Daily Archives: April 23, 2008

Mike Mussina and Javy Vazquez were both sharp last night. The Yanks squeezed out a run early with a soft two-out rally in the second that was started by two-out walks to Robinson Cano and Jason Giambi and extended by infield singles by Morgan Ensberg, who lined a shot off Vazquez’s chest, and Melky Cabrera. Melky’s hit plated the run before Vazquez struck out Johnny Damon to leave the bases loaded. There weren’t any terribly hard-hit balls in the game until the fifth, when a two-out double by Jorge Posada plated Damon and Hideki Matsui, both of whom had singled, to make it 3-0 Yanks.

Entering the bottom of the fifth, Mussina had allowed just two singles and a walk, and only one of those two singles left the infield. With one out in that inning, Joe Crede blasted a solo homer to left, but the Yanks broke the game open with three runs in the top of the sixth to chase Vazquez, and Mussina came back with a 1-2-3 sixth of his own.

Moose allowed another solo homer (this to Carlos Quentin) with two outs in the seventh. With his starter up to 99 pitches and Crede due up again, Joe Girardi popped out of the dugout. When he got to the mound, he turned to Posada and asked, “What’s he got?” Posada meant to say “there’s nothing wrong with him,” but it came out “he’s got nothing.” With that, Girardi began to lift his arm to call for a reliever, but Posada, realizing his mistake, quickly stopped his manager and explained what he meant to say. Girardi appeared puzzled, but accepted Posada’s explanation and returned to the dugout without making a change. Mussina then got Crede out on two pitches to end the inning and his evening. (The incident reminded me of this game.)

Mussina was flat-out excellent in his seven innings and was working quickly and efficiently and in an easy rhythm with Posada (who had a great night overall, going 4 for 5 with three doubles). Said Moose after the game:

I didn’t throw hardly any curveballs. Lotta sinkers, lotta cutters, good changeup. I think I had real good movement today. Seems like I jammed a lot of guys. They were diving out over the plate, and the ball ran back in on them a little bit, so I think the movement was my biggest asset today. I usually don’t go out there planning not to throw curveballs. The curveball’s a pretty big part of my game. Just today, right from the beginning, it seemed like I could throw two-seamers and get some run out of it, get some sink out of it, and I got a ton of groundballs, so I just kept on throwing them. [Jorge and I] were just trying to figure out what worked and we found something pretty early, so we just kept doing it. It wasn’t really rocket science, we just kept doing what was working.

Those early grounders became fly balls in the latter innings (thus the two homers), but by then the game was in hand. As for that good changeup, the YES gun clocked a few of Mussina’s pitches at 63 miles per hour. Now pitching, Bugs Bunny . . .

Girardi did bring in LaTroy Hawkins to start the eighth, but after a walk and a single, he turned to Billy Traber to face Jim Thome with one out and a four-run lead. For the second night in a row, Traber failed to retire Thome (he walked him in a completely unnecessary matchup on Tuesday night), giving up an RBI single that made the score 6-3. With Paul Konerko due up as the tying run and Joba Chamberlain having worked an inning and two-thirds the night before, Girardi went straight to Mariano Rivera for a five-out save.

Said Joe after the game, “The game was on the line. That was when we had to shut the door and close the game. . . . that was when we needed him.”

Damn straight, skip. Girardi did the same thing with Chamberlain in the seventh inning on Tuesday night when the Sox, trailing by three, loaded the bases with one out. I applaud his willingness to use his big bullpen guns as stoppers (though I was less convinced of the need to leave Chamberlain in to pitch the eighth on Tuesday with the lead expanded to 9-4). Girardi has called on Rivera in the eighth twice this year and used Chamberlain in the seventh three times and has won all five of those games. The extra outs have thus far totaled up to just three extra innings combined for the two pitchers, which would pace out to about 22 innings over the course of the season.

Oh, and since I’m crunching numbers, if you take Manny Ramirez’s hits and RBIs out of Mike Mussina’s season totals, his ERA drops to 3.04 with a 1.06 WHIP.

Having taken the opener of their three-game set at Phone Field, the Yanks hope to clinch just their third series win of the season (in eight tries) tonight. Taking the hill for New York will be Mikey Moose, who will be happy not to have to face Manny Ramirez. Moose faced a far weaker White Sox offense at the Cell twice last year, one good, one bad. The third time he faced the Chisox, back in the Bronx, he pretty much split the difference with a solid quality start.

The Sox have moved ex-Yank Javy Vazquez up a day to keep him on normal rest after Monday’s off-day. He has faced his old team twice since being traded to Arizona for Randy Johnson. In 2006 he survived six walks and a Jason Giambi homer by striking out eight and holding the Yanks to two runs (both scored on that dinger) over five innings in a slim 5-4 Chicago win. Last year, he struck out seven Yanks in six innings, walked just three, and kept the ball in the park, but gave up four runs and took the loss as his punchless offense conjured up just one run against Chien-Ming Wang, who pitched a complete game. Thus far this season, he’s picked up where he left off with his comeback 2007 season, striking out 27 in 25 1/3 innings against just 6 walks and holding his competition homerless.

