our dumbest subplot of the 2009 ALCS. And here I thought it would have something to do with the Rally Monkey.
****
ENDNOTES
* Yeah, I know that Chien Ming Wang was after Andy Pettitte, and was pretty darn good before he got hurt. But he wasn't heralded as a top prospect, a top of the rotation guy. I'm actually not sure that Pettitte had that kind of hype, either. I think maybe Al Leiter matches the Joba situation a little better--a guy with explosive stuff who looked like a real world beater. But thinking of that comparison makes me really depressed.
** Even if Al Aceves had gotten Kendrick out, Girardi would still have burned Robertson on 11 pitches, in a game which could've easily gone 16 innings. You'd have to think that Robertson facing Kendrick with two outs and the bases empty was certain death in order for that to make sense!
To some extent, Yankee fans are going a little hard on Girardi. At worst, he can only claim partial credit for the many machinations that turned Joba Chamberlain from the Yanks' most promising young starter since Andy Pettitte* into...whatever the heck he is right now. The Master Plan of converting Joba from pen to starting rotation, now in its second year, was a top-down organizational decision. Since August, at the very least, it's had a whiff of fiasco to it, and in common-sense terms, it seems like something doomed to failure from the start: start his season in the starting rotation, then just when he seems to have gotten a rhythm going, make his rest between starts long and random, then put him on a strict five-day schedule, but shorten his appearances so that in September--when perhaps a starter should be building his endurance for the playoffs--he's making 3- and 4-inning starts. Then, in the last week of the season, put him in the bullpen as a short reliever. Finally, act surprised when Joba, who hasn't been consistent since all the experimentation started more than two months ago, craps the bed in a playoff game.
So, the whole organization gets to take a bow for Joba's debacle in the seventh inning of Game 3. The whole lineup--the 7-8-9 batters in particular--screwed the pooch, limiting the offense to just the runs that the Captain, A-Rod, Johnny Damon, and Jorge Posada could produce on solo homers. But Girardi gets sole credit for the Tony-LaRussa-on-crack way he's been overmanaging since the regular season ended. The game was lost in the bottom of the 11th inning--an inning which in which Dave Robertson took over for Rivera, got two outs, and was inexplicably replaced with Alfredo Aceves, who allowed a single to Howie Kendrick and a double to Jeff Mathis to blow the game.**
As Pete Abraham put it, it looks like Girardi's being paid by the pitching change, given the nutty and senseless way he's been playing matchups even in games that have no set end point. The Yanks have had three extra inning games (out of six total) in the postseason, and Girardi's managed to use seven relievers in each of those games. Of those 21 relief appearances, almost two-thirds (13) have featured a pitcher throwing less than a full inning.
The big problem is, this isn't the way that Girardi managed during the season. By my calculations, Joe's relievers had the eighth-highest ratio of innings pitched to games appeared (1.12 IP/G), which is an indication that you're not micromanaging and playing matchups. For the sake of comparison, Tony LaRussa's Cardinals relievers got the second-fewest innings pitched per game (0.91) after the Rays (0.90).
Now, it's true that you manage the playoffs differently from the regular season. Joe Torre was a master of this in his years with the Yanks--his bullpen became much, much smaller in October, and his usage of Mariano Rivera much more flexible. Girardi's kept the flexible and intelligent use of Rivera from the Joe Torre era, but turned the rest of his bench and bullpen usage into a showcase for his managerial "genius." After being a fairly laissez-faire tactical manager all season long (he found a good thing with Brett Gardner as a baserunning weapon, but otherwise he managed a fairly standard AL game), Girardi's decided to get showy. Given the deepest bench the Yankees have taken into the postseason since the 70s, Girardi's opted for a roster that gives him a non-hitting third catcher and a second pinch-runner/outfielder, rather than carrying Eric Hinske or Ramiro Pena. After using just one lefthander (Phil Coke) in the bullpen most of the year, he's now carrying two. And he seems to be choking under the weight of all these options.
You see, while it's true that you manage a bit differently in the playoffs, it's not really the time to completely re-make yourself as a manager, either. Joe Girardi won 103 games this season, managing with a much lighter touch than he's shown through five playoff wins. He was far from the perfect manager for those 103 wins, but he should trust the managing style that got him here.
****
The odd coda to all this is Mariano Rivera. He came into the game in the 10th inning, after Phil Hughes allowed a leadoff double to Angels catcher Jeff Mathis. He soon found himself in a first-and-third, no out situation, when he tried and failed to get the lead runner on a sac bunt. With the top of the Angels lineup due up, Rivera did some of the best pitching of his career, holding the Angels scoreless with the winning run 90 feet away. The fine job Rivera did in the tenth was largely forgotten after Aceves came in to lose the game the following inning. But then it was back in everyone's thoughts again...because some douchetards thought he was throwing a spitter.
Not the opposing team, mind you, or the umps, or anyone in attendance at the game. Some guys, who apparently think the name of Los Angeles of Anaheim's franchise is the "Angles," recorded and posted on YouTube a moment, apparently between pitches, where Rivera, while holding a baseball, spits. From the angle of the camera, it looks like he spits toward the baseball, but the camera cuts away so you can't see where the stream of spittle goes.
Now, when I saw this, I thought it was a joke. Folks like getting Yankee fans' goats, and crave the bit of attention that you can get by having Red Sox fans with time on their hands propagate the video around the Internet, and Yankee fans waste their time denouncing it. The joke stopped being funny when MLB had to issue a statement refuting the charges. Still some bloggers kept on acting like this was for real. Never mind that no one uses spit to load up the ball anymore. Never mind that if someone did, they wouldn't do it by spitting on the ball from nearly an arm's length away, in the open, with live cameras rolling, in front of the Angels team and some 45,000 of their fans. Never mind that some folks have made up things (like where the second base ump was or wasn't looking when the fateful loogy was spewed) to fit this idiotic claim.
Then again, just never mind. We have our dumbest subplot of the 2009 ALCS. And here I thought it would have something to do with the Rally Monkey.
****
ENDNOTES
* Yeah, I know that Chien Ming Wang was after Andy Pettitte, and was pretty darn good before he got hurt. But he wasn't heralded as a top prospect, a top of the rotation guy. I'm actually not sure that Pettitte had that kind of hype, either. I think maybe Al Leiter matches the Joba situation a little better--a guy with explosive stuff who looked like a real world beater. But thinking of that comparison makes me really depressed.
** Even if Al Aceves had gotten Kendrick out, Girardi would still have burned Robertson on 11 pitches, in a game which could've easily gone 16 innings. You'd have to think that Robertson facing Kendrick with two outs and the bases empty was certain death in order for that to make sense!
Friday, October 16, 2009
Pre ALCS Thoughts
Wow, the ALDS flew by. The three Yankee victories were, by turn, expected, lucky, and surprising. In Game 1, CC did what he was given the big, huge contract to do, even though he didn't have his best stuff; in Game 2, late inning heroics combined with a lucky break from left field ump Phil Cuzzi, who had one job to do, and did it poorly. Game 3 featured "Can't Pitch" Carl Pavano showing the Yankees exactly the pitcher they thought they signed the week before Christmas in 2004. He was amazing. I was watching the online feed, the center field camera view. In that view, the camera stayed focused on the pitcher after each plate appearance and time and again, the view you'd see was Pavano turning his back to the plate, another strikeout notched, another batter disposed of. It was like that until the seventh, when, with the Twins leading 1-0, Alex Rodriguez went yard to the opposite field to tie the game. More on that in a moment. Two batters later, Jorge Posada did the same. Two guys, who we didn't know what exactly the Yankees would get from them coming into the season, swung everything in the other direction. It wasn't exactly smooth sailing from that point--the Twins helped Phil Hughes survive another unspectacular outing when scrappy piranha Nick Punto got sloppy on the basepaths, and the Captain made him pay for it--but the Yanks tacked on some insurance in the ninth and didn't look back.
Just like that, the Yankees closed out baseball at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, a place hailed alternately as a blight on the baseball landscape or the ultimate home field. Lost between Pavano's performance and another A-Rod postseason homer was Andy Pettitte's performance, which was in keeping with the strong work he did throughout the second half (6-3, 3.31 ERA and a drastic uptick in his strikeout rate). In his postgame interview, Pettitte seemed not only happy to have won and pitched well, but genuinely happy that his former teammate threw well, opposing him. It was a stark contrast to how most most Yankee fans feel about Pavano's post-Yankee life, which some of us hope will be just as full of quad pulls, buttocks contusions, and non-lethal late night car accidents as his Yankee tenure was. Still, the graceful approach was fully in keeping with the person Pettitte's shown himself to be throughout the years--from the early in his career when people thought he might be too nice to be a successful pitcher, right down to the way he comforted Jerry Hairston Jr. when Hairston's defensive lapses wrecked his perfect game back in August.
Alex and Fast Eddie
"I mean, how can I lose? 'Cause you were right, Bert: it's not enough to have talent, you got to have character, too. Yeah, I sure got character now."
--Fast Eddie Felson, The Hustler
One reason that Alex Rodriguez has been almost universally disliked in baseball is because he didn't have a good story. Good stories require drama, and drama usually requires a protagonist overcome (or struggle to overcome) adversity. From the start of his career, there wasn't much adversity to A-Rod's life in baseball. He always made things look easy: picked first in the draft, got to the majors early, established himself as a star quickly. Became the highest-paid athlete in sport. Traded to MLB's perennial payroll leader, a team that would give him every possible chance to win a championship or seven.
It was all too easy. When he finally did face adversity, in the 2004 ALCS, he wasn't cast as the hero, but rather the villain of someone else's success story. The following year, he won the MVP, but the Angels wanted no part of him in the ALDS--he walked six times in five games, good for a .435 OBP, but he only got two hits in the series, and no RBI. The next season featured the one of the worst episodes in recent Yankees history. Mid-season Rodriguez got into a bad funk. In a sharp departure from his usual methods of operation, Joe Torre decided that the way to shake him out of it was public shaming. The result was a mid-September Sports Illustrated article where Torre, Don Mattingly, and various teammates (particularly Jason Giambi) spoke openly about the various things they felt were A-Rod's problems. Ironically, the article came out just as it seemed that Rodriguez had gotten things back on track. Things degenerated from there until the point where Torre batted the previous year's MVP eighth in the lineup against the Tigers in the ALDS. Another giant fiasco for A-Rod, another loss for the Yankees.
As we talked about at the beginning of the ALDS, no one feels empathy, much less sympathy, for you when you're the richest, most talented guy in the room, and you don't achieve your goals. In 2007, after the Yanks lost the Midges Series against Cleveland--after another underwhelming offensive series by the third baseman--Rodriguez cemented that lack of empathy when his agent notoriously timed the declaration that Alex would be opting out of his contract--the richest contract in sports--during the World Series. Rodriguez was able to smooth things over, handling the negotiations personally to remain a Yankee, but that was hardly an altruistic act. It was closer to corporate damage control.
Then came this past off-season, Rodriguez's first in Yankee pinstripes that wasn't preceded by postseason humiliation. The big A-Rod scandal of 2008--the bust up of his marriage, with an apparent assist from Madonna--was just winding down when news of Selena Roberts's (anonymous sources) tell-all book hit the airwaves. Now Alex wasn't just a choker, he was a steroid cheat. Rodriguez's too-smooth apologia, full of explanations that were easily shot down and relatively devoid of emotion, only stoked the anger he faced.
