Funk Doc:
Biz Mark:
A good combination.
Here’s a vintage free style from 1990. Biz and Red rhyming over Impeach the President. The recording is bump but the rhymes are tons-o-fun. This was before Redman’s first record dropped. His diss of the Knicks at the end of his first verse is one of my favorite punchlines of all-time. And I like the Knicks.
Too good to be true or too much to take? I think Larry David is funny but I can’t watch him for more than a few minutes at a time. His comedy is just too intense and makes me too uncomfortable. I was never a fan of Seinfeld–though I came to appreciate it, especially the actors, when it went to syndication–and Curb Your Enthusiasm is far too astringent for my blood. Woody, I’m a fan. At least I used to be. Of his early funny movies. I was infatuated by his work when I was growing up, his writing, his stand-up and his movies, right up until Hannah and Her Sisters. Still, I am amazed at his productivity since. Even if I’m not wild about the movies themselves, it is impressive that the man keeps making movies, year-in, year-out.
Larry David is the star of Woody’s latest. Scott Raab thinks it could be a match made in Hebrew Heaven.
Today would have been Bobby Murcer’s 63rd birthday.
We lost Bobby last July to a brain tumor, so I’d like to take this opportunity to remember a pretty good ballplayer, and an even better person.
Here’s some Banter coverage regarding his passing.
Bruce Markusen had a nice piece on him.
. . . and some more coverage (via YES).
We miss you Bobby!
My thanks to Alex for allowing me to post this . . . and “News of the Day” will be back tomorrow.
Forgive Gene Michael if he looks a little dazed in his 1969 Topps card. He’s shown as a member of the Yankees, even though he’s wearing the colors of the Pirates, a team that he hadn’t played for since 1966. Somehow Topps could not find a picture of Michael with either the Yankees or the Dodgers, the team that actually traded him to the Yankees.
Now that I’ve thoroughly confused you, I can tell you this without hesitation: Michael’s move to New York, which coincided with the start of the 1968 season, helped change his career for the better, more subtly in the short term and quite significantly over the long haul.
At one time traded for Maury Wills, Michael had fallen into disfavor with the Dodgers because of his lack of hitting. After the 1967 season, the Dodgers dealt him to the Yankees, where he would eventually replace Tom Tresh as the starting shortstop. Like many shortstops of the era, Michael couldn’t hit worth a damn, but he could field the position with a smooth alacrity that the Yankees hadn’t seen since the prime years of Tony Kubek.
It was during his Yankee years that Michael established a reputation as the master of the hidden ball trick. With the runner at second base thinking that the pitcher already had the ball, Michael would blithely move toward him and then place a tag on the unsuspecting victim before showing the ball to the umpire. It’s a play that major leaguers occasionally pull off in today’s game, but Michael did it with a stunning degree of frequency, at least five times that have been documented. Considering that the hidden ball trick relies on heavy doses of surprise and deception, it’s remarkable that Michael was able to execute it more than once or twice. He was that good at it.
The hidden ball trick epitomized Michael’s intelligence. He had little obvious talent, possessing no power, average speed, and an overall gawkiness that came with his rail-like frame of six feet, two inches, and a mere 180 pounds. Yet, he was surprisingly athletic, enough to have starred as a college basketball player at Kent State, where his lean look earned him the nickname of “Stick.” As a major league shortstop, he made up for his lack of footspeed and arm strength with good hands and quick feet, and by studying the tendencies of opposing hitters and baserunners. How good was Michael defensively? I’d call him a poor man’s Mark Belanger. Like Michael, Belanger was tall and thin, and overmatched at the plate. But Belanger was arguably the best defensive shortstop of his era, so it’s no insult to put Michael in a slightly lower class of fielders.
Michael served the Yankees well as their starting shortstop from 1969 to 1973, but age and injuries began to catch up with him in 1974. At the age of 36, Michael received his unconditional release. He eventually signed with the Tigers, where he played sparingly in 1975, before being returned to the unemployment line. In February of 1976, Stick signed with the dreaded Red Sox, but he could do no more than earn a minor league assignment. In May, the Red Sox released Michael, who never did appear in a game for Boston.
With his playing career over, Michael quickly embarked on his second life in baseball. George Steinbrenner, remembering him as one of the original Yankees from his first year as ownership, gave him a job as a coach. From there Stick became a front office executive and then a two-time Yankee manager, serving separate stints in 1981 and ’82. Like all Yankee managers of that era, Michael was fired. He left the organization to manage the Cubs, where he clashed with his new boss, Dallas Green.