Joe Girardi has posted the same lineup he ran out there yesterday, which marks the first time all season that he’s repeated a lineup exactly. That means Posada’s back behind the plate, and Morgan Ensberg’s still at third base in place of Alex Rodriguez, who is conveniently resting his sore quad while basking in the arrival of his second daughter. The Sox attempted no steals against Posada last night, in part because they just don’t steal. They have three stolen bases in five tries on the season, both marks dead last in the majors. All three successful steals are by Orlando Cabrera. Cabrera singled twice last night with no one on base ahead of him, but did not attempt a steal.

It goes without saying that respect is something that you have to earn in life, but it is especially true in a barber shop. It comes slowly, with time. It can’t be forced, can’t be bought. I have been getting my haircut in Ray’s shop on Smith street in Brooklyn for close to ten years now. That’s where my barber, Efrain, found a chair to cut heads after he lost his store, futher down Smith closer to Atlantic Avenue, when the neighbhorhood started to gentrify in the late ’90s. I’m not really close with Ray or his son Macho, a rolly guy in his early thirties, who cuts heads next to his father. They don’t like baseball. They like boxing.

It was a warm spring afternoon at the barber shop when I walked in a few days ago. Both Ray and Macho greetly me with affection. I went to the back, where Efrain was standing over a man, a straight razor in his right hand and his left palm cupped full of shaving cream.

I put down my napsack and went back to the front of the shop to sit and wait my turn. Three other guys, all regulars, all friends with Macho, were there. I started talking to Ray about a book I had just read, Mark Kram’s Ghosts of Manilla. Soon, he was holding court, telling stories about Ali. A thick, muscular kid who was sitting across from me, told me that he had tons of old boxing matches on videotape, including the Thrilla in Manilla. When I described Kramm’s impressions of the fight, he goes, “Yo, dude, I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it.” The light poured through the front window of the shop, onto his forearms where I could see the goosebumps.

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Chien-Ming Wang teetered on the brink of disaster throughout his six innings against the White Sox last night, but somehow allowed only three runs, so in the end — after the Yankee offense poked its head out and didn’t see its shadow — New York won 9-5. The Yanks are now one game over .500, and at with his fourth W of the season, Wang is the fastest major league pitcher to 50 wins since Doc Gooden. (Obligatory disclaimer: wins are an extremely unreliable and inaccurate stat, etc. Still, that’s impressive).

Starting for the White Sox was old frenemy Jose Contreras, another in the long line of big-money free agent busts in New York who’ve gone on to success elsewhere. (He gets a pass, though, since his family was trapped in Cuba most of the time he was with the Yankees. You can see how that might be a tad bit distracting. What’s your excuse, Vazquez?). Contreras pitched a solid game, allowing just one first inning run, when Johnny Damon scored on a Matsui ground out, and one inning later a solo home run from the hollow husk of Jason Giambi. Then he settled in and, like many an April pitcher before him, stifled the Yankees’ offense.

Wang, meanwhile, struggled from the start, throwing almost 50 pitches in the first two innings alone as the White Sox put three quick runs up. (He wasn’t helped by an error on Morgan Ensberg, who was subbing in for Alex Rodriguez at third base. A-Rod, of course, was on paternity leave in Florida, with his wife and newborn daughter…. or, as the Daily News would have it, "welcoming a bouncing bambina into [his] pinstriped world"). After that Wang was somwhat more efficient, but also lucky: the White Sox had a plethora of very hard hit line drives and fly balls land just within reach of the Yankee outfielders. And by the end, Chicago had stranded 13 runners.

The Yankees finally got a little momentum going, and loaded the bases in the 7th – single, walk, infield single – which brought Derek Jeter to the plate with one out. He struck out, and perhaps as a result, looked like the happiest man in Chicago one batter later, when Bobby Abreu whacked Octavio Dotel’s 2-0 pitch just over the left field wall for a go-ahead grand slam.

In the bottom of the inning, perhaps concerned that things might get dull for the viewers at home, Billy Traber and Brian Bruney worked together to load the bases, which brought in Joba Chamberlain. Joba looked good under the circumstances — well, aside from walking in a run — and in the YES booth, David Cone kept gushing about his “moxie,” an excellent word that people just don’t use enough anymore. (Side note: I think Cone’s doing a good job on the whole… but you can just tell he’s dying to curse up a storm, and to tell several dozen potentially libelous stories. I’d love to hear him really cut loose, though I expect the FCC and certain former teammates would not.)

After a three-run homer from Johnny Damon in the eighth – cancel the obit, I think he’s fogging up the mirror! – and another solid inning from Chamberlain, Kyle Farnsworth brought his own special brand of excitement to the ninth inning. But one quick home run, walk, fielder’s choice and wild pitch later, the Yankees nailed down the win.

I’m not sure it’s even worth bringing up, but in the eighth inning, a black cat ran out of the stands, across the field, and straight into the Yankees dugout. I’ve decided to simply ignore this, not being the superstious type. (Though once, in college, I was walking across a courtyard at night, when not one but two black cats ran directly in front of me, one after the other… then proceeded to have loud sex in the bushes next to my dorm. I admit, that did give me pause.)

Finally, announcer Paul O’Neill finally asked the big burning question on all of our minds: “How can they wear black socks when they’re called the White Sox? That just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Next time on YES: Why do we drive on parkways but park on driveways?