Our pal Steve Lombardi dubbed today’s pitching match up “The Battle of the Vowels–Chacon v Chacin. Let us all hope that ‘O’ is the winner.”
I wish I had an overwhelming feeling of confidence about this one but I don’t. How long can Chacon keep pitching as well as he has? Can the Yankee offense beat-up on the impressive young Chacin again? These questions and more will be answered this afternoon on an absolutely gorgeous day for baseball in the Bronx.
After retiring the side in the second inning last night Mike Mussina walked off the mound. Jorge Posada rolled the ball in front of home plate as catchers usually do. However, Mussina stopped in his tracks and went back to collect the ball. The ball was meaningful because he had just completed the 3,000th inning of his career. He had a small smile on his face and looked both sheepish and proud. I would like to think that Mussina has a shot at the Hall of Fame but without a 20-win season or a Cy Young under his belt, I just don’t think the writers will ever vote him in. Recently I’ve been wondering how he stacks up with his contemporaries. I figure Maddux, Clemens, Johnson, Pedro, and probably Glavine are all locks for the Hall. Yesterday, I asked Jay Jaffe how Mussina compares with the next level of accomplished hurlers: John Smotlz, Curt Schilling, Kevin Brown and Boomer Wells. Jay not only looked into it but he devoted a post to it. Head on over to The Futility Infielder to see what he came up with.
While Bernie Williams will have to scrap to keep his lifetime average over .300, Jorge Posada must contend with the growing perception that he is on the decline. Posada obviously prefers to look at his 2005 season simply as an off-year, but at 34, it is not unreasonable to be concerned. Anthony McCarron reports:
Two major-league scouts who have watched Posada regularly both say his bat speed seems to have dipped. “He used to be able to turn on anybody’s fastball, but he has to cheat sometimes now,” says one.
“I think he’s somewhat diminished skill-wise, which is natural, because he’s been catching so long,” the scout adds. “He’s still a good clutch performer. He was an elite guy for a long time. He’s no longer elite, but he’s above average. You could ask the 30 clubs in baseball and most would rather have Posada than the guy they do have. But it’s no longer all of them.
That sounds about right. Though Posada, a converted infielder, got a late start as a catcher, all these years playing in October would seem to even things out. Not only that:
[Yankee manager, Joe] Torre and [Fox anaylst, Tim] McCarver both note that Posada has much more to deal with when it comes to handling a pitching staff. The Yankees have cranked through starting pitchers with incredible frequency over Posada’s tenure – they have used 14 different starters this year alone – and he is charged with learning them all.
“It’s doubled his workload, at least,” McCarver says. “He’s trying to get to know these guys quickly. That didn’t happen 30 years ago. The decade that Jorge has had with the Yankees has been much harder, from a mental standpoint, than Bench with the Reds or (Carlton) Fisk with the Red Sox or White Sox.”
You never know when a player will start to fall off, or if their decline will be sudden or a long, slow fade to black. Hopefully for the Yankees, Posada still has some gas left in the tank.
“It was a good game all the way around, and I don’t ever want to play it again.” Joe Torre
My girlfriend Emily loves baseball. She enjoys listening to the first couple of innings on the radio as she drives home from work. Then she settles in with me to catch the rest of it when he gets home. Em appreciates the Yankees win or lose and tolerates my pouting, shouting and other assorted pessimistic behavior as the game unfolds. Quite frankly, she still doesn’t understand why I let myelf get so upset when things don’t go well, and perhaps she never will. But most of the time now she lets me act the fool without much commentary. A typical scene goes like this: A Yankee hitter has two strikes on him. I predict a strikeout before the pitch reaches the plate, sometimes standing up and walking out of the room as I’m speaking. Emily always thinks the Yankees will do okay in the end. She also believes that it’s plain bad karma to articulate negative thoughts like I do. But she’s got a kind heart, bless her. Whenever something good does go down, as it did last night, she doesn’t gloat or rub it in. It’s gotten to the point where she doesn’t even say anything. I just glare at her out of the corner of my eye and she gives me a look that says “I told you so, you big dope.”
Before the Yankees pulled out a 5-4 victory in the bottom of the ninth last night, I was in fine form, gloom-and-doom all the way. As Joe Torre said about the current wildcard chase, “It’s good for baseball, it’s bad for my stomach.” Last night, the Yankees seemingly wasted a good outing from Al Leiter (they can’t expect him to pitch much better), saw Taynon Sturtze and Mariano Rivera come up lame in relief, Derek Jeter muff a difficult but makable play in the ninth, Alex Rodriguez fail with runners in scoring position in the eighth, Gary Sheffield go hitless on the night, and yet they still pulled out the win. Hideki Matsui came through with a clutch home run in the ninth and Felix Escalona had the game-winning knock later in the inning.
“How do you explain that?” Johnson said, clearly exasperated. “That’s the one thing I’m going to walk away from this game not understanding.”