Then came what looked like the coup de grace that would end Alex's season before it began--the discovery that he had a chronic hip injury. Surgery was expected to wipe out most, if not all, of his season, and some had to wonder if it wasn't for the best for Rodriguez to escape the spotlight in light of the season in light of the additional revelations promised in Roberts's book. However, Alex Rodriguez--in a move that wasn't in line with his perceived character--opted for a different surgery, a stopgap, instead. He'd still need a full surgical repair eventually, but the procedure was going to get him back on the field before the All Star break.
Still, I'd written A-Rod off for 2009, and I suspect I wasn't alone. The Yanks were stuck through 2016(?) with a contract for a guy with a bad hip. Even if he could play, there were the steroid distractions, and no access to the DH spot, since the team had a lot of guys headed that way coming into the season (remember, Posada was coming off his shoulder repair, and Matsui his recurring knee troubles), and no depth in the infield. One bad slide, one dive for a ball at third, and who knew what would happen to the jury-rigged hip?
But the injury wound up doing something interesting to Alex Rodriguez. It made him human. Finally, there was a reason for him to struggle. When he came back to the Yankees' lineup in May, he looked as if he'd been aged into his mid-40s. He couldn't run, his batting average was low, and he had a hard time catching up to good fastballs (according to Baseball Reference.com, he only hit .198/.343/.432 against power pitchers in 2009). Like many older ballplayers, he had to be more selective, draw walks, and wait for mistakes. Still, he provided the team an immediate boost--the team was 81-41 when Rodriguez started this season, 22-18 when he didn't.
He seemed more relaxed. This year, Alex had his best numbers when the team was within two runs of their opponent, and his effectiveness actually went down in blowouts either way. Alex had encountered adversity--divorce, the loss of his reputation with the steroids and other Selena Roberts accusations, the loss of his health--and seemed a changed man.
All of this made me think of Robert Rossen's 1962 black and white classic, The Hustler. In the film, Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) travels cross-country to play the best straight pool player in the country, Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). Eddie's young and extremely talented, and the first time he plays Fats he has the older man on the ropes, but he gets cocky, and drunk, and ultimately loses his shirt. At the end of the movie he plays Fats again, and the quote above is from that confrontation. In between the big pool matches, Fast Eddie is put through trials: He scuffles around trying to raise money for a rematch. He falls under the wing of a gambler who both teaches him some sports psychology and undermines his confidence at every turn. He gets injured while hustling pool, and he loses the woman he loves. The various pains and humiliations he faces along the way transform him, to the point that he's a completely different person than the guy who lost to Minnesota Fats before. As it turns out, now he can't lose, because he has nothing to lose--except his hard-earned character.
It's a classic story, one you've probably seen repeated in over a dozen sports films and at least half of Tom Cruise's filmography. Alex Rodriguez, returning to the ALCS for the first time since 2004, has a chance now to make that story his. He's eight wins, and a few more games like he had against the Twins, away. I wish him luck.
Other ALCS Notes:
Just like that, the Yankees closed out baseball at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, a place hailed alternately as a blight on the baseball landscape or the ultimate home field. Lost between Pavano's performance and another A-Rod postseason homer was Andy Pettitte's performance, which was in keeping with the strong work he did throughout the second half (6-3, 3.31 ERA and a drastic uptick in his strikeout rate). In his postgame interview, Pettitte seemed not only happy to have won and pitched well, but genuinely happy that his former teammate threw well, opposing him. It was a stark contrast to how most most Yankee fans feel about Pavano's post-Yankee life, which some of us hope will be just as full of quad pulls, buttocks contusions, and non-lethal late night car accidents as his Yankee tenure was. Still, the graceful approach was fully in keeping with the person Pettitte's shown himself to be throughout the years--from the early in his career when people thought he might be too nice to be a successful pitcher, right down to the way he comforted Jerry Hairston Jr. when Hairston's defensive lapses wrecked his perfect game back in August.
Alex and Fast Eddie
"I mean, how can I lose? 'Cause you were right, Bert: it's not enough to have talent, you got to have character, too. Yeah, I sure got character now."
--Fast Eddie Felson, The Hustler
One reason that Alex Rodriguez has been almost universally disliked in baseball is because he didn't have a good story. Good stories require drama, and drama usually requires a protagonist overcome (or struggle to overcome) adversity. From the start of his career, there wasn't much adversity to A-Rod's life in baseball. He always made things look easy: picked first in the draft, got to the majors early, established himself as a star quickly. Became the highest-paid athlete in sport. Traded to MLB's perennial payroll leader, a team that would give him every possible chance to win a championship or seven.
It was all too easy. When he finally did face adversity, in the 2004 ALCS, he wasn't cast as the hero, but rather the villain of someone else's success story. The following year, he won the MVP, but the Angels wanted no part of him in the ALDS--he walked six times in five games, good for a .435 OBP, but he only got two hits in the series, and no RBI. The next season featured the one of the worst episodes in recent Yankees history. Mid-season Rodriguez got into a bad funk. In a sharp departure from his usual methods of operation, Joe Torre decided that the way to shake him out of it was public shaming. The result was a mid-September Sports Illustrated article where Torre, Don Mattingly, and various teammates (particularly Jason Giambi) spoke openly about the various things they felt were A-Rod's problems. Ironically, the article came out just as it seemed that Rodriguez had gotten things back on track. Things degenerated from there until the point where Torre batted the previous year's MVP eighth in the lineup against the Tigers in the ALDS. Another giant fiasco for A-Rod, another loss for the Yankees.
As we talked about at the beginning of the ALDS, no one feels empathy, much less sympathy, for you when you're the richest, most talented guy in the room, and you don't achieve your goals. In 2007, after the Yanks lost the Midges Series against Cleveland--after another underwhelming offensive series by the third baseman--Rodriguez cemented that lack of empathy when his agent notoriously timed the declaration that Alex would be opting out of his contract--the richest contract in sports--during the World Series. Rodriguez was able to smooth things over, handling the negotiations personally to remain a Yankee, but that was hardly an altruistic act. It was closer to corporate damage control.
Then came this past off-season, Rodriguez's first in Yankee pinstripes that wasn't preceded by postseason humiliation. The big A-Rod scandal of 2008--the bust up of his marriage, with an apparent assist from Madonna--was just winding down when news of Selena Roberts's (anonymous sources) tell-all book hit the airwaves. Now Alex wasn't just a choker, he was a steroid cheat. Rodriguez's too-smooth apologia, full of explanations that were easily shot down and relatively devoid of emotion, only stoked the anger he faced.
Then came what looked like the coup de grace that would end Alex's season before it began--the discovery that he had a chronic hip injury. Surgery was expected to wipe out most, if not all, of his season, and some had to wonder if it wasn't for the best for Rodriguez to escape the spotlight in light of the season in light of the additional revelations promised in Roberts's book. However, Alex Rodriguez--in a move that wasn't in line with his perceived character--opted for a different surgery, a stopgap, instead. He'd still need a full surgical repair eventually, but the procedure was going to get him back on the field before the All Star break.
Still, I'd written A-Rod off for 2009, and I suspect I wasn't alone. The Yanks were stuck through 2016(?) with a contract for a guy with a bad hip. Even if he could play, there were the steroid distractions, and no access to the DH spot, since the team had a lot of guys headed that way coming into the season (remember, Posada was coming off his shoulder repair, and Matsui his recurring knee troubles), and no depth in the infield. One bad slide, one dive for a ball at third, and who knew what would happen to the jury-rigged hip?
But the injury wound up doing something interesting to Alex Rodriguez. It made him human. Finally, there was a reason for him to struggle. When he came back to the Yankees' lineup in May, he looked as if he'd been aged into his mid-40s. He couldn't run, his batting average was low, and he had a hard time catching up to good fastballs (according to Baseball Reference.com, he only hit .198/.343/.432 against power pitchers in 2009). Like many older ballplayers, he had to be more selective, draw walks, and wait for mistakes. Still, he provided the team an immediate boost--the team was 81-41 when Rodriguez started this season, 22-18 when he didn't.
He seemed more relaxed. This year, Alex had his best numbers when the team was within two runs of their opponent, and his effectiveness actually went down in blowouts either way. Alex had encountered adversity--divorce, the loss of his reputation with the steroids and other Selena Roberts accusations, the loss of his health--and seemed a changed man.
All of this made me think of Robert Rossen's 1962 black and white classic, The Hustler. In the film, Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) travels cross-country to play the best straight pool player in the country, Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). Eddie's young and extremely talented, and the first time he plays Fats he has the older man on the ropes, but he gets cocky, and drunk, and ultimately loses his shirt. At the end of the movie he plays Fats again, and the quote above is from that confrontation. In between the big pool matches, Fast Eddie is put through trials: He scuffles around trying to raise money for a rematch. He falls under the wing of a gambler who both teaches him some sports psychology and undermines his confidence at every turn. He gets injured while hustling pool, and he loses the woman he loves. The various pains and humiliations he faces along the way transform him, to the point that he's a completely different person than the guy who lost to Minnesota Fats before. As it turns out, now he can't lose, because he has nothing to lose--except his hard-earned character.
It's a classic story, one you've probably seen repeated in over a dozen sports films and at least half of Tom Cruise's filmography. Alex Rodriguez, returning to the ALCS for the first time since 2004, has a chance now to make that story his. He's eight wins, and a few more games like he had against the Twins, away. I wish him luck.
Other ALCS Notes:
- With Joba remaining in the bullpen, the aim now is to use CC Sabathia the way aces were used in the 80s and early 90s--three starts in a seven game series, if needed. That puts a premium on the Yankees trying to beat the Angels early, since you can't pull that off two series in a row. Since I don't want to see any more of Chad Gaudin in the first inning in 2009, here's hoping the Yanks can win in five.
- The Angels are a scary, scary team. The way they put the hurt on Papelbon at the end of their ALDS was just breathtaking. It's a team much like the Yanks of late 90s in that the lineup relies on depth more than any single peak performer.
- I'm headed to fight the elements at the Stadium for tonight's Game One. I'll be in section 130. Updates via Twitter (@derekbaseball) as needed. Happy baseball!
Friday, October 09, 2009
Almost Game Time: ALDS Game 2
Game One of Twins/Yankees provided the expected result (7-2 win), but not in the expected ways. As I noted on Twitter (@derekbaseball, if you're not following) CC was demonstrating the difference between command and control for much of the game. If you look at the box score, you'd see that see that the big lefty struck out eight and walked none, and figure that he must've really been on. Instead, it was clear throughout the game that CC wasn't hitting his spots amd was actually struggling a bit--think about how many times he crossed up Jorge Posada--even though he could still get the ball over the plate when he needed it to avoid walking anyone. The Twins did their part to help CC out, swinging early and often. It seemed like this approach could yield some fruit for Minnesota in the early innings--the Twinkies were fouling off so many pitches that Sabathia was burning 20 pitches per inning--but that same hacktasticalness also contributed to their eight Ks against CC.
