It’s Phil Hughes vs. former Yankee, and new Padre, Ian Kennedy. This is the first time Kennedy has ever pitched against the Yanks.
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Robinson Cano 2B
Alfonso Soriano LF
Curtis Granderson CF
Lyle Overbay 1B
Eduardo Nunez SS
Jayson Nix 3B
Austin Romine C
Phil Hughes RHP
Never mind tomorrow’s hoopla:
Let’s Go Yank-ees!
There is a sentiment within and around the Yankees that if they are to make the playoffs, they need CC Sabathia to pitch like CC Sabathia. This is a rather short-sighted point of view. The Yankees have five starting pitchers, and like most staffs, those pitchers can be easily ranked from one through five; the names shouldn’t matter. Contending teams need an ace, a pitcher they can count on to win big games down the stretch, and the Yankees happen to have two of them — Hiroki Kuroda and Ivan Nova. Their third and fourth starters are Andy Pettitte and Phil Hughes, which, in the event that the Yankees make the playoffs, would leave Sabathia as a left-handed specialist out of the bullpen.
So instead of worrying about Sabathia, we should instead be thankful for Nova. He was on the mound for the Yankees on Saturday night, and he did what aces do: he shut down the opposition to give his team a much-needed victory.
With bad news bookending the game (the Yankees pulled Derek Jeter from the lineup to rest his ailing leg and announced that he’d likely miss a game or two, and ESPN reported after the game that Alex Rodríguez will be suspended on Monday through the end of 2014), the nine innings in between were a welcome respite.
Nova took a few innings to find his groove, but he was able to work out of minor trouble early on. He gave up consecutive singles with one out in the first inning, then yielded a lead-off double in the second, but in each case he emerged unscathed. After that second-inning double off the bat of Alexi Amarista, Nova retired fifteen consecutive Padres and never really broke a sweat. Only one of those fifteen batters was even able to work a three-ball count; that was Chase Headley in the sixth, who then struck out on the next pitch.
The problem for the Yankees, though, was that San Diego starting pitcher Tyson Ross was just as good. Ross set down the first thirteen hitters he faced, and did so in fairly dominant fashion, striking out seven of them with a strong fastball, a quality changeup, and a devastating slider. Lyle Overbay broke the spell with a clean single in the fifth, but it wasn’t until the seventh inning that the Yankees were able to make any headway against Ross.
Alfonso Soriano lifted a fly ball that floated just over the infield and landed just in front of center fielder Amarista for a single. Soriano had given up on the play immediately and jogged to first, costing himself a double, but Curtis Granderson erased that minor mistake two pitches later when he launched a home run to right field to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead. Consecutive walks to Overbay and Eduardo Núñez pushed Ross from the game, but the Yanks weren’t able to do any more damage that inning.
Will Venable doubled to lead off the Padres’ seventh, but once again Nova simply bowed his neck against the yoke. He struck out Jedd Gyorko on three pitches, got Amarista to ground out, then followed his first walk of the game with his eighth strike out to end the threat. He had only thrown 85 pitches on the night, but he was done. His final line was impressive (7 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 8 K), but it was really just more of what we’ve come to expect from him. Over his last five starts — a significant sample size — Nova’s numbers look like this: 38 IP, 25 H, 7 R, 10 BB, 37 K, 1.66 ERA, 0.92 WHIP. If it looks like an ace, and walks like an ace, it must be an ace. He’s 3-2 over those five games, but only because the Yankees managed just a total of five hits in his two losses.
David Robertson pitched an efficient eighth inning, the Yankees scored another run in the ninth with a Granderson single, stolen base, and an RBI single from Jayson Nix, and then it was time for Mariano Rivera.
Each of Rivera’s appearances now are bitter sweet. It’s as if you’re eating the most delicious piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever had. Even as you’re delighting in each heavenly bite, you can’t help but feel a bit of sadness as you watch the piece on your plate growing smaller and smaller. And so it is with Rivera. How many more times will we get to see him take the mound? Fifteen? Twenty? Each one now is precious.
As chants of “Mar-ee-ah-no!” were filtering down from the San Diego crowd, the Great One produced another masterpiece. Venable and Gyorko were retired on fly balls that wouldn’t have scared anyone in a slow-pitch softball game, and Amarista struck out swinging on three pitches. All three men will tell their grandchildren about those at bats.