(N.Y.Daily News)
When Randy Johnson pitches a complete game like he did yesterday, chances are the news is good for Yankee fans. Johnson looked good early on against the White Sox. Then came the fourth inning. Johnson allowed consecutive home runs to Iguchi (fastball away, hit over the right field fence), Rowland (fastball at the shoulders hacked over the right centerfield wall), and Konerko (flat slider, low and over the plate, deposited deep into the left field bleachers). After two more hits, back up catcher Chris Widger woodchopped another fastball ball up between the shoulders and eyes for a three-run dinger:
“He makes that pitch, and 99 out of 100 times, there’s no way I even put that ball in play,” Widger said. “That just happened to be the one where I did. I hit it solid, but it was a two-strike swing, and I didn’t know it was going. Shoot, after I hit it, I was just happy that I made contact and put it in the outfield, to be honest with you.
“I’m not that good, especially. Even the good hitters aren’t going to hit that pitch very often. He put it right where he wanted to at 94 miles an hour. Somehow, the barrel of my bat hit it. I’m not going to question why it happened. I’m just happy that it did.”
Six runs before you could blink. Rowand and Widger took defensive swings, but they were both strong enough to muscle the ball over the fence. It was the first time in Johnson’s career that he allowed back-to-back-to-back homers, and the first time in his career that he’d ever allowed four in one inning. He’s given up 29 on the year, one shy of his season record.
For true drama, it would have been fitting if Al Leiter pitched against El Duque Hernandez yesterday. Now that would be an endurance test. Instead, Hernandez was done-in by a few mistakes, and was also thoroughly out-pitched by Shawn Chacon as the Yankees handed the White Sox their seventh consecutive loss. Final score: New York 5, Chicago 0. The Bombers gained a game in both the AL East and wildcard standings as both Boston and Oakland were defeated.
After retiring the side in the first, El Duque started the second by throwing a pitch behind Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez wiggled as if suddenly being attacked by a bee; his response was almost comic. Rodriguez has handled El Duque in the past, so this was the Cuban righthander’s not-so-subtle message to beware. El Duque was immediately warned by the home plate umpire Larry Vanover.
“I didn’t think it was an accident. He has too good of command. There was a purpose for it and I’m not sure what it was,” Yankees manager Joe Torre said. “But I thought Larry Vanover did the right thing.”
(ESPN)
Rodriguez got under a fly ball and flew out to centerfield. Hideki Matsui was the next batter and he took a 2-2 fastball on the outside corner for a ball. El Duque walked off the mound and went directly to Vanor for a discussion–Vanor’s strike zone was incredibly stingy–not something you see every day. (Heck, even Jason Giambi of all people, would argue balls-and-strikes before the game was through.) At the end of the inning, three-up/three-down, the two spoke again and everything looked to be okay between them. But when Duque returned to the dugout he smashed his mitt down on the top rail.
Mike Mussina out-dueled Jon Garland in Chicago last night as the Yankees beat the White Sox, 3-1. The Yanks did not gain any ground as both Oakland and Boston won, and the White Sox lost their sixth in a row. Moose threw 115 pitches over seven innings and had his good stuff working last night: crisp fastball mixed with sharp breaking pitches. Garland threw 120 pitches over seven, but never dominated. If the Yanks did not score much, they at least put together stubborn at bats, making Garland work for his outs. Chicago is excellent in the field, no wonder their pitchers have done so well this year–Joe Crede made a couple of nifty plays at third last night.
Bernie Williams had two hits and an RBI batting in the two-hole, while Robinson Cano collected a couple of hits himself from the ninth slot. Gary Sheffield had an RBI single as well. Flash Gordon worked around a one-out hit in the eighth, and Mariano Rivera pitched a one-two-three ninth to earn save number 33.
One of the drawbacks to being a Yankee fan is having to watch the home nine play the Devil Rays nineteen times a year. This year things have been especially bad as the D-Rays have not only been their usual last-place selves, but have been beating up on the Yankees, holding a 7-3 advantage in the season series thus far. Here’s a quick summary of those first ten games:
The Yankees and Devil Rays split a two-game series in the Bronx back in late April. In the first game, the Yankees abused Rob Bell to win 19-8 behind a Jaret Wright who did everything he could to lose. Less than a month later, Bell was put on the DL for “personal and psychological issues.” He has since been activated and sent to the minors. Wright, meanwhile will make just his sixth start of the year tonight after more than three months on the disabled list with a shoulder injury.
The next night Hideo Nomo stifled the Yankee bats, while Randy Johnson gave up a pair of homers to Eduardo Perez as the Rays won 6-2. Johnson has since missed his most recent start with inflammation in his lumbar spine and is questionable for tomorrow. Nomo, meanwhile was released by the D-Rays and is currently attempting a comeback in the Yankees’ system.
