Yanks go for seconds this afternoon against the Jays at the Stadium.
It’s the Big Fella.
Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Andruw Jones RF
Curtis Granderson CF
Steve Pearce DH
Jayson Nix 3B
Ichiro Suzuki LF
Chris Stewart C
Oh, Scoretruck, where art thou?
Never mind those Birds on the Creep: Let’s Go Yank-ees!
[Photo Credit: Jacinda Russell]
The Yankees won a taut, low-scoring affair with a big performance by a starting pitcher, some good defense and a solid bullpen. As long as you don’t have to answer any follow up questions, that’s our story for this game, OK? The Yanks can win close ones. All is well, everything will be OK from this point on, yada, yada. This 2-1
victory over the Blue Jays was the huge sigh of relief that the team needed after Monday’s disappointment. Got it?
Phil Hughes was good for the second straight game – a Yankee-Stadium-Special his only blemish. Never mind that he was up 1-2 on the hitter, and that the hitter was someone named Adeiny Hechavarria, who may or may not have discovered the silent “V”. It was Hechavarria’s first career home run, though I wonder if he’ll be fined in Kangaroo court for smiling – I’m not sure opposing batters are allowed count Hughes and Nova homers for personal milestones.
The Yankee offense jumped out to an early lead, that’s good right? Should it matter that the pitcher the Blue Jays sent against them is so lost this year he’s walked 5.1 batters per nine innings? He walked eight Tigers in his last start. He shut the Yanks down for seven innings.
But that’s not the whole story, because for Ricky Romero to have a shut-down game this year, something else must be at work. And yeah, there it is, the Yankees had recent re-acquisition Steve Pearce batting cleanup. Russell Martin batted fifth. Russell Martin, who may not be the fifth best hitting catcher in the Yankee system, was the fifth best hitter the Yanks could send out there tonight.
The game threatened to tilt in a tricky sixth inning, but the quick reactions of Robinson Cano saved the day. De-Fense, that’s important, right? Hughes walked the first two hitters and Adam Lind tried to order another Special, but the kitchen was all out of meatballs. He skied it to the wall in the right field corner. The tying run moved to third with one out. Yunel Escobar stung one Willie-McCovey style right to second. Cano snared and fired to third to catch Rasmus dancing by himself. The double play balm soothed those nagging doubts that began to appear.
If someone does start asking follow-up questions, like “why was that game against that pathetic team so damn close?” Or “can you imagine a team like the Yankees fielded tonight winning many future games?” you just say, “how about that Red Sox trade?” And cross your fingers.
Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty
Hughes on the hill.
Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Steve Pearce DH
Russell Martin C
Curtis Granderson CF
Andruw Jones RF
Jayson Nix 3B
Ichiro Suzuki LF
Never mind the Band Aids: Let’s Go Yank-ees!
[Illustration by Tang Yau Hoong]
I’ll take the heat for last night’s loss. With the Yankees up 6-4 with two out in the ninth, I called out to The Wife, “Come in here, Soriano’s about to untuck his shirt.” I knew I was tempting fate but I said it anyway. Two hanging sliders later the Yanks were down 7-6, and even though Derek Jeter homered in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game, I knew I’d jinxed it.
That’s the power of the fan, don’t you know? We control these things, not the players. So don’t blame Soriano for a lousy night–he was unfairly booed when he walked off the mound–or Derek Lowe, whose throwing error helped the Jays scored the winning run. I’m a team player. I’ll take the hit. I don’t do that again.
To make matters worse, Mark Teixeira left the game with a grade 1 calf strain. He’s gone for a week, maybe two. Chad Jennings has the low lights.
The Yankees once had a comfortable lead. But they’ve sputtered the last month and now the Orioles are 3.5 games back, with the Rays right close, too.
Looks like we’re in for a tense September.
The Yanks are back home. Made a minor move today. It’s the Blue Jays this week, the Orioles this weekend.
Tonight gives Phelps vs. Alvarez.
Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Curtis Granderson CF
Eric Chavez 3B
Russell Martin C
Raul Ibanez LF
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Never mind last week: Let’s Go Yank-ees!
[Photo Credit: Dragan]
The bullpen was the story on Sunday. Rafael Soriano was hit in the hand by a line drive in the ninth inning but seems to be okay.
