Yankees moving in the right direction
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on May 23, 2008 
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First some perspective:
The Mariners are 18-31 and 5-16 this month. Even Ichiro looks like he doesn’t care. This is a dead team walking.
That said, the Yankees have scored 23 runs in the last three games and allowed three. That may not quite signal the return of good times, but it’s the first bit of consistency from this team in several weeks.
Here’s a fine summation from our man Shelley Duncan:
“Every team is different. Just because last year’s team came back and played well after a slow start doesn’t mean this team will. We needed some confidence and these last three nights have shown us what we can do.â€
Shelley then said, literally, “Go put that in your blog.” Thankfully he didn’t head-butt me.
Kevin Long pointed out that left-handed hitters had seven of the eight hits Erik Bedard allowed. That’s a good sign for the Yankees.
Most of this you can trace back to A-Rod. The Yankees are 3-1 since he came back. He does plenty himself. But he allows Girardi to better balance the lineup. His presence enlivens Bobby Abreu and creates more RBI opportunities for Hideki Matsui and Jason Giambi.
“He was the MVP,” bench coach Rob Thomson said.
Sometimes, it’s just that simple.
Thanks for all the holiday weekend comments. Check back tomorrow. Mike Mussina against Carlos Silva at 1:05.
(J.B. Cox, 1.2 scoreless innings for the win tonight for Scranton, by the way).
I think what Shelley Duncan said about confidence is key…
Because, when you have a little confidence it can build and build…
And that’s how a 3-game winning streak can turn into a 10-game winning streak!
Go Yanks!
Happy Memorial Day weekend Pete. Lots of drama in Yankeeland this week and great reporting as usual in this blog. Thanks!
This is where it all begins folks. I know there will be a convenient correlation to the Girardi tirade as a spark to turn it all around, but it’s as simple as this – it’s a veteran team that missed it’s best player (only the best player on the planet) and you’ll see at least .600 baseball from here on out – book it!!!
“Go put that in your blog.†– Man that kid is hilarious.
by the way, can’t wait to see Cox in the Bronx. Its been a long time coming. HOOKEM!
4 game winning streak?
Probably not gonna happen. But may be this will make me a believer in miracles.
what type of pitcher is Cox? From what I understand he isnt a power arm.
It’s finally fun again to go to the ballpark and be a fan. I hope they keep this up. They have way too much talent to keep struggling like they had been.
Wagner blew the save on a Holliday HR… 5-5 in Denver
“But he allows Girardi to better balance the lineup.”
Or Genius of the Day, Rob Thomson.
Holliday at Coors Field is a dangerous man anywhere else pedestrian-like…OH BOY
I am very high on J.B. Cox. A former closer (followed Huston Street), he does not have the power arm that other closers have. Cox was throwing 91-92 (have not heard how Tommy John has gone, so do not know if he lost any mph). A right hander that comes at a low arm angle (used to be a side armer similar to Jeff Nelson, has a slightly higher arm angle). He had a good slider partly from the low arm action. While he does not have the ceiling to be a closer, he could be a useful set up man, and could handle the 8th inning.
If you are interested, there is some video on youtube that shows Cox’s arm action.
what a horrible camera angle
Jose WTF were you doing there, my god something is wrong w. that kid’s head
“Stick that up your blog…”
I hope that Girardi uses the same lineup again. I don’t care about matchups. Just see if they can mashup.
try 12 game winning streak !!!…..ROCK ON !
Cox projects to be an innings eater at the ML level as a reliever… works quick, good control and movement, excellent GO/AO ratio, and throws from a very deceptive arm slot. Has a very good slider which is his K pitch but is a groundball machine.
I’m trying to think of a good ML comp for him… maybe Brandon Lyon?
Scot Shields is a good comp if Cox’s changeup improves. Shields had a bit more sink to his pitches, but Cox’s slider has more dive to it.
nope Jeff Nelson Jr. like
I was out tonight as some friends took me to dinner for my 40th birthday – and in the middle of dinner I checked the score on my cell phone. It was already 13-2 in the 6th! I nearly knocked my plate of huevos con chorizo onto the floor! When I checked the box score upon getting home, I saw that there was only ONE home run – great to see that the bats came around tonight. Thanks for a great bday gift, Yankees.
