Daily Archives: August 12, 2008

Mike Mussina pitched well enough to earn his 16th win of the season last night, leaving the game after seven strong innings and 104 pitches with a 5-3 lead. The Yankees got to Twins starter Nick Blackburn early when Johnny Damon homered on the second pitch of the game, and though the lead changed hands four times in the early innings, the Yanks began to pull away as Mussina settled down to end his night with three scoreless frames.

An insurance run in the top of the eighth made it 6-3 Yanks, but three batters into the bottom of the inning, Damaso Marte had put runners on the corners, forcing Joe Girardi to go straight to his closer in a game the Yankees really needed to win. Delmon Young fouled off Mariano Rivera’s first two pitches, but when the third drifted over the plate, Young smacked it off the opposite-field foul pole for a game-tying home run.

Rivera got the next two outs, then spent the top of the ninth steaming in the dugout, cursing to himself, throwing his gum, staring at the ceiling, and constantly shifting in his seat, unable to keep his blood from boiling.

After the Yankees failed to do anything with a one-out Derek Jeter single in the top of the ninth, Rivera returned to the mound and pitched around a bad call on a two-out infield single by Nick Punto to push the game into extra innings.

Joe Nathan set the Yanks down in order in the top tenth, but Jose Veras returned serve in the bottom of the inning, at which point the discrepancy between Mike Mussina’s and Nick Blackburn’s performances earlier in the game came back into play. Entering the 11th inning, Joe Girardi had used just three relievers–Marte, Rivera, and Veras, the last of whom came back out and pitched another 1-2-3 inning in the 11th–while Ron Gardenhire had just two left, Matt Guerrier and Brian Bass. Guerrier pitched around a two-out infield single by Johnny Damon in the 11th, but wasn’t so fortunate in the 12th.

Alex Rodriguez was 0 for 5 entering the twelfth inning. His previous at-bat came with two outs in the top of the ninth. Derek Jeter had singled earlier in the inning, but the Captain fouled a ball of his left instep earlier in the game and his mobility was limited. After Bobby Abreu made the second out, Girardi sent Melky Cabrera in to run for Jeter so that the Yankees would be able to take the lead on a double. Instead, Rodriguez swung at the first pitch he saw and hit into an inning-ending fielder’s choice.

Facing Guerrier in the 12th, Rodriguez took the first pitch for a ball, then crushed the next one over the 408 sign in dead center to give the Yankees their fourth and final lead of the game. Ivan Rodriguez followed with a double, and Xavier Nady, who drove in four of the Yankees’ nine runs on the night, topped things off with another homer into the vampire seats off Guerrier.

With Rivera having blown his first save of the year, Edwar Ramirez earned his first save of the season with a 1-2-3 bottom of the twelfth to nail down the much-needed 9-5 Yankee win.

Alex Rodriguez got the key hit, but Nady, Mussina, and the combination of Veras and Ramirez, who pitched three perfect innings, deserve at least as much credit. Now the Yankees have a chance to pull out a series win against Kevin Slowey this afternoon to salvage a 4-6 record on the road trip.

The Yankees’ last victory was Mike Mussina’s 15th of the season. Now, after a four-game losing streak, Mikey Moose is back to try to make it sweet sixteen and save the sad sack Yanks from slipping into the cellar (or shake them from their slumber, so to speak). To break this bummer, he’ll have to beat Nick Blackburn who takes the ball for the bad guys.

The Yanks have faced Blackburn twice this year, once they beat him badly, touching him up for six runs on seven hits (including an Alex Rodriguez homer) in just 1 2/3 innings. The other time, they just broke his nose. Blackburn has a 2.25 ERA in three starts since last facing the Yanks, and I can’t imagine he’s thrilled to see them again, no matter how poorly they’ve been playing.