After a brief respite from the reign of Steinbrenner, Michael eventually returned to the Bronx. In 1990, the Yankees, by now a struggling team and a near laughingstock, made one of the most important moves in franchise history. They hired Michael as general manager. I was working as a sports talk show host at the time; I remember being very critical of Michael, who seemed unwilling to pull the trigger on big trades. Well, Michael knew a lot more about constructing a ballclub than I did. He set out to rebuild the Yankees’ farm system, while resisting the temptation to trade what few prospects the organization had for quick-fix veterans.
Under Michael’s stewardship, the Yankees drafted or signed the following players: Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, and a fellow named Mariano Rivera. That’s probably enough of a testament to Michael, but let’s consider that he also signed Wade Boggs and Jimmy Key as free agents.
When Michael did decide to make a trade, he made a splash. In November of 1992, Michael executed one of the most pivotal moves for the franchise’s future. He sent Roberto Kelly, one of the team’s two young center fielders, to the Reds for Paul O’Neill. It was a controversial deal, to say the least. Kelly was two years younger than O’Neill, a good player certainly, but one who was already 30 and had appeared to reach his ceiling. Michael knew what he was doing. He realized that Kelly, who lacked patience at the plate and passion in the field, was not as good a player as Bernie Williams, the team’s other center fielder. He also sensed that the fiery O’Neill could blossom as a left-handed hitter at Yankee Stadium playing for Buck Showalter. Stick was right on both counts.
With those vital pieces in place—including a catcher, a shortstop, a right fielder, a starting pitcher, and a closer—Michael left a championship nucleus for Bob Watson and Brian Cashman when he stepped down as Yankee GM in 1995.
Dazed and rejected no more, Stick Michael proved himself to be a pretty smart guy.
Bruce Markusen can be reached at bmarkusen@stny.rr.com.
Federer’s breakdown just before Nadal received the ’09 Australian Open winner’s trophy was the most obvious sign of the shift, but there had been earlier indications. Asked the day before the final whether he relished another shot at his archrival, Federer said, “Honestly, I preferred the days when I didn’t have a rival.” Nadal had exhausted himself in a five-hour, 14-minute semifinal the day before, but as soon as the final began, Federer seemed out of sorts. Worse, unlike Nadal when he was No. 2, Federer didn’t commit himself to attacking his rival, to shaking him out of his comfort zone. Twice Federer ran around his backhand and staggered Nadal with forehand winners, but he never did that again. “Twice in 4½ hours?” Wilander asks. “Why not show Nadal something different?”
The answer lies in the regal language always used to describe Federer. Born to rule, he has never been interested in fighting for power; that’s why in his current exile he looks less like Napoleon plotting on Elba than like the puzzled Czar Nicholas II waiting for the world to right itself and restore his throne.
This attitude perplexes even Federer’s staunchest admirers. Former players, coaches, peers: They all accept that his talent is, as Wilander says, “crazy,” but his passive response to Nadal goes against what they’ve been taught a superstar does when he’s down. Muhammad Ali came up with rope-a-dope, an aging Michael Jordan perfected the fadeaway jumper: The great ones adjust, sending a signal not only to their rivals but also to all the newly emboldened. It’s no shock that following Nadal’s trail, No. 3 Andy Murray has won six of his last seven matches against Federer, and No. 4 Novak Djokovic has won three of their last five. “What makes me scratch my head,” Courier says, “is how Roger doesn’t shift.”
The remedy most often prescribed for Federer’s ailing game is hiring a coach such as Darren Cahill, who once counseled Agassi. Federer toyed with the idea in the off-season, but that he didn’t follow up seemed further proof that he’s not hearing alarm bells. Others suggest that he serve-and-volley more, or play more doubles to replicate the Olympic preparation that helped him win the gold medal in doubles in Beijing and the U.S. Open singles title last September. But if Federer insists on staying back and winning rallies from the baseline, the consensus is that he must shorten points to save energy for the decisive third and fifth sets he has lately been losing: He has to hit more low, short slices to throw off Nadal’s rhythm, and he must put more bite on his flatter strokes.
Federer did that in the Australian Open final, but only when desperate; the instant he felt he had gained the momentum, he went back to the game on which he built his empire—and that Nadal solved long ago. “Roger still feels he’s just better [than Nadal],” Courier says. “And, frankly, he’s not.”
I like Nadal but I root for Federer. It will be fascinating to see if he can recover and get those three more grand slams to set the all-time mark. What once seemed inevitable is very much in question now. Can you remember a champion, seemingly still in his prime, get taken out like this? Bjorg, maybe. But he just walked away from the game. I wonder if Federer has it in him to get back on top? It would be a dream if he could ever win the French. This is could become a great rivalry if Federer finds a way to respond.
CC Sabathia pitched another fine game and the Yankees scored seven runs in the seventh inning to win their seventh game in a row.
Final score: Yanks 9, Orioles 1.
