Daily Archives: April 6, 2007

I’ll be honest, the Orioles bore me to tears. Now nursing a nine-year run of losing records, the Orioles continue to rearrange the furniture, but without a meaningful youth movement, they’ll forever be the AL East’s fourth-place team (until the Devil Rays get enough pitching to pass them, that is). Nick Markakis might be the real deal in right field, but there’s no one behind him in the high minors and now that Melvin Mora’s fallen back to earth he’s less of a production addition than a production replacement. Erik Bedard, whom the Yankees will face on Sunday, is actually about a week older than Johan Santana. Chris Ray is nice and all, but he’s a band-aid on a severed limb. That just leaves the ongoing mystery that is Daniel Cabrera–who acquitted himself well over his last ten starts last year and his first outing of 2007, but still hasn’t shown the dominant form that’s long been predicted for him–and tonight’s starter Adam Loewen. As a rookie in 2006, Loewen faced the Yankees more than any other team, excelling in those four starts (2.62 ERA, 23 K in 24 IP), and Baseball Prospectus’s Kevin Goldstein likes him more than either Cabrera or Ray. Tonight marks his first start of 2007, and it will be interesting to see what he can do against the Yankees’ lefty-heavy lineup after so much exposure to same last year.

As for the O’s as a group, the were swept by the Twins in their opening series by a combined score of 17-8, with half of those runs coming off Johan Santana himself, and are punting the catcher position while trying to decide what to do about Ramon Hernandez’s strained oblique muscle. The Hernandez situation brings to mind the Yankees’ deliberations over Johnny Damon’s sexy calves, but with inferior stand-ins. Actually, Peter Abraham reports that Damon’s feeling better and could play tomorrow. Hernandez, however, is likely DL-bound.

The Orioles are ripe for the picking, but the Yankees have to help themselves first. After making six errors in their first two games, three of them coming from the Captain, who’s never looked worse in the field, their ability to pick anything in doubt.

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Sports Illustrated.com has started a new baseball blog on their site called Fungoes, which will rotate through seven writers and all six divisions over the course of each week of the 2007 baseball season. Among those seven writers are our founder Alex Belth, who will cover the AL East, fellow Toaster Jon Weiseman, who will cover the NL West, and myself as the seventh man tackling a random baseball topic of my choosing every Friday under the “Wild Card” header.

Alex’s posts will appear every Monday. Check out his first post from this past Monday, in which Alex muses about Opening Day from an AL East perspective. My first post is up today and takes a look at the historical significance of the Arizona Diamondback’s new uniforms (with apologies to Paul Lukas). Mr. Weisman’s first effort, meanwhile, focused on the underrated Colorado Rockies (with apologies to Mark T.R. Donohue, I’m sure).

I hope you’ll all join us over there in addition to your regularly scheduled programming here on Baseball Toaster. And don’t be shy about dropping some comments over at SI, either.

By Bruce Markusen

Two Games In The Books

At this writing, the Yankees have played a grand total of two games, which makes it difficult to detect any meaningful trends and patterns. Still, every game provides us with at least one storyline. As is usually the case in Yankeeland, there is no shortage of plots and themes as we evaluate the first series of the season.

*Sometimes Opening Day makes you feel very good about a pre-season prediction. I picked the Yankees to win the American League East, in large part because of their bullpen, which has far superior depth to the pen in Beantown. So what did the Yankee relievers do on Opening Day after Carl Pavano dropped the ball in the fifth inning? The five-man tag team of Brian Bruney, Sean Henn, Luis Vizcaino, Kyle Farnsworth, and Mariano Rivera combined for four and two-thirds innings of scoreless relief. That sort of pattern could become a trend in 2007. Given the depth at Joe Torre’s disposal, this might be the Yankees’ best bullpen since the dynasty days of Jeff Nelson and Mike Stanton.

(And just when I had finished patting my back after the opener, the Yankee bullpen allowed three runs in game two, including the game-winning run in the top of the eighth. Ah, so much for predictions.)

