For those who missed it, erstwhile Yankee third catcher Wil Nieves cleared waivers this past Thursday and was reassigned to Columbus. Having retained Nieves, the Yankees immediately designated Koyie Hill for assignment (who has since cleared waivers himself) in order to promote Matt Smith to the major league bullpen in anticipation of Jaret Wright’s Saturday start. As a result the Yankee bench is down to four men and one catcher, while the Yankee pitching staff has swelled to twelve men.

Twelve pitchers are unnecessary, even if one of them is trapped in limbo between the infrequently required fifth starters spot (next appearance: Saturday April 29) and long relief. Still, the promotion of Smith is to be applauded. A 26-year-old lefty drafted by the Yankees in 2000, Smith excelled after being converted to relief last year, posting a 2.70 ERA and striking out 9.94 men per nine innings between Trenton and Columbus, though with a few too many walks. Smith made his major league debut on Friday night retiring his only batter, lefty Joe Mauer, on a groundout to second.

Further bullpen moves are on the horizon as Aaron Small and Octavio Dotel have both started pitching in extended spring training games. Small threw four innings yesterday in his third game of the extended spring posting this line: 4 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K, 48 pitches. Dotel will make his extended spring debut with one inning today. Small is reportedly just building up arm strength and could return by the end of the month. Dotel is still projected for early June, but appears to be ahead of that schedule, though the Yankees plan to take things slowly with him as he’s coming off Tommy John surgery.

Meanwhile, the Yankees have signed first baseman Carlos Peña and reliever Jesus Colome to minor league deals. Colome was released by the Devil Rays on Thursday after just one appearance in which he faced two batters, walking one and retiring the other. Colome lost his roster spot to minor league journeyman Scott Dunn, which is an indication of his talents. Now 27, Colome pitched in part of five seasons with the Devil Rays, his best being 2004 when he posted a 3.27 ERA in 41 1/3 innings striking out 8.71 men per nine innings and walking 3.92 per nine. Last year, however, things went to pot as his hit and homer rates nearly doubled, while his strikeout rate dropped by more than three Ks per nine and his ERA swelled by more than a run and a quarter. Given the arms they already have on hand in Columbus and due back from the DL, things will have to go awfully awry for Colome to penetrate the Yankee bullpen.

Peña, meanwhile, is a very poor man’s answer to Hee Seop Choi. A slick-fielding, lefty-hitting first baseman, the 27-year-old Peña has power and patience, but has been unable to put them together after more than 1650 major league at-bats. Once a top prospect in the Rangers system, Peña was snagged by the A’s prior to the 2002 season in a six-player deal that netted Texas Gerald Laird and Ryan Ludwick, but after just a half season of disappointing production with Oakland, Peña became one of the key players in the three-team trade that sent Ted Lilly to the A’s, Jeremy Bonderman to the Tigers and Jeff Weaver to the Yankees. Peña did slightly better with the Tigers over the remainder of the 2002 season, but failed to show improvement as the Tiger’s full-time first baseman over the next two seasons. After hitting just .181/.307/.283 over the first two months of 2005, the Tigers lost patience with Peña, sending him down to triple-A Toledo, where he caught fire, hitting .311/.424/.525. Back with the big club, he hit seven home runs in his first eight games before settling back down to hit just .235/.284/.490 for the remaining month of the season, finishing the season with 95 strikeouts in 295 plate appearances. With Chris Shelton and Dmitri Young on hand and a full outfield of Ordoñez, Granderson and Monroe, the Tigers needed little more than Peña’s dismal spring showing to give him his release just before the 2006 season began.

I don’t really see how Peña would be an improvement over what Andy Phillips could give the Yankees. Certainly Peña has a lot more big league experience, but that has only allowed him to establish a level of performance (career: .243/.330/.459) that I’m confident Phillips could surpass if given proper playing time. The only upside I see here is that Peña is left-handed and could work his way into a DH platoon with Phillips should Joe Torre ever decide that would like to get an extra base hit or two out of the position. But that’s a long ways off, as Peña will have to first work his way back into shape, then prove himself worthy of a roster spot. Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see how Peña’s presence in Columbus affects Eric Duncan, who is learning first base with the Clippers, but struggling at the plate. Could Peña’s arrival at Columbus bounce the Yankees’ #2 prospect back down to Trenton (which is probably where he should have started the season anyway)? And if so, what might that do to the confidence Duncan built up between winning the Arizona Fall League MVP and the J.P. Dawson Award for best Yankee rookie in camp this spring?

Stay tuned . . .

The Yanks bounced back yesterday, as we all hoped, beating the Twins 9-3, featuring strong showings from Chien-Ming Wang, Jason Giambi, Robinson Cano and Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez was critical of his own performance after Saturday night’s tough loss. According to Sam Borden in the Daily News:

Joe Torre wasn’t surprised to hear Rodriguez was being hard on himself because he’s seen A-Rod “set the bar sky-high” ever since Rodriguez arrived in the Bronx. Torre sometimes wishes Rodriguez would give himself a break.

“He drives himself to the point of expecting himself to do more than any human being is capable of doing,” Torre said. “Alex is very tough on himself because he doesn’t think he should do anything wrong ever. I don’t think we can live our lives that way.”

…”He never tires of physical work,” Torre said. “He’s out there constantly, trying to make himself better. Over 162 games, it takes its toll.”

Rodriguez can be called a lot of things. A slacker is not one of ’em.

The Yanks hope to grab a win today before they leave for Toronto. A lackluster offensive outing on Friday night sperled Mike Mussina’s decent outing while fortune was on the Twinkies side against Mariano yesterday. Wang vs. Radke today. Let’s hope Wang gets some groundballs and that the infielders are positioned to gobble them up. As for Radke, well, let’s just say that I expect the bats to be alive this afternoon for the Bombers.