Happy Birthday Wolf – no wonder we scored so many runs lol
Good job Peter. Have a good weekend.
Happy birthday, Wolf. Here’s to 40 plus more birthdays for you.
A-Rod does make a difference to the team. Hopefully Posada will be back soon.
thanks for the vid brandon – can’t wait to see the kid pitch
Did you guys see Valverde?? Took a line-drive off the side of the head, goes down for a while, and finishes the inning
“Did you guys see Valverde?? Took a line-drive off the side of the head, goes down for a while, and finishes the inning”
I read about that. Man, I can’t imagine that.
Pavano took one off the noggin back when he used to, you know…pitch. I can’t help but wonder if that had something to do with his attitude towards working his way back from injury.
That season was ridiculous…I feel like Pavano and Wright BOTH took one off the head at some point, and then Wright got hit somewhere else on his body by another comebacker, and THEN got hit by a shard of a broken bat.
I hate how fox has the rights to broadcast the saturday games if it is before 7:00 because although i have the mlb package i cannot watch the game
And this is a special game…JOBA IS PITCHING ABOUT 50 PITCHES tommorow… hopefully we get to see his full arsenal and mow everyone down.
YANKEES 08
I think putting chamberlain in the rotation is a bad idea. I know not too many ppl will agree with that statement. I think having a good bull pen is important.
I think this kind of gave Ian a boost. & I loved his song “here to stay”
I hope Phil & Ian stay in the roataion but that might not be possible being that Rasner is pitching great & chamberlain is on his way in. There is some competition here.
I think that they should send Ian or Phil to the bullpen & do the same process that they did with joba. I think if Kennedy doesn’t pitch as well as his previous outing they should consider giving him the same process that they did for chamberlain because Kennedy doesnt need to go to AAA scranton, he has already proved he can pitch there.
I’m with you Tyler – we (people outside of NY) can’t watch the game tomorrow because we’re forced to watch an AWFUL fox broadcast if we want to watch a game. It’s Saturday, all anyone wants to do on Saturday afternoon is relax and watch their team play. I hate it
oh – and i can see giving them a 3 hour slot (1, 4, 7 w/e) but I can’t watch the 1:00 game because they have exclusive rights on the 4:00 game…. great job MLB, great job
Thanks Joe T and Angel.
Angel – 40 more … I can only hope. LOL
Joe T sorry I took so long was getting midnight food, yeh I saw it damn that kid has cojones to finsh it off.
“FIRE WILLIE WATCH 08′” continues
Valverde gutsy save
This is me just fantasizing… is there any way we can trade for Ichiro? Give them some young promising pitchers, maybe even Tabata.
“That season was ridiculous…I feel like Pavano and Wright BOTH took one off the head at some point, and then Wright got hit somewhere else on his body by another comebacker, and THEN got hit by a shard of a broken bat.”
I remember that season, the thing about that season is Pavano was hit once and gone for the year Jaret Wright after his first comebacker to the head, 2-4 weeks later he got hit again, and then after that he took one off the stomach, I thought he had badluck after that, as for Pavano I nicknamed him Pussano after that because he needed bubble wrap to want to play again, then he gets hurt falling on his butt
“This is me just fantasizing… is there any way we can trade for Ichiro? Give them some young promising pitchers, maybe even Tabata.”
why ? we have enough LHBs
Wow, I just read that the Mets ended up losing that game. Hope Willie is still employed. It’s a shame what’s going on there.
ellen I watched the end of that Mets game, so many mental mistakes, they are playing like they know thier manager is going to be fired. They’re playing scared.
Brandon,
Are you kidding. You’re getting rid of as many as four of them in the next year or so (G, D, A and M), and then there are left handed hitters and there are left handed hitters.
If Ichiro was the NYY lead, Alex would have a gazillion RBIs.
