Daily Archives: October 29, 2009

This is one of those fun games where all the analysis goes out the window because you can basically see any number of things happen. Pedro could get bombed, AJ could get bombed. Burnett could throw a gem. Pedro could be decent. He could maybe plunk somebody, just cause, you know? Homers and errors and relief pitchers and it’s past midnight and they are still playing. Or a pitcher’s duel. How about a so-so game, where they both allowe 3 or 5 runs in 5 or 6 innings. I can’t call it. And that’s the beauty part, right?

It’s one of those games that could be pedestrian but feels like it’s going to be surreal and nuts like so:

For pure theater, it should be good. Pedro Martinez has been a great bad guy in the Bronx and never fails to angry up the blood.

Pedro is one of the few players that draws upon the hatred of a crowd instead of needing to respond off the enthusiasm of a home crowd (and that’s the difference between Pedro and Cole Hamels according to the men that make the moves for the Phillies). Course I’d love nothing more than to see him get served, but with Pedro, you never know. Who’ll be shocked if he pitches a gem? He’s a great artist and you never know with those guys if they’ve got one last great flourish in them.

He’s never pitched in the new Yankee Stadium, that’s one thing. I’m sure the Yankee hitters will be happy to face him compared with Cliff Lee.  Yeah, the offense should be fine tonight. Yes, Joe Girardi is already working hard starting Jerry Hairston over Eric Hinske or Brett Gardner. But the mashers are supposed to mash here, so, c’mon: mash dummies.

The $99,000 question is what it has been all season: Burnett.

We’ve said all year long around here, the Yanks win the World Serious if they’ve got Burnett pitching well.

Nu? So, C’mon Meat. You kin do it. We’ll be dying right with ya.

Bombs Away, Fellas.

Let’s Go Ya-Kees!

(more…)

Jerry Hairston in for Nick Swisher; Jose Molina in for Jorge Posada.

Like the Hairston move, but as for Molina…Yipe!

Word-for-word, piece-for-piece, I think Lee Jenkins is one of the best writers at Sports Illustrated these days. His latest piece, previewing the Serious in this week’s issue, is on Blastmaster Ryan Howard:

Howard’s bat measures a stout 35 inches, 34 ounces, but in his hands it looks like a toothpick.

Those hands, big as a middle infielder’s mitt, are what former Phillies general manager Pat Gillick noticed the first time he saw Howard play six years ago in the Arizona Fall League. When Gillick is scouting a player, he looks forward to shaking the player’s hand. A strong handshake portends home run power. “That’s where the evaluation begins,” Gillick says. When he thinks back on the strongest handshakes he has felt in more than 40 years of scouting, he rattles off some formidable names: Eddie Murray, George Bell, Alex Rodriguez and Howard. (After shaking this reporter’s hand, Gillick said, “Didn’t hit many home runs, did you?” So true.)

Teammates compare Howard’s drives to golf shots because they backspin out of the ballpark and don’t stop rising until they’re out of sight. “When you hit one flush, you don’t feel a thing,” Howard says. “You just hear the pop.”

Speaking of Howard, I know I’ve mentioned this before, but man, does he ever remind me of the Boogie Down’s own, Kris Parker, KRS-ONE for short.

Okay, enough with the calmness. Time to start getting amped.

I was saddened to hear the news that Terry Miller, Marvin Miller’s wife, has passed away. Tim McCarver mentioned it during the broadcast last night.

I met her once, in their apartment, almost two years ago. It was the day before Christmas and they were celebrating their 68th wedding anniversary that day. I came on business and brought her flowers. She had short hair and wore a necklace that looked straight out of the Sixties. She was pleasent but tough. Not cold, just tough. Their apartment was bright and flooded with light (it is where the Miller interviews from Ken Burns’ Baseball were shot). It was clean and decorated in a minimal style. I imagined there would be more books. A copy of my book on Curt Flood was on one of their shelves which will forever be a part of my personal highlight reel.

I didn’t stay long. But it was a great honor to meet them both.

Terry Miller was 90.

So sayeth Pedro the Mouth, the man Yankee fans love to hate.

I was e-mailing with a friend this morning who played ball in college. He wrote:

I want to see a ton of hard hit balls tonight. I want LOUD outs when they make outs. Give AJ the lead, rip Pedro early, don’t let him sit there mugging for the cameras after 4 scoreless, reducing AJ to a supporting character in Pedro’s comeback drama. AJ will not react well to that, if it’s a staredown, AJ will blink first. Win tonight and any scenario is back on the table for the Yanks.

Pedro’s pitches are much slower and much less intimidating. He CANNOT throw the fastball by them, so he will try to get everybody out with the changeup. This is high school baseball strategy for the hitters: when the opposing pitcher canot throw the fastball by you, you adjust your approach. You try to hit the slow stuff up the middle and try to take the fastball the other way. If you gear your timing to the slow stuff, you can’t be fooled. I won’t be upset if they guess fastball while ahead in the count and take big swings and misses, but there should be minimal strikeouts and minimal weak shit induced by being way out in front of the changeup. With 2 strikes, stay back, hit the changeup back up the middle, fastball the other way.

Sounds like a plan.