Cliff adds:

Joe Torre has been rotating his corner men through the DH on the Homerdome Turf. Friday night it was Gary Sheffield with Bernie getting his first start in right since the Buck Showalter days. Last night it was Jason Giambi, who got to sit out against the lefty Santana with Miguel Cairo getting the start at first (1 for 4 with a double off Santana) and Andy Phillips getting his first start of the year at DH (0 for 4 with three Ks after being robbed of a home run to dead center off Santana by Torii Hunter). Today it’s Hideki Matsui who will get to sit between at-bats, with either Bernie or Bubba taking his spot in left. This means that Giambi will be back at first with the groundballer Wang on the mound. Giambi has started in the field behind Wang in both of his starts this year with no ill effect, though it still seems as though Torre could have arranged things better to allow Giambi to DH behind Wang as Santana is hardly the sort of league average lefty against whom it makes sense to swap out Giambi, who, it goes without saying, is a superior hitter to both Cairo and Phillips. At any rate, it’s getaway day and the Yankees have tomorrow off, so it’s all in for the win this afternoon.

When Johan Santana has a four run lead on your team early in the game, you pretty much think it is going to be a short, curt afternoon for your boys. But Santana is not his usual dominant self yet and by the fourth inning, the Yanks started to hit him hard. The Bombers rallied down 4-0 and tied the game on Derek Jeter’s third hit of the game–this in spite Torii Hunter casually swiping a home run from Andy Phillips and Jorge Posada missing a homer to right by two feet. Alex Rodriguez, who has been laboring to find a groove this year, got down in the count and then hit a hard ground ball through the left side to put the Yankees ahead 5-4.

There was a lively discussion of what transpired in the bottom of the eighth inning yesterday in our comments section here yesterday. It involved all of your favorites–Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, Gary Sheffield and Alex Rodriguez. The Yankees had a man on second with nobody out and weren’t able to get a run home. The debate was sparked about Derek Jeter. Of all people. And it involved a sacrifice bunt. Of all things. Regular commenter and fellow blogger Mike Plugh wrote a good a follow-up post analyzing the inning over at Caynon of Heroes, which you should check out. Far as I saw it, the inning was highlighted by a thrilling duel between Juan Rincon and Gary Sheffield.

And that’s where it stood with Mariano on in the ninth. The first batter Luis Castillo has pestered the Yankees over two games and on the 2-2 pitch barely held up on a cutter. The third base ump opined that Castillo did not go around–it was a generous ruling at best. Castillo then slaps the ball into the turf and beats out an infield hit. Rivera pounced off the mound beautifully and made a strong peg, but it was just a fraction late.

Rivera narrowly missed striking out the next batter Mauer on the 2-2 delivery–a fastball, up and away. The high strike. It’s a pitch Rivera has been known to get over the years. So, on a defensive swing, Mauer slaps the ball into left. Matsui gets it and chucks it to third–an absent-minded decision that proved costly. There wasn’t going to be a play on Castillo at third, but the throw to Rodriguez allowed Mauer to go to second.

Mo then strikes out poor Rondell White, do did manage one base hit on the game, but who is in the midst of a horrid slump. (The Yanks twice walked Mauer to get to White in the game and both times they retired ‘ol Ro.) Mo made him look silly. And then Rivera overwhelmed Torii Hunter for the second out. Caught him looking at a nasty cut fast ball. It fooled Hunter so badly he argued with the home plate ump about the call, but replays showed it just broke devastatingly late. Nothing Hunter could have done about it, but say something. Got to get it out when you get burned that badly.

Then Justin Morneau plunks a soft liner into right, not all that far from Robinson Cano’s reach. Two runs score, and the Twins win the game, 6-5. Other than Mauer’s defensive-swing hit, nobody had hit the ball hard of Rivera.

But these things happen. It was the first game that hit me in the gut this year, that got me pissed and upset. What calmed me down more than anything was watching Rivera being interviewed after the game. He was smiling and saying, “What can I do, they didn’t hit it hard, I felt good, made some sharp pitches, and these things happen. I’ve already gotten over it and moved on.” And he means it, he has moved on. He’s speaking in cliches but he isn’t lying. Rivera is imperturbable. It’s not just schtick with him. That’s what makes him the greatest. Win or lose. And if he’s cool with the ups and downs of the game, I’ve got to ask myself “Why am I all nuts over this?” Way to calm me down, Mo, yer the man.

The Yankees wasted a good outing from Mike Mussina, who has previously owned the Twins, losing 5-1 on Friday night. The game moved along quickly for the first six-and-a-half innings and the Yankees were just “off” enough–both offensively and defensively–to come up short.

The Twins’ young right-hander, Scott Baker allowed just one run over seven innings, mixing pitches and change speeds effectively. He didn’t throw hard, but had the Yankees off-balance all night. A lot of his pitches were just off the plate, just out of the strike zone, and the Yankee hitters anxiously jumped on them. There were a lot of harmless fly ball outs. Gary Sheffield flew out four times and saw less than ten pitches on the night (he swung at the first pitch in his first two at bats, and the team made six first-pitch outs in the first five innings). According to the New York Times:

“He was like a surgeon,” Yankees Manager Joe Torre said. “He was down. He was up. Hitters like to zone in on location, and they were never able to do that.

“The thing he did the best was get ahead of a lot of hitters, and sometimes we just got caught in-between.”

…”It’s weird, because we need to learn how to win these close games,” Johnny Damon said. “We need to learn how to push across runs. It just shows how good a pitcher can be when he’s around the strike zone and doesn’t walk anybody.”

Mussina pitched well for most of the game–running into trouble in the third and later, in the seventh. Jorge Posada was thrown out at the plate attempting to tag on a fly ball to right. The replays showed that he was safe on a close play. The Yankee catcher was involved in another critical play later in the game.

In the seventh, with two men on and the Twins holding a one-run lead, Juan Castro popped a Mussina change up foul. Posada raced over towards the first base dugout to make the play but couldn’t get there in time. Jason Giambi, who was playing back off the base was too late arriving as well. The truth is, Posada covered a lot more ground than Giambi did, yet if anyone was going to make that play it would have been the first baseman. In what was clearly going to be Mussina’s final batter of the game, Castro worked the count full, then fouled off several pitches before slapping an RBI single to left.