Two weeks later in Tampa, the Yankees hit what appeared to be their nadir. In the first game, Andy Phillips struck out five times in a 6-2 win over Scott Kazmir and has been blacklisted by Joe Torre ever since. Following the game, Brian Cashman dropped the bombshell that Tony Womack would move to left field, pushing Hideki Matsui into center field, giving the second base job to rookie Robinson Cano, and benching Bernie Williams for the forseable future.
With their new line-up in place, the Yankees proceeded to drop the next three games to the Rays by a combined score of 28-14. In the third game of the series, the Yankees skipped Randy Johnson in the rotation due to concerns over a sore groin. In his place, they started a rookie straight out of double-A Trenton named Sean Henn. Henn was rocked for six runs (five earned) on seven hits and a pair of walks in just 2 1/3 innings. After the game, Henn confessed that his knees were shaking on the mound. He was then sent down to triple-A Columbus.
When the Rays and Yankees met again in the Bronx in late June, it was Henn, back up to fill in for Kevin Brown, who took the mound. Henn faired “better” in his second big-league start, but walked seven men in just 4 2/3 innings, throwing just 47 percent of a staggering 98 pitches for strikes. Against Henn and since-jettisoned reliever Paul Quantrill, the Rays got out to a 5-0 lead behind a stellar outing by Casey Fossum, which was just enough to hold off a four-run rally by the Yankees against the since-demoted Lance Carter in the eighth.
The next night brought another Johnson-Nomo confrontation, with Nomo again coming out on top thanks to Johnson turning in one of his worst starts in recent memory (seven runs on eight hits–three of them homers by Damon Hollins, Kevin Cash and Jonny Gomes–in just three innings). This time, however, the Yankee eighth-inning rally tallied thirteen runs, the second time this year that the Yankees had scored thirteen runs in a single inning against Tampa, and the Bombers emerged with a 20-11 victory.
The next night a 3-2 Yankee lead was erased by a three-run Nick Green home run off Carl Pavano in the seventh, giving the Rays a 5-3 win. In the capper, the Rays got six runs off Chien-Ming Wang to take a 6-4 lead behind Mark Hendrickson, then added a three spot against Tom Gordon in the ninth for good measure to win 9-4.
That most recent series in the Bronx was particularly disheartening as the discrepancy between the Yankees’ home record and the Devil Rays’ road record entering the series was striking:
Yanks Home: 22-13 (.629)
Rays Road: 5-28 (.152)
Entering the current three-game series in Tampa, the home and away records of the two combatants tells a very different story. As of this past Friday:
Rays Home: 28-28
Yanks Road: 26-29
Sigh.
We’ll be back in action tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s another open thread for ya.
With their 6-5 victory over the Rangers last night, the Yankees have now participated in five straight one-run games, going 3-2 in that stretch. The Yankees are 7-5 in one-run games since the All-Star break and 16-12 (.571) in one-run contests on the season, a pretty solid record. Still it sure would be nice if they’d win a laugher every now and again.
Last night the problem was Al Leiter, who threw 125 pitches (only 54 percent strikes) through just five innings, allowing three earned runs on seven hits and three walks. Derek Jeter was part of the problem as well as, with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the second, Jeter bobbled a Michael Young grounder, then threw wide of Robinson Cano at second, picking up a pair of errors and allowing a pair of runs to score in the process. Fortunately, Jeter was also part of the solution, hitting the first pitch from reliver C.J. Wilson, who replaced an even less effective Chris Young, for what proved to be the game-winning home run in the bottom of the fourth. In a complete reversal of Thursday night’s game, the Yankee bullpen sparkled as Felix Rodriguez, Wayne Franklin, Tanyon Sturtze (picking up the save) and, in a creative bit of managing by Joe Torre, Shawn Chacon on his throw day, combined to allow just three baserunners across four scoreless innings to nail down the win.
The Rangers are calling up Juan Dominguez to start today’s game against Mike Mussina. Dominguez will be making his first major league start of the year. No word yet on how they’ll make room for the 25-year-old righty on the roster.
Pardon Our Crumbs
Some of you may have noticed the service problems we experienced on Wednesday and Thursday. We apologize for that, but hope that you understand that Baseball Toaster and its support software Fairpole have been created from scratch and there are still a few kinks to work out. The good news is that part of the reason for the mid-week down time was that our Creator, Ken Arneson was working on a way to get this site to load faster and work more efficiently, which is good news for everybody, but especially those of you with slower connections.
Unfortunately, now that we’re back up and running smoothly, Bronx Banter is going to have to go into quasi-hibernation over the weekend as both Alex and I are going to have some difficulty getting on-line for a variety of reasons. The first casualty of this was a game-wrap for last night’s 9-8 win over the Rangers, a game which combined a sparkling performance from emergency starter Scott Proctor (three hits and no walks in five innings, three strikeouts and 71 percent of just 76 pitches for strikes), a collapse by the key members of the Yankee bullpen (Alan Embree, Felix Rodriguez, Tanyon Sturtze and Tom Gordon, who combined to allow five runs on six hits and four walks in just 2 2/3 innings, the big blow being a three-run homer by Michael Young of Sturtze in the fifth), a game-winning home run by Derek Jeter, and yet another dominant outing by Mariano river, picking up a four-out save the day after pitching two-innings against the White Sox.
