Daily Archives: May 26, 2006

Mike Mussina, perhaps the best pitcher in the AL in this young season, against the Kansas City Royals, a historically bad ballclub on a thirteen-game losing streak. Sure thing right? Not if you believe in the Reverse Lock, a match-up that’s such a gimme it’s guaranteed to go the other way.

Indeed, the Royals broke their streak by beating the Yankees 7-6 last night in an odd game that was delayed for two hours in the middle of the ninth inning due to a sudden downpour.

To be fair, the Royals didn’t actually beat Mussina. They did score three runs against him in the second inning, but when Mussina left the game, after throwing 98 pitches and turning in his eleventh quality start in as many turns, the Yankees were winning 4-3.

With Mussina on the verge of 100 pitches after six innings, Joe Torre decided to go to his bullpen, apparently planning to give Scott Proctor, Kyle Farnsworth and Mariano Rivera an inning a piece. With the bottom third of the Royals order coming up, it wasn’t the worst decision Torre could have made. Unfortunately, it backfired immediately. Tony Graffanino lead off the seventh with a single, was bunted to second by Angel Berroa and singled home by Paul Bako, tying the game. That was the end of Scott Proctor’s night.

After Mike Myers got the last two outs of the seventh, Kyle Farnsworth came in to keep the game knotted at four in the eighth. Things started well when he caught Reggie Sanders, who had homered off Mussina in the third, looking, but righty-killer Matt Stairs laced Farnsworth’s very next pitch into right for a single. After Robinson Cano made a nice running catch on a foul pop up by Emil Brown for the second out, Farnsworth walked Graffanino on four pitches to put men on first and second with two outs. That brought up Angel Berroa, who had sacrificed in his last at-bat. On a 1-0 count, Farnsworth hung a slider and Angel Berroa launched it over the left field wall for a three-run home run.

The Yankees got one back in the bottom of the inning when Jason Giambi singled, Alex Rodriguez doubled and, after Jimmy Gobble got Robinson Cano to pop out on one pitch, Bernie Williams plated Giambi with a groundout off Joel Peralta, but Melky Cabrera grounded out to strand Rodriguez at third.

Then the rains came. Ron Villone pitched around a Reggie Sanders walk in a downpour in the top of the ninth and, with standing water all over the field, the umpires signaled for the tarp. Two hours later, the skies had cleared, tarp came off and the Yankees, in front of barely a thousand remaining hardcore fans, took their last licks against Joe Nelson.

With Kelly Stinnett scheduled to lead off, Torre sent up Terrence Long, who inexplicably singled against the young righthander. After Damon flew out, Derek Jeter drew a walk and Gary Sheffield laced a single to center that skipped by Esteban German, who had pinch-hit for Shane Costa in the seventh. Long came around to score, Jeter went to third and Jason Giambi came to the plate with one out, men on the corners, and needing just a sac fly to tie the game. What more devastating way for the Royals streak to be extended than by a ninth-inning rally following a two-hour delay in which the Royals had held a ninth-inning lead. But it was not to be. Giambi grounded into the shift and slipped on the wet dirt coming out of the batters box, resulting in a 4-6-3 double play (though Giambi, who runs like he’s standing in quicksand on dry ground, would have been out anyway).

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The Kansas City Royals have lost their last thirteen games. In April they had a streak of eleven straight losses. They’ve won just ten games all year. All totaled, they have a 10-35 record. That’s a .222 winning percentage. While the Royals aren’t quite that bad, even their Pythagorean winning percentage, a comparatively robust .261, would rank as the sixth worst since 1901, the twenty-first sub-.300 winning percentage in those 106 seasons, and just the fourth since 1945.*

Amazingly, the Royals, who are scoring an average of 3.78 runs per game, do not have the most inept offense in baseball. That distinction is held by the Cubs, who may soon add Tony Womack to the mix. Of course, the Cubs should also get Derrek Lee back in about a month, which should vault them past the Royals. The Royals, meanwhile, are playing without Mike Sweeney and David DeJesus, but the former is frequently disabled anyway and the latter has been sufficiently replaced by Shane Costa. No, what’s really dragging the Royals down is their pitching. The Royals are allowing 6.36 runs per game, which is to say that their pitching is so bad that it makes every team they face look like the pre-injury Yankees. Indeed, the Royals are on pace to allow 1030 runs this year, which would make them the first team since the 1999 Rockies and the first sea-level team since the 1996 Tigers, who lost 109 games while playing their home games in hitter-friendly Tiger Stadium, to allow more than a thousand runs in a single season.