There's a lesson for Game Two starter AJ Burnett here: the Twins will get themselves out. Be patient, stay around the plate, and the Twins will assist you by swinging away. In two starts against the Twins this season, Burnett gave them 10 walks in 13 1/3 innings, which is way too much to give a squad that's missing a large part of its power. If AJ can stay around the plate, hopefully it won't take 10 innings to put Minnesota down, this time. But as I said last time out, if he's too free with the free passes, this series could change in a hurry. Here's hoping stingy AJ gives us an enjoyable game.
NOTES:
Usually I frown on personal catchers, particularly when the performance gap with the bat is as profound as it is between Jose Molina and Jorge Posada. But the weird thing looking at Burnett the contrast between JoMo and Hip Hip Jorge catching Burnett is the way that Burnett's strikeouts disappear when Posada's behind the plate. This year Burnett struck out 18.2% of batters when Jorge's catching him, 25.2% when anyone else (Molina, Kevin Cash, Frisco Cervelli) is behind the plate. That's a big difference, and both samples are pretty substantial. Now, it's possible that Posada started when the Yanks and Burnett were facing better offenses, but it also seems likely that something about the pitcher/catcher rapport was off between Burnett and Posada, with real consequences. I just hope that Girardi has the good sense not to let Molina bury the offense if he comes up in a big spot.
There's a lesson for Game Two starter AJ Burnett here: the Twins will get themselves out. Be patient, stay around the plate, and the Twins will assist you by swinging away. In two starts against the Twins this season, Burnett gave them 10 walks in 13 1/3 innings, which is way too much to give a squad that's missing a large part of its power. If AJ can stay around the plate, hopefully it won't take 10 innings to put Minnesota down, this time. But as I said last time out, if he's too free with the free passes, this series could change in a hurry. Here's hoping stingy AJ gives us an enjoyable game.
NOTES:
Usually I frown on personal catchers, particularly when the performance gap with the bat is as profound as it is between Jose Molina and Jorge Posada. But the weird thing looking at Burnett the contrast between JoMo and Hip Hip Jorge catching Burnett is the way that Burnett's strikeouts disappear when Posada's behind the plate. This year Burnett struck out 18.2% of batters when Jorge's catching him, 25.2% when anyone else (Molina, Kevin Cash, Frisco Cervelli) is behind the plate. That's a big difference, and both samples are pretty substantial. Now, it's possible that Posada started when the Yanks and Burnett were facing better offenses, but it also seems likely that something about the pitcher/catcher rapport was off between Burnett and Posada, with real consequences. I just hope that Girardi has the good sense not to let Molina bury the offense if he comes up in a big spot.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Almost Game Time: ALDS Game 1
When the dust settled after Game 163...I think Emma Span put it best (via Twitter):
So they come to New York as immense underdogs, an 87-win just-scraped-through division winner against 103-win juggernaut. And yet they could win. Like every other underdog in sports, they get to take a rock, sling it at Goliath's head, and hope for the best.
Despite the lofty win total, this isn't a great Yankee team. Great Yankee teams tend to know who their #4 starter is heading into the playoffs. I'll take the 2009 Yankees' lineup any day--it's beautifully balanced, all the regulars met or exceeded expectations, it's beautiful. CC's been great, and the 1-2 bullpen punch of Mariano Rivera and Phil Hughes has been a thing of beauty. But the starting rotation hinges on a notoriously inconsistent guy who alternates great starts with horrible ones (A.J. Burnett) and a guy who many thought was done coming into the season (Andy Pettitte). You could see A.J. turn in one of his craptastic allow-eight-runs-in-three-innings starts on Friday, and that, plus the hostile environment of the Metrodome, could change the entire complexion of the series.
That's the nightmare. A miraculously healthy Carl Pavano celebrating a Division Series win, perhaps even on the mound at Yankee Stadium. No one--regardless of how the Red Sox do against the Angels, or the fact that the Mets managed to lose ninety games in their inaugural Citifield season--letting Yankee fans live it down, ever. But that's the deal when you're the favorite. You don't get to fail, you get to be humiliated. And anything short of a parade down the Canyon of Heroes is considered failure.
For fans, it's important to remember that the Pavano nightmare is a pretty nice problem to have. Unlike fans of 22 other teams, we have postseason baseball. The team, while not without its problems, is probably better than any we've seen in the Bronx since 2003. So bring on the underdogs, and don't be afraid to root for Goliath. Enjoy the game.
What an absolutely amazing game. But how neurotic am I that I'm already picturing the scene if Pavano eliminates the Yanks at the Stadium?Yes, it was a great game, but also a reminder that great games don't always come from great teams. One of the reasons that the game went on for twelve innings is because both teams flubbed opportunities to put the other away. The Twins, perennially praised for their fundamentals, were plagued by shoddy execution, with outfielders throwing to the wrong bases, guys doing a poor job of tagging up on fly balls, and so forth. Certified genius manager Jim Leyland struggled with the bullpen, pulling young starter Rick Porcello early, but being a bit slow with the hook for closer Fernando Rodney, who pitched his longest appearance in four years and was tagged with the loss. At the end, the winners come to the ALDS tired, having gone 12 innings and used 8 pitchers on Tuesday, only to arrive in New York after midnight, with a 6:00 PM start today. They arrive without their big power hitter, Justin Morneau, or their starting third baseman, Joe Crede. They arrive having lost 7 straight against the Yanks this year. They arrive having been bounced out of the playoffs in the Division Series on their last three tries, two of those against the 2003-4 Yanks.
So they come to New York as immense underdogs, an 87-win just-scraped-through division winner against 103-win juggernaut. And yet they could win. Like every other underdog in sports, they get to take a rock, sling it at Goliath's head, and hope for the best.
Despite the lofty win total, this isn't a great Yankee team. Great Yankee teams tend to know who their #4 starter is heading into the playoffs. I'll take the 2009 Yankees' lineup any day--it's beautifully balanced, all the regulars met or exceeded expectations, it's beautiful. CC's been great, and the 1-2 bullpen punch of Mariano Rivera and Phil Hughes has been a thing of beauty. But the starting rotation hinges on a notoriously inconsistent guy who alternates great starts with horrible ones (A.J. Burnett) and a guy who many thought was done coming into the season (Andy Pettitte). You could see A.J. turn in one of his craptastic allow-eight-runs-in-three-innings starts on Friday, and that, plus the hostile environment of the Metrodome, could change the entire complexion of the series.
That's the nightmare. A miraculously healthy Carl Pavano celebrating a Division Series win, perhaps even on the mound at Yankee Stadium. No one--regardless of how the Red Sox do against the Angels, or the fact that the Mets managed to lose ninety games in their inaugural Citifield season--letting Yankee fans live it down, ever. But that's the deal when you're the favorite. You don't get to fail, you get to be humiliated. And anything short of a parade down the Canyon of Heroes is considered failure.
For fans, it's important to remember that the Pavano nightmare is a pretty nice problem to have. Unlike fans of 22 other teams, we have postseason baseball. The team, while not without its problems, is probably better than any we've seen in the Bronx since 2003. So bring on the underdogs, and don't be afraid to root for Goliath. Enjoy the game.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Game Story: Sweep Dreams in the Bronx
The Sunday plan landed me at Yankee Stadium last night, for the most comfortable Yanks/Sox game I've attended since 2002 or so. With the Pinstripers taking the first three games of the set in dramatic fashion, there was a "found money" quality to the game--a loss would sting, but it's still three out of four, right?--and the spacier environs of New Yankee Stadium made it a bit easier for Yanks and Sox partisans to make their respective ways to the beer and bathroom lines without tripping over each other. When people who hate you come into your house, it's definitely nice to have some elbow room.
I wasn't expecting much from the matchup. The MoLester has been sterling against the Yanks for his career--he only has one bad start against the team, and that came before his cancer diagnosis in 2006. Andy Pettitte's record against the Beantowners was much more mixed--15-8 against them for his career, but in the last few seasons it's been more Bad Andy than Good Andy.
Fortunately, it was all about Good Andy last night, running up another seven shutout innings to go with the combined effort shutouts on Friday and Saturday. The only players who really gave him trouble were JD Drew and Nick Green, although Andy avoided pitching to Mike Lowell as if he were the second coming of Albert Pujols.
It was 1-0 in the eighth (on an Alex Rodriguez line homer to center) when both managers tried to cough up the game. With Andy at 112 pitches, Joe Girardi called on Phil Coke to face the top of the order. It made sense to play a matchup against Jacoby Ellsbury, and the third batter of the inning, Victor Martinez, is marginally better against righties than lefties in his career, but then you have two more righthanded hitters, Bay and Youkilis. So while it wasn't a surprise to see Coke come into the game, it was a surprise that after he left the bullpen, no one else was warming up. Not Rivera in case a four out save is needed. Not Phil Hughes. Not even Brian Bruney "just in case." I like Coke and I'm all in favor of confidence, but this was just lousy planning--this is the same guy who gave up 6 runs in a third of an inning just last week. You give that guy a safety net, if you can. Coke gave up the lead on a 2-run V-Mart homer, and was fortunate to escape more damage when Jason Bay rapped into a double play.
After the game, Girardi defended his decision by saying that he wouldn't pitch Hughes in three straight games--the Phil Hughes Rules, anyone?--but if that was the case, why on earth did Girardi only get two outs (on nine friggin' pitches, total) out of Hughes in those appearances?
Anyway, in the bottom of the eighth, Tito Francona has his house much more in order. Josh Bard comes out of the bullpen to face the #9 spot, Derek Jeter, and Johnny Damon. As Bard comes in from the bullpen, we could see that both Hideki Okajima and Jon ("I prefer Jonathan") Papelbon are warming up, and not just soft-tossing, either. The stage is set for Bard to face a pinch-hitter and Jeter, Okajima to face Damon, and Papelbon to stretch out to four outs if either pitcher gets in trouble. I mean, that's the only way that having both pitchers warming up behind Bard makes sense, right?
As you probably saw last night, after Bard retired Hideki Matsui (pinch-hitting for Jerry Hairston) and Derek Jeter--making the Captain look bad in the process--Francona lets Bard face Damon. As I twittered at the time, Brother Joe, who's with me at the game, says "This is a risk. Damon could pop one in this park." He barely finishes saying it and Damon has lined a shot into the seats. Bard then faces Teixeira--a more defensible call, Tex kills lefties this year--and the big first baseman pops one so high in the air we never saw it come down. I'm told it was a fair ball. A couple of insurance runs later, we're off to never never land, and Boston was swept.
Some of the Red Sox fans in my section headed for the exits immediately after the Tex homer landed, when the Yanks had just a one-run lead. A couple of them had wrapped up their Boston regalia and tucked it under their arms, so as to hide that they were members of the RSN. It was an odd reaction, given Boston's recent history against the Yanks. You're up 8-4 on the season series! You lead the wild card, from whence you've won the World Series...twice!
This is ridiculous. The Red Sox are a good team. People are blaming Theo Epstein for not picking up Roy Halladay, oblivious of the fact that aside from John Smoltz's blowout Thursday, the Red Sox starters held the Yankees to four runs over three games, even while playing at Coors-on-the-Hudson Stadium. Things happen, and no one wins the pennant on August 10 anymore.