It was a close game again until just after Kate Smith sung God Bless America.* Sabathia allowed a first-inning run but Alex Rodriguez crushed a two-run homer in the bottom of the inning to give the Yanks the lead for good. With a man on, Rodriguez quickly fell behind Brad Bergesen 0-2. He fouled off a couple of tough pitches, laid off a couple of breaking balls out-of-the-zone and worked the count full. Then a back-door fastball that darted across the plate but too high was struck for the homer.
It made that sound, that true, uncompromising sound of a ball being hit on the sweet spot. The kind of that makes you weak in the knees, the kind you dreamed about as a kid, the sound that makes you sit up like a dog bolting awake by a noise just outside the front door. (They never get the sound right in the movies, have you ever noticed that?)
Rodriguez took his textbook-fluid swing–the ball came to the bat as if drawn by a magnet, and then shot off deep into the night. Rodriguez just missed two more homers later in the game. Missed ’em by that much. But he didn’t miss the first one and it was a thing of beauty.
So was Sabathia, who nursed the one-run lead through seven. The Orioles didn’t stand a chance, collecting three hits and a walk against Poppa Large, who struck out seven and lowered his ERA to 3.43. The big man was brilliant. Bergesen, who also pitched well, getting a boat load of ground balls early on, left the game with a couple of runners on and one out in the bottom of the seventh. Chris Ray relieved him and got torched. Derek Jeter got the big hit, a three-run double with the bases loaded and Mark Teixeira hit his 11th of the season, a shot into the second deck in right field, to put the cherry on top of what turned out to be a laugher.
Brian Bruney, just activated off the DL, pitched a scoreless inning and the Yanks gained a game in the east as the Red Sox beat the Blue Jays, 2-1 in Boston.
*Do you know I ran into two Yankee fans today who complained that while yes, the Yankees are winning lately, they are only winning by the slimmest of margins, so…as if winning the close ones don’t count as much. I’m dead serious.
The Yankees and Orioles split their first six head-to-head games this season, all of which were played in Baltimore, but the three Yankee losses were all directly attributable to poor starting pitching performances: CC Sabathia on Opening Day (4 1/3 IP, 6 R), Chien-Ming Wang the next day (3 2/3 IP, 7 R), and Phil Hughes two Saturdays ago (1 2/3 IP, 8 R). The Orioles scored just five runs against the Yankees in the other three games, while the Yankees have scored at least four runs in all six games and are averaging 5.83 R/G on the series.
That’s been par for the course for the O’s this year, as only the Nationals have allowed more runs per game than the O’s 5.92. That’s hardly come as a surprise. The first sentence of my season preview for the O’s back on April 6 attacked the quality of their starting rotation. Now, just shy of the quarterpole, the O’s starting rotation sports a 5.76 ERA, better than only that of the Phillies, who come to town on Friday.
The O’s are optimistic about the return of lefty Rich Hill from the disabled list, and his first start gave them reason to be, but the Yankees won’t see him this week. Nor will they face early-season staff ace Koji Uehara, who has held the Yanks to two runs over 11 innings thus far this season and sports a 4.34 ERA that’s nearly a run better than that of the O’s next best starter. Instead they’ll kick things off tonight against 23-year-old rookie Brad Bergesen, who has lasted six full innings just twice in five starts (and never more than six full) and has allowed at least three runs every time out, though he’s also not done worse than the five runs in four innings he allowed in his second major league start.
Bergesen and tomorrow’s starter, Jeremy Guthrie, who has two nearly identical quality starts against the Yankees this year, have been middling thus far, sporting .500 records and ERAs in the low 5.00s. Thursday’s starter, Adam Eaton, has been awful (2-4, 7.93 ERA). Things don’t look much better in the pen, though Danys Baez has made a nice return from Tommy John surgery and George Sherrill continues to cling to his closer job despite Dave Trembley announcing that the role would be shared.
At the plate, the O’s have lost one of their hottest hitters, DH/left fielder Luke Scott (.303/.384/.515) to the DL, and have been without their hottest, center fielder Adam Jones (.370/.426/.669), since Wednesday due to a tender hamstring.
Jones is expected to return to the lineup tonight, which is bad news for the Yankees, though CC Sabathia could help get him back off on the wrong foot. Sabathia avenged his Opening Day loss with a four-hit shutout of the O’s two turns ago. He then held the league-best Toronto offense to two runs over eight innings his last time out. After struggling with his control in three of his first four starts, Sabathia has walked just six men in his four (1.17 BB/9) and seems to have over come his one-bad-inning syndrome in his last two strong performances.
It’s easy to say that players like Sabathia and Mark Teixeira are starting to click with the Yankees riding a six-game winning streak, but those performances are part of why the Yankees are on a six-game winning streak to begin with. Tonight, CC looks to make it seven. I like his chances.
