Daily Archives: May 8, 2008

The Yankees hit four home runs this afternoon to overcome a rocky fifth inning from Mike Mussina and avoid being swept by the Indians in the finale of what proved to be a disappointing 4-5 homestand. Mussina allowed just one baserunner through the first four innings, but handed a 3-0 lead in the fifth thanks to home runs by Johnny Damon (a 330-foot pop fly to right field) and Jason Giambi (a two-run shot that sailed over the right field foul pole) in the bottom of the fourth, Moose gave it all back.

That inning started ominously when Mussina hit Ben Francisco in the back with a 2-2 pitch. Franklin Gutierrez followed with a single that dropped in front of Bobby Abreu and pushed Francisco to third. After a Ryan Garko pop out, Casey Blake hit a shot to deep right that Bobby Abreu was unable to catch up to at the wall (prompting Pete Abraham to ask, “Does Bobby Abreu wear one of those invisible collars that shocks him when he gets too close the wall?”). The ball hit the warning track, then the wall, and popped up in the air as Abreu spun around looking for it and Francisco trotted home. Finding the ball to his right, Abreu fired in to relay man Robinson Cano, who threw home to try to get Gutierrez attempting to score from first, but Cano’s throw, which was in plenty of time, was low and skipped past Jose Molina allowing Gutierrez to score and Blake, who now has 22 RBIs on just 21 hits, to move to third. A subsequent single by Kelly Shoppach scored Blake, knotting the game at 3-3.

Cano instantly made up for his bad throw by leading off the bottom of the inning with a double. Wilson Betemit followed with a hard drive into the gap in left. Francisco tracked it down for the first out, but with his momentum heading back and toward center, Cano was able to tag and move to third with ease. With the go-ahead run on third and one out, Jose Molina hit a grounder to short that allowed Jhonny Peralta to freeze Cano in his tracks, but Johnny Damon picked Molina up with an RBI double that gave the Yankees a lead they would not relinquish.

In the seventh, Cano drove Indians’ starter Paul Byrd from the game with a solo homer and Wilson Betemit greeted reliever Masa Kobayashi with a bomb over the 408 sign in dead center. Meanwhile, Ross Ohlendorf pitched two shutout innings allowing only a single. It was just the third time all year, Ohlendorf, who has been primarly used as a long reliever, pitched in a game the Yankees eventually won, and just the first time all year he pitched in a game the Yankees won by less than six runs. That was important, because the Yankees hope to eventually move Ohlendorf into a setup role.

Ohlendorf was followed by Joba Chamberlain, who faced two of the three batters he faced in his blown save on Tuesday night, Grady Sizemore, who walked to start Tuesday’s rally, and David Dellucci, who homered to finish it. Rather than throwing lots of curve balls and getting beat on a fastball, as he did on Tuesday, Chamberlain threw lots of fastballs and struck out Dellucci on a slider to end a 1-2-3 frame. Mariano Rivera pitched around a double to pick up his ninth save and nail down the 6-3 Yankee win.

The Yankees now travel to Detroit to start a seven-game road trip against the Tigers and Rays before coming back home to face the Mets. Kei Igawa will make his 2008 Yankee debut tomorrow, but try not to think about that until you have to.

More encouragingly, Alex Rodriguez was taking grounders at third and cuts in the cage before today’s game, and hitting some genuine blasts in batting practice. The Yankees say Rodriguez will get another MRI before being cleared for some rehab games, and all that (the MRI and the rehab games) will have to happen before he comes off the DL. Still, barring any setbacks, Rodriguez should be activated next week.

Rich Lederer and his son are on the east coast taking in some baseball, “a trip of a lifetime.” They started in Boston on Sunday, then visited Cooperstown before arriving in Manhattan early yesterday afternoon. I spoke to Rich via cell phone just after he arrived in the Bronx hours later to see Yankee Stadium for the first (and last) time.

“You’ll never believe who rode up here in the subway with…Cliff Lee.”

Well, the least Rich or his son, Joe could have done was accidentally bump into Lee, stepping on his foot, or jamming his shoulder. Something. They did not which was too bad for the Yankees. Lee continued his staggering early season success as the Tribe shut-out the Yanks, spoiling another fine outing from Chien-Ming Wang.

It is overcast and rainy but not unpleasent in New York today. A warm, moist day. Mike Mussina and the Bombers try to avoid the sweep this afternoon. Cliff will be in the Big House and he’ll have an account posted later tonight. As for me, I’m going to meet Rich after work. I’ve known Rich since 2003 and we’ve been buddies since. We speak on the phone every couple of weeks, but we’ve never met in person. So last week he’s packing for the trip and he asks, “Should I bring my mitt?”

