(All comments taken from participants in the game thread.)

PRE-GAME 

Man, Teix down to seventh!

So they’re going to play through the rain.

I’m always happy to watch a Yanks game, but this is one of those nights they’d have to pay me to sit in their seats and drink their beer. I wouldn’t do it for less than $400 plus travel, and parking expenses. Everybody has their price. That’s mine.

TOP OF THE 1st: KC 2 – NYY 0 (homer by Moustakas)

Yankees are losing. This is familiar.

If Gritner is in LF, there is no score in this game. It’s not only that Raul is bad, but that Gritner is great. His glove is sorely missed.

I am trying not to let the Yankees get me down, but they suck at the moment. Come on, it is the Royals.

BOTTOM OF THE 3rd: KC 3 – NYY 0 (The first three Yankees reach base)

You know what’s perverse? I’m getting nervous about the prospect of bases loaded no outs because that seems a situation doomed to disappoint.

Bases loaded no one out. Do they score?

No worries, that was just our best hitter whiffing. No worries, that was just our second best hitter whiffing.

Jesus motherfucking christ on a goddamned motherfucking cracker.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

BOTTOM OF THE 4th: KC 3 – NYY 0 (Chavez gets to third with two outs)

And no two out hit. Now hitting 6 for 65 in that situation. Mendoza line looks like Mt. Everest.

Guess it didn’t rain hard enough.

I’m really not enjoying Yankees baseball much this year.

TOP OF THE 6th: KC 3 – NYY 0 (Teixeira passes on an easy out at first in favor of a difficult play at third, everyone is safe)

What the fuck is WRONG with this team?

WTF were you thinking Mark? This team is playing horseshit ball.

BOTTOM OF THE 6th: KC 3 – NYY 0 (Alex leads off with a double)

It looks as if the Yankees are aiming for one of those Everyone Who Participates Wins A Trophy awards at the end-of-season banquet.

TOP OF THE 7th: KC 5 – NYY 0 (2 out, 2 run homer for Franceour off Garcia)

.500 and dropping like a rock. I’m sure Joe’s remedy is going to be more rest.

I can’t watch anymore. Good night all.

Just wondering – if the Yanks finish last, do they have any shot at drafting Andrew Luck? RG3? Any Kentucky hoopster?

BOTTOM OF THE 7th: KC 5 – NYY 0 (Two on, two out for Cano)

Yay – two more chances to strand a runner in scoring position!

Hey, if they are sitting in the rain watching this slop I sure as shit aint’ turning my TV off.

TOP OF THE 8th: KC 6 – NYY 0 (Wild pitch scores 6th run)

Finally found a saving grace for this evening – my plasma big-screen went out and, thank Mickey, I was able to reboot it and solve the problem. The bad news is that it was still tuned to YES.

Hey, at least we’ve got each other. Cause if there is anything less sympathetic than a bunch of Yankee fans bitching about their sorry-ass, boring, horseshit follies team I’d like to know what it is.

Can’t just be a fair weather fan. Need to watch THIS in the rain. Now’s the time is to celebrate any win, not expect to always win.

BOTTOM OF THE 9th: KC 6 – NYY 0 (Teixeira leads off with a double, is stranded)

Are the Yankees trying? I think so. And if so, there’s a good chance they’ll start hitting and snap out of this weird vortex of suck with runners in scoring position. And if not, they don’t make it this year and our Octobers open up for other shit. That would be less fun than usual, but 2008 wasn’t so bad that they couldn’t win the whole damn thing the very next year.

And it’s supposed to rain all week.

AP Photo by Bill Kostroun 

That would make my job a little easier than normal tonight, because right now there is nothing nice to say about the Yankees.

Here’s the best I can do: Phil Hughes has been decent for four straight games. He’s struck out 22 against only five walks. But I can’t go past decent because of the taters. The only certainty about the Yanks this year is that Hughes will let up a long ball – at least one in each game so far, ten total in eight starts.

I think I know why we’re kinda nuts over Phil Hughes and his developmental path. Sometimes we see him uncork fastballs that overpower hitters for a couple of games in a row. We’ve already had very high expectations due to the hype he generated during his Minor League career and then we see him blow guys away sometimes.

That’s the path he should be on, but we also see him toss batting practice half the time. So the path he’s on now must be the one the Yankees created for him with their incompetence. That’s probably partially right, but I think Hughes has a lot to do with this himself.

The fastball plays sometimes, but I’ve only rarely seen that loopy curve ball fool anybody. David Robertson throws the Platonic Ideal of the Nardi Contreras “spiked-curve” and Phil Hughes throws the Play-Doh version. And the 86 MPH cutter seems like a mistake every time he throws it. It was the cutter that Jose Bautista jacked to give the Jays a 2-1 lead and it was all they needed as the Yanks didn’t score another run. Jays 4 – Yanks 1.

The Jays, behind a rookie named, let’s look up the spelling, Drew Hutchison, punched so many holes in the bottom of the order they’d fail to qualify as swiss cheese for lack of substance. The fourth through ninth batters went 1 for 21 with 2 walks in the game. Ouch.

In the game thread, Ara Just Fair mentioned that the Yanks are 3 for their last 40 with RISP. Double ouch.

It’s not that fun when the Yanks don’t win, and especially so when they don’t hit. When they are going like this, it seems like it would take a miracle to bust the score truck out of the impound lot. But it will happen sooner rather than later and we’ll be laughing about this one and all the others like it.

Won’t we?

Photo by Abelimages/AP

Dock Ellis is back in amination.

The Yankees lost to the Orioles 5-2 tonight in a game so dull and unremarkable that I’m worried I might lapse and accidentally recap the drama at Manchester City on Sunday instead. The Yankees had a chance to sweep a two-game set with the division leading Orioles and with CC Sabathia on the hill and in form of late, what could go wrong?

