Daily Archives: July 26, 2005

Before Randy Johnson came out to pitch the six inning, the YES cameras spotted his glove with a big wad of chewed bubble gum on it resting on the ledge of the dugout. I don’t know if he always does this, but it was notable because Johnson had a no-hitter through five. That gum looked nasty, but you don’t want to mess with a man’s routine, right? The Twins’ ninth-place hitter Juan Castro broke up the no-no with a two-out single in the sixth–I called it–but Johson was absolutely dominating tonight. His slider was sharp (even the ones that were out of the zone had a bite that his breaking pitches simply did not have earlier in the year) and the Twinkies looked as if they didn’t have a chance. Johnson pitched eight innings, throwing 97 pitches (71 went for strikes), and striking out 11. He allowed just two hits and didn’t walk a batter.

While the Big Unit worked quickly, the normally efficient Brad Radke was in-and-out of trouble against the Yankees. Radke entered the game with just ten bases on balls on the season, and he walked Jason Giambi twice (to be fair, the second pass came with a runner on second and just one out…Radke was pitching around Giambi as much as Giambi earned the walk). Still, he left the game after six trailing just 2-0. But in the seventh, the Yanks loaded the bases against Jess Crain, before Hideki Matsui singled home two runs off J.C. Romero as the Bombers cruised, 4-0 (Flash Gordon pitched a one-two-three ninth). Alex Rodriguez, Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter and Matsui each had two hits apiece for New York.

It was a big win for the Yanks what with Al Leiter and Johan Santana pitching tomorrow. Kevin Brown was scratched from his Thursday afternoon start (Aaron Small will likely take his place) and he may not be available for a while. Carl Pavano won’t pitch Saturday either, so the Yanks really needed this game. (I think we can count on Cashman making a deal for another starter by the end of the weekend; according to the Post, the Yanks will sign Hideo Nomo after he clears waivers later today.) The Twins are not an impressive offensive team, but Johnson would have likely been rough for any squad to handle this evening as he turned in one of his best performances in pinstripes. Let’s hope he stays grouchy.

It was brutally hot in New York today. It isn’t exactly chilly this evening either. It behooves Randy Johnson and Brad Radke to work quickly. Through three-and-a-half, they’ve done just that. Johnson has six strike outs. Alex Rodriguez golfed his 28th dinger of the season to straight-away center to lead-off the second inning.

It doesn’t appear as if the Yankees are going to make any splashy moves before the end of the trading deadline, but they are reportedly interested in pitching–both starting and relief–as well as a center fielder. The only name that really jumps out and moves me is Grady Sizemore, but that just doesn’t seem realistic–at least not without losing Cano (which I think would be worthwhile). Here is the latest from the Times,the Daily News, Newsday, and the Newark Star-Leger.

The Yanks go into a three-game series against the Twins trailing the Red Sox by just one game in the AL East. Tonight offers a good pitching match-up in the Bronx: Radke v. Johnson. Be sure and check out how the other half lives by dropping in on Batgirl, John Bonnes, Seth Stohs, and of course, Aaron Gleeman.

I was browsing through Robert Whiting’s enjoyable book about the current generation of Japanese baseball players, “The Samurai Way of Baseball” recently and thoroughly enjoyed the chapter on Hideki Matsui. Whiting details Matsui’s career in Japan and explains why his conservative and humble manner is so appealing to Japanese fans. Matsui is described as a traditional but unpretentious guy.

Trailed constantly by a scrum of Japanese reporters eager to record any Matsui moment for the devoted and insatiable Japanese media machine, Matsui invariably wore a smile–unlike the prickly Ichiro. “I asked for this life,” he would say. “Nobody forced it on me and I have a duty to the people who put me here.” He refused to charge admission at the Hideki Matsui House of Baseball back home–a practice which stood in marked contrast to the Ichiro Museum in Nagoya, which a ticket costs $8. It just wouldn’t be fair, he explained.

Some cyincs called Matsui simpleminded, a workhorse wihtout the brainpower to comprehend what all the attention really meant or the sophistication to mimic Ichiro’s studied cool. But Matsui, who in fact had been an attentive student with high marks in math (one who actually sat in the first row of the classes he attended), would shrug and say, in his coarse baritone, “I’m just an ordinary guy.” He liked to have an occasional beer. He loked to shoot the breeze with the security guards and maintenance personnel, and he liked to trade tapes form his extensive library of adult videos with reporters. (His reply, when asked about his eccentric hobby, was a droll “Doesn’t everybody do this?”)

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