Daily Archives: May 7, 2009

When Hideki Matsui stepped into the batter’s box to lead off the bottom of the seventh inning, his team trailing by two runs, YES broadcaster Michael Kay said, “For the last couple of games it’s like the Yankees have been trying to climb a greased pole.”  Then Matsui grounded out to second. Groundhog’s Day all over again. Or something like that.  It’s as if the Yankees have been playing one long, awful game for a week now. 

Andy Pettitte gave up four home runs and the Yanks were in an early 4-0 hole.  Robinson Cano is slumping and Mark Teixeira went 0-5 and was booed loudly.  But Johnny Damon was on-point, driving home two runs in the sixth and crushing a two-run dinger in the eighth.  The home run tied the game.  The crowd was pumped. 

Mariano Rivera–remember him?–pitched the ninth.  He struck out Jason Bartlett, and then had a tough duel with Carl Crawford, who fouled off good pitches and work the count full.  Then he turned on a 3-2 cutter and slapped it over the fence in right field, his first regular season homer since last June.  Evan Longoria followed and launched a flat-cutter over the wall in left.  It was the first time Rivera has ever allowed back-to-back homers in his career.  That’s four this year.  He allowed four all of last season. 

Carlos Pena popped out and then Rivera was pulled, an uncomfortable sight if there ever was one.

That sucked the life out of the building, took the juice out of the team, and put a fitting end to a miserable four-game homestand.  The Yanks went down like lambs in the ninth and lost their fifth-straight.

Final score: Rays 8, Yanks 6.

Ga-bige.

I’m serving on the Bronx Grand Jury for the month of May.  Four days a week.  We had our second day of cases today.  There are stretches of boredom, wasted time, and then a flurry of action. The final three cases were so brutally sobering and so emotionally unsettling that big news about Manny Ramirez instantly seemed trivial by comparison.  I got the news on my blackberrry earlier in the day, in an e-mail from D Firstman and had the pleasure of breaking it to court room officers, jury members, and security guards.  That was much fun. 

“Let’s see if people stop picking on A Rod now,” said a man into his phone during his lunch break on the street outside of the courthouse.

It is a big deal of course.  This is All the King’s Men Must Fall, that’s what this is.  Selig and Fehr are the Kings.  Bonds, Clemens and now A Rod and Manny.  They’re just the creme de la creme of a grim role call that will be ongoing…It took fifty years for it to come out that the Giants were stealing signals at the Polo Grounds in 1950.   We’ll be seeing guys being outed for the rest of our lives.     

Meanwhile, I need to unwind.  It’s been a long one.

But I’ve got my two great cats, the sun is out, and my wife is on her way home. Life is good. 

A Yankee win tonight would be much appreciated.

Until then, chew on this cheese:

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

According to the LA Times, Manny Ramirez will be suspended 50 games today by Major League Baseball for a positive PED test.

Ramirez is expected to attribute the test results to medication received from a doctor for a personal medical issue, according to a source familiar with matter but not authorized to speak publicly.

The Dodgers informed triple-A outfielder Xavier Paul this morning that he was being promoted to Los Angeles.

With the suspension taking effect with tonight’s game against the Washington Nationals at Dodger Stadium, Ramirez will not be eligible to return to the team until July 3.

Update: Will Carroll has more details:

Two sources confirm for me that Ramirez did not test positive for an anabolic steroid.  What the substance was remains unclear. The press release from MLB indicates that it was not a “drug of abuse” or a “stimulant,” the other two classes of banned substances. Ramirez’s positive test came during Spring Training, which follows his story that he received the substance from a doctor this January.

2nd Update: from Yahoo! Sports:

A source close to Manny Ramirez said Thursday that the illegal substance for which the Los Angeles Dodgers slugger tested positive was not “an agent customarily used for performance enhancing.”

At least not on the baseball diamond. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the substance is supposed to boost sex drive. It is not Viagra, but a substance that treats the cause rather providing a temporary boost in sexual performance, the source said.

“The substance is not a steroid and it is not human-growth hormone,” the source said.

Ramirez, the source said, acquired the substance through a prescription from a doctor in Miami for his medical condition. The source intimated that Ramirez might bring legal action against the physician.

Drugs or hormones that increase testosterone production often show up on banned lists.

