The A’s played a horrendously sloppy game Tuesday night, committing four errors, hitting two batters, setting up a run with a wild pitch, setting up another with a cross-up passed ball that hit the home plate ump, and generally booting away the game on their way to a 7-0 loss. That’s the story of the game, but lost in all that slop was a third-straight dominant performance from CC Sabathia.
Near the start of the game, MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch tweeted that prior to Sabathia’s last two starts, the last Yankee to win consecutive starts with a minimum of 7 2/3 innings pitched and a maximum of three hits in each was Dwight Gooden in May of 1996 (the second being his no-hitter). CC, who had allowed one run on five hits over 15 2/3 innings over his previous two starts, allowed a whopping five hits Tuesday night in the course of pitching another eight impressive innings. Over his last three starts, Sabathia has pitched 23 2/3 innings and allowed just three runs, all on solo homers.
Sabathia pitched with runners on base in just two of his eight innings last night. In the latter case, he pitched around a harmless, two-out single by Ryan Sweeney in the seventh. His only real jam came in the fourth when Scott Hairston singled with one out and both he and Nomar Garciaparra capitalized on a Johnny Damon bobble on what was ruled a double for Garciaparra. After the hot-hitting Mark Ellis lined out to shallow right, holding Hairston at third, Joe Girardi had Sabathia intentionally walk righty Tommy Everidge to pitch to the lefty Sweeney, who grounded out to end the threat.
That intentional walk might have seemed like a bit of overmanaging, but Everidge, who looks like a right-handed Erik Hinske but even thicker, had homered off Sabathia in his previous at-bat and, with two-outs, the walk set up the force at every base. With some pitchers you wouldn’t want to walk the bases loaded for fear of a hit-by-pitch or unintentional walk driving in a run, but as River Avenue Blues pointed out after the game on twitter, Sabathia threw just 28 balls all night, four of them in the free pass to Everidge.
The other solo homer off Sabathia came in the bottom of the first. A’s starter Vin Mazzaro hit Alex Rodriguez in his tender left elbow in the top of the first, and Sabathia retaliated by throwing behind catcher Kurt Suzuki with two outs in the bottom of the first. Suzuki dodged the pitch, then hit the next one into the left field seats, thus earning the Bad-Ass of the Game award (not recognized by the YES Network). Both benches were warned, but despite the fact that Melky Cabrera was hit later in the game by a clearly wild Jay Marshall, there were no further incidents.
As for all of those Yankee runs, Derek Jeter plated a Cabrera double in the second by hitting a ball through Adam Kennedy’s legs for the A’s second error in as many innings. The first A’s error was a throwing error by Suzuki on a Johnny Damon steal, but Damon was stranded when Jorge Posada struck out with the bases loaded trying to check his swing on a curve ball that almost hit his back foot). Posada made up for that strikeout in the third by doubling home Alex Rodriguez, who had singled, moved to second on a wild pitch, and to third on a groundout.
That tied the game at 2-2, but the Yankees made Mazzaro throw 103 pitches in five innings, then jumped all over the A’s extremely shaky middle relievers in the sixth. If Joe Girardi had brought a sidearming lefty with a 6.43 ERA and four more walks than strikeouts in to face a lefty and two switch hitters in the sixth inning of a tie game the readers of this blog may well have burned the Bronx to the ground. Fellow former Yankee catcher Bob Geren did just that and got what he paid for.
After getting the lefty (Robinson Cano) to ground out, Marshall gave up a double to the wall in left center to Nick Swisher (a switch-hitter batting right), moved him to left by crossing up Suzuki immediately after a mound conference with a pitch that somehow hit the home plate umpire on the left elbow after hitting Suzuki’s glove, hit Cabrera, then gave up RBI hits to Derek Jeter (single) and Johnny Damon (double). With that, Geren handed the ball to righty Santiago Casilla, who walked Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez on eight pitches (the last to Teixeira intentional), forcing in another run, then gave up an RBI single to Hideki Matsui and a sac fly to Posada before Cano came back around to groundout and put the A’s out of their misery.
In the middle of that action came the absurd scene pictured to the right. When Marshall hit Melky in the rump, Melky jumped back to try to avoid the pitch, but Suzuki also shifted to his left to try to block the pitch, resulting in Cabrera tumbling over the A’s catcher, much to the delight of his Yankee teammates and coaches (Tony Peña was in hysterics and both Joba Chamberlain and Jorge Posada mimicked Cabrera’s duck-winged attempt to keep his balance). The ball, meanwhile, deflected off Melky and headed toward first base.
That was this game in a nutshell. Yanks win a laugher 7-2.
CC's only mistake was not actually hitting Suzuki.
Jeter is currently the team MVP.
I wish Girardi wouldn't have gotten Mo up after Robertson walked the first two batters in the 9th. Hughes could have handled it.
[1] I agree with all of that, though I didn't want him to get Hughes up either.
[1] A-Rod for MVP!
Everidge looks like he could be related to Hinske.
A laugher indeed, but Carsten is dealing like the ace we paid for! BTW, am loving the sniping between NYY beat writers and sabr-geeks over MVP bonafides betw Teix and Mauer...not really a contest...
