Today in The Journal News
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Apr 21, 2007 
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Here are a few things I discovered while glancing through the stats:
The Yankees have hit 10 homers in their last four games, five of them by that Alex Rodriguez guy. … Derek Jeter has hit safely in 15 of the 16 games this season. … Scott Proctor seems to have his giddy-up back. He hasn’t allowed a run in his last six appearances. His line: 5.2 2 0 0 1 4. … A-Rod had 12 RBI in the last four games. … I still can’t get over that 18 of his 23 hits this season are for extra bases.
Here are the stories from today’s paper:
Mariano Rivera blew another save last night as the Red Sox rallied to beat the Yankees. Hopefully the National Guard is keeping the peace.
Jorge Posada is hurting as Jeff Karstens prepares for his season debut.
Back later with the lineups.
who’d they send down when they activated karstens?
Where is that PaulTM Dandrufff?
List Former RedsoxPlayers I don’t trust in big spots against their Former team.
Johnny Damon went 0-4 against his former team. Darn, I have to wait three more years before his contract runs out.
Mike Myers give up lead off double to Ortiz.. He’s waste on the Roster. Thanks for blowing the game Mike Myers. I hate you, Idiot..
Not sure which is scarier…
Mariano blowing 2 saves in a row or Jorge with a bone bruise and a very large gap in the catching spot.
Mo is quoted to say Boston hit good pitches, but it looked to me that his “cutter” didn’t and were some fat pitches. Is it time to panic or will we see the “real Mo” after more work and warmer weather?
Thumb bruises don’t go away after a few days (from personal experience more like a few weeks), especially if you go right back to catching a lefty’s cutter. Grip on the bat is bound to be a problem as well lingering for a long time. If Jorge is going to miss 3 or 4 games then we need to bring up another catcher and let Jorge heal completely. (IMHO)
It’s only April people! Yeah that loss hurt, but it’s a long season and we have Wang, Matsui and Moose coming back soon. In the meantime enjoy the fact that we have better second line pitching to call on (Karstens, Rasner, Wright)until the first unit comes back.
Thanks for your timely coverage, Peter!
I have no faith in that Mike myers. he is now 3-12 with 1HR anyone else absolutely shocked by that it seems so much more lopsided in Ortiz’s favor
damon is also hurting, he is questionable for today
In this series, nothing is shocking.” – Mike Myers
My advice to Myers, Please Go back to Boston…
Jorge Posada is sitting out with a bruise?? Is he serious? I think I have a bruise right now myself and you don’t see me crying about it.
The Rajah is rubbing off negatively on the rest of the team.
* I have no faith in that Mike myers. he is now 3-12 with 1HR anyone else absolutely shocked by that it seems so much more lopsided in Ortiz’s favor
Mike Myers isn’t a batter. He is not 3-12 with a home run. David Ortiz is 3-12 with a home run against him. Mike Myers has a 1.17 ERA and 0.91 WHIP this season.
Mike Myers also racked 23 outs without a single earned run before yesterday’s game. There are many more batters in the Major Leagues than David Ortiz.
@ pi:
its yankee fans like you that make me ashamed to be considered a yankee fan sometimes.
support your freakin team or shut up
posada could be in real trouble with the thumb. that kind of injury is really hard to heal because the thumb keeps getting hit in the same weakened spot. i think that that kind of thumb injury is what plagued johnny bench at the end of his career. even if posada comes back in a week, his hitting is probably going to be very different than before the injury.
just a really bad loss last night.
the yankee lineup today and tomorrow with nieves starting and posada unavailable is worse than a national league line up with the pitcher up ninth because they can’t pinch hit for the ninth hitter since they have no other catcher. can the yankees have the pitcher hit and nieves be dh’d for? then nieves would never hit , and torre could at least pinch hit for the pitcher in the lineup later in the game.this last thought was sarcastic, but i’d do it if it could be done. nieves is that bad a hitter.
here’s another number for you, according to Tyler Kepner, Jeter has reached base safely in 55 of his past 56 games.
But Peter always said the backup catching spot didn’t matter. Now we’re seeing the bitter fruit of a piss-poor Yankee bench.
Alex: Wouldn’t it be awesome if we decided to switch places for the start of the season?