Wei-Yin Chen. I don’t know if he’s really any good, but he’s pitching pretty well and the Orioles have now won six of his seven starts. CC wasn’t good on a night when he had to be. Adam Jones really smacked one out of the park in the second, and CC let up three doubles, but he could have survived if not for all those other base runners. Seven Orioles reached on via walk, hit by pitch, or infield single and CC was toast after six.

Chen kept the Yanks off the board for those same six innings. Curtis Granderson got him, the other way no less, in the seventh for the only two runs the Yanks would score and the game never seemed like it would bend towards the Yankees.

Maybe with a little bit tighter defense and a few decent calls from the umps at key moments and if we could swap those three rally-killing double plays for hits… oh hell, forget it. We’d have to start over and play this one again to find a way to make a Yankee victory plausible. They were the second best team at the park and that’s because the rain scared away that Little League team that was planning to attend.

Moving over to basketball and soccer, let’s just say that if your Mother’s Day celebration did not include the Manchester City game versus Queens Park Rangers, you missed out on the best sporting event of the year. No doubt, lock up the prize, no one is topping that. It was the 2004 Red Sox, but if all that craziness of the Games 4 and 5 of the ALCS happened in Game 7 of the World Series instead.

In the NBA Playoffs, I’m rooting for Lebron I guess, though I’ll be plenty psyched if Roy Hibbert and the Pacers keep winning. I just want Lebron to win one and then to see what happens after that. Will he break through and become something different and better than he is right now? Will he slide back after grabbing the ring? I also would like him not be the terrible choke artist that many paint him to be.

Then I look at the play-by-play data from tonight and I see he disappeared at the end of the game only to pop up and miss the two biggest free throws of the night, ones that would have turned a one-point deficit into a one-point lead with 54 seconds to play. He didn’t get a shot off for the final three and half minutes, clearly deferring to Wade, who managed to pump off five and was fouled shooting a sixth in the same time span.

I wish I watched that game instead of the Yankees because I’d love to know what the hell was going on there. I don’t think we’re asking Lebron to win or lose by himself. We’re just asking him to play the final minutes the same way he plays the rest of the game. Did anybody watch?

What does Eduardo Nunez do well? He’s 24 years old. He can steal a base. He can stand anywhere on the diamond you ask him to and, if the ball is hit in his general vicinity, he might block it with some part of his body and throw it somewhere within the stadium in which he is playing. For some reason, this skill set is the lynchpin of Joe Girardi’s roster management strategy.

Most of the outfield is hurt? Don’t call up a Minor Leaguer, Nunez can stand out there. We have an old and injury prone left side of the infield? Start Nunez as often as possible. The legendary closer broke his knee? Is Nunez already in the game? Damn. Call up a reserve outfielder, I guess. Is this really what the Yankees have become? A team so shitty that Eduardo Nunez and his null set is vital? I don’t believe it.

But I digress. I considered writing about Mariano Rivera again tonight. About how his sudden absence has changed my outlook on the Yanks. Less childish. Less emotional. Less passionate. Then Eduardo Nunez booted an easy inning-ending grounder in the first and I shouted at the TV, “Get him off the field, he’s terrible!”

“What does “terrible” mean?”

Oh, shit, the kids are still up and they heard that. Backtrack and apologize or give them the hard truth that Eduardo Nunez sucks at baseball, relatively speaking? Backtrack. I have to get these kids through Little League, after all.

Anyway, somehow bedtime got extended until the Yanks tied it up at 2-2, so they went to sleep with fresh memories of Curtis Granderson homers. Better than sugar plums if you ask me.

Price sure looked like he had all his stuff, but the Yanks weren’t fooled very often. Granderson homered and blasted another to the warning track. Alex had great swings and two hits. Cano saw him better than anyone, with three hits and the telling blow, a two-run jack. Last night, the Yankees scored one run off of Jeff Neimann and were lucky to get it. Tonight they scored five off David Price and seemed a good bounce away from getting ten. Go figure.

In the six innings without a Nunez error, Sabathia permitted four base runners and held the Rays scoreless. His final line was eight innings, two unearned runs, seven hits, one walk, and ten strikeouts. I think he was better than that line indicates, if that’s possible. CC Sabathia is quite possibly the one thing the Yanks got right this winter. And it’s a big one. Next time we’re bitching about Pineda, Montero and Ibanez, let’s be sure to throw CC on the scales.

Let’s also give Joe Girardi some credit for a smart move tonight. He took Nunez out for a defensive replacement. In the sixth inning.

Photo by Mike Stobe/AP

The dreckiest sentence in this mountain of dreck is this one: “Why should NBA franchises assume the responsibility and financial burden of player development when, once upon a time, colleges happily assumed that role for them?”

Let’s rewrite that question for Steve, but add one single ounce of humanity and perspective: “Why should anyone other than the NBA assume the responsibility and financial burden of player development?” Steve thinks the NBA is entitled to reap the corrupted benefits of the professional basketball player factory that is the NCAA.

And thank goodness for the NCAA. Assuming responsibilty over here and financial burden over there, all out of the goodness of their collective heart. The NCAA and NBA have concocted a virtually risk-free scam in which the NCAA develops talent at no cost, funnels that talent into a monopoly.  The only potential risk is a player getting hurt before he gets pushed through the funnel. That’s a minimal risk because the flow of talent is endless.

Well, minimal risk for the NBA and NCAA anyway. But screw the kid. That’s Kerr’s point and at least he had the guts to state it bluntly - albeit after he piled on about 2000 words of tone-deaf platitudes and other compost:

The arguments against raising the age requirement hinge on civil liberties, points like, “Who are we to deny a 19-year-old kid a chance to make a living when he can vote, drive, and fight in a war?” If this were about legality or fairness, you might have a case. But it’s really about business. The National Basketball Association is a multi-billion-dollar industry that depends on ticket sales, sponsorships, corporate dollars, and media contracts to operate successfully. If the league believes one rule tweak — whatever it is — would improve its product and make it more efficient, then it should be allowed to make that business decision.

