Clean living
Posted by: Sam Borden - Posted in Misc on May 23, 2009 
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Although the Yankees saw their winning streak come to an end, they did continue a streak of a different kind: Last night was the ninth straight game in which the Yankees did not commit an error.
Not surprisingly, the Yankees are 21-5 this year when they play a clean defensive game, and last night it wasn’t just routine plays they were making – it was exceptional ones.
Earlier this season I was hearing from readers (and listening to callers on the radio) complaining about how Mark Teixeira wasn’t doing enough to save bad throws from other infielders and/or wasn’t covering enough range, but I’d say last night was a pretty good example of why he’s thought of as a superior fielder. If he doesn’t make a diving stop in the first inning, the Yankees are probably out of the game even earlier; he then made another one a few innings later. The Yankees also got a terrific grab from Robinson Cano going up the middle to start a double play.
Sure, the Phillies made some great plays in the field too — I’d be curious to see how the game was different if they don’t make that perfect relay to the plate to get Johnny Damon in the first inning — and ultimately, the Yankees came up short for the first time in awhile. But there’s no question that a big key to Yankees starting another winning streak is for them to continue this run of error-less baseball.
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I’m headed out for the day shortly. Hope everyone enjoys the start to the weekend and I’ll check back in later on tonight. Have a great holiday!
No errors but Swisher was simply awful in RF.
I’d like to see how that game plays out if Ruiz’ pop fly doesn’t exit Coors East.
It is embarrassing to see this place seen as the laughingstock of a ballpark – they can’t go back to the old one so they just have to improve this one – Lonn Trost – you screwed it up but so did the team for leaving a perfectly good place.
From the other post.
Philly is close to NY but so is Boston and there are many Boston transplants in NY too. But I don’t remember THAT many RS fan being in YS the way it was Philly fans last night.
Even the Legends seats behind HP was a joke.
Just too much red in the stands last night.
randy,
I wanted to apologize for my comment at the end of last evening. It was completely inappropriate. I misread your comment and what I wrote misinterpreted and overblew the point you were making. I was tired last night and wasn’t planning on staying up that late as it was, never mind staying up and writing about a complicated point of pitching mechanics. I just didn’t pay adequate attention to the points you were trying to get across. For that I’m sorry.
I went back this morning and reread the thread and feel badly for making that comment. I should have been more careful to understand what you were saying and not so quick to cast stones. I should have just stopped blogging given that I was tired and it had been a long day.
We’ve had many terrific baseball conversations. They can get contentious at times – but that’s a good thing. Over agreement is usually a bad sign and not very interesting.
I hope we can continue our discussions.
Wang’s return a success?
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/articl.....8;c_id=mlb
Well..I guess so.
Chien-Ming Wang was broken. Did they fix him?
http://statspeak.net/2009/05/c.....x-him.html
The answer seems to be no.
“With Youkilis crowding the plate in the fifth, Santana hit him in the right forearm. Youkilis stared at Santana, who didn’t appreciate it. Youkilis insisted he was kidding, maintaining that he just shouted an expletive and, “That hurt.” Santana was fuming.”
“Two outs. Two strikes. There’s no way I’m going to hit anybody intentionally,” Santana said. “After I hit him, he just stood there and started looking at me. I don’t appreciate that. I play the game the right way. I don’t want to hit him. But if you’re looking at me like that, you’re going to get it back because I’m a gamer, and that’s what I’m going to do. I just told him to take his base, and that was about it. But he was still looking at me and talking. And it fires me up.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/spo.....KSV&A
Well here we are and the offense is looking dim. All this paper power. Boy, three HRs, wha happened. Other than the juiced ball to compensate for the loss of chemical power, same old, same old. The same thing happened as in previous games with inferior pitching and suspect BPs. Alex is sure impressive, 8 hits and 6 HRs. The Yankees never challenged Myers. At 7 – 1, two HRs are paper power. These 8, 9 pitch innings are really disturbing. They let the opposing pitcher get into a rhytm and wear out your pitcher because he doesn’t have time to regroup. And then there is Mr Swisher, he of the 27 mil contract and no contact. Boy those Sox were really dumb to unload this power walking machine with the high UZR in RF. Last year was an aberration and he’ll come back to the norm. Look at his high OPS. Well, maybe not.