Hideki Matsui returns to the lineup today as the DH batting fifth, and Brian Bruney is supposed to be activated before game time. No word yet on which reliever is getting shipped out to make room for him, though I suspect Edwar Ramirez, who unlike Jose Veras has options left, could be on his way to Scranton.
My nephew turned five last week. For his birthday he watched Star Wars for the first time. (Star Wars was the first movie I remember seeing in the movie theater as a kid; it was released a few days before I turned six.) There was a Jedi training session in Inwood Park and then there was the screening. My nephew has been talking about the movie for weeks. He even had a favorite character–Chewy. But his friends were more interested in his toys so they didn’t actually watch much of the movie. The real screening took place the next day and I arrived minutes before the Death Star was blown to smithereens.
A few days earlier, I stopped by the electric circus known as Toys R Us in Times Square to pick up a present. I headed to the Star Wars area and was dismayed; I could hardly find anything that had to do with the original movie (though I did eventually find one box that contained small figurines of Obi Wan, Luke and the two droids). When I got home and told my wife Emily how shocked I was at the lack of toys from the original movie, she turned to me, and in her best Alice Kramden said, “Sweetheart, that movie came out over thirty years ago.”
I looked at her blankly. Blinked. Then I unpacked the toys, took out my teeth, changed my diaper and went to bed. It was four in the afternoon.
While Angel Berroa continued to sit idle on the Yankees’ bench, the team designated right-handed pitchers Steven Jackson and Eric Hacker for assigment to make room for catcher Kevin Cash, in wake of the injuries to both Jorge Posada and Jose Molina, and veteran right-hander Brett Tomko, in wake of the bullpen’s struggles and his own dominance in spring training and Triple-A Scranton.
This all amounts to very little as Jackson was on the 25-man roster for nine days in April without ever getting into a game, Cash is serving as a back-up to Francisco Cervelli and has gone 1-for-10 since being recalled, Hacker struggled in three starts for Scranton (0-1, 7.88 ERA), and Tomko has thrown just 2 1/3 innings since being called up. Still, it’s worth noting no that Jackson and Hacker have reached their destinations.
In both cases, that destination is Indianapolis, as in the Indianapolis Indians, the Triple-A club of the Pittsburgh Pirates. There they join former Yankee farmhand Daniel McCutchen and aspire to join the major league team which features former Yankees Ross Ohlendorf and Jeff Karstens in its rotation, those last three having gone to Pittsburgh along with outfield prospect Jose Tabata in the Xavier Nady/Damaso Marte trade. Here’s a quick look at each of these former Yanks as well as Romulo Sanchez, the hard throwing reliever the Yankees obtained in exchange for Hacker.
It weren’t pretty, but the Yanks took a broom to the Twins last night, capping off their thrilling “Walkoff Weekend” (TM) with a 7-6 win to complete a four-game sweep of Minnesota and extend their winning streak to six games.
Unlike the previous three games, most of the action in last night’s contest took place in the first inning. The Twins pushed across a pair of first-inning runs against Andy Pettitte, with Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau each delivering an RBI single, the second enabled by Melky Cabrera missing the cutoff man on the first allowing Mauer to go to second.
Unfazed, the Yanks scored four against lefty Glen Perkins before making their first out as Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon singled then Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez each homered to left field. After Nick Swisher flied out to the warning track, a shot that looked like a third-straight homer off the bat, Robinson Cano sliced a ground-rule double into the stands along-side left field and Melky Cabrera singled him home. After a passed ball and a Ramiro Peña fly out, Francisco Cervelli hit a chopper up the middle that somehow missed Perkins’ glove, then hit the side of second base, avoiding both diving middle infielder. On the YES broadcast, Ken Singleton remarked that, “if there ever was a seeing-eye base hit, that was it.” Cervelli’s hit plated Cabrera with the sixth Yankee run and drove Perkins from the game with just two outs in the first.
Knuckleballer R.A. Dickey held things down from there with 4 1/3 scoreless innings, while the Twins tried to chip away. Michael Cuddyer led off the fourth with a solo homer to make it 6-3. Carlos Gomez singled, stole second, and scored on a Denard Span single in the sixth to make it 6-4. Span later hit a solo homer off Edwar Ramirez in the eighth, but that came after Teixeira added a solo shot of his own in the bottom of the seventh, this one from the left side of the plate, the second time he’s switch-hit homers in a game this season.
