It was a fine afternoon in the Bronx for the home team. We’ll have the re-cap a bit later. But here’s something to chew on…ESPN’s Buster Olney reports that the Yankees have traded for Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez. Whoa. Lo-Hud says the Tigers get Kyle Farnsworth in exchange.
Yowza.
C’mon, Meat. Keep your wits about you and John Blaze your way through the O’s.
Time for a win.
Let’s Go Yan-Kees.
Dig Syreeta Wright’s version of "She’s Leaving Home." The lyrics really have a different emotional kick with a female vocal. Syreeta is Stevie Wonder’s ex-wife; he produced the track.
Even when he falters, Mariano Rivera’s greatness remains untarnished. Rivera gave up a home run last night, but still reached another milestone.
After winning eight straight, the Yankees can’t seem to get out of their own way. They lost again to the Orioles, this time 7-6. This one was a heartbreaker. Not because it was such a well-played game. But because the Yankees came back and had their chances to win but couldn’t get over the hump. This game was a hump. And so was Aubrey Huff.
Darrell Rasner wasn’t that bad. He gave up two runs through the first six innings. But Brian Roberts led off the seventh with a base hit and then Rasner plunked Adam Jones. Damaso Marte came in and Rasner was last seen cursing at himself in the dugout. Nick Markakis fought off a fastball for a cheap hit. Bases juiced.
Then Aubrey Huff wacked the first pitch deep to right, but it hooked foul. He swung through the next pitch, a fastball, then crushed the next pitch, another fastball that caught too much of the plate, into the gap in left center field, clearing the bases. Melvin Mora doubled Huff home off the first base bag to put the Yankees down 6-1.
Daniel Cabrera pitched well…again. But in the bottom of the seventh, he plunked Alex Rodriguez–who homered in his previous at-bat–and was thrown out of the game. (There was no further incident). Couple of batters later, Robinson Cano singled with the bases loaded and nobody out, scoring two and the Yanks were in business, down 6-3. But Wilson Betemit whiffed, then Melky Cabrera lined out to center (the ball almost took off on Jones, who did a late little leap to snag it), before Xavier Nady struck out looking at a nasty breaking ball to end the inning.
In the top of the ninth, the YES cameras showed a red lady bug on the right side of Mariano Rivera’s hat as he warmed up. Then freakin Aubrey Huff blasted the first pitch he saw from Rivera deep into the upper deck. It went foul but it was closer to a homer than his shot against Marte. Two pitches later, Huff cranked another lousy fastball over the wall in right for a dinger. Got-to-be-kidding-meSomehow, Huff should be credited with more than just one homer, don’t you think?
It prooved to be the difference.
George Sherrill, Baltimore’s All Star lefty, gave up a single to Johnny Damon to start the bottom of the ninth. He got ahead of Jeter 0-2, but walked him. Bobby Abreu laced the first pitch he saw into left scoring Damon and putting runners at second and third with no out. Rodriguez got a good hack on a breaking pitch but hooked it foul and struck out on a fastball in his kitchen.
Giambi fell behind 0-2 and then lined a 1-2 pitch up the middle. It bounced off the mound, right past Sherrill, into left field. Two runs in, Yanks down by one. The “Yanks are showing some guts showing some grit,” Michael Kay said on on TV.
Justin Christian replaced Giambi and stole second on the first pitch, a strike, to Cano. “See that, see Michael,” Paul O’Neill said, as if he was showing Kay the goose bumps on his arm, “That just gives me a thrill.” Then he talked about guts as Cano struck out on three pitches. Leaving it all up to Betemit. Ah, Betemit. Right-handed, no less. What happened?
Betemit struck out and so did the Yanks.
A tough loss. Sox fell too, almost got no-hit. But the Rays won.
Joba needs to stop the bleeding tomorrow afternoon.
No, not Dalkowski, the patron saint of erratic flame throwers, but Daniel Cabrera, tonight’s starting pitcher for the Orioles. Cabrera sneers and looks sinister–unlike Dalkowski. Drives me nuts when the Yanks are done in by the likes of this chucker. So time for Rasner to have a good outing, and time for the Yankee offense to make mince meat out of that big goon Cabrera.