With that guiding principle Steve, what other “rule tweaks” might serve the greater good of the NBA, and by definition, America? An endless and frightening list of things comes to mind. No business should be allowed to violate fundamental freedoms of our society to improve their bottom line. That type of thinking is vile.

And why is Grantland publishing this badifesto? I’m not asking an entire collection of writers to speak with one voice, but dropping in a non-writer with partisan ties to an issue to editoriolize is in poor taste. Especially when his case is so glaringly weak and offered without counterpoint.

I also don’t think rich, old, White men should be allowed to arbitrarly decide when impoverished, young, Black adults should be allowed to earn a living in their chosen profession, but Steve Kerr deftly dealt with that issue by not mentioning it.

With a 4-2 lead after seven innings, the Yankees showed off their new “Plan A” bullpen tonight. Rafael Soriano took over eighth-inning responsibilities as David Robertson packed his hammer for the ninth. It was the first close game since Mariano got hurt and I felt another wave of shock and depression as Mariano’s theoretical absence hardened into an actual game situation. It’s not that I’ve never seen the Yankees win a close one without Mariano, it’s just that those games were obviously temporary. A fleeting glimpse at an alternate universe, its otherness reaffirming our reality where Mariano was firmly and safely entrenched. This, as we all know too well, was different.

Ben Zobrist rocketed a triple to left-center gap to greet Soriano. He bounced back to strikeout Carlos Pena and B.J. Upton and was one strike away from stranding Zobrist when he threw a 55-foot slider that glanced off Russell Martin’s chest protector and bounced far enough away for Zobrist to score. Soriano then walked Matt Joyce on a close pitch, another slider, and went 3-0 on Luke Scott. Scott was ripping dead-red on the  3-0 pitch and Martin and Soriano wisely stayed with the slider. Soriano worked the count full and punched Scott out on a nasty, diving slider – the one he meant to throw Joyce.

The lead down to one, the Yankees rallied to give David Roberston a little slack. Alex Rodriguez hit a screaming bastard of a line drive that nearly impaled B.J. Upton in center. They gave Upton an error for letting Alex get to second, but better an error than a hole in the chest. Teixeira finally out-hit the shift and snuggled a double into the right field corner, scoring Alex.

David Robertson faced the bottom of the order in the ninth and did not burst into flames when he took the mound. It took a couple of batters. He got the first out but walked Rhymes. He let up a single to Sean Rodriguez and Tampa sent up Brandon Allen to homer or whiff. He whiffed. The real problem was that the Rays had turned the lineup over and their most dangerous hitter, Ben Zobrist, came to bat as the go-ahead run. Robertson worked him carefully but could not get the umpire to give him even an inch on the outside corner. He walked him on five pitches to load the bases.

Holy shit. Couldn’t we get a nice easy save our first time out there without Mo? It has to come down to the one player on the Rays who can hit it 500 feet at any time? Carlos Pena had had a rough night with three strikeouts coming into the at bat, but I’d like to meet the Yankee fan that was glad to se him up there. Robertson started Pena with two perfect pitches – a curve and a fastball both on the outside corner – for two called strikes. Robertson tried to get Pena to chase a low curve and a high heater, but the count ran even at 2-2. Don’t let it get to 3-2, I thought, with all those runners in motion, any hit might lose the game. Robertson took aim at the outside corner one last time and drilled it with his best fastball of the night. Pena never took his big bat off his big shoulder and the Yanks won 5-3.

Phew. That only counts as one win? Are we sure?

The Yankees scored their first four runs on homers – two by Raul Ibanez, who is a more animated corpse than I thought he would be, and one by Curtis Granderson. Good thing the Yanks hit the ball over the fence, because they can’t buy a hit between the lines. The Rays are employing the shift with such audacity, I think it’s as much gamesmanship as it actual defensive strategy. It’s starting to remind me of how the 1986 Mets were completely spooked by Mike Scott’s scuffed balls. If they’re not careful, they’re going to end up mindfucked against their most dangerous division rival.

For the second game in a row, Joe Girardi pushed Ivan Nova through a trouble spot in the seventh inning. Last week, Nova kept the Yankees close for six innings but it wasn’t close after he pitched the seventh. The rest of the thirteen man staff watched the game get out of hand. This time, through an annoyingly consistent rainfall, the Yankees gave Nova a three-run bulge to work with. He was strong through five, but allowed solo shots in the six and the seventh. Perhaps rattled by the homers, he gave up his only two walks of the night immediately following the dongs. And he looked vulnerable for the first time all night in the seventh.

In the sixth, Mark Teixeira and Derek Jeter turned a nifty 3-6-3 double play to erase the walk and end the inning. In the seventh, it didn’t look like Nova would be so lucky. After the walk to Jeff Keppinger, Will Rhymes doubled down the first base line. It rattled around the corner, but Keppinger held at third. Sean Rodriguez flew out to shallow right. Swisher caught the ball with his body moving towards home plate and uncorked a very good throw just to the first-base side of home plate. Russell Martin received the ball and spun to place the tag in front of the plate. Keppinger stayed at third. Martin stood in front of the plate with the ball like a kid on a doorstep with flowers in his hand waiting for his date to come down the stairs.

Keppinger would have no trouble winning a Republican primary with such unimpeachable conservative principles.