Prior to last night’s Yankee victory, the Yankees and Rangers were tied 3-3 in their season series, each team having taken two of three in the other’s ballpark. That the road team won the previous two series between these teams is a bit fluky, as both teams are significantly better at home. Having dropped series to the Indians and White Sox already this month, the Yankees have to hope that probability wins out in the current set as, with one victory already in the bag, it would behoove them to take two of the remaining three.
As for the Rangers themselves, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I assembled the Texas roster prior to yesterday’s game, but Michael Kay confirmed it during the YES broadcast: the Rangers are carrying thirteen pitchers, limiting themselves to a three-man bench. Earlier in the year I was dismayed by the number of American League teams that were carrying twelve pitchers and a four-man bench (nearly all of them), but this is just stunning.
Worst of all, it’s not as if the Rangers have a Chone Figgins or Ryan Freel on their bench. They have a 39-year-old catcher who hasn’t posted an on-base percentage above .310 since 2000 or a slugging percentage above .410 since 1999, a rookie futility infielder, and Passaic’s own Mark DeRosa,, a career .266/.318/.371 hitter. Meanwhile, among their thirteen pitchers are the ghosts of James Baldwin and Steve Karsay. Yes, the Rangers have a formidable every-day line-up, but I find it hard to believe that their minor league system is so barren that it couldn’t provide the big club with a single hitter that would be a more valuable part of this team than James Baldwin, who is with his seventh team of the last five years.
Tonight Al Leiter will attempt to justify Joe Torre’s decision to send Aaron Small to the bullpen, while the 6’10” Dallas native Chris Young takes the hill for the Rangers.
The Yankees suffered another heartbreaking loss yesterday afternoon, dropping the rubber game of their series against the major league leading Chicago White Sox by a score of 2-1 in ten innings. The decisive blow came against Mariano Rivera in the top of the tenth. Following a strikeout of John Flaherty’s predecessor, Chris Widger, Juan Uribe fouled off four Rivera pitches, taking two others for balls in the process, then lifted Mo’s seventh pitch to deep center field where the ball evaded Bernie Williams for a one-out triple.
Lead-off man Scott Podsednik, who lead off the series with a bunt base hit against Mike Mussina, then took strike one, fouled off a bunt on an apparent safety squeeze attempt, and grounded to Robinson Cano at second. Cano fired home, but, according to reader Johnny C:
Uribe got a great jump off third and when Cano made a decent throw home to Posada, he was barely safe. You could say that the throw was a little to the first base side, or that Posada didn’t straddle the plate the way Scioscia would have, but it’s a moot point. Good play on Uribe’s part.
Credit Ozzie Guillen’s small-ball tactics for this win, as the first White Sox run came when a Carl Everett double cashed in a bunt base-hit by Pablo Ozuna in the third. That and Uribe’s mad dash for home were all the White Sox would need as Freddy Garcia cruised through eight innings, allowing just one unearned run on six hits and a walk.
The lone Yankee run came right away in the first inning. Derek Jeter lead off with a infield single to shortstop and moved to second on a throwing error by Uribe. He then moved to third on a Cano groundout and scored on a single by Gary Sheffield.
And that was it. The Yankees were held scoreless by Garcia and relievers Neal Cotts and Dustin Hermanson for the remaining nine innings, putting just seven more men on base via two walks and five hits, all singles. The only time the Yankees even mounted a legitimate threat was in the fourth when Alex Rodriguez and Hideki Matsui lead off with consecutive singles and moved to second and third on a Giambi groundout only to be stranded by a Bernie Williams strikeout and a John Flaherty pop up.
The Yankees have won a number of 4-3 and 4-2 games this season (eight to be exact), but only once have they come away victorious from a game in which both teams scored fewer than three runs. They did it for a second time last night, despite Mike Mussina working inefficiently and hitting another fifth-inning pot hole.
Thing started unusually with Scott Podsednik reaching on a bunt single to lead off the game only to be thrown out stealing on the first pitch to Tadahito Iguchi. Derek Jeter then launched El Duque’s second pitch in the bottom of the first to the gap in left only to have Aaron Rowand break directly to where the ball was hit and make a full extension catch on a dead run before flopping onto the warning track. Three pitches later, Rowand caught a Robinson Cano drive on the run on the warning track in the right center gap. Hernandez then walked Sheffield on six pitches and Alex Rodriguez hit one where Rowand couldn’t get to it, half-way back in the left field box seats. 2-0 Yankees.
In the top of the second, a pair of White Sox singles back over the mound put runners on first and second with no outs. Mussina then struck out Jermaine Dye and Rowand gave the Yankees their two outs back by grounding into a double play.