[5] Yeah, I put my two cents in (or my buck-fitty), but I'm dropping the conversation for now. Tyler Kepner seems to have come around based on the realization that Mauer's batting average is higher than Teixeira's on-base percentage. Mark Feinsand of the News seems to be the hold out now. I hope to revisit the issue with him in September.
From Jeff Frenchy Francouer of the Mets, on a long- ten hit inning against the Braves: "You just keep pounding balls into the gap. The one thing you don't want to do is hit a home run. That's a rally-killer."
Must be great to be a Met fan. :)
I don't think the MVP debate is so clear cut. For starters, Mauer's team is well below .500 and I think their is legitimacy to the argument that value implies a contribution to winning. Also, Mauer did miss about 25 games.
[8] Which makes it even more remarkable how many more wins Mauer has been worth.
Even still, it's fine if you want to use team contention as the deciding factor. Even then there are better 1Bs and a better player on Teixeira's own team.
Perhaps Morneau can give Mauer the award he won in '06 ...
[7] *smacks head into the wall, despite not being a Mets fan*
You also don't want runners on base, because they're just clogging the bases. You know, I don't expect baseball players to be read up on a lot of things, but I do expect them to have baseball smarts.
Anyway, nice to wake up to a Yankees win, with good pitching & hitting.
Cliff, sorry about the passing of your wife's grandfather. I'm not on twitter so offering my condolences here. Your family is in our thoughts and prayers this morning.
Thanks for the recap. I fell asleep during the pregame wanting to see a least a couple innings of Sabathia. Heading into NY today I couldn't get much more than the final score out of the radioheads because they were all wrapped up in the Favre comeback. I turned it off and listened to Radiohead instead.
memo to baseball: please stop hitting our third baseman in the elbow.
[0] Yanks win a laugher
Perfect!
[1] I wish Girardi wouldn’t have gotten Mo up after Robertson walked the first two batters in the 9th. Hughes could have handled it.
There was no need to warm ANYONE in that situation, two runners on and a five run lead. But I pontificated on that last night, so I'll drop it.
Jeff Francouer should consider matriculating at the Tim McCarver School of Broadcasting.
[11] Hm, that is a difficulty in constructing the Fictional World of Baseball Lore (in which all of the truisms are actually true). A home run clears the bases; it thus unclogs them, But it also kills rallies. Is it good or bad to homer with two on and one out? (The fact that it increases your team's run total by three might make it seem good, but is in fact irrelevant in the Fictional World.)
[15] But you have to consider intent. It's OK, even if not it is not preferable, to hit a HR if you are just trying to make contact but got (un)lucky. But if you go up to the plate looking to hit one out, that's pretty much unforgivable, even if the result does clear the bases. Remember, the ends do not justify the means!
While Mauer might be having the better year than Teixeira and be a more outstanding player, I'm still of a mind that the MVP has to go to someone whose contributed to team success...thus showing their value.
I'm not saying the MVP every year has to be from a 100 win team, but it has to be a team that was in serious contention for all/most of the year and arguably wouldn't have been had it not been for that player.
Hence, sorry Joe.
[16] Hm.
What if you're "trying to drive the ball"?
Also, if I were a fan of the team in the field, and the fourth batter of the inning homers with two on, should I be relieved, or dismayed? Does Jeff Francouer heave a great sigh of relief in RF in that situation? "Whew, a rally-killer, just what we needed... almost as good as a double-play."
[18] Ahhh...the old "just trying to drive the ball" bit. Maybe that is the baseball equivalent of "smoked but did not inhale."
You ask some mighty tough questions here. That's above my pay grade. ; )
Why isnt the MVP settled by winshares. Doesn't that define who brings the most value in terms or wins to their respective teams?
[9] All of the first basemen are so close, that I don't think you could make a definitive argument one way or the other. I do, however, agree that Jeter is at least as good a candidate as Teixeira.
[20] this is the BBWAA we're talking about here...
Melky's at bat was like baseball slapstick. It was hysterical. Poor Kurt Suzuki. That guy was awfully busy all night. It's then when you realize how hard catcher's work. Which, I guess is part of the Mauer vs. Tex discussion.
I followed Neyer and Pos for a few days and then thought....whatever. It's just nice for us Yankee fans to see someone at firt base who can actually field his position with excellence. We hadn't had that with regularity since Tino and before that, Mattingly. We're giddy with relief.
I also was impressed how Suzuki took care of business with that homerun after the brush forward. Goooooood baseball.
[20] Do winshares still exist? That stat seemed DOA to me. Meanwhile, the Twins haven't been that far out of things. They're below .500, but the Tigers aren't that far over.
As for "value implies a contribution to winning," I honestly think that's absurd. Baseball, perhaps more than any other, is a team sport that no one player can win by himself. It takes 25 plus. No player should be penalized for being on a bad team, particularly if they're having the kind of mind-blowing season Mauer is. I believe performance has innate value. It's not defined by context.
[20] Because winshares, like just about every statistic, has it flaws.
[12] Thanks Sliced. No need to turn this into a sympathy thread, though.
Sorry about the "typos." catchers work. first, not firt.
