Monthly Archives: May 2010

Ah, the Mets. You know, they’re not really that bad of a franchise. They’ve won four pennants while no other expansion team has won more than two. They were the first expansion team to win the World Series, and also the first to win a second (no expansion team has won more). They’ve followed every stretch of losing with a period of winning of similar length, having made four complete cycles in their 48-year history. Their new ballpark, in which they’ll host the Yankees for three games this weekend, is a gem.

Still, they just never seem to get things quite right. They’re baseball’s equivalent of Jerry on Parks & Recreation, a decent, well-meaning, hard-working city employee, who nonetheless botches everything he does and is the subject of merciless ridicule and scorn from his fellow employees.

The Mets have been in full-blown Jerry mode since September 2007, when they suffered a momentous collapse and lost the division to the Phillies on the final day of the season. In 2008 they suffered a similar, though less extreme September collapse, again coughing up the division to the rival Phillies. Then last year everything fell apart. Despite debuting their handsome new ballpark (which bizarrely celebrated the legacy of the Brooklyn Dodgers rather than the Mets’ own history and prompted the creation of the worst sleeve patch in Major League Baseball history), the Mets were a disaster. Everyone got hurt except David Wright, who inexplicably stopped hitting for power, the owners spent the season fending off rumors of Bernie Madoff-induced poverty, and everyone in the front office lost their damn minds.

The Mets 2009 season was such an overwhelming disaster that the team is still feeling shockwaves in 2010. In mid January, Carlos Beltran, who missed half of the 2009 season due to a knee injury opted to have knee surgery against the team’s wishes. The surgery was considered ill-timed because it was going to keep him out of action until May, but it’s almost June and he not only hasn’t returned, but has no timetable to do so and has not yet been cleared to resume working out. Wright, meanwhile, seemed to put 2009 behind him with an Opening Day home run at CitiField and a solid April overall, but when the calendar flipped to May, he started striking out at an alarming rate (29 Ks in 18 games, or once every 2.7 plate appearances) and enters this weekend series on a 4-for-29 (.138) skid.

The Mets season has followed a similar pattern. An eight-game winning streak in April put them in first place in the National League East for five days, but since that streak was snapped, they’ve gone just 6-13 and have fallen all the way to the bottom of the NL East standings, six games behind those blasted Phils.

Buoyed by a strong start from 26-year-old Mike Pelfry, who will face Phil Hughes Saturday night, and good work from their bullpen, the Mets are doing a decent job of keeping their opponents from scoring, but their offense isn’t holding up its end of the bargain. Installing rookie Ike Davis, son of former Yankee set-up man Ron, at first base has helped, but the rest of the lineup is riddled with issues.

Catcher Rod Barajas leads the team with ten homers and a .586 slugging percentage, but he’s only drawn two unintentional walks all season and has a .306 OBP that is over .300 only because he’s been twice hit with a pitch and twice intentionally passed. Big free agent addition Jason Bay is getting on base, but has hit just one home run. Angel Pagan has done a solid job filling in for Beltran in center, but is a league-average bat in place of a superstar. The rest of the lineup, meanwhile, has been a disaster. Jose Reyes is healthy but hitting like Carlos Gomez (.216/.264/.284). Jeff Francoeur continues to prove that his 2008 collapse was not a fluke. Luis Castillo is getting on base but isn’t even slugging .300 having connected for just three extra base hits in 140 plate appearances. All of that places more pressure on Wright, which likely is part of the reason for all of those strikeouts, and thus another Mets cycle of despair begins. Ah, the Mets.

Facing this team could be just what the Yankees need this weekend having gone 3-8 since their two blowout wins in Boston, 1-4 since taking the first two from the Twins last weekend, and having dropped their last three. Despite injuries to half of their lineup, the Yankees problem has been pitching, particularly relief pitching. In the last five games (the ones in which they’ve gone 1-4), the Yankees have allowed an average of eight runs per game.

I don’t imagine Mariano Rivera and Joba Chamberlain will continue to suck, and David Robertson had an encouraging outing Thursday night, striking out four in two perfect innings, so there’s reason to expect improvement. Facing a National League lineup without the designated hitter (particularly this NL lineup, which is backed up by a similarly ineffective bench) should help as well.