That extra run proved to be the winning margin. With Mariano Rivera having thrown 44 pitches over three innings the previous two days, Joe Girardi gave his closer the night off. Lefty Phil Coke, who relieved Ramirez and struck out Morneau for the last out of the eighth, was given the ninth in Rivera’s place. It wasn’t pretty. Coke’s first two pitches to leadoff man Joe Crede, who entered the game with a .296 on-base percentage, were balls. He recovered to go 2-2, but Crede fouled off four full-count offerings and ultimately drew a ten-pitch walk. Matt Tolbert then ran for Crede and moved to second on a wild pitch, to third on a groundout that required Teixeira to range far to his right, and home on another groundout. With two outs, Carlos Gomez, who entered the game with a .286 on-base percentage, nearly replicated Crede’s at-bat, getting ahead 2-0, then even at 2-2 and ultimately working a seven-pitch walk. Mike Redmond seemed to be doing the same thing (2-0, then 3-1, then a pair of full-count fouls), but mercifully grounded to Cano for the final out of the game. Coke’s performance made the news of Brian Bruney’s impending activation (expected tonight) all the more welcome, though to the always forthcoming Coke’s credit, he humorously confessed to having been unnerved by the situation.
As for Teixeira, he was hitting .182/.354/.338 with three home runs and 10 RBIs on May 3, but has hit .351/.397/.789 with seven home runs and 18 RBIs in his last 14 games. Though his average will take a while to rebound (he’s still at just .239), he’s on pace for 45 homers and 127 RBIs, even with that slow start factored in. On-pace numbers can be very misleading, and Teixeira’s current single-season best for home runs is “just” 43, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Tex comes very close to those numbers come late September. Teixeira’s career month-by-month splits show steady improvement with each flip of the calendar, and his defense was an important part of the Yankees’ sweep of the Twins. He’s going to be a lot of fun to watch the rest of the way as, by extension, are the Yankees.
Here’s what a five-game winning streak will do for you. All of a sudden, the Yankees are just a game and a half behind the Red Sox and have the fifth-best record in the American League, a half-game behind fourth-best Detroit. They’re 7-3 over their last ten games, which is second in the AL to only the Rangers (8-2) over that stretch, and have won their last three series.
As for how this winning streak has come about, obviously the walk-off magic of the last three games has been the key feature, but the Yankees were only in position to make those comebacks because of how well they’ve been pitching, and how well they’ve been playing in the field (think Mark Teixeira’s game-saving dive and throw to home in yesterday’s game). Over the last five games, which is once through the starting rotation, the Yankees have allowed just 14 runs, or 2.8 per game. The only Yankee starter to last fewer than six innings or allow more than two runs in that span was Phil Hughes, who gave up three runs in five innings on Friday night. Collectively, the starters’ ERA has been 2.84.
The bullpen, meanwhile, has been even better. In 16 1/3 innings over the last five games, the pen has allowed just three runs for a 1.65 ERA. All three of those runs were charged to Phil Coke, and two of them came on solo home runs by Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. The only time a reliever has replaced a starter mid-inning during this streak came yesterday, when Jonathan Albaladejo replaced A.J. Burnett with the bases loaded and two outs and struck out Jason Kubel to strand all three runners. The Yankees also haven’t made an error since the first game of this streak.
Andy Pettitte got things kicked off with six innings of two run (one earned) ball in Toronto on Thursday. Now, the streak has wrapped back around is asking him to keep it going as well as to complete a sweep of the Twins, who have to be going slightly batty after losing three straight on Yankee walk-offs.
Alex Rodriguez gets a half-day off at DH today as Ramiro Peña fills in at third and Hideki Matsui rides pine against lefty Glen Perkins. The switch-hitting Peña has had just three plate appearances against lefties this season (one walk, two Ks), so it’s nice to see him getting some exposure from the right-side, though it again begs the question, “why is Angel Berroa still taking up a roster spot.”
As for Perkins, his first three starts of the season were excellent (8 IP each, 4 runs total), but since then he’s posted a 7.25 ERA, going five or six innings and allowing four or five runs in each of his last four outings, three of them Twins losses.
From his blog, Baseball Nerd, Keith Olbermann on how Vin Scully almost became the Yankees’ announcer…According to Olbermann, here is Scully’s story (thanks to Baseball Think Factory for the link):
“When the Yankees let Mel Allen go in 1964, I got a phone call from the man who they had brought in to run their broadcasting operation, Craig Smith,” Vin began. “He had been in charge of the World Series broadcasts forever, so I’d known him about ten years by then. And he asked me if I’d like to come home to New York and become the lead announcer. He offered a very handsome salary, and a long contract.
“Well, I was amazed, as you can imagine. I’d found a wonderful home here in Los Angeles, but remember, this was only seven years after the Dodgers left Brooklyn. I was still a New Yorker through and through. Plus, here was a chance to work again with Red Barber. And recall, too, that this was just before the Yankee dynasty collapsed. As much as Mr. O’Malley had done here and in Brooklyn, the Yankees were still the marquee name in sports. If it had been 1958 or 1959, when I still missed New York so, I would’ve said yes before he hung up the phone.”