It was just one of those nights. The Bombers put the first two men on in the eighth but Bernie Williams bounced into a double play–they went listlessly in the ninth, almost as if they had a plane to catch. Kyle Farnsworth pitched the bottom of the eighth and allowed two more runs to score.

I’ve complained about Farnsworth’s thought-process in the past and last night was an ideal example of why the guy drives me nuts. Farnsworth’s two best pitches are a plus fastball and a sharp slider. But you don’t get the sense that he knows how to mix his pitches properly–he falls in love with dominating a hitter and makes things tougher on himself in the process.

With two men out and nobody on, Farnsworth was pitching to Torii Hunter, a right-handed hitter. He threw a slider for strike one and then got Hunter to wave at a nasty slider for strike two. Now, I’m thinking, okay, time to come up and in with the heat. Posada signaled for a fastball and you could see him motioning for it to be high and tight. Hunter is a free swinger, after all. Farnsworth shook him off.

C’mmon, Meat, I’m thinking at home. We’re going to go through this Nuke Laloosh routine all year, aren’t we? (Funny to consider Jorge Posada as the sage Crash Davis, huh.) But no, Farnsworth wanted to get him out on another slider. It would be difficult to throw one better than the pitch Hunter had just swung through. Sure enough, the next pitch was a slider, it wasn’t as nasty as the previous one, and Hunter slapped the pitch into right for a double.

Justin Morneau, a lefty, was next. He had a great swing at a Farnsworth fastball that was low and right over the plate. The pitch was fouled straight back indicating that Farnsworth had gotten away with one–Morneau was right on it. He got strike two on another fastball, but this one was up and away, and he simply over-powered Morneau with it. So now, I’m thinking, maybe time for the slider, or another high heater. Instead Farnsworth threw another low fastball–seemingly identical to the pitch Morneau just missed–which was promptly slapped into left field for an RBI single.

Now, maybe Farnsworth’s location was just off. Again, I’ll admit that I’m ready to be critical of the guy so I’m not exactly even-handed when discussing him. He’s clearly got good stuff. I just don’t know that he’s got much sense. And after a long night of lousy at-bats, it was the icing on the gravy so to speak. Farnsworth didn’t lose the game for the Yankees, he just made it uglier.

No breaks for the Bomb Squad tonight as they face Minnie’s ace, Johan Santana. Santana has not pitched well in his first two outings, which is just enough to make me believe that he’ll be on tonight. Jaret Wright goes for the Yanks.

One of the best stories in baseball in recent years was the trio of AL Central Titles won by the Minnesota Twins immediately after Commissioner Bud Selig threatened the team with contraction. Unfortunately, that story does not have a happy ending as, while we have all been waiting around for the Twins to convert their seemingly endless supply of young talent into a more meaningful title, the team has regressed into mediocrity. That the left side of their infield is populated by Juan Castro and Tony Batista, the latter of whom spent 2005 playing in Japan, should be evidence enough of that.

That said, the Twins are always going to be dangerous because of their pitching, which is why it’s fortuitous that the Yankees are catching them this early in the season. One game shy of two times through their rotation, the Twins starters have a combined ERA of 6.63 and would-be two-time Cy Young winner Johan Santana, who will go tomorrow against Jaret Wright’s first start of the season, has yet to win a game.

Tonight, the Yankees face 24-year-old rookie Scott Baker, who beat out Francisco Liriano (the left-handed future star who is generally considered the second coming of Santana) for the fifth starter’s spot in spring training. While no pushover himself, Baker took the loss in his first start, allowing three runs on nine hits and a walk in 4 1/3 innings against the powerful Indians’ lineup. A decent first outing spoiled by the fact that the Twins bats couldn’t muster a single run against Jason Johnson, Gullermo Mota and Bob Wickman.

Mike Mussina takes the hill for the Yanks, looking to build upon his surprisingly strong performance in his first two starts.

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Randy Johnson was cruising along for the first four innings yesterday afternoon, but he allowed three straight hits in the fifth, giving up a run in the process. He made it through the inning but after throwing only 87 pitches his day was over, sending a tremor through Yankeeland. The team announced that there was nothing physically wrong with Johnson but after the game it appeared that he had in fact experienced some discomfort out there. The Big Unit was his naturally defensive self when he spoke with reporters (if he is uncomfortable, you know he’s going to make the press uncomfortable). Tyler Kepner reports in the Times:

Manager Joe Torre said that Ron Guidry, the pitching coach, told him Johnson was stiff during yesterday’s game, although Torre said he did not know where. Johnson initially scolded reporters for getting the story wrong, but then admitted to some stiffness — sort of.

“Just a little tired, stiffness in the shoulder, if you want to call it that,” he said, adding a disclaimer that seemed to amuse him. “The right shoulder.”

…”I don’t need to go out there every time and pitch seven, eight innings because you might like it,” he said. “I might like it, but I also realize that the innings and the pitches that are going to be mostly counted on from me are going to be late in the year.

“So as much as I want to get my arm where it needs to be — that’s what spring training is for — there’s a time and a place to go out there and throw innings and pitches.”

The Yankee lead was cut to 4-2 when Tony Graffanino greeted Taynon Sturtze with a solo home run in the eighth, that was as close as KC would get. The Bombers scored five runs in the bottom of the frame–highlighted by home runs from Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon, and that was that. Final score: Yanks 9, Royals 3. Gary Sheffield also homered, Hideki Matsui and Derek Jeter both lengthened their hitting streaks and Bernie Williams collected three singles on the afternoon. After the sweep, the Yanks are back on the road this weekend, out to see their old pal Ruben Sierra and his new team, the Twins.

With yesterday’s 12-5 victory over the Royals, the Yankees clinched their first series win of the season, pulled their record up to .500, and put themselves on pace to score 1134 runs this season. It almost doesn’t seem fair to send Randy Johnson to the mound this afternoon to go for the sweep. Sure, the Royals have scored 12 runs against the Yankees over the past two days, but the Yanks have countered with 21 of their own.