It will be up to Javy Vazquez to get things off on the right foot. That’s not an encouraging statement, but Vazquez’s last start was sharp (7 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 7 K against the Tigers) and he had an extra confidence builder by coming out of the bullpen on Monday to strikeout the only batter he faced (Kevin Youkilis, no less) and pick up an easy win. Besides which, if it really is true that Vazquez is a much better pitcher in the NL, he’s effectively pitching in the NL tonight. Personally, I think he’s better than that, though I am a bit concerned about rust and a potential lack of endurance given that his last start was nine days ago.

Facing Vazquez will be Japanese lefty Hisanori Takahashi, who is coming out of the bullpen to make his first major league start in place of injured rookie Jonathon Niese (strained left hamstring). Takahashi has struck out 11.4 men per nine innings thus far this year, albeit against too many walks (4.8 BB/9). As a starter in Japan, his rates were lower in both categories. In his last appearance, he threw 60 pitches in three innings against the Marlins giving up a pair of runs on four walks and four hits (including the only homer he’s allowed this season).

Kevin Russo gets his first major league start tonight playing left against the lefty Takahashi in place of Marcus Thames and his sprained ankle. Randy Winn is 0-for-11 with four strikeouts against lefties on the season after hitting .158/.184/.200 against them last year, so a good night from Russo could lead to more starts against southpaws given Thames struggles in the field. The lineup above Russo contains all the usual suspects, leaving the Yankees with a bench of lefty Juan Miranda, switch-hitters Winn and Ramiro Peña, and a pair of righties whom Girardi may be reluctant to use in backup catcher Chad Moeller and the day-to-day Thames.

As Alex mentioned, thanks to SNY we’ll be part of the media horde for this series and will be liveblogging all three games, so be on the lookout for Alex’s liveblog/gamethread closer to first pitch tonight. Mets roster below the jump, as always.

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I couldn’t resist…

Medici Slot-Machine:Object, By Joseph Cornell (1942)

Queens’ finest…

The good folks at SNY have been kind enough to hook the Banter up with press credentials for the Subway Serious this weekend. I’ll be there tonight and tomorrow and Cliff will be there on Sunday. We’ll be live-blogging all three games. Should be a B-A-Double L.

Y’all swing by now, ya hear?

Original Artwork by Ben DeRosa

This is a collaborative effort of words, numbers (Chris & Jon DeRosa) and original artwork (Ben DeRosa) dedicated to the memory of Joseph DeRosa, our grandfather, who pretty much hated every personnel move his beloved New York Mets ever made.

Over at the Hardball Times, one of our favorite baseball writers, the estimable Steve Treder, does these fascinating roster reconstructions, speculating on what might have happened if this or that team hadn’t gone through with some pivotal personnel decisions. In one piece, he imagined what might have become of the Braves had they not passed on Willie Mays. In another, he asked what if the Giants had sorted out their talent correctly in the 1960s. The “what if” scenario that most tantalizes Yankee fans is, of course, “what if the Yankees had held onto the group of prospects they produced in the mid-90s?”

What if the Yankees hadn’t given up on Andy Pettitte and dealt him off the National League in 1994? Then they might not have been so desperate for left-handed pitching that they were willing to swapfuture all-stars Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera to Detroit for David Wells. While Mariano has earned a reputation as a postseason choker due to his memorable meltdown in his first and only postseason appearance in 2006, it’s quite possible that with a few more chances he might have sorted things out.

What if the Yankee front office saw the charismatic future star they had in Derek Jeter, and hadn’t traded him to the Reds? Unlikely? Sure. But just pretend for a minute that Tony Fernandez had gotten injured at the outset of the 1996 season, and Jeter had gotten a chance to play in pinstripes.

It is difficult, even in the form of a Marvel Comics “What If?” fantasy, to imagine Bernie Williams starring for the Yanks instead of the Sox—when has George Steinbrenner ever given an unproven outfielder 1300 plate appearances to blossom?—but for the sake of argument, let’s just say that George was somehow suspended from making a premature call on Bernie and he roamed centerfield for an entire decade. What then?

With their actual free-agent signings to buttress this up-the-middle talent core, the Yankees might have had some kind of ballclub in the late 90s-early ‘00s.

