Add Molina to the injury list
-
- April
- 14
The Yankees need a catcher. Jose Molina strained his left hamstring in the fourth inning, which is why he had to leave the game in the eighth.
“He sucked it up for us,” manager Joe Girardi said.
It’s uncertain what the corresponding move will be to create a roster spot, but the Yankees will be adding a catcher tomorrow. It will likely be veteran Chad Moeller.
Jorge Posada (right shoulder) said he is not ready to catch tomorrow. He was instructed not to throw tonight in the inning he caught and Boston stole two bases. Imagine what Tampa Bay would do tomorrow.
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on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 12:56 am by Peter Abraham.
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Peter Abraham
just when you thought the news couldn’t get any worse…
” Jose Molina strained his left hamstring in the fourth inning, which is why he had to leave the game in the eighth.”
Is he going on the DL? How bad is the hamstring considering he played 4 more innings with it strained?
Hmmm, still way too early to press the panic button. We just need a healthy team out on the field. I’m getting anxiety just thinking of what this team is capable of doing. Argggh!
wow!!!
our best hitter just went down!!!!!!!!!!
Tell Flash in the booth to suit up!
I feel like I’m reliving *last* April
Oh no.
No. no. no. no.
This is not what I want to see before I go to sleep.
He’s been our MVP so far. Pete, for the love of g-d let this be some sick joke…
Oh crap
This is not good news
Things can’t get any worse.
Bad news, but not the end of the world. Shelley can be the 4th catcher when he comes back.
Hopefully, it won’t be for too long. Hope that Jose didn’t make it worse by trying to tough it out. Moeller looked decent when he was in. Jorge for offense and Moeller for defense.
BTW, sorry Pete, but I think it’s lame of your brethren to jump on every little mistake that Girardi makes. Really small thinking. I thought it was called journalism, not nitpicking.
Bring back Sal Fasano!
We need the leg split and we really need the mustache!
IM sorry I know some of these injuries happen regardless of weather but the ML schedule makers really need to look at where they have ALL teams play in April. The weather has sucked there are warm weather locations, indoor venues that MLB needs to take advantage of. It my be unbalanced home and away early on but I am sure the teams would rather play unbalanced then have to play through these stupid temperature issues that can really only lea to injuries especially when you are coming from warm weather
molina and matsui are true warriors. anyone see molina hustling from 3rd? that’s a passionate player. matsui had a great battle vs that gay redsox pitcher and he grounded out unfortunately but not without trying his best.
you want frauds? look at the 2 losers who got big contracts: posada and afraud.
posada is crying about having a “dead” arm… give me a break. suck it up and throw the damn baseball. “mommy mommy my arm hurt…” pathetic.
afraud is only interested in the homerun incentives that idiot cashman added to his contract. hes strictly going for homeruns now cause he only sees money.
too bad we cant trade these jerks.
That’s what happens when a backup catcher plays so regularly.
Good point Dave. I didn’t even really think about that. I mean he was playing day after day without rest and to add to it, he was on base so much.
I hear Doug Mirabelli is looking for work.
No leave Dougie out of this. He will go on to manager out Single A team and resurrect his career with an NL Central team.
I don’t buy that theory about Molina.
Backup catchers are backups because they aren’t good enough to start. It’s not because they are more injury prone than the starting catcher, especially since they’ve played only 13 games.
It might be different if they’ve played 60 games, but this is only April 13th.
Call up JESUS!!! haha
Have you seen Jose Molina? More importanly have you seen him run? I’m not saying it’s the sole reason why he pulled a hammy but it could be a factor.
Put in Girardi, that way no one has to be called up.
Yeah, I’m kidding.
activate Tony Pena
Moeller hasn’t been producing all that well on offense; I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Cervelli could be outproducing him right now if he was healthy.
But he can’t be called up to play the Rays because of one of the Rays’ conduct in Spring Training.
I guess we weren’t overreacting when we were furious about the way that worked out.
I think that they have to put Molina on the DL. How can they carry another player on the roster who is not playing. If they don’t DL Molina who goes to give Moeller a spot?