How long before Mr Jackson is rushed up to cover the boondogle. Hey, the Yankees are right there in the mix for first place and unless CC is lights out, they could be looking at a sweep. That’s why they play the game.
Youkilis insisted he was kidding?
Give me a break
Doesn’t really matter about defensive errors if the opponent hits the ball out of the park.
I guess winning 9 in a row isn’t good enough…….
Brett Myers the wife beater shuts down the Yankees. Not surprised.
Today they face a pitcher they haven’t seen before AGAIN. I’m predicting another shut down performance.
BTW anyone have the slightest clue why Teixiera is still struggling hitting off-speed stuff?
We can win tonight, We got a veteran on the mound. Just Let Pettite Pitch, Cervelli catch and lets play clean baseball.
We can easily take this series With Pettite today and CC tomorrow.
“Youkilis insisted he was kidding?”
That was funny. AL pitchers hate his act and now he’s started a collection in the NL too.
“Pay special attention to the first two versus the last three. See how the first two graphs have the cluster of points lower and farther away than the last three? This means that Wang’s release point in 2008 was lower than it currently is. As you can see, his stay on the DL has done nothing to change that–it is still higher than it was in two of his most dominant starts of 2008.”
S.A.–The sun will come out tomorrow; I’m down with the OPPC-
thanks for the link.
this backs up what i’ve been saying since spring training.
i’m going one step further and saying that i think the yankees are coaching the higher release point and this is what is ruining wang’s sinker.
time’s up on giving the yankees the benefit of the doubt here. they need to be asked some direct questions about what they are doing with wang’s release point.
Matsui is pulling off the ball. How do we know that? He hits low outside pitches to the 2B. Swisher – I have no idea what he’s doing other than he’s closing his eyes and swinging from the heels. He struck out yesterday on two balls in the dirt. What bothers me is at least six balls in play on the first pitch yesterday. That’s not competing, that’s mailing it in.
S.A.–The sun will come out tomorrow; I’m down with the OPPC May 23rd, 2009 at 10:24 am
Youkilis insisted he was kidding?
Give me a break
*********
This is the same guy who stomps around and complains when someone pitches him inside. yep okay.
cb-
thanks. no problem. i value the discussion back and forth also. i’m short on time today as it’s the first real day of my cape cod business season, but this thing about release point is important so i’ll tune in from time to time.
i’ve decided to go all in on saying it’s the yankees themselves who are changing his release point for the sole purpose of pushing the issue to the yankees. all it takes is for some reporter or blogmeister to get hear about our lively debate and take it to the yankees.
as far as getting to the truth of things,it works well for us to have a different opinion about what is causing wang’s release point to be much higher than last year when he was pitching well.
we do agree on the objective data. the only difference is why his release point is so high.
it’s very discouraging to see wang come back after 6 weeks and have almost the same high release point.
i’m going to play devils advocate and for arguments sake stay on my belief that the yankees are encouraging it.
if they are not, there is still the question of why they aren’t doing something about the high release point .
we’ll keep at it on the blog. eventually, there’s going to be a ripple effect and this debate is going to get back to the yankees one way or another.
they can’t keep ignoring the high release point and talk about everything else but what is so strikingly obvious.
Why is Berroa still on the team? We can use a bat like Miranda on the bench.
I am still thinking back to the day that Manny backhanded Youklis in the dugout! Ever time I think about that I start to laugh.
Whenever someone brings up the launching-pad theory of the Stadium, I will likely add the same two cents I do each time. I am really bothered by the whiffle-ball park patina that currently seems to equate with the new Yankee Stadium. If someone had plotted a graph dealing with fan preferences for home-run hitter parks before the Stadium was built, I would have been on the furthest end of the intense dislike spectrum. So I think it is fair to say that each time we see the appearance of a jocular launching pad, it is passively driving me to fan distraction. I have no trouble with Yankee losses and am as optimistic as you’ll get. Yet this thing bothers me intensely.