One reason for the Bombers onslaught has been the 17 free passes they’ve received from the Royals’ pitchers over the last two days. The walks are likely to keep coming today with former Orioles prospect Denny Bautista on the mound. Bautista historically walks about four men per nine innings, a number that’s sure to increase against the power and patience of the Yankee lineup. Randy Johnson, on the other hand, has yet to walk a batter this year in fifteen innings. Save for a Frank Thomas homer in his first start and an Adam Kennedy “triple” in his second, Johnson has dominated, holding his opponents to a smattering of singles.

On paper, today’s game is a complete mismatch. Knowing how baseball works, that likely means that Reggie Sanders will hit a pair of two-run homers off Johnson and the Yankee bats will sputter against the hard-throwing Bautista, but honestly, I just can’t see that happening.

Meanwhile, the big news is that Kelly Stinnett will again be behind the plate for Johnson, and without a day-game-after-night-game-related excuse. To make matters worse, unlike in Stinnett’s last start, Joe Torre is not keeping Posada’s bat in the line-up, sticking with his singles-hitting DH Bernie Williams. Williams will hit seventh, ahead of Cano and Stinnett.

Buddy Bell, meanwhile, has completely mixed things up against Johnson. Here’s today’s Royals lineup:

R- Tony Graffanino (DH)
R – Mark Grudzielanek (2B)
R – Emil Brown (LF)
R – Reggie Sanders (RF)
R – Angel Berroa (SS)
R – John Buck (C)
L – Doug Mientkiewicz (1B)
R – Esteban German (3B)
L – Shane Costa (CF)

Angel Berroa hitting fifth against Randy Johnson? I suppose Torre can afford to give Jorge the day off after all.

Yesterday’s game will be remembered for Gary Sheffield’s wicked foul ball in the first inning, which sent third base coach Larry Bowa to the turf. In the same at-bat, Sheffield hit a three-run homer to left, tying the game. According to the Daily News:

Sheffield apologized, but Bowa waved him off. “I told him forget sorry,” Bowa said. “I’ll go down on my back every day for a three-run homer.”

The Royals had a 3-0 lead, but their starting pitcher, Jeremy Affeldt walked Johnny Damon and then Derek Jeter in the bottom of the first (oy) before Sheff’s homer. Oh, those base on balls. The Bombers didn’t look back as they handled Kansas City 12-5. Shawn Chacon wasn’t especially terrific but after a rocky start he was good enough.

With yesterday’s ugly 9-7 win on the books, the Yankees have allowed 16 runs in the two games started by Chien-Ming Wang and 14 runs in their other five contests. Seven of the 16 runs allowed in Wang’s starts were given up by the Yankee bullpen across 7 1/3 innings. The Yankee pen has allowed just two runs in 8 2/3 innings in the other five games. The Yankee offense, meanwhile, as scored 34 runs in the team’s three wins and ten in their four loses.

The Royals, meanwhile, have proved capable of both winning and losing both low and high-scoring affairs, dropping their first two against the Tigers 3-1 and 14-3, then taking their first two from the World Champion White Sox 11-7 and 4-3. Between yesterday’s loss and that first win against the Chisox, the Royals scored 18 runs, but have scored just nine runs in their other four games.

It’s too early for any of these stats to really be meaningful, but they sure are curious, and they make speculation about the potential of this afternoon’s contest all the more difficult.

Today the Royals will send to the mound 25-year-old lefty Jeremy Affeldt. Affeldt was once considered a future rotation star for the Royals before blisters and other injuries pushed him to the bullpen. Last year he pitched exclusively in relief, and not all that well, serving as a second lefty behind Rule 5 pick and yesterday’s losing pitcher Andy Sisco. The year before, he made just 8 starts and was far less effective as a starter than he was in his 30 relief appearances. This year he’s been thrust back into the rotation by the mysterious disapperances of Zack Greinke, who skipped the team in late February and is on the DL due to psychological issues, and Runelvys Hernandez, whom the Royals tried to placed on the DL due to “lack of stamina” after he showed up for camp overweight but were forced to option to Omaha instead. In his first start this season, Affeldt lasted just four innings, surrendering six runs on seven hits and a pair of walks to the White Sox.

The Yankees counter with Shawn Chacon, who faired better in his first start against the Angels, though not dramatically so, giving up four runs on eight hits and two walks in 5 2/3 innings. One encouraging sign was that Chacon struck out four in those 5 2/3 innings despite a mere 58 percent of his pitches being strikes. This against an Angels team that was the second hardest in baseball to strikout in 2005. Both Chacon and Affeldt feature big 12-6 curves, which just may be my favorite pitch to watch. If only I could take today off of work as well.

Mike Sweeney, who left yesterday’s game in the ninth after being hit on the right hand by a Mariano Rivera pitch, is expected to be in the line-up for Kansas City. His x-rays were negative.

Update: Joe Torre is sitting Robinson Cano against the lefty Affeldt, giving Miguel Cairo his second start in the Yankees’ first eight games. Cairo is hitting ninth behind Bernie, who will play right field allowing Sheffield to DH. Sweeney, meanwhile, is not in the line-up for the Royals. Matt Stairs will DH for KC instead.

It’s a start, right? Johnny Damon debuted at home, and, unfortunately, Bob Sheppard, the veteran Stadium P.A. announcer missed his first home opener since 1951 (he’s due back for the next home stand, however). On a beautiful day in New York, the Yankees started out well, then muddled through a good portion of the game, the fans sitting on their hands. It wasn’t until the eighth inning, when the offense scored five runs–capped by Derek Jeter’s impressive three-run swat–that the Stadium came alive again. The Bombers came away with a 9-7 victory, their ninth consecutive win on Opening Day in New York.

Bernie Williams had a key hit in the frame, which helped make up for his base-running error earlier in the game. Mariano Rivera pitched the ninth for the save. It wasn’t a pretty game, but the Yanks will take it, and it because of the outcome, it is destined to become a “YES Yankee Classic.” Heck, even Mike Lupica is waxing poetic about the Yanks this morning. Go figure that.