The Yankees added to their lead in the bottom of the second. Tino Martinez reached on a one-out seeing eye single past Iguchi. Tony Womack, who has started the last two games because Bernie Williams is nursing a sore shoulder, followed with an opposite field slap double, just his second extra base hit since May 13 and his first double since April 26 (Womack has seven extra base hits on the season, four of them came in April). Tino moved to third on Womack’s double and scored on a groundout by Jeter for the third Yankee run. That would be all the Yankees would get. It would also be all they would need.
Mussina pitched a 1-2-3 third and got three pop-ups around a one-out Pierzynski single in the fourth. Then came the fifth. Jermaine Dye lead off with a clean single in the hole into left. Rowand followed with a double to the left field gap that both Matsui and Womack misplayed. As Dye came home with the first Chicago run, the relay throw veered toward the White Sox dugout. Rowand them moved to third on a Crede groundout to Cano and scored on a Uribe sac fly to Matsui. After having completely imploded in the fifth inning of his last start, Mussina gave up two-thirds of the Yankee lead in the fifth inning of this one, while laboring his way to 91 pitches, finally striking out Podsednik with a full count to end the inning.
Mussina then retired the first two men in the sixth before giving up a bloop single to Konerko and a ground-rule double to Timo Perez, who, testifying to the poor quality of the Chicago bench, started at designated hitter with Jurassic Carl Everett still nursing a groin injury. Mussina then battled Jermaine Dye over eight pitches, getting ahead with strike one, then 1-2, before Dye worked the count full, fouling off a pair of pitches in the process. Finally, Mussina’s 123rd pitch of the night came in over the middle of the plate, just above the knee, and broke inside and down as Dye swung over it for strike three, ending the White Sox threat and Mussina’s night.
After that, the Yankees’ Big Three did their job in style. Sturtze needed eight pitches (seven strikes) to work a 1-2-3 seventh. Gordon needed just eight more tosses to work a perfect eighth. Finally, Mariano Rivera threw seven strikes, not allowing a ball past the infield and blowing away Rowand with a high heater to nail down the 3-2 win, converting his career-best 30th consecutive save opportunity.
Chicago White Sox
2005 Record: 72-38 (.655)
2005 Pythagorean Record: 66-44 (.600)
Manager: Ozzie Guillen
General Manager: Kenny Williams
Ballpark (2004 park factors): U.S. Cellular Field
Who’s replaced whom?
Scott Podsednik replaced Carlos Lee
Jermaine Dye replaced John Valentin
Tadahito Iguchi replaced Willie Harris (minors)
Carl Everett replaced Magglio Ordonez
A.J. Pierzynski replaced Ben Davis (minors) and Miguel Olivo
Geoff Blum replaced Ross Gload (minors)
Orlando Hernandez replaced Scott Schoeneweis
Dustin Hermanson replaced Billy Koch and a chunk of Jon Adkins
Luis Vizcaino replaced Mike Jackson
Bobby Jenks replaced Shingo Takatsu (released)
Current Roster:
1B – Paul Konerko
2B – Tadahito Iguchi
SS – Juan Uribe
3B – Joe Crede
C – A.J. Pierzynski
RF – Jermaine Dye
CF – Aaron Rowand
LF – Scott Podsednik
DH – Carl Everett
Bench:
S – Geoff Blum (IF)
L – Timo Perez (OF)
R – Pablo Ozuna (IF)
R – Chris Widger (C)
Rotation:
L – Mark Buehrle
R – Jon Garland
R – Orlando Hernandez
R – Jose Contreras
R – Freddy Garcia
Bullpen:
R – Dustin Hermanson
L – Neal Cotts
R – Cliff Politte
L – Damaso Marte
R – Luis Vizcaino
R – Bobby Jenks
R – Jon Adkins
DL: R – Frank Thomas (DH)
Typical Line-up
L – Scott Podsednik (LF)
R – Tadahito Iguchi (2B)
S – Carl Everett (DH)
R – Paul Konerko (1B)
L – A.J. Pierzynski (C)
R – Jermaine Dye (RF)
R – Aaron Rowand (CF)
R – Joe Crede (3B)
R – Juan Uribe (SS)
Toronto Blue Jays
2005 Record: 55-52 (.514)
2005 Pythagorean Record: 61-46 (.574)
Manager: John Gibbons
General Manager: J.P. Ricciardi
Ballpark (2004 park factors): Rogers Centre (106/105)
Who’s replaced whom?
