Game 17: Red Sox at Yankees
-
-
- April
- 17
-
YANKEES
Johnny Damon LF
Derek Jeter SS
Bobby Abreu RF
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Jason Giambi 1B
Jorge Posada DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Melky Cabrera CF
Chad Moeller C
Mike Mussina RHP (1-2, 4.15)
RED SOX
Jacoby Ellsbury CF
Dustin Pedroia 2B
David Ortiz DH
Manny Ramirez LF
Kevin Youkilis 3B
J.D. Drew RF
Jason Varitek C
Sean Casey 1B
Julio Lugo SS
Gentleman Josh Beckett RHP (1-1, 6.35)
Notes: Joe Girardi is a perfect 17 for 17 in terms of having a different lineup every day. … Hey, Moose, don’t pitch to Manny. … The teams are 2-2 through four games. After today, they will not play again until July 3-4-5-6 in New York. … Beckett allowed three runs on five hits over 6.2 innings against the Yankees last Saturday. Mussina allowed four runs on eight hits over 5.2 innings. … The Yankees (9-7) have won three in a row and are tied for first place in the AL East with the Red Sox.
Here are Beckett’s splits against the Yankees
Here are Moose’s splits against the Red Sox
Back later with updates. Enjoy the game.
UPDATE, 3:57 p.m.: Fresh off the interweb, here’s a statement from George Steinbrenner via Howard Rubenstein:
“The visit by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI is wonderful for New York, our nation and indeed the world. His message of brotherhood rings loud and clear. We welcome him to Yankee Stadium with respect, reverence and enthusiasm.â€
There’s about as much chance GMS actually said that as there is that I wrote the Gettysburg Address. But it sounds good.
The reporters covering the Pope’s mass on Sunday will use the same press box the baseball writers do. Do they blog? How great would that be?
UPDATE, 2:30 p.m.: Pope calls for world peace. No surprise there.
Does the Pope do a post-Mass press conference? Are there Pope beat writers? Does the Pope get second-guessed by the tabloids in Rome? I’d like to find these things out.
UPDATE, 4:31 p.m.: Sox lineup now posted. Same as yesterday.
UPDATE, 5:44 p.m.: Here’s some quality blogging from Amalie Benjamin of the Globe as she reports on the conversation between Derek Jeter and Sean Casey at second base last night.
Amalie and I were on ESPN News last weekend at Fenway. I was quite impressed that she had her own earpiece (or IFB as the TV types call it). I had to use theirs, although the guy was nice enough to clean it off first. Maybe someday I will rate.
If you want to keep up on the Sawx, make sure you read Extra Bases on Boston.com or our pal Rob Bradford, who blogs for the Herald.
UPDATE, 6:49 p.m.: Sam Borden was among the media who quizzed Jorge Posada about his shoulder. Seems that JoPo was a little ornery, which means he’s feeling better.
“We’re pushing for Saturday,” he said. “So ask me on Saturday. I’m really tired of you asking me everyday, ‘How you doing?’ – ‘I’m fine.’ Same (stuff). I could have played today (but) they didn’t want me to. So I’m pushing for Saturday.”
Meanwhile, Jose Molina said he’s hoping to do blocking and throwing drills tomorrow and is also targeting Saturday as a possibility
The Posada shoulder injury is a bit of a mystery and the Yankees seem determined to make sure he’s OK before they put him behind the plate. Considering that other teams will test him right away, that makes good sense.
Meanwhile, Posada gets all Sonny Corleone when he’s mad. He gets that 1,000-yard stare, especially with writers he doesn’t know.
UPDATE, 7:17 p.m.: More good news on Harlan Chamberlain. This from Joe Girardi:
“(Chamberlain) is continuing to do better. He was up to rehab twice today. There’s still no timetable, but there is progress and that’s a good thing. … I don’t think that they’ll run all the tests until he’s off the ventilator. And I believe they hope to have him off that sometime this weekend.”
No word yet on when Joba will rejoin the team. Tough spot for him, but his father obviously has to come first.
UPDATE, 7:33 p.m.: What is the point exactly of pitching to Manny? I understand you can’t intentionally walk him. But you can’t throw him a 3-1 fastball, either.
UPDATE, 7:59 p.m.: Joe Girardi is supposed to be a smart guy, right? Lots of charts, he can use a computer. Terrific with in-game situations, all that. How has the fact that Manny Ramirez absolutely murders the Yankees escaped him? Just pitch around him. Tell Mussina (or anybody else) to throw him four pitches off the plate. Maybe you’ll get lucky and he’ll chase one and pop up. It’s like they’re daring him to see how far he can hit it.
Being stubborn has cost them three runs tonight.
UPDATE, 8:25 p.m.: I’m sure people want Mussina executed at dawn. But if he stays in the rotation, he’ll win 12 or 13 games because he will beat NL teams and some of the dreck in the AL. The offense will carry him. Do you think Kei Igawa will be any better?
The problem is that he needs to be the No. 5 starter, not the No. 2 starter. And obviously they need to limit his exposure against teams like the Red Sox or Tigers.
This is why they need to transition Joba into the rotation. Starters are more valuable than relievers, it’s that simple. Mussina will not be here next season and Joba will be. He needs to get to 140 innings this season so he can go to 170 in 2009 then 200 in 2010. Limiting him to 70-80 innings this season is a waste of time, literally.
UPDATE, 8:49 p.m.: Manny is 53 of 113 (.469) with 13 homers and 38 RBI in his last 33 games against the Yankees. … Meanwhile this game has come to a conclusion as Albaladejo didn’t do his job.
UPDATE, 9:14 p.m.: The Yankees had a chance to really get back in the game there before A-Rod popped up. He is 1 for 15 with runners in scoring position this season.
UPDATE, 9:34 p.m.: You want to throw inside and knock somebody off the plate, good idea. But Kyle Farnsworth throwing a ball behind the head of Manny Ramirez is irresponsible and dangerous.
And before you applaud the idea, what would you think if Jonathan Papelbon did it to A-Rod or Jeter? I’m all for the idea of not allowing a hitter to get comfortable. But when you throw up around somebody’s head, that’s wrong.
Beyond that, do you want to get the guy mad? He’s hitting .500 against you when he’s a goofball.
UPDATE, 10:29 p.m.: So the Yankees lose by two runs. Pitching to Manny may not have cost them the game but it sure didn’t help.
Now comes a nine game, 10-day road trip. If the Yankees emerge from this schedule and all their injuries and issues at .500, they will have done well.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 3:44 pm by Peter Abraham.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Print This Post
| 
Email This Post
Chad Jennings
Sam Borden
why can’t girardi give Matsui to DH instead of Posada.
After looking at those splits makes sense to sit Matsui over Posada for DH
godzeera needs to be in the line up everyday, he is really hitting the ball well. But I agree, looking at the splits, maybe tonight is a good time to sit him…but he is on fire right now.
I agree ABK. I’d rather see Matsui at DH and give Posada the night off.
Either way it’s nice to have depth.
I didnt realize Posada hit Beckett so well. I stand corrected (was also thinking Matsui should get the start over him).
no Gonzo
Im glad to see that Alex’s baby is waiting until after the Boston series to arrive. Smart little baby.
lol Fran
I forgot about that
Boston Dave,
We have to break her in the right way! If she is really cooperative she will wait until the off day on Monday!
Look at the splits before complaining about the lineup.
Everyday they can rotate guys around also keeps guys fresh during the season.
Remember, this team still hasn’t had a day off yet this season.
Add in the injuries and the wacky travel schedule, its wise to work some guys in and out of the lineup.
God Posada, get over your dead arm! you at DH is really screwing things up!!!
Chad!!
Chad!!
Chad!!
Chad!!
Hopefully she will decide to enter the world on Monday (off day).
Matsui has always been a very streaky hitter. When he’s hot, he’ll hit any pitcher and when he’s cold, anyone can get him out. Right now he is seeing the ball very well! Splits are good to look at as a guide, but there are other factors to consider. I would go with Matsui tonite (either in left or DH).
I saw the Pope at the Vatican in November of 1999. He spoke from his balcony. It was pretty awesome.
I wore my 1999 World Champions t-shirt. Many Italian people commented on my shirt.
“Look at the splits before complaining about the lineup.
Everyday they can rotate guys around also keeps guys fresh during the season.
Remember, this team still hasn’t had a day off yet this season.
Add in the injuries and the wacky travel schedule, its wise to work some guys in and out of the lineup.”
Exactly. Matsui WILL get a day off. You might as well give him a day off when the splits warrant it rather than when they don’t.
I read somewhere that they may induce labor if she doesn’t go in by Monday?
Matsui and Damon both are miserable vs Beckett, but with Mussina on the mound you want Damon in the OF. Posada has much better #’s than Matsui vs Beckett, thus he is the DH.
Is the Pope a lefthander or a righthander?
the red sox lineup’s ops against mussina is surprisingly low . he’s done surprisingly well against them. i would not have thought that possible. just goes to show you have to pay attention to the numbers.
With that big pinch hit HR the other night – I hope Robby is coming out his early year swoon.
It was funny after the game last night – Giambi said it is a lot easier to hit “when you can feel your feet and your face” b/c of the warmer weather.
the pope is amadextrious
I wonder what beers are gonna cost at the mass on Sunday. I bet parking goes up too.
rbj..pope john paul was a lefty i believe. i saw him at mile high stadium in Denver back in 93. He pitched a shut out
“Hey it’s me the Pope, I wish World Nuclear Apocalypse!” is just something i dont expect to ever see.
56Bomber:
Freddy Sez is going to be banging the pan in the Tier during the 3rd prayer.
Someone better tell the Pope to acknowledge roll call.
With the Pope on the bump, no way even Farnsy can blow the deal.
I heard the Yankees told the Pope to stay off the grass. I am totally serious about this!
The Pope needs to help out Giambi with his swing btw.
Jennifer – and I thought that smell was incense.
I don’t think they’ll induce labor unless she’s past 41 weeks.
Maybe she should give birth in an (L&D) suite at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. Then have the Pope bless the child.
Matsui looked a little banged up after that slide at home yesterday, maybe why he ’s out today.
“The reporters covering the Pope’s mass on Sunday will use the same press box the baseball writers do. Do they blog? How great would that be?”
Pete, I’ll be at the mass. Would you like me to blog?
Think they’ll still charge $8.50 for Papal beers/$10.00 with Pope souvenir cup?
“the red sox lineup’s ops against mussina is surprisingly low . he’s done surprisingly well against them. i would not have thought that possible. just goes to show you have to pay attention to the numbers.”
Also important to lend those numbers some context. Mussina has not been particularly good against Boston. 2-4 with an ERA of 6.00 in his last 11 starts against them. There was a time when he OWNED the Red Sox. Now it’s something of a crapshoot every time out.
Thank God he’s not Pope Benedict XXI, he would probably get booed.
Clay – excellent…lol
Pete…your updates are a GAS !…Keep ‘em coming, pal !
Maybe the Pope can take Pavano back home with him. When he decides to leave.
This just in!! Damon says that he’s had a dead arm since playing baseball and decided to play through it.
Pete, what’s up with you calling Beckett “Gentleman”? Is that your good ‘ol sarcasm at work?
The Pope gets second-guessed at least every Sunday!
I wonder if the Pope going to throw out the first pitch? Come to think of it. Have him swing the bat one time. If Crystal can foul of a pitch so can the Pope.
Sorry I’m going back to the ‘Sign Manny’ thread’ …
If I was Cashman I wouldn’t even think of signing him. Even if I wanted to, I might not even get the opportunity to sign him until after he’s no longer a dangerous hitter.
Never mind, just for sake of argument, that he supposedly doesn’t like the Yanks. He’s playing for a big contract. Theo knows the Sox options for ‘09 and ‘10 will keep him motivated for this year and the next two. He’ll pick up the options if it’s more beneficial than paying Manny even more. By the end of ‘10, ‘Manny Being Manny’ will be ‘Manny Being Thirty Eight’ the following season. Theo will probably no longer want him. Do you see Manny being motivated for three full years? And continuing to be motivated at 38?
If Manny becomes available before then, I speculate it’s because he’s no longer ‘Manny Being Motivated’. Whether he is or isn’t, he’ll want 4 or more years and a ton of money. Even if he deserves the money the first year of that next contract, he won’t deserve what he’d be getting a couple years later. Can you say ‘Randy Johnson Late Career Salary’?
Even if he becomes available after what could be a big ‘08, to make a multi-year commitment to a mega-priced FA with questionable motivation (and his antics) isn’t the direction the Yanks sound like they’re going in.
So, no thought should be given to Manny.
SOme of you are hilarious!!
“I read somewhere that they may induce labor if she doesn’t go in by Monday?”
I read it too. Said she would have the baby in the next 6 days or they might induce. The six day time frame made me think she was already past 40 weeks.
Those of you who aren’t, well… you know who you are.
How awesome would it be if the Pope came out to Mother by Glen Danzig and threw a 95 mph heater right down broadway?
So after rolling around in the dirt and howling like a baby Youk is playing? Moose pitch him inside, make him move his feet!!
Pete should post the Giambi/Timlin split.
“why can’t girardi give Matsui to DH instead of Posada.”
why does every single lineup decision have to be nitpicked on this blog?
now we are complaining about JORGE POSADA, one of the greatest hitting catchers in history, being in the lineup because Matsui has been a little better for the first 15 games or so?
i agree that Matsui is hitting well, but unfortunately for the Yankees, he’s looked like an utter disaster in the OF so far. so that limits him to the DH. Posada needs to maintain his swing while he can’t catch. so Matsui gets the day off.
What number does Pope Benedict wear on the back of his Holy Vestments? If it happens to be 21, there are gonna be some seriously pissed off Pope Paul fans at Yankee Stadium!
Are there Pope beat writers? Yup. The same guys who cover the Cardinals.
“i agree that Matsui is hitting well, but unfortunately for the Yankees, he’s looked like an utter disaster in the OF so far”
completely agree… he looked like a little leaguer catching those foul fly balls last night… complete with the big smile after seeing the ball in his glove.
“why does every single lineup decision have to be nitpicked on this blog?”
I just thought the Pope can get an at bat. O.k. How about third base coach for an inning?
Hmmm,
Its a LoHud Blog Tradition.
There has never been a lineup Pete has ever posted since he started this blog that wasn’t followed with complaints.
As I said in an earlier post, folks should look at the splits before complaining about the lineup.
Complaining about the lineup on here is as traditional as those who declare the team in “trouble” for the season if they fall behind in a game.
Its just one of those things that makes this place a wild, wacky, fun ride!
I disagree. He’s been adequate in the field so far this year..
“What number does Pope Benedict wear on the back of his Holy Vestments? If it happens to be 21, there are gonna be some seriously pissed off Pope Paul fans at Yankee Stadium!”
Now that was a riot!!! Funniest post of the day. I wonder if Oneil would appreciate that from his fans?
“How awesome would it be if the Pope came out to Mother by Glen Danzig and threw a 95 mph heater right down broadway?”
McFadden, gonna have to disagree with ya there. There were at least two instances I can think of where Matsui didn’t get to balls that were easily catchable.
Does a bear er, poop in the woods?
Just checking.
I’d also rather see Matsui as the DH over Posada. I’d bet that Matsui would be batting 5th over Giambi. But I’m just a nit-picky fan who hasn’t looked at the splits. It’s my un-educated opinion, but it’s my opinion nonetheless, and I love that I can share it with the other fans on this blog.
Damon needs to get some time in, though. I understand that. We have a log-jam at DH, and the at-bats need to be spread out somehow.
When you don’t play everyday, you just won’t be as sharp. Matsui was a good LF prior to his wrist injury. I think his fielding has gotten worse due to lack of playing time, whereas Damon was more a natural decline in CF.
SJ,
You mentioned in the last thread that you thought that Melky was going to hold on to center field. When did you come to this conclusion? I have said that he has been ignored and looked at as the buss stop guy. Till the real center fielders got called up. I think we’re all going to look back and be amazed one day.
Do you think that either Matsui or Damon will be traded or trade bait this year?
“I disagree. He’s been adequate in the field so far this year..”
SMALL SAMPLE SIZE ALERT…
he’s basically last in the AL in ZR:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/.....ualified=0
the sample is very small, so it could be easily skewed by a few tricky balls, but the numbers jive with what my eyes are telling me.
Hello fellow Yankee fans from Montego Bay. I hope the Yanks beat the Saux by a TD again. Excuse me while I return to the pool bar.
I just saw the Pope! No really I did. I live in DC and his motorcade just drove by my place. So, I didn’t actually see him, but I did see his limo(s).
Not that I really care.
You watch Melky everyday and you see how much better he is getting.
Much better swings from the right side. Most of his AB’s this year have been strong.
He is also taking much better routes to the ball in CF.
You just see him getting better each day. Folks forget, he is only 23 years old and he is becoming a very tough out and a very solid all around player.
I don’t think the Yankees will trade Damon or Matsui. They certainly need both of them this year.
They will also need them next year because neither Tabata nor Jackson will be ready to take on 400-600 AB’s at the ML level.
hmmmm,
A “little” better? lmao Matsui’s been more than “a little” better than Posada.
I amend my last post. If Damon really regresses, and Brett Gardner continues to impress, I could see them moving Damon and giving Gardner the job next season.
That’s up to Johnny though. If he plays the way he is capable of, that won’t happen. If doesn’t, that may be a very realistic scenario.
I was curious, so I just looked up the Washington Nationals April schedule. They’re hosting the Pope as well, you know? I want to know how they were able to give the Nationals a pretty normal schedule regarding home vs. away, plus a couple of days off, but could not do that for the Yankees?
Because I didn’t realize until this morning that the Mass in Washington, DC was going to be in the Nationals new stadium.
SJ,
Will Melky’s numbers be similiar to Bernie. As far as a 20 homerun hitter/300 avg.?
I was a huge fan of Gardner in spring. But he doesnt have much of a successful track record in the minors. Has he just figured it out? Sort of like AJAX?
I read they flipped the Baltimore series from home to away. So even without the Pope being here, we still had a pretty crappy schedule.
SoS I’d urge you to read up on Brett’s AAA stats this season before you say that
SJ44- Just curious, what makes you say Tabata and Jackson won’t be able to go over 400 AB’s?
Too early to say SOS.
I think Melky is going to hit for some power later in his career. He will be a 20-25 HR guy as he develops physically.
He’s just a very good player. He does a lot of good things out there.
He can only get better.
Brett Gardner is a unique type of player in today’s baseball. He can really fly. He’s just not fast, he can fly!
His bat can be a little weak but, he is a much better hitter after the AFL (Arizona Fall League) and he is swinging the bat quite well in AAA.
Whether he is starting in the OF next year or coming off the bench, barring injury, he will make the roster next year, IMO.
He is a very interesting guy going forward for the Yankees.
Brandon,
Yes. I have been following Gardner this year. I was just wondering if something just clicked this year?
Jim,
I said neither guy will be ready next year to have 400+ AB’s at the ML level. I think they will need more time in the minors.
Its a very, very big jump from AA to the majors and I think its best to err at the side of caution in their development.
Agreed. Thanks.
Andy,
Then I fully expect you to be starting your job as a major league talent evaluator very shortly.
Good luck in your new position.
“SJ44, you’re very, very dumb. Gardner will be a great starting OF if you consider lack of contact and zero power to be good things.”
huh, i guess i completely missed where SJ said Gardner would be a “great starting OF”.
i guess “interesting” now means “great”.
HOORAY FOR STRAWMEN!!!!!
Since the Frau is an Italian I guess I am qualified to answer these:
Does the Pope do a post-Mass press conference?
No, he does not take questions from the unwashed masses. However, he will come to the window and offer greetings and blessings. I know, I was in the square one April morning when the dude appeared. I was waiting for the Vatican museum to open. I was wearing a T-shirt that declares: Hell is my Destination. I love the irony.
Are there Pope beat writers?
There most certainly are. Don’t ask me to name them, but all the major newspapers in Italy (not just Rome) have a reporter devoted full-time to the Vatican beat. The Vatican has a press agency and their own publicity department too.
Does the Pope get second-guessed by the tabloids in Rome?
