Daily Archives: July 2, 2008

(Sorry.)

So you know how we were all wondering where the Yankees’ offense was? Well… this is so embarrassing… it turns out it was just buried in my sofa cushions this whole time! I found it yesterday afternoon, when I was looking for my keys.

Yes, it took a few days longer than they might have hoped, but the Yankees snapped out of their funk in a big way Wednesday night – and overcame a predictably lousy start by Sidney Ponson – with an 18-7 blowout of the Texas Rangers. That’s the most runs New York has scored all season, and every starter had at least one hit, but the key contributor, once again, was Jason Giambi and his Porn ‘Stache of Doom. It was 3-1 Rangers in the third inning when the Big G put the Yanks ahead with an upper tank grand slam; he came through again in the seventh with a two-run double that put the Yankees up 8-7 after Ponson, left in too long, ran out of luck and coughed up a 6-3 lead.

That seventh inning was decisive, a nine-run explosion made possible by Texas’s poor bullpen and exacerbated by Ron Washington’s curious management choices. While Edwar Ramirez had taken over for Ponson and pitched two shutdown innings, the unfortunate Warner Madrigal (not a typo) made his first-ever appearance for the Rangers in this tense one-run game and left, many batters later, with an ERA of 162.00.

Meanwhile, watching Ponson start a game, even when things are going relatively well, is like taking a time machine back to 1906 San Francisco and strolling around. You just can’t enjoy yourself because you know disaster is right around the corner. In fact, what I like about Ponson – perhaps the only thing I like about Ponson – is that he makes me look good; I can predict with absolute confidence that he will pitch poorly for the Yankees and in the long run I really don’t have to worry about him proving me wrong.

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Since stomping the Mets 9-0 in the second game of last Friday’s doubleheader, the Yankees have scored just seven runs in four games. Tonight they look to break the slump and avoid a sweep against Rangers rookie Luis Mendoza.

Mendoza hasn’t allowed a run since April, but he also hasn’t made a major league start since April, when he posted a 9.31 ERA in three starts, all of them Ranger losses. Mendoza spent most of May on the DL due to inflammation in his pitching shoulder and has made three scoreless appearances out of the Texas bullpen since being recalled from his rehab assignment in mid-June. The 24-year-old Mendoza has made six starts in his brief major league career and never seen the sixth inning in any of them. He’s also never faced the Yankees.

Opposing Mendoza is former Ranger Sidney Ponson. The Yankees signed Ponson on the day I left for my recent vacation and I was still away when they called him up to pitch against the Mets, so I didn’t have an opportunity to register my disgust at the return of the player who very nearly made my list of my least favorite Yankees of the past 25 years based on his 16 1/3 innings as a Yankee in 2006.

Ponson had three quality starts in ten tries as a Ranger earlier this season, with all but two of his starts for Texas coming in May. When the Rangers released him for bad behavior that reportedly included making a scene at a hotel bar and fighting with manager Ron Washington, Ponson had a 105 ERA+, which marked the first time he’d been anything close to league average or above since 2003.

Ponson pitched six scoreless innings against the Mets in his Yankee debut this season, and could have another solid outing if facing the team that released him increases his focus tonight, but he is not a long-term solution. He is a stop-gap as the team waits for a variety of young pitchers to overcome injury, setbacks, and inexperience. That said, I’d rather have Dan Giese in the roation right now. Giese has had just two poor starts in 12 tries between triple-A and the majors this year. I’d also rather give Jeff Karstens, who is finally healthy and pitching well for Scranton (1.88 ERA in June, 3.67 K/BB on the season), or Jeff Marquez, who has rediscovered his ability to get ground balls and posted a 1.89 ERA in June for Scranton, or fast-moving Dan McCutchen (3.88 K/BB in Scranton) a shot to prove themselves in the rotation rather than have to endure watching the Fat Ponson Toad work his black magic. It pains me that we’re back in this spot two years later. Three-fifths of the Opening Day rotation may have hit the DL, but that’s still no excuse for employing Sidney Ponson.

Word of warning: in his last stint as a Yankee, Ponson pitched the Yankees to a win in his first start, allowing four runs in 6 2/3 innings. He was then lit up in his next outing (six runs in 2 1/3 innings) as he went on to post a 13.97 in his final four games of the season. The Yankees released him after those five appearances and he spent the rest of the season out of work. I repeat: Sidney Ponson is bad.

Melky Cabrera gets the night off tonight, so Brett Gardner will make his debut as the Yankee center fielder. He’s batting ninth. Jason Giambi will DH with Wilson Betemit, who is likely to be a permanent fixture in the lineup in Hideki Matsui’s absence unless Gardner starts getting on base and forces Johnny Damon to DH, at first base.