Kick em in the grill, boys.
Let’s go Yan-kees!
I’m friendly with Rob, the token booth clerk at 238th street on the 1 line. He’s in his early fifties, but you’d never tell by looking at him–he looks at least ten years younger. Rob is a big Yankee fan and is a charming, gregarious man. He’s been at 238 for three years and knows at least sixty percent of the customers that pass through the station. When I have the time, as I did last Friday afternoon, I stop and chat.
So there we were, talking about the Yankees. Rob was saying how impressed he’s been with Mussina. I told him that I hoped Moose comes close to winning twenty games this year. Then I said, “I hope Alex hits forty homers too.”
Just then, a squat, disheveled man walked into the station–which is three flights above ground level (the 1 train is elevated in the Bronx).
“Did you say you are going to hit forty homers” he said, slurring his words.
“No,” I said, now smelling the stench coming off the guy, a mixture of dried sweat and alcohol, “I said I hope A Rod hits forty.”
“Why not make it sixty?” He roared and slapped me on the shoulder, then staggered away. Rob tilted his head to the side and raised an eyebrow.
The man stood in front of the turnstiles for a few minutes. Rob and I continued our conversation, with one eye on Ned the Wino. Then we heard the sound of an approaching train. Several people, out of breath, came into the station and went through the turnstiles.
The drunk man looked ahead and said, “If only I was younger.”
He took a step back from the turnstile as the train rushed into the station, put his right hand into the back of his jeans (he was not wearing underwear) and pulled out an unopened can of Fosters. With the beer in his right hand, he lifted his left leg, as if he was going to hop the turnstiles.
Rob did not raise his voice but said, “Uh…No-no.”
The man remained frozen in the pose for a minute, as if he was a fat, washed- up wrestler about the climb into the ring. Then, defeated, he lowered his leg and placed the beer back in the crack of his ass. Then he turned around.
“I guess I’ll be walking to Staten Island,” he said as he wobbled past Rob and me out of the station.
“That’s some long walk,” said Rob.
Rob and I looked at each other and we both raised our eyebrows. Just then, a sleek young Spanish woman walked in and the foul smell was replaced by the warm scent of vanilla and feminity. Rob chatted with her, she batted her eyes, and I smiled, gazing at her narrow waist, amazed at how quickly the smell in the place changed. I was also amazed at the drunk. Why climb three flights of stairs if you aren’t going to bust out and jump the turnstiles? I couldn’t remember the last time I saw a benign, completely harmless wino like that.
Anyhow, made my day.
Perfect grace consists not in exterior ornamentation of the substance, but in the simple fitness of its form.
All forms of great artistic expression are paradoxes at their core. Each work of art must have some sort of underlying unifying principle. To succeed, the elements of that artwork have to both connect with that underlying principle in order for the work to cohere, and at the same defy that principle in order for the work to surprise and delight. Jazz songs, for example, typically start off with a basic melody played straight, off of which the musicians will then improvise for the remainder of the song.
When I visit a new ballpark, I love to start out by finding a place where I can stand and absorb a panorama of the ballpark. What’s this park about? What’s the melody that holds this thing together? Often, this isn’t something you intellectualize–you just get an overall feeling of the place. Once, I’ve got that sense, I like to go around and photograph all the little elements of the park that surprise and delight me.
Last Sunday, I made my first and only lifetime visit to Yankee Stadium. My usual modus operandi was thrown off from the start, as I was informed by Cliff Corcoran that if I want to see Monument Park, I should go straight there as soon as the gates open, or I won’t get in to see it at all. So my first impression of Yankee Stadium was not a panorama, but a crowded throng of humanity being led by ushers with bullhorns up and down and around and through narrow, low-ceiling ramps and barricaded corridors in a 95-degree heat:
Last night Mike Mussina had nothing, David Robertson had less, and the Yankee offense apparently missed the plane home from Boston. After five and a half innings, the Yankees had put just three men on base against Jeremy Guthrie on a single (promptly erased by a Derek Jeter double play), a walk, and a hit-by-pitch. The Orioles, meanwhile, had scored 11 runs off Mussina and Robertson, the key hits being consecutive second-inning home runs by Kevin Millar and Ramon Hernandez and an RBI triple by Adam Jones in the fifth off Mussina and a grand slam by Jones off Robertson (the first home run Robertson has allowed in his 148 1/3 professional innings) in the sixth.