I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the newspapers, but I recall the headline: The Pope is full of it. It was from the socialist/communist party paper (a daily in Parma). The complaint was over his preference for Prada shoes (and other expensive clothing) and a recent call by the pontiff’s secretary for the Italians to curb their wasteful ways. I don’t know if the newspapers in Rome are so bold. (Parma is a radical college town.)
I agree, Jackson and especially Tabata have at least a year still in the minors until we see them even considered for a backup role in the majors. Caution must be taken with Tabata’s past injuries. And Jackson has yet to prove in a full season he can hit for what his ceiling can be. I can see both being able to crack the lineup in 2010 if all goes well.
Gardner is a speed demon. He is the kind of player you want leading off every game and just find a way to get him on base. Because then he will cause havoc with a pitcher.
Gardner is slugging .641 right now….just saying.
All the advertising at the Stadium will be covered during the Pope’s visit. He celebrates mass with wine so God forbid that any Budweiser, Ballantine, Reingold, or Knickerbocker beer signs are seen.
If the yanks win tonight we are in first place. GO YANKEES!!!
If Damon isn’t performing, he’s not going to be moveable at $13M. The market for mid 30’s CF’s who can’t play CF is pretty slow these days. Way too early to tell at this point. He’ll probably be fine at the plate.
Similarly with Garnder, there’s not much in his history to suggest the 1.000 OPS he’s put up in 10 games is a realistic reflection of his talent. OBP skills seem to be there, which could make him an effective leadoff hitter when Damon’s gone. But let’s him carry it over a half season or more 1st.
SJ44,
What do you think about Ryan Pope? I’ve been following him a bit and was wondering your opinion. Possible 4th starter down the road? Seems like the Yankees really like him and are really intrigued.
Afternoon everyone. Still haven’t slept.
Does anyone know the Pope’s splits against Beckett?
He’s a kid that just has to keep pitching well.
He has a good arm and good composure on the mound. He just needs innings to see how far he can go.
He’s a kid that will probably be in AA next year. At that time, we will be able to get a better read as to how far he can project.
SJ,
The jump from AA to MLB isn’t much harder than AAA to MLB. Phenoms like Tabata and Jackson won’t need much time at AAA; perhaps a month or two max.
SoS,
“Will Melky’s numbers be similiar to Bernie. As far as a 20 homerun hitter/300 avg.?”
Melky will never be as good as Bernie, not even close. Bernie’s stats might surprise you: http://www.baseball-reference......be02.shtml
I disagree that Melky will have 20-25 HR power. At his prime he might hit 10-15 with a .300 BA. With the kind of talent the Yankees have coming up through the system Melky will probably be the fourth outfielder by 2010.
The problem with Gardner most people seem to ignore is his alarming K rate. He would be a pretty good regular if he was “Pierre who takes a walk” as Cashman put it. However, that seems unlikely. If you have no power, even if you put up a .350 OBP (and that’s not guaranteed for Gardner) at the majors, you can’t strikeout 120 times over 600 at-bats. This is what Gardner is currently projected to do. There is thus a good possibility that at the major-league level many of his walks would turn into outs–and unless he walks a lot, there’s no way he’s a starter.
Melky will hit 10-15 HR’s this year. He may even hit 20 th is year and he’s not close to being at his physical peak.
The jump from AA to the majors is huge. If it wasn’t, Cameron Maybin would be the starting CF for the Marlins this year instead of being back in AA. Where he was last year before the Tigers called him up.
I don’t think Melky is going to be the 4th OF on this team if he continues to improve at the rate he is improving right now.
As we are seeing with Phil Hughes, it takes time to play MLB at a high level.
Not every prospect, especially 21 and 22 year olds, are ready for such a jump.
I think folks who are expecting Jackson and/or Tabata to be in the Yankee OF next year are jumping the gun.
Let them develop because there is no need to rush them.
Their OF is not in dire straits.
Andy Van Slyke ;
You were never more than a journeyman CF in your career.
Go back to your fraudulent job as a 1st base coach for the hapless Tigers.
SJ44,
I agree that Melky’s got breakout potential (as put forth by some projection systems), but if his OPS+ at year’s end isn’t at least 105, i think it’s safe to say he’ll never be much better than average.
“UPDATE, 4:31 p.m.: Sox lineup now posted. Same as yesterday”
.
Cool…then they are in for a LONG NIGHT !
Rebecca–Optimist Prime–Mission 2708 ….$20 says you won’t make it until the end of the game (joke)
What the… youkilis is playing??? I thought he’s hurt.
I think Melky is the most underrated player on the Yankees.
“UPDATE, 4:31 p.m.: Sox lineup now posted. Same as yesterdayâ€
.
Cool…then they are in for a LONG NIGHT !
We should be so lucky.
I’d take our chances if Moose pitches like he did over the weekend, whatever day that was. Just don’t pitch to Manny with men on base.
Is Raymond Arroyo a Papal beat writer?
Do they play baseball in Vatican City?
Joe from Long Island….that lineup is gonna get MOWED DOWN tonight….watch and enjoy, my friend !
Joe: Just as long as the weather doesn’t pull a Saturday
during Melky’s rookie season (when he was brought up mid-season and probably too early):
(according to Michael Kay) Don Mattingly said he thinks Melky will contend for a batting title at some point.
just food for thought.
“The jump from AA to the majors is huge.”
I never said it wasn’t. The jump from AA to the majors IS huge, I agree. But the jump from AAA to the majors isn’t much easier. The real test is at AA.
Melky was in AAA for about 50 games, Cano was in AAA for about 80 games, Hughes started 5 times in AAA, Chamberlain had 1 start and 2 relief apperances, Kennedy had 6 starts.
Considering Tabata and Jackson are extremely talented I don’t see them spending as much time as Melky or Cano in AAA. They will be called up at the end of this season to AAA and probably spend a month or two at the beginning of next.
Mark my words, one of them will be the Yankees starting RF for the majority of next season IF Abreu isn’t re-signed. Unless Cashman can get Abreu to sign a 3 years or less deal he will probably get a stop-gap 4th outfielder type (or perhaps Brett Gardner) to play for the first month or two then call up one of Tabata or Jackson.
when’s posada gonna be back behind the plate? i have no problem with chad but we keep hearing that jorge is “close” but everyday he’s the DH again.
IIRC, Don Mattingly said (during Melky’s rookie season) that the Melkman would win a batting title one day.
I know Mattingly said it about Cano…I don’t remember him saying it about Melky.
Boston Dave -
Are you sure he was talking about Melky? I thought he said that about Cano?
I thought mattingly said that about Cano
That was very funny- what Casey did last night.
He’s quite the character, but it’s got to be distracting on 1st with him, he must talk your head off.
He said it about Cano re: the batting title.
He said Melky would be an all-star CF and win Gold Gloves.
I remember when they said Ruben Rivera is the next Mickey Mantle. They always hype up their own guys, and everyone always buys it.
I guess I did not remember correctly
close though
“Do they play baseball in Vatican City?”
I saw the Pope at the Vatican in 1999. All the Italians commented on my Yankees 1999 World Champions t-shirt.
Clay Bellinger,
you cant blame people for getting excited about their highly touted prospects.
Obviously any Mickey Mantle comparison is either an exaggeration or ridiculous.
I think many of us realize that most prospects dont reach their “full potential” but it would be pretty boring if we expected none of them to.
About the priests and the pope, I can ask next week when I go to Italy.
Err. I mean next month.
But yea, same thing.
Boston Dave – I remember hearing that comment about Melky too. It may have been from Kevin Long (he was the AAA hitting coach for Melky, right?). I remember the YES guys mentioned it.
Chamberlain, Hughes, Kennedy, Cabrera, Duncan, and Ohlendorf.
Rivera, Jeter, Posada, Pettitte.
Trades for young players who came through the system such as Gonzalez, Albie and Bruney.
That’s half the roster filled with homegrown guys.
That’s a lot for any team.
With guys like Gardner, Jackson, Horne, Patterson, Tabata and others getting ready to knock on the door, its not out of line to be excited about the future.
Will all of these players make it big? No. It never works out that way.
However, there are power in numbers. The more talent you have coming through the system, the better chance you have to strike gold.
Just sayin that in the real world we will be lucky if 2 of the prospects turn out to be anything more that average.
SJ: Robbie feels left out
It’s not that I am not excited about the young guys, I am. I think when looking at the prospects you have to be reasonable.
Rebecca,
You are right. I omitted the best one of the bunch and I also left out Wang.
Its already been more than 2 players who have turned out to be more than average.
Nobody is saying they all will be all stars.
But, there will be more than 2 that become upper level talents.
Barring injuries of course.
Motown Yanks Fan,
thanks, I could have sworn I heard the YES guys say it also but assumed I got it screwed up with Melky.
Maybe the YES guys mixed it up, but I did remember hearing them say it was Melky.
Do the Red Sox really have a better farm system then the Yankees?
Wake up Pete the Pope’s infallible, he doesn’t need beat writers and there is no second guessing in Popeing. Sorry dude, no work in Rome for you.
LOL never has there been a better description of Jorge when he gets mad. That was perfectly put, Pete.
Tino in the stadium tonight.
Jax,
I was asking that earlier on another thread.
I dont see how the Sox system is better either. Sure I am biased but I still don’t see it.
That Ortiz jersey is going for $30K. I wonder how much it would have gone for if they waited and had the Pope take it out…
Just curious – for future reference – what Wang’s typical stat line looks like for all the games he pitches immediately after he goes 8 or 9 innings.
Last night was just a slug fest … it seemed like everyone including both bat boys and base coaches getting a couple hits. But I seem to remember him sometimes not being so good the next start after he has a stellar start.
Curious if there’s a pattern for Joe G to consider down the road, like when he’s given up only 3 hits and 1 run by the end of the 7th inning against someone like KC, but it’s 5 days before a big game against the Sox or a real contender. Or in the playoffs when you can’t afford for someone to follow a CG 2 hitter with a 9-run, 4-inning clunker.
I’m just using his last 2 games just a random example. I don’t want the argumentative nit-pickers among us to think that I think that’s what will always happen after he throws a CG 2 hitter. Just wondering about general overall performance patterns after his best & longest starts.
If the Yanks are up by 2 or 3 after 7 and a couple good arms in the pen are rested, do you pull him for the 8th to save something for his next game? I really don’t know.
In general if the first 4 games he pitched this year reflect how he may pitch throughout the year, 3 solid games out of every 4 is pretty damn good. Simple math suggests that could become 18-6 or 21-7 by year’s end.
Has anyone heard if they put pettitte on the bereavement list? They could probably put him on for today, friday and Saturday and have him come off sunday…and then they could pull a guy up from AAA to fortify the pen, if they’re in the area. Though…maybe there’s no one on the 40-man down there that’d be available today? Seems odd to me. I figure they’d want that extra arm.
Hm…is anyone else having trouble getting the actual media player for MLB.tv to show up?
ANSKY
I think that’s a great question!
I seem to remember even last season, the game after the game he struck out 10 wasn’t a good one. But my memory is definitely weird lately, so I’m not sure.
“You watch Melky everyday and you see how much better he is getting.
Much better swings from the right side. Most of his AB’s this year have been strong.
He is also taking much better routes to the ball in CF.
You just see him getting better each day. ”
Could not agree more. I don’t see Melky getting bumped out of his spot anytime soon. You can see his confidence rising with each at bat. He could be better than Bernie. I don’t think its a stretch to say that.
block anti-mussina?
He’s “anti” and offensive.
just win tonight
anybody know if Gino Castignoli has gotten his butt whooped yet?
or at least sued?
miggs: better than Bernie is a stretch (this coming from a huge Melky fan.) However Melky becoming a solid, consistent, everyday center-fielder: might just happen.
Gene Michael was on the radio this morning and he said that in his opinion the best prosepct on the farm is Austin Jackson. He was also very high on Alberto Gonzales who is obviously now up with the Yankees.
Thanks Doreen
Are there any stat heads among us who know how to find out that information?
Oh jorge. Gotta love em. he’s so testy.
Hello everyone, lets get another W tonight
i love jorge during Fox playoff games, he hates those diamond cams at home plate so much, he’s always burying them. i think he broke one a few years ago because he got sick of the fox guys coming out and brushing the dirt off of it.
Fran -
just racing by to say Moosey will be great (despite what I just saw!), Beckett will get spanked by the Yanks, and Yanks will take this baby!
GO YANKEES – and see ya later.
The Extra Bases blog is good, but it doesn’t hold a candle to this one. Particularly in-game, they do too much play-by-play and too little analysis.
Rob Bradford’s blogging is inconsistent — his blog rivaled this one when he was at the Eagle-Tribune.
Let’s try and keep the negativity and DFA talk to a minimum tonight, shall we?
Westerner,
I’m all for that.
I wish that were possible, but you know the minute a Yankee gets out or Moose gives up a run, the DFA calls will be out in full force.
On Melky – I like the progress I’ve seen in his early years. At age 20, he came up for a short stay and he just looked like he was in over his head. He didn’t get rattled, went back down and came up a little bigger next time. When Matsui broke his wrist, Melky wasn’t like an all-star but he played well as Matsui’s fill in. Then he won CF from Damon, who (aside from being achy & injured) was still generally pretty able to play CF at the time. I don’t really know how to scientifically evaluate his potential, but if Melky keeps getting better, even in gradual steps each year then he could be a pretty damn good player from age 26-32. Barring injury of course.
perfect
thats right baby!
DFA that!!
Nice play by Cano to get the DP
NICE DP! thanks Jacoby!
ANSKY -
If you go to baseball-reference.com, you can look up the game logs for CMWang. I started to go through the 2007 games, and thought there might have been a pattern, but I don’t have the patience right now to study it.
Let’s ignore anti-mussina and hugh. The last couple of days have been particularly bad and I think at this point they’re just trying to get a rise out of the rational people on this blog. If we don’t respond, they’ll go away
why do they always get away with arguing balls and strikes?
Hm. Kay mentioning that the umps give a lot of slack to Ortiz and Manny. can’t say i’m surprised, and he’s absolutley right. i see those guys argue 2, 3 times a game and the umps don’t do shit about it. god forbid A-Rod should argue, he’d probably get tossed in a heart beat.
We gotta make beckett work tonight and get to that red sox bullpen. vulnerable as all hell right now…
All these people who call for these veteran players to be DFA’d after every bad performance have no clue how a baseball team is run. Moose can have 5-6 horrible starts in a row and he won’t be DFA’d. Same thing with guys like Giambi and Damon. There is absolutely no chance that these guys get DFA’d. Giambi would have to go 0 for 200 before they even thought of DFAing him. Do you know how much money these guys make? You think they are going to be designated for assignment? Its so ridiculous I just had to say something.
get to work bats
On the negativity & DFA calls – I have utter confidence in my fellow bloggers. Seconds after it’s reported Moose just threw a fastball at 88.6 mph, someone will rant on about how he needs it to be at least 88.9 to offset his knuckle-curve. When he’s down to 88.2 in the 5th, Anti Moose will be raging and flippin’ us all the bird. By the time Moose drops it to 88-flat, Anti will claim all who tell him to lighten up are actually threatening his life.
I say ignore the crazies.
C’mon Captain!
Pete: Thanks for the update re: Joba’s dad.
i’ve got a random question but does anyone know what bobby abreu’s entrance music is? it sounds pretty cool
Doreen –
Agreed … I have a life too. Thanks for the link though. Maybe one day this weekend before my morning coffee works its way up to my frontal lobe, I’ll take a sec and look it up.
Beckett looks so in control on the mound. Abreu didn’t stand a chance that time.
is Moose pitching around Mann?
Pete, so what will be the plan for Joba when he returns?
Send him down to AAA for a couple of weeks to build up his strength before joining the team?
Manny rather
i guess not, ugh
Another HR from the most dangerous hitter on Planet Earth.
Did Bobbby change his stance? He puts the bat on his shoulder before entering his stance, kind of like what Posada does when Wakefield pitches.
Okay. So, Moose can’t pitch to Manny. Maybe now they’ll learn.
Ack. Manny just barely gets that homer. 1-0 Sox.
He has got to stop pitching to Manny Ramirez. He can’t get him out.
Going 3-0 and then throwing the strikes makes no sense.
For a Stanford grad, he is a very, very stubborn man.
When is Moose going to learn you can’t pitch that way to Manny? You can’t just lay it in there like that. WALK HIM
Oh Dang.
Come on Moose
Mussina, the gift that keeps on giving
why do they continue to give manny things to hit? just pitch around him, and he might hit something bad and ground out. he might walk, so be it. that pitch was right down broadway, and lo and behold, manny hit it out.
I thought Moose was at least going to pitch Manny inside. He either threw it too far outside or right down the middle.
Throw it inside to Manny, if it hits him, oh well.
I heard on Mike and the Mad Dog today that Manny wants a new contract for 6 years, $120M. I can’t imagine the red sox giving him that much money at this stage of his career.
I’m going to guess Joba is back when the team goes to Chicago.
Calm down a bit. I’m sure he didn’t throw him that ball on purpose.
Hey, forget DFA talk. The Yankees NEED Mike Mussina to pitch well. At least for the first half of the season. Maybe all of this season if the young guns struggle.
As a manager, Girardi has to use everything he has to squeeze as many good performances as he can out of Moose.
Often, its a mind game.
However you do it, you gotta hope Moose can hold up for the first half of the season. We need his experience and we need him to eat innings.
He just has to be less stubborn.
Can a leopard change his spots? We shall see.
Ugh. Not that it will ever happen in our lifetime because Moose is a wuz, but Moose should have just hit him with a pitch and put him on first base. Don’t just walk him, make him pay for his incessant antics.
Boston Dave:
Moose refuses to pitch inside.
As far as Joba is concerned, it sounds like as soon as dad is off the respirator, that may be when he rejoins the team.
I know it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things but, I wonder if he is throwing at all?
You spend a week without throwing at all and it sets you back.
Hopefully, one of the writers asks Girardi that question the next time they speak about Joba.
“For a Stanford grad, he is a very, very stubborn man.”
Since when are bright people not stubborn?
Also, did people take note of that comment about Manny talking to Gammons about what he’d need to do to get into the hall of fame?
Imagine if ARod had had that conversation. Imagine how long it would take for the talk-radio idiots to let that go. If ever they did.
I think it is time for Manny to get his hands hit as Jeter and Arod are always getting plunked.
Don’t pitch to the batting savant, hit him every time he comes to bat.
ADave – 2 things:
1, I had some thoughts (4:37, this thread) on signing Manny.
2, Mike and the Mangy Dog are idiots.
the yankees are helping beckett out, they need patient at bats and base hits
michael kay has the john sterling thing going on. made me think the giambi flyball and the damon fly were gone.
Hmm, a pinstriped baserunner would be nice.
Too quick of an inning by the Yanks. Beckett only threw 6 or so pitches.
they must want beckett to last 7 innings because they’re certainly not making him work.
Patti,
at least pitch manny inside as they often do to Jeter and ARod. if manny walks, so be it. but mike mussina cant let manny beat him time and time again.
The next at bat for Manny regardless of the score, give him nothing to hit and if he walks so be it. Get chancy with hitters behind him. He’s far too locked in right now.
“Also, did people take note of that comment about Manny talking to Gammons about what he’d need to do to get into the hall of fame?”
When did he ask Gammons that, was it recently? If yes, doesn’t he know that he’s already a Hall of Fame lock?
When a guy is always throwing strike one, its tough to take pitches.
His stuff is too good to consistently fall behind in counts.
You mix it up with him. Its why Cano, a non-patient hitter, has good numbers against him.
Taking a lot of pitches works well when you are facing a guy who has trouble throwing strikes. It doesn’t work well when a guy is throwing strikes and has great stuff, like Beckett.
I think Moose has to come in off the plate. He doesn’t have to hit someone (although I wouldn’t be opposed to it) but he has to make guys move their feet. That constant soft stuff away just isn’t going to get it done.
they’ve hit the ball hard a few times of Beckett… the hits will come
I love this conversation Flaherty and Leiter are having about Moose. They’re not pulling punches, either.
I love Michael Kay saying what Moose needs to do. “The reluctance needs to end.” Shut up.
miggs,
he did go inside to Varitek (who turned on the 87mph fastball for a hit) but at least it should keep the hitters somewhat off balance.
The hits will come, but it’d be nice if they’d make him work a little bit.
that hit the bat!
Who do the Sox plunk if they want to retaliate? Our bat boy?