[Photo Credit: Denis Poroy/Getty Images]
Alex Rodriguez spoke to reporters after he hit a home run in a rehab game last night. And here is Sally Jenkin’s Washington Post column on Rodriguez vs. Selg:
Selig and A-Rod’s attorneys are discussing a “settlement” according to reports. A settlement? The word is an apt description of how this commissioner operates: What’s most important to him is not the health of players but the health of revenues. Last year Selig bragged on the “Mike & Mike” radio show, “I said to the owners, ‘Look, guys, in the end you can judge me by asset values. Because in the end, that is really the sum total of everything we do.’ ”
A-Rod is the perfect defendant for a show trial. He is despised alike by spittle-flecked hecklers behind the plate who scream at him for not hitting in the clutch and by solemn self-appointed keepers of the emerald chessboard’s sanctity for admitting four years ago to PED use during a three-year stretch with Texas from 2001 to 2003. He’s an incurably self-conscious phony who incredibly still insists he’s “a role model,” an awkwardly hapless stumbler who is always getting caught, whether frequenting a shady clinic or letting Cameron Diaz feed him popcorn on camera like Cleopatra taking grapes from a love slave. He is a tone-deaf egotist who never understood the deep resentment he engendered by being baseball’s highest paid player and then not producing astronomic numbers. The reaction to him by fans and critics has always been excessive to the point of disturbing. My friend Joe Posnanski wrote maybe the truest thing ever about A-Rod and his audience: He gives them “guilt-free hate.”
Meanwhile, the Yanks are still in San Diego.
Never mind the hubbub:
Let’s Go Yank-ees!
[Photo Credit: Stephen Shore]
Nineteen ninety-eight was a lifetime ago. Personally, I had only just started dating my wife, and we were still just imagining the three children we have now. The Yankees, meanwhile, won every single night and coasted through the first two rounds of the playoffs before sweeping the Padres in the World Series. It was all a lifetime ago, and last night’s game in San Diego was a harsh, harsh reminder.
For one thing, CC Sabathia used to be an absolute stud. Even when things were going well for the Yankees — and I’m not thinking back all the way to 1998 anymore — CC’s games stood out on the schedule. He was the horse who would always pitch seven or eight innings, and even on the nights when he didn’t have his best stuff, you’d still look up in the end and he’d have made it through seven innings while allowing just three runs and earning a hard-fought win. He was that rare quantity — the pitcher on the staff with the best stuff and the most heart.
Because of that, the fall of Sabathia has been perhaps the most unsettling part of this incredibly unsettling season. He was good in April, stringing together three straight quality starts, but it’s been all downhill since then. His monthly ERA numbers have looked like this: 3.35, 4.14, 5.11, and a whopping 6.60 in July. He has been the worst Yankee starter this season, it hasn’t even been close. If his name weren’t CC Sabathia, there would be talk of removing him from the rotation. But since his name is CC Sabathia, he will almost certainly take the mound ten more times this season, and there’s nothing to indicate that those starts won’t go like it did on Friday night.
The Padres didn’t waste any time, as they sent seven men to the plate in the first inning and scored two runs. The first run came on a bases-loaded walk, the second on a ground out to the pitcher. Sabathia made a highlight reel play to get that out, otherwise the inning might have lasted forever.
The Yankee hitters gamely answered with two runs of their own in the top of the second when Eduardo Núñez poked a double down the right field line to score Ichiro, then scored two batters later on a Sabathia ground out. There was reason for hope at that point, but the Bronx Bombers managed only three lousy singles over the next seven innings. Sure, there were at least three or four blistered line drives that died in Padre gloves, a horrific call at first base that robbed Núñez of a hit in the fourth, and another blown call at second in the fifth, but what you see in the box score tells the sad truth. Three San Diego pitchers named Andrew Cashner, Luke Gregerson, and Tim Stauffer held the Yankees to two runs on only seven hits.
Sabathia began to crumble in the top of the fourth. He gave up a long home run to Logan Forsythe with one out, then instead of covering first on Cashner’s ground ball to first, Sabathia stood on the mound like a statue and allowed the opposing pitcher to reach base without a throw. (As egregious as this mental error was, it shouldn’t have been a surprise; Sabathia has not recorded a putout at first base in more than two years.) Cabrera capitalized on CC’s non-error by launching a triple over Brett Gardner’s head in center field to score Cashner and give the Padres a 4-2 lead.
There was more of the same in the sixth inning. Nick Hundley drew a one-out walk, and Cabrera singled him to second two batters later. After Chris Denorfia singled to drive in Hundley, Joe Girardi had no choice but to pull his starter. Sabathia’s line on the night: 5.2 IP, 11 H, 5 ER, 3 BB, 4 K.
Joba Chamberlain gave up a home run to Jedd Gyorko in the seventh, and Adam Warren coughed up another to Will Venable in the eighth, and soon enough it was all mercifully over. Padres 7, Yankees 2.
It can’t be worse on Saturday night, can it?
[Photo Credit: Denis Poroy/Getty Images]
The Yanks are in San Diego this weekend. Hey, our pal Grandy is back! And C.C. gets to hit. That should be fun. He’s due for a good start, too.