The Yankees finally mounted a threat with two outs in the sixth, loading the bases on another single, another walk, and another hit-by-pitch, but Guthrie struck out Jason Giambi to end the inning. Xavier Nady finally broke through with a solo homer in the seventh, his first Yankee hit and Guthrie’s last pitch of the night. Johnny Damon added a three-run shot off reliever Lance Cormier later in the inning, but that was all the Yankees would get, while the O’s would tag on two more in the eighth on a two-run jack by Aubrey Huff off Kyle Farnsworth. Final score: 13-4.
The big news of the night, however, was word that, after conferring with the team, Jorge Posada has decided to have his shoulder surgery. Both Posada and Brian Cashman indicated that the acquisition of Nady was what allowed them to finally make that decision, which is a not insignificant mark in that trade’s favor. “As difficult as it is,” Posada said in a statement, “I can focus on coming back 100 percent for next season instead of coming back at less than that now.” Said Brian Cashman, “It’s just the obvious way to go.”
In other injury news, Hideki Matsui donned a new knee brace and took 20 swings off a tee followed by five swings against soft toss. He’s hoping to be able to start a rehab assignment in a week or two. Phil Hughes and Carl Pavano (yes, I said it) were scheduled to pitch two innings a piece for the Gulf Coast League Yankees last night, but the game was rained out. They’ll try again tonight with low-A Charleston. Also, Shelley Duncan is taking batting practice in Tampa, and Eric Milton is scheduled to throw batting practice.
In minor league news, Alan Horne came off the DL to pitch for Scranton last night and got lit up. Chris Britton and Brian Bruney both pitched in relief. Britton allowed two of the runners he inherited from Horne to score, but didn’t allow any runs of his own over three innings while striking out five. Bruney threw one pitch, hit former Yankee farmhand Randy Ruiz in the back of the head, and got ejected. Also, Mark Melancon and Chase Wright have been promoted to triple-A, lefty reliever Wilkins Arias has been promoted to double-A, and Steven White’s fall continues as he’s been demoted to double-A Trenton.
Having had their eight-game winning streak snapped last night by a lop-sided loss to the Red Sox, the Yankees have to be careful not to suffer a let-down against the lowly Orioles tonight. Being back at the Stadium and having Mike Mussina on the mound should help with that. Moose has a 1.41 ERA over his last five starts and has struck out 31 against just three walks and no homers in that stretch. Then again, his one start against his former team this season was one of the worst of his career as he was unable to compensate for a first-inning error by Derek Jeter and wound up allowing seven runs and getting the hook before the O’s made their third out.
He takes on Jeremy Guthrie, who has been far and away the O’s best starter this year. Guthrie has alternated starts of four or more runs allowed and starts of two or fewer runs allowed since June 7, but hasn’t allowed more than five runs in a game since March. If the pattern holds, he’ll allow four or more tonight, but we saw how well that worked with Jon Lester last night.
The Orioles lost their last series in the Bronx 2-1, but are 4-2 against the Yankees in Baltimore. The Yanks haven’t seen the Orioles since late May, but the team hasn’t changed much. They’ve rotated through a number of replacement-level shortstops, most recently settling on Juan Castro, but the rest of the lineup remains the same. The O’s do have a nine-man bullpen right now (along with a three-man bench and a four-man rotation following the recent demotion of Radhames Liz), but they’ve made no notable additions to their relief corps.