Steph,
sure, but what SJ44 said makes sense
Hitting Elsbury is just as bad as giving up a double or triple to him. He’s going to steal on the 1st or 2nd pitch.
Rebecca,
Where are you going in Italy?
this is making me sad
psh. looked like ellsbury shoved his elbow into that. still, that’s annoying again, ahead on ellsbury and then puts him on.
crap, Ellsbury on 3rd after duping the ump into thinking he got hit by that pitch
there it is..
That was ugly by Moeller…yikes.
Miggs: you can’t have it both ways…if he comes in, he’s bound to hit someone.
When you have spent your entire career pitching away, pitching inside becomes difficult. Like Tom Glavine, Moose is trying to do something he isn’t comfortable in doing. Which is why he isn’t good at it yet.
That said, he has to keep doing it or he isn’t going to last the season. He just has to keep working at it.
First example of why winning with your third string catcher is dicey. Horrible throw by Moeller.
Brian,
I am stuck watching the game on NESN, but they showed it in slo-mo and even the Sox announcers agreed it did not hit Ellsbury. It hit the knob of the bat.
that was pathetic moeller. a pitch out and he throws it to right field? not good at all. so moose gets ahead on ellsbury, then puts him on and now he’s on third. neat.
2-0 Sox on the single.
Awful pitch up, no location.
He’s got nothing tonight but he has to stay out there. They can’t blow out the bullpen this early again.
Winning tonight is meaningless if the bullpen gets beat up again.
Whether he gives up 2 runs or 15 runs, he has to suck it up now and eat some innings for the team.
Andrea -
I wouldn’t normally stick up for Michael Kay, heavens knows, but he didn’t really say anything different than most people here have been saying about Moose. He needs to pitch inside.
But, like SJ44 said, it’s a skill he needs to learn – just keep at it until he does feel comfortable. It’s that or he won’t be pitching at the end of the season, more than likely.
It is only two runs in 2 1/3 innings…it is not the end of the world yet.
westerner I hear you, but anyone but Elsbury. Hit Big Papi. Hit Manny. Hit Veritek. Those guys will need 2 hits to score them. Don’t plunk a guy who is not hitting well but has blazing speed. And both times he hit him the count was 1-2.
can we get a DP here? please…
Mussina has a really high pitch count. Hope that the Yanks don’t have to go to the bullpen too early.
I heard on the pregame that Andy is not wit hte team. He left for a death in the family. He hopes to be in Baltimore in time to make his start on Sunday.
Peanut butter and white bread in Japan? Not so impressive, Moose. Live a little!
I’m a little surprised at Jorge. I guess it does get a little annoying being asked everyday.
Nick that would be me!!
Apparently Moose is okay pitching inside to Ellsbury.
11 million to eat up innings, that is a flawed philosophy. The reality is that his contract was 2 years too long and to pretend that he is a legitimate starter on a Championship team is an illusion
SJ44,
pardon my ignorance, but why is pitching inside a skill that requires learning? Is it that the pitcher can’t not focus on the batter?
See spot. throw ball. hit spot. no?
call me crass, but is Joba doing anything to keep his arm strength up?
The Yanks really need some innings from Moose today, but his pitch count is already over 50. All the Yanks have available tonight is Alby, Traber, Mo, and Farnsworth…and with Hughes going tomorrow, they will probably be needing some guys ready.
cmon moose!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
What the hell is wrong with mussina????
I like Petes analysis…lets sign manny…before he hits another homerun, please
Remember when Manny was put on irrevocable waivers and no one claimed him and his $20M salary…it looks like a bargain now. That guy is a hitting machine.
Please stop pitching to Manny…4-0 now.
If we weren’t on the wrong end of this, it’d be comical.
Moose.
please. Stop pitching to Manny. There are some things that human beings can’t do. Pitching to Manny Ramirez is one of them.
PETER I DISAGREE
WHY CAN’T WE INTENTIONALLY WALK HIM
I GIVE UP
HAVE MERCY ON MY SOUL MANNY
that is insane. Stop being stubborn and walk him. 2 HRs!!
When will he learn? This is unbelievable.
vrsce,
you make the best of the situation. mussina earned his extension with the way he pitched in 2006. hindsight is 20/20.
though the way you come off with that, im guessing you are a troll.
WTF?
Manny sure does love Mussina
You can’t leave it over the middle to manny..
sara
He can not pitch anymore and is simply posing as an MLB player
I can’t wait to have Manny playing left field for us in 2011. If you can’t beat em, pay em.
Stop pitching to Manny.
Yikes.
wow, this is going to be a long night
Unbelievable. Beyond logic. 2 ABs, 2 HRs.
he’s not making it out of the 4th. Girardi has to get him out of the 2 spot in the rotation ASAP
Is it time to call up Rasner for some spot starts and as a long man? He is pthing well in AAA and got the job done in the bigs. He’s gotta be better than moose tonight
He now has what three home-runs off Mussina? Give him the Bonds treatment: walk him.
Flaherty gave a great dissertation on the stubborness of Mike Mussina.
Moose showed him why he was 100% correct by again pitching to Manny in a stupid fashion.
That’s now 7 HR’s in his last 10 AB’s against Moose.
The guy is just too stubborn and now, as is his custon, he is crumbling so the team can’t even get innings out of him tonight.
Losing tonight is no big deal. Blowing out the bullpen again though, is a big deal.
They are going to need another arm for Baltimore this weekend because it looks like they are going to need Albie for at least 3 or 4 innings tonight.
Very, very frustrating to watch Moose refuse to understand his limitations. Girardi is going to have his work cut out for him getting him to listen.
Why does he go way outside then right in the middle.Manny was waiting for that pitch.
mussina is pathetic, good pitcher when he was younger but he still thinks hes 26 and can throw 92-93
hang it up old man!!!!!!!!!
WHY OH WHY IS MUSSINA STILL ON THE TEAM? DITCH HIM NOW!!!!
Sara…there is no 2 spot except the second game of the season.
Moose is just spooked by Manny, I think. And I think the fact that, by the graphic they showed, that he had success earlier in his career against Manny, that for some reason, he might think he can still do it, in spite of the evidence to the contrary from 2004 to present.
I’m speechless. How do you leave the ball right down the middle twice to Manny? How do you do it?
Is it me, or do the announcers seem really ticked off with each other today. They’re really snippy with one another, all 3 of them.
Is it so difficult to understand Mussina? Don’t pitch to Manny. This would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic. Mussina is Manny’s batting practice pitcher.
No pitcher can leave pitches over the middle of the plate to manny. He will take anybody out. When you throw harder you may sneak one by once in a while, but if you keep throwing it down the middle…done
Mark the time….8:02 pm and someone called for a DFA in a figurative sense. I’m shocked it lasted that long.
Let Mussina save his arm and let Manny hit off of a Tee when it is his turn to bat.
Girardi said that he is maybe going to realign the rotation next week so that Pettitte’s between Hughes and Kennedy…but no word on moving Moose.
Perfect night for a Perfect game by Beckett
Wow they better warm somebody up…. Moose needed to give us at least 5 inning tonight. Now he’s in the middle of a meltdown and may not make it out of the inning.
Moose is like Farnsworth, maybe a little better, but STUBBORN, Moose needs to learn he is not Nolan Ryan, and can’t strike everyone out, and a WALK is ok, its better than a homerun!
Peter, someone in your profession needs to put Girardi to task for this. At what point does the CW become “Manny is killing us, don’t pitch to him” instead of “Manny killed us, but we’ll get him next time.” Somebody needs to hold Girardi’s toes to the fire on this one, because it’s getting ridiculous.
Not a good game for Moose.
We have no pen and he won’t make it to the 4th.
Moose seems to be rattled now. Come on, just one more out, and hopefully the boys will work Beckett and get some runs on the board.
Its tough when you have pitched one way your entire career, and been successful and all of a sudden you have to make adjustments because your fastball is down 6mph. He wasn’t successful last year pitching this way lets see if he can make adjustments.
How many 0-2 pich counts is he going to give up for hits
Alright, enough is enough… Girardi is the manager of this team, not Mussina. Not a single pitch inside… Doesn’t Girardi and eiland understand that Mussina simply IS NOT CAPABLE of pitching effectively to Manny Ramirez ? If this is Girardi’s idea of being a “tactician” take it back to the broadcast booth. Mussina, please pack your bags and move out of our rotation. At this rate the bullpen will be in tatters by the end of the month.
ADave,
dont get carried away based on manny’s recent dominance over moose and hughes.
Manny only gets 18-19 games against the Yanks. After that, he goes back to being a .285-.295 hitter.
Geez,
Can Pete go one night without a dig at Girardi?
I can just picture the NESN announcing team cracking up everytime Manny comes up to bat against Mussina. I would be laughing my butt off too…
Moose is done, change your “positive” usernames.
he can’t do it with this stuff.
YanksAngel,
I don’t think they’re being snippy with each other. But I do think they are very passionately discussing Mike Mussina’s particular problems. I have a feeling these conversations go on between pitchers and catchers often. It sure sounded like Flash has said this again and again to no avail.
westerner the bull pen can not survive moose, Hughes and Kennedy all in a row. So yeah he needs out of the two spot
I won’t be as dramatic as last night – I was wrong about Wang but Mussina stinks and i hate watching the games he pitches.
One thing i was not wrong about – our starting pitchers are going to keep us out of the playoffs.
cute game. it’s adorable that mussina still thinks he can actually get manny out.
I wish Jose was catching.
Moose will blam this on the catcher
jennifer-Phil Hughes saved!! Mussina is NOT DONE! anti-anti
yes he is.
cant wait for the bruney farsnworth show. always entertaining.
Boston Dave
I am not a troll and your feeble attempt at labelling does not hide the simpleton logic you put forward. To suggest that you handicap a team out of sentimentality is very dangerous thinking.
Stop calling names and try to use whatever reason you can to support your position
take out Manny’s games against the yankees
2007 – .285
2006 – .295
2005 – .288
These over the hill players mussina, giambi, Damon will kill the yankees this year. I would rather watch the kids than watch this old men making fools of themselves.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but Moose isn’t at the end of his original big-$$ Yankee contract, I think he was re-upped for a lower-$ 2-year deal after the 2006 season.
And at least order in a bowl of bland ramen when you’re in Tokyo!
So I guess we need to walk Manny every single time he is up right? :rolls:
4 runs is not bad. We can overcome that. I’m worried about Moose having 73 pitches in the freaking 3rd inning. Who can we even bring in from the pen tonight??? Farnsworth will have to go at least 2 innings. Gulp…
Its true according to Al Leiter, Mussina can still pitch, just not good enough to win.
as bad as this is, 4 runs is not so bad. we can score 4 runs.
just some good at bats against beckett
it’s time for some optimism
Boston Dave,
Its tough to teach an old dog new tricks. When you have spent 20+ years pitching in college and professional baseball pitching a certain way, its really tough to change.
He is basically saying to himself, “I can’t pitch inside, I don’t throw hard enough”.
But, that’s the wrong approach.
Greg Maddox throws 84 and broke bats in his last start going inside.
Flats is absolutely correct. Moose has to focus on the positive (the Lugo AB) and just can’t concede the inner half of the plate to hitters.
If he does that, he has no chance to last until June.
You just have to force yourself to make adjustments.
Baseball is a game of adjustments. Those who make them, add time to their careers.
Those that don’t? Their careers don’t end pretty.
The RESULT of tonights game is meaningless. Its one game in the standings and, let’s be honest, not many people would pick Moose in a Moose v. Beckett matchup.
The issue is the short (innings-wise) start. That’s the problem because it leaks over to the next game or two.
That’s a big problem right now.
“vrsce April 17th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
11 million to eat up innings, that is a flawed philosophy. The reality is that his contract was 2 years too long and to pretend that he is a legitimate starter on a Championship team is an illusion”
vrsce, the fact is the team needs Mussina to pitch and eat up innings. that is what SJ44 said. the point went over your head, as most do. now go scratch your head somewhere else, troll.
I think he is too stubborn to make the proper adjustments..
jennifer-Phil Hughes saved!! Mussina is NOT DONE! anti-anti
April 17th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
So I guess we need to walk Manny every single time he is up right? :rolls:
No… we just need to not start god damn Mussina… the guy cannot make a pitch.
So. About that long reliever.
Mussina should be the long man in the pen when ever Joba gets in the rotation. I don’t care if he’s making 11 million.
Does Manny own Mussina? Or is he just leasing? If Bruney/Hawkins/Farny can be effective in the 7th and 8th, Joba may have to replace Moose at some point.
Joba needs to be put in the rotation ASAP and Mussina needs to be shown the door. At this point I’d rather see Kei Igawa then watch Mussina stink the place up again.
When you look at these hits on Gameday, and the pitch location, its hilarious. It’s like the official scorer is playing a joke. They are dead on square center of the strike zone, absolute meatballs. I thought Mussina was a finesse pitcher.
I would leave Mussina in and let him take one for the team.
Wow. All of this after Mussina had Manny at 0-2. I hope he can get out of this jam.
this is painful
And someone should tell the Red Sox that they shouldn’t “beat a dead horse” either.
Oh crap.
But we need Moose to battle out of this.
Wussina is here to stay i hope this is more evidence for all you doubters of how washed up this bum is
On a light hearted note… Does anyone else think that Chad Moeller looks like Fred Armisen from SNL? Especially when he has his mask on behind the plate.
when will they bean manny
i see what pete is saying in regards to Girardi, but the decision to rely on mussina to come out there and give you a fighting chance falls on the head of brian cashman.
Moose has shown he has no interest in becoming what he is, a guy who doesn’t throw hard enough to blow fastballs by guys.
we need a long man
Mussina should be close to his maximum arm strength at this point of the season and nothing indicates that his season will suddenly get better. He is who he is.
Cashman must be closely watching daily developments at AAA to anticipate who will best fit to solidify the back end of the rotation.
With an $ 11.5M contract, some thought will have to be given what role Mussina can possibly fill.
Boston Dave
A laughable response. There is no need for you to respond, as SJ 44 ( An intelligent commentator, who has just admitted that Mussina is a liability) obviously speaks for you.
Very wise to let more informed people speak on your behalf, saves you from embarrassing yourself too much
Doreen,
It would be interesting to hear their conversations in the breaks.
Can we get Timlin to pitch for the Sox? We need lots of runs.
No, keep joba out of the rotation. Bring up Igawa, Rasner, Steven White. The only way joba gets in the rotation, is if the bullpen does “good” tonight, considering the fact they will be having a very long night.
Anti thats funny..made me laugh
Fran – Oops!
Sorry, my particulars definitely are turned on their head. So let’s pray for Yankee offense. (And quick!)
COME ON YANKS!
And I’d say we also need to pray that Moose either doesn’t start the next inning or is on a choke collar missing a leash!
Fran I agree let him pitch until his arm falls off then we don’t have to ever see him pitch again!
Before everybody go nuts, understand one simple fact.
They can’t DFA Mike Mussina. They don’t have anybody to take his place.
That’s reality.
With Phil Hughes struggling, nobody has siezed that #3 spot yet in the rotation.
Please don’t tell me its Darrel Rasner. He’s a long man in the majors and nothing more.
I know the sky is falling folks will go nuts but you can’t give up on the guy unless you have a REAL replacement.
Its not PlayStation.
You just gotta suck it up and deal with it. They may have to call someone up from Scranton if Joba is not back this weekend to help the bullpen.
With the off day on Monday, they can re-align the rotation to make it a bit more palatable.
But, what would help a LOT is a good Phil Hughes start tomorrow night. That would cure a few ills.
Seems like the last Yankee pitcher to pitch Manny inside was Clemens in the Pedro-Zimmer tussle game.
If we have another 1, 2, 3 inning, i swear to god…
Pete, Mussina’s almost as old as Girardi. He’s not a rookie who has his pitches called from the bench. Girardi could go out there and order Moose to pitch around him, though knowing Moose, he’d be rather unhappy with that. Mussina knows that Manny kills the Yankees, and him, better than anyone. He’s on the mound. If he goes 3-1, he should throw a fastball off the plate and hope Manny chases. He didn’t, and Manny’s gone deep twice.
Girardi’s managing also has nothing to do with the fact that Mussina is getting wallopped right now. This is why we can’t afford to keep Chamberlain in the bullpen. Mussina is not going to last the year as an effective starting pitcher, and Chamberlain could definitely be an improvement. Unlike Torre, who stuck with Mussina far longer than he should have last year, Girardi won’t give him a stupidly long rope because he’s a veteran. If he stinks, he stinks. Veteran suck is not superior to rookie suck.
a) Moose looks awful tonight
b) Moose looked pretty good in his previous starts
let’s not hang him yet. The Sox, Manny especially, have hit the Yankees well partially due to the fact they see them so many times.
Mussina may fare much better against other teams in the AL. Let’s just hope he has few starts against the Sox in the future.
Tino in da house!!
get Melky home
Melky broke up the no-hitter. I love Melky.
and please understand that i am not just trying to be negative about the situation, but let’s be honest. he just doesn’t have the stuff to pitch the way he used to.
mussina needs to be a long reliever/mop up guy at this point. he has no real role in this rotation, im not saying everyone has to throw 95 either. what i am saying is that the guys who are up on the hill need to respect the stuff they do have and work with that.
mikey meatballs showed up just like we all knew he was gonna. probably good he showed up tonight b/c beckett looks really in control. only problem is i think meatballs is gonna be back every 5th day for the rest of the summer
Good hitting,patient teams will always beat up on Mussina. He has no threat of velocity…
Moose looks awful tonight, but its not over yet, were still in this here stop giving up. Bring in LaTroy Hawkins, he is on a role, and we are golden with out offense.
Trisha – the game is not over even though it would be a long way back.
Nuuuuney!
Oh look our friend is back. YOu should just change your name to Anti Yankee.
can we get tino at first and girardi catching? That would be great!
Can’t walk Manny with a guy on first base Pete. First time up, that’s on Moose, not Girardi.
Second time up, you have to pitch to him in that situation.
If you aren’t going to pitch to him in that situation, you might as well go home.
Its about executing pitches and Moose isn’t executing. He’s being executed! lol
It would be nice to see some evidence that Johnny Damon is alive.
Tino is a special advisor to Cashman?????????/ He needs to advise Cashman that Mussina sucks & is finished..
Until I see Mussina get Man-Ram out, I see no reason why they should pitch to him. It doesn’t matter if the bases are loaded or if first base isn’t empty, just walk the guy and take the damn bat out of his hands.
if moose can win half of his starts ill be happy, only if the kids can piece it together. hughes has been worse than moose thus far.
Mussina digs this team a hole more often then not. Almost anyone seems to be a more viable option at this point. He has shown me that he can not re-invent his style, and teams will continue to pound on him. He is a liability who simply doesn’t bring anything to the table. Tired of hearing his excuses and the excuses made for him. He simply needs to go.
I DONT THINK THAT IM THE ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD WHO THINKS THAT MUSSINA IS NOT A CY YOUNG CALIBER PITCHER HE’S NOT TRUSTABLE ANYMORE IS NOT A BIG TIME PITCHER, DONT GIVE HIM THE BALL IN BIG TIMES, DON’T GIVE HIM THE BALL AGINST THE SOX
Papelboner, your point is taken, except that there’s every reason to expect Hughes to dramatically improve. I really can’t say the same about the Moose.
To echo what Boston Dave just said, Moose is looking awful pitching to the Sox for the second consecutive start after looking… at least decent against them on Satuday. Just like Wang looked awful yesterday after being masterful on Friday. It’s not easy pitching to the same team –especially THIS team– two starts in a row.
Let’s see how Moose looks in his next few starts before be start digging the grave.
jay destro,
who takes his place in the rotation?
Jay,
I don’t see you as being negative.
The problem is, he isn’t a relief pitcher. Its not so simple as to just making him the “long guy”.
They need him to eat some innings until one (or both) of the kids gain some footing.
Mike Mussina would be worse as a long man. Its different prep, warm up, etc.
Look at the trouble he has adjusting to having to go inside more. Can you imagine changing a guy to that kind of role who hasn’t done in in 20 years?
Its just not possible.
Its like deciding CC Sabathia, who has pitched worse than Moose this year, is now a long guy. Its not that simple to do.
You just suck it up as a bad night and move on. Until the other kids show more, that’s the only option they have at the present time.