Boss George was in the house, but didn’t have much to say, especially to his old pal Murray Chass. And Bill Madden notes that while the end result was positive, there was a lot of be concerned about during the middle innings.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox won their Home Opener as well. Josh Beckett, who is sure to become public enemy number 1 in the Bronx this year, was fired-up and pitched well. Beckett is an arrogant so-and-so and when he’s on, he’s exceedingly tough, as we well remember from the 2003 World Serious. He’s an easy guy to hate, but for Sox fans, a terrific guy to have on your team. The kid Papelbon sure looks poised as well.

The Yankees may have started the 2005 season 11-19, but they hit rock bottom at 27-26 following a three-game sweep at the hands of the Royals in Kansas City. Though the Yanks got their revenge at home in August with a three-game sweep of their own, I’m sure the humiliation in KC is still fresh in the minds of the returning members of last year’s Bombers. Coming off a disappointing roadtrip in which they went 2-4 due to a pair of one-run loses, I imagine the Yankees are unusually fired up for the lowly Royals.

The Royals are once again the worst team in baseball, though in their defense they do have three solid arms in their bullpen (Burgos, Sisco and Dessens, and will have a fourth when Mike MacDougal gets back from the DL), and four solid bats to kick off their lineup (DeJesus, Grudzielanek, Sweeney and Sanders, though DeJesus could miss the entire Yankee series due to a strained left hamstring). They might even get something useful out of tomorrow and Thursday’s starters Jeremy Affeldt and Denny Bautista, but that’s the extent of it and everything’s relative to how bad the team was last year.

Looking at the members of the 2005 Royals who have been replaced on the 25-man roster for 2006 the thing that jumps out at me when is that only Shawn Camp has surfaced with another major league team. Ruben Gotay, Chip Ambres, Aaron Guiel, J.P. Howell, Leo Nunez and Kyle Snyder all remain in the Royals system but failed to break camp with the team (in part due to the Royals own mismanagement). Terrence Long, Super Joe McEwing, Alberto Castillo, Jose Lima and Brian Anderson are all major league vets who appeared with various teams as non-roster invitees this spring, but failed to catch on. D.J. Carrasco likely saw a similar future for himself and signed with Japan’s Kintetsu Buffaloes in February. That these eleven men, nearly half of the Royals 2005 roster, failed to make another team is, to me, proof that the Royals are essentially operating at replacement level.

Meanwhile, the thing Yankee fans will best remember about today’s Royals starter Joe Mays is that he was the guy who gave up Hideki Matsui’s opening day grand slam in 2003. Here’s hoping we see a repeat of that today.

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Doesn’t feel like snow, does it? No, it’s a beautiful, crisp spring morning in New York and looks like it’ll be gorgeous up in the Bronx for the Bombers’ home opener. I know the Royals aren’t the Red Sox, but anyone excited?

One week is in the books and in many ways I feel as if the season hasn’t started yet. That’s what you get when the Bombers open up on the west coast. To be honest, between my job and promoting “Stepping Up”, I’ve simply been too preoccupied to focus on the Yanks. I’ve caught a few odd innings here and there, and, fortunately, I know where to come for all the latest recaps and analysis.

My trip to St. Louis was brief but a success and I really enjoyed the place, its history and all the baseball fans I met. The longest interview I did was the first–for the local NPR station (which you can listen to here). I’ve got just enough “ums” and “you knows” in there to make my old man roll his eyes–and I was trying my best to be on point with that stuff. (I must have said “essentially” or “the interesting thing” about a dozen times each too.) Just goes to show you what a learned skill talking in public is. Hey, I’m getting there. Tonight, I’ll be on Sports Bloggers Live between 7-8 on AOL, and I’m also hosting a chat over at Baseball Prospectus. I’d appreciate it if y’all could stop by and throw in a question–about Flood, the Yanks, or anything else you’ve got on your mind.

Thanks, and I hope to be back to the Yankee beat sometime in the near future.

It’s official, the Yankees own Bartolo Colon. In four starts last year between the regular and postseason, the Dominican Dirigible posted the following line against the Bronx Bombers:

19.2 IP, 23 H, 19 R, 14 ER, 7 HR, 7 BB, 13 K

Yesterday they beat Bartolo’s base drum even harder, scoring eight runs (seven earned) on seven hits and two walks in just over two innings. Alex Rodriguez, who hit four home runs in his first four at-bats against Colon last year, went deep in his first trip against him this year leading off the second. A single and an error later, Jorge Posada made it 4-0 with another dinger. Three batters into the next inning, a Posada double made it 6-0 and chased Colon before he could get the first out of the third. It then took Esteban Yan two pitches to surrender both of Colon’s bequeathed runners via a Cano double. The Yanks put up two more on Yan over the next three innings, including Posada’s second homer of the day.

Meanwhile, Mike Mussina picked up right where he left off in his first start (6 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 5 K, 68 percent of 92 pitches for strikes), Kyle Farnsworth (2 K) and Scott Proctor (1 K) turned in a pair of perfect innings, and Mariano Rivera, yes Mariano Rivera, pitched around a Casey Kotchman single to close it out.

One and a half times through the rotation, the Yankees have a 3.04 team ERA and the offense is heading home to feast upon three Kansas City Royals starters who had ERA’s north of 5.00 last year. Everything’s going to be okay.

Randy Johnson pitched a gem last night that was spoiled by a two-out, defense-assisted Adam Kennedy triple and another bad night for the Yankee offense.

With the score knotted at one due to a pair of first-inning runs off a Derek Jeter homer and a Vlad Guerrero RBI single, Juan Rivera lead off the bottom of the fifth with the Angels fourth single of the night. Johnson then struckout Tim Salmon and Jose Molina before yielding yet another single to Robb Quinlan, who started at first in place of the left-handed Casey Kotchman and had also singled in his first at-bat against Johnson.