The improvement of Farnsworth could be the key to just how good the bullpen can be. Farnsworth has dipped into his pre-2006 arsenal and brought back a sinking fastball that provides a nice contrast to his rising 98 mile-per-hour four-seamer. If Farnsworth is willing to throw the sinker—and more importantly, is able to throw strikes with his sinker—he could be the eighth-inning force the Yankees thought they had acquired in 2006.

*For the first time since the first half of 1996, the Yankees appear to have enough versatility in their lineup to play “small ball”—or “Billy Ball,” in homage to a former Yankee skipper who had some fun with the A’s in the early eighties. The Yankees stole three bases and laid down two sacrifice bunts in the opener, giving them an extra dimension to a lineup that is already packed with power. With Alex Rodriguez having lost 12 pounds over the winter, he could resume being a significant basestealing threat. The Yankees now have four regulars capable of stealing 20 or more bases—the others are Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, and Bobby Abreu—which should erase the team’s image as being slow and plodding. When’s the last time the Yankee lineup could boast that many basestealers? You might have to go back to the failed speed experiment of 1982, when the Yankees brought in Dave Collins and Ken Griffey and tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to become the “Go-Go” Bombers.

*The Yankees’ defensive play has been atrocious through the first two games. I don’t care what their zone rating or range factor might be; six errors, a passed ball, and a near passed ball in 18 innings is horrifically bad. I’m willing to excuse some of the poor play because of the cold, but certainly not all of it. Derek Jeter has made several poor throws and has displayed less range than usual to his left, Josh Phelps looked like he’d been taking lessons from Jason Giambi with his Opening Day throw to second base, and even supposed glove wizard Doug Mientkiewicz has made an error. (By the way, if Mientkiewicz doesn’t play an absolutely brilliant first base this month, I want him out of the lineup by May 1.) What can the Yankees do about their defensive woes? Well, they’re going to have to live with Jeter and Alex Rodriguez on the left side of the infield, but they need to get Melky Cabrera as many innings as possible in the outfield. He is their best outfielder, both in terms of range and throwing arm—and it’s not even close.

*The nicest development of the first week involved an off-the-field concern, specifically someone who hasn’t played for the Yankees in more than two decades. The much-loved Bobby Murcer returned to Yankee Stadium for Opening Day, spending a couple of innings in the YES Network broadcast booth, after a winter filled with cancer diagnosis and chemotherapy treatments. I have to admit it was a bit odd to see the cancer-stricken Murcer sporting a bald look—he’s always had a full shock of hair, even in recent years—but he sounded very good during his stint in the booth. His voice came across as strong, as did his usual sense of humor. Murcer says he hopes to completely fulfill his broadcast schedule this year. I think it’s safe to say that every Yankee fan has the same wish for 2007.

Bruce Markusen is the author of A Baseball Dynasty: Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s and the writer of Cooperstown Confidential, a blog at MLB.com. Bruce, his wife Sue, and daughter Madeline reside in Cooperstown, NY.

The fans who stuck around for the entire game last night are bonafide die-hards, man, cause it was brick cold in the Bronx. Unfortunately, they didn’t go home happy as the Yankees lost an ugly game to the Devil Rays, 7-6. Andy Pettitte was far from sharp and the bullpen wasn’t much better. The Yankees made three errors, including two by Derek Jeter, and Jorge Posada had perhaps one of the worst defensive games of his career. Still, they had two men on with just one out in the bottom of the eighth. Jeter tapped a ground ball back to the pitcher, who inexplicably tried for the force at third. The throw was late, and bases were loaded. But Bobby Abreu was jammed, and grounded out to the pitcher before Alex Rodriguez missed a fat pitch and popped out to end the inning. Rodriguez threw his bat down in frustration, the cheers turned to boos, and the tabloids had their cover story.

All of this with wild snow flurries falling at different points throughout the game. In the seventh, the snow looked like a swarm of locusts, or, as YES announcer Michael Kay noted, a snowglobe turned upside down. Elijah Dukes, looking thuggish in a black mask–which many of the Devil Rays wore to keep warm–hit a line drive home run to left field which brought back memories of Winfield and Rice. Josh Paul was as good behind the plate for the Rays as Posada was terrible for the Yanks.

It’s too soon to get upset, right? That may be true, but my blood was angried-up well enough during the last few innings as the Yanks let one slip away. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks, eh?