Remember the good old days when Beckett was channeling Eric Milton?
I’m glad Damon came into this season in shape. Hate to think what he do if he was out of shape…
can we also send Damon back to Boston?
That Damon AB was for all you “work the count/make the pitcher work fans”. One size does not fit all and the best approach against Beckett is to be aggressive early.
**Hoping for a scoreless inning here**
experiment:
take all the posts about LaTroy Hawkins after the first week of the season and see how many of them match the posts about Mussina tonight.
On the other hand, if Hughes has a rough start tomorrow, we might see Guiseppe Franco as the long man by the end of the weekend.
mussina just isn’t good enough to get manny out just by tricking him with his stuff. if he ever sees him again, he needs to walk him every time up or drill him between the shoulder blades.
would beckett ever let someone dominate him like mussina is letting manny dominate him?
the yankees need to move him away from hughes and kennedy. do the yankees really want him setting an example for them?
Moose out
I’m not advocating pulling Mussina from the rotation now. But come late June, I think the Yankees will be sending Joba to Scranton to make 2-3 starts and stretch out his arm.
lol Ron
it doesnt seem like that long ago
Let’s go Alby!
Nick SF,
At least Giuseppe can reach under his hat and put a lil’ grease on the ball for some extra movement
Question. It is my understanding that Chad Moller hasto pass through waivers when he gets sent down. First can anyone confirm that??
Second if that is in fact the case do we think anyone will pick him up??
Third if we do lose him via waivers who now becomes the backup to the backup. I dont know anything about who is catching in Scranton now and maybe lets hope we wouldnt have to go back to Scrnaton if Jorge and Molina get hurt again but curious.
lets hope alan horne’s injury doesnt keep him out much longer, we may be needing him
They may have to callup somebody from Scranton to help out this weekend if Joba isn’t back.
Can’t be Rasner. He pitched Yesterday. Marquez is pitching tonight.
If its a starter, its probably Igawa. If its a relief pitcher, it may be Scott Patterson.
Can’t kill the ‘pen, 3 days before a day off.
If you are aggressive early with Beckett, he will throw a shutout. This isn’t 2005 Beckett, who could not locate his fastball or find his curveball to save his life. You have to get deep in the count with him.
All these people come out of the woodwork to bash Mussina… its actually quite comical. Moose got beat by a good hitting team. He had a bad outing. He also grooved 2 pitches to Manny, so obviously the results are going to disappoint. Where was everyone when he pitched last time out? No one wa calling for his head then.
Gayle,
Yes, Moeller will be DFA’ed when the catchers are healthy.
If he clears waivers he has two options: Report to Scranton (the likely decision) or to turn down the minor league assignment and become a free agent (not likely but, it is an option for him).
Mussina needs to be released. If the tables were turned & he was on the mound Vs Yankees, would the Yankees really fear facing this guy??? I think not…..
Still can’t believe Yanks went into this season counting on Mussina as a #3-4 starter…I am so tired of hearing announcers talk about Mussina’s slow velocity, why do we have him, he is a 5th starter at best and he is our #3 …..b/c Cashman didn’t have the balls to trade prospects for Santana…..like the Red Sox did with Ramirez and Sanchez for Beckett…Mussina is killing our bullpen, I can’t watch him pitch like this all year, what are our options…Rasner, Igawa, doesn’t look good….
Pedroia = Bam-Bam……….Very small person swinging huge club..
again,
lets give Mussina another start or two before burying him.
his ERA was 3.93 after the first inning tonight. its not easy facing the Sox two times in a week.
Remember, a 5.00 ERA is fine from your 5th best starter in the AL.
If he pitches like he did tonight, he will be much higher than 5. But he pitched much better than this in his previous 3 starts.
He is here because of the almighty dollar
sj but if was signed to a minor league deal doesn’t that make a difference?
A clear cut case case of insult to injury. How much has to be seen before Mussina or the dugout realize that one hitter is making an absolute fool of a pitcher ???
Patience is one thing but being a strong provider toward bullpen burnout is another.
So, the Yankees are stuck with the weight of an absurd contract for possibly the end of the season unless the hierarchy is willing to absorb some loss or the team gets lucky at the July 31st trading deadline with a suitor for Mussina.
time to really wake up bats and pound Beckett
Miggs,
I agree, its comical.
I’ve never been accused of being a Mike Mussina fan.
But, he isn’t getting DFA’ed, traded or anything else.
Bottom line, he got shelled tonight. That’s life. Turn the page and move on.
For one very simple reason. The Yankees NEED this guy to give them something, at least for the first half of the season.
Its not always nice and its often ugly but, its the way it is.
All these folks coming out of the woodwork for replacements are all “right” until their chosen replacements falter.
Then, they just blame it on Cashman.
Bottom line is, they don’t have anybody else right now to replace Mike Mussina in the starting rotation.
If they did, they would have done it over the winter.
But once again, the Yankees good ‘ole contracts, who wants Mussinas 11 million this year?
how many of you Mussina bashers were bashing LaTroy Hawkins a week ago? Or trying to trade Matsui for Noah Lowry?
its ONE start.
the expectations for Mussina are very low… 5 ERA or so and take up some innings.
So far, he has done that 75% of the time this season (3 out of 4 starts)
Pete needs to put in the good word for all Yankees fans: DITCH MUSSINA.
Considering that Hanley Ramirez might be the best hitter in the National League (albeit one of the worst defenders), that trade wasn’t a complete winner for Theo. Still, he took a gamble, and it worked. But in terms of value traded for value acquired, Beckett’s asking price was a lot cheap than Santana’s. The contract he signed in 2006 was much, much cheaper.
The situations are not the same.
Jennifer,
It doesn’t matter. He still has to go through waivers when its time to send him down.
I dont think its about one night. The question is will moose make adjustments to help the team, or will he be stubborn.
Moose is the worst out of all of the Yanks/Sox starters by far…
I guess if the ball doesnt hit the ground before it reaches the catcher, it’s a strike tonight.
Sorry Boston Dave, but I’ve seen enough of Mussina and his act, it plays out the same for the past year or so. Nothing against the guy, his numbers speak for themself, but it reaches a point where he becomes simply more trouble then he is worth. With the young arms in the rotation we need a few starters who can eat up innings and give the pen a break. No problem (usually) with Wang and Petitte, but Mussina is, IMO, simply a liability this team really can’t afford.
Wouldn’t Mussina have a no-trade, anyway? Moose is not going anywhere. He prefers the Yankees. He is generally not as bad overall as he’s been tonight. I guess everyone has to blow off steam, but I swear that some people sit in wait for certain players to fail and then pounce.
Looking more and more like 2003, a shutout by the Great Beckett at The Stadium.
SJ44
All your comments make sense. However there is no excuse for challenging Manny or stubbornly refusing to change.
It is willful selfishness.
Of course old Pete Abe’s gotta take a shot at Girardi. I see the man love for Torre still burns.
Moose just isn’t very good anymore and that’s the bottom line. He’ll have nights when he can give them 6 decent innings and he’ll have nights where he can’t get anyone out. People need to adjust their expectations.
Is Kay laying the groundwork for a Wells comeback?
we need moose to do something, the kids are going to be up an down all season.
Boston Dave, a 5.00 ERA is not fine. The Yankees won with that kind of rotation in 2004, but unless this offense becomes the 1,000 run monster they seemed to have a chance to be, they’ll need their starters to give them quality outings consistently to make the playoffs.
Frank,
then explain how he has had a 75% success rate this season (based on reasonable expectations for a 5th starter)
I wish he could give a “5th starter quality start” every time out, but I’ll take 3 out of 4.
Ron,
what was the Average ERA for a 5th starter in the AL last season?
this is not on Girardi Pete, the fact is Mussina chose to pitch Manny Ramirez on the outside corner, he misses his spot , ok I can let that go, But then to see it happen again w/ Moeller clearly telling him get it in and Mussina instead of pitching to back off Manny tried to get a strikeout, if it hits Mannny in the hands so what ! w/ the amount of batters hit on our team it would have been acceptable, slowly and slowly I keep on thinking Mussina is not playing for the Yankees.
And to hear Al Leiter w/ the he can still get people out really made me think,why are you repeating that point if you know it’s true ? why convince me are you seeing the same thing I am, he looks done, he’s not because he’s too stupid to pitch inside to RHBs named Manny Ramirez, this guy made our rotation a weak link tonight.
Should we try to steal third?
Part of the pitching woes are on Cashman – I am glad he has held onto the youth but we entered this season knowing this about Mussina, the potential for Hughes and Kennedy to hit rough patches and he did not provide a good enough answer to who the #6 starter is.
Now we’ve got something going. Chip away at the lead boys.
The bottom line is we have a shaky 3 – 4 – 5 which will make or break us this year.
Oi, Jason! Time to wake up and get us back in this game!
I went to a Sox-Yankees game at the stadium on a Sunday night, Memorial day weekend 2005…Mussina started, Ortiz hit 2 bombs off him and gave up like 7 runs in 4 innings and David Wells almost pitched a complete game against us…….terrible…Mussina has more bad starts than any other good pitcher I have ever seen, even when he was in his prime…anyone agree, care to speculate on why he has sooooo many just horrible starts where he doesn’t have it at all???
Ron,
give up?
it was over 6
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/ne.....;type=lgns
scroll to the bottom
Boston Dave, this season is a relatively small sample size, so that comes back on me as well. I just simply don’t see Mussina reinventing himself, I sincerely hope I’m wrong on this, as I said, his numbers speak volumes. But, IMO, Mussina’s arrogance gets him into trouble. How many times do you have to beat by the same guy, throwing the same pitches, before you try something different ? According to what I’ve heard, Eiland has stressed the importance to Mussina of pitching inside, but where are these mythical inside pitches ? Unless you count plunking Ellsbury twice…
I’d be happy if Mussina could give us 6 innings and keep us in the game until something better comes down the road.
Paul9,
you are right…. when Joba hits the rotation they will have a pretty solid top 3 though
Pete, you’re 8:25 post was right on.
Fran, I’m with you. My days of calling particulars are over. I’ll just call for the game.
I’m still calling!
I doubt we’re winning this game tonight, highly doubt it.
Nest time we’ll get em.
We are still going to be putting a lot of stock in three unproven pitchers.
**Nest=Next
Frank,
I agree… I just think the expectations of Mussina by many are WAY too high. I do think he is capable of being at least a league average 5th starter.
The Yanks have one of the best offenses in baseball. They can afford to have a league average 5th starter until Joba can start or one of the minor leaguers shows they’re ready.
The thing is with everything coming off the books after this season and the young pitchers will have a year of experience. 2009 looks very bright to me.
Boston Dave,
I hope so, I’d like to see Mussina get it together. Just frustrated by what I saw tonight.
“yankees need another top end pitcher like beckett. i say trade trade for and extend sabathia. it will probably take horne and some other prospects.”
if he continues sucking like he is now we could get him for cheap.
anti-mussina would you stop if with the name calling! Are you 12 years old? does calling him that make you feel better?
Folks, nobody is here is saying that Mike Mussina is what he was.
Its that, until Hughes and/or Kennedy get their grooves on, they need the guy.
You may not like it, I’m certainly not thrilled but, there are no logical alternatives right now.
Its April 17. Let’s see the guy through Memorial Day, then make a judgment because whether you like it or not, that’s what is going to happen.
Doreen, yes, Moose is a 10 and 5 guy. He has a full no trade. In other words, anybody screaming for a trade knows zero about baseball because it ain’t happening.
Someone needs to go inside and move mannys feet once. He is way too comfortable at the plate.
SJ
I understand all that my question I guess does anyone think he will actually be claimed off of waiers and if he is who do we have down in Scranton and if by some chance we get into the same situation we are in now does that person have enough experience etc to fill that role or does it leave us with having to go and get someone
Mmm, some outs here and runs next half inning would be nice.
Yeah because 9 runs in 4 innings is so much better than 5 in 4.
On a better note, 12-1 Charleston was trailing 4-1 in Savannah and just tied the game at 4 in the 5th inning.
Justin Snyder has 2 RBI. He’s hitting .420.
Jesus Montero and Brandon Laird each have an RBI.
Montero is hitting .362 and has 14 RBI in 14 games. Not bad for an 18 year old.
Frank,
we are all frustrated by Mussina tonight. But during his three previous games, the thoughts for Moose were generally positive.
Mussina looked horrible tonight but before panicking and trading him for the rocks in anti-mussina’s head, let’s give the guy a few more starts.
Is that Manny’s real hair?
Well this is just not good
well tonight is Girardi’s first laugher game against him, so we’ll hear alot of stuff tonight.
here’s the thing, every single pitch to manny is outside. he can just sit on the outside pitch, because we never go inside on him and because he can just sit on the pitch he waits for one to come back over the plate like all good hitters do. I just find it unfathomable we do not throw inside on this guy. Its very hard to throw 3 great pitches in the same location with each one having to be better than the previous pitch, i just don’t get it at all…
There is nothing that bothers me more than JD Drew beating us. Being a Phillies fan and not a person who boos I gladly boo him and was proud to do so.
I bet Cashman is really kicking himself for not pulling the trigger on that 3-way deal with the Giants and the Red Sox in which we would have gotten Cain, Lincecum, and Manny and the Giants and Sox would have each gotten a half-season from Wilson Betimit. Because that really could have changed the dynamic of tonight’s game.
Cashman, what a bum.
Alb fight through this , it’s not your fault but we need you
Gayle,
When you put a guy on waivers, you never know. Its the shot you take.
Maybe a team sees Moeller play the past few days and think he could help them at the major league level.
I think if he clears waivers, he will go to Scranton.
BTW, Pete’s 8:25pm comment is so spot on, it should be tacked to the top of this blog. He is 100% correct.
I hope the Pope can say some prayers for the yankees, we need them, maybe Mussina can stay in New York, ask for forgiveness for tonight…maybe the pope coming will be a blessing for Yankee stadium, make it lucky…
“lets give Mussina another start or two before burying him.”
sj is right. he’s not going anywhere because of his contract. he’s just going to be really bad sometimes. with him pitching if the yankees can play .500 ball, that’s really all we can expect.
the biggest problem i have with mussina is that he plays such soft baseball. i really feel he sets a bad example to everyone. to me mussina’s way of playing baseball is not the way to win.
that’s why i wouldn’t let mussina near the young players.
Wow I never do this but I may turn this game off. Down 7-0 with Beckett pitching….. its really frustrating to watch.
Clearly, the Red Sox were not happy with the shelacking they got yesterday. They’re playing with the singular goal of taking it to the Yankees today. Can’t do much about it. Take it and move on, get back at them in July.
You would think that someone calling the Yankees game for the Yankees would realize that the Yankees DO NOT HAVE a longman so all this talk about Albie being the long man is so stupid. Perhaps they could ask why they dont have a long ma rather than talk about this bein Albies roll whic it is usually not
11 mil for a number 5 is not good. It was just a bad signing 2 years ago.
The day off Monday will enable them to re-configure the rotation and they will take Moose out of the #2 slot.
Of more importance is Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy’s starts the next two days.
For Moose to be a #5 starter (which, stuff-wise is where he is at now), those two kids have to step up and pitch well.
Ian showed great improvement the other against the Rays. Hopefully, his hip is ok and he can repeat that success.
Its time for Phil to step up now. A good outing from him and it settles things down a bit.
This is what April baseball is about. The roster in place now won’t be the roster we will see later in the season.
The team is a work in progress and that’s not a bad thing.
They are in a helluva lot better shape than they were at this time last year.
“Starters are more valuable than relievers, it’s that simple.”
Remind me again which Yankee starters are more valuable than Rivera?
Folks need to relax.Understand that a 5 run deficit in the 4th inning against the Red Sox only looks insurmountable with Beckett as their starter. There’s a reason the Red Sox went into tonight’s game 12th in the American League in ERA. The rest of their rotation is very,very very beatable. For all their yound pitchers, there are three 40 + year olds and Julian Tavares.
SJ is right. Mussina should be a #5 starter. If Phil Hughes gets staightened out..and he needs to within the next 60 days or so in order for the Yankees to hang in there,the Yanks pitching will match up better than Boston’s.
“11 mil for a number 5 is not good. It was just a bad signing 2 years ago.”
No it wasn’t a bad signing. Mussina came off a very good 2006 and took LESS money to stay here. They only gave him 2 years. Come on people wake up.
I don’t even think moose will be a .500 pitcher this year.
CanIGetAMooseCall,
unless I missed something, SJ44 was making a general statement and not singling out the greatest reliever in the history of the game.
Sure doesn’t look like I missed much while I was gone. When was Moose pulled?
“Remind me again which Yankee starters are more valuable than Rivera?”
Wang, Hughes and Pettitte if they go down your going to see a worst effect than Detroit. This is why Joba’s future is better off on the rotation as an ace.
Drive 4-5 – You are so right. Last night Wang gave up 8 runs but because Bucholz is not as good as Beckett the Yanks scored 15 and won.
I an not defending Mussina, but he should not be facing the #1 starter. He is a 4 or 5 at best. Don’t forget he is only in the 2 slot becuase Andy was held back the first week.
And Girardi did say he would tweak the rotation with the off day on Monday.
I have resorted to watching the muts they are losing so that makes me feel better
I just wish they put up 3 or 4 against Beckett even if they lose the game
2004 and 2005 were better indications of where moose was headed. He has a great year like a lot of players in contract years.
2004 12-9 4.59
2005 13-8 4.41
You really didn’t think he was going to be close to what he was in 05 did you
Nice at bat by Melky
Melky is the only Yankee that gets into deep counts, especially against good opposing pitching… anyone else feel this way?
or close to what he was in 06
official game, we lost first place.
Peter said:
“Joe Girardi is supposed to be a smart guy, right? Lots of charts, he can use a computer. Terrific with in-game situations, all that. How has the fact that Manny Ramirez absolutely murders the Yankees escaped him? Just pitch around him. Tell Mussina (or anybody else) to throw him four pitches off the plate. Maybe you’ll get lucky and he’ll chase one and pop up. It’s like they’re daring him to see how far he can hit it.
Being stubborn has cost them three runs tonight.”
This is what I’ve been harping on for a while now. It’s just ridiculous that they keep challenging Ramirez. At what point do you suck it up and realize you can’t deal with him right now?
“I just wish they put up 3 or 4 against Beckett even if they lose the game”
me too but it’s hard to put up runs vs an ace especially a Cy Young ace.
How is it possible that Beckett has never won 30 to 35 games a season? Just incomprehensible.
lets go captain
Man, 2 runners on in scoring position. Come on Jeter-bring them in.
I do think that by Memorial Day at the very latest, if Mussina and Kennedy dont consistently pitch 5 innings the Yanks will have to do something.
I believe the Yanks made a mistake in rushing Kennedy based on 4 pajor league starts. He’s a guy who need to have pinpoint control, and he hasnt consistently displayed that yet in his brief career. He walks way too many batters.
If Mussina is this bad by June 1, it’s to the bullpen for him.
OK!
“You really didn’t think he was going to be close to what he was in 05 did you”
I think you mean ‘06 here. But that’s not even the point. His contract was a BARGAIN at the time. They only gave him 2 years and he could have gotten more money elsewhere. This is no secret. So I’m still not sure how that’s classified as a “bad” signing. The guy had been consistent every year since his Baltimore days. No injury history. He just turned 37 when they signed him… Sorry I just don’t get it.
Captain Clutch!
I can’t believe he threw 2 straight fastballs in hitters count …
GOOD JOB JETES !!!
2-run single! Nice one by Jeet.
Nice, Captain Clutch!
What I don’t understand is, how did Josh Beckett just give up earned runs? I thought he was supposed to be their Ace or something.
There’s two.
Could we write up a petition to Francona that stipulates he must use Timlin? That would help.
The Captain hasn’t given up on this game.
Scratch scratch scratch!
WAYOOO
look how cocky beckett is…just the way he carries himself
3 straight fastballs, Alex be patient
this just in:
Beckett is tired
and the Yanks are making him pay
lets go ARod!
Good one, Bobby! 7-3
There’s another one.
A-Rod, it’s time for a jack. Pour it on.
Jeter came to play
that quad looks great!
Well here’s the three runs I asked for now they need to get him out of the game.
good night for Verlander thusfar.
I guess I came home at the right time. The offense woke up a bit.