The news of Jules Tygiel’s passing has left me feeling blue.  Here’s something silly to bring a smile to your face.

I always wanted an older sybling as a kid.  That wss the best way to learn about cool music, or so it seemed to me.  My parents had a decent-sized record collection but my father did not like Rock n Roll.  He was always too grown for that.  My mom did, however,  she didn’t buy many albums, so the hardest-rockin records we owned were Simon and Garfunkel, Judy Collins and A Hard Day’s Night (and the only reason we had that was because Dad was friends with one of the actors in the movie).  Most of the vinyl in our house was comprised of original cast recordings–My Fair Lady, Oklahoma, The King and I, West Side Story, A Chorus Line.  My twin sister became an avid fan of the Musical Theater, while I…did not.

There were a handful of comedy records however (Tom Leherer, Peter Sellers, Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner), none more enticing than this one, Bill Cosby’s third album, released in 1965.  First of all, there is cover, with a young Cosby, the most amiable-looking of guys.  Two, the title fascinated me.  I mean, when you are seven-years old there aren’t many deeper philosophical questions than the simple ones–"Yeah, why is there air anyway?"  (One of the other Cosby records we had, I Started Out as a Child, struck me as being very deep too.)  

Above all, there was Cosby’s material, instantly accessible and appealing.  The man simply sounded funny.  He made my father laugh and that was a big deal.  At a time when my father was often sullen, his moods increasingly dark due to too much drink, listening to him laugh was a thrill.  It was exciting to see him happy, if only for a moment.  My father laughed from the gut–it was an almost violent reaction.  He laughed loudly and his face would turn red.  I remember being both charged-up by the force of his laughter and also frightened.  Mostly, I recall sharing something with him.  Being connected by laughter.  If he thought Cosby was funny, it was okay for me to laugh as well.  To this day, when I listen to this record, I can tell you where my dad laughed.

Here is one routine from the album.  Enjoy.  

As Bob Timmermann reported earlier today on The Griddle, historian Jules Tygiel died yesterday.  The cause was cancer.  He was only 59.  I got to know Tygiel a little bit over the past five years–he was helpful when I was researching a book about Curt Flood.  Later, he continued to be generous and forthcoming with whatever questions I lobbed his way.  I am so sad to hear of his passing. 

His most enduring work, Baseball’s Great Experiment, is seminal, academic in its approach, thorough, rich, exacting and an amazing reference book.  It belongs on the short list of great baseball histories. 

Voting for the All-Star Game ends at midnight tonight. Throwing out the reality of selection process, here are the 32-man American and National League rosters as I’d pick ’em:

American League

Starters:

1B – Kevin Youkilis, BOS
2B – Ian Kinsler, TEX
SS – Michael Young, TEX
3B – Alex Rodriguez, NYY
C – Joe Mauer, MIN
RF – Josh Hamilton, TEX
CF – Grady Sizemore, CLE
LF – J.D. Drew, BOS
DH – Milton Bradley, TEX
SP – Roy Halladay, TOR

I really wanted to give Jason Giambi the nod at first, base, but Youkilis holds a slight lead in VORP and is the far superior defender, so I just couldn’t do it. I also wanted to put Carlos Quentin in left field, as it would have given me an outfield with all three starters playing their regular positions, but with Drew leading Quentin in VORP and all three rate stats, I just couldn’t give Quentin the nod over a guy with a career 130 OPS+ based on three impressive months. Halladay gets the pitching nod over Cliff Lee because Lee strikes me as a fluke.

Bench:

1B – Jason Giambi, NYY
2B – Brian Roberts, BAL
3B – Mike Lowell, BOS
C – Jorge Posada, NYY
OF – Carlos Quentin, CHW
OF – Manny Ramirez, BOS
OF – Jermaine Dye, CHW
OF – Johnny Damon, NYY
UT – Carlos Guillen, DET

You might have noticed Derek Jeter is not on this team. He doesn’t deserve it. Really, there’s not a single AL shortstop who does deserve to play in this game. If I could get away with starting Guillen over Michael Young, I’d do it, but Guillen hasn’t played shorstop all year. Nonetheless, he’s my backup shortstop here, getting the nod due his value as a utility man and because I needed a Detroit Tiger on my squad and Guillen + Johnny Damon > Jeter + Magglio Ordoñez. Either Jhonny Peralta (the hitting pick) or Orlando Cabrera (the defense pick) would get the nod over Jeter if I was forced to pick a true shortstop as my backup. Posada is here despite his DL stint as there’s no other deserving catcher in the league. Practically, you’d like to have a third catcher, but I just couldn’t bear to put another AL backstop on my roster.

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