Daily Archives: July 16, 2007

The Yankees did what they needed to do by taking three of four from the Devil Rays over the weekend. They’ll now need to do the same against the Blue Jays at home this week. The Jays are the toughest opponent the Yankees will face until they head to Cleveland on August 10 and they’ll face them seven times prior to that date, adding a three-game set in Toronto to wrap up the cupcake portion of their schedule in the first week of August.

The Blue Jays, who have gotten Roy Halladay, Greg Zaun and Reed Johnson back from the DL since the Yankees last saw them in late May, have played well of late. They opened the second half by splitting a four-game set in Boston and concluded the first half by taking four of six from the Indians and A’s. That said, the Jays are the definition of a .500 team (a game below in reality, a game above according to Pythagoras), while the Yankees are desperately trying to prove that they’re more than that. In that way, this could prove to be a huge series for the Bombers.

The Blue Jays hold a 3-1 advantage in the season series entering tonight having beaten Phil Hughes in his major league debut in a rain-shortened one-game series in the Bronx in April and taken two of three in the “Rod Said ‘Ha!'” series in late May. Of course, the Yankees’ starting pitchers in those four games were Hughes in his debut, Matt DeSalvo, Andy Pettitte, and Tyler Clippard, so the Blue Jays have yet to really face the Yankees’ best.

Not that they will tonight either. Kei Igawa takes the mound in his fourth start since returning from the minors. In his first three he’s posted a 6.19 ERA while walking nine and allowing three home runs in 16 innings (all three dingers coming in the middle start against the A’s). The Yanks will have to outhit whatever Igawa gives them tonight and will look to do so against Josh Towers. Towers’ last start (on July 8) was far and away his best of the season as he held the Indians scoreless on three hits and no walks over eight innings. He was nearly as good against the Tigers back on April 15, but otherwise has been more of a five-inning, four-run starter. He won’t walk very many, but he’ll give up his share of hits and homers. The Yankees have only faced Towers in relief this year, plating a run against him in 2 2/3 innings in their only win over the Jays on the season.

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Man, guess who is playing for the Long Island Ducks of the Independent League these days? Welp, the roster includes Jose Offerman, Ed Yarnall, John Halama, Edgardo Alfonzo, Carl Everett and Pete Rose Jr.

With the Yankees needing to win every series for the next month (and, really, beyond), I though I’d start a new feature here that takes a look at the individual performances of each just-completed series. It goes a little something like this:

Offense The Yankees scored an average of six runs per game against the Devil Rays, which sounds impressive when you consider the fact that the Tigers lead the majors by scoring 5.94 runs per game on the season. However, the Rays allowed an average of 6.17 runs per game over the first half of the season, which means the Yankees’ performance was actually close to average. I say close, because the Rays tend to give up a lot more runs on the road, so the Yankees were actually above average for a visitor at Tropicana Field, but it still wasn’t as impressive a showing as it might appear at first glance.

Offensive Studs:

Bobby Abreu: 6 for 16, 2 2B, 2 HR, 8 RBI
Hideki Matsui: 6 for 18, 2 2B, 2 HR
Jorge Posada: 4 for 9, 2 2B, HR, 4 BB, SB
Derek Jeter: 5 for 18, 2B, 2 HR, SB

Offensive Duds:

Robinson Cano: 2 for 12, IBB, RBI
Melky Cabrera: 3 for 12, 3 K, CS
Kevin Thompson: 1 for 8, 2B, 3 K
Johnny Damon: 3 for 14, 5 BB, SB, CS

Rotation Two of the four starters turned in bare-minimum quality starts, Chien-Ming Wang doing so while striking out six and walking none, and Mike Mussina doing so by gutting out six innings with bad stuff. Andy Pettitte missed a quality start by one out, leaving with two on and two out in the sixth. Roger Clemens had the only truly poor outing of the series, though it wasn’t a total disaster (5 1/3 IP, 5 R). Overall a poor showing by the rotation against a team batting Brendan Harris third.

Bullpen Allowed five runs in 12 innings, but only blew a lead once, that coming in the finale when Ron Villone entered a 4-3 game and gave up a two-run home run.

The Good:

Mariano Rivera collected two saves and closed a third game with a four-run lead. Altogether, he allowed a pair of singles and struck out four in three innings. Luis Vizcaino was perfect for 2 2/3 innings, striking out three and closing the door for Pettitte in the opener. Brian Bruney finished the sixth for Clemens on Friday, retiring his two batters on nine pitches, six of them strikes.