If Mussina is bad by June, they might sit him down. Mike has pride, he won’t keep going out there if he feels he has nothing. that said he threw decent games before this, so maybe hopefully it is a fluke. Don’t forget he also just faced them 5 days ago. Look what happened to Wang, and Clay.
They are scratching and clawing, the pens job is to hold it right here, and the the Yankees continue to crawl back into the game.
ughh….2 – 0 Alex should have taken that pitch
Peter, great points about Chamberlain moving to the rotation. He needs his innings so that he can pitch closer to 200 next year. If he stays in the pen and only hits 70 innings, he’s back at square one next season.
alrighty, chip away, bullpen needs to hold it, lets go “Jessica Alba ledehajo” as Michael Kay says
Meh. You can do better than that, Alex. Don’t help him out.
We’re back in this. It’s not over by a long shot.
Let’s see some more good work out of this bullpen.
Three runs now, hold the Sox here, we can tie the game on one swing.
it looked to me like ARod popped out on the same pitch he threw to Derek… but Jeter brought his hands in and went with the pitch.
oh well… its back to being a game. 4 innings (and probably 2 hours) to go!
Arod needs to be reminded that he isnt the only player on the team…just get on base!
Really Anti mussina change your name to anti yankees. You clearly hate every player on this team. You’ve shown your true colors a number of times.
There is no such thing as a number 2 slot in the rotation except the second game of the season or the second game of the playoff series. Off days and different schedules take away aces matching up with aces.
Alby for the third inning? I’m not sure I like this plan.
Moeller needs to frame those low pitches better. Beckett has been getting them called for strikes because of Varitek.
Ron who else can we use? Bruney? NO, Latroy? No, Ross? No. So who?
With the off day on Monday they could simply skip Mussina’s next start which would position him in the 5th slot in the rotation (Wang, Hughes, Kennedy, Petitte, Mussina). If Hughes shows progress in his next few starts that rotation would work for me. Otherwise I’d flip Pettitte and Hughes over time. I would not want Kennedy and Mussina back-to-back in the rotation.
I think the bigger issue is what happens if one of the kids or Mussina show no improvement by the end of May. It would likely still be too soon to start transitioning Chamberlain into the rotation. Innings limits says that probably would be after the ASB. We are going to need another starter at some point in the season – earlier if Mussina or one of kids struggle and later due to innings limits. Right now it looks like our options are Rasner or Igawa. Thats not good.
The game has come to a conclusion? While it’s a lot to expect for the Yankees to come all the way back, that’s a pretty crummy attitude. It’s not over until all 27 (well, 54) outs are recorded.
What’s funny is, yesterday he wanted to name Arod captain over Jeter.
He’s a kid without parental supervision or a lot of intelligence, who is given way too much computer time from his parents.
Be goos Alba
Game is NOT OVER…we have last ABs and are going to pull this one OUT OF THE FIRE, ALL !
I can see Andy getting some work in this game.
**goos=good
jeez..can’t type
anti is funny man
Ellsbury is overmatched. He’s not ready for the majors, regardless of his hot streak last season. Given time, he’ll be a fine player, but Coco Crisp is probably better than him right now.
I don’t think you can expect Mussina to pitch back to back against the Sox and not get shelled in one of the games. The last game Mussina pitched was there for the taking. That was the game they needed to win
Its why you have to let the season play out.
Its impossible to predict what’s going happen next week, let alone May.
Moose stunk tonight. That said, he will get the ball again because they have to do it. There is nobody else to put in his slot right now.
They are trying to claw back in and that’s all you can ask for.
The off day Monday gives them a chance to move the rotation around a bit.
That’s dependent on how Hughes and/or Kennedy do this weekend in Baltimore.
So how many runs will Kyle Farnsworth give up tonight? Iwojima and Pimplebutt are available. Hard to do anything against those stoppers.
Alby will be at 50 pitches shortly.
As SJ44 said, they def need to call up some help for the pen.
anti-mussina.
Do you realize that a .300 hitter is considered very good? Do you know they fail 7 out of 10 times. Do you know that means that they only get hits 3 out of 10 times? You can’t expect your player to come up and get a hit every single time up.
I think the only people in the pen for tonight that can probably be used are Farnsworth, Mo, and Traber, since Alby’s already in. Hawkins and Bruney did a lot last night and probably aren’t available…the Yanks could really use someone like Rasner right now for length.
Farns is up
2 out walk, ridiculous. Can’t walk that freaking midget.
Who do you see going down? I’d guess, well hope they bring up Patterson. I really don’t want to see Igawa up here.
Speak of the devil…Farnsworth gets up in the pen right when I post that.
Bring in Traber for an inning, starting with Ortiz.
It is easy to walk a midget, the strike zone on him is so much smaller.
“to attack my personal life is plain wrong.”
Now THAT is the funniest thing I’ve read all night.
Alby’s gassed. He’s not supposed to throw this many pitches.
Okay Alby gave up 2, but he had two good innings.
Time to chip away. I guess Kyle will have the 7th.
DAMN GUTSY PERFORMANCE BY ALBALADEJO
Alby gets Ortiz to pop out. Time for some runs
Maybe Alby will be the odd man out, since he threw so many pitches and won’t be available this weekend.
Wow. Ortiz is the cure-all for the Yankees. I almost want to face him in a big spot over anybody in the lineup.
Gutty outing by Alby. Hopefully his arm’s okay after this one.
At least Big Floppy’s struggles continue. Manny coming up next inning…PITCH AROUND HIM!
Manny vs. Kyle…oof.
silver linings through 5 innings:
1. Ortiz, who normally comes to life against NY, is still stinking it up
2. Alby has looked pretty good the last 2 innings
3. Damon’s bat speed seemed back to normal in his last AB
4. Jeter appears to be back to 100%
5. Both Posada and Molina say they are aiming for a weekend return
6. Mussina (and the Yanks) wont face Manny Ramirez again until July 4
7. ???
Its going to be interesting to see what they do, pitching-wise.
If Joba is gone this weekend, they are going to need a fresh arm from Scranton.
When Joba returns, I also think they need to re-examine the long guy situation.
They are going Ohlendorf a disservice using him as the long man. He’s not a long man.
He may have to go back to Scranton for Rasner and Rasner may have to become the long man.
With Moose, Hughes and Kennedy iffy in terms of innings, its going to be tough to continue without a longman.
Just some food for thought.
All in all, I think Albie did a fine job. Gave up a couple of runs but, that was a tough situation to be in. He should be happy with his performance tonight.
Whoever said it was right, Giambi really is 0-2 every single AB.
Alby probably will be the odd man out-sacrificial lamb again. He did it when the Yanks were going to send him down anyway when Pettitte came off the DL and he got the call tonight.
bats need to get to work…
I’m kinda perturbed that Mussina’s 5.75 era after tonight is still lower than Verlander (7) or Sabathia (13.5)
Man I really love anti-mussina’s posts!!
I’m charting the Scranton game. Chris Britton is in tonight so that eliminates him from a possible callup.
I’ll keep an eye on that game and see who ends up pitching for them tonight.
If they do need to reach down for an arm, that might give us a clue as to who it might be.
Cano’s april is ridiculous. It’s another hitter altogether.
It makes me feel better to know that Cano’s power and patience will return will a vengeance during the summer, but it’s irritating as hell to watch him now. It’s a carbon copy of last year.
Also something to keep note of Joba probably has not done any work while he has been away so he will effectively not pitched for over a week I think
Kyle, either plunk Manny or walk him.
Farnsy in 7 ABs vs Manny…. .286/.286/.429
Some guys are just slow starters. No matter what they do, they start slow.
Its one of those unexplained things in the game.
7.the curse of the Ortiz jersey is alive!
FINALLY!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
Woah. The best pitch Farns has thrown this season?
Kyle doing what should have been done years ago to this guy.
Earns team points from me.
Oh Jebus
Manny vs. Farnsworthless
That’s what I’m talking about
PLEASE K this fool!
Thank you Farnsworth.
well he definitely went in with that 1st pitch
I can’t believe I’m sayin this but thank you Farnsy
Farnsworth my favorite Yankee now……………………..okay maybe not. But still.
There is something weird with the universe when Kyle Farnsworth is the only pitcher to retire Manny Ramirez.
Not that I’m complaining, or anything…
Nice job by Kyle to get Manny!
the teams dont play again for 10 weeks.
if Beckett throws at someone tonight, you gotta charge the mound and rough that punk up.
at the very least, it will give ESPN something to talk about for the next few weeks.
See, that’s the fruits of Girardi making Farns his ‘project’ this year.
Girardi is clearly a genius.
When the hell did Pete become a Red Sox’s fan. I used to love his blog, since the beginning of this season he has had a negative comment/stance on just about everything. Maybe Joe G. has made some mistakes, but his overall tone has changed this season and it sucks.
Its not a tough game. Its amazing what happens when you move a hitters feet.
You don’t have to throw 95 to pitch inside. You just can’t be afraid to pitch inside.
After he almost got drilled, Manny didn’t have a single good swing in that AB.
Moose has to learn or he isn’t going to last the season. You got to pitch inside and you can’t do it passively.
Aside from pitch #1, Farnsworth is actually showing command of his pitches tonight (so far)
8.bench Cano. Have gonzalez play second and Cano pinch hit for him. He hits homeruns in that role.
wonder if Beckett will do anything.. both benches were warned
I swear these baggier pants are doing wonders for Farnsworth.
Farnsworth, that slider isn’t terrible, but please stop throwing it so often. You have a good fastball.
All the Red Sox announcers are talking about is how the Sox will retaliate and when/who they’ll hit.
I’m not in favor of head hunting with anyone. But pitching in (or in Farn’s case behind) is SO effective and needs to be done much more against the Sox lineup. Manny looked horrible the rest of that AB after that pitch. His feet were shuffling, head was not tucked in, flaling swings. Thats what you need to do with Manny.
That slider is looking sharp tonight.
1-2-3! cmon Yanks!
Am I watching special effects or is this the real Farns, real Manny and Pukelis??
“The Yankees had a chance to really get back in the game there before A-Rod popped up. He is 1 for 15 with runners in scoring position this season.”
I always get the impression it’s because Arod tried to hard to be the hero so he just swing for HR regardless of what kind of pitch it is.
Nice job again tonight by Farnsworth.
Farnsy does what Mussina was scared of doing, I can’t knock him after that… he put the team ahead of himself
Nice Kyle!!
“You have a good fastball.”
No, he doesn’t. He has a straight fastball that he can’t control. All it’s really good for is setting up the slider and almost hitting people.
“Moose has to learn or he isn’t going to last the season. You got to pitch inside and you can’t do it passively.”
Supposidly he used to till he hit a player and it resulted in a fight. Since then. Its become a no go.
Oh, of course Beckett will do something, he’ll get tossed, and we’ll get Tavarez or Timlin.
Okay what Yankee is going to get hit now?
YanksAngel,
Sox announcers were saying that when Beckett knows its his last inning, 2 outs, he could hit the batter if its one of the Yanks better hitters.
Can’t believe I’m saying this, but that was the best inning of pitching by the Yanks that I have seen tonight. Great job, Farnsworth.
You’re a fool if you think that was a good idea. He tried to hit Manny, not brush him back. Let’s see how great everyone thinks this is when someone tries to hit Jeter.
Besides, why do that now? They didn’t do it when Manny stood in the box and watched a ball he hit go 500 yards against Scott Proctor. “Because he’s kicking your butt” isn’t a good reason to try to injure someone.
Beckett needs to throw at someone now.
Farnsworthy! Wow. That first pitch certainly set the tone. Like the new tough look, Yanks. Like it.
my guess is they throw at a rod, not a shocker but probably what they’ll do
“All the Red Sox announcers are talking about is how the Sox will retaliate and when/who they’ll hit.”
would you blame him?
Let’s see what Beckett does
Wow Farnsy. What a transformation. 1-2-3
We have come to praise Kyle Farnsworth and not to bury him!!!
Something that needed to be done. I know the nancies out there don’t like it but, the Red Sox have pitching that way to the Yankees for years.
What’s interesting is, this mano y mano stuff seems to get Farnsworth going.
He throws like he has his last two outings, he’s an asset to this team. Just gotta hope he found something with all the video he has been watching this year on his delivery.
Ron,
IMO, the only change Farnsy has of succeeding is if he can command the slider. Hitters sit on his straight fastball if its his only pitch.
as much as i have advocated throwing at manny, you don’t throw at his head. or behind it. farnsworth’s control just isn’t that good.
NOTICE SOMETHING HERE. MUSSINA’S PASSIVITY CAUSES OTHER PLAYERS TO HAVE TO TAKE THE HEAT. THERE WILL BE RED SOX RETALIATION AT SOME POINT.
a yankee player will be hit.
all because mussina refuses to be a man himself.
*chance
Farnsy did good.
get to work bats
Farnsworth actually threw behind Manny, which is what I expect was his intent. Oh, he might have been aiming for the back, but I doubt he was headhunting.
Farnsworth didnt hit anybody. cant see how any retaliation would be justified.
“UPDATE, 8:49 p.m.: Manny is 53 of 113 (.469) with 13 homers and 38 RBI in his last 33 games against the Yankees. … Meanwhile this game has come to a conclusion as Albaladejo didn’t do his job.”
.
….WOW, Pete, Maybe you need some time off. In the 5th inning, the Yankees are totally done ?…do they actually end games after 5, if one team is up by 7 or more runs now ? Is this a new rule that is in effect that you didn’t tell us about ?…we now have 3 at bats left and we are only chasing 4 runs….I wouldn’t waive the white flag quite yet, friend ! How about a little positive thinking ?????
Is it me or did bob lorenz just say wha– off?
They can retailiate if they want. Then, you just drill the next guy in their lineup.
“Let’s see how great everyone thinks this is when someone tries to hit Jeter.”
please like you never done it before.
SJ44,
I was thinking the same thing. They need to tick Farnsworth off and/or challenge his manhood right before he heads to the mound every time.
seeing the bullpen tonight, I think we can put Joba in the rotation, if it is needed at the end of the season.
They hit Alex least night so I guess that would make us even
Re: Farnsy’s slider:
It’s not an issue of him not throwing the slider, it’s an issue of him throwing it too much. In his career, and I’ve been watching him since he was a Cub, he tends to fall in love with that slider and then hang a fat juicy one over the plate.
what kind of signal is being conveyed when so many posts with Mussina’s name begin with “I hope that….” Is hope the only thing we have for Mussina? Is anyone confident anymore that he can actually deliver consistently?
Thanks for the memories Moose, but time’s up.
Both benches have been warned, so Beckett can’t hit someone.
Beckett will be unable to resist hitting someone.
Please don’t hit Jeter
Suzy and John are carrying on about what Kyle did. And that why was Boston warned they didn’t do anything wrong! Um what about the last 5 years at least. How many times have Yankees been hit?
Back to back scoreless appearances. Who’s this #48 Cashman acquired?
Want to edit that last line pete?
How much is the Mad hitting when hes not a goofball?
How did Verlander get shelled tonight? I thought he was supposed to be an Ace.
Another thing Suzy is showing her true sox colors crying that if he moved back it would have hit him in the head! What, it was near the shoulder. Hmmm the same place Alex was hit.
Brandon, I’m a Yankees fan. There was a time and a place to go head hunting. It isn’t now. It was years ago.
There’s a way the game is played. The Yankees passed on their chances to retaliate. Tonight, they became instigators. Manny did nothing wrong except hit two bombs off a pitcher with no fastball.
throw him out of the game !!!
Pete you said it was irresponsible for Farnsy to throw behind manny’s head but lets face it he was throwing inside and it got away up and further in.
It’s just Farnsy being Farnsy!!!! lol
Besides they have to get a message on hitting AROD last night. you hit my clean up guy I will hit yours is the message and its fine by me.
S.o.S. 27
He also go hurt in that fight and went on the dl.
Beckett is the biggest dirtbag in sports.
you can count on him hitting someone next inning.
ugh. 2 more innings. can they come back?
Jennifer –
That’s why I never like to see the Yankees get involved in these things. It seems to me that every other team gets at least one free shot.
Well, I guess at least this time it was the Yankees who took the free shot.
Verlander’s evening was:
“Bottom of 2:
Indians second. Garko was hit by a pitch. F.Gutierrez doubled to left, Garko to third. Michaels hit a sacrifice fly to center fielder Cl.Thomas, Garko scored, F.Gutierrez to third. Blake doubled to right, F.Gutierrez scored. Sizemore flied out to right fielder Ordonez, Blake to third. J.Carroll infield single to second, Blake scored. Hafner walked on four pitches, J.Carroll to second. V.Martinez grounded out, second baseman Santiago to first baseman C.Guillen.
Runs: 3, Hits: 3, Errors: 0″
And then…
“Bottom of 5:
Indians fifth. V.Martinez singled to right. Jh.Peralta struck out. Garko homered to left on a 1-2 count, V.Martinez scored. F.Gutierrez flied out to center fielder Cl.Thomas. Michaels was hit by a pitch. Blake grounded into fielder’s choice, shortstop Renteria to second baseman Santiago, Blake to first, Michaels out.
Runs: 2, Hits: 2, Errors: 0″
For a total of 5 ER in 5 IP
Boston Dave….you nailed it, friend. King Dirtbag is he !
Andy Hawkins
Um they hit alex last night in the shoulder blade, that is where farns was going for.
That was a quick inning.
Jee peter, is there anything you dont criticize these days… one minute its how Moose and Joe G are eggheads for pitching to Manny in an April game.. the next its farnsy going tight..
I know ur Joe torre wudnt have done this… we all know ur mancrush for Joe T… but just stop hating on Joe G already.. its getting silly
“Suzy and John are carrying on about what Kyle did. And that why was Boston warned they didn’t do anything wrong! Um what about the last 5 years at least. How many times have Yankees been hit?”
I wonder where they’ve been the past five years, where the Yankees did ‘nothing wrong’ but they got warned? Sorry fellas, the ‘all class’ Yankees who will roll over in the name of honor are gone. Get used to it.
“Brandon, I’m a Yankees fan. There was a time and a place to go head hunting. It isn’t now. It was years ago.”
I understand but a bigger point is being made by Girardi tonight, they remember that Alex got his last night, they see Manny is waaaaaaaaay too comfortable and actually that is the time to do it, because if we lose tonight which is highly likely we atleast come away w/ sticking up for our guys, something that was completely ignoreed for the past years.
with Shelley gone, do we have any goons to charge the mound just in case? Is Darryl in attendance?
He didn’t hit anybody and the Nancies can calm down now.
They can’t put Joba in the rotation yet. But, it will happen this year.
Right now, its a question of if he has even thrown this week.
If not, he may not be able to pitch even if he gets back this weekend. May need a couple of bullpen sessions before he can pitch.
I have no problems with the Yankees being aggressors on the mound. At some point, they have to stop being so damn passive on the mound.
If Farnsworth causes that to happen, all the better.
But, aggressive inside has to be a philosophy of this pitching staff in every game. If not, you get lit up in the AL.
There are some extremely immature people on this blog. Pete: Registration, please!!!
All i’m saying is that I’m glad I went out to dinner tonight…although they were showing the game and people were all too happy to provide me with updates – UGH!
Don Vito,
I have friends who work for the Sox, interact with the players, and are obviously diehard Sox fans.
They tell me Beckett is a real jerk. I believe them.
SJ44,
As usual, the voice of reason in a Krazy, Krazy world.
i have no problem if farnsworth drills someone in the butt every time he pitches. i have no problem with him establishing up and in . i would love to see him do it . but headhunting? come on.
i don’t think there will be retaliation in this game. it’ll happen later when it won’t be so obvious that there would be suspensions.
this is on mussina. he’s basically a coward. he won’t take care of manny himself and someone else has to do it for him. mussina could have knocked manny down himself, but he chose not to because he doesn’t believe in it.
what did beckett do last inning to make him a jerk?
sorry my mlbtv isn’t working right?
“cano > pedroia (this isnt even fair)”
hahahahahahahaha, funniest line of the night goes to Anti-mussina, hilarious
Wang and Hughes talking sinker…if Hughes could learn that sinker to go with his curve, that would be awesome.
Arod got hit last night and nobody said anything about it.
Kyle is looking to move Manny’s feet. The ball got up near his head. Not what he intended but, it happens.