Tonight the Royals will start Scott Elarton, the only Royals pitcher who has thrown enough innings to qualify for the ERA title thus far this season. Elarton has walked more men than he’s struck out this year and has yet to register a win, in part due to receiving just 3.3 runs of support per game (he does have four quality starts in ten tries).

The Yankee line-up he faces will be without Jorge Posada, who had an MRI yesterday that revealed a torn hamstring tendon. Posada has not been put on the DL, yet, but the Yankees are expected to call up either Wil Nieves or Koyie Hill to back-up Kelly Stinnett, which likely means Matt Smith will be on his way back to Columbus. I hope he didn’t bother unpacking. Neither Nieves nor Hill has hit a lick in Columbus this year. Alarmingly, Nieves, who has slugged just .289 thus far (yes, that’s actually his slugging percentage in triple-A), is clearly the better choice. Get well soon, Jorge!

With Posada out of commission, Stinnett will be catching Mike Mussina for the second time this season. Their last pairing was this past Saturday, when Mussina held the Mets to two earned runs on five hits, including a pair of homers by Carlos Delgado and Cliff Floyd, and no walks while striking out seven, Mussina’s tenth quality start in ten tries on the year.

Last year, the Yankees needed a tie breaker to win the division in part because they went 11-14 against the Royals and Devil Rays, a record that was much uglier before they swept their final three games against each team. This year the Bombers have gone 7-1 against those two clubs. The Yankees have done well to split the 14 games they’ve played since Hideki Matsui’s injury, but with Gary Sheffield back in the line-up (and despite Jorge Posada’s absence), they need to pad their win total against the historically awful Royals this weekend.

*The Terrible Twenty:

.235 – 1916 Philadelphia Athletics
.248 – 1935 Boston Braves
.250 – 1962 New York Mets
.252 – 1904 Washington Senators
.257 – 1919 Philadelphia Athletics
.265 – 2003 Detroit Tigers
.273 – 1952 Pittsburgh Pirates
.276 – 1909 Washington Senators
.278 – 1942 Philadelphia Phillies
.279 – 1932 Boston Red Sox, 1939 St. Louis Browns, 1941 Philadelphia Phillies
.283 – 1915 Philadelphia Athletics, 1928 Philadelphia Phillies
.291 – 1911 Boston Braves
.294 – 1909 Boston Braves
.296 – 1911 St. Louis Browns
.298 – 1939 Philadelphia Phillies
.299 – 1937 St. Louis Browns, 1945 Philadelphia Phillies

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Mike Mussina gets the start tonight against the Royals, losers of 13 straight. (Is it just me, or does anyone else get nervous that a team is due to win a couple after losing so much, even a team as woeful as Kansas City?) Will this be the year Mussina finally wins 20 games? Ehhhh, could be. Ed Price tackles the subject today in the Star-Ledger:

“Moose likes to live in the shadows somewhere,” manager Joe Torre said. “He doesn’t like all that attention. He’s proud of what he does, but he doesn’t need someone to tell him that.”

Mussina says he’s not overly concerned about winning 20. There is too much season left for him to get ahead of himself. He has to be pleased with how he’s pitch so far, though. Moose adds:

“Being older and a little smarter and all that stuff, when you’ve had years that you’re struggling, you pay attention to why you struggle and what bad habits I had. You try to make sure you don’t have that when you get to the next year.”

Without crunching any numbers, I’d rank Mussina with the likes of Curt Schilling and John Smoltz as borderline Hall of Fame candidates. Smoltz has been a terrific playoff pitcher and of course was also an elite closer for a few years; Schilling has the 300 K and 20 win seasons and two World Serious rings. I wonder which of the three will last the longest. My guess is that right now, Schilling and Smoltz are more likely to make it to Cooperstown, but one never knows…does one?