***
Overheard Outside Yankee Stadium--Man in Yanks paraphenalia talking to young woman of no visible affiliation, wearing a cardigan on a brutally humid night: "You covered up your tattoo? C'mon, show your tattoo. Why not? Show your tattoo. No one is gonna beat you up. Seriously, no one is gonna beat you up."
I wasn't expecting much from the matchup. The MoLester has been sterling against the Yanks for his career--he only has one bad start against the team, and that came before his cancer diagnosis in 2006. Andy Pettitte's record against the Beantowners was much more mixed--15-8 against them for his career, but in the last few seasons it's been more Bad Andy than Good Andy.
Fortunately, it was all about Good Andy last night, running up another seven shutout innings to go with the combined effort shutouts on Friday and Saturday. The only players who really gave him trouble were JD Drew and Nick Green, although Andy avoided pitching to Mike Lowell as if he were the second coming of Albert Pujols.
It was 1-0 in the eighth (on an Alex Rodriguez line homer to center) when both managers tried to cough up the game. With Andy at 112 pitches, Joe Girardi called on Phil Coke to face the top of the order. It made sense to play a matchup against Jacoby Ellsbury, and the third batter of the inning, Victor Martinez, is marginally better against righties than lefties in his career, but then you have two more righthanded hitters, Bay and Youkilis. So while it wasn't a surprise to see Coke come into the game, it was a surprise that after he left the bullpen, no one else was warming up. Not Rivera in case a four out save is needed. Not Phil Hughes. Not even Brian Bruney "just in case." I like Coke and I'm all in favor of confidence, but this was just lousy planning--this is the same guy who gave up 6 runs in a third of an inning just last week. You give that guy a safety net, if you can. Coke gave up the lead on a 2-run V-Mart homer, and was fortunate to escape more damage when Jason Bay rapped into a double play.
After the game, Girardi defended his decision by saying that he wouldn't pitch Hughes in three straight games--the Phil Hughes Rules, anyone?--but if that was the case, why on earth did Girardi only get two outs (on nine friggin' pitches, total) out of Hughes in those appearances?
Anyway, in the bottom of the eighth, Tito Francona has his house much more in order. Josh Bard comes out of the bullpen to face the #9 spot, Derek Jeter, and Johnny Damon. As Bard comes in from the bullpen, we could see that both Hideki Okajima and Jon ("I prefer Jonathan") Papelbon are warming up, and not just soft-tossing, either. The stage is set for Bard to face a pinch-hitter and Jeter, Okajima to face Damon, and Papelbon to stretch out to four outs if either pitcher gets in trouble. I mean, that's the only way that having both pitchers warming up behind Bard makes sense, right?
As you probably saw last night, after Bard retired Hideki Matsui (pinch-hitting for Jerry Hairston) and Derek Jeter--making the Captain look bad in the process--Francona lets Bard face Damon. As I twittered at the time, Brother Joe, who's with me at the game, says "This is a risk. Damon could pop one in this park." He barely finishes saying it and Damon has lined a shot into the seats. Bard then faces Teixeira--a more defensible call, Tex kills lefties this year--and the big first baseman pops one so high in the air we never saw it come down. I'm told it was a fair ball. A couple of insurance runs later, we're off to never never land, and Boston was swept.
Some of the Red Sox fans in my section headed for the exits immediately after the Tex homer landed, when the Yanks had just a one-run lead. A couple of them had wrapped up their Boston regalia and tucked it under their arms, so as to hide that they were members of the RSN. It was an odd reaction, given Boston's recent history against the Yanks. You're up 8-4 on the season series! You lead the wild card, from whence you've won the World Series...twice!
This is ridiculous. The Red Sox are a good team. People are blaming Theo Epstein for not picking up Roy Halladay, oblivious of the fact that aside from John Smoltz's blowout Thursday, the Red Sox starters held the Yankees to four runs over three games, even while playing at Coors-on-the-Hudson Stadium. Things happen, and no one wins the pennant on August 10 anymore.
***
Overheard Outside Yankee Stadium--Man in Yanks paraphenalia talking to young woman of no visible affiliation, wearing a cardigan on a brutally humid night: "You covered up your tattoo? C'mon, show your tattoo. Why not? Show your tattoo. No one is gonna beat you up. Seriously, no one is gonna beat you up."
Friday, July 31, 2009
Who Do You Trust?
I was going to break my blog-silence in a more official and positive fashion, but I wasn't quite done with that piece (which should run tomorrow) when the latest 2003 steroid test leaks came out (courtesy of the New York Times), and I had to say something.
You see, I've been waiting for this story a long time. Remember when the BALCO grand jury testimony leaked, and folks lined up to beat Jason Giambi like a piñata? Remember the folks who swung the sticks with just a little extra gusto, because he was a Yankee? Remember when the Mitchell Report came out, implicating Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte? To most baseball fans, it was a dark moment in the game's history; to a lucky few, it was a day of jubilee. A National holiday, if you would.
We're not even going to talk about the Alex Rodriguez revelations earlier this year. Each time the gloating started, each time people geared up to cheer "STEROIDS" when the Yanks came to Beantown, my reaction was the same. Wait. Just you wait.
Because you had to figure this day was coming. Those Red Sox fans who chose to act superior on this issue were throwing their stones while sitting in a glass ballpark. Did they think the Red Sox were the one team in baseball to "just say no" to performance enhancement? Didn't they ever look at the middle of their own lineup? I grew up in Washington Heights, so I can attest that Manny Ramirez was always a big guy. But he wasn't as big as he got when he arrived in Boston. Meanwhile, it was always surprising that the same people who self-righteously obsessed over Roger Clemens's hat size never seemed to have looked at David Ortiz's noggin, ever.
When Manny Ramirez caught a PED suspension earlier this year, it was a blow for the more sanctimonious members of the RSN, but they'd also dodged a bullet. Ramirez had already been repudiated by the Sox and most of their fans when he was suspended. The Red Sox wound up looking good for jettisoning Manny, headcase and now cheater, before he was caught.
What some people missed in Manny's suspension was that he pretty much admitted that he was one of the 104 players who'd flunked MLB's 2003 survey testing. At the time, the Players Association released a statement on Manny's behalf which included the following: "I do want to say one other thing; I've taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons." That might sound like a strident declaration of innocence--but only if you didn't know that there were drug tests prior to the past five seasons. When you remembered that, it sounded more like a confession by omission.
Now, even if you accepted that Manny was a juicer, and that he likely was during his Sox tenure, it wasn't that big a black eye on the franchise, because you could just add it to the list of eccentricities known as "Manny being Manny." Heck, for most of his time in Boston, Ramirez was treated as if he was a child or mentally disabled--someone you couldn't hold responsible for his own actions. It's a different matter with David Ortiz, who's never been infantilized by baseball fans the way Manny or (to a lesser extent) Sammy Sosa were. Even Ortiz's nickname gives the impression of responsibility and adulthood; he's been one of the most respected players in the game. That's why this is big news.
Look, the point here isn't that I'm happy about this. I'm not. Even though he plays for the Red Sox, I've always admired Ortiz. As a Dominican-American, I'm not happy to see more Dominicans ensnared in this PED mess. Also, it's not like Ortiz and Ramirez's failings expiate Clemens, Pettitte, Giambi or A-Rod.
Furthermore, I can understand the pressure on Ortiz to get on the juice. You have to remember that at the time of the survey testing, Ortiz had washed out of the major leagues with the Twins. He had been non-tendered, and he was facing a battle for playing time with a number of other 1B/DH types with the Sox, including BALCO juicer Jeremy Giambi. At the same time the CBA basically created a "first positive test is free" environment that year. The disincentives against steroid use were as low as they would ever be (unless you predicted that law enforcement would intervene in the destruction of the survey tests and unscrupulous lawyers would leak names to the media).
The point isn't that Ortiz is a bad person, it's that it's pretty hard to know with certainty who the "good people" are in the Steroid Era. After Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's record, everyone looked to Alex Rodriguez; he would be the guy who erased Bonds from the record book, giving baseball a "clean" career home run leader. That lasted less than two years, until Selena Roberts got a few guys to spill the beans, under veil of anonymity, of course.
Even after A-Rod, everybody has someone they point to, claiming that this is the guy who did things "the right way" while everyone else was giving in to temptation. Until Thursday morning, some folks pointed to David Ortiz in that way. Others stake their reputations on Albert Pujols being clean, or on Junior Griffey or Ryan Howard or Jim Thome or Chipper Jones. But with due respect to all of those guys--none of whom has been implicated of anything, as far as I know--the simple fact is, you can't know that they're clean. You might think or believe they are. You can ask them, and you can take their word for it, and you can note that so-and-so's a straight shooter and what's-his-name's a good guy. You could still be wrong.
David Ortiz is, by all accounts, a good guy. So was Mark McGwire. So, I would think, are many of the 97 remaining players on the 2003 survey testing list whose identities have not, as yet, been revealed. Should the rest of those names come to light--and that seems inevitable, either in one lump sum by court order, or by dribs and drabs every March, July, and October, as pointed out by Brother Joe--we'll have more villains to point at and jeer and feel superior to, but will those not named be exonerated? Will we suddenly have confidence in the MLB testing program's efficacy, and declare the game clean?
Yesterday the Red Sox joined a group that includes, but is not limited to, the Yankees, Giants, and Dodgers on the list of clubs who've really lived under the shadow of PED--with a valued star who's still on the roster and whose exploits fans will still cheer marked as tainted. Now Red Sox fans get to discover things some of the fans of those teams have already gone through: the "maybe it was just that one time," the "maybe the test results were wrong," the "that reporter is an unethical scumbag," the potluck of rationalization, denial, recrimination, and acceptance. The loss of trust. Welcome to the club.
You see, I've been waiting for this story a long time. Remember when the BALCO grand jury testimony leaked, and folks lined up to beat Jason Giambi like a piñata? Remember the folks who swung the sticks with just a little extra gusto, because he was a Yankee? Remember when the Mitchell Report came out, implicating Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte? To most baseball fans, it was a dark moment in the game's history; to a lucky few, it was a day of jubilee. A National holiday, if you would.
We're not even going to talk about the Alex Rodriguez revelations earlier this year. Each time the gloating started, each time people geared up to cheer "STEROIDS" when the Yanks came to Beantown, my reaction was the same. Wait. Just you wait.
Because you had to figure this day was coming. Those Red Sox fans who chose to act superior on this issue were throwing their stones while sitting in a glass ballpark. Did they think the Red Sox were the one team in baseball to "just say no" to performance enhancement? Didn't they ever look at the middle of their own lineup? I grew up in Washington Heights, so I can attest that Manny Ramirez was always a big guy. But he wasn't as big as he got when he arrived in Boston. Meanwhile, it was always surprising that the same people who self-righteously obsessed over Roger Clemens's hat size never seemed to have looked at David Ortiz's noggin, ever.
When Manny Ramirez caught a PED suspension earlier this year, it was a blow for the more sanctimonious members of the RSN, but they'd also dodged a bullet. Ramirez had already been repudiated by the Sox and most of their fans when he was suspended. The Red Sox wound up looking good for jettisoning Manny, headcase and now cheater, before he was caught.
