Daily Archives: August 21, 2007

Hide this one from the kids.

The Yankees scored five runs in the first three innings last night against Kelvim Escobar, but it didn’t much matter. Mike Mussina, who was throwing 86-mile-per-hour fastballs and an assortment of hanging curveballs, didn’t make it out of the second inning, and Ron Villone, who replaced him, only managed to record one out.

Mussina put the Yanks in a 7-1 hole after two. The Yanks rallied to make it 7-5 heading into the bottom of the third, but Villone, who got the final out of the second in relief of Mussina, loaded the bases with none out then walked in the eighth Angel run. Looking to keep his team in the game on the heels of their rally, Joe Torre called on Edwar Ramirez to minimize the damage. It was a gutsy move, and it almost paid off. Hideki Matsui ran down an Orlando Cabrera drive tailing toward the left field corner to turn a would be extra-base hit into a sac fly for the first out. Ramirez struck out Vlad Guerrero for the second out, but then he fell in love with his changeup against Garrett Anderson. Anderson took the first three changeups to get ahead 2-1, swung over the fourth, then parked the fifth in the left field seats for a three-run homer that made it 12-5 and put the game back out of reach.

Ramirez allowed another run in the fourth, though he did strike out four men in his two innings of work, including Guerrero twice. Sean Henn then came on to take one for the team, allowing five more runs in the sixth, the capper being a Garret Anderson grand slam that gave Anderson a franchise record ten RBIs on the night. The Yankees got four consolation runs off rookie reliever Marcus Gwyn in the top of the ninth on homers by Wilson Betemit, a three-run shot, and Alex Rodriguez, his second solo shot of the game and third tater of the series, to put the final score at 18-9.

Mussina’s start (1 2/3 IP, 7 R) was his worst in his seven years with the Yankees and one of just four starts in his 17-year major league career in which he failed to complete two innings. Mussina is now 0-6 in seven starts following Yankee losses this season. The most impressive part of Mussina’s night was that he faced the media after the game and offered no excuses.

And so the Yankees are four games behind the Wild Card-leading Mariners in the loss column. The good news? They’ve got their ace, Andy Pettitte, going tonight followed by a day off.

Why do Yankee fans loathe the Angels so? There’s the simple fact that no other team, not even the Red Sox, has a winning record against the Yankees since Joe Torre’s arrival in the Bronx in 1996. Derek Jeter is fond of saying that boos on the road are the same as cheers at home. Yankee fans hate the Angels because the Angels have tortured them over the past decade. Indeed, with last night’s win, the Angels won the season series from the Yankees for the fourth year in a row. Here’s another simple fact: Since the end of World War II, only two teams have defeated the Yankees more than once in the postseason. The first is the Dodgers, against whom the Yankees hold a 7-3 advantage in postseason play (all World Series, of course, the most recent coming in 1981). The other is the Angels, who are 2-0 against the Yankees in the postseason, knocking them out in the first round twice in the last five years.

Quick note on last night’s game: Phil Hughes said after the game that he knew from the get-go that he didn’t have his stuff. Given that, it’s pretty impressive that he was able to hold the Angels down after giving up that bases-clearing double to Jeff Mathis on a hanging curve in the second (though Hughes was charged with five runs in total, Luis Vizcaino had as much to do with the last two as Hughes did). Hughes was also really bothered by the five walks he issued. He said he wasn’t sure he’d ever given up five walks total in back-to-back starts before, let alone in a single start. Looking over his minor league record without the benefit of game logs, he could very well be right. Hughes walked just 66 men in 54 minor league appearances (53 of them starts).

As for tonight, here’s hoping Mike Mussina has his stuff (or his scuff). He sure as heck didn’t in his last start in the opener against the Tigers. Moose had four strong start before that however and, unlike Hughes, has walked just four men over his last five starts, that disaster included. Mussina last faced the Halos in late May, turning in a strong outing (6 1/3 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 6 K, 0 HR), only to have the Yankee offense struggle and Scott Proctor blow the Yankees’ slim lead. Sometimes it seems that could describe every game the Yankees have played against the Angels over the past four years.

The Yanks really have their work cut out for them tonight as they face one of the hottest pitchers in the league. Kelvim Escobar is second in the AL with a 2.68 ERA, but he’s been far better than that over the last two months. In his last start in June, Escobar allowed seven runs in 4 1/3 innings to the Orioles. Since then he’s posted a 1.56 ERA, averaged 7 1/3 innings per starts, and allowed one, count it, one home run in eight starts (congratulations, Travis Buck). Escobar has allowed more than one earned run in just two of those eight starts and in his last outing he struck out nine Blue Jays in seven innings and walked none. The Yankees last faced Escobar the day before Mussina’s start in late May and saw more of the same: 7 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 8 K, 0 HR. Yes, Escobar is pitching over his head, but only slightly. His BABIP is a favorable, but not fluky, .289, and he’s been succeeding beyond his usual level by suppressing hits and homers. He has not, however shown the increase in groundball rate that might explain those decreased rates.

There are some positives the Yankees can latch on to. First, 15 of the 17 men who have tried to steal against Escobar this season have been successful, that’s a tremendous 88 percent success rate (on his career, baserunners have stolen at an 80 percent clip). Second, though Escobar has dominated his last eight starts, the Angels have only won five of them due to poor run support. Over that stretch, the Halos have scored just 3.5 runs per game on Escobar’s behalf. Of course they just dropped seven on the Yanks last night, but you gotta have something to cling to, right?