To indulge such an exercise, you have to imagine the very same people behaving differently, but even still, it is remarkable that such a thin tissue of attitudes and circumstances means the difference between a great team coming together or not. Go back and check the trade rumors swirling around the NL forty years ago, for instance, and you will see that but for a few key decisions, the Amazin’ Mets dynasty of the 1970s might too have been scattered to the winds.

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Okay, so the next time you are in the area, do yourself a favor and hit Szechuan Gourmet, which is on 39th Street between 5th and 6th. I went last night with my friend Mark who has been several times for lunch. He told me it’s considered “the best Szechuan outside of Flushing.” All I know, is that it was wonderful, whether you are up for adventure (Duck Tongue w/Sich. Pepper Corn-Scallion Pesto, Fish Head w/Napa, Bamboo, Cellophane, Smoky Wok Tossed Frogs) or not.

We had a standard appetizer, Szechuan Pork Dumplings w/Roasted Chilli Soy, and they were far and away the most delicious dumplings I’ve ever had–delicate, flavorful with some kick. They were so good, we didn’t let the waiter remove the extra sauce when the dumplings were gone. They seemed to appreciate that, but I wasn’t kidding. I wasn’t giving up that goodness without a fight.

Most of the customers were Asian, large tables of nine, ten people. The wait staff alternated between being polite and dismissive but they were never rude. I love that unpretentious attitude (you can ignore me some cause I’m a gringo just don’t be a jerk about it). It got me to thinking how wonderful Chinese restaurants can be, what a staple they are of New York Life.

Say word.

[Photo Credit: Parla Food]

I like the journeymen. Most fans, and understandably so, gravitate toward the stars. They like the Derek Jeters, the Mark Teixeiras, and the Mariano Riveras. I like those guys, too. You don’t win world championships without star players who can carry the load for long stretches during the regular season and at critical moments in the postseason.

But I’ve always taken greater interest in the lesser players on a team, those who fill a specific role, either in a platoon or coming off the bench. That’s because those guys have to struggle, in some cases just to stay in the big leagues. Because of that, some of those players work harder than your average player. I identify with those players–whether it’s an Oscar Gamble in the 1970s and eighties, a Luis Sojo in the 1990s, or a Glenallen Hill in 2000. Just like those players, I feel I have to work hard just to keep up, whether it’s teaching, making a speech in front of strangers, or writing one of these columns. It’s a struggle for me, too. I’m no Roger Angell, but I believe I can be a solid contributor by working harder (and perhaps learning more) than the next writer.

Marcus Thames is also one of those guys. I like Marcus Thames, and not just because he sent the Red Sox home with a crushing home run in the bottom of the ninth inning on Monday night. Thames is a journeyman. He started out in the Yankee system, having to overcome the label of being a non-prospect. Somehow, he climbed to the Bronx. He hit a home run in his first major league at-bat against a tall left-hander named Randy Johnson. Still, there were people who didn’t believe in him. Still, he had to prove himself. The Yankees didn’t believe. They traded him to the Rangers for an aging Ruben Sierra. The Rangers didn’t believe either. They granted him free agency, which paved the way for Thames to travel north and sign with the Tigers.

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A New York City Classic:

I see you out there on the ledge.  You watched Thursday night’s game with the Rays right up to the bitter end, then unfolded your life insurance policy, placed it neatly on the kitchen table, and calmly opened the window and took a seat next to the pigeons.  Or maybe I’m wrong; maybe I’m the only one on that ledge.

I put the TV on about five minutes after Andy Pettitte’s first pitch, and the screen came to life just in time to show me Carl Crawford and Ben Zobrist returning to the Tampa dugout, celebrating Zobrist’s home run and the Rays’ early 3-0 lead.  Pettitte followed that with a walk to Evan Longoria, but bounced back by getting a double-play ball and a strikeout to end the frame.  He made it through the second and third without event, but then gave up another home run to B.J. Upton in the fourth.  He clearly wasn’t sharp.

