Today in The Journal News
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Sep 21, 2009 
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Joba Chamberlain pitched poorly again as the Yankees were beaten by the Mariners. Their lead is down to five games.
Jorge Posada returned from suspension. This notebook also has updates on Dave Robertson, the rookie hazing and a new No. 5 starter.
Time flies! One year ago today was the final game at the Stadium.
Interesting week ahead. The Yankees are in the postseason, but home field advantage is suddenly up for grabs with Boston and the Angels.
Joe has some difficult decisions to make. Does he play the regulars hard and push for HFA? or does he make an effort, but not an all-out effort, to get there.
Considering how good the Yankees have been at home, and home strong the Sox are at home, HFA is pretty important. Is it important enough to risk having a worn down team (and pen) going into the postseason? I guess that’s why Joe gets the big bucks.
In an ideal world, the Yankees will get to celebrate clinching the division at home against the Sox this weekend.
They’ll push hard the next six games and then see where they are. Six wins and everything’s clinched.
I think you have to go for HFA, given how well all 3 teams play at home.
At this point, the bullpen should be ok. Mitre did a great job picking up Joba and saved the rest of the pen. CC went deep in his game too, as did AJ. They have a day off between the Angels and the RS, and (hopefully) an early getaway day the day before.
“These are important games this week and we know that,” manager Joe Girardi said. “No one is going to hand you anything; you have to go out and earn it.” from pete’s article
well there it is.girardi is saying these games are important.
so those of us who are concerned are not necessarily chicken littles.
i don’t care so much about the division lead as i care that the yankees may have only one good starting pitcher going into the playoffs and that’s sabathia.
i’m also wondering if theo hasn’t built a team for the playoffs and cashman has built one for the regular season.
yeah the yankees have the wins, but the red sox have suddenly pulled ahead with starting pitching.
the decisions that theo made to keep buchholz in triple a as a starter and cashman made to turn hughes into a reliever are polar opposites of each other and may be the difference between the teams this year in the playoffs.
the yankees really could use hughes as a starter if he was rolling out 9-10 good starts in a row at the end of the season as buchholz has.
cashman ran the whole season a starter or two short and now in crunch time it’s coming back to bite the yankees.
as girardi said, these games are important. it would be nice to have some starters who were ready for this time of the year.
theo seems to get the concept better than cashman has.
This is totally conjecture on my part, but…
Perhaps Girardi chose to do all his resting of players, etc., during the past 9-ish games against “lesser” teams (and I mean no disrespect) figuring that at worst they’d go .500 and at best, they might still have been able to take series.
Now that they’re playing the Angels and Red Sox, and in the final stretch, most of his regulars should be ready and rarin’ to go, with little or at least no extraordinary rest required. They can no get up to full speed.
He had the advantage of a fairly comfortable lead at the start of this 9-game stretch. Unfortunately, the Red Sox did not cooperate fully with the plan, and won a few more games than the Yankees in this span. But, the Yankees do still have the division lead as well as HFA lead and I fully expect them to be in full throttle these last few games.
pat -
Wow. Time sure does fly. Has a year gone by already since all the sentiment of that last game?
Doreen-
I don’t remember his exact comments, but Johnny Damon made some comment about nobody coming out to play against the Sox, except the Yankees.
Starting to believe the playoffs will be short for this team. Yesterday was really deflating.
I enjoyed your little airplane bathroom piece Pete.
It’s stuff like that we’ll probably see a lot less of. Oh well.
Yankees can have all the rest in the world,and still needs to bring in runners in scoring position home.
According to Mlbtraderumors,the SAWX will go hard after Felix Hernandez the young 23 yr old southpaw.Cashman needs to dig deep with a package that includes Joba.
randy l -
There’s a bit of luck involved, though, as well. All pitching decisions on the part of either GM could have gone either way. There was no guarantee Dice-K was going to come back throwing well; Buchholz could have gone either way – he really wasn’t showing much earlier. Beckett was having his troubles, too. Lester was really the only consistent pitcher for them over the long haul. And Byrd can still go either way, right?
Joba came back from the ASB seemingly a changed man. Who knew it wouldn’t last? AJ has been inconsistent, but he could have more wins if he got more run support. The games he’s on he gets no offense, the games he gets offense he pitters it away. In any event, I do see him doing well in the playoffs, though I have no real reason to feel that way. Pettitte’s start coming up will be important. And I’m not seeing many mid-season pitching acquisitions coming up all that big for anyone, really. Gaudin may have been a real “find,” but only time will tell.