Could tomorrow be the official lst day as a Yankee for Carl Pavano?? If they bring up Moeller they need to make a corresponding move on the 40 man as he is not on the 40 man as far as I know. Other than releasing Henn or Pavano I dont see any other move that could be made ir an I nissing something. And no DFA Farnsworth doesnt count
They have to DL Molina and move Cervalli (sp?) to the 60 day DL so Moeller can have a spot on the 40 man.
What about Yogi? he’s available.
could always DFA Chase Wright or Jose Veras, neither of them would be terribly missed
Have more players been injured or DL’d on teams that have played a majority of their games so far in the cold weather?
And whats with this cold snap?
It’s mid April, yet it feels like mid January.
“activate Tony Pena”
this may be the one thing that saved me from being very furious tonight
At least our best hitter, Alberto Gonzalez, isn’t hurt.
Think good thoughts for Joba and his family. Joba headed home cause his Dad is hospitalized in Nebraska after collapsing.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2008/04/13/2008-04-13_phil_hughes_gets_ripped_early_yankees_fa.html
get well soon harlan!!!
Cervelli is already on the 60-day DL. No can do.
I wonder if Gonzalez will get the boot since Jeter is likely to play Monday or Tuesday anyways.
Augh, that Joba news is terrible. It seems like he’s so close to his dad, I hope he’s OK.
And for the Yankees, things can’t really get much worse. Jeter, Molina, Posada, and now if Joba is for any extended period of time that might be worse than all of the others because there really is no Joba “backup”.
Hopefully his dad is fine and he’ll be back soon :\
I don’t know if it’s been mentioned yet, but I think we all know who needs to start at catcher tomorrow. Joe, lace em up and get out there… we need ya man!
In all seriousness, this still isn’t the end of the world. Jeter will be back within the next few days and then Duncan will get called up for Gonzalez (who has probably improved his value with the way he’s played these few games). Hopefully Posada will be able to play catcher within a few weeks and the lineup will be set.
It’s ridiculous to say that A-Rod is swinging for the fences because of a clause in his contract or that Posada needs to man up and throw runners out when he’s injured. It’s still April. Why make an injury worse at this point in the season? The good news is that the bullpen has been great this year with the exception of Farnesworth who looks like he may be on his way out. The bats will wake up and everything will be ok.
too bad, who will be the catcher for next game?
Posada? oh? no,still on injury list
oh god no my prayers are w/ Harlan
Can they put joba on the bereavement list? They’d still have to move someone off the 40 man (Pavano please…) if moeller isn’t already on the 40 man.
I mean, I don’t want Joba out for 3 games but this thing about his Dad seems rather serious, he’ll probably be out for about 2 or 3 days regardless.
Terrible news about Joba’s dad. The Daily News says that his dad is in critical condition.
This is the most difficult stretch of their season. There’s a lot going on but that is an inevitable part of the long baseball season.
The most important thing right now is that there is no fatal flaws in this team.
Look at the tigers - they will undoubtedly start hitting. May not “score 1000 runs” but they will hit.
But it’s absolutely uncertain if both their rotation and their bull pen are good enough to win over long stretches of time. And they have no pitching depth in the minors at all - none.
That very well could be a fatal flaw in that club - one that becomes even more pressing because now they have dug themselves in a hole.
The Mariner’s traded a ton of blue chip, major league ready talent for Eric Bedard. Bedard is now hurt - he’s out with inflammation in his hip. Bedard is never healthy. Again when you have so much riding on one player and he’s hurt already - that’s something to worry about.
There’s nothing even remotely like those kinds of fatal flaws on this Yankee team. There is no reason to think they are not going to hit - they are.
They’ll get through these injuries. They’ll get through the growing pains of the young pitchers. It’ll be tough but there’ s no reason to worry yet - it’s way to early.
And after this first series here’s two observations about the sox:
-We heard all off season how this was going to be a new Matsuzaka - he’d be more comfortable in year 2, better conditioning, used to the zone, etc.