The Yankee hitters did their best to keep up through the early innings, but even when the score was close it was only a mirage.  Juan Miranda cut the lead to 3-2 with a second-deck two-run blast in the second inning, but the next couple runs were gift-wrapped, one unearned and the other undeserved.  In the third, Derek Jeter followed a Randy Winn single by dropping a sacrifice bunt that rolled untouched between the mound and third base.  Brett Gardner followed that with another bunt (natch), but this one produced a run when James Shields fired it over Peña’s head and down the right field line.  With none out, runners on second and third, and Teixeira, A-Rod, and Canó on the way, it really did look like the game was about to change.  As it turned out, Shields could’ve pulled a Satchel Paige and called his fielders in.  He snagged a tapper back to the mound from Teixeira, struck out A-Rod on a change-up that bounced in front of the plate, and fanned Canó on three pitches.  Move along.

If you were following the game on-line, you probably raised your eyebrows in the fourth inning when you read something like, “J Miranda tripled to deep center.”  The truth of the matter was that Miranda lifted a gentle fly ball that center fielder Upton never saw.  Upton immediately stood with both arms outstretched, asking for help that could never get there in time, as Miranda sprinted around second and slid into third.  Two batters later Randy Winn cashed in Upton’s gift with a sacrifice fly, tying the game at four apiece.

The tie score didn’t last long as a couple Tampa hits and a walk led to two more runs in the fifth, and Carlos Peña finally sent Pettitte to the showers when he led off the sixth with a home run.  If you’re looking for a silver lining in all this, it comes to you in the person of David Robertson, who relieved Pettitte and retired all six batters he faced in the sixth and seventh, striking out four of them.  The bad news, though, is that Chan Ho Park followed Robertson and allowed an eighth Tampa run, making the Yankees’ nightly ninth inning comeback attempt just a bit more difficult.  They could only manage two runs, settling for an 8-6 loss.

So the Rays leave town, surely pleased with themselves, and the Yanks are left with questions.  But it’s not as bad as it looks.  The Mets are up next, and they could be just what the doctor ordered.

The Yanks look to avoid a two-game series loss to the first-place Rays tonight. Here’s hoping Andy Pettitte has another good outing, nobody gets hoit, and the Yanks make like Benny Blanco from the Bronx and play like the World Champs they are, walking wounded and all.

Who is coming up? What’s the haps? As usual, the fellas over at Lo-Hud have it covered.

My brother, sister and I had bedtime when we were kids, through middle-school if I remember correctly. It got pushed later and later as we got older of course, but my mom was not into letting us stay up late during a school night to watch TV. So we’d start watching a movie and then have to go to bed halfway through. Mom would tuck us in, kiss us goodnight, and then go back to the living room of our small two-bedroom apartment and watch the rest of it.

She filled us in the next morning over breakfast, the story slowly coming back to her as she sipped her coffee, spread a triangle of Laughing Cow on a burnt piece of toast, her face still creased from the sheets, her voice still thick with sleep. Mom came to this country in 1967 from Belgium but never completely lost her French accent. When excited, her voice would get dramatically high, but not in the morning. It wasn’t sing-songy but full of melody, inflection and animation (nothing frustrated her more than watching a woman getting chased by the bad guys in a movie…”Kick him in the balls, kick him in the balls!” she’d say. “I don’t understand why they don’t just kick them in the balls.”)

In re-telling the movie, Ma never cut to the chase. She traced her way back into the story and then proceeded to give us a blow-by-blow account in painstaking detail. Sometimes she’d pause, not remembering the sequence of events, and spend five minutes sorting out what happened. Aloud. I would hang on her words, annoyed by her deliberate pace, not for one minute comprehending the way the female mind worked. I just wanted the payoff. What happened? The important stuff, not details of the scenery and costumes.

One movie that she told us about one morning was Cactus Flower, a movie I’ve never watched, but for a minute or two here or there, since. I like it better in my memory, listening to Mom, who loved Goldie Hawn and Walter Matthau, telling us what went down.

There was something about Goldie Hawn that she could relate to–they both had the ability to be light and fun, and were not afraid to laugh at themselves. They were both adorable when they were young but their looks changed as they got older and their voices got huskier. They were tested by life and proved not to be pushovers. Still, there was something, if not innocent, then refreshing and bubbly about both of them that links them together in my memory. I image that the Goldie Hawn of Cactus Flower brought my mother back to a time that I was too young to remember, when mom was young and new to this country. Before she had kids and her marriage got dark and ugly.

