Burnett was too much for Yankees
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- April
- 2
Not much to say about tonight. Three Toronto pitchers allowed seven hits and one was for extra bases. That’s not going to win many games.
“A.J. (Burnett) was dominating,” Toronto manager John Gibbons said. “He showed what he can do.”
Burnett said he relied mostly on his four-seam fastball. He also talked about how he has improved his quickness to the plate and is holding runners better. The one time the Yankees tried to steal, Bobby Abreu was thrown out.
Jorge Posada is day-to-day according to Joe Girardi.
Dustin McGowan, Toronto’s scheduled starter tomorrow, went back to the hotel early tonight with the dreaded “flu-like symptoms.” If he can’t go, Shaun Marcum will start.
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on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 11:08 pm by Peter Abraham.
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Peter Abraham
Maybe the Blue Jays should put Burnett in the 8th inning because hes so dominating.
“Maybe the Blue Jays should put Burnett in the 8th inning because hes so dominating.”
they would get better value from him like that, since he’s an injury risk
Replay showed that Abreu was safe on the stolen base, another blind ump.
I think a lot of the jays players look like they’re related. There’s a bunch of red heads with real fair skin (Halladay, Overbay, Eckstein). Then there’s a bunch of mullets and scratchy beards in the bullpen.
Not even gonna talk about Rios’ mohawk.
Very good Bo……
Kids,
It’s not how they look, it’s how they play. Just look at the Red Sux
get em tomorrow
he looked great today….not what we were looking to see
This Yankee squad is better than their record indicates. This should not be a .500 team.
I just thought there was a bit too much coincidence in some of the players’ looks. What if the Jays took the term “farm system” a bit too literal? What would their harvest be like this year? What kind of seeds was Halladay grown from?
Abreu was safe, but that was irrelevant to the outcome.
No big deal. Thankfully Wang gave us a win last night. Marcum doesn’t scare me. I am confident Phil Hughes will give us a win tomorrow, 2-1 and we win the series.
Dont have to sweep, just win series.
I looked through the game thread tonight. Tough reading. There were a lot of bad posts on there tonight.
That’s really unfortunate. The team loses one game and the board gets filled with an endless litany of irrational complaints.
I don’t understand what people were thinking coming into this game. Do people just not understand how good A.J. Burnett is when he’s healthy and pitching well? He’s got great stuff.
And on top of that it was a freezing cold night.
How easy do people think it was going to be facing a guy like Burnett in the second game of the season on a night like tonight?
Before the game started I’d guesstimate that the Yankees had no more than a 30% chance of winning this game. That’s how good Burnett is. He’s got absolute shut down stuff. The only question with him has been his health. One of the down sides to facing him so early is that he’s much more likely to be healthy at this time of the year than later on.
You live with it. That’s it. Tonight was just one of those games in which the old saying held true - good pitching is always going to beat good hitting.
And make no mistake - this was A.J. Burnett beating the yankees because he was throwing a fantastic game. He was sitting between 92-96 and throwing a very heavy ball - he was down in the zone all night and changing speeds very effectively.
I don’t care what team he was facing tonight, chances are they weren’t going to score more than 3 runs against him.
That’s why Toronto is a dangerous team. They really have very good pitching. This is also why last night’s win is was a big one - the yanks win the next game and they’ve taken the series.
How can people be complaining about taking one of two games when Halladay and Burnett were throwing back to back?
The yankees are fortunate to not be down 0-2 in the series.
Tomorrow’s not going to be easy either - McGowan also has terrific stuff.
That’s just the way baseball is when you’re facing a team with a very good staff and you get their top 3 in a row.
And I can’t believe people were complaining about Mussina. He threw the ball very effectively. This was a very strong start for him.
If Mussina gives them what he did tonight they are going to win 60% of all his starts this year. If you win 60% of the starts made by the guys who is effectively your #5 starter your team is going to come close to winning 100 games in the season.
Same thing with LaTroy Hawkins. How can you find fault with what he did? He threw the ball very well. It looked good coming out of his hand and he threw very easily. Most importantly he kept everything down in the zone and had very good velocity - he was 92-94 the hole inning.
He just got beat by an all start caliber player. It happens.
I just have to wonder if people don’t realize how good guys like A.J. Burnett and Alex Rios are? Nor do they seem to understand how bad the average #5 starter is in the AL now.
If the get what they got from Mussina tonight and what they got from the bull pen they have a great chance to win 95-100 games.
Great to see Dr.Acula back in da house!!!
Great pics……..AS ALWAYS!!!
Go for the series win. You win series then the season will be a good one.
I think the cold weather was bugging Mussina a bit. He kept blowing on his hands. The strike zone also seemed to be a moving target for both teams. That always seems to get to Moose.