The new Matsuzaka is EXACTLY the same pitcher as the old one. Coming into tonight he was walking 4.5/9 and his command was awful tonight. Exactly the way it was last year. The offense didn’t execute on Matsuzaka’s mistakes.
- Unless they make a major trade, the Sox bull pen is going to wear down over time. Francona only trusts 2 pitchers in that pen. Lester, Matsuzaka, Wakefield and Buchholz are not going to go deep into their starts.
It’s a very long season. Tough spot right now but the yankees are a deep team and that depth will become a bigger and bigger advantage as the season goes on.
Girardi is the best bet. Hes in better shape then anyone on the team…
CALL UP JESUS MONTERO BECAUSE WE NEED A DAMNED MIRACLE!
tooooooo young….
CB,
“- Unless they make a major trade, the Sox bull pen is going to wear down over time. Francona only trusts 2 pitchers in that pen. Lester, Matsuzaka, Wakefield and Buchholz are not going to go deep into their starts.”
Haha, that sounds a bit like the Yanks. Who do we trust other than Joba and Mo? Bruney maybe, and Ohlendorf/Hawkins were ok today. None of those three inspire much confidence in me. And, though I wish them success, we may not get deep starts from Phil, Ian, and Moose. Shifting Joba over later reduces our “reliable” bullpen options down to Mo.
In other words, pray for Phil, Ian, and Moose to have solid years and for someone in the bullpen not named Joba and Mo to step up.
Tseng, I agree with all of your comments except one. So far, Bruney has done everything the Yankees have asked him to do. He seems like a new pitcher, and he hasn’t allowed an earned run yet. He’s moving up the ranks. And I think both Phil and Ian will be very good. I’m more worried about Mussina. Yeah, he looked pretty good against Boston, but it just seems like he needs everything to go right for him to pitch well.
think billy crystal has ever played catcher?
“Haha, that sounds a bit like the Yanks. Who do we trust other than Joba and Mo? Bruney maybe, and Ohlendorf/Hawkins were ok today. None of those three inspire much confidence in me.”
So are you saying the bull pen and the pitching as a whole haven’t done a good job?
The yankees have the 4th best team ERA in all of the AL so far this year. 4th best.
The bull pen has already been called upon to throw a lot of innings - that makes the yankees terrific team ERA even more impressive. Very few teams in baseball could rely that much on the pen and still have an outstanding team ERA.
The bull pen overall has looked very good - and that’s not just Mo and Joba. Bruney has pitched very well as has Ohlendorf. Traber has done an excellent job when he’s been calle don. Hawkins has also looked good since that first rocky appearance.
Having a good bull pen isn’t about putting together 7 big names. You’re never going to have that. It’s about having options and being able to mix and match according to need.
Farnsworth needs to go because he add a of stress to the pen - he’s unusable and increases everyone else’s workloads.
The yankees have tremendous depth in the pen because it’s not only the guys on the 25 man roster.
Right now in AAA they have Patterson, Albaladejo, Britton, Ramirez, and Veras just waiting. On top of that they have Horne and Marquez who could be switched to the pen.
In the lower minor Dan McCutcheon, Dave Roberts. Recovering from TJ they have Mark Melancon and Humberto Sanchez.
Between all of those arms they have tremendous depth. Depth that any team in baseball would jump at.
So yes the yankee rotation will and has put a lot of pressure on the pen. But unlike the Sox and the Tigers the Yankees have the depth - bot on the current 25 man roster and also in the minors to make up for outings like Phil had today.
It’s a major advantage and in no way are the Sox and Yankees in the same situations with regards to depth of pitching available to use in the pen. There is no comparison.
Bruney has been good so far this year. Spectacular, I think, other than giving up that single to Youk yesterday. I really hope he can become a reliable option out of the pen, but I don’t want to be too hasty in placing my faith in him based on 7 or so innings of work so far. It looks promising thus far.
Super-utility guy Brandon Inge has never looked so tantilizing. When does Granderson come back?
Also, best wishes to Harlan & Joba.
My faith in Farnsworth is seriously eroding.
However, I have more faith in him than Ramirez. No offense to Ramirez or you, CB.
