Maybe I should be wondering where the usually stellar Yankee offense has been the last few days, but I think instead I’ll just enjoy the relief that comes whenever the new Stadium hosts tight, low-scoring games. The Yankees beat the Orioles 2-1 tonight, thanks to an old-school performance from Andy Pettitte and some pretty defense and, okay, yes, two home runs to right.
It feels like it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to write that Andy Pettitte pitched really well – not “didn’t have his best stuff but kept them in the game” or “made a few big mistakes but was able to limit the damage,” but was just plain good. He was tonight, though, pitching into the eighth inning with six strikeouts and two walks; he allowed six hits but also induced two double plays. Run-wise he allowed a first-inning home run to Nick Markakis and that was all.
Meanwhile Orioles rookie David Hernandez, after a tiring and rocky beginning, soon got into a groove of his own. The Yankees scored in the second on an Eric “All or Nothing” Hinske solo shot that tied the game (Hinske’s fourth of the season for New York, out of five total hits), but he was the last Yank to cross home plate for quite a while.
So it was a good thing that the Yankees helped themselves on defense tonight, making a few really excellent/lucky plays. Robinson Cano apparently deked out poor Cesar Izturis not once but twice, and also saved the day when a grounder bounced off the heel of Mark Teixeira’s glove, snatching it out of midair and tossing to Pettitte just ahead of the runner (“the old 3-4-1…”).
The most impressive fielding came in the eighth, though, after Pettitte left the game in Phil Coke’s hands with two runners on and one out. First Nick Markakis hit a shrill liner to Teixeira, who fired it back to Molina, who managed to tag out the runner at the plate – a lightning-fast play all around. I wasn’t expecting it and I doubt the runner, poor Cesar Izturis, was either (it was just not his game). Then Brian Roberts tried to score on a wild pitch, but Molina, moving faster than a Molina is built to move, got the ball back to Phil Coke in time for him to awkwardly lunge and tag out Brian Roberts, who missed the plate – saving the run and ending the inning.
With one out in the bottom of the ninth, Hideki Matsui, who has been largely overshadowed this season, apparently decided he wanted a little more attention and whacked a 2-2 Jim Johnson fastball into the right field bleachers. This was no New Stadium cheapie either, but a big no-doubt blast. Cue the helmet-tossing and the jumping around and the grinning and the whipped-cream pie.
The Red Sox lost tonight, and so the Yankees are now clutching their very own piece of first place. Tomorrow Sergio Mitre will try to defend it… and I was going to make a couple cracks about that because, well, you know. But Cliff seems to think that he might not actually be so bad, and Cliff is usually right, so I’ll hold off on the Mitre-mocking.
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When Worlds Collide: the most recent headline on my FiveThirtyEight.com RSS feed reads: “Teixeira Says Culture Wars Ending, GOP Needs New Playbook.” I don’t know what initially confused me more, the idea that Mark Teixeiria of all people would suddenly start talking political strategy, or that FiveThirtyEight would quote him as an authority. Of course it turns out the post is actually referring to a demographics expert named Ruy Teixeira, but that was sure a baffling ten seconds.
[0] Pettitte actually had EIGHT (8) strikeouts!!! : )
"When Worlds Collide"..hysterical...
So great to see Matsui with the sayonara home run! Look forward to sixteen-thousand replays on tv here over the next two days..(never get tired of a Yankee home run so no cmoplaints)
Red Sox carrying some serious dead weight in their lineup, and Smoltzie stinks..will they keep starting him or does Bucholz stay up?
Watching the replay, I know fully understand why Molina gets paid despite his Epinoza (Alvaro, not Baruch..)type bat..awesome plays, a highlight of the season!
[3] Ok, that comment went al wrong..trying to play Espinoza off of Spinoza and then relate it to Molina...please ignore..will stick to talking jazz with thelarmis and refrain from lame attempts at humor!
Hah, But Cliff, it's just like an old Baseball Reference guy to go to Mark Teixeira when he needs an interview, no? No, I guess not.
As I mentioned last night, that's two straight games in which the Yankees got two solo homers, the opponents got one, and there was no other scoring. Very odd.
Mr. OK, Baruch Spinoza was in fact called "Espinoza", in Spain (though not in the Netherlands), so although I'm not going to give you a base hit on that one, I'll give you a sac fly.
Oh, and it occurred to me last night after I'd signed off: the Score Truck turned out to be a Toyota Tacoma! Who knew?
The point is, with Po behind the plate, we may have lost that one. It is sometimes hard to qualify just how important D is, but between Tex and Molina, that game was won on Defense (and of course, Pitching).
[5] A-Ha! So was still able to link up my hero Alvaro with Baruch, even if unintentionally :)
Looking forward to the 9:30pm highlight show, any guesses on how many angles they will show Matsui's dinger from? i would say, 630 minimum..
The last two innings of the game were absolutely awesome. I love the way the team has come together and seems to be gelling. Every time it looks like the Yanks are indestructible they've gone on to play the Red Sox, then after the Sox have their way against the Yanks then they look lost again. I can't wait till the Yanks play them in August, they have to turn that shit around.
[6] How can you say that with any sort of conviction? I never get that line of thinking. Would you say the same thing if, by sheer luck, Ransom makes spectacular defensive play on A-Rod's day off? I never understand the logic this win would not have been a win if this .... would have happened. The bottom line is that we will never know.
[6] Po could certainly have broken the game open with his bat.
[6] Of course, with Po batting four times, they might not have needed ninth inning dramatics to win.