I just think that the idea of "value" is such a vague and amorphous concept that you're forced to have these kinds of arguments. If it was the "Most Outstanding Player Award" or the "Player of the Year Award" well then it would be Mauer's to lose...but it's not.
How about that CC Sabathia?
It seems like Cano either swings at the first strike or watches it go by with his bat on his shoulder. It's almost as if he decides whether to swing or not before he steps into the box.
[25] Okay. But how about winshares plus BFOG+.
[0]
It looks like Melky is about to whip Suzuki with the bat ...
"yaw ... yaw ... get along you slow horsey ..."
[24] I can see why someone would think "value implies a contribution to winning" is absurd. Of course, I can also why someone would think its absurd to consider performance outside of the context of the team the player is on. Even though I'd probably vote for Mauer, I think performance is far from innate because it is impacted by so many variables.
[28] It's just like the ASG. Some people think it should be the most popular player, others think the player having the best 1st half and still others a combination of both. Each opinion is valid. The same is true for the MVP.
[29] Cano is 0-9 in Oakland and he has probably hacked at the first close pitch in every AB. How he could revert to that approach after being so hot for so long is very odd.
[30] ?
and nothing from nothing, I'd vote for Jeter...just to piss people off.
[36] He has arguably been robbed of two MVPs already, so it would kind of be justice if he won it.
For someone who so many have claimed is overrated, it's pretty amazing to think that Jeter should have 2 MVPs and after this season, possibly 3.
[37] Oh I love it, I mean we all know what kind of year he's having but when you actually stop and look at the stats its pretty incredible. Plus the defense, which is hard to measure, has been at the very least adequate if not good.
I think he absolutely should've won it in 2006 and was robbed, '99 I can see voting for Pudge because IIRC he pretty much threw the team on his back the second half of the season and willed them to the playoffs
[38] Actually, by most metrics, Jeter's defense has been excellent this year, trailing only Andrus in the American League.
[39] I think it has been excellent, I'm just saying that people who love to rip Jeter's defense (in some cases deservedly so the past few years) would have to admit that this year he is at the very least "not bad."
[38] As for 1999, I think that was the worst of the two. Jeter completely out hit Pudge (OPS+ of 153 to 125). Also, it's hard to argue that Pudge willed the team to October when he had help from guys like Gonzalez and Palmeiro (and they finished 8 games ahead of Oakland). The scary thing is Jeter actually finished 6th that season.
[35] BFOG+. That's a BronxBanter Stat. Belly Full Of Guts.
; )
[40] I hear you...but those people would also have to admit he has been excellent because that is what their metrics are saying.
Forget stats and insights, people! The ONLY WAY to determine a baseball MVP is a televised town hall meeting hosted by Chris Berman.
[14] IIRC, Hughes was up before anyone was on base, which influenced my perception. But I agree.
Girardi is still a net negative.
[44] well if this summer has proven one thing, its that the highest level of civil discourse and debate in this country can be found at town hall meetings.
[46] At least baseball discourse is usually honest.
[47] "Why is Brian Cashman supporting Nazi policies??"
Didn't I tell you people I don't want to hear any more about Town Hall Meetings???
i know in the larger context of baseball history and for derek's career it doesn't really matter, but it still seems like a crime to me that dusty has an mvp and jeter has none.
dusty won with a damn ops+ of 122 and his counting stats weren't even impressive (17 hrs, 83 rbi).
hell that's basically derek's career average (121 ops+; 17 hrs, 82 rbi)
[41] '99 was one of the most divided MVP votes I can remember. As much as I like Jeter, there were several more qualified candidates that year. Really, it should have gone to Pedro, who actually got the most 1st place votes. Pudge got it because most voters wouldn't vote for a pitcher, and others split the vote between Manny and Alomar, who both had monster years for Cleveland.
FWIW, Jeter was voted 2006 AL MVP, and finished 2nd behind Pedro in 1999, in the Baseball Prospectus Internet Baseball Awards voting:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/iba/index.php?mode=history
[51] Several? Like who? Pedro brings the pitcher's debate into the equation, but the other two, Manny (RF with an OPS+ of 173) and Alomar (2B with an OPS+ of 139), do not trump Jeter (SS with an OPS+ of 153) in my book. Jeter was the best position player that season, IMHO.
[53] As I said, Pedro really should have won that year, but among position players, I still don't think Jeter was the best. I think Manny, despite his position, was probably the best position player. You could even make an argument that Jeter wasn't even the best SS - take a look at what Nomar did that year. I forgot how good he used to be.
[54] Nomar had the same OPS+, but in about 25 fewer games. There may have been several position players who were almost as good as Jeter, but I don't think you can make a credible case for any position player being better, once you factor in position and defensive contribution.
Cliff, just for the record, calling me a "hold out" is inaccurate. Just because I think Teixeira should be the MVP today doesn't mean I'll feel that way on October 4. For instance, two years ago, when I found out in mid-August that I had a Cy Young vote, I had Erik Bedard as my No. 1 candidate. As we all know, he didn't place on the ballot by season's end.
Six-plus weeks left. Way too much time to make any definitive declarations right now.