Tomorrows another day. Yankees should take this next game.
cecil, that’s hysterical. they do have a resemblance in that they have lots of long hair & beards.
regarding Hughes, etc., i ran thru the last several world series teams to see if it’s delusional to have measured optimism about winning it all. lots of teams had key pitching w/similar experience to Hughes, Kennedy, Joba, maybe Ohlendorf.
2003 Marlins are an example -Dontrelle Willis a rookie, Beckett about 10 more starts than Hughes has now going into 2003. 2002 angels - Lackey, K-Rod. 2005 - Bobby Jenks. 2006 Cards - Reyes, Wainwright. could go further - 1966 Orioles, Mariano in 1996.
AJ was good today…that’s all that happened. And maybe Moose showing his years.
Don’t panick..still 160 left!
This was NOT a fun game to be at. It was freezing, and I was in the bathroom for A-Rod’s home run and came through the walkway just to see him rounding the bases.
Stupid.
CB not many posters made those comments just a few trolls here and there and again an absolute direct sharp post. This is why it was big to steal that game last night by small ball and I figured the same Halliday and Burnett when on can be lights out, this also previews and explains why in the 2nd half of the season Joba Chamberlain’s future is as a SP.
Andrea at least you got to see him running the bases I left after the Jays got the 5th run. It was freezing their tonight I can only imagine what it was like for the players. Not a fun game to be at sure not a fun game to play in. Moose looked like he was getting squeezed on some pitches from where I as sitting especilly on the walk to Rios before the Wells HR.
“AJ was good today…that’s all that happened. And maybe Moose showing his years.”
com’on he wasn’t just good he was great, Moose did his best in a spot start, people forget Moose isn’t our # 2 , 3 or 4 he is our # 5 and in the AL heck the MLB there are some pretty bad #5 SP, Moose was good tonight.
CB -
Always appreciate your insightful posts. I would say though that since the Yanks win 60% of the time it is hard to see how we were behind the 8-ball going in.
I strongly agree that we will take the Moose we saw tonight (expecting warmer weather to bring a little more heat on the heater - 86 mph is not ok in june.)
The offense that score >960 runs last year needs to punish 3rd 4th and 5th starters. We need to win 8 to 4 as many or more times than we win 3 to 1
I can’t rag on the Moose tonight…Hell if he can deliver like this until Father’s Day before he breaks down, he’s worth the dough….Burnett is very very good when healthy…..Not a fun night facing him….
totally agree about liking what Moose showed. if the way he pitched tonight turns out to be representative, he’d win around 15 games for this team.
CB–Just have to say that THANK G-D there are rational people out there!
Seriously, I’ve been feeling great about this season and that hasn’t changed tonight. Yeah, A-Rod working some 9th inning magic woul havve been awesome, but you know what? If Moose gives us what we got tonight every start he makes? I’m not worried one bit.
“I would say though that since the Yanks win 60% of the time it is hard to see how we were behind the 8-ball going in.”
TKinDC,
I always enjoy your posts as well. I do think your off here, however.
The yankees will hopefully win 60% of their games - but that in no way means that they have a 60% probability of winning any one game.
That’s just not the way probabilities work. And baseball really is a game of probability.
The yankee’s 60% probability only holds over a large sampel of games - it’ll hold over the entire season (hopefully) but that is not the primary factor that determines the probability of winning any single game.
60% is what things will average out to over time.
But by far the factor that determines the probability of a team winning a single, particular game is the opposition’s starting pitcher.
Look at his this way - say the yankees do win 60% of their games and the season is coming down the stretch in September. If they play the Sox and the match up is Josh Beckett vs. Mussina, or Verlander vs. Mussina - do you think they have a 60% chance of winning those individual games? No way. They would be big underdogs in either game.
Same thing tonight. In a game of Burnett vs. Mussina there is no way the yankee’s were the favorites. No way. Especially not on a 40 degree night and the second game of the season.
The jays were definitely the favorites tonight because the pitching match up was so tilted.
If it had been Burnett vs. Pettite then that probability changes a lot - maybe the jays are favored 55 to 45%. Something like that. But not with Mussina - and I was happy with the way Mussina threw. He just doesn’t have the stuff to shut down a team and that’s what you need to beat a Burnett (or at least favored to beat the jays on a night like tonight).
That’s just baseball - the pitching matchups nearly always determine the favorites.
Read the moron posts is really hard…
people expect the yanks to go undefeated!!!
the stupidity is staggering, Moose pitched decent…
I use to like sites like this but the bottome line is at least 33% of the posters are total morons with absolutely no clue….
Rebecca,
You know what was really interesting about ARod’s at bat in the ninth - it kind of epitomized baseball in microcosm.
The blue jays basically threw ARod two mistake pitches tonight. The first one was that Burnett fastball - he left it up in the zone and ARod pounded it 400 feet.
Burnett did not make more than 5 mistake pitches all night - and even the pitch ARod hit out wasn’t that bad.