Aaron Hill has replaced John McDonald (Tigers)
Scott Downs has replaced Roy Halladay (DL)
Dustin McGowan has replaced Ted Lilly (DL)
Brandon League has replaced Matt Whiteside (minors)
Current Roster:
1B – Eric Hinske
2B – Orlando Hudson
SS – Russ Adams
3B – Corey Koskie
C – Gregg Zaun
RF – Alexis Rios
CF – Vernon Wells
LF – Frank Catalanotto
DH – Shea Hillenbrand
Bench:
R – Reed Johnson (OF)
R – Aaron Hill (IF)
R – Frank Menechino (IF)
R – Ken Huckaby (C)
Rotation:
L – Gustavo Chacin
L – Scott Downs
R – Josh Towers
R – David Bush
R – Dustin McGowan
Bullpen:
R – Miguel Batista
R – Justin Speier
L – Scott Schoeneweis
R – Jason Frasor
R – Vinnie Chulk
R – Pete Walker
R – Brandon League
DL:
R – Roy Halladay
L – Ted Lilly
Typical Line-up
L – Russ Adams (SS)
L – Frank Catalanotto (LF)
R – Vernon Wells (CF)
R – Shea Hillenbrand (DH)
L – Corey Koskie (3B)
S – Gregg Zaun (C)
L – Eric Hinske (1B)
R – Alexis Rios (RF)
S – Orlando Hudson (2B)
The batboy that the Cleveland Indians provide to visiting ballclubs at Jacobs field is a portly, Asian, Ohio State student who keeps the cleanest dugout in the major leagues. According to the YES broadcasters, the Yankees have absolutely fallen in love with this bulbous batboy who actually sweeps the visiting dugout when the team is in the field. Their fondness for the kid was on display in the bottom of the sixth inning last night when, as he swept his way past Randy Johnson, the Big Unit stood up and took over for him, sweeping sunflower seed shells and such into a neat pile, then going to grab a dust pan.
Johnson didn’t actually pitch last night, but thanks in part to the old reverse jinx, he was the only player on either side of last night’s contest with a broom in his hand as the Yankees fended off the Cleveland sweep with a surprising ninth-inning rally, winning the final game of the series 4-3 (curiously the same score my softball team–which almost never triumphs–won by on Wednesday night, also overcoming a 3-2 deficit in our last at-bat).
As the final score might indicate, the game was something of a pitcher’s duel, at least through the first six innings. Kevin Millwood was fantastic, needing just 94 pitches, 76 percent of them strikes, to get through eight innings (8 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 8 K). Shawn Chacon was less efficient, needing 104 pitches (a hair under 60 percent of them strikes) to get through six plus a batter.
Still, perhaps due to my low expectations, I was impressed by Chacon’s performance. Despite working deep into counts, Chacon–who wears his uniform baggy and his hat slightly to the side with the brim almost flat in the style of the younger generation of African-American ballplayers such as the Marlins’ Dontrelle Willis and Juan Pierre, the Indians’ C.C. Sabathia and Coco Crisp, and the Mets’ Mike Cameron–was working close to the strike zone and making hitters miss with a very effective curve ball. The extra-wide (but consistent) strike zone of home plate umpire Bob Davison surely helped, as Chacon walked just two men while striking out four (three of them looking at pitches on or off the corners) but, although it was technically earned, the only run that scored on his watch was entirely the fault of his defense.
With starting pitchers Al Leiter and Mike Mussina having handed over the first two games of the Yankees’ series at the Jake, is there anyone out there who has confidence that Shawn Chacon won’t do the same tonight?
Remember, Chacon is 0-15 with a 6.89 ERA for his career after July 31. MLB.com adds the fact that Chacon has “a 2-20 record since the 2003 All-Star break,” and “will still be seeking only his third win since June 23, 2003.”
Kevin Millwood, meanwhile, boasts a 3.18 ERA and has turned in quality starts in his last four outings and in six of his last seven outings. Another scary thought for the Yankees, the Indians may finally activate Travis Hafner tonight (incidentally, it was Ramon Vazquez whom the Indians called up to fill the 25th spot on their roster).
The Red Sox and A’s have already won today (with Matt Clement and Barry Zito both earning their eleventh wins, the former thanks to an eight-run fourth inning turned in by the Boston offense) and the Yankees enter tonight’s game just a half game up on the Indians in the Wild Card hunt.
Break out those voodoo dolls, the Yanks are gonna need ’em tonight.
Despite droping the opening game of their series in Cleveland 6-5, the Yankees should feel good about the way they played last night. Everyone but Al Leiter that is.
Leiter was up to his usual tricks, but to a disastrous degree. He threw 21 pitches in the first inning, allowing a run on a Jhonny Peralta double that wedged in between the warning track and the padding of the left field wall and a Victor Martinez RBI single. He then threw 34 pitches in the second, walking Aaron Boone with one out, then walking ninth-place hitter Jason Dubois (who, along with first baseman Jose Hernandez, got the start with the left-handed Leiter on the mound). That brought up lead-off man Grady Sizemore who singled Boone home to make it 2-0 Indians.
The Yankees got one back when Cleveland starter Scott Elarton floated a 2-0 breaking ball to Tino Martinez to start the third and Tino deposited it in the right field stands.