With Jorge Posada having caught five games in a row including ten innings last night, Jose Molina starts behind the plate against his old team tonight. The hot-hitting Andy Phillips is at first. Jason Giambi will DH.

It’s cold and rainy in New York today as we Yankee fans moan about last night’s game. At least, the Yankee fans I’ve spoken to have been whinning (and none louder than me). Here’s a couple of links to break the mood. Okay, first, Steven Goldman ‘splains why Scioscia-Ball works more than it should; Mark Lamster writes that sometimes nice guys finish last, Hank Waddles interviews Jayson Stark and Baseball-Reference’s Stat of the Day blog notes that Jorge Posada is on his way to having the best season ever for a 35-year old catcher. And for something completely different, check out this series of recordings by former Yankee organist Eddie Layton. Ed Alstrom, the regular weekend organist at the Stadium these days (who is also a Bronx Banter regular), posted the Layton recordings, which are from the 1950s. Don’t sleep, peep.

It’s funny: as much as I hate the Angels, I’ve never found much to dislike about their individual players. If we’re being honest, they’re a pretty inoffensive group*; I mean, John Lackey tends to breathe through his mouth all the time, which is a pet peeve of mine, and Chone Figgins has been slightly overrated, sure… but I think that’s about it, really. I just loathe them as an entity, the entire organization, the whole idea of them. Individual Red Sox have irked me far more – Schilling, Pedro back in the day, Carl “The Bible Never Says Anything About Dinosaurs” Everett, etc – but ultimately I respect the Sox, and clearly baseball is richer for their existence…whereas I firmly believe the Angels should be legally abolished.

Now more than ever, of course, as I stayed up late with a summer cold to watch all three hours and 45 minutes of an indescribably frustrating Yankee loss: Angels 7, Yankees 6. The highs were high but the lows were low, and the lows ganged up on the highs and beat them to a bloody pulp. New York hitters wasted several opportunities, but seems to me it was the Yankee pitching that was most at fault, and particularly the bullpen.

Phil Hughes, coming home for the first time as a Yankee, was slightly better than his box score indicates (because Luis Vizcaino was significantly worse than his), but he certainly struggled off and on tonight, especially with his control: 5 walks and 4 hits in 6.1 innings of work. He was not helped by Robinson Cano, who made what proved to be a harmless error on a routine-ish grounder in the first, followed by a costly — if unofficial — mistake when he let a ball hit hard to his right slip under his glove in the second. Larry Bowa looked… displeased. Three runs would score in the inning, but to be fair, Hughes was hardly blameless: after Cano’s flub, he walked two in a row and gave up a bases-clearing double, to Jeff Mathis of all people, on the hang-iest of hanging curves.

It was 3-0 Angels, but the Yankees raged against the dying of the light: Hughes settled down and pitched well for the next four innings, and the offense began to stir, especially after the removal of Angels starter Dustin Moseley. In the fourth, Hideki Matsui tripled and scored on a Jorge Posada groundout; in the sixth, Alex Rodriguez went deep for the 40th time this season, scoring Bobby Abreu and breaking an extremely brief tie with Prince Fielder for ML home run leader. 4-3 Yankees. As a bonus, Rodriguez did this off a pitcher with the top-notch name of Bootcheck.

Things went south in the bottom of the seventh, however. Hughes started the inning and promptly allowed a hit and a walk, so Joe Torre went to the bullpen… but unfortunately, though he tried to call for July Luis Vizcaino, he accidentally summoned May Luis Vizcaino, who promptly allowed both inherited runners to score, plus one to grow on. 6-4 Angels.

But! In the 8th, after A-Rod singled, Jorge Posada knocked a Justin Speier pitch over the right field fence to tie the game. (Had they skipped this part, the game would have ended 45 minutes earlier, thousands of New Yorkers would have been spared a dangerous rise in blood pressure, Mariano would have been fresh for tomorrow, I would have gotten some sleep, and Sean Henn wouldn’t have ended his night on the verge of tears*. But nice hitting, anyway).

Kyle Farnsworth came on in the bottom of the inning, and I don’t see why two solid recent outings should cancel out the dozens and dozens of mediocre to horrendous outings that preceded them. He promptly reverted to his most infuriating pitching style, falling behind Gary Matthews and Casey Kotchman and allowing a double and a walk, respectively. Maicer Izturis then smashed a line drive right to Wilson Betemit, who made a better play than he had any right to and was able to throw out Matthews at home plate. Spiritually, that ball was a run-scoring double. Reggie Willets (of “his family literally lives in a batting cage” fame) then struck out on a veeeeery questionable check swing call. Honestly, I’ve rarely seen a worse-pitched scoreless inning; yes, Farns got out of it without allowing a run, but it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying.

Torre then did something many statistically inclined fans have been wishing he’d try for a long time: he brought in Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning of a tie road game. It doesn’t get much higher-leverage than that, and Mo came through, pitching around some lucky hits. Unfortunately, he only went the one inning; and in the 10th, Torre brought in Sean Henn… who allowed a double to Kendrick, followed by a walk-off game winner to someone named Ryan Budde. Poor Henn looked to be taking it hard after the game, and I want to be clear that you really can’t pin this loss on just him, but I do just need to point out here that this was the SECOND-EVER HIT OF BUDDE’S CAREER.

I’m going to bed.

*I’m not as down on Torre as many of you, but I will say that when a third of your bullpen has left games openly weeping**, that’s probably a sign there’s room for improvement in that area, no?

**Or set their equipment on fire in front of the dugout.