“Testosterone and similar drugs are effective for erectile dysfunction in that they jazz up your sex drive,” said Charles Yesalis, a professor at Penn State who has testified before Congress on issues of performance-enhancing drugs. “But far more clinicians accept that affect with Viagra and Cialis. It’s hard for me to understand if it was erectile dysfunction why they would use [something else].”

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A few days ago I received an upsetting e-mail from reader Daniel Laikind:

My good friend Dan Traum, who I met in the 1st grade and have been friends with ever since was a huge Yankees fan. He and I had been to dozens of games over the years sitting in the bleachers during the really bad years of Dent, Green, Merrill et al.

Dan was thrilled about the upcoming season and for the first time in his life bought season tickets, as he wanted to be there to see the Yankees open a new stadium. He finally bought those tix about 10 days before the season started. A few days later, Dan tragically passed away in his sleep of a heart condition at the age of 34. The next day the tickets arrived in the mail. He never got to see the new stadium.

Dan’s family has started a foundation in his name to raise money for a scholarship fund for the high school that we attended together and they are using the tickets to try and raise money for the foundation. They have set up an auction on ebay to sell the tix and we are trying to spread the word to as many people as possible in order to help sell the tickets.

I certainly know how tough times are these days so raising money is tough, and there (unfortunately) are plenty of seats available but if people buy these tickets it will help raise enough money to really make a difference in starting the Daniel Traum Scholarship Fund.

We extend our best wishes to Daniel’s family.

Let’s get right to it:

• FOX Sports’ Jason Whitlock isn’t too happy with SI’s Selena Roberts:

According to Roberts’ new book and her interview blitzkrieg, Rodriguez used steroids in high school, tipped pitches to opposing batters, tipped Hooters waitresses a paltry 15 percent, was nicknamed “Bitch Tits” in the locker room and is caught up in being perfect because his father abandoned him as a child.

Her sourcing for the most damaging allegations, by her own admission, is either anonymous or non-existent. She wants us to trust her, and her New York Times– and Sports Illustrated-highlighted résumé.

Unlike Bob Costas, the producers at ESPN and the steroids-obsessed baseball journalists, I don’t trust Roberts or her book, and I expressed some of my reasons in a Kansas City Star column that ran on Sunday.

. . . Never trust a publication. Hell, the more prestigious the publication, the more pressure there is for the writers to cut corners in pursuit of a good story.

Place your trust in the writer. And Roberts’ reaction to the exoneration of the Duke lacrosse players calls into question her credibility. By refusing to acknowledge her mistakes in the Duke case, she creates the impression that her agenda trumps the truth.

• Doug Glanville examines the latest alleged controversy surrounding A-Rod:

So, according to the latest story, Alex is connected to some pitch-tipping scheme in which he relayed signs to the opposing hitter (if he was a friend) or for someone who would return the favor when he was hitting. This was supposedly done in one-sided games where, in theory, one team had no chance of catching up. Alex was said to be in cahoots with a lot of middle infielders. Allegedly, there was some sign he would relay to the hitter — a movement with his glove or his feet — to let the hitter know what type of pitch was coming and where.

Although I have never heard such a rumor about Alex, this may be one of the most egregious charges one can make against a player, and a rare one at that. Should a player know that someone in his own dugout is helping the opposing team, I would venture to say that all-out Armageddon would ensue. Imagine if a pitcher knew that his pitches were being given away to the opposing hitter by his own teammate no less. This spy would have to watch his back.

How would this scheme have been missed for Alex’s entire career? We all know that every time he plays, the camera zooms in on him. Opposing teams watch him obsessively, studying film endlessly. The “A-Rod cam” is on full tilt all the time. So, over a period of years, did the best in the business, the brightest analysts and teammates, miss that he was doing this for his roommate from the year before, or maybe for his cousin’s favorite player? Or did they know it but were afraid to come forward? Is it possible that all of these experts had their heads in the sand?

A more likely scenario for how he may have been tipping pitches: he was sending signals to his own team, something that could easily be stolen by a sage opponent. Just as we knew when certain pitchers were throwing a curveball (based on their glove habits, or the way the catcher crouched), or throwing home instead of picking off to first (the pitcher may have turned his front foot inward, or widened his base).

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This is how I concluded my pregame post last night:

The Yankees have scored 2.38 runs per game in the seventh, eight, and ninth innigs alone. The major league average is just 1.47 R/G in the seventh, eighth, and ninth. Meanwhile, the April 15 game mentioned above was the only save the Rays bullpen has blown all season.