No reason to get un-Dude, here. Lee was a sombitch, not much you can do about that (I couldn’t decide if I hated him or loved him for his deadpan Buster Keaton catch). We’ll have plenty of time to get amped about Mr. Pedro and Mr. Burnett as the day rolls along.

For now, how about a deep breath, and some lightness of being:

For seven innings of Wednesday night’s opening game of the 2009 World Series, the hotly anticipated matchup of left-handed aces and former Cleveland Indians teammates lived up to its billing, but in the end there was just Cliff Lee.

Lee, who shutout the Rockies in the first postseason start of his career in Game One of this year’s NLDS and entered the game having allowed just two earned runs in 24 1/3 innings this postseason, was simply dominant. On a cold, wet night in the Bronx, Lee was quick, sharp, almost robotic in his efficiency, and seemed utterly indifferent to significance of the game.

In his first two innings of work he allowed just a Jorge Posada single and struck out four. After allowing another hit in the third, a two-out double by Derek Jeter, he struck out Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, and Jorge Posada in order in the fourth. For both Teixeira and Rodriguez it was their second strikeout in as many at-bats against Lee.

The Yankees got the leadoff batter on in the fifth on a Hideki Matsui single, but he was promptly erased by an unusual double play on a sinking flare off the bat of Robinson Cano to Jimmy Rollins at shortstop. Rather than charge the ball to catch it chest-high, Rollins stayed back on the ball in an apparent attempt to snag the short hop and turn a conventional double play. After gloving the ball, Rollins did just that, stepping on second and firing to first, but Cano beat the throw. The trick was that Rollins actually caught the ball on the fly, thus his throw to first doubled off Matsui. It took the umpires a while to figure that out, but after huddling up they eventually got the call right.

Lee pitched around a Johnny Damon single in the seventh, then didn’t allow another baserunner until the ninth.

Meanwhile, CC Sabathia, after surviving a two-out bases-loaded jam in the first, nearly matched Lee, with two crucial exceptions. With two outs in the third, Chase Utley battled Sabathia for nine pitches. The last was a knee-high fastball that was supposed to be in, but drifted over the plate, allowing Utley to deposit it in the first few rows of the right-field box seats to give the Phillies an early 1-0 lead. The home run was a short-porch shot to be sure, but likely would have been out of the old Stadium as well.

Utley’s next at-bat came with one out in the sixth. Sabathia had retired every man he faced since Utley’s home run and got two quick called strikes on Utley, who then fouled off the third pitch. Sabathia’s fourth offering was a thigh-high fastball that was supposed to be inside, but drifted over the plate, allowing Utley to deposit it in the first few rows of the right-field bleachers, a no-doubter that gave the Phillies a 2-0 lead. Given Lee’s dominance and the fact that the Yankees were down to their last nine outs, that deficit felt much larger than it actually was.

As if to accentuate his command of the game, Lee got Johnny Damon to hit a badminton birdie back to the mound in the bottom of the sixth. Lee barely moved his feet to catch Damon’s floater. He simply stuck out his glove and made a casual, one-handed catch as if he was receiving a return throw from his catcher. The next inning, Jorge Posada hit a chopper to the first-base side of the mound. Rather than flip it to first base, Lee ran directly at Posada in a play reminiscent of the last out of the 2003 World Series, and rather than tag Posada on the chest or stomach with two hands, Lee gave the hot-headed Yankee catcher a roundhouse pat on the rear end to retire him. In the next frame, Robinson Cano led off with a hard hopper that Lee casually caught blindly behind his back. It was Cliff Lee’s night, the Yankees and the 50,207 fans in the stands were merely supporting players, and mild-mannered ones at that.

Other than Utley’s two homers, the Phillies managed just two hits against CC Sabathia, one of them a Ryan Howard double in the first inning, but they worked deep counts, drew three walks, and bounced the Yankee ace from the game after he threw 117 pitches in seven innings. That allowed the Phills to sink their teeth into the Yankees’ suddenly shaky middle relief corps.

Phil Hughes was the first lamb to the slaughter. He started the eighth by walking Jimmy Rollins on eight pitches and Shane Victorino on seven more before getting a quick hook. Damaso Marte came on and struck out Utley and got Howard to fly out, but David Robertson, in to face the righty Jason Werth, loaded the bases on a four-pitch walk, then gave up a two-run single to Raul Ibañez that doubled the Phillies’ lead. Brian Bruney, who hadn’t seen game action since the regular season, got two quick outs in the ninth, but Rollins reached on a slow roller that stopped short of Alex Rodriguez on the infield grass, and Victorino followed with an RBI single. Joe Girardi then turned to Phil Coke to face Utley and Howard. Coke fell behind Utley 3-1 before getting him to fly out, then Howard doubled into the right-field corner, plating Rollins to increase the lead to 6-0.

Those insurance runs were killers, particularly after Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon opened the ninth with singles off Lee that otherwise would have given the Yankees hope of yet another comeback. The shutout was lost when Rollins threw wild to first base trying to turn Mark Teixeira’s ensuing grounder into a double play, but Lee stopped the Yankees there by striking out Rodriguez and Posada on a total of eight pitches to give the Phillies a 6-1 win and an early 1-0 lead in the Series.