I do agree with you though, that it could have been so different had Hughes remained in the rotation. BUT – would the bullpen have been (? – that doesn’t sound grammatically correct) as powerful a force as it’s been without Hughes? (We won’t get into how important the loss of WCMW has been.)
And I hope Joba does not start a game in the playoffs. I can’t see how he’s going to get everything to click at this point in the season, when it seems he’s “hit the wall.” Unless they tell him in the playoffs to just let it all go.
Felix Hernandez definitely not a southpaw
Randy I; Great points about the different approaches Theo & Cashman took regarding Bucholz, Hughes & Aceves. People can argue about whether PH and Ace could have contibuted more as SP vs what they’ve done in the pen (which is a lot), but it can’t be denied that once Cashman decided to leave them in the pen, the team’s SP was left very thin. Now because of injury and ineffectiveness there are many question marks and few options as the team heads to the playoffs. Cashman rolled the dice, we now have to see what comes up.
upstate kate
I read that this morning. It was like no one is trying to beat the soxs. He said what most Yankee fans are thinking. Hopefully the Royals continue to play hard.
You guys are all missing the point. Hughes is masterson, Joba is Buchholz.
Masterson was never sent down because the Red Sox thought he could help out in the pen and spot start. The same thing happened with Hughes but he got left in the pen too long and dominated (far more than masterson ever did). Joba has been the one left in the rotation to work things out, much like Buchholz when he looked scared to death vs major leaguers.
It just so happens that Buchholz, with his years more of time in the minors, has come around faster than Joba, and I’m not entirely convinced that Clay will hold up anyways vs good teams.
Computer just exploded when I voted for Gaudin. The question is who is the best pitcher that can START Game 4.
The best one is filling another key role. The next best one isn’t stretched out.
If Joba’s troubles continue, then take the shorter series. Then if we make it to the next round then Joba/Aceves for game 4. Don’t think about fiddling with it. Kepner had a a stat. Last 12 years or since 1992 (one or the other), every world series winner went with a 4-man rotation.
Doreen
I think Gaudin could be a key contributier in the post season.
It’s just a feeling I have but Joe may trust him more than Joba at this time.
Even though it seems as if things are unravelling a bit for this team right now, I do think Joe has a good sense of the pulse of this team.
Jennifer-
at least the Sox have to face Greinke, who has the incentive of winning the Cy Young.
Hopefully it doesn’t come down to the end of the season, but we do have 3 games against the Rays, who seem to have given up, esp w/ the loss of Pena.
upstate Kate -
What Johnny said? It sure seems that way.
“In an ideal world, the Yankees will get to celebrate clinching the division at home against the Sox this weekend”
I’d figure Boston wins 3 of 4 in KC, with Byrd v. Greinke a big problem for them. If the Yankees win 2 of 3 in Disney, a sweep of the weekend clinches it. Boston is going with 6 guys thru this week, which means Lester, Matsuzaka and Wakefield at NYS next weekend. Sweep isn’t out of the question.
Johnny sounding like Jim Pir.one. there. Way to not sound whiny.
But remember 2007? Damon said they’d make the playoffs, and by golly they did. Did Damon make such a prediction yesterday? It might make some feel better.
Today’s wishlist: Andy to come through without any problems. A win for the Yankees. A loss for the Angels and the Sox would be nice, too.
I like the way you are thinking Rex. The sox don’t have any off days, so there isn’t as much they can do w/ their rotation.
“Jorge Posada returned…” and there lies the problem! Stop catching Posada for AJ and Joba starts
What was Cervelli rookie hazing?
the yankees really could use hughes as a starter if he was rolling out 9-10 good starts in a row at the end of the season as buchholz has.
___
Without Hughes in the pen, the Yankees dont win some of these games anyway.
And before annointing Buchholz, lets remember his wins have come vs. the jays and the orioles.
Randy,
Cashman didn’t “run the entire season 2 starters short”.
Did you see Joba Chamberlain falling apart to a point where he shouldn’t even be in the post-season roster?
They lost Wang and nobody saw AJ falling apart after dominating for over 2 months.
How did Theo “build” a team for the post-season? He went out and got Paul Byrd because he was so short of pitchers.
He had Penny and Smoltz and was “building” around them for the post-season.
