Daily Archives: September 18, 2006

I really don’t have much to say about the Blue Jays. As the season winds to a close it looks as though their splashy offseason will have netted them an extra six wins. That’s nothing to sneeze at, but 86 wins just isn’t going to cut it in the American League.

What’s most compelling about the series that begins in Toronto tonight is that a) the Yankees could make like 1995 and clinch in Canada and b) because the rest of the rotation was scrunched into two days over the weekend and Cory Lidle is out with tendonitis in his pitching hand, the Yankees are running out a trio of rookie starters. This spring I did a lot of blabbing about the trio of 25-year-old pitchers in Columbus which I thought could produce this year’s Chien-Ming Wang for the Yankees. Things didn’t work out that way. Sean Henn and Darrell Rasner spent large chunks of the season on the DL and Matt DeSalvo was so awful that he was exiled to Trenton where he continued to walk more than he struck out. Henn inspired little confidence when healthy and was eventually converted to relief, though he’ll return to the rotation in Lidle’s stead on Wednesday.

Of the three, only Rasner, who starts tonight against the Jay’s offseason poster boy A.J. Burnett, has displayed the sort of potential I had trumpeted in the spring. Rasner has been uniformly excellent for the Yankees in his limited opportunities this year. He posted a 2.89 ERA in the minors with a stellar 3.93 K/BB ratio–which includes a few rehab starts following his three-month DL stay due to shoulder soreness–and has allowed just one run in 11 2/3 major league innings (0.77 ERA), striking out eight and walking none. In his only previous start for the Yankees, Rasner held the Twins to a run on four hits over six full. Most recently he pitched in relief of tomorrow’s starter Jeff Karstens and threw four one-hit shutout innings against the Devil Rays, striking out five and throwing a staggering 80 percent of just 45 pitches for strikes. That outing came on Thursday, which means Rasner is pitching on three-days rest, albeit from what amounts to half a start. I continue to hold out hope that Rasner will be a part of the discussion for next year’s rotation. While I don’t think he’ll be able to work his way into the fourth spot in the playoff rotation, a good outing tonight could clinch his spot on the postseason roster as he could do for the Yankees what Ervin Santana did against them in Game 5 of the ALDS last year.

As for Burnett, he has been dominant over his last three starts–24 IP, 16 H, 4 R, 1 HR, 5 BB, 22 K–but it’s too little, too late. In his last start against the Yankees, Burnett was bounced after giving up four runs in four innings and throwing 86 pitches. That start came in the Bronx. At home against the Yankees in late June, Burnett turned in 7 1/3 strong innings to earn just his second win of the year. He’ll have to face a full set of Yankee starters tonight, though I expect to see Torre start resting guys again tomorrow as the Yankees play their second of three games on the Rogers Centre turf.

Hmmm, Rasner plus a full-strength Yankee line-up. I could get used to this.

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If the Yankees won the Saturday’s night cap despite the performance of their starting pitcher, they were inversely swept in Sunday’s split-double header despite the fine performances of their starters. Jaret Wright and Mike Mussina combined to hold the Red Sox to four runs on eleven hits over twelve innings, walking four and striking out nine. The bulk of the hits and strikeouts were Mussina’s, the bulk of the walks were Wrights, the runs and innings they split evenly.

In both cases the Yankees came up short due to shoddy relief pitching and Joe Torre’s ultimately wise decision to play these games as if the division had already been clinched. Torre did not run out his full starting line up in any of the four games this weekend, resting Posada in Saturday’s day game, Damon, Matsui and Cano in Saturday’s nightcap, Abreu, Giambi, Jeter and Posada in yesterday’s opener, and Damon, Rodriguez, and Matsui in the finale. As a result, the Yankee offense scuffled despite facing the likes of Kyle Snyder and Kevin Jarvis.

In yesterday’s day game, Nick Green and Sal Fasano went a combined 0 for 6 with three strikeouts. Indeed, it was Green and Fasano who made the first two outs of the fourth inning after Hideki Matsui, Aaron Guiel and Chris Wilson had loaded the bases to start the inning. That, plus a Johnny Damon strikeout for the third out, killed that rally and ultimately cost the Yankees the game. It also helps explain how Kyle Snyder was able to hold the Yankees to two runs over five innings while striking out seven.

Game one was tied 2-2 after six, when Joe Torre turned to Ron Villone. Things started innocently enough. Eric Hinske flied out on Villone’s first pitch. Villone then walked Doug Mirabelli on five pitches, but rallied to strike out Alex Gonzales for the second out, keeping pinch-runner Coco Crisp at first base. With Mark Loretta at the plate, hitting for rookie David Murphy, Villone appeared to pick Crisp off first base. Crisp, fooled by Villone’s move, took two quick steps toward second and Craig Wilson received the throw at first. Crisp then froze and, as Wilson charged down the baseline toward him, Crisp danced around him to the outfield side of the baseline and jogged back to the bag untagged. Wilson and Joe Torre argued that Crisp should have been called out for running out of the baseline, but rookie first base umpire Mike Estabrook and veteran crew chief Jerry Crawford, who was umpiring second, ruled Crisp safe and the inning continued.

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