The top of the O’s lineup is solid with Brian Roberts now being followed by Adam Jones (a singles-heavy .305/.344/.416 since late May, but already starting to make the Erik Bedard trade look good for Baltimore), Nick Markakis, and a rejuvenated Aubrey Huff (.293/.354/.533 with 20 homers on the season). In fact, the O’s have six players in double-digits in home runs (Huff, Luke Scott with 18, Markakis and fifth-place hitter Melvin Mora with 15, Yankee Killer Kevin Millar with 14, and catcher Ramon Hernandez with 11). Of course, Mora and Hernandez have done very little beyond hit home runs, but Scott and Millar add some extra pop and patience in the six and seven holes. Huff’s the real threat, though. Always something of a second-half hitter, he’s hit .348/.400/.626 since June 1 and something very close to that since the second half began. Expect to see Joe Girardi deploy Damaso Marte against him as Huff loses more than 200 points of OPS when a lefty is on the mound. I just hope Girardi has the good sense to use Marte for more than just that one hitter.
No surprises in the lineup tonight with a righty on the mound and Xavier Nady having settled in as the left-fielder and seventh-place hitter, nor on the transaction wire.
In the introduction to his short book, “What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?” (based on an Esquire magazine profile written more than twenty years ago), Richard Ben Cramer writes:
Reputation dies hard in the baseball nation, and in the larger industry of American iconography. Even at the close of the century, forty years after he’d left the field, there still attached to Ted a lingering whiff of bile from the days when he spat toward booing Fenway fans. And there were heartbroken hundreds who’d freshen that scent with their stories: how hew as rude to them when they tried ti interrupt him for an autography or a grip-and-grin photo. (The thousands who got their signatures or snapshots found that unremarkable.)
In the northeast corner of the nation, there were still thousands who blamed Ted for neverl hauling the Red Sox to World Series triumph. (Someone must bear the blame for decades of disappointment when their own rooting love was so piquant and pure.)…Around New York more thousands still resented Ted–and had to reduce him–for contesting with Joe DiMaggio for the title of the Greatest of the Golden Age. They insisted that Ted never won anything (and reviled him, in short for never being a Yankee).
Reading this, it struck me that it’s no surprise that Cramer’s next biography is about Alex Rodriguez. What do you expect to get from this forthcoming biography on Rodriguez? Even better, what do you hope to find in the book?
Well, yesterday was Hall of Fame Induction Day, and as a Brooklyn resident I’d just like to take the opportunity, on this touching and historic occasion, to say:
WALTER !@#&^?! O’MALLEY?! Are you !@*^$! kidding me?!?
What the hell is wrong with these people? What kind of organization inducts Walter O’Malley and not Buck O’Neil — or, for that matter, Bowie Kuhn and not Marvin Miller — and what do they take to help themselves sleep at night?
Kevin Kennedy and Mark Grace were blathering on in praise of this beady-eyed* backstabber on FOX yesterday, before the Sox game. “Oh, he was so influential,” they droned.
Sure he was. So was Arnold Rothstein. So were the rats who carried bubonic plague across Europe, but I don’t see anyone making any speeches or plaques for them.
…Okay, look, it’s possible I’m overreacting just slightly. I know all about the revisionist history that paints Robert Moses as the real villain of the Dodgers’ story, and I’m sure there’s at least a few shreds of truth to that. So I hope no L.A. Dodgers fans will take any offense. After all, it’s not your fault that your team was built on a pile of pilfered bones, blood, and tears. Enjoy Casey Blake!
—
*When I say beady-eyed I’m not kidding. Look at him. And this is the presumably flattering photo they picked for PR purposes. Look deep into these eyes and tell me if you see any trace of genuine emotion or a human soul in there. You don’t, do you? They’re flat, like a doll’s eyes. I’m just saying.
Check out this very cool piece by Alex Eisenberg over at Baseball-Intellect.
A bunch of random thoughts as the Yankees begin another week with some ground to make up, There’s not much to add to Goose Gossage’s Hall of Fame entry. The stories SI Writer Emeritus William Nack tells on ESPN.com say everything.
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• I try my best to be cognizant of the back-page treatment of the two New York baseball teams during the season, imagining how I would set the news agenda if I was heading any of the local editorial units. I found it odd this week that while the Yankees were racking up victories and gaining ground on the Rays and Sox, the Mets dominated the headlines. The Yankees’ win streak did not go unnoticed, but by normal standards, it flew under the radar and was fairly ho-hum. Certainly, the beat writers and columnists covered the necessary details, including the notes and quotes on the six-player deal with the Pirates (Cliff Corcoran’s analysis in this space was spot-on), but from a broader headline-grabbing standpoint, this week was all about the Mets. In my opinion, that helped the Yankees.