Its funny but, there was no outrage over Arod getting hit last night.
Sorry but, I have watched this team pitch WAY too passively over the last 5 years. Its time that changes.
If the Red Sox, or any other team doesn’t like it, they can do something about it.
More often than not, the aggressors on the mound tend to have an advantage over the hitters.
The passive approach sure as heck hasn’t worked. Maybe its time to try another way.
“I have friends who work for the Sox, interact with the players, and are obviously diehard Sox fans.
They tell me Beckett is a real jerk. I believe them.”
suuuuuure you do. where, the concessions stands?
>
We could paint Joba up like Umaga and let him loose!!!
“Beckett is the biggest dirtbag in sports.
you can count on him hitting someone next inning.”
Great analysis boston dave.
Oops, didn’t happen.
And as long as farnsworth is in the majors, beckett can’t be the biggest dirtbag.
com’on Jetes !
Casey went in hard at second? What game is Kay watching?
“You’ve got to give some credit to Casey, who went in hard at Second Base”
What is Kay watching?
“Not what he intended but, it happens.”
and you know this how exactly? oh right, youre the king of this blog, so you just know.
Westerner99 …stop your whining, ya baby !…Pete, please save us from the infantile posters….WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH……I’m so upset that everyone doesn’t think like me and people live Vito, make me so mad I could just spit ! ;-(
Britton and Scott Strickland have pitched tonight for Scranton. That means guys like Ramirez, Patterson and Veras (who pitched last night) haven’t worked yet.
If they need an arm for the weekend, it might come down to one of those 3 guys.
and what a coincidence it was to his left
Rich,
i dont care if you believe me. i have no reason to lie. i know quite a bit about the personal lives of the Sox. I have hung out with their wives. gone drinking with Foulke and Ortiz.
go back to your cave, troll.
SJ44
Tell that to Suzy and John. They are probably still crying about it.
I couldn’t believe when they were crying about the soxs getting warned when they didn’t do anything wrong. Oh really? I don’t know what they’ve been watching the last 5 years.
hey Rich, back off, dude !
add partied with Nomar and Mia Hamm to that list.
anti-mussina – hysterical breakdown
SJ – I totally agree, why are the Yankees expected to always be passive and “Manny being Manny” or whatever (hitting A-rod last night) is just fine? I just dont understand, what’s good for the goose is most definetly good for the gander – if you need to push Manny off the plate and help him not be so comfortable up there all the time; you do it – what do they always say? “It’s baseball”
SJ I’m not a big fan of Veras I would deal that kid if we could.
“Rich,
i dont care if you believe me. i have no reason to lie. i know quite a bit about the personal lives of the Sox. I have hung out with their wives. gone drinking with Foulke and Ortiz.
go back to your cave, troll.”
what do you like park their cars and stuff? lol
okay! out of inning!!
lets go yankees! get some runs this inning!!
Brandon,
sometimes Veras has filthy stuff… a shame he can’t be consistent
Beckett’s going to pitch the 8th…the Yanks really need to jump on him now.
Are we sure there’s no chance of Joba returning by this weekend?
Beckett is a jerk. Great pitcher but a jerk.
Re: Kyle. I don’t think he was throwing at Manny’s head. He was throwing inside and the ball ran up toward his head.
That’s unfortunate. But, you have to pitch the guy tight in there. When you do, sometimes the ball gets away.
I mean, I guess we can just keep throwing the ball middle away and watch him hit HR’s.
However, if you are interested in ever getting the guy out, you have to bust him inside.
Same goes for Ortiz. Unless of course, you don’t mind both guys hitting .500 apiece over the last 5 years against the Yankees.
Want to make a hitter less effective? Make him less comfortable.
There is nothing wrong with that. I’m not advocating murder.
Any bets that Beckett was waiting to nail Jeter? I think that’s the only reason he’s coming back out. The guys an A%$#*&^
dave-
so you partied with all these players from when before beckett was on the team. i understand now.
wow Rich. thats some funny stuff… shut me right up.
Beckett back? Wanna bet it’s just to hit one batter
Beckett is coming out to pitch the 8th. Derek and Alex are up this inning.
Tie game in Baltimore
Let’s get some runs please
Ok, maybe Arod. If he does, I hope he gets the long suspension.
Jete didn’t seem to be running it out like he usually does
Rich,
I have never met Beckett. what I said was true. two people who work for the team and have interacted with him on numerous occasions and are diehard Sox fans gave me an unfavorable opinion of him (said he was by far the biggest jerk on the team). that’s all.
if you choose not to believe me, thats fine. enough already.
Kill-Schill(ing)
Suzy was saying he wouldn’t be back till his father was out of the hospital. I happen to think she was talking out of her butt. First off I don’t think Joba’s dad wants him away from his team for so long, second while he does need to be with his father, he does have to come back eventually.
“Kyle is looking to move Manny’s feet. The ball got up near his head. Not what he intended but, it happens.”
if that’s what happened, farnsworth needs to say it after the game.
it didn’t look that way to me, but who knows with farnswotrh.
i couldn’t agree with you more that the yankees need a more aggressive approach with making other teams hitter’s move their feet.
You can get Manny “mad” now – who cares, you don’t see him again until July and the “goofball” probably won’t remember by they anyways…
Beckett is pitching this inning I presume either
A. to hit Alex
B. the BP is taxed
We threw over Manny’s head? What were they watching? I thought they are supposed to be our announcers!
Watching this eenus pitch makes me yearn all the more to see Joba in the rotation.
It cracks me up how people get so macho when this stuff happens. Yet if that had happened to Alex, you’d all want Beckett suspended immediately.
Tell you what, you want to get Manny out then make good pitches. Throwing behind his head is a punk move. The Yankees should be above that kind of stuff.
Jennifer – I think Suzyn gets a lot of her information from there…
I can’t believe they got Beckett and we got Pavano from that Marlins world series team.
and here we go…. retaliation
I hope they drill A-Rod now
maybe not though – Beckett could get suspended if he drills ARod. who knows….
Beckett’s not going to hit anyone.
Keep in mind though: Suzyn has excellent sources inside the Yankees hierarchy, Jenn. Did she say she was speculating or was she relating what Yankees “people” have told her?
looked pretty close to me… did YES show a replay?
I hope Beckett hurt himself there,
another 1-2-3 inning…
schil- I’m not sure.
Pete you’re right. All these Yankees fans are so overly protective of their players is ridiculous.
I, personally, am not interested in head hunting – sometimes things happen that can’t be prevented – I mean we all know Farnsworth is not pin-point with his accuracy…but there is never a big to-do when the Yankees get hit…they just take their base. So why do people, esp NY announcers, need to get all protective of they guy who has owned the Yankees over the last week…I just don’t get it
Have to hand it to Beckett…he did have a good game.
why are the announcers only talking about Manny getting hit and not even saying that could have been for Alex getting hit last night, right square in the back.
Umm Pete the ball was not thrown at Manny’s head. Maybe you should watch the game.
“if you choose not to believe me, thats fine. enough already.”
i actually believe you. i heard hes a DB as well from people whove met him. im just cracking youre walnuts.
I mean it could be weeks before his father gets out of the hospital and gets home.
Pete, but doesn’t it beg the question of what Farnsworth was trying to do: pitch inside and move his feet or throw at his head.
The latter is indefensible; the former, on the other hand, seems to be the Yankees only chance to retire him.
Kill Schill and Jennifer – This quote from Girardi is in an article on the Yankees website:
“Girardi said that he has not ruled out seeing Chamberlain in Baltimore for the Yankees’ three-game series against the Orioles, which opens on Friday, but there are no plans to activate him as of yet.”
Peter, seriously you think he meant to throw behind him. If Farnsy had that type of control we would not have him for all the fodder we do. He went inside and missed more inside. Second, that was not at head level until he came down that was at upper back/shoulder level just like ARod’s shot.
Is your New England bias at work here? maybe?
I strongly dislike dusty! he is so annoying.
“”I hope Beckett hurt himself there”
Thats why Joba, Kennedy, and Mr “phranchice”" will all be pieces of SH***t.. The three of them. Yankees wont win for a nother 80years so keep hoping.
right now , mussina is making arod have to think about getting hit by beckett.
mussina’s really the problem here. he’s the one who needs to have his butt hauled into the manager’s office and told to take care of business or else.
why should other player’s have to do his dirty work?
nope I’m sorry Pete I’m numb to that, Julian Taveras, Dice-K alot of times, Beckett more than once…lets not act like the Red Sox didn’t have that coming to them. Plus the pitch was at his chest/shoulders .
- PEDS ORTIZ isn’t powering the ball anymore I see.
fran- Thanks. If his father is getting better I can’t really see him staying away from the team much longer.
I think Pete’s showing his true colors now.
Manny the best hitter ever.
YanksAngel,
and MAnny didnt even get hit. Right or wrong, It was a statement pitch which Kyle clearly did not intend to hit Manny with.
good, Manny’s back – throw him a meatball so everyone’s happt
HMMM
Mlb April 17th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
I hope they drill A-Rod now
here is a hint. bostondirtdogs.com
Peter Abraham
April 17th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
“It cracks me up how people get so macho when this stuff happens. Yet if that had happened to Alex, you’d all want Beckett suspended immediately.
Tell you what, you want to get Manny out then make good pitches. Throwing behind his head is a punk move. The Yankees should be above that kind of stuff.”
——————————————–
Troll Alert: just ignore this Troll!
see how that effected Manny tonight, that Traber pitch should have been a no doubter but Manny isn’t jumping over the plate now.
“It cracks me up how people get so macho when this stuff happens. Yet if that had happened to Alex, you’d all want Beckett suspended immediately.”
Um, no. Since your entire point rests on this statement, I can safely say you’re completely wrong. This only gets attention because the Yankees HAVE been ‘above’ this stuff for a while now. Guess what? It doesn’t do anything good for their ballplaying. No baseball player is going to say “ooh, the classy Yankees. I should probably tone it down and play worse in order to show my respect.” The entire idea of sacrificing baseball effectiveness for ‘classiness’ is absolutely ridiculous.
Papelbon’s warming for the Sox. This should be interesting.
Ortiz flies out and Manny flies out. Good work by Traber.
Peter: we get thrown at ALL THE TIME. One of the biggest complaints of the Torre haters was his lack of a retaliatory streak. I for one think Farnsworth is quite effective as an enforcer. He throws 95 mph and straight as an arrow. That’s what I want to be hitting people with. Yeah, it’s crude, but this is baseball. It’s considered a contact sport.
We get thrown at all the time, and never turn it around. At some point, you have to send one across their bow to let them know it’s not gonna be a free pass.
See, Farns even took Manny out of his game for the subsequent at-bat.
Must we fight in front of company?
Pete, all due respect, Manny didn’t get hit.
The Yankees have been so far above this “kind of stuff,” playing tough, that we’ve become classy losers. Now, there is a place for losing gracefully, I have no problem with that, seriously, but that’s not why I watch the Yanks.
I watch the Yanks because they strive to win, every year, at all costs, damn the torpedoes and the hatches, lock up the women, here come the barbarian hordes, etc etc.
Jeez, maybe he was trying to move his feet and it went a little up?
Who don’t know what his intentions were Pete.
AndrewYF
I agree with your statement. Classy has won us early exits from the playoffs…If it takes hungry, tough and intimidating then fine. I’ll live with the suspensions etc but we have to stop just letting them tee off on our guys and get aggressive in backing guys off the plate or at least making them think about it.
2 solid innings by Traber
bring on pugnose !
But in the long run, the Yankees have still gone on to the playoffs without being the aggressor. I know I’m in the minority, but I don’t think you throw at people. Pitch inside, yes, but not deliberately hit someone.
jennifer
April 17th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
HMMM
Mlb April 17th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
I hope they drill A-Rod now
here is a hint. bostondirtdogs.com
Here is a another hint. FREE COUNTRY.
Pete,
Its tough to make good pitches to Manny when you give away the inner half of the plate.
He has no reason to protect the inner half and he will just kill you if you pitch him that way.
I’m not advocating hitting the guy in the head at all.
I am saying, you have to go inside and go inside hard to not make him so comfortable up there.
Sometimes, when you go inside, the ball gets away from you.
There is never this fury when Yankee hitters are hit by Red Sox pitchers.
Last year, ESPN cameras were showing Julian Tavarez telling Dice-K to throw up and in to Arod. He got hit the next time up, and nobody in the media said a word about it.
Arod got plunked last night. Nobody said a word about it.
Manny didn’t even get hit tonight and folks get upset.
I just think its a double standard and not entirely fair.
If the Yankees aren’t going to pitch Ortiz and Manny in tight, they might as well concede the games. They will get hammered by those guys.
You can’t just these guys beat you non-stop and not change your pitching patterns.
Especially when the Red Sox have shown a willingness to do the exact same thing to Yankee hitters I am advocating Yankee pitchers do to Red Sox hitters for years.
chasing 4 !…let’s get 5 and go home ! never say die !
Farnsy put the team against his own agenda, I’m not gonna rip him tonight. Anyone that has a problem w/ that I take you’ve never played baseball before.
If you all consider the Yankees “losers” there will never be any pleasing you.
No one was calling for suspensions when Alex was plunked yesterday, yet now we are supposed to be “outraged” when Farnsworth brushes Manny off the plate ? Sorry, if Kyle wanted to hit Manny he would have. Agree with SJ44, need to pitch far more aggressive inside.
Also last night when Manny was pitched inside a little, he didn’t like it at all. Drops the bat and runs away from the plate.
Doreen
Newsflash…Manny did not get hit. Kyle is not accurate enough to hit him.
Giambi goes 0-2. What a shock!
Jennifer, et all: Do you really think A-Rod got hit intentionally last night? Really? Sometimes, pitches get away. That one clearly did. Doesn’t mean you try to bean one of the opponent’s hitters in the same place.
Even if there was, the time to retaliate for that (as wrong as it would have been) was last night. Manny was thrown at because he has been killing Yankee pitching. Saying that was retaliation for A-Rod or for the distant past is a cop out.
Anybody who has ever played the game knows there is an etiquitte that has to be followed. A lot of people on here commenting about baseball have clearly never played baseball.
Well, if the Yanks do manage a comeback, there won’t be a Manny for them to face anymore.
Manny is simply too dangerous a hitter. Have to shake him up a bit. Only way to be effective against him.
wow
Kay is so ill informed. Another part of the reason that Paplebon went to the pen, was injury concerns and he doesn’t have 4 plus pitches like Joba.
Otherwise I agree with him.
Giambi’s horrible. I mean, really bad.
I usually hate Leiter on commentary, but he’s making great points on Joba being a starter!
I don’t think A-Rod was hit intentionally yesterday. He was hit on a 3-1 pitch. You don’t waste 4 pitches to hit someone unless you are trying to cover it up and not make it look intentional. Yeah, I know the balls were inside and A-Rod got out of the way, but I don’t think it was intentional.
“we are supposed to be “outraged†when Farnsworth brushes Manny off the plate ?”
he actually brushed him kind of toward the plate, technically.
Giambi is doing my head in.
Rich,
Point taken !
can we get a miracle here?
I don’t know I wasn’t in the pitchers head. But I’ve seen far too many Yankees getting intentionally hit. Case and point what SJ was saying. They caught them on camera talking about hitting Alex!!
i use to like yankees fans now i really dont.
peter a.
you are missing the point that mussina’s refusal to take care of his own problems is hurting the team.
granted that it was a punk move if farnsworth meant that ball to go where it went. as sj said ,maybe he didn’t.
but why do other yankees have to pick up mussina when he refuses to pick them up ?
if mussina would have drilled manny in the lower back( and he could with his control), the point would have made. we’d all be happy and manny would think twice about relaxing and digging in against mussina. the red sox would hit someone on the yankees in the same area and we move on with the result of manny being sent a message. now we have a headhunter battle. not good for anyone.
… but mussina didn’t do that and everyone is focused everywhere but where the problem is. mussina is the problem.
mussina is dangerous for yankee hitters health.
Good we don’t really care what you think.
Giambi, Moose, Pavano all dead salaries that we won’t have to carry next year…thank God! I’d rather watch Shelley strike out than Big G. Moose has been good a long time but he is at best a 5th guy now and I say bring in the kids.
zFor all the bernie fans out there from Tyler Kepner in his baseball Notes. The start of the articel mentioned the Onion piece that Pete linked to earlier, sai Bernie filmed a piece for MLB Productions at the stadium this week doing some filming
“Williams is said to finally be open to the idea of being honored at Yankee Stadium before it closes at the end of the season. The general partner Hank Steinbrenner said during spring training that the Yankees would like to honor Williams”
take THAT, ya punk !
When a Yank gets hit, no sound is made, as nobody hears.
The whoosh of a ball going near a Red Sox on the other hand, gets heard around the world.
so maybe I missed something, but other than placement (due to ducking and not actually where the ball ended up) what was the difference between Arod yesterday and Manny today? If you think one was wrong you should think both were, right?
“Kay is so ill informed. Another part of the reason that Paplebon went to the pen, was injury concerns and he doesn’t have 4 plus pitches like Joba.”
does it surprise you really ? I mean he also said Papelbon was groomed as a SP, he never was a SP before he was drafted by Boston, he was predominantly a CL.
Peter They throw inside to Jeter and Arod all the time. The Yankees have historically gotten plunked more than any other team. It is time for the pitching staff to play with retribution in mind. Torre never let the pitching staff retaliate, it is time for Joe Giardi to stand up for the team.
OH and the actual fact of being hit…
Mlb …nobody EVER like you over here, troll….slime away, dude…slime AWAY !!!
I don’t care if he didn’t get hit. When people talk about retaliation, they’re basically talking about hitting a batter. I really don’t care for that.
I said, they should pitch Manny et al. inside. Purpose pitches. And if that’s what Kyle did, that’s fine. But I’m reading something different from some people here.
SJ44 seems like a guy with some very serious mental issues.
I can’t believe that there are people in this world who act, think, and post (non stop) like he does.
I think SJ44 said it well.
I do think Farnsworth intentionally threw behind Manny. I don’t think he had any intention of hitting him – just making a statement.
way to make Pap work Robinson…. two good AB’s against him
hey Cano is learning to put the ball in play w/ RISP ..that’s a good thing.
Cano’s plate discipline has really improved. Good work.
7-4 Sox and one out left.
Andy H.,
I’ve never played baseball, high school crew is the extent of my participation in sports, so I don’t know the etiquette. I’ll admit to that. If the Yanks are breaking some rule, I would not be for that.
As for never being pleased, well, that’s what striving for excellence, trying to win every year, is about. No one said it was supposed to be easy or make us happy. I couldn’t do it in my own life, but I admire an organization with that goal. The tone has been set by our Boss, a strong, admittedly flawed, man, and that’s why I watch. It’s inspiring.
that is BS right there !!!
MELKYYYYYYYY still a good thing
Doreen,
From that perspective, I think what Kyle did was actually better than throwing high and inside, which would have been more likely to hit Manny.
By throwing behind him, Kyle sent the message and there was really no chance of hitting him. Sure it looks bad, but just my two cents.
the PUG-meister…boy he is LIGHTS OUT, huh ???
The Melkman Cometh!
Melky homers to make it 7-5. He’s really showing some power this year
They have been touching up Papelbon more and more in his recent games against him.
believe
Please retaliate now and put the tying run at the plate
The yankees have now played the Red Sox 5 games.
For the sake of argument let’s just suppose that Joba had been with the team for all 5 of those games – let’s just say hypothetically been available these past two games.
As far as I can see, Joba would have pitched no more than 1 innings out of the pen against the sox over the course of these 5 games assuming he was here for every game.
He would have pitched the seventh inning in yesterday’s game instead of Bruney.
5 games against the sox – and Joba for all intents and purposes would have thrown one total inning.
As a starter he could have thrown anywhere from 7-15 innings over those same 5 games (depending on whether he got 2 starts or 1).
Not much of a weapon if you’re only throwing 1 inning in 5 games.
They play the sox 19 times. 5 games are down. Joba gets into one inning in what amounts to over one quarter of the games against the sox.
This is the problem with keeping him in the pen – there is an enormous opportunity cost to keeping him there. That cost is not as easy to see as the benefits that are readily apparent of having him in the pen.
He needs to be in the pen now to keep his innings down. But he needs to start.