“So, I thought long and hard about that one. But I had a young family, and I think we had all just truly adjusted to living here – takes just about seven years, I think – and in the end I turned it down.”
Chien-Ming Wang and Brian Bruney both pitched in Triple A on Sunday. Chad Jennings reports:
Wang looked good on Sunday. His velocity was slightly lower than Tuesday — maxed out at 92 mph instead of 93 — but the movement on his sinker was better, and Wang said he was happier with his ability to get ahead in the count and locate his fastball down and in. He faced rehabbing Travis Hafner three times and got two routine groundouts before a bloop, broken-bat single.
“Performance-wise he was terrific,” Cashman said. “This was a much better hitting club. Columbus is a much better offensive club than the team he was facing last time, but his stuff was better last time, to be honest, although he performed great in both outings. He didn’t have the slider that he had last time. His changeup was better today than last time. His fastball velocity was a little bit lower this time than it was last time. At the same time, he handled the lineup and got a lot of groundballs. Facing guys like Hafner kind of tells you a little something you want to know. I think he had some groundouts and that broken-bat single to center. I know Hafner is on a rehab assignment and he’s a guy who can really do some damage if you’re making mistakes, not making some pitches, and (Wang) made his pitches. That tells you a lot.”
Jennings also has updates on Bruney, Ian Kennedy and Steven Jackson. Man, Jennings is good, isn’t he?
And so it goes for the Yanks who won another close game against the Twins on Sunday (man, the Twins just don’t win in New York). Johnny Damon hit a solo home run with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning to give the Bombers a 3-2 win.
Photo via SI.com.
It was a tense game, with AJ Burnett and Kevin Slowey tossing up zeros through the first six. Burnett had some good stuff, but he also walked six batters. Slowey was outstanding –efficient and effective. The Yankee hitters made him look like an ace. AJ ran out of steam in the seventh and the Twins took a 2-0 lead. The Yanks tied it in the bottom of the inning, one run coming on a solo shot by Alex Rodriguez.
Some nail biting in the eighth, as the Twins left the bases juiced without scoring a run–Mark Teixeira made an outstanding grab and throw to the plate for the second out. And some more in the bottom of the frame as the Yanks finally chased Slowey. Hideki Matsui came to the plate with the bases full and two out. He faced the lefty Jose Mijares, a chubby, funny-looking guy. Mirajes fell behind 3-0 and then threw a strike. Then Matsui offered at two pitches out of the strike zone and whiffed to end the inning. A poor at-bat.
Mariano Rivera pitched the ninth and gave up a lead-off single to Joe Mauer. He spotted a fastball outside for strike one–the same spot he struck Mauer out looking on Saturday–and then got him to foul off a good inside cutter. Don’t go back outside, I yelled from home. Mauer isn’t that dumb. But outside Rivera went. Unfortunately, he didn’t go outside far enough and Mauer, expert hitter that he is, went with the pitch and lined a single to left. But he was stranded at first as Rivera retired the next three batters.
It never gets old watching Rivera apply his trade.
Then things got dramatic in the bottom of the ninth. Nick Swisher walked and was replaced on the bases by Brett Gardner, who was sacrificed to second. Then, in one of the more remarkable plays in recent memory, Franciso Cervelli lined a ball hard up the middle. It first looked as if it would go into center field for a game-winning single. But Mirajes slapped the ball with his glove, behind the back, as he was falling toward third base. The ball was knocked straight back to Mauer who had moved in front of the plate. Cervelli sped up the line, Mauer faked a throw to first and then peaked over his left shoulder where he saw Gardner racing down the line. Mauer put on the brakes and double-backed to the plate.
A foot race. Mauer, who is an enormous man for a catcher (and a tremendous athlete to boot), took five giant steps, dove and nailed Gardner in plenty of time.
It was a risky play by Gardner, but I have to imagine that he would have been safe against anyone else other than Mauer. That was some kind of play, a bona fide web gem. Mauer is a great player. Had the Yankees lost, I was going to title the post, “Speed Kills.” Happily, I shelved that idea when Damon launched a line drive homer off Jesse Crain into the second deck in right field in tenth. Alfredo Aceves got the win.
That’s five straight. Let’s hope it is the start of what will prove to be a winning season. I’m piggish. I want to see them get the sweep. But even if they don’t, we’re all entitled to some pie tonight.
And who doesn’t like pie?
It’s even cooler today than it was yesterday–actually, it warmed up nicely by the end of the game on Saturday.
AJ Burnett is in an ideal situation. He hasn’t pitched great, needs a strong outing, and hey, the Yanks have a modest four-game winning streak that needs tending.