What some people missed in Manny's suspension was that he pretty much admitted that he was one of the 104 players who'd flunked MLB's 2003 survey testing. At the time, the Players Association released a statement on Manny's behalf which included the following: "I do want to say one other thing; I've taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons." That might sound like a strident declaration of innocence--but only if you didn't know that there were drug tests prior to the past five seasons. When you remembered that, it sounded more like a confession by omission.
Now, even if you accepted that Manny was a juicer, and that he likely was during his Sox tenure, it wasn't that big a black eye on the franchise, because you could just add it to the list of eccentricities known as "Manny being Manny." Heck, for most of his time in Boston, Ramirez was treated as if he was a child or mentally disabled--someone you couldn't hold responsible for his own actions. It's a different matter with David Ortiz, who's never been infantilized by baseball fans the way Manny or (to a lesser extent) Sammy Sosa were. Even Ortiz's nickname gives the impression of responsibility and adulthood; he's been one of the most respected players in the game. That's why this is big news.
Look, the point here isn't that I'm happy about this. I'm not. Even though he plays for the Red Sox, I've always admired Ortiz. As a Dominican-American, I'm not happy to see more Dominicans ensnared in this PED mess. Also, it's not like Ortiz and Ramirez's failings expiate Clemens, Pettitte, Giambi or A-Rod.
Furthermore, I can understand the pressure on Ortiz to get on the juice. You have to remember that at the time of the survey testing, Ortiz had washed out of the major leagues with the Twins. He had been non-tendered, and he was facing a battle for playing time with a number of other 1B/DH types with the Sox, including BALCO juicer Jeremy Giambi. At the same time the CBA basically created a "first positive test is free" environment that year. The disincentives against steroid use were as low as they would ever be (unless you predicted that law enforcement would intervene in the destruction of the survey tests and unscrupulous lawyers would leak names to the media).
The point isn't that Ortiz is a bad person, it's that it's pretty hard to know with certainty who the "good people" are in the Steroid Era. After Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's record, everyone looked to Alex Rodriguez; he would be the guy who erased Bonds from the record book, giving baseball a "clean" career home run leader. That lasted less than two years, until Selena Roberts got a few guys to spill the beans, under veil of anonymity, of course.
Even after A-Rod, everybody has someone they point to, claiming that this is the guy who did things "the right way" while everyone else was giving in to temptation. Until Thursday morning, some folks pointed to David Ortiz in that way. Others stake their reputations on Albert Pujols being clean, or on Junior Griffey or Ryan Howard or Jim Thome or Chipper Jones. But with due respect to all of those guys--none of whom has been implicated of anything, as far as I know--the simple fact is, you can't know that they're clean. You might think or believe they are. You can ask them, and you can take their word for it, and you can note that so-and-so's a straight shooter and what's-his-name's a good guy. You could still be wrong.
David Ortiz is, by all accounts, a good guy. So was Mark McGwire. So, I would think, are many of the 97 remaining players on the 2003 survey testing list whose identities have not, as yet, been revealed. Should the rest of those names come to light--and that seems inevitable, either in one lump sum by court order, or by dribs and drabs every March, July, and October, as pointed out by Brother Joe--we'll have more villains to point at and jeer and feel superior to, but will those not named be exonerated? Will we suddenly have confidence in the MLB testing program's efficacy, and declare the game clean?
Yesterday the Red Sox joined a group that includes, but is not limited to, the Yankees, Giants, and Dodgers on the list of clubs who've really lived under the shadow of PED--with a valued star who's still on the roster and whose exploits fans will still cheer marked as tainted. Now Red Sox fans get to discover things some of the fans of those teams have already gone through: the "maybe it was just that one time," the "maybe the test results were wrong," the "that reporter is an unethical scumbag," the potluck of rationalization, denial, recrimination, and acceptance. The loss of trust. Welcome to the club.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Still Here, Rock the Vote Edition
Yeah, one post for the entirety of October was pretty lame. All I can say in my defense is that I'm working on a super-secret project that I keep on assuring my wife, La Chiquita, will be worth it. With the Phillies beating the Rays last week, the world's undivided attention turns to our national elections, tomorrow. For those of you who've been waiting until the end of the baseball season to pay attention, my BP colleague Nate Silver has set up a site, FiveThirtyEight.com, to catch you up. On the left side of this page you'll see the site's widget with its latest posts. It's politics done stathead style, so if you like the kind of baseball writing we (used to) sling around here, you'll love this.
Anyway, get informed and get to the polls. Regardless of who you vote for, get out there and vote.
Anyway, get informed and get to the polls. Regardless of who you vote for, get out there and vote.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Why I'm Rooting for the Rays
I was talking to a fellow Yankee fan the other night, and we were discussing the ALCS. I mentioned that I was cheering for the Rays to win it all this year, and the answer I got back was "I hear you. I root for two teams: the Yankees and whoever is playing the Red Sox." It got me thinking, because that wasn't what I was feeling. The moment the Yankees were eliminated, my loyalties shifted to the Rays. It would have been that way if the Angels had beaten the Sox in the ALDS, and it'll continue to be that way if the Bostonians pull some of their 2004 voodoo to dig themselves out of the 3-1 hole they're in in this series. The Rays are the postseason for me now.
It's not that the other contenders to the crown don't have legitimate claims. The Phils have more history and longer-suffering fans. The Dodgers have Joe Torre, and all the warm feelings I have for him and his coaches, particularly (sigh) Donnie Baseball. The Red Sox have...well, my respect, at the very least. They're all good teams, and the Sox are possibly a great team. But my pick, for reasons more emotional than logical.
It's because they play in the toughest division in baseball. Because they've built their team intelligently, and a couple of my former Baseball Prospectus colleagues (Chaim Bloom and James Click) have helped them do it. Because their fans range from displaced Expos loyalists to Cubs fans who've been kicked in the cojones by their team a few too many times. Because, basically on a lark, I wrote an article in 2007 (which I mentioned in this space) about how the Rays could win it all, back when that prospect wasn't even a twinkle in PECOTA's eye. Now I want to see it become reality.
And because, with the Rays being a rising power in the AL East, the sooner they win it all, the sooner complacency and bad decision making will set in, hopefully derailing the whole venture before the Yanks spend the rest of the decade sucking their exhaust in the standings. Hey, just 'cause I'm on your side for one postseason, doesn't mean I'm not still a Yankee fan.
***
Sadly for Donnie Baseball, the Phils also hold a 3-1 lead in the NLCS against the Dodgers. Joe Torre's team had an excellent chance to even the series in Game Four, until Torre's uncertain management of the bullpen in the eighth inning opened the door for Charlie Manuel's squad. As manager of the Yankees, Torre was a good postseason bullpen manager, because he knew that he had one guy (Mariano Rivera) who was much better than everyone else in the 'pen, and possibly the whole staff. Torre was never afraid to extend Rivera to multiple innings, where needed, in pursuit of those World Series rings. In Monday's game, Torre had an opportunity where he probably should have used his closer Jonathan Broxton, the way he used Rivera back in the day. Instead, the Phils tied the game against setup man Cory Wade, and won the game on a two-run homer by the Power Hamster, Matt Stairs, against a closing-the-barn-door-after-the-horse-is-gone Broxton.
Again, while the Dodgers being in the playoffs while the Yanks cool their heels at home will invite comparisons between Torre and Joe Girardi, there should be caveats. Torre was always a better big picture manager than a strategic one: his big achievement as a Yankee was helping to professionalize the organization, so that things didn't degenerate into chaos the second that anyone experienced adversity. More importantly, the decision on who would manage the Yankees in 2008 was never really between Torre and Girardi. It was between Torre and Torre--whether to continue the then-current administration. Then, when the Yankees wouldn't come to terms with Torre, it was between Girardi and Mattingly (and a few other interviewees who never really seemed to be in the picture). So the question isn't whether Girardi is better than Torre--I doubt even Girardi himself would claim that to be the case--but whether Mattingly would have handled the Yankees better than Joe did. Given the personal problems that delayed the start of Donnie Baseball's coaching career with the Dodgers, the short-term answer was likely no. The long-term answer...I don't know. What do you think?
It's not that the other contenders to the crown don't have legitimate claims. The Phils have more history and longer-suffering fans. The Dodgers have Joe Torre, and all the warm feelings I have for him and his coaches, particularly (sigh) Donnie Baseball. The Red Sox have...well, my respect, at the very least. They're all good teams, and the Sox are possibly a great team. But my pick, for reasons more emotional than logical.
It's because they play in the toughest division in baseball. Because they've built their team intelligently, and a couple of my former Baseball Prospectus colleagues (Chaim Bloom and James Click) have helped them do it. Because their fans range from displaced Expos loyalists to Cubs fans who've been kicked in the cojones by their team a few too many times. Because, basically on a lark, I wrote an article in 2007 (which I mentioned in this space) about how the Rays could win it all, back when that prospect wasn't even a twinkle in PECOTA's eye. Now I want to see it become reality.
And because, with the Rays being a rising power in the AL East, the sooner they win it all, the sooner complacency and bad decision making will set in, hopefully derailing the whole venture before the Yanks spend the rest of the decade sucking their exhaust in the standings. Hey, just 'cause I'm on your side for one postseason, doesn't mean I'm not still a Yankee fan.
***
Sadly for Donnie Baseball, the Phils also hold a 3-1 lead in the NLCS against the Dodgers. Joe Torre's team had an excellent chance to even the series in Game Four, until Torre's uncertain management of the bullpen in the eighth inning opened the door for Charlie Manuel's squad. As manager of the Yankees, Torre was a good postseason bullpen manager, because he knew that he had one guy (Mariano Rivera) who was much better than everyone else in the 'pen, and possibly the whole staff. Torre was never afraid to extend Rivera to multiple innings, where needed, in pursuit of those World Series rings. In Monday's game, Torre had an opportunity where he probably should have used his closer Jonathan Broxton, the way he used Rivera back in the day. Instead, the Phils tied the game against setup man Cory Wade, and won the game on a two-run homer by the Power Hamster, Matt Stairs, against a closing-the-barn-door-after-the-horse-is-gone Broxton.
Again, while the Dodgers being in the playoffs while the Yanks cool their heels at home will invite comparisons between Torre and Joe Girardi, there should be caveats. Torre was always a better big picture manager than a strategic one: his big achievement as a Yankee was helping to professionalize the organization, so that things didn't degenerate into chaos the second that anyone experienced adversity. More importantly, the decision on who would manage the Yankees in 2008 was never really between Torre and Girardi. It was between Torre and Torre--whether to continue the then-current administration. Then, when the Yankees wouldn't come to terms with Torre, it was between Girardi and Mattingly (and a few other interviewees who never really seemed to be in the picture). So the question isn't whether Girardi is better than Torre--I doubt even Girardi himself would claim that to be the case--but whether Mattingly would have handled the Yankees better than Joe did. Given the personal problems that delayed the start of Donnie Baseball's coaching career with the Dodgers, the short-term answer was likely no. The long-term answer...I don't know. What do you think?