Brett Gardner CF
Derek Jeter SS
Robinson Cano 2B
Lyle Overbay 1B
Curtis Granderson LF
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Eduardo Nunez 3B
Chris Stewart C
CC Sabathia LHP
Never mind the sunset:
Let’s Go Yank-ees!
[Photo Via: Foulest]
Today is the 34th anniversary of Thurman Munson’s death. Dip over to The Stacks and read Michael Paterniti’s memorable 1999 Esquire appreciation of the Yankee captain:
I give you Thurman Munson in the eighth inning of a meaningless baseball game, in a half-empty stadium in a bad Yankee year during a fourteen-season Yankee drought, and Thurman Munson is running, arms pumping, busting his way from second to third like he’s taking Omaha Beach, sliding down in a cloud of luminous, Saharan dust, then up on two feet, clapping his hands, turtling his head once around, spitting diamonds of saliva: Safe.
I give you Thurman Munson getting beaned in the head by a Nolan Ryan fastball and then beaned in the head by a Dick Drago fastball—and then spiked for good measure at home plate by a 250-pound colossus named George Scott, as he’s been spiked before, blood spurting everywhere, and the mustachioed catcher they call Squatty Body/Jelly Belly/Bulldog/Pigpen refusing to leave the game, hunching in the runway to the dugout at Yankee Stadium in full battle gear, being stitched up and then hauling himself back on the field again.
I give you Thurman Munson in the hostile cities of America—in Detroit and Oakland, Chicago and Kansas City, Boston and Baltimore—on the radio, on television, in the newspapers, in person, his body scarred and pale, bones broken and healed, arms and legs flickering with bruises that come and go like purple lights under his skin, a man crouched behind home plate or swinging on-deck, jabbering incessantly, playing a game.
With suspensions rumored to come down today, William Rhoden writes that Bud Selig’s bullying almost makes Alex Rodriuez a sympathetic figure:
According to people briefed on the negotiations between Rodriguez and Major League Baseball, Selig has discussed several options, ranging from a lifetime ban to a suspension that would begin this season and end after next season. Rodriguez has never been known as a player who cares about anyone besides himself. But if there were ever a time for A-Rod — and the once-powerful players association — to step up and fight the impending suspension, that time is now. Rodriguez should challenge the credibility of the evidence. If Major League Baseball has compelling evidence, force the league to show it.
There are no vials of evidence. There are no eyewitnesses to Rodriguez’s alleged performance-enhancing drug use. Investigators have the word of two questionable characters connected to Biogenesis, one of whom, the former owner, Anthony Bosch, once impersonated a doctor. Investigators may indeed have compelling evidence — phone records, shipping receipts, e-mails. If they do, A-Rod and the players association should force those investigators to reveal what they have gathered.
This exhaustive investigation is less about A-Rod and performance-enhancing drugs than about power and control. Major League Baseball is attempting to impose its will on high-profile players by possibly circumventing due process to make an example of them.
[Photo Credit: STEVE NESIUS/STEVEN J. NESIUS PHOTOGRAPHY]
Today’s Alex Rodriguez mishegoss is brought to you by Jonathan Mahler, Buck Showalter, and what the hell, Jeff Pearlman.
Kuroda and Kershaw were both terrific last night. Kuroda gave up 5 hits, a walk and struck out 8 in 7 innings; Kershaw gave up 5 hits, didn’t walk anyone and struck out 5 over 8 innings. And so the game was tied in the 9th when Lyle Overbay got a pinch-hit single and then Mark Ellis and Yasiel Puig screwed the pooch on a fly ball allowing 2 more runs to score.
That was more than enough for Mo who got a couple of strikeouts and a ground ball as the Yanks said goodbye to Hollywood.
Final Score: Yanks 3, Dodgers 0.
Chad Jennings, as always, has the notes.
[Photo Credit: Dimelo]
Sure, our boy Hiroki’s going tonight. Trouble is so is Clayton Kershaw.
Brett Gardner CF
Derek Jeter SS
Robinson Cano 2B
Alfonso Soriano LF
Vernon Wells RF
Brent Lillibridge 1B
Jayson Nix 3B
Chris Stewart C
Hiroki Kuroda RHP
Never mind the odds:
Let’s Go Yank-ees!
[Photo Via: Gruesome Twosome]
Alex Rodriguez is the subject of Scott Price’s SI cover story this week:
Rodriguez, once seen as baseabll’s great clean hope, is now viewed as hopelessly dirty.
Others have come back from such stigma: Mark McGwire is the hitting coach for the Dodgers; Jason Giambi and Andy Pettitte, old teammates and admitted users of PEDS, are treated these days as elder statesmen. Rodriguez figures to be different–and knows it–but last week maintained the front of a blissed-out Candide. He insissted that he doesn’t wonder, Why me?