Adam Kennedy followed and after taking ball one, pulled an extra-base hit down the right field line. Gary Sheffield fished it out of the corner and fired in to the cut-off man Cano standing just behind first as Quinlan rounded third. Cano bobbled the ball, however, losing his opportunity to make a play on Quinlan at the plate. Instead he fired to third to catch Kennedy stretching. Cano’s throw was in plenty of time and Alex Rodriguez had the ball in his glove and on the bag ahead of Kennedy’s slide, but when Kennedy’s lead foot came in, it kicked the ball loose and the play was scored a triple.

It was the Angels only extra-base hit of the night and Johnson would complete the game allowing only one more baserunner on another Guerrero single, finishing with this line:

8 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 0 HR, 0 BB, 8 K, 71 percent of 97 pitches for strikes. Again, six of those seven hits were singles and all eight strikeouts were swinging.

It wasn’t enough. After Jeter’s homer, the Yankees could only strand a pair of walks against Ervin Santana until the sixth, when a throwing error by Chone Figgins put Jeter at first with one out. Gary Sheffield then singled to make it first and second for Alex Rodriguez. On a 1-2 pitch, Rodriguez lined a ball up the middle only to have it hit Santana in the back of the knee and drop to the ground for a 1-3 putout. Jason Giambi then worked an eleven-pitch walk to load the bases, fouling off five straight 3-2 pitches in the process and driving Santana from the game, but Hideki Matsui, who has been the hottest Yankee hitter thus far this season, popped out against lefty J.C. Romero to end the inning.

Rodriguez was robbed again in the eighth inning when, after a two-out ground rule double by Sheffield that was badly misplayed by Garret Anderson in left, Rodriguez scalded a ball in the second base hole only to have Kotchman, in the game as a defensive replacement for Quinlan, make a tremendous diving catch and flip to pitcher Scot Shields to retire the diving Rodriguez by the thinnest of hairs.

The Yankees threatened again in the ninth against Francisco Rodriguez following a one-out solo homer by Matsui that pulled them within one, but pinch-hitter Bernie Williams grounded weakly back to the mound to strand Bubba Crosby, who came in to run after a two-out Cano single and advanced on a wild pitch, at second. Final score: 3-2 Angels.

The Yanks look to save face tonight after scoring just three total runs in their first two games in Anaheim. Despite that miserable run total, there were some good indicator’s last night: Gary Sheffield was 2 for 4 with a double, Alex Rodriguez had two RBI hits taken away due to misfortune and good defense, Giambi stung the ball a couple times and had that fantastic at-bat that chased Santana, Jeter and Matsui homered, Cano got two-out single with his team down one in the ninth. On top of all that, Damon’s O-fer last night was his first of the season. This team is on the verge of busting out and tonight’s opposing pitcher just might be the guy they do it against.

The Yankees faced Bartolo Colon four times last year, including the playoffs, and none of those outings ended well for the heavy-set hurler. In their first meeting, Colon failed to make it out of the fourth as Alex Rodriguez went 4 for 5 with three homers and ten RBIs and the Yankees won 12-4. Three months later in Anaheim, Colon gave up four solo homers, another to Rodriguez, a pair to Giambi, and one to Matsui, though the Angels pulled out a 6-5 win when Vlad Guerrero hit a grand slam off Tom Gordon. In Game 1 of the ALDS, Colon kept the Yankees in the park, but gave up three first inning runs and lost to the Yankees and today’s Yankee starter Mike Mussina 4-2. Finally, in Game 5, Colon was unable to answer the bell for the second inning (though, curiously, the Angels would go on to win behind Ervin Santana on another two-out defense-assisted Adam Kennedy triple).

There’s word that Colon is still not completely healthy. He needed 95 pitches to get through five innings in his first start, allowing three runs on eight hits and a walk to the Mariners. Considering how well the Yankees hit him last year, even when he was in good health, I expect the key to this afternoon’s game to be not the performance of the slumping offense, but whether or not Mike Mussina can repeat the excellent performance he had against the A’s in his first start.

After scoring 15 runs on opening night, the Yankees have scored a total of eight in losing their last three games. But as tempting as it might be to point to a team-wide offensive slump, the fact of the matter is that they’ve simply run into some outstanding pitching. Rich Harden, Dan Haren, Justin Duchscherer, Huston Street, Kelvim Escobar, Scot Sheilds and Francisco Rodriguez are some of the best pitchers in the American League. Randy Johnson and Mariano Rivera are the only Yankee hurlers who could crack that line-up and Rivera, shamefully, has yet to throw a pitch this season. It’s no wonder the Yanks are 1-3. The good news is that Randy Johnson will take the ball tonight looking to stop the Yankees’ losing streak. The bad news is that the pitcher he’s facing is the promising Ervin Santana, who was the winning pitcher in relief in Game 5 of last year’s ALDS. Truth be told, I’d take the 23-year-old Santana over any member of the Yankee rotation other than Johnson himself.

In other news, Wil Nieves was designated for assignment yesterday to make room for new third-string catcher Koyie Hill, who joined the Yankees in Anahiem last night. Nieves will now have to pass through waivers in order to remain in the organization and report to Columbus. All of this proves that Nieves only made the opening day roster because he was out of options and the Yankees didn’t think they could afford to lose him to waivers, which should tell you something about how dire the organizational catching situation is. With Hill in the fold, however, the Yankees can afford to expose Nieves, and if Nieves clears, they can then risk exposing Hill, thus opening up that final roster spot for a more deserving player such as Ramiro Mendoza or one of the Kevins. Indeed, DFAing Nieves removes him from the 40-man roster, which means there’s now an open spot on the 40-man for Mendoza, who could replace Jaret Wright in the bullpen once Wright is needed in the rotation.