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Mo' Cash, Less Problems
A sizable bit of the expected drama for this off-season went away today, with Yanks GM Brian Cashman re-signing with the team for three more years at the helm of the front office. Cashman, who'd had "complete authority" under his last agreement with George Steinbrenner, apparently was willing to live with Hank Steinbrenner's vision of an "advisory board"--either that, or the New Boss's vision was just a negotiating point. Still, it's good that the Yankees aren't out there looking for someone new to run the shop, since it's hard to imagine anyone stepping into Cash's role without missing a beat. Cashman's return is also good news for the Yankees' young players, who likely won't be freely available to anyone who has a superannuated marquee name.
In other soothing news, Will Carroll has the lowdown on Mariano Rivera's shoulder surgery over on Unfiltered. The procedure--called a Mumford procedure--isn't as scary as what we usually expect when we hear the words "Yankees' best pitcher to have shoulder surgery."
In other soothing news, Will Carroll has the lowdown on Mariano Rivera's shoulder surgery over on Unfiltered. The procedure--called a Mumford procedure--isn't as scary as what we usually expect when we hear the words "Yankees' best pitcher to have shoulder surgery."
Monday, September 29, 2008
Sweet and Sour
The Yankees ended the 2008 season with a doubleheader at Fenway after Saturday's rainout. In the early game, Mike Mussina finally bagged his 20th win in a season, capping a campaign that would have been worthy of the Comeback Player of the Year award, in any season where Cliff Lee's body wasn't possessed by aliens. The late game was a little more like the Yankees' season as a whole: a desperate struggle to beat a Boston team that hardly seemed to be trying to win, marked by a tough time scoring runs and some bad pitching by Darrell Rasner. A win, and a season-ending sweep of a Red Sox team that was clearly in tune-up mode for the final series, would have allowed the Pinstripers to finish their season with 90 wins and given us a small psychological boost going into a long, hard winter. But this wasn't really a season for feel-good endings, so the Red Sox nabbed with a walk-off tenth inning victory, the immortal Jonathan Van Every knocking in Alex Cora for the win.
For the first time since 1993, the Yankees season ended with the Yanks on the outside looking in at the postseason. In 1993 I'd just graduated college, a cell phone you could barely fit in a coat pocket was a cutting-edge luxury, and next to nobody had heard of the Internet. It's been a long wild ride for the Bronx faithful, and I'm grateful that it lasted this long. Looking, ahead, 2009 promises big changes. Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte and Bobby Abreu are free agents, Jason Giambi and Carl Pavano will be free agents if their options aren't picked up. In different ways, the Italian connection of Mussina, Giambi and Pavano have each been emblematic of the 21st Century Yanks. Mussina (like the Yanks) has been good but not great over the past eight years. Giambi has been simultaneously frustrating and underrated; despite all the steroid drama, there were only two real bad years out of the Giambino's seven in the Bronx. Pavano--well, he's been the symbol of how far the Yankees have fallen from the late 90s peak, an overpriced player whose name itself became a punchline.
We'll have October to watch everyone else play for the World Series title (can I hear a "Lets go Rays"? OK, maybe not...) and some months after to see how this particular Humpty Dumpty tries to put itself back together again. Will the Yanks stick with their homegrown players, despite a season that presented significant setbacks for each and every one of them? Should veteran warhorses like Mussina and Pettitte and Abreu return next season? Will CC Sabathia get fitted for a set of XXL pinstripes, and if so, will it be a mistake of Pavanoriffic proportions? Time will reveal all things, and we'll have time to discuss it, starting with September in Review tomorrow, and season reviews to follow.
Some odds and ends:
Schadenfreude is such a lonely word: For all the Lupica talk about how New York is now the Mets' town again, they finished with the exact same record as the Yankees, and they're now just as likely to win the World Series. I wasn't exactly rooting against the Flushing warriors, but given the way that Mets fans stunk up the joint during this year's Subway Series, I'm not exactly sad that the Phillies overtook them for the division title, again, and that the Brewers snuck past them to grab that Wild Card.
Joe vs. Joe: First of all, congratulations to Joe Torre, as well as his pinstripe alumni coaches--Don Mattingly, Larry Bowa, and Mariano Duncan--for making it to the playoffs in his first year managing the Dodgers. This is the type of news that's bound to set off all sorts of recriminations about how the Yankees would have been so much better if Torre, not Joe Girardi, had been at the helm for Yankee Stadium's final season. There's no way to tell, but let's get some perspective here, in the current Yankee manager's defense. First of all, the Dodgers won the weakest division in baseball, with a record five wins worse than the Yankees. Second, both managers had to deal with injuries--each lost his staff ace about 100 innings into the season--but the Dodgers got a historic second-half push from an extremely motivated Manny Ramirez, who hit almost .400 over the last two months of the season. Xavier Nady was nice, but not that nice. Third, Torre gave Juan Pierre 400 plate appearances, which is kind of as bad as giving Melky Cabrera 450 PA, just without the excuses of youth and defense. I wish Torre the best, and missed him (and Donnie Baseball) during the Stadium's swan song, but it really doesn't pay to look backwards.
Brief Political Digression: Friday's presidential debate looked like a draw from here--each candidate seemed to do best in the areas they were expected to have trouble. McCain managed to dominate the conversation during the section of the debate that was on the economy, dragging the discussion to comfortable terrain where he could talk more about earmarks and spending than market regulation. Obama didn't back down during the foreign policy section of the debate, despite McCain's constant digs at his lack of experience and supposed naivete. The absolute worst line of the entire debate, from McCain: "I think the lessons of Iraq are very clear that you cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict." So the key to victory is avoiding failure? Thanks for the tip...
For the first time since 1993, the Yankees season ended with the Yanks on the outside looking in at the postseason. In 1993 I'd just graduated college, a cell phone you could barely fit in a coat pocket was a cutting-edge luxury, and next to nobody had heard of the Internet. It's been a long wild ride for the Bronx faithful, and I'm grateful that it lasted this long. Looking, ahead, 2009 promises big changes. Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte and Bobby Abreu are free agents, Jason Giambi and Carl Pavano will be free agents if their options aren't picked up. In different ways, the Italian connection of Mussina, Giambi and Pavano have each been emblematic of the 21st Century Yanks. Mussina (like the Yanks) has been good but not great over the past eight years. Giambi has been simultaneously frustrating and underrated; despite all the steroid drama, there were only two real bad years out of the Giambino's seven in the Bronx. Pavano--well, he's been the symbol of how far the Yankees have fallen from the late 90s peak, an overpriced player whose name itself became a punchline.
We'll have October to watch everyone else play for the World Series title (can I hear a "Lets go Rays"? OK, maybe not...) and some months after to see how this particular Humpty Dumpty tries to put itself back together again. Will the Yanks stick with their homegrown players, despite a season that presented significant setbacks for each and every one of them? Should veteran warhorses like Mussina and Pettitte and Abreu return next season? Will CC Sabathia get fitted for a set of XXL pinstripes, and if so, will it be a mistake of Pavanoriffic proportions? Time will reveal all things, and we'll have time to discuss it, starting with September in Review tomorrow, and season reviews to follow.
Some odds and ends:
Schadenfreude is such a lonely word: For all the Lupica talk about how New York is now the Mets' town again, they finished with the exact same record as the Yankees, and they're now just as likely to win the World Series. I wasn't exactly rooting against the Flushing warriors, but given the way that Mets fans stunk up the joint during this year's Subway Series, I'm not exactly sad that the Phillies overtook them for the division title, again, and that the Brewers snuck past them to grab that Wild Card.
Joe vs. Joe: First of all, congratulations to Joe Torre, as well as his pinstripe alumni coaches--Don Mattingly, Larry Bowa, and Mariano Duncan--for making it to the playoffs in his first year managing the Dodgers. This is the type of news that's bound to set off all sorts of recriminations about how the Yankees would have been so much better if Torre, not Joe Girardi, had been at the helm for Yankee Stadium's final season. There's no way to tell, but let's get some perspective here, in the current Yankee manager's defense. First of all, the Dodgers won the weakest division in baseball, with a record five wins worse than the Yankees. Second, both managers had to deal with injuries--each lost his staff ace about 100 innings into the season--but the Dodgers got a historic second-half push from an extremely motivated Manny Ramirez, who hit almost .400 over the last two months of the season. Xavier Nady was nice, but not that nice. Third, Torre gave Juan Pierre 400 plate appearances, which is kind of as bad as giving Melky Cabrera 450 PA, just without the excuses of youth and defense. I wish Torre the best, and missed him (and Donnie Baseball) during the Stadium's swan song, but it really doesn't pay to look backwards.
Brief Political Digression: Friday's presidential debate looked like a draw from here--each candidate seemed to do best in the areas they were expected to have trouble. McCain managed to dominate the conversation during the section of the debate that was on the economy, dragging the discussion to comfortable terrain where he could talk more about earmarks and spending than market regulation. Obama didn't back down during the foreign policy section of the debate, despite McCain's constant digs at his lack of experience and supposed naivete. The absolute worst line of the entire debate, from McCain: "I think the lessons of Iraq are very clear that you cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict." So the key to victory is avoiding failure? Thanks for the tip...
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
At BP: The Last of the Last
Here's a taste from my article up at Baseball Prospectus on the final game at Yankee Stadium (sadly, it's a pay article on BP's system):
Brother Joe wasn't sitting with us for the Stadium's swan song, but he did come by to visit during the pregame. After the game, we stood outside the Stadium (by the manure-smelling Gate 2) talking about the day, the game, the monolith next door, soon to be our team's new home. Joe (a brother from another mother) and my actual brother Jeff are the two living people most responsible for me taking my love of the Yankees above the level of casual fan, and it meant a lot to me that the three of us were outside the Stadium together as they closed the shutters on the public entrance. "If I had a press pass, I'd see day break in there," Joe said. Amen.
Brother J and I (he's on the left and I'm on the right) at the end of the game. After one of our fellow Sunday plan holders took the pic, I noticed that we were out of focus, but the Stadium wasn't (he'd wanted to make sure we got the scoreboard in the background). My brother and I agreed that, on this night in particular, the focus should be on the Stadium, so we decided not to re-take the shot. I think it puts things in perspective.
You can find more of my photos from in this Picasa album, which I'll be updating with more pics soon.
Another neat gimmick that fell short in the execution was the Yankee Stadium countdown clock, which I mentioned in my piece on the Yankee Stadium home opener. The idea was that in the fifth inning of each home game, once the game became "official" a special guest would turn a crank, and the number of games left at Yankee Stadium would be reduced by one on a special scoreboard. Throughout the season, people registered disappointment with this because the "special guests" were often not terribly special or particularly associated with Yankee baseball. Often the person turning the crank would be an obscure executive from Met Life, the promotion's sponsor. In the middle of the fifth inning of Yankee Stadium's last game, Yankees announcer Michael Kay shows up on the big screen, spouts some doubletalk about how there can be no final game at Yankee Stadium, because Yankee Stadium is forever, then he turns the crank, making the special countdown scoreboard go from one to—I kid you not—"Forever." Two observations on this come to mind: first, thanks for the season-long voyage toward innumeracy, you've managed to make us all dumber; and second, with the Stadium packed with VIPs, at least a half-dozen of them Hall of Famers, Michael frickin' Kay was the person selected to turn that crank? Really?Also at BP (but this time, free), Brother Joe got to share some of his feelings about the closing of the Cathedral:
As promised, some more pics:Of course, you cannot praise 85 years of baseball players in one sitting. It’s too much to handle, there are too many greats to name at once, especially given the franchise we’re talking about here. Even the video clips seemed to miss a handful of significant players, and there was only so much time and space to have Yankee greats be announced and trot out to their positions. It was left to us to fill in the gaps.