Speaking of under the radar, this sentence from Kat O’Brien’s Sunday Notebook nearly slipped my eyes:
“Kei Igawa was outrighted from the 40-man roster after clearing waivers Friday.”
After Carl Pavano, is it safe to say that Kei Igawa is the most fiscally irresponsible signing in Yankees’ history?
As expected, the Red Sox got the merry-go-round cranked up early against Sidney Ponson last night, scoring three in the first and bouncing the Yankee starter after four innings having scored in each of them. After the game Ponson admirably admitted that he “pitched like crap.”
It was 7-0 Bosox heading into the top of the fifth when the Yankees finally got something going against Jon Lester, who had pitched 13 straight scoreless innings against them to that point. Melky Cabrera, Jose Molina, and Johnny Damon all singled to start the inning. With the bases loaded Derek Jeter, who hit into a rally-killing double play with men on first and second and none out in the third, hit a dribbler up the third base line that stayed fair allowing everyone to move up safely. Bobby Abreu followed by drawing an RBI walk. That brought Alex Rodriguez to the plate with none out, the bases loaded, and a chance to get the Yankees back in a game they were now trailing 7-2. On an 1-0 pitch, Lester came inside to Rodriguez and Alex ripped a line drive right at Mike Lowell at third base for the first out, holding the runners. Xavier Nady, who has started his Yankee career by going 0 for 7 with a walk and a hit-by-pitch, followed by getting under a 2-0 pitch up in the zone and flying out to center (while the ball wasn’t deep, Johnny Damon likely could have tagged up and scored, only he didn’t). Robinson Cano also started off 2-0, but swung through ball three high and tapped back to Lester to strand all three runners.
And that was that. The Red Sox pitchers faced the minimum the rest of the way, as the one Yankee baserunner (a leadoff single by Rodriguez in the eighth off reliever Manny Delcarmen) was erased when Xavier Nady ground into a double play. Meanwhile, Dan Giese, who helpfully pitched the final four innings, allowed two more runs in the sixth to push the final score to 9-2.
So the Yankees eight-game winning streak is a thing of the past, but we all saw this loss coming. The Yankees did what they had to do in Boston, which was win the series. They’re now two games behind the Red Sox for the Wild Card and three behind the Rays in the East. Their task now is to avoid a let-down against the Orioles tonight. Hopefully coming back home to the Bronx and having Mike Mussina on the mound will help with that.
Here’s what I wrote about tonight’s pitching matchup in my series preview on Friday:
ESPN’s Sunday night game pits Sidney Ponson against Jon Lester. Lester is one of the great stories of this season, having rebounded from non-Hodgkins lymphoma to not only throw a no-hitter, but have a great season overall. Lester has a 3.20 ERA on the season, a 2.93 ERA at home, and needed just 105 pitches to shutout the Yankees on five hits and two walks while striking out eight in his only start against the Bombers this season. That said, he’s been inconsistent of late. Lester’s no-hitter came in the middle of a run of 11 starts from the end of April to late June in which the lefty posted a 2.13 ERA. Since then, however, he’s alternated dominant starts (including his shutout of the Yankees) with non-quality outings. If the pattern holds, he’s due for a stinker, but his dominance of the Yankees in their last meeting and overall success this season is the better indicator of what he’s likely to do Sunday night.
That means Ponson has his work cut out for him. Before his last start, I wrote that Ponson’s surprisingly successful season has been the result of a sharp increase in his groundball rate. The problem is that Fenway Park has a notoriously hard infield, which can cause trouble for groundball pitchers (Chien-Ming Wang’s career ERA at Fenway is 5.11, and in his complete-game two-hitter there this April, he got more outs in the air than on the ground). Ponson hasn’t faced the Red Sox this year, but historically, the Sox’s lineup owns him (David Ortiz: .444/.563/.722; Manny Ramirez: .404/.481/.511; Jason Varitek: .317/.364/.561; Kevin Youkilis: 4 for 9 with a double; J.D. Drew: 3 for 7 with a double; Dustin Pedroia: 3 for 3), the only exception being Mike Lowell, who is 0 for 7 with a walk against Ponson. Lester would have to implode completely for the Yankees to overcome what’s likely to happen to Ponson on Sunday night.