[0] I just spent a few days in Texas and can testify to the fact that the "culture war" is by no means over. Apparently, Texans are so displeased with the current administration that they have decided to stockpile ammunition.
[6] I'll take my chances with Posada.
[8] When Joba and Pettitte pitch well, this team looks awesome. Hopefully, both can build on their last performances and have a strong second half. With Wang likely down for an extended period and Hughes firmly in the bullpen, the Yankees need their top-4 to be strong.
I posted this in the game thread but I think everyone had gone to bed! And I'd like the Hinske thing explained, if possible - thanks ... I missed highlights:
Sweetness of the sport, that's what it was. BosoxRays lose, Yankees win a DEFENSIVE game (with pitching). Old timers like me just sit back and smile. I hadn't realized it was Hail Cesar who was victimized on all those plays. Ouch.
There's no real need to say 'we lose without Molina' because - as has been pointed out - there are too many variables. But it is easy enough to say 'Those plays were reasons why Molina is a defensive asset.' I absolutely loved them both.
Hinske? Um, complex analysis? Bad play. Real bad play. Over you you, Coney.
Emma it was mitre nice of you not to make Sergio jokes yet. The Banter is becoming a place of poise and sophisticated restraint. We even had a Baruch Spinoza sighting! NAME me another baseball blog with that!
Oakland/Twinkies last night. Wow. One of those.
Hey.... HEY!
I didn't say I would rather have Molina play everyday as opposed to Po.
Po is a force.
It's always possible his O makes a difference.
So... maybe saying (as Hoss points out) that the outcome of the game would have been different. Agreed... too many variables and all that.
But IMHO Po doesn't make both those plays and it's pretty cool our BUC does.
Between Tino leaving, Bernie's D going in the toilet and Jeter being outed (outted?), we have gone from having a very good defensive team to a poor one (from 2001 to 2008). Sure, the HRs and big bats are seductive. When we had Sheff, ARod, Giambi, Matsui it seemed like murderers row again (and then Cano).
But defense has not been a priority here for a while. Maybe HRs sell more tickets (especially to chicks?).
I remember laughing when the Sox dumped Nomar (who was not himself but still a force) and replaced him with Cabrera. It seemed like a major downgrade. But it seemed like Cabrera pulled the whole infield defense together. Frankly, I think Tex has had the same effect on our Yankees. Can one great defensive player make others around him better? Doesn't seem physically possible but..... my eyes sees what they sees.
And it's really nice to sees some good defense. It's hard to believe that Gritty Gritner is standing on Mickey's ground, but all is forgiven when he's taking away extra base hits.
And Cashman MUST get mad props for getting Tex. It wasn't in the plan or budget, but it appears at a late date that Cashman's gut said "we must have him". He's not a superstar, but he adds soooooo much to this team, and makes a difference in many ways.
Hey I remember that 'Chicks dig the long ball!' ad, too. Sigh.
I'm going to do something fannish and say it is time to give props to Jeter, too. We get too high on him, and then get too down ... but he's having a genuinely great season, and the trademark jump throw in the 9th on the weekend was one more treat in the D category this year, but a big one.
Teix? Pretty close to a superstar, OYF. Not sure how many players are that far above him. Once we leave Planet Pujols behind.
Fangraphs article on Yankee defense. I guess if there was something to hammer Cashman on, the defense would be it. As much flack he gets for his "ability to assess pitching" I'd be willing to wager a lot of those pitchers would've looked a lot better pitching in front of a decent defense.
First of all, can someone tell me what the **** Hinske was up to with that ball that fell in for a double? From where I was sitting (section 128 – sweet! – left field side) it looked like it was catchable and he just pulled up as if it was going into the stands. Everyone around me including the usher was like “WTF???”
I'm not sure which double you're talking about? The Robert's one in the 8th??
If so, that was actually *well* played by Hinske. The ball hit off the yellow painted "foul line" padding on the wall in the corner, where Hinske wasn't even going to get close to, so he pulled up and played the carom. It was the right call and was well played.
I could see how that would look odd from LF, though ...
[16] Why are you referencing an article from February?
We're 3rd in the AL in actual Defensive Efficiency right now, only behind Seattle and Texas
[18] Because in [14] OYF is talking about Yankees defense from 2001 - 08?
I guess I could've referenced that in [16]
I did find something on FanGraphs that I thought interesting, especially as we know Defensive Metrics may be flawed, and often UZR is used for Defensive evaluations. From FanGraphs (bold mine):
"UZR and other defenses metrics, by all accounts, take huge numbers of innings before they become predictive and are subject to big fluctuations even of the course of an entire season.
Markakis and Jones came into this season with great fielding numbers in 2008. Markakis at +11 UZR/150 in over 1300 innings in RF and Jones at +11 UZR/150 over 1000 innings in CF. This year Markakis is -16 UZR/150 over 760 innings in RF and Jones -12 over 600 innings. This new data put together with the old tempers our expectations; maybe Markakis is only a +5 to +0 corner outfield and maybe Jones is just a +5 to +0 center fielder. With so few innings it is also important to weigh our projections going forward with scouting reports, at least one set of which calls the two great defensive outfielders."
Lets see... a kid goes from +11 to -16, and another kid goes from +11 to -12? Methinks we not only need better metrics, but explainations of how to validly use them.
I know that ZR can be wildly different then UZR.
What gives?
[20] Ah, okay, that makes sense ... carry on!
I know that ZR can be wildly different then UZR.
What gives?
They're calculated differently.
Here's an article from the USS Mariner about evaluating defense.