The Times on Stoner Cuisine. 

[Picture by Bags]

The media blitz promoting a re-issue of the classic Stones record Exile on Main Street has been a real turn-off–Keith Richards even hosted a quiz between innings on the HD TV at Yankee Stadium last weekend–but then again, as a friend said to me the other day, the Stones never have left a dollar on the table.

And, Exile is a great record, so it’s not all bad.

Neither is this:

“Right now in the standings, they should be comparing themselves to us,” [Matt] Garza said. “We’re three games up. They’re three games down. That’s what I see. Our numbers, staff-wise, are better than theirs . . . knock on wood. We’ve done our job. So why is there a need for comparison? They should be trying to compare to us, trying to do what we do because right now we have found a winning formula.”
(New York Post)

Matt Garza is a very good pitcher who does not lack confidence. He’s got a mouth, clearly, and he looks like a Herb, but that can be forgiven–being cocky isn’t the worst trait for a jock, and having zero fashion sense comes with the territory. (Glad to see Mr. Rodriguez has finally given up frosting his hair.) 

Oh, yeah, Garza has never won more than 11 games in a season and is 32-35 for his career.

He’s right, of course, the Rays are no joke but last I checked the Yanks are still the defending World Champs. And oh yeah, and it’s May.

But I like that he got a rise out of me–tough to do, I know. After all, there isn’t much to dislike about the Rays. Okay, Evan Longoria and James Shields and Garza have an arrogant countenance that is easy to root against when they are playing your team, but otherwise, how are you going to hate Joe Maddon? What’s dispicable about Carl Crawford? The Rays are Darlings, and deservedly so.

Kudos will go to Garza if he’s still talking tough come October…

On my out of my apartment building this morning, I run into an older guy carrying a laundry bag.

“Looks like a beautiful day out there,” he says.

“Sure does.”

“You going to work?”

What am I Jeff Lebowski? “Sure am,” I say.

“That’s a sure way to spoil a good day,” he says. “Or as my father liked to say, ‘Work is the curse of the drinking class.'”

My Old Man would have raised his glass and gotten a chuckle out of that one.

[Picture by Bags]

So, Jorge Posada’s achy foot that got hit by a foul ball off the bat of Michael Cuddyer on Sunday? Yeah, it’s broken. He’s out three to four weeks. Hey, but he wasn’t playing anyway, so at least putting Jorge on the disabled list frees up a roster spot for . . . a backup catcher that will never play? Right. And Nick Swisher . . . still isn’t ready.

Oh, and Marcus Thames stepped on his own bat while running to first on a single during Wednesday night’s game and sprained his ankle. Oh, but he’s not going on the DL. No, his x-rays were negative and he’s day-to-day. So, the Yankees will still have two unusable players on their bench tomorrow and heading into Queens this weekend, where their pitchers will have to hit.

Yeah, it was that kind of night for the Yankees. Jason Bartlett hit A.J. Burnett’s second pitch for his first home run of the season. Brett Gardner got picked off in the bottom of the first. Burnett gave up a run in the third without allowing a hit by walking the ninth-place hitter, hitting Carl Crawford in the back foot, walking Ben Zobrist, then giving up a sac fly to Evan Longoria.

Hey, but that could have gone worse, what with Longo up with the bags juiced, right? Oh right, it did go worse in the fourth, when Burnett coughed up four runs. That inning that started with a pair of infield singles and a double steal, with Hank Blalock of all people on the back end, followed by a two-RBI double by Rays catcher John Jaso, a Francisco Cervelli throwing error that moved Jaso to third, an RBI double off the right field wall by Crawford, yet another walk to Zobrist, and an RBI single by, hey, look at that: Evan Longoria.

The Yankees eeked out a run in the bottom of the fourth when  Rays starter Wade Davis issued a leadoff walk to Alex Rodriguez and Rodriguez came around to score on a Robinson Cano single and a Cervelli sac fly. Rodriguez later doubled the Yankee tally by leading off the sixth with a solo homer that made it 6-2 Rays, but Derek Jeter ended that inning by grounding out with the bases loaded, and Boone Logan gave that run back in the eighth, giving up a walk and an RBI double to the only two men he faced.