That means the Yankees hopes for a series win lie in the first two games . . .
Everything’s gone according to plan thus far. The Yankees got a dominant outing from Joba Chamberlain on Friday night and a quality start from Andy Pettitte buoyed by ten runs of support yesterday to take the first two games and thus the series, but with them having done that, pushing their second-half record to a perfect 9-0 and closing their deficit to the Red Sox in the Wild Card race to just one game . . . doesn’t it seem possible that they just mind find away to win tonight despite all of what I said above?
Here’s another question: If on Opening Day I told you that, on the final weekend in July, Yankees would be on the verge of a three-game sweep at Fenway that would tie them with the Red Sox in the standings, and that the lineup they were running out in an attempt to win that game featured Xavier Nady, Richie Sexson, Jose Molina, and Sidney Ponson in place of Hideki Matsui, Jason Giambi, Jorge Posada, and either Chien-Ming Wang, Phil Hughes, or Ian Kennedy, (or anyone else, really), what would your reaction have been? Elation? Disgust? Confusion? Frustration? Shock? Concern?
The game’s being threatened by rain, but if it’s the storm that passed through New Jersey this afternoon, it won’t last too long. Given the ESPN start time and the team’s involved, any kind of delay at the start should push the end of the game well past midnight.
Congrats, Big Fella.
I don’t drink so I don’t go to bars. But I like the idea of the local bar, where you can go watch the game and yes, where everybody knows your name. In many ways, blogs like Bronx Banter are on-line bars, community meeting spots, where a host of like-minded people can get together to follow, in this case, the Yankees. We get all kinds here, and I know that I often learn more from the comments section than I would from reading a newspaper. Sure, every so often the conversation will digress, but more often than not, I’d say Banter commenters are funny, enlightening and a good group to hang with.
I mention this because it was one year ago exactly when one of our regulars, the irrepressible, and often infuriating, Jim Dean passed away. Jim literally died in the middle of a Yankee game, sitting on the couch, with his laptop open to Bronx Banter. He was with us when he went, something that I take as a great honor.
Chyll Will, another longtime regular, had a terrific post on Jim the other day, which I’m taking the liberty of posting in full:
Jim Dean was a friend of mine, and I say that knowing that I never met him in person and that the only contact we’ve ever had was through Banter. There was something about his abrasiveness, his bellicosity and sarcasm that added interesting colors to his research and commenting. If there was anyone who created a picture of himself and everything he said through his words, he was certainly one.
I liked teasing him. He often would blast away at us with fiery, if sometimes off-the-mark blather about this player’s statistics, that player’s effort, the bumbling of the Yankees front office or, seeming to feel particularly jaunting, he would debate one or many of us. Well, debate is not strong enough… battle.
JD battled long and hard on a point he believed in, whether it was right or wrong. Sometimes it seemed like he battled just for the principle of it. But among other things, it was his passion for the Yankees and his quick response with sabermetric research that won the admiration of even his detractors. I am not nearly as good with numbers as he was, but if anything he was among the few that inspired a notion for me to learn.
I don’t know in what regard he held me; perhaps he saw me as a trifle, or maybe he respected my sense of humor. I do know that we once engaged in a surprisingly straightforward “conversation” that led me us to understand more about each other, and perhaps more respect for each other. We didn’t agree a lot of times, but we did (eventually) respect each other.
My point is, it’s odd that one can develop a friendship with someone in an internet community, but as I’ve always said, Bronx Banter is like family. And JD was like a brother. A bad brother, sometimes, but family nonetheless.
Rest In Peace, Jim Dean.
Amen. Jim Dean is still with us in spirit. Wonder what he thinks of the Nady deal?