Yanks okay too as they beat the Indians, 4-2. Mike Axisa has the happy recap over at River Ave. Blues.
Yanks aim to not suck this afternoon in Cleveland.
We believe this can be achieved.
So, never mind the sermon: Let’s Go Yank-ees!
Hard Luck Hiroki Kuroda hit the first batter he faced last night, walked a guy and gave up a three-run homer. That was all the runs the Indians would score and wouldn’t you know it, it was enough to beat the Yanks–3-1 was the final.
It’s a game that is too frustrating to recall in detail. It’s Sunday morning now and thinking back on it too much would just needlessly angry up the blood. The Yanks had their chances.
Here’s the game in a nutshell: Top of the sixth, Jeter singles, Swisher walks, Cano singles. Bases loaded, nobody out. Teixeira hits one to dead center, deep part of the park. Ball reaches the warning track. Jeter scores, Swisher and Cano tag. Okay, nice enough. Then Chavez hits a bullet line drive but it’s right at the third baseman. Bad luck. Martin hits a shot to deep right field, but again, to the warning track. Bases loaded, nobody out, next three guys hit the ball well. One run.
Moving on.
[Photo Credit: Kurt Nimmo]
It’s our man Hiroki in Cleveland tonight. Chance for the Yanks to take advantage of a Rays loss. Justin Masterson is no slouch though.
Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Robinson Cano 2B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Curtis Granderson CF
Eric Chavez 3B
Russell Martin C
Raul Ibanez DH
Ichiro Suzuki LF
Never mind the waiver wire: Let’s Go Yank-ees!
I was at Citifield last night. Yes, even after Fat Guy did his Fruit Loops impression.
Spent the entire game like a dildo, checking Twitter on my phone as this improbable Red Sox-Dodgers trade unfolded. And checking Gameday to see how the Yanks were doing. Only looked up to see a pitch being thrown so that a foul ball didn’t come my way and hit me in the noggin.
Yanks won, as you all know. Derek Jeter got hit in the helmet and was pissed off. C.C. Sabathia pitched well, Nick Swisher’s two-run homer was the difference and Rafael Soriano had a Johnny Sweatgland How-Do-You-Spell-Relief? 9th inning, putting the tying runs in scoring position with nobody out. He got out of it, no runs allowed, the Yanks won, the Rays lost, and the Red Sox are about to get ride of close to $300 million headaches.
Otherwise, it was a dull night. Oh, yeah, Mets lost.
Yanks look to get their head out of their asses tonight in Cleveland.
It’s the return of the Big Fella. No panic here. But if the Yanks lose a couple this weekend, there will be cursing-a-plenty round these parts.
Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Robinson Cano 2B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Curtis Granderson CF
Eric Chavez 3B
Russell Martin C
Raul Ibanez DH
Ichiro Suzuki LF
Never mind the Rays: Let’s Go Yank-ees!
[Photo Credit: Alex Prager]
Over at SI.com, Joe Sheehan offers this appreciation of Derek Jeter. And while you are there check out Cliff’s 10 worst contracts in baseball history.
“It’s harder each year to sustain because everybody’s after you,” Washington said. “But you have to have pride in what you’re doing and you can’t forget the fundamental things that this game has to offer. Then the talent part of it comes into play. I got a lot of talent, and I work hard to try to get them to understand the fundamental part of it.
“But it’s tough. It’s not easy to win. It’s easy to lose — but it’s not easy to win. To wake up every morning knowing you’re going to come to the yard and everything you have inside of you, you’ve got to leave there. Winning is tough. It’s a grind. It’s a lot on your body, a lot on your mind. It’s a lot to keep guys on the same page, to quit thinking individual and think team and think group.”
–Texas Rangers Manager, Ron Washington
(David Lennon, Newsday)
Last Wednesday at this time the Yankees had just won three straight from the Rangers and were on their way to a 5-2 record for the week. Nothing was fucked, nobody was being un-Dude.
Tonight, the White Sox completed a three-game sweep against the Yanks, the Rays won again and New York’s lead in the American League East is down to three.
Phil Hughes pitched a fine game, gave up a couple of runs in seven innings, but Chris Sale, a bony 23-year-old-lefty who could double for Ichabod Crane on October 31, was better. His delivery is too jerky and he’s too tall to remind us of Ron Guidry, although they share the same number, but his stuff is no joke–fastball, change-up, slider. And all coming sidearm. Kid knows how to pitch, too. He allowed three hits and one run–which came on a solo home run by Derek Jeter (who has homered in each game in Chicago).