“Hell, yeah.”

So the first thing we’re going to do when we get together this evening, rain or shine, is go up to Central Park and have a catch.

Talk about a fine how do you do!

Go Yanks!

A few days ago I was hanging with some seamheads talking shop. The subject got around to the great Mariano Rivera. When I told Steve Goldman just how much I appreciate watching Rivera, Steve said, “It’s like watching Fred Astaire in his later years.” Isn’t that a great comp? Think Astaire in Bandwagon. (Speaking of which, has anyone ever had more fetching legs than Cyd Charisse?)

Jack Curry has a piece on Rivera today in the Times:

“I’m proud of what I do,” Rivera said Tuesday. “And I take it seriously. I don’t take it for granted. I don’t forget where I came from. I don’t forget what I had to do to get here. That, to me, is important.”

I was in a Barnes and Noble last night and I found a picture book of Latin American baseball stars (I’m sorry but I didn’t catch the title). I flipped to a full-page spread of Mariano, wearing shorts and flip flops, throwing a ball to a kid with a make shift bat, somewhere on the dusty streets of Panama. The picture looked dated–late ’90s maybe–but it reminded me of how far Rivera, and so many other Latin players, have come to play ball in the big leagues. I think Rivera is sincere when it says that he doesn’t take things for granted. And neither should we.

I also liked this bit from Curry’s article:

After David Dellucci belted a three-run homer off Joba Chamberlain to push the Indians past the Yankees, 5-3, on Tuesday, Dellucci spoke respectfully about Chamberlain, who does not have even a full season in the majors. But when the topic switched to Rivera, Dellucci switched from respect to reverence.

“Facing him is like playing a video game,” Dellucci said. “His ball is an optical illusion. It’s fun because it’s so nasty. You want to go up there and see that pitch because of how nasty he is.”

Baby, You Nasty.

In just the fourth matchup in American League history of undefeated pitchers with at least five wins each, 6-0 Chien-Ming Wang scattered three runs over seven innings and yielded to scoreless relief work by Kyle Farnsworth and Jonathan Albaladejo.

It didn’t matter. Cliff Lee, who entered the game with a 5-0 record, a 0.96 ERA, an absurd 0.56 WHIP, and an irridiculous 16:1 K/BB ratio, improved all of those marks, save the WHIP, in seven absolutely dominant shutout innings. Throwing mostly fastballs, Lee pounded the corners, throwing 74 percent strikes but hardly any of them off the black. Though his fastball clocked in around 90 to 91 miles per hour, it exploded through the zone, giving it the illusion of being in the mid-90s. Adding to that illusion was the speed with which Lee worked. Riding an obvious high of adrenaline and confidence, Lee seemed to be back in his windup before the hitter even had time to contemplate how Lee and his catcher, Kelly Shoppach, were working him. After the third out of each inning, Lee sprinted back to the dugout, almost as if he wanted the bottom half of each inning to get over with so that he could get back out there and pitch. When the top half of the next inning arrived, Lee would sprint back out to the mound.

The only baserunner Lee allowed through the first four innings came on a bloop single to shallow left by Hideki Matsui. Matsui took a defensive swing on a rare curveball from Lee and was so surprised that he didn’t foul it off that he almost didn’t run to first base. Down 3-0, the Yankees threatened in the fifth, sixth, and seventh, but came up empty each time. In the fifth, Melky Cabrera and Robinson Cano singled with one out, but Lee struck out Morgan Ensberg and got Jose Molina to fly out to strand them. With two outs in the sixth, Bobby Abreu reached on an infield single to first baseman Casey Blake that should have been ruled an error as Blake’s flip to Lee covering the bag arched too high and allowed Abreu to reach. Shelley Duncan followed with a double to push Abreu to third, but Lee got ahead of Matsui 1-2 and struck him out with a nasty curve ball that looked like it actually curved behind Matsui before dropping into the zone. The Yankees got another two-out infield single in the seventh when Morgan Ensberg drilled a pitch into the ground in front of home and beat it out, but Lee struck out Molina on four pitches to end his night. Rafael Perez pitched around a two-out Abreu double in the eighth, and Rafael Betancourt worked a 1-2-3 ninth to nail down Lee’s sixth win of the year.

Lee is now 6-0 with a 0.81 ERA, 0.60 WHIP, and 19.5 K/BB. He’s averaging more than 7 1/3 innings per start and has not allowed a run in any of his four road starts this year. After his first four starts, Baseball Prospectus’s Rany Jazayerli wrote that Lee had turned in quite possibly the most dominant series of starts ever. The Yankees got a close up look at Lee’s dominance last night, and it’s for real. The only question is how long he can keep it up.