This isn’t on Cashman.
They played .750 ball for over 3 months. That’s pretty tough to do for an entire season. So, it was natural they would come back to the pack a bit.
They had Chamberlain fall off a cliff and Pettitte and Robertson miss time.
In the end, they are still in a great position and if they have a good week, they are set.
As far as the post-season, anything can happen. That’s a total crapshoot.
Felix may not be a southpaw,but is worth going after.
Posada is NOT the problem. The problem is JOba throws 91 mph straight fastballs over the middle of the plate. What happened to 97-100? At least consistant 95.
And Aj has lost control with Molina there too, i just think Molina is better at calming him down.
“If the Yankees win 2 of 3 in Disney, a sweep of the weekend clinches it. Boston is going with 6 guys thru this week, which means Lester, Matsuzaka and Wakefield at NYS next weekend. Sweep isn’t out of the question.”
Taking 2 out of 3 in la la land seems very unlikely at the moment, but anything could happen.
I agree 100% with Damon. No one shows up to face Boston, even the umpires dont show up.
“I like the way you are thinking Rex. The sox don’t have any off days, so there isn’t as much they can do w/ their rotation.”
Actually they could have simply flip flopped Byrd and Beckett and set it up to have both Beckett and Lester pitching against the Yankees, but I think they are pretty realistic when it comes to the division. They’re going to rest guys and give the pitchers an extra day rather than go balls to the wall on a likely fruitless run to win the division.
What makes Girardi think he can do it? Sounds like wishful thinking to me. Why put the Yankees in a hole every time he starts? Who cares if he settles down after an inning or two when the damage has already been done? Why wear out the bullpen just to get him in for a few innings? IT doesn’t sound worth it to me.
Nice post, SJ. Thanks.
“and nobody saw AJ falling apart after dominating for over 2 months.”
Seriously???
Felix Hernandez on the Red Sox is like worst case scenario ever. But the Mariners have a nice team, and a good rookie manager. I don’t see Felix moving over the winter.
SJ44,
Do you think the Sox made fantabulous offers to both Toronto and Seattle? People are scratching their heads that Toronto would turn down all that “talent”, but Gammons “confirmed” the offer.
Not that I want to talk about the offseason, but any trade you would have to make for Felix, sets your organization back. The cost would be HUGE. And to that, who is saying the Mariners are even interested in trading him?
I must have missed something. What did MPB Johnny Damon say???
The Red Sox aren’t going to get Felix Hernandez. Seattle isn’t trading him.
They probably aren’t getting Halladay either.
Won’t stop some from panicking about it though.
good morning sj-
here’s the problem. i said in the beginning of the season and even earlier that they needed 9 starters and that cashman needed to go outside the organization to get another veteran 5th starter.
i said no way at least one of the yankee starters didn’t go down for at least 15 games and likely more that that. so therefore i said 9 starters were needed to be safe.
the yankees had sabathia, wang,burnett, pettitte, joba, hughes, aceves, mitre, igawa as their top nine.
i couldn’t argue my preference of adding a veteran starter that well and for long with this nine. i still thought they needed an outside veteran though but could see the logic that they had enough.
but THEN, cashman takes hughes and aceves and puts them both in the bullpen.
that was the fundamental flaw cashman has made.
he wiped out the 9 starters you need.
from my point of view he also singlehandedly burned wang with his mismanagement of his rehab.
there’s one starter.
then he put hughes and aceves his #6 and #7 in the bullpen at a time he couldn’t reverse it.
so now from the 9 original starters he’s down to 6.
the six are sabathia, pettitte, burnett, joba, mitre, and igawa.
that’s on cashman.
he did make a nice pick up in gaudin.
in contrast theo disabled matsuzaka all season to have him timed to come back now , and he made the decision to leave buchholz at triple a to be a second half starter and has him pitching better than any yankee except sabathia.
i’d rather have done the same with hughes and said so at the time he went to the bullpen.( though i could see him doing long relief there like jim palmer did)
so where does this leave us ? the yankees will still likely win the division and get home field advantage.
the red sox will go in as the wild card with a stronger rotation.
it’s a subjective thing, but i’d rather be the wild card with the better rotation.
i think theo beat cashman again on how he came up with a rotation for the playoffs.
but as you say, the playoffs are a crap shoot and the yankees could still run the table with a makeshift starting rotation.
but it’s not the ideal way to do it.