Think about how he’d be helping the team as a starter and also helping the team’s pen if he’d started the game tonight instead of mussina (as hopefully will happen in the second half).
Joba would likely throw 6-7 innings at least – far more innings than what he’s thrown against the sox out of the pen so far – and he would have saved the workload on the pen.
There is a real cost to keeping him in the bull pen. We’re seeing that already.
Well if anything we are making him work
Don vito…Throw me out.
Good to see we’re making it hard for Papelbutt to take a dump on the mound that soon…
Melkman delivers again!!
K looking wow.
is it me or was Cano really close to being safe on his weak grounder? i guess he was out by a half step or so
Matsui K’s looking. Sox win 7-5
total BS call to end the game….bring on the trolls,,,night, ALL !…..NEVER SAY DIE….!!!
Larry Vanover wanted to go home. That pitch to Matsui was up and out of the zone.
Split the series. No big deal. Onto Baltimore.
that was a ball
nice rally this actually is a good loss. We fought back, Paps got lucky tonight.
That was NOT a strieke!!
so, if I am doing my math correctly – did Papelbon give up enough runs to get the save?
Mlb, not worth my time, son…..have a nice day at school tomorrow, BOY !
Remember how spooked John Kruk was when Big Unit threw over his head in the all star game….pitching inside and keeping hitters off balance works…period. I was a hitter and I definitely kept my feet alive against certain guys that I knew would come at me. It gives hitters one more thing to worry about and lose concentration over and that is something our pitchers need to use because we have lost it.
total bs and our crack pot announcer doesnt say a word.
Haha so does that count as a save for PUG? Maybe he purposely blew some points off so he can pad his save stat.
Looks like the old smoke & mirrors act didn’t go over to well tonight……My hope that Toast Mussina could remotely provide the club decent outings until Father’s Day or even Memorial Day is no fading as quickly as his effectiveness….A few of us took alot of heat last August for even suggesting that he was on the downslide…In fact as recently as a few days ago there was rampant denial that he’s done, washed up…..Then we have tonight….Can’t Rasner turn in a better outing……Mussina is history…..
Where was that last strike? Gameday showing it outside.
Well, they didn’t give up and got to Papelbon a bit. Papelbon not throwing as much heat as he used to?
EY,
no, its not a save
God damn, you can’t do anything with a pitch like that. I hate when games end on bad calls.
Big Joe:
I was a pitcher, and couldnt agree with you more.
Ah ok Boston Dave. Thanks.
Melancholy, the rule is you don’t attempt to injure another player. You play hard. You throw inside to brush hitters off the plate. You plug a guy in the back or the hip when you feel he isn’t playing the game the right way, or on rarer occasions, when the other team is attempting to take liberties against you.
You don’t throw near a man’s head for any reason — especially because he’s doing well. That’s never right. No matter who got hit in the shoulder blade last night. No matter how many batters have been hit over the years.
I got as mad as anyone when Pedro hit Soriano and Jeter, and when Manny poses at the plate. But nothing like that happened tonight. Farnsworth took it upon himself to head hunt. That’s not winning baseball. That’s dirty baseball.
The Yanks fought back. The bulpen was pretty good. The 2 runs that Ohlendorf gave up are the difference although he did eat innings.
On to Baltimore and hopefully Phil can give the Yanks a quality start.
Why is it not a save? the tying run on on deck…
If a Sox troll like Aaron thinks I have mental issues, then I take that as a compliment.
Funny how you only show up in here when your team wins.
Didn’t see you here last night.
somebody find out how many pitches Paps threw that inning please..
Pat M,
relax.
Hey Fran, Ohlendorf didn’t pitch today.
Dr. Cox
I don’t like to have pitchers agree with me…but what’s true is true so its all good
24 pitches for paps
well that sucked
Rishi,
Because Papelbon was the one who put the tying run on deck. If Delcarmen had started the inning and then Papelbon came in to face Matsui, I believe then its a save.
Interesting series. The Yankees are going to have to devise a strategy to counter Ramirez, he’s simply killing them. The Red Sox also seem much more aggressive with their baserunning this year, some dangerous speed in their lineup.
Looks like some weak spots in their bullpen can be exploited if you can manage to chase out their starter.
“24 pitches for paps”
thanks Rishi
I’m very worried about the health of this bullpen, not just for the season, but because I don’t want anyone’s careers to be in jeopardy. Ohlendorf is being overused and Alabadejo, as another kind-of long-man will likely be overused as well. I hope beyond hope we can keep these guys sound, but the rotation as presently constitiuted stinks. Mind you, I think Phil will be very good (for the most part) by mid to late season and Kennedy will be at least solid, but that’s a long time from now. The bullpen needs help……and it needs it now.
Guess I missed some excitement tonight as I only tuned in during the 9th.
Making Pap work is never a bad thing and helping raise his ERA will have to be the consolation prize for tonight.
gotcha – I didn’t realize the actual pitcher mattered, I thought it was just the situation…
Thanks!
ITS A SAVE!!!
iTS A SAVE, CHECK THE GAME WRAP ON YANKEES HOME PAGE.
Frank,
Ellsbury will do that to a team… he is fast and is going to steal some bases. They had him picked off but Moeller threw the ball away. Molina would have nailed him.
The Yanks have been able to take the season series from the Sox in recent history and still pitch to Manny. Maybe if they can get him out or work around him, they’ll have an even bigger edge.
The Yanks caught some tough luck with 40% of their matchups being Beckett vs Mussina. Don’t forget that factor.
Pete,
I’m not following you. You don’t want them to pitch to Manny and you don’t want them to throw inside to him.
The only answer then is to intentionally walk him 4 times per game.
That’s tough to do when you have a guy on base in front of him.
I’m really not trying to be a jerk here but, you can’t pitch like that.
They didn’t lose tonight only because they pitched to Manny. They lost tonight because their starter dug them in a big hole early because of how he pitched to everybody, Manny included.
They made a good comeback and just fell short.
Bottom line, they split the series. There is no advantage to either team right now.
Both teams have issues. Now, we see which team will address their issues better in the coming weeks.
Agree with Betsy, we simply need more out of the starters, this only going 3-4 innings nonsense isn’t cutting it. It’s a chain reaction when the starter goes down.
Bayron – I meant Albaladejo. Thanks for the correction.
I think the bullpen showed a lot of strength again today other than those 2 runs Albaladejo gave up. 2 runs over 6 innings of relief is pretty solid. They’re in danger of being tired out though if Ian Kennedy has a bad outing though, we need Joba back in that pen soon.
mlb.com’s gameday does not show a save…it should not be different from yankees.com…so now I’m confused.
Pete struck out on his analysis tonight.
In his defense, he’s still hitting around .800.
Pardon, its not a save because Papelbon started the inning with a 4 run lead. It must be 3 or less, or have the tie run on deck when he comes into the game. I stand corrected!!!
getting hit with a 90+mph fastball is not that big of a deal if it’s to certain areas. catchers are covered in bruises everywhere they don’t have padding and protection.
as a hitter, getting hit in the leg or butt hurts but it’s no big deal. it’s a part of the game like collisions at home plate. a pitch in on the hands is on the hitter to get out of the way. if they get hit , it was their choice to stay planted there like ellsbury tonight.
a pitch to the face or head is another matter. it’s just plain life threatening or career ending. a hitter can’t always get out of the way. a pitcher doesn’t intentionally do it if he respects the game and the players in it.
you folks really have to understand mussina is the problem here. he’s a coward. there’s no other way to look at it. that’s the real issue that needs to be dealt with.
don’t get mad at manny. what did he do, but take advantage of someone who refuses to do what a pitcher has to do?
if you want to get mad at someone,get mad at mussina.
Rishi,
it is not a save
Meanwhile – Nats and Mets tied at 2 in the 11th – a friend wanted me to go with her (company seats) and I refused…good decision I think or I’d be getting home in the middle of the night!
Bayron,
It’s says non-save situation in this article
http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com.....p;c_id=nyy
Thanks, Boston Dave…I think you’re right:)
Do we need to feel terrible about losing a Beckett vs Mussina matchup?
The Yanks were capable of winning this game but they would have needed Beckett to really be off his game.
The bullpen did come through yet again tonight though(6 IP 2 ER)
Like I corrected myself, it is not a save because Pap came in with a 4 run lead and the tying run was not on deck when he entered. Thanks!
Agree with Randy. If Farnsworth was trying to hit him in the head, that’s obviously the wrong thing to do.
I just don’t think he was trying to do that. I think he was trying to go in and in hard (which is how you have to pitch Manny) and the pitch got away from him.
I also agree with Randy re: Moose. We’ve seen this for years from him.
He has to change his pitching patterns if he is going to last this season.
lol
Any idea when they realign the pitching so it makes more sense?
(good things from this game)
Girardi has a hold of Farnsy (meaning Farnsy is willing to do watever, hopefully he can do it
)
Robi’s last AB the runner was in scoring position and he got him in
Melky’s AB got the better of Papelbon on the HR
Traber and Alba stepped it up for Wussina crap
we also found out Francona has either a tired BP or he doesn’t trust Delcarmen or Oki
Paps threw 24 pitches to get this win and we scored 2 runs in the btm. of the 9th.
——
long season ahead
SJ44.
I disagree. You have an advantage when you are on the road and split a series.
Having said that, there are way too many opinions being thrown around for 4/17. I believe 3 years ago Balt lead the East through the All Star Break…
We learned nothing through these two games accept Hawkins pithced well, Manny is nasty, and Ortiz is in a serious slump.
Gammons Just said whats a Triple A pitcher doing throwing at Manny….Typical Boston writer
Boston Dave,
Agreed. I miss Molina’s arm behind the plate. You need him around with Ellsbury and Lugo on the bases. I took some positives away from this series. Hawkins looks really solid, Albaladejo was hit a bit but kept it under control. Farnsworth looks like his slider has improved.
Offensively, the bats are waking up, and Jeter really looks solid since coming back to the line-up. Cano’s plate discipline looks much better and Matsui just looks like… Godzilla. We’ve discussed Mussina, let’s hope for a better outing next time. While we’re on that subject, here’s hoping Phil has a strong start tomorrow as well.
Dave,
That’s the way I look at it.
Let’s be honest, a Moose v. Beckett matchup is advantage Boston all the way.
Making Papelbon work, and scoring off him again, is a plus.
They split the series no its not a big deal.
Just need Phil and Ian to step up the next couple of days.
a dormir que ya esto se acabo!
“i wish beckett throws at someone. i want to see a brawl. the yankees have far better fighters than the redsox and heres proof:
advantage yankees-
giambi > ortiz (weak without roids)
jeter > lugo
posada > varitek (fights with catching gear)
arod > youkilis (his head is a big target)
cano > pedroia (this isnt even fair)
melky > ellsbury
abreu > drew
girardi > francona
farnsworth >
bruney >
advantage redsox-
ballboy > mussina
ramirez > damon
it’s obvious the yankees have better fighters than the blowsux.”
Anti-Mussina this is by far the most amusing, well-thought out post you have ever written.
I especially like your point about Posada with his catching gear, Youkalis’ big head, as well as your prediction on Mussina’s fate. I actually laughed out loud when I read this.
Just go a little easier on the players, huh?
You don’t walk Manny on his first AB. He was leading off the inning, you got good hitters behind him, and it’s early in the game. That homerun was a mistake by Mussina.
So’s the one in Boston. Mussina made the call AND the mistake.
Do you think Mussina’s blaming Girardi? No. He knows it’s on him. If Mike’s not blaming Girardi, no else should be.
Re-align the rotation and see what happens. If Mussina continues to struggle and can’t get wins as the #4 or #5 the strategy’s got to change.
Any word on why Moose only went 3?
“a dormir que ya esto se acabo!”
pues vete y para jodiendo
Could you please stop giving us readers Red Sox info unrelated to the immediate series? Why would the majority of yankees fans want to “keep up with the sawx?” I get enough of them as it is. We play them 18 excrutiating times this season. There are 12 other teams in this league. There are 144 other games. I am a Yankees fan. This is a Yankees beat blog. Enough!
Moose only went 3 cause he got the crap beat out of him.
“Do we need to feel terrible about losing a Beckett vs Mussina matchup?”
No – not at all. This matchup favors the Red Sox very, very heavily.
The yankees won the 2 games wang started against boston (although wang didn’t pitch well…).
Boston won the two games Beckett started and the swing game where phil pitched poorly.
That’s fine – a 3-2 Boston split was the most likely outcome given the pitching match ups and the fact that 3 games were at Fenway.
The Red Sox major achilles heal is in their bull pen and the fact that so many of their pitchers don’t work deep into the game.
If the Sox don’t get more innings out of their starters their pen is going to suffer.
The yankees have the same problem right now – but they have more internal resources to help address this shortcomings. They have greater pitching depth – that may be the key issue between these teams as the season progresses.
It’s going to be the second half of the season where the yankees are going to be able to make a move in the division.
They’ll be fine. The offense is waking up – even the come back tonight that fell short was a good sign.
Boston is a very good team. The split is fine.
The yankee’s major problem right now isn’t the bull pen – it’s the fact that their starting pitchers aren’t going deep enough into games.
They need good starts from Phil and Kennedy. That’s where the relief for the pen starts.
lol, nice going Brandon.
I think the Yankees can emerge from this road trip at .500 or better.
Just a hunch.
It is NOT A SAVE if the pitcher puts the tying runs on himself. Anyone who watches baseball should know that.
Re-aligning would require some days off, which is kind of lacking this month
Shaun, what are u saying??? If the new pitcher comes in leading by three and loads the bases and allows 2 runs but still wins, its a save.
I just know Kei Igawa is coming ….
Gammons is getting all upset on Baseball Tonight, saying Farnsworth should have been fined and ejected for throwing inside to Manny. He sounded genuinely angry. The older he gets, the less he tries to hide his true colors.
“I think the Yankees can emerge from this road trip at .500 or better.”
Great point. This is basically what they needed to do over the course of this difficult stretch.
It’s working out well because no one in the division is pulling away while the yanks have this tough schedule.
The sox also have a tough schedule this month so they also are looking ok.
The jays could have made a statement this month. Something of a lost opportunity for them.
.500 from this cluster of games will be fine.
aaahhhhh…… Igawa no por favor!
Yes because it was already a save situation. If it was not a save situation when the pitcher entered and he is then the last pitcher to pitch in the game, than it CANNOT BE A SAVE SITUATION.
When papelbon came into the game it was not a save situation. He cannot get a save for creating the save situation himself. Simple as that.
Agreed Shaun!
Here’s something funny to get your mind off the loss.
Click on each part of the brain for a different thought by CC Sabathia. You think Moose is stinking it up?
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn.....ortCat=mlb
are we surprised w/ what Gammons says really ? I mean to hell w/ him.
sj
i realize i’m coming on strong calling mussina a coward and i’m consciously partly doing it for shock value. i agree totally and think you have it right about how pitchers have to be able to go inside and make hitters move their feet. your beliefs about this are essentially girardi’s which is why i’m puzzled by him letting mussina get away with his personal indugence and refusal to attack and if necessary hit opposing hitters on purpose when the situation demands it.
mussina could survive this year with his fastball and other assortment of pitches if he went after hitters and got them out of their easy chair at the plate. refusing to go after hitters is a luxury neither he or the yankees can afford.
i have a hunch there’s going to be some closed door meetings with mussina. i just can’t see this continuing without girardi saying something. we’ll see.
maybe next time we’ll have a better matchup…
say…. Mussina vs Bartolo Colon
you have to feel good about the Yankees so far. Their offense will be fine. Their bullpen looks great (even without Joba) and is likely to get a boost from some mid-season callups.
the starting rotation causes some concern, but the Yanks really only need Hughes and Kennedy to be average and Mussina to be no worse than below average.
When Joba hits the rotation, to steal one from Buzz Lightyear….to October and beyond!!!!
nite everyone.
thats funny, I am sure Gammons was chuckling when Tavarez told Daisuke to throw high and tight to ARod and he plunked him.
Woooooooo, both Igawa and Igawang on the same team again!
Maybe Pete should join Gammons on Baseball Tonight in whining about Farnsworth throwing at Manny.
18-1 Pete
Kyle was interviewed on the postgame show. He said that the pitch slipped.
He also said that you have to pitch him inside. He said that the Boston hitters are too comfortable at the plate.
Moose said he made a lot of mistakes. He said it was not a good day to be pitching and that he had no idea where the ball was going.
Gammons reminds me of NESN, oops, ESPN’s version of Andy Rooney, some old coot just incessantly whining about something. Remember lasy year when Joba sent Youk a few wake-up calls ? You’d have thought Gammons was Herb Morrison. Bonus points to whoever gets the reference.
Okay guys, I’m running on about three hours of sleep over the past 48, so I’m going to call it an early night.
“Kyle was interviewed on the postgame show. He said that the pitch slipped.”
a blatent lie
“He also said that you have to pitch him inside. He said that the Boston hitters are too comfortable at the plate.”
a hint that he meant to do it
“Moose said he made a lot of mistakes. He said it was not a good day to be pitching and that he had no idea where the ball was going.”
I wish I could have struck out the side and still won’t throw inside because I don’t want.
> > Moose has to learn or he isn’t going to last the
> > season. You got to pitch inside and you can’t do it
> > passively.â€
> Supposidly he used to till he hit a player and it
> resulted in a fight. Since then. Its become a no go.
I’ve seen this story on the board before, but it’s not clear to me whether it’s some kind of urban myth, or a true story about Mussina.
Does anybody know? If so, details, please.
i was good to see the yankees get to paplebon. 5 runs isn’t too shabby against beckett and papelbon.
Watching the postgame show right now…some strong words used.
Farnsworth and then Moose both separately used the word mistake to describe the way Moose pitched to Manny tonight.
Girardi said Phil Hughes needs to step up tomorrow. Also said they’ll need to talk then make some decisions tomorrow about the rotation. Then Cone speculated potentially sending Hughes down to minor league to work things out.
We all know being Yankee manager is a very stressful job and Girardi has been sick, but man does he look like he’s aged 5 years in the last two months.
WTF happening to w/ Justin Verlander
With all the nuance Pete writes with, I’d say he’s a Red Sox fan at heart. That kinda sucks for this blog.
Didn’t see the Farns/ Manny pitch but in general I’m not a fan of throwing behind a hitter as there natural tendency is to jump back to get out of the way.
Reading about it, I thought the ball was going to be ear high and now seeing it, it was shoulder high. More purposeful a pitch than the one to Alex yesterday but the location wasn’t all that different and the result was one guy got hit and the other didn’t.
Pete’s blog has taken a step back this year. His blatant support of Torre via his bashing of Joe G gets rather annoying and obnoxious at times, on top of many other things.
Oh my God, it’s a 98mph fastball! Oh, the humanity! The 4-seamer is tumbling toward Manny Ramirez! The hurtling cork sphere, tightly wound with layers of yarn or string and covered with a stitched leather coat is moving inward ! The screams, oh Lord, the screams! Burning figures are falling from the twisted gondola! I can hear the shrieking of men trapped beneath the blazing metal! Please, sweet Christ, no!
Jeter on postgame
Derek was struggling to keep a straight face when asked about the pitch “geting away” from Farns and went on to say
“I get hit all the time. Close doesnt hurt, when you get hit it hurts”
The problem with sending down Hughes is Eiland’s in the bigs now. I predict that Hughes will have a better day tomorrow. IMO he needs to be more deliberate because the umps are making him earn his stripes.
Funny (or not so funny) is how Hughes, Wang, and Moose all had control issues.
pat,
gasp! Did Jeter actually back up a teammate?
“Do we need to feel terrible about losing a Beckett vs Mussina matchup?”
Agree with Boston Dave. The SP mismatch is a big factor. It was not a pretty game but given the mismatch a 7-5 final score is not so bad.
I think SJ44 said it earlier about A-Rod getting hit yesterday and nobody made a big deal of it. If you look as the replay of the pitch that hit A-ROd, it missed hitting the back of his head by about 6-10 inches. Now Manny gets thrown up and in and doesn’t even get hit and everyone is all over Farnsworth. A Yankee pitcher has finally stood up for one of their hitters (unlike the Torre years) and it seems that almost everyone wants something done. The crying should have been done yesterday by those who consider a pitch in the area of the head a baseball crime. Those who ignore or choose to ignore the A-Rod HBP and not say anything sounds a bit hypocritical.