Farnsworth will unfortunately not be moved in the first half. If he can’t be reliable, he’ll be used in garbage time. When the playoff picture comes into focus and he’s still unreliable, I can see them cutting their losses. At that point, it’ll be dumping $2.5M rather than $5M.
CB,
I’m not saying we need 7 superstars, but none of the guys we have in there other than Mo and Joba have done enough to earn my trust yet. (Heck, Joba doesn’t have that many innings yet either, but I’ll trust him because everyone else does)
I agree that our pitching has been extraordinary so far, I’m just cautious of extrapolating that sample over the rest of the year. Really, I’d be happy if one or two can be consistently reliable. All I’m saying that while our bullpen has done great so far, it’s too early to tell if it’s going to keep up and the only two that Yankee fans really have trust in right now based on past performance are Mo and Joba. If Ohlendorf, Hawkins, Bruney, and whoever else can keep up fairly solid performance through the middle of end of May then I’ll be a bit more optimistic but as of now I still regard them all as a bit of an unknown.
Tseng,
I’ll leave you with this - this isn’t about extrapolation at all. In fact it’s the exact opposite.
Depth is the exact opposite of the type of brittle performance behavior you get when you project off small samples.
That’s not what I’m saying at all.
Depth is an issue of probability not extrapolation. What I’m saying is that given the volume of arms they have on the major league roster and in the minors there is a high probability that the pen will have a very good composite year.
Now by composite year I’m not saying its going to be the same 7 guys. For instance, I could see them perhaps using a guy like Hawkins like they did Viz last year. A lot of appearances, a lot of innings and I could see him getting tired.
I don’t think that’ll be a problem because they can bring up an Albaladejo to replace him.
They can get rid of Farnsworth and the next day improve the pen by putting Patterson in there.
I’m also not confident in any one guy in the pen not named Joba or Mo. But what I am optimistic about is talent and numbers. They have so many guys with good arms that something is going to shake out when they need it.
I mean I didn’t even bring up names like Rasner, Karstens or Steve White.
Extrapolation is an issue for a team like the Sox. I don’t think you can extrapolate the performance of their pen because they rely so much on Okajima and Papelbon, but Okajima in particular to give them multiple innings.
Their pen tiring last year was a major reason why they faded so much in the second half. What saved them was the cushion they built with the ridiculous april. That’s not happening this year. And they do not have quality pitching at AAA.
I’m honestly not that worried about the bull pen. They have too much talent for some kind of arrangement not to work out.
“think billy crystal has ever played catcher?”
no. but robert deniro played a yankee catcher in bang the drum slowely. he’s in great shape, and deniro is a new yorker.
“Chamberlain’s sister called a Yankees official during the eighth inning in an attempt to reach Chamberlain, who was in the bullpen at the time.
After the game, a source said, Chamberlain returned the call, only to learn of his father’s collapse.
Sources said Chamberlain broke down in tears inside the clubhouse, as manager Joe Girardi consoled him.
Asked about the situation, Girardi told The News, “Personal stuff stays in there,” pointing to the clubhouse.
A team official said Chamberlain was not going to join the Yankees for their charter flight to Tampa on Sunday night, though he didn’t know when the pitcher would be heading back to Nebraska.”
source
get well Harlan my prayers are w/ Joba and the Chamberlain family.
CB,
With all those names I suppose it’d be highly improbable not to find at least a few who could provide us with decent relief at the very least. I don’t really know anything about the state of the Red Sox farm system so if as you claim their farm system has no notable pitchers ready to call up and effectively relieve that I’ll concede the argument to you.
gah I want editing back. I meant, “than I’ll concede the argument to you”
… sorry, it’s late and I’m not thinking straight at all.
**then
This is very off topic but could some kindly Yankee fan read my latest post about Babe Ruth and pass it along to the Yankee management somehow.
I think it would be nice.
Have a fun baseball season all…
Falkie2008
last year the pitchers were dropping like flies and now the position players are going down one by one.