Let’s hope he comes out aces and not…like this famous knucklehead.
This is how winning streaks are built–by winning the close ones. The Yanks snatched victory from the jaws of defeat on Friday and they survived a shaky outing from their set-up relievers, and got big time contributions from the Boras Boys, Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez, to beat the Twins in extra innings on Saturday afternoon, 6-4.
The M&M boys from Minnie did their thing too–Joe Mauer homered for the second straight day and Justin Morneau hit his third dinger of the series (and his second against Phil Coke), but the Yankees’ demolition duo got the last laugh.
During the broadcast, Paul O’Neill said that the team hasn’t defined itself yet and I couldn’t agree more. It’s hard to figure who they are yet. For all of their top-shelf talent, they are not a crisp team fundamentally; Melky Cabrera made a crucial mistake, over-throwing the cut-off man, in the eighth, which allowed the go-ahead run to score. I also get the feeling that too many of the hitters are tantalized by dreams of the home run highlight in big spots (Nick Swisher, I’m looking in your direction). Nevermind the mess in the bullpen–had the Yanks lost the game, I was going to title the post “Where’s that confounded bridge?”
Still, they’ve won plenty of games in the late innings this year, haven’t they? That’s got to count for something.
Watching Friday night’s game I was struck by just how difficult it is to play the game and remain healthy. First, there was the play at first base where Carlos Gomez almost took Mark Teixeira’s hand off. “That’s twice,” shouted an angry Teixeira to Gomez (I didn’t catch the first incident). Teixeira does not strike me as a red ass, which made his outburst more compelling. He knew how close he was to being seriously hurt (I looked away from the TV when they showed the replay of Bubba Crosby running through Brian Roberts’ left arm several years back). Then in the ninth, Brett Gardner slipped on first base and wiped out, his legs getting tangled like a young Colt. Nothing twisted or turned, Gadner recovered and still managed to reach third.
None of this shows up in the box scores, of course. But they were both hold-your-breath moments. Fortunately, nobody came up lame.
This afternoon, Joba Chamberlain, who, according to the New York Times, is trying a new pre-game routine, hopes to lead the Yankees to their fourth-straight win.
It is cool, foggy, and wet in the Bronx today, with rain in the forecast.
Perfect day some of this…Break it down, Biba:
Last night’s contest between the Twins and Yankees felt like a loss for the home nine for most of it’s three hours and 37 minutes. Phil Hughes kept his team in the game by working out of jams in the second and fourth innings, but he used up a lot of pitches in doing so. The Twins took an early lead when Justin Morneau led off the second inning by golfing a curveball that dove well below his knees into the box seats in right. They got another run in the fourth on a sac fly, though that was all they got out of a bases-loaded, one-out situation. Morneau then went deep again in the fifth, on a cutter up in the zone that didn’t cut, to give the Twins a 3-0 lead.
Meanwhile, home plate umpire Wally Bell’s strikezone was ridiculous. He called Johnny Damon out on a pitch that traced the front line of the right-handed batters box in the first inning, then called him out on a pitch that traced the front line of the left-handed batters box in the third. That was too much for Damon to handle. After the second called third strike, Damon wheeled around and told Bell that was twice he had done that to him, holding up two fingers for emphasis. He then pointed to the location of the two pitches with his bat, immediately earning an ejection. As soon as Damon began to gesture with his bat, Joe Girardi sprinted to the plate to try to protect his hottest hitter, but he got there too late. As it turned out, what seemed like a bad break for the Yankees turned out to be one of their keys to victory.
The Yankees got on the board with a Derek Jeter solo homer in the bottom of the fifth, but Hughes had thrown 93 pitches over five innings, and Joe Girardi decided he’d rather take his chances in trying to get four innings out of his bullpen than to run Hughes back out there again. Jonathan Albaladejo pitched a scoreless sixth, but Joe Mauer greeted Phil Coke in the seventh with a lead-off homer into Monument Park. That made it 4-1 Twins with Joe Nathan lurking just a couple of innings away.
Francisco Liriano wasn’t sharp in his six innings of work, but he was effective. He walked six Yankees, but only gave up four hits and stranded two men in the second, three in the third, and two in the sixth. Jesse Crain relieved Liriano and got two quick outs to start the second, then Brett Gardner, who had replaced Damon after the latter’s ejection, came to the plate and shot a would-be double down the left field line. I say would be because in the fourth inning, Nick Swisher hit a ball to the exact same place, down the left field line toward where the stands turn to run parallel withe foul line. On Swisher’s hit, left fielder Denard Span hustled over, scooped up the ball with his back to the infield, and fired a strike to nail Swisher at second base. This time, Span looked ready to try the same trick, but rather than ricocheting off the wall, the ball took a sideways bounce off the grass and rolled past him toward the outfield wall. As soon as the ball got past Span it was clear Gardner had a triple, but third-base coach Rob Thomson kept his windmill going and Gardner came all the way around for an inside-the-park home run, flopping head-first onto the plate easily ahead of Span’s throw.