So you let loose for Hideki Matsui, and hope that Rickey Henderson can hear you yell. A chant of "Paul O’Neill" fills the air, and in your heart you want Dave Winfield to feel the love as well. The crowd goes wild for Derek Jeter, and you just know that Scooter is hearing the echo, tucking into a cannoli and smiling. You can’t cheer them all, so you cheer the one out loud and the rest in your heart, the ones who are there, the ones who live in your memory, and the ones who set the stage for your memories, the heroes you know by stat lines and stories and grainy black-and-white footage. You cheer, and when you try to chant, your voice catches and you realize this is all hitting you a little harder than you thought. The video board shows Chris Chambliss hitting a huge home run, and you realize this is the only chance you’ve had to cheer your first favorite player in more than 20 years, and you do just that, standing out among a crowd of people with no understanding of why the short guy is so excited.
Brother Joe wasn't sitting with us for the Stadium's swan song, but he did come by to visit during the pregame. After the game, we stood outside the Stadium (by the manure-smelling Gate 2) talking about the day, the game, the monolith next door, soon to be our team's new home. Joe (a brother from another mother) and my actual brother Jeff are the two living people most responsible for me taking my love of the Yankees above the level of casual fan, and it meant a lot to me that the three of us were outside the Stadium together as they closed the shutters on the public entrance. "If I had a press pass, I'd see day break in there," Joe said. Amen.
Brother J and I (he's on the left and I'm on the right) at the end of the game. After one of our fellow Sunday plan holders took the pic, I noticed that we were out of focus, but the Stadium wasn't (he'd wanted to make sure we got the scoreboard in the background). My brother and I agreed that, on this night in particular, the focus should be on the Stadium, so we decided not to re-take the shot. I think it puts things in perspective.You can find more of my photos from in this Picasa album, which I'll be updating with more pics soon.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Zero Games Left: The End of Yankee Stadium
My brother J and I saw off the Cathedral in style yesterday, spending about eleven hours there en route to the Yanks' 7-3 win over the Orioles, the last Yankee win on the plot of land they've called home since 1923.
It was a bittersweet day, more celebration than wake for the defunct arena. I'll have more thoughts on it later on today at Baseball Prospectus, and there will be more pictures and discussion here on the blog once I've gotten some rest. Until then, just know I feel very lucky to have spent a very special day at the Stadium.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
18 and Over?
The Yankees, having no real shot at the postseason themselves, tried to help out the Twins by taking three out of four from the AL Central-leading Chicago White Sox, but the Twinkies spit the bit by getting swept in Cleveland. Tonight's game featured good performances by two Yankees whose contracts are up when the season's over--Mike Mussina, who registered his 18th win of the season with a strong six-inning effort, and Bobby Abreu, who clouted a pair of big homers against former Yankee Javy Vazquez. Abreu wound up with six RBI, and Mussina cruised after escaping a big jam in the first inning, and allowing only one run on two hits and two walks. Moose's win keeps the possibility of his first 20-win season alive. It'll be a tough road to get here--he'd have to beat the Blue Jays and Red Sox, on the road--but at least it's a chance.
Meanwhile, the weather's been nice for Yankee Stadium's last week. Yesterday, I was in Riverside Park, where the local tweens were showing off their sk8er boi skillz. Hopefully, the good weather will hold up for the Yanks and Orioles to send out the Stadium in style this weekend. One way or another, I'll see you in the Bronx Sunday night.
Meanwhile, the weather's been nice for Yankee Stadium's last week. Yesterday, I was in Riverside Park, where the local tweens were showing off their sk8er boi skillz. Hopefully, the good weather will hold up for the Yanks and Orioles to send out the Stadium in style this weekend. One way or another, I'll see you in the Bronx Sunday night.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Eight Games Left: Record-Setter
I didn't get to Sunday's matchup with the Rays; my Brother J and his wife did, however, and they got to witness some history:
(Hat tip to J for the camera work. Click on the image for a larger view.)
Congrats to the Captain on his torrid 9-hit weekend, and for matching Lou Gehrig's all-time Yankee Stadium hits record. Jeter now has all week to better the mark, one that will be a permanent part of the record books with the Cathedral closing its doors. The record-matching hit was a majestic homer off the Rays phenom, lefty David Price. The game also featured a first-inning grand slam by A-Rod, additional fireworks by Jason Giambi, and some slick defense by Brett Gardner in center. Can't Pitch Carl pitched well enough for his third win of the season, although his high-eighties cheese doesn't really tempt anyone to pick up the option on his contract. After some shoddy work by Jose Veras with a four-run lead, Mariano Rivera got a one-out save in the ninth to step into a tie for second place on the all-time saves list.
On the other side of things, Robinson Cano got benched mid-game by Joe Girardi, for failing to hustle on a hit deflected off Giambi's glove. Some would say that the benching is a long time coming, in a season where Cano will be lucky to finish with a .300 OBP, and where the adjective most often applied to him has been "lackadaisical." That's not one of the good English words, Robbie.
(Hat tip to J for the camera work. Click on the image for a larger view.)
Congrats to the Captain on his torrid 9-hit weekend, and for matching Lou Gehrig's all-time Yankee Stadium hits record. Jeter now has all week to better the mark, one that will be a permanent part of the record books with the Cathedral closing its doors. The record-matching hit was a majestic homer off the Rays phenom, lefty David Price. The game also featured a first-inning grand slam by A-Rod, additional fireworks by Jason Giambi, and some slick defense by Brett Gardner in center. Can't Pitch Carl pitched well enough for his third win of the season, although his high-eighties cheese doesn't really tempt anyone to pick up the option on his contract. After some shoddy work by Jose Veras with a four-run lead, Mariano Rivera got a one-out save in the ninth to step into a tie for second place on the all-time saves list.
On the other side of things, Robinson Cano got benched mid-game by Joe Girardi, for failing to hustle on a hit deflected off Giambi's glove. Some would say that the benching is a long time coming, in a season where Cano will be lucky to finish with a .300 OBP, and where the adjective most often applied to him has been "lackadaisical." That's not one of the good English words, Robbie.
Monday, September 08, 2008
Dead Team Walking
No sooner do the Yanks show signs of life against one of the best teams in the majors, the Tampa Bay Rays, than they give those gains back against the worst team in the AL. You could excuse the Yanks poor performance against Brandon Morrow on Friday--the youngster, making his first major league start after spending a season and a half in the pen, was throwing bullets. But Sunday, the starter had a much lesser pedigree--Ryan Feierabend is no one's idea of a world beater, but he kept the Yanks to just two solo homers. Mike Mussina, going for win number 18, spit the bit with some longball action of his own, allowing Adrian Beltre and Jose Lopez to go deep against him. A second homer, against Jose Veras, gave Lopez a career day, and the Yanks are kicked into fourth place in the AL East.
Things aren't going to get easier, with the Yanks in Anaheim to play the team with the best record in baseball. Ugh.
***
By the way, I'm holding a chat over on the Baseball Prospectus web site at 1:00 PM, Eastern. Everyone's invited to join in and ask some questions. The link to the chat session is here. Hope to see you there.
Things aren't going to get easier, with the Yanks in Anaheim to play the team with the best record in baseball. Ugh.
***
By the way, I'm holding a chat over on the Baseball Prospectus web site at 1:00 PM, Eastern. Everyone's invited to join in and ask some questions. The link to the chat session is here. Hope to see you there.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Catching Up: The Fall of Melky Cabrera
After a season in which Melky Cabrera brought numbers (.242/.296/.337) more appropriate to a 1970s shortstop than a 21st Century outfielder to the mix, the Melk-man was finally sent down to the minors, just four days after his 24th birthday. From June 8 to August 13, Melky had hit only .202/.256/.269, with just 8 extra base hits in 209 PA. Many have taken the opportunity to rewrite history, claiming that Cabrera never belonged in the majors, and saying they wouldn't be surprised if he never makes it back. Others have pointed to the celebrated friendship between Melky and another disappointing youngster, Robinson Cano, as an unhealthy situation that's made both players complacent and altogether too party-minded. Any which way, it's hard to tell if this demotion will just be an obstacle, or if it's the beginning of the end for a popular player.
Melky's demotion left a hole in the Yankee defense. For all his struggles with the bat, Cabrera's been an above-average fielder in center. Shifting Johnny Damon to center, and inserting Xavier Nady in left, is a huge net loss for the Yankee defense. Only days before he became a full-time center fielder again, Damon was bragging about how much he loved DHing--not a great sign, for a player the Yanks acquired for his flycatching ability. Nady, who I'd remembered as a decent defender from his time with the Mets, looks utterly unnatural in left field--his routes to balls make late-era Bernie Williams look efficient and instinctive, his arm is awful. Even though the Yankees could likely use him as a late-inning defensive replacement, if nothing else, the Yanks didn't recall Cabrera with the expanded rosters on September 1--a sign that the demotion may be punitive, as well as performance-related.
Melky's demotion left a hole in the Yankee defense. For all his struggles with the bat, Cabrera's been an above-average fielder in center. Shifting Johnny Damon to center, and inserting Xavier Nady in left, is a huge net loss for the Yankee defense. Only days before he became a full-time center fielder again, Damon was bragging about how much he loved DHing--not a great sign, for a player the Yanks acquired for his flycatching ability. Nady, who I'd remembered as a decent defender from his time with the Mets, looks utterly unnatural in left field--his routes to balls make late-era Bernie Williams look efficient and instinctive, his arm is awful. Even though the Yankees could likely use him as a late-inning defensive replacement, if nothing else, the Yanks didn't recall Cabrera with the expanded rosters on September 1--a sign that the demotion may be punitive, as well as performance-related.
Monday, September 01, 2008
Month in Review: August 2008
Record for the Month: 13-15, 135 RS, 148 RA
Overall: 72-64, 651 RS, 619 RA
Game of the Month: August 3, 2008--Yankees 14, Angels 9 Probably the wildest game of the year, with the Yanks digging a 5-0 hole for themselves early, clawing their way back against John Lackey and taking an 8-5 lead in the bottom of the seventh, thanks to some shabby defense by the Halos, then losing the lead on a Mark Texeira grand slam against Edwar Ramirez, then taking the lead again with a six-run, three error eighth inning. The whole game was just a tradeoff of haymakers between what looked like two of the best teams in the league. As the month wore on, the Yanks showed that they're not really in the Angels' class this year. Other candidates: the Yanks' comeback against the Red Sox to avert a sweep on Thursday was pretty big, but it was canceled out by the comeback loss to the Jays on Saturday. In some ways, both of those games were emblematic of the month as a whole.