Mad props to Ivan Nova, who struck out eight Rays with his excellent mix of pitches. I thought the change-up, slipping down, just out of the zone, was particularly promising tonight. He looked so good through most of his outing, it’s hard to reconcile the homers. He let Jose Molina take him deep, which, on a better team might be a punishable offense in Kangaroo court. Nova was up 0-2 in the count and threw a pitch like he was down 2-0. Watching Molina jiggle around the bases I wondered if this game is really as hard as we make it out to be sometimes.

Despite the Molina incident and coming damn close to blowing the lead in the seventh, Nova held on and rewarded his manager’s faith in him. But even though Nova and Ibanez were the stars of the game, the story was new look bullpen. And in life after Mo, we’re going to have to settle for success, even if it’s not quite as beautiful.

He’s good when he keeps the ball in the park and works his magic escaping jams of his own creation. The ball left the park tonight, and as his pitch count ran north of 100, all those men on base began to score. The Yankee offense did next to nothing against Jake Arrieta and lost the rubber game of the series 5-0 to the Orioles.

Jake Arrieta deserves the game ball for this one. He threw hard fastballs on the corners and mixed in breaking balls when needed. But the well-placed fastball was enough. The Yankees hit few balls hard and never threatened. Arrieta went eight strong innings, a career high.

Nova kept the Yanks in the game for six innings, but he was always in trouble. As he lost control of the game in the seventh inning, the thin ice of the Yankee bullpen finally fell through. With injuries to two starting outfielders, the Yankees decided to go with a short bullpen this week and it cost them a chance to steal the victory tonight. Who can fault Girardi with leaving Nova out there to put the game out of reach when he was carrying only 13 pitchers? Hopefully everyone will be healthy by the weekend so he can restock his arms.

The good news is that when Eric Chavez had an unexpected head injury in the middle of the game, there was another player waiting there on the bench that could fill in for him. That’s the kind of circumstance a professional manager must be prepared for and fans like us would overlook. The thirteen man staff might have forced Girardi to stretch Nova, but he would have looked even sillier if he had to forfeit the game when one of his starters got hurt.

I think the Yankees will win their fair share of games this season, and probably contend for the postseason. But with this starting pitching it’s hard to imagine what a winning streak might look like. Phil Hughes throwing a gem? Arod carrying the team over a three-game set? Those things seem impossible these days. Even worse, Cano and Teixeira are making Alex look dangerous. The pitching is so weak after Sabathia and somehow, in the absence of Gardner and Swisher, the lineup scored three runs in an entire series against the Orioles. When the Yankees are rolling they find three-run homers in seat cushions.

The Yankees are currently built like a .500 team: a fantastic bullpen, a creaky, streaky lineup and a rotation so top-heavy, if it was a human pyramid, the bottom layer would be crushed to death. The lineup should improve with health and a little patience. The rotation, though, I don’t see it. Andy Pettitte has done a lot of wonderful things for the Yankees, but would turning this starting staff into a postseason threat be his most impressive?

Photos by Kathy Willens  & Jim McIsaac/ AP

We showed up at the field on Saturday and most of the guys look like they could put on a uniform and get through seven innings without a nurse. The two decades took a toll in other ways though. There was less hair on display than a shoddy Brazilian bikini wax. It was the first time I’d seen my teammates since they became husbands and dads and it was a trip to see the changes in one fell swoop.

We’ve transitioned from teenagers to middle-agers along different paths but wherever and whenever it happened, our collective youth had vanished. Maybe some people held on longer than others, but after twenty years, nobody was spared. And that brings us to Phil Hughes who, it occurs to me now, has used up all his youth.

That’s the depressing part of Phloba’s (I am fusing Phil and Joba into the most disappointing word I can fashion, I might have broken that out last year, I don’t remember) breakdown. It would be fun to root for a Cy Young candidate or an All-Star (wait he was an All-Star?) but what we’re really lamenting injury after injury and sputtering pitch after pitch is the creeping shadow of time claiming Phloba’s youth. Whatever Phloba becomes now, it becomes as a man (as men?) with the burden of failure and the destruction of promise.

I knew I had to recap this game tonight, but I had a tough flight from Chicago backed up by dragging my ass around a basketball court and now a precarious time in which I try to make sure the coach seat and the boxing out don’t conspire to throw my back out when I sleep. When I saw Hughes was pitching, I didn’t even bother to record the game. I figured he’d be at best mediocre while giving up dongs left and right. If he was brilliant, I could suck it up and catch the replay.

No sucking it up was required.

My flight was delayed because of weather and I really hoped the game would be cancelled. I remember that’s how I used to feel when I young. I was so nervous for the games, I always hoped for rain. This time it was for strategic purposes – I didn’t want Phil Hughes to have to throw a pitch.

No such luck. The Yankees lost to the Orioles 7-1 in a game I’m glad to say that I missed entirely. I didn’t want to see Hughes let up homers. I didn’t want to see Eduardo Nunez massacre another position on the diamond. I didn’t want to see an offensive highlight package in which Arod’s bunt single, which led to no runs, featured prominently.

Hughes was better than last time, maybe the best he’s been all season, but it was nothing worth celebrating. And now he’s just another day older.

Photos by Al Bello / AP

After five pedestrian innings, Russell Martin presented Nova a surprise lead with a two-run homer off Verlander headed into the sixth. Nova proceeded to back up pedestrian with pus. The Tigers teed off on everything he threw, and the lead was gone in three batters – the big blow a booming double by Austin Jackson. Boone Logan came in and lost a battle to Prince Fielder and the inning ended with Detroit up two, 6-4.

The Yankees bounced back, scratching a run in the seventh and clawing another in the eighth. In between, Joe Girardi got run out of the game for arguing balls and strikes. The umpiring was another unpleasant reminder of the 2011 ALDS.