As exciting as Gardner’s inside-the-parker was, however, it only counted for one run, and the Yankees proceeded to load the bases and strand all three runners after it, then strand another man in the eight. So it was 4-2 Twins heading into the ninth with Joe Nathan coming in to shut the door. The one ray of hope for the Yanks was that they had the heart of the order due up and Nathan was pitching for the fourth night in a row.
Gardner, in Damon’s spot, led off by taking four pitches to run the count even at 2-2. He then fouled off a fifth. Took ball three to run the count full, then laced the seventh pitch of the at-bat deep into the right-center-field gap. Carlos Gomez botched the carom briefly and though Gardner slipped on first base, he was still able to scramble to his feet and pull into third with an easy triple. Mark Teixeira followed by grounding a single just to the center field side of second baseman Matt Tolbert, who playing Teixeira to pull. That plated Gardner to make the score 4-3 and brought Alex Rodriguez to the plate as the winning run. Nathan threw six balls to Rodriguez, who took all six though Bell called two of them, pitches which again traced the front line of the right-handed batters box, strikes. That put the winning run on base for Hideki Matsui. Matsui battled Nathan for six pitches, but ultimately struck out swinging on a full-count slider inside that bounced in front of the plate. Nick Swisher followed with what looked like a game-tying single to right, but Justin Morneau was playing far enough off the bag to make what seemed like a game-saving play, backhanding the ball and flipping to Nathan for the second out.
The runners moved up on Swisher’s out and with two out and the winning run in scoring position, Girardi sent Ramiro Peña in to run for Rodriguez. With first base open, Ron Gardenhire had Nathan walk Robinson Cano to load the bases and bring up Melky Cabrera. Nathan threw one pitch to Cabrera, a fastball right down the middle, and Cabrera served it into the gap in left-center for a single that plated Teixeira and Peña and gave the Yankees both the win and their only lead of the game.
Jose Veras got the win for retiring one batter in the ninth, though Edwar Ramirez pitched a scoreless inning and a third before him, but the win had many authors, not the least of which was Gardner, who didn’t start the game, but went 3-for-3 with eight total bases and two runs scored. You know things are going well when your best hitter gets ejected and the guy who comes in off the bench to replace him winds up as the star of the game. The Yankees have now won three straight and have pulled within 2.5 games of the Red Sox, who lost to the Mariners last night. Joba Chamberlain pitches today hoping to help the Yanks match their season-long win streak of four games.
Minnesota Twins
2009 Record: 18-17 (.514)
2009 Pythagorean Record: 16-19 (.457)
2008 Record: 88-75 (.540)
2008 Pythagorean Record: 89-74 (.546)
Manager: Ron Gardenhire
General Manager: Bill Smith
Home Ballpark (multi-year Park Factors): Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (93/93)
Who’s Replaced Whom:
25-man Roster:
1B – Justin Morneau (L)
2B – Matt Tolbert (S)
SS – Nick Punto (S)
3B – Joe Crede (R)
L – Joe Mauer (L)
RF – Michael Cuddyer (R)
CF – Carlos Gomez (R)
LF – Denard Span (L)
DH – Jason Kubel (L)
Bench:
R – Mike Redmond (C)
L – Brian Buscher (3B)
R – Brendan Harris (IF)
S – Jose Morales (C)
Rotation:
L – Francisco Liriano
R – Nick Blackburn
R – Kevin Slowey
L – Glen Perkins
R – Scott Baker
Bullpen:
R – Joe Nathan
R – Jesse Crain
R – Matt Guerrier
L – Craig Breslow
R – Luis Ayala
R – R.A. Dickey
L – Jose Mijares
Family Leave List: OF – Delmon Young (R)
15-day DL: RHP – Boof Bonser (labrum and rotator cuff surgery)
60-day DL: RHP – Pat Neshek (TJ)
Typical Lineup:
L – Denard Span (LF)
S – Matt Tolbert (2B)
L – Joe Mauer (C)
L – Justin Morneau (1B)
L – Jason Kubel (DH)
R – Joe Crede (3B)
R – Michael Cuddyer (RF)
R – Carlos Gomez (CF)
S – Nick Punto (SS)
Finally Friday. I’m goin to the record shop.
Dig this Demo:
Then I’m off to Brooklyn for barbeque and the Yankee game with Johnny Red Sox. Be nice to see A Rod crack one tonight. And it’d be cool if Phil Hughes can throw a good game too.
Am I right or what?