Down 7-2, Joe Girardi broke the glass on Mark Melancon, and Melancon returned the favor by shattering the Yankees’ hopes completely by coughing up three more runs (the first of which was charged to Logan) on a series of singles and a sac fly.

Down 10-2, the Yankees were in the process of going down meekly in the bottom of the ninth, Randy Winn grounding out on a 1-2 count, Derek Jeter grounding out on the first pitch he saw, when suddenly they found a new life. Eight runs behind and down to their final out, the Yankees rallied against Tampa Bay longman Andy Sonnanstine.

Brett Gardner singled to center. Mark Teixeira drew a four-pitch walk. Tex beat the flip to second on an Alex Rodriguez grounder to short that was ruled an infield hit and loaded the bases. Robinson Cano singled home Gardner. Francisco Cervelli walked on five pitches to force in Teixeira. Ramiro Peña, who had been the only available man on the bench and thus came in for Thames in the sixth, hit a dying quail to center that ricocheted off the glove of B.J. Upton, who lost track of the ball long enough for both Rodriguez and Cano to score and Peña to reach second on what was scored a single and an error.

That brought Juan Miranda up one baserunner shy of bringing the tying run to the plate, but Joe Maddon killed the mojo by taking Sonanstine out of the game and replacing him with Joaquin Benoit, who struck out Juan Miranda to kill the rally and earn an extremely unexpected save.

I expect the Yankees will move Nick Johnson to the 60-day DL on Thursday to create room on the 40-man roster for veteran backup Chad Moeller, who will play sparingly, though Robby Hammock, who could double as a utility man having played all four corner positions in the majors, would be an even better option. Jesus Montero, who is struggling at the plate and behind it and was recently benched for loafing, won’t be considered, nor will Austin Romine, largely because Cervelli is already well-established as the starter. Also look for the Yankees to shed a pitcher, likely Melancon, in favor of an outfielder, likely Greg Golson, who can be recalled as an injury replacement for Posada.

By the way, everyone saying they’ve never seen a player step on a bat and injure himself before is forgetting about John Olerud, who did just that in Game Three of the 2004 ALCS, leaving first base in the hands of Tony Clark until the seventh inning of Game Seven, when his return was too little too late. Talk about your bad omens . . .

The Tampa Bay Rays have the best record in baseball and a three-game lead on the second-best Yankees in the American League East. At 28-11, the Rays are on a 116-win pace, and their run differential suggest they’ve been even better than that.

This trick is that, though the Rays have indeed been scoring a lot of runs, they’ve not been hitting much. Tampa Bay is second in the AL and third in the majors (behind the two defending pennant winners) in runs scored per game with 5.31, but they rank 17th in slugging, 18th in on-base percentage, 20th in batting average, and 19th in VORP. According to Baseball Prospectus’s Third-Order Winning Percentage, which figures a team’s expected record from run differential but takes the extra step of figuring their runs from their component parts (hits, walks, outs, etc.), the Rays should be “just” 23-16. That .590 winning percentage still puts them on a 96-win pace, but flips the standings with the Yankees three-games ahead at 26-13, a game better than the Bombers actual record and on a 108-win pace. That’s something to chew on the next two nights as the Yankees, even with a two-game sweep can’t catch the Rays in this series.

Looking at the roster, the only Rays who are hitting are Evan Longoria (raking at .318/.386/.596) and Carl Crawford (putting up a solid walk year at .313/.372/.510 with ten steals, though he’s been caught four times). Many expected a strong walk-year performance from Carlos Peña, but the man the Yankees let go has turned back into a pumpkin, hitting a mere .191/.310/.344. Ben Zobrist and Jason Bartlett are proving their 2009 power surges to be flukes. After combining for 41 homers a year ago, the don’t have a single long ball between them and are hitting a combined .257/.327/.346 on the season. Similarly, bounce-back candidates B.J. Upton and Pat Burrell haven’t bounced back. Upton is doing a fair job of replicating his miserable 2009 performance minus about 20 points of batting average, and the fork sticking out of Burrell’s back was causing so many issues with airport metal detectors that the Rays just up and released him last week, replacing him with former Ranger Hank Blalock. Job shares at second base and catcher haven’t produced much either (.243/.310/.400 and .231/.336/.300, respectively).