The score was 2-1 in the ninth and Addison Reed, another tall pitcher, came on for the save. The Yanks were 0-44 this season when trailing after eight innings. Nick Swisher got in a couple of good swings before he became the 14th Yankee to strikeout on the night. Robinson Cano lashed the first pitch he saw to left field, right passed a crouching Kevin Youkilis at third base and into left field for a base hit. Mark Teixeira got ahead 2-1 and then a high fastball was called for a strike. Tex paced away from the batter’s box and complained. He had good reason to bitch, especially after he waved at the next pitch, a breaking ball falling away from him, for the second out.
So it came down to Eric Chavez, a pinch-hitter, who worked the count even and then grounded out.
Final Score: White Sox 2, Yanks 1.
And sometimes our favorite game goes something like this:
Better luck in Cleveland, suckas.
The Magic Number, as we all know, is three.
[Featured Image: Beatriz Martin Vidal via Gas Station; Nelson via Gruesome Twosome]
The Rays and O’s they keep creepin’. Yanks have lost two in Chicago and face the White Sox best pitcher tonight.
He’ll face Phil Now-You-See-Me-Now-You-Don’t Hughes.
Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Robinson Cano 2B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Andruw Jones DH
Curtis Granderson CF
Russell Martin C
Casey McGehee 3B
Ichiro Suzuki LF
Never mind the beyllachin’: Let’s Go Yank-ees!
[Photo Credit: Fuckyeahchicago]
Derek Jeter jumped the first pitch of the game like a spring-loaded mouse trap. It was a fastball, of the let’s-get-ahead-in-the-count variety from Francisco Liriano, and by the time Jeter’s bat sprung through the strike zone, all that was left was a bloody stump. The ball sliced through the twilight and cleared the fence with ease. I worried that the game had just yielded it’s marquee moment, making the prospect of the ensuing nine innings rather daunting.
Derek Jeter’s resurgence has been well noted around these parts and much of our focus as been on the future. How many more hits can he get? How many more contracts? It’s been the best part of the season. Well here’s something encouraging: In Derek Jeter’s career from 1998-2009, he slugged under .400 in two consecutive months just three times (September 2003-April 2004, May-June 2006, April-May 2008). From May 2010 to June 2011, Derek Jeter has slugged under .400 for eight consecutive months. In the last eight months of play, he’s been over .400 six times.
I don’t mean to say we should expect vintage Jeter for any extended period of time, but at least we can guess that the Ceti-eel that crawled into his aural canal, wrapped itself around his cerebellum and sapped his strength for 2010 and half of 2011 has died and been expelled. Probably through the nasal cavity with a mess of blood and pus. If Jeter stops hitting for power in 2013, we’ll know it laid eggs.
About the other nine innings… I don’t want to alarm you, but Ivan Nova let up a few extra base hits. A double and a triple. A solo homer. A grand slam. That’s another thing that’s so encouraging about Jeter’s re-found power, he’s slugging over .400 without the benefit of facing Ivan Nova. Nova has allowed the most extra base hits in the league and watching him pitch several times this year, I’m not going to bother fact-checking that statement. It just reeks of truthiness.
Francisco Liriano matched up with an umpire that wouldn’t give him a millimeter, let alone an inch. I figured the Yankees would recognize this and walk around the bases. But apart from Mark Teixeira and Andruw Jones, nobody was interested in that approach. Liriano made it through six innings. Almost any other Yankee team in the last fifteen years would have knocked him out in the fourth.
The Yankees lost 7-3 and were reduced to staring at the scoreboard and hoping the Royals would eke out a run against the Rays. The Royals came through and won 1-0 in ten innings. A sigh of relief for the Yanks, I guess. Four games seems a lot bigger than three, but it’s not really.
Photo via AP/Charles Rex Arbogast
Last night? Bad loss. Tonight? A new game.
Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Robinson Cano 2B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Andruw Jones LF
Curtis Granderson CF
Jayson Nix 3B
Casey McGehee DH
Russell Martin C
Never mind the preamble: Let’s Go Yank-ees!