The Bad:

Kyle Farnsworth pitched three times, allowing two runs on a home run and a pair of doubles. In his three innings, he allowed six base runners and struck out one. Mike Myers and Scott Proctor teamed up to allow a run in their only work of the weekend on Friday. Myers faced two batters, striking out Akinori Iwamura, then allowing a double to Carl Crawford. Crawford is a career .333/.368/.722 hitter against Myers in 19 plate appearances. Proctor came on and, in the process of getting the last two outs, allowed Crawford to steal third, walked two, and gave up a single that plated Crawford. Ron Villone pitched a perfect inning striking out two on Saturday, but undid that good work by blowing a one-run lead on Sunday by surrendering a two-run homer. This after another base runner had been erased on a double play. Vizcaino had to finish his inning as well. Carlos Peña was the terror who hit both home runs against the Yankee pen. Edwar Ramirez was not used.

Defense The Yankees played fantastic defense all weekend. Their only error was Jorge Posada’s catcher’s interference in ninth-inning on Sunday. Melky Cabrera, Alex Rodriguez, and Andy Phillips, who made a game-saving play in the finale, earn special mention for their play in the field.

Conclusion The offense needs to build some momentum. The pitching staff needs to shape up. Joe Torre needs to switch Farnsworth and Vizcaino on his bullpen depth chart and give Edwar Ramirez a fair shake.

Just as they did on Saturday night, the Yankees fell behind 3-0 early yesterday as Mike Mussina showed his usual long-rest rust and spent as much time arguing with home plate umpire C.B. Bucknor as he did actually getting hitters out during the first three innings. Moose locked it down, however, and the Yankees rallied against Edwin Jackson in the fifth to take the lead, hitting for the cycle with a Robinson Cano single, an Andy Phillips triple that was badly misplayed by B.J. Upton in center (payback for Upton robbing him of a 400-foot extra-base hit on Saturday), a Wil Nieves double (his first extra-base hit of the year), and a two-run Derek Jeter home run.

Mussina fought his way through six innings with the help of some great defense, starting with his own, as he snagged a comebacker from the first batter he faced. Later in the first inning, with Carl Crawford on second and Brendan Harris on first, Carlos Peña singled to center to plate Crawford, but Melky Cabrera threw behind Harris to catch him rounding second base too far for the second out. The third inning came to a scoreless close when Hideki Matsui threw out B.J. Upton trying to score from second on a single to left thanks in part to Upton’s sore quadriceps and a great swipe tag by Wil Nieves. In the fourth, Carl Crawford ground to Andy Phillips deep at first, and Phillips beat Crawford in a footrace to the bag, colliding dramatically with the Tampa center fielder (thankfully, neither player was injured). The fifth ended on a 4-6-3 double play, and Melky again gunned out a runner at second base in the sixth as he caught Ty Wigginton trying to stretch a single.

Ron Villone came on in the seventh and promptly coughed up the lead by surrendering a two-run homer to Peña, but the Yankees quickly fought back in the eighth. Alex Rodriguez led off with a double to drive reliever Brian Stokes from the game. Hideki Matsui greeted Casey Fossum with a single that put runners on the corners. After Melky struck out, Robinson Cano plated Rodriguez with a sac fly on which Matsui alertly took second. Gary Glover then came on to face Phillips, who singled home Matsui to regain the lead and took second on the throw home. After pinch-hitter Jorge Posada was intentionally walked and Johnny Damon was unintentionally walked, Derek Jeter ground to third baseman Akinori Iwamura, but Iwamura couldn’t find the handle on the ball and all hands were safe, with Phillips scoring what proved to be a crucial insurance run.

I say crucial because Kyle Farnsworth opened the eighth by giving up a ground-rule double to Upton that missed being a home run by all of three feet. Wigginton then singled Upton home to pull the Rays within one. Rays manager Joe Maddon then pinch-ran for Wigginton with Josh Wilson with Dioner Navarro at the plate and one out. Navarro hit a hot shot to the left of Phillips at first, which Phillips snared on a full dive, then clamored to one knee and doubled Wilson off second for what would prove to be not only an inning-ending play, but a game-saving one.

Mariano Rivera wrapped things up with a heart attack ninth that started with a single by Iwamura, followed by catcher’s interference as Posada came out of his crouch to try to throw out Iwamura stealing second and tipped Carl Crawford’s bat with his glove in mid-swing. That put runners on first and second with no outs in a game the Yankees lead by just one run, but Brendan Harris ground into a 5-5-3 double play and Carlos Peña, who had driven in three of the six Devil Ray runs to that point, popped out to give the Yankees a 7-6 victory.

So, while it wasn’t a dominating performance, the Yankees did what they needed to do in taking three of four from the Devil Rays. They’ll have to play better ball to do the same against Toronto this week, however. Meanwhile, Andy Phillips, who is hitting .302/.362/.453 this season, is the story of the day. Pete Abraham kicks things off.