The second mistake pitch ARod saw was that 2-2 slider Accardo threw that Alex pulled foul. Accardo hung that slider but took off just enough to get ARod off balance. He just got out in front of it - it was a fraction of a second out in front. But that’s why he got under it and pulled it.
When I saw that I my head dropped because that was the pitch he had to make it happen on. Accardo is too good a pitcher to make another mistake like that to ARod. That was the kind of pitch ARod can hit 450 feet - he just missed it.
2 mistake pitches - one ARod hit out. The second he just got out in front of.
That’s just baseball. You go .500 on mistakes like that you take it every night.
I was pleasantly surprised at the job Moose did. Fingers crossed it continues.
It’s only Game 2, so Spring Baseball fever is at a high…..The bogs will level out by June…..Hell, I remember last June when just about everyone on this site, including some of our resident experts ( leters & numbers ) wrote the team off….It’s a long season for both the players, the media and of course the Yankee Blog monsters….
Hey CB -
Point well taken in general - except AJ burnett is 10W-8L in the last 2 years and 69-66 career. I half expected every tendon in Burnett’s body to pop at this temperature (JK!).
We agree that Moose pitching as deep as he did with the Yankees offense performing will do just fine this year. He just needs more giddyup on his heater.
Peace!
Optimist Prime -
Nice to be back on the board with you - - - where were the squirrels when we needed them tonight!?!?!
gayle: my friends wanted to leave, I convinced them to say for the 7th inning…I’m not usually one to leave early, but it was just way too cold. And we were sitting really high up, and it was just too cold. After the home run, they were willing to stay a little longer, but still. I don’t blame you one bit forleaving in the 5th. I started getting jealous that people had chicken fingers not because I was hungry, but because I wanted to hold them in my hands and rub them on my face.
tk: those squirrels aren’t stupid. They were INSIDE where it was warm.
Burnett is playing for a contract. He has an opt out after this year. And we know what happens to players in their walk year. Despite the fact that the Yankee offense was pretty non-existant all night, they still had a chance in the bottom of the ninth.
If the Yanks win Game 3 they take the series and winning series brings a winning record.
matsui, giambi, and damon look like crap out there. especially matsui, he looks frail and skinny.
CB: That’s what makes baseball so wonderful.
TKinDC: Much too cold in Syracuse today for them to come out. I did see a lot last month, though.
Burnett has a career 3.2 ERA against the yankees. He’s thrown 39 innings and struck out 35 hitters.
Very little chance Mussina was going to give up fewer than 3 runs tonight.
But Burnett’s career stats against the yankees are misleading because half of those innings came in 2006 when he was hurt quite a bit and didn’t have a very good overall year.
Last season Burnett made 2 starts against the yankees. He threw 15 innings and gave up 1 earned run. That’s an ERA of 0.60.
Burnett has now basically shut this team down in 3 consecutive starts.
That’s how good he is when he’s on. Not many pitchers could throw a 22 inning stretch against the yankees and give up 3 total earned runs.
With him it’s all health. And right now he’s healthy.
Pete,
Can we get an update on Humberto throwing off a mound this past Monday?
“And most importantly … the Yankees aren’t the Yankees anymore. They haven’t won a World Series in eight years; they don’t have the Steinbrenner Mystique anymore; they’re being run by Tommy Boy; they’re tearing down The House That Ruth Built; the Mets are replacing them as New York’s Most Relevant Baseball Team; they’re four years removed from being the first team in the history of the NBA or MLB to blow a 3-0 lead in a series; and as long as Mr. April (A-Rod) is the face of the Yankees, they’re a nonthreat in the playoffs. To be honest, I’m more concerned with the Indians and Tigers at this stage of my life. So there.”
CB, thanks from out West for the perspective on A-Rod’s at-bats from someone who couldn’t watch them live. Great posts.
RE: Bill Simmons…
When he was openly campaigning to be president of Red Sox Nation, I remember the Sox color guy, Jerry Remy, say during a game:
“The sports guy wants to be president of RSN– who the heck is that?”
Them his partner, Don Orsillo said: “That’s Bill Simmons, the Sports Guy, from ESPN.”
And Remy replies (classicly): Bill who? Again, who the heck is that? Sports Guys– sheeesh, anything to make a buck these days.”
Thats about how highly Simmons is regarded by his fellow ‘Sox fans’.
moose did his job,the offense didn’t. give burnette credit for the job he did. occasionally you get beat. the opposition are also professionals and paid to beat you, it does happen even in NY. You get that performance from moose consistently and he has a good year. the game was winnable when he left. not easily winnable but winnable.
The yanks seem to suffer more from cold than others. i hate cold and under 70 is jacket weather. if you happen to get a four five guys who have trouble with cold, then it gets tough. yeah, the other guys play in the same weather, but cold maybe isn’t the distraction. just saying.