Mo: I always wanted to try hitting. To the mask store!
“support your freakin team or shut up”
Nice attitude, Josh. You’re a punk.
Ready for the sweep?
How many teams have good backup catchers? I mean, half of the teams don’t even have good starting catchers.
Win or lose, I’m excited for another match up of Batman and Robin (ARod and Jeter) vs. The Joker, Penguin, and Poison Ivy (aka Ramirez, Ortiz, Nancy Drew).
“How many teams have good backup catchers?”
Can you think of one worse than Wil Nieves?
If Damon is out of the lineup again i’m going to cry, he is always missing games with minor injuries players need to play through. Hopefully he doesn’t sit out today with what I like to call “Cramping and Bloating”
For those of you who complain about this team not having a good backup catcher:
Name 10 backup catchers in MLB without looking at any current roster lists.
Can you do it? I would bet the ranch most people can’t.
The point is that only a handful of teams have good backup catchers because most decent catchers are already starting.
People don’t realize that the Girardi/Posada combo of a decade ago was a rare luxury and few teams ever have two good catchers on the same roster because the backup would want to play more than once a week or play elsewhere and start for that club instead.
It’s the same reason why most superstar NFL QBs don’t have great backups.
Anyone know the backup QB for the Colts? The Packers? The Patriots?
It’s time for Torre to stop pinch-running for Giambi so routinely. I can think of 2 or 3 games where we could have used his bat later in the game. I can think of no games where the pinch-runner’s speed made any difference.
Wow, Jeff.
Damon played four months with a broken bone in his foot last season and has never been on the DL during his career.
Sounds to me like he’s played through plenty of aches and pains throughout his career.
Let’s burn out all our players for one series in Boston because we are all spoiled brats and must win every game. People make me laugh.
Everyone wanted Melky in the line-up because he was the second coming. What about giving Thompson a chance and give Damon’s legs and back a rest ? He’s not hitting that well anyway lately. Wonder why ?????
Please anaconda, every player in the league plays through aches and pains, Damon is just the only one who tells everyone in the media everytime he wakes up with a stiff neck, so it gets more pub. If Jeter had the injury Damon had, you wouldn’t hear a word about it, and thats a fact.
“How many teams have good backup catchers?”
the real question is how many teams have a back up catcher with a lifetime .143 batting average?
there are people in the stands that could hit higher than that. but he’s young and cheap. i’m not a big fan of “young and cheap”. i’m a fan of “good”. and nieves ain’t that.
and like i said before. this lineup today is worse than a national league lineup because the yankees can’t pinch hit for nieves and a national league team could pinch hit for the pitcher.
if i were torre, i would, in the first inning, hit ortiz or ramirez to get the mandatory warning for both team’s pitchers to protect arod from beckett. he knocked out vlad guerrero the last game he pitched.
three losses here won’t kill us, losing arod would.
karstens pitching with a warning is no big deal because he’s a control pitcher. pitching under a warning would hurt beckett because he’s have to be careful the rest of the game because of his sometimes erratic control.
if both pitchers go out of the game, advantage yankees. oh, by the way, i kinda like the billy martin school of baseball.
i can only remember two pennant races that were pretty much determined in april and may — the tigers when they started off 34-4 in 1984 and the yankees in 1958 with a 26-4 start or something of that order. the red sox are not starting off 34-4 or 26-4 this season. let’s relax and enjoy the ride.
Yeah, I’m sure Damon intention is to get sympathy from the media for his aches and pains. That’s absurd.
I’ve broken my foot in the past and it hurt like hell just putting weight on it.
I can’t imagine what it would’ve felt like to play baseball on it for 4 months.
Damon is anything but a sissy.
So you think if Jeter had the same injuries that Damon has RIGHT NOW, he would of told the media about it after the game? If you do, you don’t follow the Yankees much.
Eric,it all makes sense now!
I don’t know what Damon said after the game because I didn’t watch any postgame, but perhaps the media asked him if he hurt himself based on his limp, body language, etc.
Pete would know the answer to that question
You hav to be the only person on Planet Earth who thinks he is just trying to gain sympathy from the media for his aches.
Please remove the plastic bag from your head because you aren’t getting enough oxygen.