Odds are Nieves won’t be claimed, but it will be interesting to see what the Yankees do if he is. One fears the loss of Nieves could freeze Hill on the 25-man for the forseable future, which would be a dreadful waste of a roster spot unles Joe Torre uses the situation to DH Posada on days he doesn’t catch. Still, the fact that Hill fell all the way to the Yankees (the Angels and White Sox are the only teams that don’t have waiver priority over the Yankees when it comes to wavied National Leaguers, though that will change on the 30th day of the season, at which point this year’s standings will be used to determine the waiver order) strongly suggests that there are no other teams out there desperate for a triple-A catcher with out a past or a future. The Yankees should should just suck it up and DFA Hill either way, besides which, they can always withdraw him from waivers and return him to the 25-man roster if he is claimed.

Finally, Joe Torre made the first of what I expect will be several small tweaks to his batting order last night. I’ve not said much about Torre’s bizzare choice to pair up the four lefties in his line-up, placing Giambi and Matsui and Cano and Damon back-to-back, in part because I didn’t expect it to last. Indeed, starting last night, Torre has swapped Cano and Bernie Williams in the order, thus using the switch-hitting Williams to break-up the left-handed Cano and Damon. Torre said he made the move because Cano was swinging the bat better than Bernie. That’s encouraging because it indicates that Torre is capable of recognizing that Williams, who is now batting ninth, is the worst hitter in his lineup.

In my preview of last year’s ALDS I wrote about how, for all the praise he receives as a manager, Mike Scioscia does a terrible job of filling out his lineup card. That didn’t change during the offseason. Adam Kennedy has a .349 on-base percentage over the past four seasons but remains buried in the ninth spot while Orlando Cabrera, who has never had an on-base percentage that high in any of his major league seasons and carries a .315 career mark, bats second yet again. Darin Erstad, who hasn’t had an OPS over .746 since 2000 continues to not only play every day, but bat in the middle of the line-up.

At least Scioscia has shifted Erstad back to centerfield, opening first base for Casey Kotchman, a huge upgrade that should have been made last year. Scioscia could similarly improve his lineup by starting Robb Quinlan at third and using the multi-talented Chone Figgins to force Erstad or Cabrera out of the lineup. Unfortunately misplaced loyalty in the case of Erstad and misplaced cash in the case of Cabrera have kept Figgins boxed in at third and Quinlan riding pine. Most startlingly, Scioscia has abandoned the complex platoon he employed last year that pulled the lefty Finley in favor of Quinlan against southpaws. The Angels have faced lefty starters in two of their three games thus far this season and Quinlan has yet to start, while the left-handed Erstad has started all three games.

The good news for Angels fans is that there offense is on the verge of a major rebirth. To the 30-year-old Vladimir Guerrero, the 28-year-old Figgins and the 23-year-old Kotchman, the Angels will soon add a full infield of prospects in 22-year-old first baseman/DH Kendry Moralis, 22-year-old second baseman Howie Kendrick, 21-year-old shortstop Brandon Wood, 25-year-old third baseman Dallas McPherson, and 23-year-old catcher Jeff Mathis, the last of whom is already on the 25-man roster and should be starting ahead of Jose Molina (yet another misallocation of resources by Scioscia).

The question is, should those eight men indeed coalesce into a dominating offense, will the Angels be able to maintain the pitching required to complete another Championship ballclub. If not, it will be a bitter irony as, for now, it’s the Angels’ pitching that makes them contenders. John Lackey experienced a breakout last year and could be even better this year. Twenty-three-year-old Ervin Santana will spend his first full season as a member of the rotation and could establish himself as a front-of-the-rotation future star. Kelvim Escobar salvaged an injury-shortened 2005 by returning from the DL as a dominating middle reliever. This year he returns to the rotation, where he was the Angels ace in 2004. Then there’s that guy who erroneously won the AL Cy Young last year.

Meanwhile, the Big Three in the Angels’ bullpen may just be the best in baseball, but Brendan Donnelly’s pixie dust appears to be wearing off and there’s considerable concern that Francisco Rodriguez could be headed for a big fall unless he agrees to correct his ugly mechanics. His increased wildness last year (4.28 BB/9 up from 3.54 the year before) is a warning sign that the 24-year-old closer would be wise to heed his coaches. As his comment in this year’s Baseball Prospectus annual says, “Rodriguez’s mechanics have eroded to the point that it’s now a matter of when he will suffer a catastrophic arm injury, not if.” Yikes.

Roster below the fold along with a note on Koyie Hill.

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One of the keys to the Yankees’ success this year will be the performance of Shawn Chacon, who makes his first start of the year tonight against the Angels. Much has been made out of the fact that Chacon’s fantastic performance after being acquired by the Yankees last July was largely the result of an abnormally low opponents’ batting average on balls in play (BABIP). BABIP is generally considered something beyond a pitchers control. League average generally falls around .300 and pitchers whose BABIPs vary greatly from that norm in a given year can generally be expected to regress toward the mean in the following year. As a Yankee last year, Chacon posted a .240 BABIP, thus the pessimism many have about his chances for success in 2006.

However, Marc Normandin of Beyond the Boxscore writes in Baseball Prospectus’s latest Yankee Notebook that Chacon actually has a history of significantly low BABIPs relative to his home park. Thus, the improvement Chacon showed as a Yankee last year just might be a sustainable result of escaping Coors Field, a park that generally inflates BABIP, because Chacon just might be the rare non-knuckleballer who can consistantly supress his opponents success on balls in play.

The Normandin’s credit, this is something he noticed before Chacon threw his first pitch for the Yankees. That is significant not only as a testament to Normandin’s skills as an analyst, but because it proves his BABIP analysis isn’t simply a case of retrofiting the stats to explain past performance, but the detection of a trend significant enough that he was able to anticipate and extremely surprising improvement in performance.

Here’s what Normandin wrote around the time of the trade:

Shawn Chacon of all people looks like he might have the ability to control hits on balls in play a little bit. Ignoring the .314 BABIP, where he was closing, Chacon’s BABIP’s for his major league career read .275, .261, .276, and .272. Consider again that Coors raises BABIP by simply existing [the average BABIP at Coors during Chacon’s stay there was north of .330 –CJC], and we have ourselves someone lowering the batting average of balls in play against him at an extreme rate consistently.