Then came the bottom of the third. Having thrown 55 pitches through the first two innings, Leiter started the third with three balls to lead-off hitter Jhonny Peralta, then proceeded to walk the bases loaded, finishing the job with a four-pitch walk to Hernandez. He then got ahead of Ronnie Belliard (who’s a dead ringer for a younger, smaller Manny Ramirez, by the way) 0-2 only because Belliard fouled off three balls before taking a fourth. Leiter’s fifth pitch to Belliard was high and over the inside part of the plate and Belliard tatooedit into left for a a bases-clearing double to make it 5-1 Indians and drive Leiter from the game.
Leiter’s final line was a hideous 2 IP, 4 H, 5 R, 2 K, 5 BB with just 53 percent of his 78 pitches going for strikes. After the game, Leiter talked about his lack of confidence in his fastball (though not in those words, saying instead “I don’t have an overpowering fastball” then apparently tring to convince himself that that was okay) and his refusal to “give in” to the hitter, the plate and the umpire. Throughout his conversation with YES’s Kim Jones, Leiter seemed to be trying to convince himself that he still had something left to offer, but appeared unable to do so.
I heard you missed me, I’m baaaaack. I brought my pencil. Hey, gimme something to write on, man.
For those who didn’t notice, I’ve been away for the last ten days. I visited some friends down Fairfax Station, Virginia, took in a painfully boring 14-inning game between the Astros and Nationals at RFK, spent a day at the museums in DC, then spent six days on the island of Chincoteague. There Becky and I saw the annual pony swim and auction, relaxed on the beach, toured wetlands on Assateague Island by foot, car, bicycle and boat, rocked the mini golf, air hockey and go-karts, ate our yearly allowance of sea food, and gorged on the world-class ice cream at Muller’s. Then, on the way back up we made a stop in Philadelphia to meet the day-old daughter of one of our closest friends. All together not a bad ten days, save Becky’s frightening sunburn and the misery of driving through Delaware the long way.
While I was away I paid only marginal attention to the fates of the home nine through my friends’ internet connection, the ESPN ticker, and the surprisingly strong signal of WCBS 880 AM. From such casual observation, it seemed the Yanks were holding their own while filling their basket with every burned-out, cast-off hurler they could find on the MLB scrap heap.
Having since brought myself up-to-date via the box scores, transaction wire, and this blog (props to Alex for picking up my slack and reminding me why I so loved Bronx Banter when I was just a reader), it seems I had it about right. In the ten days I was away, the Yanks went 5-3, and in their last three series against the Twins and Angels (twice) they went 5-5. Not bad when facing such elite competition. They finished July with a 17-9 record (just their second winning month of the season and a half-game better than their 17-10 May), are 10-7 since the All-Star break and have thus far gone 13-8 through the first half of the punishingly difficult portion of their schedule. Entering tonight’s game they are comfortably in second place in both the AL East (2.5 games behind the Red Sox and 3.5 games ahead of the Blue Jays, whom they’ll face in Toronto this weekend), and the Wild Card race (2 games behind the still surging A’s and 2.5 games ahead of tonight’s opponent, the Cleveland Indians).
As for their recent spate of transactions, signing Hideo Nomo to a minor league deal was something of a no-brainer. Nomo, who turns 37 at the end of the month, may indeed be finished as a major league starter, but with four starters on the DL, three more having failed miserably in spot starts, and Aaron Small now a regular part of the rotation, the Yankees could use an insurance policy such as Nomo, who has six quality start on the season, one of which beat Randy Johnson at the Stadium back in April.
I didn’t know about the Shaw Chacon trade until I found myself listening to Chacon’s first Yankee start on the radio while on my way to pick up some lunch following a mosquito-plagued bike ride through the wetlands. Frightened that the Yankees might have given up something valuable to get him, I picked up a copy of the New York Times at the local gas station (one of two on the island from what I could tell) but the story on Chacon’s arrival mentioned only that he was acquired for two minor league pitchers, failing to print their names. It wasn’t until Sunday night that I learned that those pitchers were Ramon Ramirez and Edwardo Sierra.
Back in spring training I had listed Ramirez just below Chien-Ming Wang on the Yankees’ organizational depth chart based largely on his K/BB ratios and the fact that he had cracked the Clippers roster in each of the last two seasons. The Yankees were clearly less impressed (perhaps due to the shoulder tendonitis that interrupted his 2004 campaign, or perhaps due to his unimpressive showing in two spring training appearances), sending him back to double-A Trenton where he pitched reasonably well only to struggle again with the Clippers.
As for Sierra, originally acquired from Oakland in the Chris Hammond trade, he was once thought to be a potential successor to Mariano Rivera due to a blazing fastball and corresponding strike-out rates, but his wildness, which was once a minor concern, got out of control at single-A Tampa last year where he walked 8.32 men per nine innings. That, combined with the acquisition of James Cox in this year’s amateur draft (supposedly an only slighly lesser version of Hudson Street and his understudy at the University of Texas) made Sierra plenty expendable. Both men are 23 years old and have been assigned to the Rockies double-A club in Tulsa where they’ve thus far been knocked around.