The stellar Yankee bullpen stepped up to hold the line, the highlight being Mariano’s vintage ninth inning. He broke three bats and struck out a guy looking while touching 93 mph on multiple pitches. In his first few outings, Mariano’s cutter wasn’t moving that much. Now it’s biting like a January wind.

In the ninth inning, the Tigers sent out a flame thrower named Brayan Villareal. He threw the ball so hard and with so much movement that one suspected he’d have trouble throwing three strikes before he threw four balls. He ran the count full to Russell Martin but coaxed a grounder to second. Derek Jeter worked a walk (and ended his fifteen game hitting streak in the process) and when ball four to Curtis Granderson skipped off Mike Avila’s shin guard, he was in motion and made it all the way to third. That brought up Alex Rodriguez, who locked in today with three hits, one of them a homer off Verlander, and his only out three feet short of the center-field wall.

Alex looked very dangerous up there and I was sure he was going to drive in the winning run as he tracked Villareal’s offerings into Avila’s glove. After two balls, Villareal’s third pitch sailed away from Avila. The catcher desperately stabbed his glove at the pitch but he couldn’t snag it. The ball rolled away towards the Yankee dugout. I started celebrating, but when the camera cut to Jeter straining down the line, he was not nearly as close to home plate as he should have been. It looked like he was running in mud and Jeter slid just as the ball arrived. Villareal dropped the ball, but Jeter was safe anyway. The Yankees made a winner of Mariano, 7-6.

Turns out Jeter got a poor read on the passed ball and if it wasn’t for Alex Rodriguez urging him to run, he wouldn’t have made it. Great game for Alex all the way around. And a great win for the Yankees after a few days full of bad news. This is exactly the kind of game the Yanks did not win in last year’s ALDS. Hopefully they’ll have one or two in the bag next time they get there.

I’ve been stewing about Pineda’s injury and Montero’s absence since I heard the news yesterday. Since the trade can’t be undone, it’s wasted energy on my part to continue to be upset about this. But before I let go completely, I want to write now what I was unable to articulate when the trade was made.

It was a dumb trade because the Yankees gave up cost controlled talent with ‘x’ risk attached to acquire cost controlled with ‘y’ risk attached, where ‘y’ was clearly greater than ‘x.’ This is an equation that a desperate team might follow, but not a perennial contender with deep pockets. The Yankees were better served keeping their own cost controlled offensive talent and using their financial might to acquire pitching, which is inherently more risky.

The Yankees chose to ignore all of CJ Wilson, Yu Darvish and Edwin Jackson when they were available. Those guys would have all been risky and expensive acquisitions but if they sucked or got injured, ala Igawa or Pavano, they could go get somebody else. They can spend money over and over again. They can only trade Jesus Montero once. I know that Pineda was more attractive than the expensive free agents because of his age and restricted salary, but that’s not a concern the Yankees should have had at the forefront of their decision making. They walked a tightrope when they could have paid to pave a road.

Let’s not forget the Yankees have to buy offense in the very near future. All the savings they were going to get from Pineda’s presence in the rotation were going to be spent filling second base, two outfield spots, catcher, and third base / DH. Why not just keep Montero and save that money? Why is money saved in the rotation any better than money saved in the lineup? Now of course, there will be no savings from Pineda as the Yankees will have to buy pitching to replace him as well.

It’s a classic case of being too cute for no reason. Even if you liked Pineda better than Montero, surely you liked Darvish and Montero better than Pineda and Ibanez. This is a roster equivalent of Girardi’s first inning intentional walk. If everything worked out, he looks like a smart guy. But he brought catastrophic outcomes into play that did not exist before the walk. By trading away the less risky Montero and acquiring the inherently risky Pineda, the Yankees brought into play a scenario where they get neither Pineda nor Montero and have to pay a shit load of money to replace them both.

I feel bad for the dude. Hope he rehabs and pitches well for the Yankees some day. And I’ll just leave it at that.

Photos by Mila Zinkova and AP/Bill Kostroun

Their journeys to America, however different the paths, share a common starting point. In 1934, Eiji Sawamura left his high school team and renounced his amatuer status for a chance to prove himself against the best players in the world. He joined the newly formed All Nippon club to face Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and the other American All-Stars during the Bambino’s famous tour of Japan and to become a member of Japan’s first professional baseball league, which would start play in 1936.

The Big Leaguers put on a hitting show all over Japan. They won all the games and hit bushels of homers to the delight of many Japanese fans. Every contest was lopsided save one, pitched by seventeen-year-old Eiji Sawamura. The game is recounted in detail in Robert K. Fitts’s new book, Banzai Babe Ruth. Almost equaling the famouns feat of Carl Hubbell in the 1934 All Star Game, Sawamura struck out Charlie Gehringer, Ruth, Gehrig, and Jimmie Foxx in succession while pitching nine brilliant innings.

The Japanese hitters would not score against the Americans, a theme that repeated itself throughout the tour, so Sawamura would have to be equally stingy. Sawamura took the mound with a bright, mid-day sun beind him and the American hitters had trouble distinguishing his adequate fastball from his hellacious curve. After several innings of futility, Babe Ruth advised his lineup to forget the fastball and sit on the curve.

In the  seventh inning Lou Gehrig did just that. The game was played in Shizuoka Kusanagi stadium, which is very small, even by Japanese standards. Gehrig picked out a curveball and his blast found the cozy right field stands. It was the only run of the game.

Connie Mack was the elder statesman on the trip, but did not attend the game. After Ruth recounted the young pitcher’s exploits, Mack rushed to meet Sawamura that evening. He asked Sawamura to return to America and become a Major Leaguer – sixty years before Hideo Nomo and Hideki Irabu, Sawamura had a chance to become the first Japanese import. Fitts has Sawamura’s answer:

Despite his competitive spirit and drive to beat the Major Leaguers, Sawamura would remain in Japan and honor his decision to play in the new league. “I’m interested, but also afraid to go” was the young pitcher’s official response. Mack smiled and did not press for a more definitive answer.