Player of the Month: It's hard to give this to Mariano Rivera in a month where he had two losses and a blown save--although, otherwise, he was his normal, stellar self (6 Sv, 1.88 ERA in 14 1/3 innings). But who are the other candidates? Jason Giambi led the team in HR (8) and RBI (22) and had some clutch hits, but didn't hit or get on base too well overall (.232/.327/.524 for the month). Derek Jeter hit well for average last month but showed no power (.345/.382/.402), Bobby Abreu was better (.342/.405/.421) but not by too much. By default, the best offensive performance for August goes to Xavier Nady, who impressed with the bat (.308/.351/.523, 6 HR, 19 RBI), even if his glove has been suspect. With that in mind, the month's honors go Mike Mussina, (3-0, 2.93 in 6 starts). He's on pace for his most starts since 2001, and would be only 3 games away from the magic 20 game plateau if the bullpen hadn't blown the game in his start against the Twins. Pretty neat, considering that at this point last year he'd been booted from the rotation for Ian Kennedy, and most everyone (including me) thought there was a fork sticking out of him.
Dregs of the Month: In his first month in Pinstripes, Ivan Rodriguez (.196/.250/.321 in 56 AB) was almost outhit by the man he was putatively replacing as the Yankees' backstop, Jose Molina (.222/.239/.400 in 45 AB). That's some kind of awful. Speaking of awful, Melky Cabrera (.115/.148/.115) finally played his way off the Yankees' roster, losing his spot intermittently to Brett Gardner and Justin Christian prior to the Xavier Nady trade. I'll talk about this more in a Catching Up, but it speaks volumes that when the September 1 callups were announced, Melky was left in AAA to help Scranton in the International League playoffs. Even though Melky was hitting .333 in AAA, he showed absolutely no power, and between the two levels, in 83 at bats, Melky only had two extra base hits (both doubles) all month.
Speaking of the Nady trade, Damaso Marte has been almost as big a disappointment in August as Pudge has been, allowing a 7.71 ERA in the month (and perhaps being injured, per Pete Abe). Dave Robertson (8.81 ERA) also had a month to forget in the bullpen, and Edwar Ramirez returned to his Three True Outcomes ways (3 HR, 4 BB, 13 K in 11 2/3 innings, good for a 6.73 ERA). Girardi leaned pretty hard on the bullpen all month long.
Story of the Month: Since 1996, when the Yankees almost blew their division lead with a 13-17 month, August has been very good to the New York Yankees. They've had a winning record every year since, and with the exception of 2001--where the Yanks squeaked by with a 15-14 mark--the month has tended to be a difference maker--while their opponents hit the doldroms in the dog days, the Yanks surge ahead on the depth of talent a ginormous payroll can buy. The month's 13-15 finish in August 2008 is the result of the Yanks taking beatdowns from some of the best teams in the league (2-4 against the Angels, 1-2 against the Red Sox and Twins) while not making up the difference against some teams that weren't quite of that quality (2-2 against the Rangers, 2-4 against the Blue Jays). As I mentioned this morning, this isn't going to get any easier--the Yanks have 13 games against division-leading opponents in September, plus three games against the Red Sox.
Around Yankeeland, an eerie level of acceptance has set in: this just isn't our year. Much of this season has been a wait for the Pinstriped surge that never arrived--that 18-9 month that declares that your team's a contender, or at least a real threat if it came down to a short series. Indeed, every Yankee team since 1996 has had at least one month where they had single-digit losses. Even if the Yanks were to keep up that streak with a 17-9 September, the Red Sox would have to go 10-16 (and the Twins would have to go 12-13) for the Yankee Stadium's swan song to continue into October. People aren't even dreaming about that possibility. Some, like Hank Steinbrenner, have already started to look ahead to this winter's free agent market.
Looking Ahead: Derek Jeter comes into September needing 45 hits in 28 games to reach 200 for the season. The most hits Jeter has ever had in a month is 50, which took him 32 games in August 1998. The next most was 44 hits, which Jeter has managed twice in his career. The ten hits that he stands away from Lou Gerhig's all-time Yankee Stadium mark is much more manageable, given that there are 10 home games left. If the Yanks stay in rotation, Mike Mussina's remaining starts this season would fall against the Rays, Mariners, Rays, White Sox, Jays, and Red Sox, a pretty tough schedule. He needs wins in four of those starts to become a 20-game winner for the first time in his career.
Overall: 72-64, 651 RS, 619 RA
Game of the Month: August 3, 2008--Yankees 14, Angels 9 Probably the wildest game of the year, with the Yanks digging a 5-0 hole for themselves early, clawing their way back against John Lackey and taking an 8-5 lead in the bottom of the seventh, thanks to some shabby defense by the Halos, then losing the lead on a Mark Texeira grand slam against Edwar Ramirez, then taking the lead again with a six-run, three error eighth inning. The whole game was just a tradeoff of haymakers between what looked like two of the best teams in the league. As the month wore on, the Yanks showed that they're not really in the Angels' class this year. Other candidates: the Yanks' comeback against the Red Sox to avert a sweep on Thursday was pretty big, but it was canceled out by the comeback loss to the Jays on Saturday. In some ways, both of those games were emblematic of the month as a whole.
Player of the Month: It's hard to give this to Mariano Rivera in a month where he had two losses and a blown save--although, otherwise, he was his normal, stellar self (6 Sv, 1.88 ERA in 14 1/3 innings). But who are the other candidates? Jason Giambi led the team in HR (8) and RBI (22) and had some clutch hits, but didn't hit or get on base too well overall (.232/.327/.524 for the month). Derek Jeter hit well for average last month but showed no power (.345/.382/.402), Bobby Abreu was better (.342/.405/.421) but not by too much. By default, the best offensive performance for August goes to Xavier Nady, who impressed with the bat (.308/.351/.523, 6 HR, 19 RBI), even if his glove has been suspect. With that in mind, the month's honors go Mike Mussina, (3-0, 2.93 in 6 starts). He's on pace for his most starts since 2001, and would be only 3 games away from the magic 20 game plateau if the bullpen hadn't blown the game in his start against the Twins. Pretty neat, considering that at this point last year he'd been booted from the rotation for Ian Kennedy, and most everyone (including me) thought there was a fork sticking out of him.
Dregs of the Month: In his first month in Pinstripes, Ivan Rodriguez (.196/.250/.321 in 56 AB) was almost outhit by the man he was putatively replacing as the Yankees' backstop, Jose Molina (.222/.239/.400 in 45 AB). That's some kind of awful. Speaking of awful, Melky Cabrera (.115/.148/.115) finally played his way off the Yankees' roster, losing his spot intermittently to Brett Gardner and Justin Christian prior to the Xavier Nady trade. I'll talk about this more in a Catching Up, but it speaks volumes that when the September 1 callups were announced, Melky was left in AAA to help Scranton in the International League playoffs. Even though Melky was hitting .333 in AAA, he showed absolutely no power, and between the two levels, in 83 at bats, Melky only had two extra base hits (both doubles) all month.
Speaking of the Nady trade, Damaso Marte has been almost as big a disappointment in August as Pudge has been, allowing a 7.71 ERA in the month (and perhaps being injured, per Pete Abe). Dave Robertson (8.81 ERA) also had a month to forget in the bullpen, and Edwar Ramirez returned to his Three True Outcomes ways (3 HR, 4 BB, 13 K in 11 2/3 innings, good for a 6.73 ERA). Girardi leaned pretty hard on the bullpen all month long.
Story of the Month: Since 1996, when the Yankees almost blew their division lead with a 13-17 month, August has been very good to the New York Yankees. They've had a winning record every year since, and with the exception of 2001--where the Yanks squeaked by with a 15-14 mark--the month has tended to be a difference maker--while their opponents hit the doldroms in the dog days, the Yanks surge ahead on the depth of talent a ginormous payroll can buy. The month's 13-15 finish in August 2008 is the result of the Yanks taking beatdowns from some of the best teams in the league (2-4 against the Angels, 1-2 against the Red Sox and Twins) while not making up the difference against some teams that weren't quite of that quality (2-2 against the Rangers, 2-4 against the Blue Jays). As I mentioned this morning, this isn't going to get any easier--the Yanks have 13 games against division-leading opponents in September, plus three games against the Red Sox.
Around Yankeeland, an eerie level of acceptance has set in: this just isn't our year. Much of this season has been a wait for the Pinstriped surge that never arrived--that 18-9 month that declares that your team's a contender, or at least a real threat if it came down to a short series. Indeed, every Yankee team since 1996 has had at least one month where they had single-digit losses. Even if the Yanks were to keep up that streak with a 17-9 September, the Red Sox would have to go 10-16 (and the Twins would have to go 12-13) for the Yankee Stadium's swan song to continue into October. People aren't even dreaming about that possibility. Some, like Hank Steinbrenner, have already started to look ahead to this winter's free agent market.
Looking Ahead: Derek Jeter comes into September needing 45 hits in 28 games to reach 200 for the season. The most hits Jeter has ever had in a month is 50, which took him 32 games in August 1998. The next most was 44 hits, which Jeter has managed twice in his career. The ten hits that he stands away from Lou Gerhig's all-time Yankee Stadium mark is much more manageable, given that there are 10 home games left. If the Yanks stay in rotation, Mike Mussina's remaining starts this season would fall against the Rays, Mariners, Rays, White Sox, Jays, and Red Sox, a pretty tough schedule. He needs wins in four of those starts to become a 20-game winner for the first time in his career.
Ten Games Left: Sun Baked
The afternoon sun beat down mercilessly on the left field stands on Sunday, just as the unrelenting Roy Halladay beat down on the Yankees' batters. The rubber game of the series snapped the wrong way for the Yankees, leaving the team cooked as it goes on a ten-game road stand, seven games behind the Red Sox and two and a half games behind the Minnesota Twins, and leaving me with a nasty sunburn.
The day had a nostalgic tinge to it. Sunday afternoons have been my main experience of Yankee Stadium, ever since I got my first weekend ticket plan as a teenager. Rather than taking the train straight to the Stadium, I got off in Manhattan and walked across the Macombs Dam Bridge--one of my typical routes to and from the Stadium when I lived uptown and had all the time in the world.
As you can tell by the sign, the MDB is a draw bridge, which was a big curiosity for me when I was younger. I remember a number of times waiting to pass across, but I don't think I was ever actually on the span when the draw bridge bell started to ring.Anyway, the walk to the park wasn't the only thing that brought back memories of the old days--the game itself did, as well. The Yanks needed Good Andy Pettitte to show up and counter Halladay pitch-for-pitch. But Bad Andy walked the first batter of the game, Marco Frickin' Scutaro. Scutaro came around to score, and before Halladay took the mound, the Yanks were down 3-0, thanks in part for Xavier Nady butchering a fly ball in left field. In the second inning, Scott Rolen--batting 8th against a lefty--roped a solo homer to make the score 4-0. Solo homers in the fourth and the sixth provided the tease, bringing it just close enough to make things frustrating, but again, the 7th inning brought things to a boil. Just like Saturday's game, Girardi tried to sneak one more inning out of his starter. Just like in Saturday's game, Pettitte stuck around too long, allowing three straight hits and another run. Finally, the score got to 6-2, Jays, where it would remain.
There are 26 games left in the season. Only 10 of those are home games, and their opponents' weighted winning percentage is .545. With no games left against the Twins and only three against the Red Sox, they don't just have to play out of their minds in September to make the playoffs, they need help from the opposition. It's a damn tall order.
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