Daily Archives: August 15, 2006

Oh yeah, “it ain’t over ’til it’s over.”

No doubt, as late as the middle of the sixth inning last night’s game looked like a replay of Mike Mussina’s last start against the Orioles, when the Yankees mustered just one hit against O’s starter Adam Loewen while Moose allowed just three runs and was saddled with a hard-luck loss.

Indeed, the score was 3-0 O’s after five and a half last night with the Yanks having managed just three singles and a walk through five and O’s starter Erik Bedard having set down eleven Yanks in a row between the first and fifth innings. The Orioles, meanwhile, scored their first run on a one-out solo homer by Kevin Millar in the fifth then got two more in the sixth due in part to yet another Alex Rodriguez error.

Brian Roberts led off the sixth with a double and moved to third when Melvin Mora followed with a single. Miguel Tejada then flied out to right, but Roberts hold at third out of respect for Bobby Abreu’s arm. Alas, Roberts would score anyway as Jay Gibbons followed with a single on an 0-2 pitch. Jeff Conine then hit Mussina’s next offering right at Rodriguez at third, but as Alex charged the ball he got caught on an in-between hop and rather than turning an inning-ending double play he booted the ball and fired wide and late to first as Mora scored with the third Oriole run. Fortunately, Mike Mussina kept it together and picked up his third baseman by retiring the next two batters to strand Gibbons and Conine.

Fortunately, Bedard proved no more durable than Mussina on this night as, after the Yanks made a bit of noise in the fifth when Jorge Posada reached on an slow dribbler to third and Craig Wilson followed him with just the third Yankee single of the night, they finally broke through in the sixth. Jeter lead-off the inning with an infield single and was pushed to third when a pair of seven-pitch walks to Abreu and the mustachioed Jason Giambi loaded the bases for Rodriguez, who promptly redeemed himself with an RBI single.

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I have to admit. I’m sick and tired of the Orioles. It’s not that they give the Yankees a hard time. The Yankees haven’t lost a season series to the O’s since 1997, when the O’s were the last non-Yankee team to win the AL East. This year, the Yanks are 6-3 against Baltimore, taking 2 of 3 in each of their three series, including a weekend set at Camden Yards just over a week ago. So it’s not that the O’s are troublesome. They’re just oppressively uninteresting.

By this point in the season, Miguel Tejada is typically phoning it in (something we saw in that last series in Baltimore), and without Tejada giving a full effort, who is there on this club that you’re excited to see play? The only guy I can muster much enthusiasm for is closer Chris Ray, but I don’t want to see him pitch because it generally means the Yanks are about to drop a game to a team that shouldn’t beat them. The three game series that starts tonight will be even worse because it’s already being overshadowed by this weekend’s five-game death match in Fenway Park. Still, you have to take it one day at a time and tonight, it’s those flat lining Orioles (who just got swept by the Red Sox) yet again.

The O’s look about the same as they did two weekends ago. They’ve activated Kris Benson and recalled Daniel Cabrera from triple-A, but the Yankees won’t see either in this series. Those two have bumped Bruce Chen and Russ Ortiz back into the bullpen and knocked Winston Abreu and Julio Manon off the roster. Thrilling, ain’t it?

Tonight Mike Mussina takes on Erik Bedard. Moose has had trouble pitching around defensive errors and questionable umpiring of late as he’s reverted to his 2004 and 2005 form, in which well pitched games would often be ruined by one bad inning in which he just couldn’t stop the bleeding. He was the hard-luck loser in the one loss in that last series in Baltimore, allowing three runs in five inefficient innings while Adam Loewen and company one-hit the Yanks. Bedard did not pitch in that series, but has been excellent since late June after a rough start to his season. Starting with eight dominant innings against the Marlins on June 21 (2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 12 K), he’s posted this line:

9 GS, 6-2, 1.73 ERA, 62 1/3 IP, 42 H, 3 HR, 15 BB, 63 K, 0.91 WHIP, 7 QS

The good news for the Yankees is that his two non-quality starts, and only two loses, over that stretch have been his last two. Then again, both were near-misses: 5 1/3 innings, two runs against the Mariners at home, and four runs in seven innings against the Blue Jays in Toronto. Still, the 27-year-old Bedard is another pitcher, like Chien-Ming Wang and Justin Verlander, who is entering uncharted innings territory. After losing most of his 2003 season to Tommy John surgery he threw 142 1/3 innings between the minors and majors in 2004 and 148 2/3 innings in 2005, both setting career highs. This year he’s already thrown 142 2/3 innings. The good news for Bedard and the Orioles is that they can baby him through the rest of the season and won’t lose anything by shutting him down early. The Yankees and Wang don’t have that luxury.

Tomorrow night at 7 p.m., I’m going to be part of a three-man panel, including Will Leitch and Matt Cerrone, discussing Baseball and Blogging at the 92nd Street Y. Actually, the program–moderated by Allen Barra–will be held on the West Side, in the Steinhardt Building, which is at 35 West 67th street. The admission is $12 if you pick up the tickets ahead of time, $15 at the door. For anyone who is in town and interested, we’d love to see you.

“We need to clean up some of the stuff that we do,” [Yankee manager, Joe] Torre said. “We’ve played better than this. And tonight we started to get into it at the end of the game, and I thought we played with a little more confidence. But I think we’ve been a little hesitant over the last few days.”
(Michael Morrissey, N.Y. Post)

“They have a great offense and you’re not going to go through a game without getting into a situation or two,” [Angels’ starter, John] Lackey said. “I was able to minimize the damage and give us a chance to win. If you want to be a playoff team you have to figure out how to win games like that.”
(Doug Padilla, L.A. Daily News)

The Yankees beat the Angels 7-2 on Monday night, led by their slumping stars, Jorge Posada and Derek Jeter. The Bombers pounded out 16 hits in all. The two most maligned Yankees, Randy Johnson and Alex Rodriguez, contributed as well, and the victory, combined with a Red Sox loss, puts New York two games ahead of Boston in the AL East (three ahead in the loss column).

After Jason Giambi ran through a stop-sign and was thrown out at the plate in the second inning, Jeter launched a two-run homer to dead center in the third. The score remained the same until the top of the seventh inning. Randy Johnson, who recorded the 4,500th strike out of his career in the fourth when he K’d Tim Salmon, was pitching well for the second-straight game. He allowed a one-out double to Jose Molina and then with two outs, the ever-pesky Chone Figgins slapped a slider that was low and out of the strike zone into center for an RBI single. Not a bad pitch by Johnson, who then left a fastball over the plate (it too was out-of-the-strike zone) to Howie Kendrick. The Angels’ impressive young second baseman lofted a fly ball to deep right center. It hit off the wall, missing a home run by a few feet, good for an RBI double and the game was tied. Orlando Cabrera followed and hit a ground ball to Robinson Cano’s backhand. The Yankee second basemen almost tripped over his feet on the lip of the outfield grass, but maintained his balanced and made the throw to first for the third out.

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