Despite all that, the Rays have scored nearly 20 percent more runs than they should have thanks to some team speed and clutch hitting (.301/.378/.485 as a team with runners in scoring position compared to .221/.302/.351 with the bases empty). Don’t expect that to continue (in fact, it has already begun to tail off a bit as the Rays were leading the majors in runs scored not that long ago). That puts the onus on the pitching and defense.

Despite all that, the Rays are on a record win pace. Why? Pitching and defense, of course. Buoyed by the most efficient defense in the American League (in turning balls in play into outs, that is), the Rays have allowed a major league low 2.97 runs per game. To put that in perspective, no team in either league has allowed fewer than three runs per game over an entire season since 1972, when the Orioles and A’s both did it the year before the implementation of the designated hitter. Last year, the Dodgers and Giants were the stingiest teams in baseball in 2009 and both allowed 3.77 runs per game, as did the Blue Jays, who were the stingiest in 2008.

Rookie Wade Davis, who faces A.J. Burnett tonight, has the highest ERA of any of the Rays five starters. That inflated number is 3.38. As a group, the Rays’s starters, and they’ve only used five of them, have gone 21-6 with a 2.58 ERA while averaging nearly 6 2/3 innings per start. Three of those losses have been charged to Davis, and the Rays scored a total of five runs in those three loses. The Rays’ bullpen, meanwhile, has been merely the fifth best in baseball (by both ERA and WXRL).

The Rays can’t keep up that pace of run prevention, and they can’t keep scoring runs via clutch hitting alone, so it seems clear they won’t continue on their record winning pace. The only question is how much will they fall off their current pace, and can the Yankees take advantage. The two games this week will tell us a little, but not enough.

Jorge Posada is going for an MRI on his foot. Nick Swisher is still out with his sore biceps problem. Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera both threw about 30 pitches last night. Sergio Mitre is also unavailable having started on Sunday. So, Mark Melancon remains in the Yankees’ eight-man bullpen and the bench consists of Ramiro Peña. If the Yanks can split these two games, they should be pleased. Get ’em next time, boys. Let the rest of the league (the Rays have yet to face the Twins, Tigers, or Rangers) and the law of averages soften them up a bit first.

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The Kiss, By Auguste Rodin (1889)

[I’ve wanted to incorporate a regular movie column to the music, art, and food features here at the Banter for more than a minute now, so here goes… My good pal, Matt Blankman, who is mad for movies, will contribute his take, as will some of the other regular Banter contributors. Here’s our debut, cue the lights…Alex Belth]

I’ve spent the last few days enjoying a rare moment of pop culture serendipity which has placed my brain squarely in the 1970s, the decade of my birth. First there’s been Josh Wilker’s fantastic new book Cardboard Gods (which we’ll assume you’re already familiar with to some extent if you’ve been keeping up with the Banter). Josh’s memoir isn’t just largely set in the 1970s, but it’s obviously shaped by it as well, and he sincerely attempts to make sense out of those strange times, how they came to pass and what they meant (and continue to mean) to him.

Soon after seeing Josh do a reading from “Cardboard Gods” last week, I found myself at home watching a new PBS documentary on the John V. Lindsay years (1966-1973) in New York City. To look back at those years now, with clear eyes, one can see many ways that the hope and exuberance of the 1960s gave way to the despair and confusion of the 1970s. How the New Frontier and Great Society faded and left us with gas lines, custom vans, pet rocks and malaise.

Finally, I watched a film from 1971 I’d never seen, The Hospital, which felt like a fictional illustration of so many of the issues present in both the Lindsay doc and Wilker’s book. The Hospital was written by Paddy Chayefsky, who was still enough of a big deal in the early 1970s that he may have been the only screenwriter ever to get his name above the title. Chayefsky’s script was directed by Arthur Hiller, a director who managed to have a lengthy career marked by a number of “big” movies and yet never once seemed to have any discernable personal style. (I’d call him a hack, except he always displayed a knack for comedic timing and knew to trust his script and cast. He may not have been much of an artist, but he wasn’t incompetent.)

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