In his new piece at Baseball Prospectus, Normandin provides this chart:

Year	Chacon BABIP	Park BABIP	Diff.
2001 (COL)	.294	.338	-.044
2002 (COL)	.261	.325	-.064
2003 (COL)	.276	.318	-.042
2004 (COL)	.314	.340	-.026
2005 (COL)	.272	.336	-.064
2005 (NYY)	.240	.311	-.071

What’s apparent here is that Chacon’s BABIP relative to his home park with the Yankees last year was low even for him, but not so low that one can’t expect him to be a valuable starter for the Yanks this year. With that in mind Normandin takes on Chacon’s PECOTA projection:

PECOTA assumes that BABIP regresses . . . His weighted mean projection BABIP is .287, and he is expected to finish with an ERA of 5.04; PECOTA is normally conservative, but that seems well out of line with what Chacon could be capable of, free from Coors for an entire season. This is not to say that Chacon is going to replicate his 2.85 ERA, as even the best in the business have a difficult time with that sort of thing in consecutive seasons. Rather, it seems entirely possible that Chacon can best his 90th percentile projection for ERA without actually having the peripheral statistics that PECOTA expects him to. PECOTA projects a 3.94 ERA at his highest point, and that seems to stem from a much improved K/BB of 1.69 (saying “much improved” before such a low K/BB makes one stop and think for a moment [Chacon’s K/BB tends to hang out around 1.40 as it did this spring, though curiously it was actually lower during his time as a Yankee last year –CJC]). Chacon may be able to surpass his projection simply by invoking the powers of BABIP in 2006.

So what exactly happens to the balls put in play against Chacon? Normandin presents the following breakdown of Chacon’s 2005 season:

Team	BFP	K	BB	GB	OF	IF	LD	IF/F
COL	322	12%	14%	25%	26%	2%	17%	9%
NYY	330	12%	11%	34%	21%	8%	13%	28%

LD is Line Drive Percentage, and IF/F is Infield Fly to Flyball ratio. Looking at these figures by themselves, it is apparent that balls hit into play ended their journey in the infield more often than not. 34% of the batted-balls were groundballs. The 19% jump in IF/F is incredible; some of that has to do with a small sample size, but increasing it to a midpoint between the two figures is still excellent progress. The Hardball Times glossary (which is also the source of these statistics) suggests that inducing infield flies may be a repeatable skill; if Chacon is adept at inducing infield flies, and can keep his G/F ratio from his days as a Yankee intact (1.14 as opposed to 0.89 in Colorado), New York might have themselves something here, and we might have the beginnings of an explanation as to why Chacon was successful BABIP-wise in comparison to other pitchers at Coors. Chacon’s previous work (excluding his year as a closer that just insists on messing with all of the data) matches up well with the figures above, so it does not seem like he was in any more of a groove in 2005 than in previous years, besides the normal success that comes with growth as a pitcher.

Normandin finishes his piece by cautioning that the jury is still out as to just how sustainable Chacon’s success might be, but it seems that the unshakeable optimism I have for his 2006 season just might be justified.

Five unearned runs, that was margin of victory for the A’s last night as they took the opening series from the Yankees with a 9-4 victory. The Yanks did well to get out to a 4-0 lead after three against Dan Haren, but from there the A’s hurlers tightened up and the Yankees’ pitching and defense fell apart.

Chien-Ming Wang got his ground balls (9 of 12 outs in the field came on the ground) and came through with strikeouts, K-ing three in his 4 2/3 innings for a 5.79 K/9, but he also walked three and allowed seven hits in that short span. From what I could tell watching the game on MLB Gameday (due to a misbehaving cable box), he left too many pitches up in the zone.

It all came apart in the fourth after a ground out and a single when Derek Jeter bobbled a would-be inning-ending double play ball for the Yankees’ first error of the night. Dan Johnson followed by working a full-count walk and Milton Bradley singled home the two runners that should have been retired by the double play. Wang then got the final two outs, but not before a third run scored on the second out of the inning.

In the fifth, Wang had a stirring confrontation with Frank Thomas with one out and men on the corners, eventually getting Thomas swinging for the second out, but then a pair of walks loaded the bases and forced in the A’s fourth run and Tanyon Sturtze was brought in to get the final out.

With his starter out of the game after five and the score tied, Joe Torre turned to Jaret Wright in the sixth. One could have argued for two innings each from Farnsworth and Rivera had Farnsworth not pitched the night before. Another option would have been to stay with Sturtze, who only needed three pitches to finish the fifth, but all of that would be second guessing. As it stood, Wright looked sharp in his final two spring starts and seemed like as good a choice as any. Indeed, Wright made Torre look good by pitching around a walk for a scoreless sixth then recording a 1-2-3 seventh against the heart of the A’s order.

With the game still tied and the bottom of the order coming up, it seemed safe to let Wright have one more frame, but Milton Bradley started the eighth with a triple just beyond the reach of Johnny Damon in center and scored when Robinson Cano booted a would-be Jay Payton groundout. A pair of singles plated another run and drove Wright from the game with men on first and second and none out. Mike Myers then did his job by striking out Kotsay and Torre turned to Farnsworth to keep the A’s lead at 6-4. Farnsworth’s first pitch was wild, sending Jason Kendall to third, and his next three were out of the zone, loading the bases, which Frank Thomas then cleared with a two-out double to run the score to 9-4, chasing Farnsworth from the game.

And that was that. Unlike Tuesday night, the Yankees left just four men on base and Joe Torre’s pitching changes were logical and timely. Last night’s loss was no fun, but the loss in and of itself doesn’t bother me all that much. It does, however, make Tuesday’s ninth-inning defeat all the more bitter. Last night was a winable game, but the pitching and defense kicked it away. If the players lose, so be it. Tuesday night, however, was a game the manager lost, and that’s inexcusable, especially when his team has an opportunity to take a series from a team as good as the A’s. As it stands, the A’s took two of three from the Yankees without Mariano Rivera throwing a single pitch.

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