Daily Archives: September 3, 2009

Bring it back, come rewind.

Feels like old times a little bit, huh? We still don’t know what October will bring but these Yankees sure are built for the 162-game schedule.  They are absolutely wearing the league out, especially the bad teams. Chad Guadin started and didn’t make it out of the fourth, giving up three runs. Alfredo Aceves replaced him and allowed a couple of runs over a couple of innings, and then David Robertson, Brian Bruney and Damaso Marte each threw a scoreless inning. They got it done and so did the hitters.

The Yankee offense is relentless. Jorge Posada was the star tonight with four hits and four RBI. He hit his 20th home run and the Yanks now have seven players with 20 or more dingers. Alex Rodriguez had a couple of hits and a couple of RBI including a frozen rope solo shot in the ninth. Melky Cabrera also had two hits.

Yanks 10, Jays 5.

Ho Hum? Maybe. Happy? Why certainly.

So much for Cito Gaston’s brilliance. Yeah, the Blue Jays traded Scott Rolen, let Alex Rios go via waivers, lost Rolen’s replacement, the disastrous Edwin Encarnacion, to a hamstring injury, and have been forced to play musical closers due to injury and poor performance, and have had to similarly improvise their starting rotation for similar reasons. Despite all that they have outscored their opponents only to find themselves with an actual record eight games worse than their Pythagorean.

The Jays have been in free fall since the end of June, playing .340 baseball (18-35) over that stretch. Since eking out a one-run victory over Sergio Mitre and the Yankees on August 10, they’re 5-16 (.238!). They haven’t won a series, or even had consecutive victories since they faced the Orioles the series before that. Even, Roy Halladay, who pitches tomorrow, has gone 0-3 with a 7.94 ERA over his last three starts. Top prospect Travis Snider has come back from the minors to replace Rios and has hit .167 in 16 games. Things really can’t get much worse for the Jays.

Well, I suppose there’s the Yankees coming to town. The Yanks, like they were against the Orioles prior to their just-completed sweep, are 9-3 against the Jays this year, and two of those losses came in May. The Yankees are 7-1 against Toronto since then. No wonder the Yanks figured they could bounce A.J. Burnett to Monday’s double-header against the Rays and throw Chad Gaudin (tonight), Sergio Mitre (Sunday), and the innings-challenged Joba Chamberlain (tomorrow) in this series. At least they’re giving the Jays a sporting chance.

Rookie of the Year candidate Ricky Romero starts for the Jays tonight. He has two quality starts in as many tries against the Yankees on the season, though the Yankees won the later contest via one of their many extra-inning walkoffs (Cano single). Gaudin was been alternately great and awful in August, striking out 12 in nine scoreless innings in his three “great” appearances (including his one start, in Oakland, all three as a Yankee) and giving up 11 runs in 8 1/3 innings in his three “awful” appearances (two in relief for the Yankees plus one start for the Padres). If he makes like Saberhagen, he’s due for “awful” tonight. Hopefully the Yankees can out-hit whatever it is he gives them.

With Mariano Rivera nursing a tender groin, Phil Hughes will close this weekend. Jonathan Albaladejo has been called up to add innings to the pen. Yanks run out the standard lineup tonight.

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Over at SI.com, our man Cliff takes a look at some key players down the stretch. The man for the Twins?

That Big Bum:

No, not that Bum, this one:

Amazingly and sadly, the Twins are looking for real help from Carl Pavano. Pavano has made as many starts this year as he did in all four years of his $39.95 million contract with the Yankees. He’s even had some encouraging runs along the way, particularly the eight starts from May 1 through June 5 in which he went 6-1 with a 3.00 ERA and a 4.0 K/BB. Things got a littly rocky after that, but he posted a 3.46 ERA and 3.5 K/BB in six August starts, five of them for the Minnesota. If the Twins are going to catch the Tigers by the tail, they’ll need Pavano to do as well or better in September.

Tyler Kepner has a nice piece in the Times today about Derek Jeter appreciating the moment:

“I was talking to my parents not too long ago, and they were telling me, ‘You’ve got to learn to enjoy some of these things as they’re happening — there’s nothing wrong with that,’ ” Jeter said. “So I’m sure it’s something that I’ll enjoy if it happens.”

…The torrid month has put him close to a record Jeter will cherish, if he takes his parents’ advice. Posada, his close friend, considered their wisdom and laughed.

“It doesn’t come twice, so he could take a step back and look,” Posada said. “That’s a good way to put it, but I don’t think he will.”

One day, we’ll see Jeter give it up and let a few tears drop off his cheek. May not be for a few years still but the Iceman will melt a ‘lil bit. You watch.

Today’s news is powered by Woody Woodpecker:

• Swisher is at home on the road:

While the rest of the Yankees seem to have fallen in love with hitting for power at the new Yankee Stadium, Swisher has gone in the completely opposite direction. He now owns 23 homers in his first season with the Bombers, 20 of which have come away from the Bronx.

“I’m just trying to prove to everybody that hitting home runs in Yankee Stadium is not that easy,” Swisher said, laughing.

• Did Dellin Betances really have a true TJ procedure?:

Betances’ procedure was an “overlay TJ,” a variant of the Tommy John procedure where the damaged ligament isn’t removed, but instead left in place and the ligament is buttressed by the new tendon. Originally, it was thought that this would reduce the issue with proprioception that many TJ surgeries involve for patients, but the procedure is seldom used currently.

• The Times analyzes the “true” price of post-season tickets.
• Fangraphs examines the Angels replacement for Teixeira, Kendry Morales.

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