Besides, we will need something to keep all of those Japanese network folks and photogs around once Matsui leaves.
Shelley must’ve read what you said about him having a
“terrible at-bat”+took it to heart
are you kidding me at what cost ? you think we don’t have a LHB who’s a speedster in AAA, you think the future at OF is that drained, the only reason a Brett Gardner isn’t up here is because he is not a RHB, we have OF options no point in getting into this type of thing.
as for Shelley I’m glad he finally hit a HR but this kid isn’t an untradeable, love his passion but if a team comes calling I’m listening hard.
Brandon, I also watched the Met game, and I would have to tend to disagree with you. Towards the end, yeah, the Mets made a lot of mental mistakes, but so did the Rockies. From what I saw you have to think to yourself, maybe the Mets just aren’t a good team. I mean Jose Reyes is an abomination. He has a baseball IQ of 0. Willie Randolph can’t really prevent Reyes from getting picked off second, but Randolph should have been screaming at him when he came back in the dugout. At this point, if he publicly embarrassed Reyes, at least Willie can go out with some dignity.
I don’t believe that the Mets were making mental mistakes because Willie Randolph is their manager, they are probably making them because they are a poor conceived team that is going nowhere no matter who their manager is.
Oh and one more thing, when I saw Reyes get picked off second, I was thinking to myself, WOW, people were comparing this guy to DEREK JETER? Pull up the statistic on how many times Derek Jeter has been picked off second base in a tie game, extra innings, standing on second with nobody out. I guarantee it’s 0. Reyes can never be anything like Jeter because he has no baseball IQ. Anyone who even theoretically compared Reyes to Jeter should feel like a complete idiot.
David that’s not what I mean, in the pregame you heard the players saying they want Willie to stay but you can sense they don’t know what is going to happen next, the reason they loss tonight was because they just can’t stay focused, take Reyes at SS, and here’s the thing as much as I love Jetes Reyes year 3 was a game changing SS .300/.354/.487 he was one of the best fundamentally sound SS in 06′ in all of baseball. That we can’t take away from him he wasn’t just hype we saw it in the subway series games and in big games.
Tonight you see Reyes at 2B thinking of how to get a jump to 3B and it’s like he wanted to get his winning run to 3B and forgot you got Castillo bunting chances are you can walk to 3rd at your speed, then you see Wright thinking he’s the last hope trying to drive the ball 700 feet because he wants the W but doesn’t want to let it just come to him because he’s thinking they need a win badly, if you ever played w/ something on the game in thier case it’s for thier manager’s job, you can see on the Wright groundball bobble he didn’t even look it into his glove he’s thinking of throwing the ball to 1st before the ball even went into his glove. Wright is right now feeling pressure that he has never felt before, you can’t win that way, he likes his manager 1/2 the team likes Willie but right now they are in a huge pressure point in thier careers.
Reyes trying to win badly is getting away from his basics, Wright the same. This is when your youth steps up too much and thier vets need to pick them up to have a chance in them settling. In the Mets case guys like Delgado who knows he’s gone after this season and Beltran who not a leader at all can only do so much, Pedro was thier calming mentor now he’s in D.R. w/ his ailing father. It’s not an easy thing and the guy who needs to be blamed is Omar Minaya Adam Rubin put it so perfect he constructed the team around vets in thier downward career but have no real fallback in thier farmsystem because it’s drained.
“Shelley then said, literally, “Go put that in your blog.†Thankfully he didn’t head-butt me.”
we get it, hes a physical lad. we get it!
Go Shelley! I love that Girardi is playing him- This kid is great when he is given the chance. He proved that at the end of last season. 2 nights in a row -he had 2 very ‘key’ at bats. He hit the game tying RBI Sac-fly on Thursday night and the jump ahead to 3 runs last night! Go Shelley!
And Go Yanks! Everyone (except jeter, and that’s quite ok) had at least 1 hit last night… I am so loving this!!!
Even when Arod isn’t hitting he still makes the lineup more formidable. Nice to have him back.