As for Chacon himself, obviously his start on Saturday was encouraging, but I still don’t expect much out of him. While with the Rockies this year, Chacon walked more men than he struck out outside of Coors field. Over the previous four seasons he has posted a 5.21 road ERA and walked 5.03 men per nine innings outside of Denver. For those who think he could get bumped into the bullpen when/if Pavano and company return (Pavano is now expected to start on Monday, I’m no longer holding my breath), Chacon was a disaster as the Rockies closer in 2004, walking as many as he struck out, blowing nine opportunities, and posting a 7.11 ERA (6.19 on the road). Best of all, the reason Chacon was sent to the bullpen to begin with is that his stamina over the course of the season makes Paul LoDuca look like Lance Armstrong. He’s 0-15 with a 6.89 ERA for his career after July 31. I’m willing to withold judgement for a few starts, but I would be surprised to see Chacon, who is still in his arbitration years, still with the team in 2006.
Finally, it was obvious that the Yankees would pick up Alan Embree if the Red Sox were unable to trade him during the ten-day DFA period and thus were forced to release him. Indeed they did, as well they should have. Though I have to question the wisdom of subsequently dumping Buddy Groom (who was designated for assignment then traded to the Diamondbacks for a player to be named or cash, which is about as close to a bag of balls as you’re gonna get), a move which creates a roster spot not for Embree, but for for Wayne Franklin.
To me the Groom deal was a lesser version of the decision to trade Robin Ventura after the deadline acquisition of Aaron Boone in 2003, but with less justification. In 2003, the Yankees had both Ventura and Todd Zeile on the roster when the acquired Boone for Brandon Claussen. It seemed obvious that Zeile (a righty like Boone and a lesser player than the left-handed Ventura in every way) should have been the player dumped to make room for Boone. I still believe that Ventura could have made a key difference as a pinch-hitter in the postseason that year, while Zeile was released just 17 days later, ultimately to make room for Juan Rivera to platoon with Karim Garcia in right.
The difference then was that Ventura actually had some trade value as evidenced by the fact that two years later, both players acquired in that trade, Bubba Crosby and Scott Proctor, are on the Yankees 25-man roster. Groom clearly had no trade value, which makes it all the more perplexing as to why he was sent packing. The only clues we have as to why the Yankees would prefer the mystery meat of Franklin and Alex Graman to Groom are Buddy’s parting shots at Joe Torre, which echo many of my comments over the years about Joe Torre’s tenuous trust in his relievers, resulting in the division of his bullpen into “his guys” and the rest, the latter of whom pitch about once a week when the Yankees are winning, if they’re lucky.
As for Embree’s value, he claims that his early season struggles were the result of a mechanical flaw that he’s since corrected, though it’s difficult to find much proof of that in his numbers which steadily worsened over the first three months of the season and didn’t show a marked improvement in July. Still, if that’s indeed the case, he could be an essential part of the Yankee bullpen as he was for the Red Sox in 2003, 2004 and the second half of 2002. Even better, the Red Sox are paying all but $100,000 of his $3 million contract, which will only make it sweeter if he helps to neutralize David Ortiz and Trot Nixon down the stretch. If not, well, had the Yankees not dumped Groom, there would have been no risk involved. Not that Buddy Groom was any great shakes, looking at their season stats, the only real difference between Groom and Embree thus far this season is Embree’s inflated ERA, which could be the result of the pitchers who have followed him into games allowing his runners to score. And, of course, Embree’s seen a lot more action (21 more appearances to be exact).
That just about brings us up to date (I’ll save my comments on Aaron Small, the centerfield situation, and Joe Torre’s use of Andy Phillips for when they’re more obviously relevant). So, with the Yankees and I both having enjoyed yesterday’s off-day, we swing back into action tonight with a three-game series in Cleveland against:
It looked good early on for the Yankees today; Randy Johnson was throwing the ball well again. And after five straight fastballs, Derek Jeter slapped a breaking ball from Chris Bootcheck into right field in the bottom of the first. I just had a feeling that the Yankees would have a good day. They wiykd hit the ball hard off of Bootcheck, but couldn’t get a big, clutch hit off of him. Chone Figgins made a wonderful diving catch in the bottom of the second to rob Bernie Williams of an RBI extra-base hit, Hideki Matsui was also robbed of an RBI single in the fourth by Orlando Cabrera, and Garet Andreson made a nice running catch to snag a double from Alex Rodriguez (who scorched the ball) in the sixth.
Meanwhile, Johnson wasn’t really as sharp as he had been against the Twins. He labored in the fourth inning, distracted by Cabrera who had singled and stolen his second base of the afternoon. Johnson fanned both Vlad Guerrero and Anderson but then walked Juan Rivera and fell behind Benji Molina 2-0. Molina fouled two pitches off, getting good hacks at both of them, before Johnson left a fastball over the plate. Molina deposited it over the left field wall for a three-run homer. Jose Molina led-off the fifth with a solo dinger of his own (flat slider) and the Yanks were behind the Angels yet again.