Did anybody just see Derek on the postgame? They were asking about Farnsworth’s pitch. Derek said if Kyle said it slipped then it slipped.
Then someone said to Derek that the pitch almost hit Manny. Dreek said, “Almost doesn’t hurt. I get hit all the time and that hurts.”
yes he did, it looks like he finally is stepping it up, now just stay consistant because it is a long season.
Brandon,
Seriously, so you think I was being serious? Because if you think I was being serious, you are seriously wrong. I seriously doubt you think I was being serious.
mel
The words coming out of his mouth were Kyle says it got away from him but the smirk on his face was saying something else.
I couldn’t hear the writers question that elicited the “Close doesn’t hurt” response but it was a classic Jeter sound bite answer.
“WTF happening to w/ Justin Verlander”
He’s lost significant velocity or at least he’s just trying to throw much slower and it’s not working.
Verlander was sitting 91-93 tonight.
He used to sit comfortably 94-98. Last year in his no hitter he was throwing 100 in the ninth inning.
It’s a mystery now. Word out of Detroit earlier this season was that they were trying to get Verlander to throw more slowly hoping that he’d pick up more movement on his fastball. They were trying to dial him down to 93-95 or so. I’m no expert on what’s going on in Detroit but that’s my understanding of their explanation for why he was throwing with less velocity his first couple of starts.
But now game after game he is getting bombed. Either they are really committed to rengineering his pitching approach or he is hurt.
I find it hard to believe that they are taking Verlander and trying to change his pitching style so radically in the middle of all of their losing.
I’d guess he’s hurt.
In 2005 Verlander threw 129 innings.
In 2006 his innings jumped to 207 including the post season.
seriously I don’t seriously know what you are being serious about mel, I seriously pointed out that Jetes finally kind of stepped over the line of comfort in backing up a teammate. I haven’t seen him so that since Giambi, let alone Kyle Farnsworth, like I pointed out Farnsy put the team ahead of himself tonight and it looks like the Yankees roster appreciates it.
Hopefully Phil will think he’s back in AAA when he sees the Orioles lineup 4-9 tomorrow night.
Prediction: 6 1/3 2ER
CB I didn’t know that thank you.
jesus will this Met game finish
CB,
I saw Verlander’s no hitter and he was throwing pretty hard with great movement. Of course he won’t be locked in like that all the time but he was at least capable of high speed with movement. I haven’t seen him yet this season but I did notice he was sitting 91.
I dunno…
pat,
“Close doesn’t hurt” is a sound bite? I think that’s a great, clever answer. He’s the expert on getting plunked.
Sound bite would be “Pitches get away and hit me all the time.”
At any rate, I’m glad he said it cuz Joba got two games for being close and I don’t recall anyone getting suspended for hitting Jeter. It’s like, “It’s okay, they’re the Yankees. Let them suffer once in a while.”
And does anyone from their FO or staff send stuff to the MLB on all the missed calls/mistakes that go against the Yankees. When NESN says Ellsbury didn’t get hit, then, well, he didn’t get hit. Someone needs to pull a Mark Cuban and let them know that the Yankees won’t put up with this ish anymore. Their fans want fair and just officiating!!!
i’m going to get crushed for saying this on this blog, but the Mets are in the 14th inning…
I’m also watching this nutty Mets/Nationals game
never gonna end
Wow, I don’t like that. Joe says Phil needs to step up tomorrow? Or what, Joe? Sheesh – and Coney, I love you man, but GMAB. Sending Phil to the minors based on 2 and possibly 3 bad starts in a row is a complete overreaction. I want him to tell me what Phil has to learn by overmatching AAA players. He can only learn to be great by facing the best and we all know he’s more than capable of getting MLB hitters out. Sigh – poor Phil. He’s being picked apart by everyone under the sun and he’s got zero bandwagon. He’s basically now considered a #3…..ugh.
maybe former yankee Wil Nieves can end it.
” Funny (or not so funny) is how Hughes, Wang, and Moose all had control issues.”
it can sometimes be a problem throwing to a catcher that the pitcher is unfamiliar with. i don’t know if the pitchers had trouble with moeller. if they had a problem ,they’d likely get used to him fairly quickly.
my only problem with his catching is that i don’t like how he doesn’t give a target with his mitt when there are runners on second. i guess it’ so runners don’t signal location to the hitter. in that situation the last few night the pitchers just didn’t seem in sync with him. i’m going to have to take a closer look at posada and molina when they come back to see how they give a target with runners on second.
i don’t mean the above to be overly critical. moeller has done a very good job considering the emergency call up.
Let the Mets go 210 as far as I am concerned they start a series against the Phillies tomorrow
the announcers are complaining about a 4 1/2 hour-14 inning game. Thats almost a regular 9 inning game between the Yankees and Redsux.
BD,
That no hitter he was completely masterful. I believe he was clocked at 101 in the ninth.
But that was obviously an outlier.
Something I’ve always found really interesting as a general baseball issue is Justin Verlander’s strike out rates.
A very strange thing about his rookie season – he was throwing 97.98.99 mph and not striking anyone out.
His K/9 rate that year was only 6. I found that unbelievable.
Last year he was much better with strike outs – 8/9.
I wonder if he wound up throwing many more pitches in 2007 than in 2006?
This year he’s been consistently 91-94. Now in the past part of why he’d struck out very few batters his rookie year was chalked up to him overthrowing and his fastball being too straight.
So I figured maybe they were hoping to put less stress on his arm – throw slower, get more quick outs with contact, etc.
But now it’s just really perplexing. I’d guess he’s hurt.
No more Moose hunting…I’m done…..
CB,
Do you suspect anything wrong with Sabathia or is it between the ears?
And after Borowski’s awful blown save the other night he went on the DL, but I didn’t follow up on it.
“I want him to tell me what Phil has to learn by overmatching AAA players. He can only learn to be great by facing the best and we all know he’s more than capable of getting MLB hitters out.”
This is very true. He’ll go down there and overwhelm the opposition.
The things he needs to learn now he can only learn in the majors. There’s no substitute.
Betsey,
To be fair, Coney mentioned minor league for Hughes when he was reacting to Joe saying Hughes needs to step up tomorrow. Coney was speculating about what Joe might do if Hughes doesn’t have a good game tomorrow.
I was a little taken aback by the strong wording too.
Will Nieves saves the game still tied 2 – 2 in the 14th
I think we will see a very strong outing from Hughes tomorrow.
Well…I hope.
CB,
I will definitely try to catch Verlander’s next start vs Texas. Detroit can kiss the season goodbye if he doesnt figure it out or misses significant time on the DL.
Any thoughts on Sabathia? I havent seen him pitch this season either but something is up. I suppose it could be something as simple as him trying to overthrow the ball in his contract year to a mechanical issue or injury. Or just a fluke so far this season.
w/ Brian Schneider at the plate Hanrahan decided to throw a WP instead of a strike …wow
This is what someone posted on the board I post at (Rich, to give him credit):
I heard him. He said that he has patience with his young pitchers, that he believes in them, but they also need a quality start from Phil, given the way the pen has been overused. which he defined as six or seven innings. Phil knows the deal. He just needs to do what he has always done in his mL career and just let it fly.
This was my response:
I know, but still – the kid is struggling, just like everyone who has ever played the game at some point. He’ll come out of it and be fine. I love Joe, but I really question the wisdom of his comments; did he come out and say that he needs Cano (for example) to produce so that the starting pitcher wouldn’t have so much pressure to be perfect?
Honestly, if the Yankees can’t be patient with Phil (after two bad starts, as if it’s only his fault about the bullpen), then even though I think it’s the wrong move, maybe he should be sent down. If Joe needs guaranteed innings, then bring up Karstens or some other journeyman pitcher.
Now I’ll add this: I love this kid a lot – he’s a special young man as well as a special young talent. It’s frustrating to see how many people (and more disturbing, experts) jump off his bandwagon after two starts this year and proclaim him (a la Sickles) a #3.
Here is a quote from the NY Times which is appropriate:
“You don’t necessarily want to see a player struggle, but when they do struggle, you want to see how they go through it, and how they come out of it,†Manager Joe Girardi said.
“I believe that Phil has extreme confidence in his ability,†Girardi said. “I think it bothers him that he hasn’t thrown well, but I don’t think he’s worried, and we’re not worried either. We believe it’s going to happen, and we believe it’s going to happen soon.â€
And my reaction:If anyone is going to worry, I’d rather it be me. I’m very glad that Phil is not spending his time rehashing his problems over and over again, worrying about what’s wrong, whether he’s going to be the pitcher he knows he can be, worrying about what others (like “experts” ) think about him, etc….He would just be imposing an impossible burden of perfection on himself. No, let fans worry about this stuff. I’m so glad that Phil is still confident, and I totally agree with Joe. This is really going to make Phil a better pitcher and down the line (this year, next, whatever), those “experts” who know think he’s at best a #3 will be eating quite a few platefuls of crow.
mel,
It’s hard to say.
Could it be the pressure of the upcoming free agent year? Sure. Everyone says he’s very sensitive, etc, etc.
But you really have to wonder about his arm.
The strangest thing about Sabathia this year isn’t simply his ERA (13.5). I mean that is ugly but you know that he’s being bombed and ERA’s can be very weird early in the season.
The strangest thing about Sabathia this year is that he’s completely lost his command. He has always been an extreme control pitcher – perhaps the best in all of baseball.
Last year he only walked 1.38/9 – that is absolutely ridiculous.
This year – he’s walked 14 hitter in 18 innings! That’s a rate of 7 BB/ 9 innings!
So somehow his walk rate over these first three games has increased 500%? What is that about.
He’s also given up 32 hits over 18 innings! That’s double the rate of hits he was giving up last year.
His WHIP right now is an ugly 2.5.
None of this adds up.
It’s the walks that worry me most about him having an injury. I just can’t imagine a guy like Sabathia all of a sudden not being able to find the plate.
I’d also guess that he’s given up so many hits because he’s falling behind in the count and has poor command in the zone.
It’s early but it’s concerning, especially in the context of what he did last year.
He threw 256 innings last year including the playoffs. That is amazing – the kind of number you’d see in the 1970’s.
nationals are a terrible team they make too many mistakes, easley should have been thrown out a second but the ss drops the ball, then the terrible throw that sends easley to third, and of course a wild pitch to finish it off, thats just bad baseball
I didn’t hear the tone in which Girardi used, but I think it’s fair to say that it was an expectation rather than a threat. It’s probably something that’s already been discussed with Phil. Good to know that Girardi’s not waiting until the end of the season to make adjustments.
I still can’t believe the nitpicking of Girardi. It’s way to early to kill him on the little things. These men are professional athletes and it’s up to them to execute. We gave up to many runs or didn’t score enough in each of our losses. Team effort, team losses.
Aardsma hit A-Rod in the back of the shoulder. Same thing.
Dee, thanks.
This isn’t a good week for my 1996 Yankees; I’m upset with Paul and now I’m very upset with Joe. Taking this out on Phil is inexcusable……..now they’re going to talk about the pitching tomorrow? I guess Phil’s pitching for his spot in the rotation, LOL. He’s got to carry the bullpen on his back tomorrow – how ludicrous. I don’t care about losing a game – it happens – but this is very disturbing.
CB,
Thanks. For nothing. lol. We’ll see what happens. I’m not a big CC fan (not clamoring for him to come here), but he seems like one of the good guys, and I wouldn’t want there to be anything seriously wrong. Granted, I don’t mind Cleveland winning less games than us, but you still don’t wish him any ill will.
“I think it’s fair to say that it was an expectation rather than a threat.”
I heard his tone and it didn’t sound like a threat.
Mel, I do think there has been (particularly from Pete himself) a lot of nitpicking of Joe, but then, I guess that comes with the territory of being a manager.
In this case, I think it is simply inexcusable for the manager to broadcast what his expectation is for a 21 year old who is struggling. Then I hear that the Yanks are going to discuss the rotation tomorrow. I’m sorry, but I really feel that this is the Yankees responsibility. If they can’t handle the struggles that Phil (and it appears Joe is laying this on Phil only) is going to have, then he should never have been given a spot in the rotation. Maybe he should send Traber down and bring up a long man – that would help the bullpen (even though it’s the awful Rasner; I would rather lose a few games than ruin the health of anyone in our pen).
It seems to me that instead of helping Phil, all Joe is doing is exacerbating the situation. It’s not nitpicking; I’m simply disagreeing on how he’s chosen to handle the situation. He says in the NYTimes article that he’s got patience for young pitchers, but that’s not what the post-game show suggests. Keep in mind that I love Joe -but I don’t have to agree with him to still love him.
Betty,
Pshaw. Don’t worry about Phil, he’s been through a lot even though people here think he’s been coddled. Injuries? No problem. Trade rumors? No problem. Phil’s got “IT” and he’ll bounce back. No doubt about it.
Betsy,
Sorry, got your name wrong. And my 12:09 post was to your earlier post.
I hear your concerns and as a mother I feel for Phil, but I’m a believer in responsiblity and tough love, too. I bet that’s what Girardi’s going for. Believe me, Girardi’s already talked to Phil about how he needs to go deep into tomorrow’s game. Not because of Phil. Because of Moose and Wang. The Yankees need him to pick them up, the bullpen up. Girardi’s very behind the office door kind of guy. He’s not sending any messages to the players through the media.
My nitpicking complaint’s directed at the beat writers. I saw it in the Boston series. I won’t complain about Pete, but plenty people have. I say give him a chance and you can’t blame him if players don’t execute.
What a shock! Steve Philips thinks Farns should have been tossed, suspended, fined and hung from his toenails for pitching behind Manny.
Goes on to say that Farns gets no clubhouse collateral for doing what he did and all the veterans in the clubhouse can’t be happy because they know they are marked.
Jeter didn’t look all that broken up about it.
Just checked the weather it’s supposed to be nice and warm in Baltimore tomorrow night around low 70/hi 60. I really think Phil’s 2 bad outings so far had a lot to do with cold weather, he was always blowing on his hand looking like he was freezing. I’m confident he’ll do much better tomorrow. Better weather plus I think he’s mentally tough.
My take on things without reading all the posts. SOme of it will be obvious but here are a few of my early season observations.
The pen will be much better then last yr. Obviously Joba is a big improvement but there other arms are mainly power arms and they will either perform or move on. So the pen will be much better then last yr.
Melky appears to b=not be the next Mantle but a lefit legit everyday pretty good CF. On a team with this talent if he can hit 15 to 20 HR’s with a obp of 350+ they will be fine.
They need HUGHES to pick it up, if Hughes can be what they want him to be then there starting staff will be fine but if he does not have a low 4 type ERA that is a big problem.
moose is done he has to be perfect and is a mid 4 ERA best case scenario..Hughes or Kennedy need to improve quickly and I pick Hughes because I think he can be special….
The offense will be great and I sure wish Cano had decent plate discipline because when he is slumping he is terrible because he never works a count and never walks…
They will be fine and win 90+ games…
I guess this is what petes talks about. Alex walking out on him. If this is the case i do not find anything wrong with him doing this.
watch at the as he “walks out” on him.
watch the last second because is in spanish.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ns5C96H-1hw
Hey Mel
That’s the thing – I’m not worried about Phil because he’s got the best attitude a kid can have in this situation. He’s still quite confident and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t pay attention to what the press/experts are saying about him. He’s much more mature at 21 than I am at 36, LOL. It’s just kind of surreal – same time last year, Yankee fans were bubbling over with excitement about what Phil would mean to the future. Fast forward a year and we are picking all the nits and dissecting what is wrong with a 21 year old, as if he can never get better and that he’s always going to be what he is now.
I know, I’m getting emotional about it, but I get very passionate about my teams and when I pick favorite players, I go to the mat defending them. I still believe Phil will be fine and he’ll be a great pitcher…..but the only important thing is that he believes it.
Maaan Alex is a funny guy I tell you’ll.
Betsy,
the only thing that is wrong is the huge expectations some people have of a 21 yr old in the big leagues. perhaps the johan santana sweepstakes really distorted some people’s views. i saw MANY posters say “i think hughes will be better than Santana and maybe even by this season”.
however, phil was better than he pitched against the Sox. he knows it and I dont think its wrong to pull him aside and tell him to trust his stuff. If Phil is the way I think he is, then he will look at what he did wrong mechanically against the Sox and work to improve.
I do hope Joe G said what he did as support/confidence rather than a means to put pressure on Phil. I don’t know if Phil is sensitive or not, but I doubt he needs any extra pressure.
Hey Mel
No problem with my name ……:)
You make good points about Joe – it could be that I am tired (well actually, I am overtired) and being overly sensitive. I didn’t hear the post-game myself and I admit that I tend to leap before I look. I assumed the worst from Joe’s comment and took it from there.
I agree that the Yankees need a good performance from Phil tomorrow……just the way that if it was Ian or anyone else, they’d still need a good performance. With Dee confirming nice weather for tomorrow, I’m off to bed thinking nice, positive thoughts.
I heard Joe’s comments on the postgame, and I was a little surprised at the words, but it clearly wasn’t a threat. Joe was getting a tad testy with the media. He didn’t lose his cool or anything, but you could hear in his voice that he was getting frustrated. Also I agree with whoever it was above who said that he looks like he’s aged five years already this season. I think he looks gaunt, and stressed. So I definitely don’t think his words and tone were directed at Hughes. It probably came out harsher than he meant it just because he’s feeling stressed.
For what’s it’s worth, the Phil Hughes-powered Yanks are favored over Baltimore tomorrow night while the Johan Santana-fronted Mets are the betting underdogs vs. the Phillies, with Cole Hamels pitching.
Good weather, the friendly confines of Camden Yards, a need to prove himself AND I’ll be at the game tomorrow. Look for Hughes to toss a gem.
Manny quote on Farns pitch, from Providence Journal website projo.com
“We hit one of the best players here (Wednesday) night, so I guess they just want to send a message,†he said. “They need to back up their players and compete. . . â€
Blegh. JUST got home from the stadium (I live in Jersey). Blegh.
Glad they made a comeback of it, but blegh.
I can’t believe people are getting on Girardi for putting “pressure” on poor Phil. All he said was the truth, they need a good outing from him (and Kennedy). The bullpen is logging alot of innings during a tough schedule. I think it was a good move by Girardi it wasn’t a threat it was an honest assessment.
Crazy game in San Diego. 1-1, middle of the 16th with no end in sight.
Still going, top of the 20th.
i have been watching this padres game for nearly 5 hours.. and i think i started watching in the 6th.
I think many of you read waaayyy to much into Girardi’s about Phil. He only said what is painfully obvious to all of us he neeeds to give some lenth tomorrow but more importantly for himself he needs to have a good outing for himself. He didnt threaten him, he didnt say he was going to the minors all he said washe has to be good for us tomorrow.
Ya think?? He put no more pressure on him than he puts on himself.
Go Rockies!
(will the game end in a tie if each team runs out of pitchers???)
an unearned run for the Rockies! Yes!!
http://thelongestlistofthelong.....ong19.html
I wonder how many hours tonight’s game was! Almost came close to the 26 inning mark!
the official time of the game was listed as 6 hours and 16 minutes
The Rockies scored their first run on abases loaded walk, and scored the second run with the help of an error. Heh, the Padres must feel like crap. I imagine the starting catchers for each team will have the day off tomorrow since they both caught 22 innings tonight.
19-10…we are going to have a MONSTER group of games !
We don’t play Boston again until July and a whole lot can change between now and then. Having said that I would suggest that the Yanks take an “anybody but Manny” strategy with regard to pitching.
That is, you don’t pitch to the guy with men on, period.
You let anyone else on the team beat you but him.
If Ortiz comes back to form this is problematic as he hits behind him, but so far this year you can go right after Ortiz.
No one in that current lineup scares me except Manny.
Ortiz-slumping
Lowell- hurt
Varitek- old
Pedroia- pesky but not much power
Ellsbury- punch and judy hitter
Lugo- are you kidding me?
Youklis- patient hitter, could be dangerous but throw strikes early and get ahead.
Manny is the only one to worry about. I hope Girardi takes this strategy next time.
Oh I forgot JD Drew,
I can’t figure that guy out. He stunk for 5 months last year then became very good in the playoffs. Does he not care or is he just inconsistent? Who knows?