Some games are uglier than others and last night was a slow, boring game between the Yankees and White Sox. It was the kind of game that was going to feel painful for the losing team, more than usual. Not because it was dramatic, either. But because each pitcher threw 473 pitches to each hitter.
The Yanks had an early 3-0 lead and chased Gavin Floyd from the game in the third inning but only had a three run lead. Should have been more. It was no surprise when the White Sox scored five in the fifth, chasing Freddy Garcia, who’d been sharp in the early innings. At one point, with two men on base, and just one out, Garcia fell behind Paul Konerko 2-0. The YES camera showed Yankee pitching coach Larry Rothschild in the dugout. The man sighed and that expression summed up the game.
Yanks took the lead back in the sixth when they scored three runs–Jeter hit a dinger and oh yeah, went 4-5 on the night–but the bullpen gave it right back as the White Sox won, 9-6.
An unbecoming outing for the Yankee pitching staff.
And the Rays are now four back…Creepin’.
Due to a lapse in judgement by my dumb ass the site was out-of-service for a good portion of the day. I apologize. However, we’re back and what did we miss? The Rocket Rides Again; Michael Pineda picked-up for drunk driving.
Hell, at least Tex is back.
Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Curtis Granderson CF
Eric Chavez 3B
Raul Ibanez LF
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Chris Stewart C
It’s Fab Five Freddy.
Never mind the moron behind this blog’s curtain: Let’s Go Yank-ees!
[Photo Credit: Cuba Beisbol via It’s a Long Season]
As crazy as it might sound, I don’t get as much pleasure out of watching the Yankees beat up on Josh Beckett anymore. He’s still the bad guy, but it simply isn’t as much fun when you expect him to get rocked, you know? Heck, even Red Sox fans are tired of him, so it’s hard for me to summon the energy to despise him. The cocky, young kid who silenced the Yankee bats to clinch a World Series almost a decade ago has somehow become just another pitcher, kind of like the neighborhood dog that chased you mercilessly when you were a kid, but years later couldn’t rise from his front porch.
And so it was on Sunday night.
Derek Jeter jumped on Beckett’s second pitch of the night and sent it deep over the head of Jacoby Ellsbury in center field for a double, and eventually came home on a two-out double from Curtis Granderson, and the Yanks were off and running. Beckett was stewing.
That one run almost looked like it would be enough. Hiroki Kuroda was on the mound for the Yankees, fresh off his two-hit shutout of the Texas Rangers, and he picked up right where he left off. He set down the first eight hitters without incident before Nick Punto singled, then cruised through the next three innings allowing just another harmless single. Suddenly it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine him starting Game 1 in October.
To give Kuroda a bit of a cushion, the Yankee hitters chipped in a run here and a run there. With one out in the third, Jeter replayed his first inning at bat and crushed another double over Ellsbury’s head, this one bouncing over the wall. Nick Swisher followed that with a walk, and then Jeter and Swisher pulled off a double steal without a throw. Beckett’s next pitch skipped away from Jarod Saltalamacchia, allowing Jeter to score, and it was 2-0.
In the fourth inning, Ichiro came up to the plate with two outs. I always liked watching Ichiro hit, so it hasn’t been hard for me to start rooting for him as a Yankee. You would always here people talk about how he would effortlessly put balls into the seats during batting practice and claim that he could hit twenty or thirty homers a season if he wanted to, and he gave proof in this at bat. Beckett left a pitch up in the zone, and Ichiro jumped all over it, rifling it into the seats in right for a 3-0 Yankee lead. Two innings later he shot another ball into the bleachers, just because he could. I know the Moneyball folks led an OPS-driven backlash against Ichiro early in his career, but as he stepped to the top of the dugout steps, lifting his helmet to reveal his greying hair as he acknowledged the cheering crowd, I could only think that this was one of the best hitters ever to play the game.
Kuroda was still on the mound in the top of the seventh when the revitalized Adrian González homered to right. Since González plays first base for my fantasy team (Mike Pagliarulo Fan Club), I couldn’t get too broken up over it, and neither did Kuroda, though perhaps for different reasons. He finished the seventh, then ended his night by setting down the Sox in order in the eighth. Rafael Soriano untucked the ninth, and the game was over. Yankees 4, Red Sox 1.
[Photo Credit: Jason Szenes/Getty Images]