“I never say that,” Rodriguez said. “But maybe there are a couple of chapters where I can become that person again. I’m not giving up. I have tremendous faith, and hopefully there’s a couple more chapters to this book. And hopefully there’s a happy ending somewhere. I have faith.
And:
Asked, last week, if he understood Cashman’s famously profane rip, Rodriguez shot back, “Do you understand it?”
Yes. Because Cashman knows; Rodriguez’s gift, his unprecedented completeness, was never really his; it’s called a gift for reason. Sports is a collective of time as well as talent. Six generations of baseball players and fans, billions of dollars worth of stadia and TV time, an infinity of minor and major leageurs working for untold lifetimes–all of it combined to create the game, the numbers, the interest and the hothouse environment in which Alex Rodriguez was going to be the best.
People care so much about sports greatness because, deep down, they know that it’s a reflection; something there belongs to them. We gave Rodriguez his chance. We urged him not to waste it. Cashman knows, better than anyone: We hate when we make so big a mistake.
Here’s more from Price at SI.com.
If you stayed up late you saw more of the same from the Yanks: good pitching, no hitting. In fact, you didn’t have to stay up too late. The game was played in less than 3 hours and the Dodgers won 3-2 when Mark Ellis singled with 2 men out in the 9th against Shawn Kelly.
Five hits in all for the Yanks, who resemble the old Dodger teams in that they can pitch they just don’t score much.
[Photo Credit: Richard Mackson, USA TODAY Sports]
Brett Gardner CF
Derek Jeter SS
Robinson Cano 2B
Alfonso Soriano LF
Lyle Overbay 1B
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Jayson Nix 3B
Chris Stewart C
Andy Pettitte LHP
It’s Andy in L.A.
Never mind Alex Rodriguez vs. The World:
Let’s Go Yank-ees!
[Photo Via: It’s a Long Season]
More Mo–this one from Ben Bolch in the L.A. Times:
Dodgers outfielder Carl Crawford uses just any old bat when he faces Mariano Rivera. The more rickety and age-worn, the better.
He knows there’s a good chance his bat — and his at-bat — will be doomed by what many consider the most devastating pitch in baseball.
Rivera’s cut fastball, or cutter, is often the only pitch hitters see when facing the New York Yankees closer. It’s a pitch that he throws almost exclusively, its late movement as it approaches the plate shattering bats and hitters’ hearts alike.
Why waste good wood on that?
“I don’t use the same bat that I’ve been playing good with because chances are real high” it’s going to get broken, Crawford said with a chuckle. “So I just take an old, cheap bat that I don’t really care about and try to stay as short as possible” with the swing.
The clock is ticking on Alex Rodriguez and his showdown vs Major League Baseball. Here’s the latest from the Daily News, the Associated Press and ESPN.
Sometimes being from the Old School doesn’t work. Rough day for the former Yank, Tino Martinez.
Sm
The Yankees honored Hideki Matsui before the game today and then Derek Jeter made like Derek Jeter and hit the first pitch he saw from Matt Moore over the wall in right field for a home run.
It was the first time a Yankee had homered since the All-Star break, the first time a right-handed Yankee batter homered since Christ was a cowboy.
By the end of the first the Yanks had a 3-0 lead. But then Phil Hughes made like Phil Hughes and he gave it away. Not once, but twice, both on impressive home runs by Wil Myers. The first, a 3-run job, came off a hanging slider that Myers hit it deep into the left field seats. Second one came off a fastball that Myers punched well over the wall in right.
Not to be outdone, Alfonso Soriano hit a 2-run homer–of the cheap-o right field seats variety. He got 4 of the Yankees’ 12 hits (Jeter had 2) including the game-winner in the 9th, a clean single up the middle. He didn’t whack any of them except his homer but hey, 4 hits be 4 hits, right?
So Jeter returns and is a stud, Soriano has a big day, our man Hideki is celebrated. A nifty win on a cool day in the Bronx. Should be mentioned that the Yanks don’t win this game without the stellar work by the bullpen. Preston Claiborne got six straight outs and then Boone Logan, David Robertson and Mariano Rivera each pitched a scoreless frame.
Final Score: Yanks 6, Rays 5.
Thanks, Yanks.
[Photo Credit: Brad Penner; Kathy Willens]
…You’ve got me in between the Devil and the deep blue sea.
Brian Cashman didn’t want to trade for Soriano writes Joel Sherman. Derek Jeter is due back in the lineup today.
The Yanks look to score some runs today…against Matt Moore. Ooof.
Never mind the obstacles:
Let’s Go Yank-ees!
[Photo Credit: Film is God]
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