Japan celebrated Sawamura’s performance without regard for the final score. A Japanese pitcher proved his skill and heart against the best in the world. It not only made Sawamura a national hero, but laid an important brick in the foundation of Japanese professional baseball. Sawamura went on to have an excellent career, but it was cut short by World War II. He enlisted in the Imperial Army in 1943 and was killed when his ship was torpedoed near the end of the war. The Japanese created the Sawamura Award to recognize excellence in pitching, much like the American Cy Young Award.

Yu Darvish won the Sawamura Award in 2007 and was in the running each of the last four years. He showed why in eight and a third innings tonight. In only the seventh matchup of Japanese starting pitchers in the Majors, Darvish beat the Yankees and Hiroki Kuroda 2-0. Darvish struck out ten and got another twelve outs on the ground. He put on a show with a variety of effective pitches, most impressive to me was the difference between his mid-nineties four seamer and his low-nineties running fastball.

Hiroki Kuroda wasn’t quite up to that standard, but held a hard-hitting lineup in check into the seventh. He allowed a homer to Ian Kinsler in the first and made the mistake of walking Elvis Andrus in front of the hottest hitter in the American League. After a steal, Josh Hamilton drove in Andrus with a single. Other than that Kuroda kept the Rangers off balance with his off speed stuff. There are a lot of ways to get Major League hitters out and between these two creative pitchers, we saw most of them tonight.

The Yankees did have a chance to get to Darvish in the third. Granderson batted with the with bases loaded and nobody out. Darvish mixed sliders and fastballs and Curtis ran the count to 2-2 by fouling off the nastier ones. On the seventh pitch, he dropped a slow, wrinkly curve low and away and got a very generous call to get the strikeout. Alex Rodriguez could not get around on a 94 mph heater in on his hands and tapped into a double play to end the threat.

Of course Yu Darvish looks like a great investment tonight. He was excellent. I don’t doubt there will be bumps on the road, but he seems well equipped with strong command and deployment of an electric arsenal. Watching both pitchers tonight, I was happy to have Hiroki Kuroda on the squad, he’s a capable guy. But Darvish was good enough to make me wonder why the Yankees weren’t interested in him at all. It’s only one game though and if the Yankees see them again, I hope they remember revenge is Darvish best served cold.

(OK, that’s not a good pun, but neither are any of the other ones I’ve been hearing. Let’s at least try to push the envelope here.)

Photos via fromdeeprightfield.com and ESPN.com

Mariano breaks a lot of bats. And he’s caused a few guys to chuck their bats after missing entirely. But what he did to Mauer, I’ve never seen before. Mauer hit the ball – a dribbler to second base – and still lost his bat into the seats. This wasn’t a guy slipping or getting fooled; Mariano literally knocked the bat out of his hands.

I thought of a good-guy gunslinger shooting the bad guy in the hand, or a fencer twirling the epee out his opponent’s grip. But more powerful than that. Maybe one of these moments captures it best:

[Featured Image: Getty]

I paused in front of my closet this morning thinking over my shirt selection. The pinstripes, number two on the back, was the obvious choice for the home opener. But my hand reached for the away grays sporting the double-barrelled fours. I was off work this week because the boys have spring break and being with them made me feel like I was a kid playing hooky. Maybe that’s why I wanted to wear Reggie’s jersey.

Yesterday I threw the first extended batting practice my four-year old ever requested. Previously, he’d been more interested in every other thing in the park over the bat and the ball. I’d carry the equipment to the field, he’d swing once or twice and I’d pack it up again while he dug up worms.

He took a hundred or so swings on Thursday morning. He’s chopping down on the ball too much and his feet are confused. He’s either moving them too much or not at all. But it’s unmistakably a baseball swing, and when he hits it he runs the bases – mostly in the correct order, though he’s not averse to skipping one if there’s a tag waiting for him there.

This morning, the sun was even brighter and warmer than yesterday and we had another great day at the park. Between 10 AM and noon, we had the entire park to ourselves and I think the lack of distractions and performance anxiety are key to sustaining his effort. We broke for lunch and picked up some rolls from the corner store on our way home. We are all Yankee hats and baseball bats walking up Broadway and one of the construction workers thought we were headed to the game. “Just going home to catch it on TV,” I said.

We got home and I fired up three hot dogs: ketchup for the four-year old, plain for the three-year old and mustard for me. We clinked them together and wished each other “Happy Home Opener” as Jorge Posada threw out the first pitch. I know they’re making progress with the Yankees because they only ask me if every other guy is Mariano Rivera instead of every single guy.

We crowded together on the couch and watched Hiroki Kuroda throw his warm up pitches. I told the kids that the Yankees were the team in pinstripes and the Angels were in red. My four-year old said something that sounded like “duh,” but I refused to hear it at the time (though in retrospect, that’s definitely what it was).

Kuroda doesn’t have overpowering stuff, but he runs his sinking fastball with a little tail right to the catcher’s glove. His splitter is dangerous because he is willing to throw it at any time. The first batter singled and stole second but Kuroda defused the inning when he got Albert Pujols to fly sky-high to left.

The Yankees looked to be going quietly as well in their half of the inning when Alex Rodriguez smoked a two-out single to left center and stole second. Ervin Santana scoffed at Alex’s one-man jam and walked the bases loaded for Nick Swisher to teach him the true value of teamwork. Swisher’s last at bat was the game winner in Baltimore on Wednesday night. This one was the game winner on Friday afternoon. He rocketed a bases-clearing double over the head of speedster Peter Bourjos in center field. He out-paced the pace car.