The news about Molina is bad. Moeller looks like the man for now. The news about Chamberlain’s dad is even worse and I hope for the best. It’ll be a desperate couple of days to be a Yankee fan with Tampa running roughshod and Boston looming again so soon.
But when it comes to desperation, nobody beats Bill Madden of the Daily News.
Madden refuses to let go of the Girardi-Mussina moment, when Joe let Moose pitch to Manny the other night. This time Madden compares Girardi’s April decision not with Grady Little in the ALCS but with Dick Williams in a World Series Game:
“He was referring to Game 5 of the 1984 World Series when, as manager of the San Diego Padres, he let Goose Gossage talk him out of giving an intentional walk to Kirk Gibson. Williams had barely sat down in the dugout when Gibson, like Ramirez off Mussina, hit Gossage’s first pitch into the Tiger Stadium right field upper deck for a three-run homer.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2008/04/13/2008-04-13_joe_girardi_and_phil_hughes_are_flops_ag.html
April = World Series? Looks like we have a new player in the Mike Lupica Memorial Bad Sportswriting Trophy sweepstakes.
anti-mussina
April 14th, 2008 at 1:07 am
“molina and matsui are true warriors. anyone see molina hustling from 3rd? that’s a passionate player. matsui had a great battle vs that gay redsox pitcher and he grounded out unfortunately but not without trying his best.
you want frauds? look at the 2 losers who got big contracts: posada and afraud.
posada is crying about having a “dead” arm… give me a break. suck it up and throw the damn baseball. “mommy mommy my arm hurt…” pathetic.
afraud is only interested in the homerun incentives that idiot cashman added to his contract. hes strictly going for homeruns now cause he only sees money.
too bad we cant trade these jerks.”
GEEZ! I got halfway through the post, and this feeling of idiocy swept over me. I stopped reading and screamed: “My God, I’ve caught dumb!”
Then I looked at the author of the comment…
Anti-anti !
You are no fan! You are a senseless, mindless troll that spreads trollery!! You don’t even stick around to debate, you pull a drive-by and bail.
A true fan…. pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease. And I’m Dice-K’s interpreter!!!
Grow up!
The news about Joba’s dad trumps all the other BS folks are complaining about re: the team. That’s heartbreaking. I hope he is ok.
I get the feeling the Pro-Torre folks in the media are beginning to circle the wagons on Girardi. Madden is one example with him overstating Saturday’s move.
Its also not Girardi’s job to inform the media of Joba’s status until after the game. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t do the ESPN in game interview. That may have been the time he received the news.
He’s not Joe Torre. Get over it and move on.
Its a long season and if folks are going to go nuts (including the media) over a rough patch in April, how are they going to hold up the rest of the way?
They are exactly ONE game behind the team they need to worry about (Boston) in the division. That’s hit.
Hardly time for panic.
Has Girardi made some bad choices? Yes. If he learns from it, he will be fine. Goes with the territory.
Molina? He was running slow even for a Molina last night. When a team says “strained hamstring”, that’s a pulled hamstring. Expect a DL stint.
Just gotta suck it up and deal with it. Nobody is going to feel sorry for the Yankees.
If they can start to hit, weathering this rough patch becomes much easier.
I guess this would explain why he was having such trouble last night. I only hope it wasn’t made worse by him staying the game.
Awful news about Joba’s father. Thoughts and prayers are with him.
Things like this put everything into perspective. It is only a game!! There are things that are more important.
Hey, How about Mike Piazza?? lol
just before game time, I was thinking to myself that this playing baseball in the winter is depriving me and others of a quality game. This Molina injury just adds to it. Baseball is summer game and something should be done to help keep players healthy. I want to see the guys who start start. That is not a knock on backups. Near freezing and below freezing windchill is not something that should even be considered baseball weather. As a fan it is hard to appreciate these cold weather games and the injuries they contribute too. Yes, injuries happen and maybe many are completely unnecessary. Its very discouraging to watch players struggle in what is already a very difficult game.
Using some dblheaders and starting northern teams as much as possible in domes and the south would be big step imo, but mlb and the almighty $ don’t care.