Pete has stated in the past that Damon tends to overstate his injuries to the media, I am sure he would agree that Jeter would of NEVER said anything to the media about the injuries Damon has.
I gotta say, I agree with Randy L. If there is one thing I think the Yankees have done a horrible job of the past few years, its intimidating the other team around the plate or even sticking up for their own when they get hit. Especially Ortiz, who hangs around the inside of that plate. Obviously I wouldnt want any head hunting because there is no place in the game for that. But with a control pitcher like Karstens who can easily slip it in right between the numbers, I think its a good way to neutralize Beckett a bit.
And by the way, Mike Myers has saved the bullpen numerous times this year and last. I trust him against Ortiz in a big spot late in the game. Just look at his numbers and look at how uncomfortable he makes Ortiz in the batters box.
Ladies relax..
the yanks will be fine. they have more depth then in years. Yes Nieves cannot hit, but he can throw well and play D.
The yanks are without there starting LF and catcher today.. Both be back in days. Without 3 starters. They are figuring out the bullpen which has the most depth it has had in years and more reinforcements in the minors..
The Yanks will be fine… How many times do peopl whine and panic 15 games into a season???
They have 145 games…………………………..
I get tired of the constant panic whining of people that do not understand baseball..
IT IS BETTER TO BE HOT AT THE END OF THE YEAR THEN THE BEGINNING AND IT IS BETTER TO HAVE INJURIES EARLY IN THE YEAR THEN AT THE END.
tHE SUX ARE without Lester and that is it.
If you think they will have 0 injuries and issues this year you people are even dumber they I suspect…
Am I the only person who thinks this series means more to the Red Sox than the Yankees? Think about it… Schilling, Beckett, and Matsuzaka have been great this year (except for one Schilling start), and the Sox haven’t really been hit by the injury bug yet. They’re basically pitching as well as they ever will and are as healthy as they can ever expect to be. The Yankees are hanging around in the division despite plenty of injuries and inconsistent starting pitching (in terms of performance and in personnel). The Sox need to sweep the Yankees this weekend because that is what a good team that has almost everything going for them is supposed to do, and I would expect the same from the Yanks if they had everything going for them.
Vin do not use logic with the whiners and sux trolls on the site that is far to logically for them..
no to them if the yanks lose today the season is over…
When I was 18 I thought like these dummies also.
boston came in 3rd last year ..
there offense in my opinion will not be better then last year, yes there starting pitching will be good all year just not this good and there pen to me is very questionable.
the yanks will win the division watch……….
Pete – no need to respond, but you missed the real point re Mo’s entry in the 8th last night when you said” But the greatest closer there ever was failed. That is Joe’s fault how exactly?”
Success and failure are not in anybody’s control. Execution is. The plan calls for Mo to pitch the 9th to be fresh – and hopefully, injury free – for the play-offs. Joe paniced and bailed on the plan the first time out. The Sox are in his head and he’ll do it again and again if Mo comes through. So in a twisted way. Mo failing is our only hope to get Joe to trust the other guys in the pen in the late innings of “critical” games. It’s all about October and rings, not April and trash-taking rights on Monday at the office.
I was watching Mets game today, The Thing I Noticed that David Wright copy and wearing High Sock Also.. The Mets are a copycat.
i didn’t think the yankees were in trouble before the last game, but now there’s a mo question and a posada injury question added to the previous question marks. how many things can go wrong before there really is a problem? wang,karstens,matsui,mussina, and now posada with injury problems. i’d say one more DL type injury and it’s be safe to say there’s definitely a problem.
are the yankees just having bad luck or are they creating their bad luck? when you design into the system a weak hitting back up catcher and a weak hitting first baseman, i think you have made a lot of your own luck. if posada is out for a while then there’s a real problem. the yankees can’t have two bad hitters, in nieves and mientkiewicz, in the lineup for an extended time without it affecting run production, and right now this team needs run production to carry it.
Damon’s not in the lineup today. It’s ironic that a guy who’s never been on the DL — something we have to hear about constantly, and about how proud he is of this fact — is always hurt. This guy seems to be falling apart physically — you have to hold your breath every time he runs for a ball because you know his shoulder/elbow/knee/foot will end up injured.
No Posada. No Damon. Melky-Thompson-Minky-Nieves. Two near-automatic outs and two automatic outs.