I was pouring milk for the three-year old at the time of the double but I was watching the game around the corner of the kitchen wall, unbeknownst to the kids. I saw the ball skip up off the wall in center and I asked innocently what happened. My four-year old came running, saying, “The Yankees got three!”

We watched the replay, slowing down the point of contact. It was a real blast. My four-year old turned, grinned and said, “Let’s go play baseball.” Click, pack, pee, velcro. Good luck Yanks, I’ll catch the highlights.

My phone told me Arod and Grandy hit homers and the replays confirmed they were laser beam liners to center and right respectively. Alex especially put a charge in his and added a single hit so hard and straight it seemed to curve on its way up the gut. I doubt this is backed up by hard evidence, but when he hits like this, I feel like the Yanks can’t lose. I wonder if others feel the same way and if that’s not a big reason why those fans get so down on him when he’s bogged in a slump.

I don’t get text messages every time a Yankee pitcher has a smooth inning or retires Albert Pujols, or ends the game on a knee-buckling curve ball, but that’s why they invented the DVR. Kuroda was excellent and left a tiny spill for Robertson’s industrial-strength Hoover to suck up in the ninth. The Angels are not the scariest offense, but just holding Albert Pujols to a single in four tries is an impressive outing for the Yanks.

I was happy to the see the final score but I remembered today how I used to think about baseball from about 1982 to 1995. Those were the years when my own games and practices were all that mattered and the Yankees were a sideshow. I know it’s convenient that the Yanks didn’t win anything during those years, but I remember that intense tunnel vision and no amount of confetti could have penetrated.

I don’t know if it will happen again in the same way – my boys might not even want to play Little League. I know I haven’t minded the gradual dialing down of my obsession in the last five years. But the Yanks will be there, probably winning more than they’re losing, regardless of what’s going on with us and they’re a heckuva back stop.

Now let me add one dark cloud to this sunny day; I’ve avoided mentioning this all post long. Somehow, for reasons some therapist thirty years from now might uncover, my older son decided to become a hard-core Pittsburgh Pirates fan. I shit you not. Our batting practice sessions have been built around the 1960 World Series and I’ve been Mazerowskied dozens and dozens of times over the last two days. He pretends that the Yankees trade Mariano to the Pirates so he can use him in their lineup (yeah, he’s not quite clear on that yet either).

Don’t worry, the three-year old ain’t getting away.

Yanks 5, Angels 0. Happy Home Game.

Photo Via Daily News

The Yankees notched their first victory of the 2012 season at the expense of the Baltimore Orioles by a score of 6-2. Perhaps the opening sweep made me uneasy in anticipation of the first win, because this game was not the walk in the park the final score indicates.

Ivan Nova mixed in lots of hits, whiffs and double plays in just the right order to hold the O’s to two runs over seven innings. David Robertson picked up where he left off and had a scoreless but shaky eighth. Mariano got the final three outs but allowed another booming extra-base hit and the final out was a low screamer that almost cut Gardner off at the knees in left. Mo’s pitches were in the 88-90 mph range and mostly not that impressive.

After the two teams exchanged runs in the first, the Yankees grabbed the lead for good in the fourth. The Yankee offense generated pressure all night long, but untimely inning-ending, bases-loaded double plays by Robinson Cano and Alex Rodriguez in the sixth and eighth kept the score close.

Matt Weiters and Derek Jeter each had four hits. The only time either of them failed to reach base was when Derek Jeter got out on purpose in the sixth.

The unwashed masses might think the idea of getting out on purpose runs contrary to the goal of scoring as many runs as possible, but what they fail to realize is that the sacrifice is as much a gift to the gods as it is a gift to the other team. Pious managers and devoted players – nobody has to tell Derek Jeter to get out on purpose – offer up these gifts not so much to score runs or to win baseball games, but in deference to the mystic forces of playingtherightway. Amongst the observant, this is not a strategy but a mark by which they can declare themselves saved.

Back in the game where people were trying, each team was drilling the ball all over the park. The Orioles out hit the Yankees 13 to 11 but were terrible with runners on base. The difference was that Nova, Robertson and Rivera didn’t walk anybody and the O’s issued seven free passes. Two of them scored in the fourth inning rally and the Orioles never caught up.

Ivan Nova bagged the victory, and, though he wasn’t dominant or anything, he’s the latest example of why we shouldn’t give a flying fig about spring training stats. Are you healthy? Is your velocity at or near an expected level? Great, the rest is meaningless.

The middle of the order isn’t doing much thus far so hopefully they kick in gear and start up a winning streak. For now, here’s # 1, courtesy of a man called Nova.

Rumors of Opening Day have fluttered around town for what seems like weeks. I heard there’s an opener in Japan. Are you sure it counts? There’s a premiere in Miami. A game in Queens. They still have a team? Something must have happened, the Red Sox are already in last place.

Our season doesn’t start until the Yankees play. They’re the closer of openers. The Yankees played today, against the Rays in Tampa, and lost in a fashion that is only salvaged by the knowledge that there’s 161 more games to go.

For seven innings, specifically innings two through eight, today’s game had all the ingredients of a breezy, 6-1, opening-day jaunt for the Yanks. But they play nine at this level and their wound-way-too-tight manager botched the first and their savior gacked the ninth.

With two outs and two on in the very first inning of the very first game of the year Joe Girardi called for an intentional walk. None of Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Barry Bonds, or Jesus H Christ deserve an intentional walk in the very first inning of the very first game of the year.

Sean Rodriguez might deserve an intentional walk under some convoluted circumstances that I’m unable to fathom right now, say if the rest of the Rays were all dead and they would forfeit the game for being unable to send up another hitter after the walk. But, as you can probably guess, that wasn’t the case in the very first inning of the very first game of the year. 

Girardi’s colossal stupidity was greeted by Carlos Pena’s grand slam and the Rays had a four run lead in that same first inning of that same first game. Who could have seen that coming? (If haven’t read the game thread, here’s a hint: everybody.)

