Daily Archives: July 27, 2008

As expected, the Red Sox got the merry-go-round cranked up early against Sidney Ponson last night, scoring three in the first and bouncing the Yankee starter after four innings having scored in each of them. After the game Ponson admirably admitted that he “pitched like crap.”

It was 7-0 Bosox heading into the top of the fifth when the Yankees finally got something going against Jon Lester, who had pitched 13 straight scoreless innings against them to that point. Melky Cabrera, Jose Molina, and Johnny Damon all singled to start the inning. With the bases loaded Derek Jeter, who hit into a rally-killing double play with men on first and second and none out in the third, hit a dribbler up the third base line that stayed fair allowing everyone to move up safely. Bobby Abreu followed by drawing an RBI walk. That brought Alex Rodriguez to the plate with none out, the bases loaded, and a chance to get the Yankees back in a game they were now trailing 7-2. On an 1-0 pitch, Lester came inside to Rodriguez and Alex ripped a line drive right at Mike Lowell at third base for the first out, holding the runners. Xavier Nady, who has started his Yankee career by going 0 for 7 with a walk and a hit-by-pitch, followed by getting under a 2-0 pitch up in the zone and flying out to center (while the ball wasn’t deep, Johnny Damon likely could have tagged up and scored, only he didn’t). Robinson Cano also started off 2-0, but swung through ball three high and tapped back to Lester to strand all three runners.

And that was that. The Red Sox pitchers faced the minimum the rest of the way, as the one Yankee baserunner (a leadoff single by Rodriguez in the eighth off reliever Manny Delcarmen) was erased when Xavier Nady ground into a double play. Meanwhile, Dan Giese, who helpfully pitched the final four innings, allowed two more runs in the sixth to push the final score to 9-2.

So the Yankees eight-game winning streak is a thing of the past, but we all saw this loss coming. The Yankees did what they had to do in Boston, which was win the series. They’re now two games behind the Red Sox for the Wild Card and three behind the Rays in the East. Their task now is to avoid a let-down against the Orioles tonight. Hopefully coming back home to the Bronx and having Mike Mussina on the mound will help with that.

Here’s what I wrote about tonight’s pitching matchup in my series preview on Friday:

ESPN’s Sunday night game pits Sidney Ponson against Jon Lester. Lester is one of the great stories of this season, having rebounded from non-Hodgkins lymphoma to not only throw a no-hitter, but have a great season overall. Lester has a 3.20 ERA on the season, a 2.93 ERA at home, and needed just 105 pitches to shutout the Yankees on five hits and two walks while striking out eight in his only start against the Bombers this season. That said, he’s been inconsistent of late. Lester’s no-hitter came in the middle of a run of 11 starts from the end of April to late June in which the lefty posted a 2.13 ERA. Since then, however, he’s alternated dominant starts (including his shutout of the Yankees) with non-quality outings. If the pattern holds, he’s due for a stinker, but his dominance of the Yankees in their last meeting and overall success this season is the better indicator of what he’s likely to do Sunday night.

That means Ponson has his work cut out for him. Before his last start, I wrote that Ponson’s surprisingly successful season has been the result of a sharp increase in his groundball rate. The problem is that Fenway Park has a notoriously hard infield, which can cause trouble for groundball pitchers (Chien-Ming Wang’s career ERA at Fenway is 5.11, and in his complete-game two-hitter there this April, he got more outs in the air than on the ground). Ponson hasn’t faced the Red Sox this year, but historically, the Sox’s lineup owns him (David Ortiz: .444/.563/.722; Manny Ramirez: .404/.481/.511; Jason Varitek: .317/.364/.561; Kevin Youkilis: 4 for 9 with a double; J.D. Drew: 3 for 7 with a double; Dustin Pedroia: 3 for 3), the only exception being Mike Lowell, who is 0 for 7 with a walk against Ponson. Lester would have to implode completely for the Yankees to overcome what’s likely to happen to Ponson on Sunday night.

That means the Yankees hopes for a series win lie in the first two games . . .

Everything’s gone according to plan thus far. The Yankees got a dominant outing from Joba Chamberlain on Friday night and a quality start from Andy Pettitte buoyed by ten runs of support yesterday to take the first two games and thus the series, but with them having done that, pushing their second-half record to a perfect 9-0 and closing their deficit to the Red Sox in the Wild Card race to just one game . . . doesn’t it seem possible that they just mind find away to win tonight despite all of what I said above?

Here’s another question: If on Opening Day I told you that, on the final weekend in July, Yankees would be on the verge of a three-game sweep at Fenway that would tie them with the Red Sox in the standings, and that the lineup they were running out in an attempt to win that game featured Xavier Nady, Richie Sexson, Jose Molina, and Sidney Ponson in place of Hideki Matsui, Jason Giambi, Jorge Posada, and either Chien-Ming Wang, Phil Hughes, or Ian Kennedy, (or anyone else, really), what would your reaction have been? Elation? Disgust? Confusion? Frustration? Shock? Concern?

The game’s being threatened by rain, but if it’s the storm that passed through New Jersey this afternoon, it won’t last too long. Given the ESPN start time and the team’s involved, any kind of delay at the start should push the end of the game well past midnight.

Congrats, Big Fella.

I don’t drink so I don’t go to bars. But I like the idea of the local bar, where you can go watch the game and yes, where everybody knows your name. In many ways, blogs like Bronx Banter are on-line bars, community meeting spots, where a host of like-minded people can get together to follow, in this case, the Yankees. We get all kinds here, and I know that I often learn more from the comments section than I would from reading a newspaper. Sure, every so often the conversation will digress, but more often than not, I’d say Banter commenters are funny, enlightening and a good group to hang with.

I mention this because it was one year ago exactly when one of our regulars, the irrepressible, and often infuriating, Jim Dean passed away. Jim literally died in the middle of a Yankee game, sitting on the couch, with his laptop open to Bronx Banter. He was with us when he went, something that I take as a great honor.

Chyll Will, another longtime regular, had a terrific post on Jim the other day, which I’m taking the liberty of posting in full:

Jim Dean was a friend of mine, and I say that knowing that I never met him in person and that the only contact we’ve ever had was through Banter. There was something about his abrasiveness, his bellicosity and sarcasm that added interesting colors to his research and commenting. If there was anyone who created a picture of himself and everything he said through his words, he was certainly one.

I liked teasing him. He often would blast away at us with fiery, if sometimes off-the-mark blather about this player’s statistics, that player’s effort, the bumbling of the Yankees front office or, seeming to feel particularly jaunting, he would debate one or many of us. Well, debate is not strong enough… battle.

JD battled long and hard on a point he believed in, whether it was right or wrong. Sometimes it seemed like he battled just for the principle of it. But among other things, it was his passion for the Yankees and his quick response with sabermetric research that won the admiration of even his detractors. I am not nearly as good with numbers as he was, but if anything he was among the few that inspired a notion for me to learn.

I don’t know in what regard he held me; perhaps he saw me as a trifle, or maybe he respected my sense of humor. I do know that we once engaged in a surprisingly straightforward “conversation” that led me us to understand more about each other, and perhaps more respect for each other. We didn’t agree a lot of times, but we did (eventually) respect each other.

My point is, it’s odd that one can develop a friendship with someone in an internet community, but as I’ve always said, Bronx Banter is like family. And JD was like a brother. A bad brother, sometimes, but family nonetheless.

Rest In Peace, Jim Dean.

Amen. Jim Dean is still with us in spirit. Wonder what he thinks of the Nady deal?