by Cliff Corcoran |
September 14, 2005 4:03 pm |
410 Comments
After being embarrassed by the Devil Rays all season, including losing two of three to them at home last week, the Yankees were clearly a team on a mission last night in Tampa, unloading on the D-Rays for five runs in the first inning, knocking starter Doug Waechter from the game before he had recorded a single out, and finishing the night with a whopping 17-3 victory.
From one point of view such an outburst was exactly what this team needed to do: send a message to Tampa Bay that clowntime is over and papa won’t take their mess no mo’. From another point of view, such an outburst is actually cause for concern. Could it be that the Yankees expelled all of their frustration over a season worth of series loses to the Devil Rays with one cathartic explosion of run scoring and will thus lack that fire in the remaining two games of the series, which are every bit as important to their playoff chances? After all, hasn’t it been true all season that the Yankee offense has followed such a outbursts by failing to score more than a run or two the next day?
Well, no, actually.
Prior to last night, the Yankees had run up a double-digit run total in thirteen games this season. In six of the games that followed such an outburst, the Yankees scored fewer than five runs, but in six others they scored more than five runs (in the one remaining game they scored exactly five), twice scoring in double-digits again the next day and once scoring nine runs and following that with a fifteen-spot the next day. While it may not look impressive compared to the nearly 14 runs the team scored on average in their thirteen highest-scoring games, the Yankees have scored an average of 5.62 runs in the games immediately following those outbursts, with a median total of five runs. That average is actually higher than their overall season average of 5.39 runs per game.
It’s much more informative to look at tonight’s starting pitchers for an indication of what tonight’s contest might bring. For the Devil Ray’s, that man is Mark Hendrickson, who has made four starts against the Yankees, all of which the Devil Rays have won, with Hendrickson himself picking up the win in three of them. In his last two starts against the Yankees, which includes his most recent start of the season, Hendrickson has posted this line:
14 1/3 IP, 12 H, 9 R (8 ER) 2 HR, 5 BB, 8 K
That translates to a 5.02 ERA, more than a run better than his season mark of 6.06. But then consider what Hendrickson did in his three starts in between those two games against the Yankees:
21 2/3 IP, 17 H, 5 R, 3 HR, 3 BB, 15 K, 2.08 ERA
And what weaker sisters of the league did he amass that line against you might ask? The Blue Jays (who are an even .500 after defeating the Red Sox last night), the AL West-leading Angels (against whom Hendrickson hurled 8 2/3 innings of one-run ball), and those red hot Cleveland Indians.
What all of this goes to show is that if the Yankees do struggle to score runs tonight it has nothing to do with the 17 runs they scored last night or Hendrickson “owning” them, as he’s actually pitched much better over the past month against the Yankees’ rivals than against the Yankees themselves.
The Yankees will send Chien-Ming Wang to the mound tonight for just his second start since returning from a minor league rehab assignment and what was once thought to be a season-ending rotator cuff injury. Wang’s last start also came against Hendrickson and the Devil Rays and saw the rookie groundball pitcher surrender three runs on eight hits and a pair of walks in five innings.
Curiously, that outing was Wang’s best result in three starts against the Devil Rays this year (he surrendered five earned runs in six innings in each of his other two and took the loss in all three). The loss in his last start could be considered hard-luck as the Yankees did score four runs, one more than Wang allowed, but their bullpen gave up four more after Wang departed to put the game out of reach before the Yankee bats finally got to Hendrickson in the eighth (it’s worth noting that Hendrickson needed just 85 pitches to get through 7 2/3 innings in that game, which means that the Yankee runs were not the result of Hendrickson tiring, but also means he was alarming efficient through the first seven innings).
Wang threw just 80 pitches in that game, likely due to concerns over the health of his shoulder. With the bullpen well rested following Monday’s off day and last night’s blow out, I would expect the Yankees to again be cautious with Wang’s pitch count, so the performance of the bullpen tonight could turn out to be every bit as important as Wang’s, though it would certainly do the Yankees well to see Chien-Ming continue to improve coming off his injury and, hopefully, heading toward the postseason. Of course the latter will be less of a concern should the Yankees fail to pull out another win (and their first series victory over the Rays this season) tonight.