Alex Rodriguez shrugged off Girardi’s tight-assed, brain-dead move and had himself a nice day. He knocked a double to put some wind back in the Yanks’s sails and was part of two rallies that gave the Yanks the lead by the third inning. Trailing 4-3, Raul Ibanez cracked a two-out three-run job to stake the Yankees a 6-4 lead.

Neither starter was any good. Though Sabathia can thank Girardi for his final line looking so terrible, he still served up two gopher balls. And Shields was a hot mess and deserved a fate far worse than a no decision.

The Yanks handed Mariano a 6-5 lead and I gathered my boys around to watch the final frame. Mariano looked good for three pitches, setting up Desmond Jennings perfectly at 1-2, and then he missed high over the middle on the fourth pitch. It wasn’t the kind of high heat that gets whiffs and pop ups, it was a bail out for a guy down in the count. Jennings guided it right back up the middle for a hit.

What was the worst pitch of the inning, the bail out for Jennings or the next one to Zobrist? Mariano might have been counting on Zobrist taking a pitch, but whatever the reason, he threw a flat cutter and Zobrist tagged it for a triple in the right-center gap. The pitch didn’t have much action and Zobrist jumped on it.

Girardi must have been thrilled however, because he got to order two more intentional walks. During the second walk, my three-year old said, “Look Daddy, the wheels are off.” I was about to say, “No shit Henry,” when I looked down and saw he was holding one of those cars that has interchangeable parts. No wheels.

With five in the infield, Mariano struck out the terrifying Sean Rodriguez. He looked like he might also have a chance to get Carlos Pena. Pena sets up so far from the plate, Martin and Rivera went hard after the outside corner. After three almost identical pitches, maybe Pena was ready for one out there. He got the barrel on the fourth one and sent it back to the wall for the game winning hit. 7-6 Rays.

I missed the post-game press conference, but I’m sure Girardi has some regrets. I bet if he could do it over again, he’d just have Mo intentionally walk Sean Rodriguez with the bases loaded in the ninth to force in the winning run. When in doubt, go for symmetry.

The loss stings, but not so bad as it would in May, June, July, August or September. Not even a shadow of the wounds we’ve accrued in Octobers past. There are 161 games to go and probably about 157 of them will be better than this one.

Photo via vaguehowie

Yesterday, I saw the artist at work for the first time.

I would have stuck around to see him finish, but I had two important meetings up on the hill.

That’s a tightly packed sixty seconds; thanks New York.

The surprise is that the Yankees have too many starters now. But once again, they’re having a very hard time finding five of them that are ready to be effective come opening day.  Here’s a take on the problem from John Harper in Daily News. 

The stats in spring training may be meaningless, but as Phil Hughes demonstrated last year, if you are not ready to answer the bell once the games count, you will get obliterated. So I hope Joe Girardi learned that lesson and will leave behind anyone that can’t cut it.

What if that means leaving Michael Pineda behind? If he’s going to get lit up like Hughes last year, then it’s for the best. But I will have a much happier time this spring if Michael Pineda is pitching well for the Yankees. Revisiting the Montero deal ad nauseum is inevitible, but it won’t be upsetting if Pineda delivers something  positive right away.

What’s your rotation now? What’s your rotation once Pettitte is back?

Now: CC, Kuroda, Pineda, Hughes, Nova

Then: Pettitte replaces Nova

If Nova is pitching better than Hughes, that can be amended.

After three or four years of avoiding the arduous climb whenever possible, I now usually take the stairs at 215th St and Broadway when I have a choice. There are 110 of ‘em so it’s a challenge, but a welcome one after desk-jockeying all day.

2010.

1915.

This picture from 1916, taken from the East side of Broadway gives you a better idea of the climb.

What challenges do look forward to on your walks about town? Which ones do you avoid? I know I try to avoid the subway on treks of less than twenty blocks, though I’ll train it for less than ten in the rain.

Photos via myinwood.net & placematters.net

The artist was a Black man, around forty years old by my guess, and he wore close-cropped facial hair and an army-green cap. His two front teeth appeared to be wrestling and the right tooth was winning.

My neighbor and I chatted for several stops and I didn’t give the artist another thought until I turned my head and saw that five or six people in our vicinity were holding portraits of themselves. The artist was reaching across the aisle to hand a fresh drawing to a stout, middle-aged Korean man who had his eyes closed.

The Korean man rejected the drawing without looking at it. Generally, this isn’t an insulting move. If you took every piece of paper that was handed to you in this city, you’d drown in the stuff. The artist explained, albeit with an edge, that he was handing him a drawing. The Korean man relented, though I still don’t think he understood what was going on.

And the Korean man’s instincts were at least partially on target. The artist was seeking tips. It was a clever, much more palatable (to me anyway) method of asking for cash on the subway, but it still put the recipient of the portrait on the spot. Some people gave the artist money for the drawing, some didn’t.

I leaned over to see the picture of the Korean man. It was a very good-not-great likeness, but when I considered that it was probably the seventh drawing the artist had done in less than thirty minutes, I bumped up the grade. He saw me looking and asked if I wanted a picture too.

I wanted to say yes, but we were slowing down to arrive at my stop, so I told him that there wasn’t time. He went to work on someone else. Then the train stopped and we waited for ten minutes poised right outside the 59th st stop.  He finished three more drawings in the ten-minute delay.

He didn’t come back to me, but he did catch my neighbor. Check it out.

I found the artist on the internet. His name is Roderick Perry Anthony and he signs “Orin” on his artwork. This is a profile of him from 2006. He’s still (or back) on the subway in 2012, and whatever that means for his career at large, I admire his dedication to his art.

Drawing by Orin