Speaking of which, what’s the deal with Robinson Cano? Over the past week or so I’ve noticed a number of ground balls to both his left and right scoot past him when I was convinced he was at least going to knock them down. As recently as a month or so ago, Cano was one of the best defensive second baseman in the game, and it’s quite possible that his fine play has created unrealistic expectations on my part (certainly most if not all of the grounders of which I speak would have required above average to great plays to turn them into outs, but it seems Cano had been making those plays until recently), but what appeared to be one or two well-placed hits “past a lunging Cano” (note: he’s not diving) a week or so ago now seem to be regular occurrences. Perhaps not coincidentally, Cano has hit just .222/.276/.352 since the Yankees’ eight-game winning streak was snapped in Boston. This team has a lot of problems right now, and that has allowed what seems to be a lackluster effort on Cano’s part to go largely unnoticed, but it’s worth keeping and eye on and, if real, needs to be addressed by Joe Girardi and his coaching staff.

Johnny Damon is back in the lineup and in center field tonight. Jason Giambi is back in the lineup and at DH. Wilson Betemit plays first base. Melky Cabrera rides pine. As always, Jose Molina catches Mussina.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox picked up Paul Byrd from the Indians for a player to be named later. The roughly league-average, contact-pitching Byrd will replace struggling rookie Clay Buchholz (0-5, 7.42 ERA in six starts since being recalled in early July) in the rotation. Over that same stretch, Byrd, who is a free agent after the season, has gone 4-0 with a 1.80 ERA in five starts, but the Yankees didn’t bother to put a waiver claim on him, allowing him to slip through to the Red Sox. Bri-Bri, you got some splain’ to do.

Jonah Keri reminds us of a painful moment in baseball history.  (Thanks to Repoz for the link.) How about a pouring vinegar on a paper cut while you are it, bro? 

Ah, late summer, ’94.  I had just been kicked out of my dad’s apartment–or was just about to be kicked-out–and my one-year stint as a waiter was about to begin.  I had spent the first six months of the year working on Ken Burns’ "Baseball" series (my first post-college job) which was the only thing about baseball that kept me going that summer–that, and oh yeah, a pretty swell season by our New York Yankees.  

It was a drag for Yankee fans, yet the start of beautiful things to come.  The Expos on the other hand…the vinegar still stings… 

As our friends round the way have noted, the Ship be Sinkin.  Meanwhile, Steven Goldman, writing in the New York Sun, has more:

This might have been a championship-level lineup a few years ago, when Jeter still had his speed, Abreu and Ivan Rodriguez were still .300 hitters with power, and Sexson could be counted on for 30 to 40 home runs a year. Now it represents only the compromises that injuries and a lack of vital youth can force on a team. Worse, it’s not even the best lineup the Yankees can play.

The lineup represents Girardi’s worst quality. An affable and intelligent manager, Girardi can be headstrong in his choices, sticking to his guns in the face of evidence that his tactics aren’t working. This can be seen clearly in his decision to push Damaso Marte into a second inning of work twice in one week, resulting in losses both times. That’s just two games. His wrongheaded embrace of platooning provides a more protracted example of a decision that hasn’t paid off. For all his machinations, the Yankees remain a game under .500 when a left-hander starts against them.

Feelin’ blue, Yankee fans?  We could be in a rage, but that’s exhausting, and anyway, we can save our Fists of Fury for game time.  For the moment, I’m resigned to what is, and this beautiful song by the Kinks sums up my mood perfectly:

Tyler Kepner has a nice piece on tonight’s starter, Mike Mussina, today in the Times:

The question now is what Mussina will do next season. He said he would wait until November to decide if he wanted to keep pitching, if he had the patience to deal with the struggles that might come up. Not knowing the answer, he said, is one reason he is having more fun than ever.

“Before, there was always some future in front of you,” Mussina said. “At 39, I don’t know what it’s going to be. It’s like being a senior in high school. You enjoy it because you don’t know what the next year’s going to bring.”

Mussina is 22-6 lifetime against the Twins. With the Yanks desperate for a win, they’ll need another strong outing from Moose tonight.