That said, I blame nobody for particular individual(s)for what it is and only hope that in time someone will be able to step up, figure it out, and fix it.
Randy, good luck with your season. It will be interesting to see whether the economy manages to bypass you since people still do tend to enjoy taking their rides to the Cape! Here’s hoping so.
Please again give me some information on where you are since I will definitely want to take a trip down to see you.
ace- I’d say about one more week and he’ll be gone. They still want to make sure Alex is okay.
randy l -
They have the same access to the graphs and even more access to videos. It does make you wonder. I don’t necessarily think their not mentioning release point to the media means they haven’t been mentioning it to Wang, but who knows? All that’s evident is that Wang was not Wang yet last night – better but not quite right. It would at least seem that the Yankees knew this going in, and had circumstances been different (Joba not leaving a game in the first inning), Wang would never have pitched last night.
I do have a question though. Unless Wang approves, I don’t think the Yankees can send him back to SWB, correct? I mean, he’s no longer on the DL. They’d have re-DL him or get his approval. I don’t know how they’re going to get him the work he needs. He is really not quite ready to start. I don’t think they can afford to have every fifth game pitched as a split game between Wang and Hughes. So, I do wonder what’s going to happen here.
I think it would be great if someone would ask point blank about Wang’s release point, but I doubt you’d get a satisfactory answer, unfortunately. The Yankees are always vague.
It’s kind of silly that people are all bent out of shape over last night’s loss. Admittedly, it was not a good game and AJ disappointed. He’s inconsistent, though he only walked 2 last night, while striking out 7. But even I could tell something was not quite right with his “mechanics.” He looked like he wasn’t putting everything into it. In today’s Star Ledger, Eiland was quoted as saying, “He can’t be lazy” with regard to flying open. And lazy would have been the word I’d have used to describe how he looked on some pitches.
But, I didn’t expect the Yankees to win every game from here on out. I think they’ll do better today and tomorrow. The Phillies are no scrub team, and I think they’d do well in the AL, one of the few NL teams I’d say that about. Plus they’ve got “attitude.”
As for all the Phillies fans, well I guess the Yankees could do what other teams do and block out people from other cities. But Philly is not that far from NY so it was not surprising at all that those fans would make the rare trek in to see their team play at YS. As for all of them in the “good” seats, all I can say is it’s a head-scratcher for sure.
“No errors but Swisher was simply awful in RF.”
This is actually more surprising to me than his struggles at the plate. He doesn’t field balls cleanly and his throws are just a little better than Damon’s. Who knew? The White Sox I guess.
it looks like he is rushing in the field when picking up balls, and he misses it. that is what is glaring. I think he needs a r and r day.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but it sure has been nice to hear other voices in this spot for the last several days.
Peter’s “furlough” has been enjoyable. It’s nice not having somebody preaching from his high horse in the most condescending way possible 24/7.
PS. If you’re one of those who believes Pete is just on an economy-induced furlough, I have some beach-front property in Arizona I’d like to talk to you about.
I agree Swisher could use a breather. Both at the plate and in the field he is struggling. How many days since his last off-day? It’s been quite a while.
You know I just keep thinking about the fact that even though the Yankees lost a game last night, they lost no ground. So, in a way, isn’t that Mulligan Day event??
If the Phillies just ended our 9-game losing streak, why do I feel so awful?!
We have a better fielder than Swisher, Girardi’s just not playing him. Gardner’s shoulder still bothering him, maybe? But at some point, they need to take the batteries out of the energizer bunny before he shorts out and replace them with fresh ones!
Well, another Fox game. Let’s hope it’s cleanly fielded (ahem! GGBG) and well-pitched affair that has the guys wearing those nice little stripes celebrating.
I hate to harp, but:
An error is no different from a hit, really. It’s another player on base and one more out to go get. There is certainly an emotional impact, but not one that would affect the game much. Certainly not as much as Lohud appears to be crediting it.
The fact that we’re 21-5 in games we don’t commit an error? That’s almost entirely random.
Will