With that in mind, let’s skip straight to the eighth inning of last night’s game. A.J. Burnett had been sharp, striking out eight against just two walks in his six innings of work, but the Rays manufactured a run against him in the third and pushed across two more in the sixth on a walk, a single, a bunt, a sac fly, and another single. The Yankees, meanwhile, had been completely stymied by Andy Sonnanstine, who enjoyed his best start of the young season.

Entering the bottom of the eighth, Sonnanstine had held the Yanks scoreless on four hits and no walks. He had gotten 11 of his 21 outs on the ground, and had thrown just 85 pitches. With one out, Ramiro Peña worked an eight-pitch at-bat, eventually singling to right field. Jose Molina followed Peña with a double on Sonnanstine’s 99th pitch that drove the Rays’ starter from the game. After Dan Wheeler struck out Derek Jeter for the second out, Joe Maddon called on lefty J.P. Howell, who proceeded to walk Johnny Damon on five pitches, putting the tying run on base for Mark Teixeira.

As all of this happened, the skies suddenly opened up, and what had been a relatively dry ballgame became drenched in a blinding downpour. Straining to see trough the rain, Teixeira, batting right-handed, swung through Howell’s first pitch then took two more for balls. He swung again at the 2-1 pitch and snapped his bat in half, but in doing so sent the ball down into the left field corner for a bases-clearing, game-tying double.

Then the tarp came out. After a half-hour rain delay, lefty Brian Shouse struck out Hideki Matsui to keep the game tied. After Mariano Rivera worked a scoreless top of the ninth, the Yankees threatened again. Robinson Cano led off with a single to center. That would have brought Nick Swisher to the plate, but Swisher had been ejected by home plate umpire James Hoye in the seventh following an inning-ending called third strike on a pitch that was pretty clearly outside. Instead, Brett Gardner stepped to the plate and bunted Cano to second. After the game, Swisher was asked if he felt guilty about not being able to hit in his spot there. Swisher, who was 0-for-3 with two strikeouts before getting tossed, shrugged and replied that Gardner was at least able to get the ball into play.

After Gardner’s sacrifice, righty Joe Nelson came on and walked Melky Cabrera. Peña then hit a slow grounder to third that had the potential to be an infield single. Evan Longoria charged the ball and fired to first and umpire Dale Scott punched out Peña, but the replay showed that Peña had beaten the throw by a fraction of a step. Jose Molina followed with would otherwise have been a game-winning sac fly to right, but was instead the third out.

With the game heading into the tenth and Rivera having already worked his inning, Joe Girardi turned to Phil Coke, who hadn’t allowed a run in nine appearances dating back to mid-April. Coke’s first pitch to Carlos Peña was a ball. His second was on the outside third of the plate at the knee, headed right toward Jose Molina’s glove until the major league home run leader reached out and deposited it in the right field box seats. Coke then retired the next three men in order.

The Yankees’ last hope came against Troy Percival in the ninth. After a Jeter groundout, Johnny Damon hit a ground rule double over B.J. Upton’s head and into monument park. That brought up reigning Yankee hero Mark Teixeira, who had driven in all three Yankee runs with that double in his previous at-bat. Percival’s first pitch to Teixeira sailed high and past Dioner Navarro, allowing the alert Damon to scramble to third base. All Teixeira had to do to tie the game was lift a sac fly to the outfield. Teixeira took ball two, then got a pitch up in the zone he could lift, but he got under it too much and popped up to shallow right, freezing Damon at third. Hideki Matsui followed by flying out to left to end the game and give the Rays a 4-3 victory.

Teixeira was furious at himself for failing to get Damon home and appeared to be trying to break his batting helmet on the way back to the bat rack. Teixeira had a similar sort of game on Monday, another game that featured a rain delay. In that game, which the Yankees lost 6-4 to the Red Sox, Teixeira hit a solo home runs from opposite sides of the plate in consecutive at-bats, but struck out against Jonathan Papelbon with the tying runs on base in the ninth. Reverse the order of those at-bats and he’s a clutch performer, even if the Yankees still lose 6-4. Same deal last night. That rain-soaked double was a huge clutch hit, but because he got under that pitch from Percival with the tying run 90 feet from home, he gets the goat horns for the night despite the fact that he was the only Yankee to drive in a run all game. So goes baseball. As Coke said in reference to losing the game on what he felt was a good pitch “it’s a game of failure, you know.”

Yeah, Phil, we do.