I can safely say that Mussina’s got the Bronx Banter crew behind him 110%.

As I mentioned yesterday in the comments section, I’m excited to see El Duque return to New York. In a way, it’s actually a relief to me that he’s on the Mets. This way I can enjoy watching him perform without being too emotionally invested in the outcome. I like Buster Olney’s take on the deal:

The best possible situation you can have with Orlando Hernandez at this stage in his career, a high-ranking American League executive said last night, is when you don’t have to count on him.

“The White Sox played it exactly right last year,” the exec said, “because they brought him along and he was kind of the extra guy in the rotation — they didn’t absolutely need him to win. They went into the postseason, and he wasn’t filling a crucial role; he was just another guy on their pitching staff. And then, in the playoff series against Boston, they brought him [in] when it wasn’t make or break, and he was tremendous.”

…There will be issues with El Duque: He gets hurt a lot, he is temperamental and he is high-maintenance. But if the Mets make the playoffs and face a big moment in October, there is nobody stronger mentally than Hernandez.

By the way, I know I’ve mentioned this before, but if you are interested in Duque, do yourself a favor and pick up “The Duke of Havana,” by Steve Fainaru and Ray Sanchez. It’s not necessarily a great baseball book–it actually reads more like a Graham Greene novel than anything else–but it is an absorbing account of Cuban baseball and El Duque’s life and career.

Jim Baumbach has an article in Newsday today about Yankee prospect Eric Duncan, who is currently rehabbing a lower back strain in Tampa:

Team officials are contemplating sending Duncan, who has struggled at Triple-A Columbus, to Double-A Trenton, a demotion they would be likely to say is necessary because of the sudden influx of major-league journeymen at Columbus.

But such a move also would send a message of concession, essentially saying the 21-year-old first baseman isn’t ready to succeed at Columbus. And with the trading season about to begin, this is the worst possible time to send that message to the baseball world.

The Yankees will be in the market for pitching help, and perhaps a leftfielder, too, and the teams that will be sellers will be looking for major league-ready talent.

Meanwhile, Melky Cabrera has shown some promise at the big league level this season. Tyler Kepner has a good piece in the Times about Melky and his big brother/mentor, Robbie Cano:

“Both of them are very similar in the fact that they’re having fun,” [Manager Joe] Torre said. “I don’t think they understand the pressure most people understand here. They’re just out there playing baseball.”

Last week at the Stadium, Cabrera made a fine running catch near the right field wall. After he threw the ball to the infield he made a funny face–in the direction of Cano–that said, “Wow, can’t believe I got that one without killing myself.” With Sheffield back, Cabrera will return to left field where he’ll continue his unsentimental education learning to adjust to the position.

Jorge Posada has a torn hamstring tendon in his left knee. It is still uncertain if Posada will be placed on the disabled list. The Yankees’ catcher will be re-evaluated in a few days. GM Brian Cashman told the New York Times:

“The M.R.I. had to show something. As it was explained to me, there are several tendons that connect to the knee. This one is an unusual injury, but on the good side, it’s a tendon that you don’t need to function.”

In the Daily News, Anthony McCaron continues:

Posada had an MRI yesterday and also was examined by Yanks team physician Dr. Stuart Hershon. Cashman was worried because the Yanks’ trainer, Gene Monahan, couldn’t even speculate on how badly Posada was hurt.

“And Geno’s been doing this a long time,” Cashman said. “It’s good news, considering my level of worry, but the bad news is we’ll be without Jorge’s services for a period of time.”

Posada’s injury is unusual, Cashman said, because he has a tear in one tendon of several behind the knee. “The way Dr. Hershon explained it to me, this is a tendon we apparently don’t have a need for and it is typically used if someone needs a transplant,” Cashman said. “So it’s the pain and swelling that gets in the way for Jorge.

“Jorge told me (last night) that he feels much better since Wednesday and he hadn’t even had anti-inflammatories (medicine) yet. His belief is he’ll be ready sooner than 15 days and Hershon said it was plausible.”

This one is worth holding our collective breath over. Nothing to do but hope for the best, but shoot, this goes down just when Posada was clicking offensively too. Dag.