Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Royal Pumpkins (Postgame Notes 08 April 08)

Ugly. Like Cinderella's stepsisters.

That's pretty much the only thing that comes to mind when you think of the Yankees' performance today. That they escaped by a score of only 5-2 belies a much nastier truth: sloppy defense, and a poor start from Phil Hughes, did them in much more than the lack of any discernable offense, though it certainly doesn't help.

Hughes wasn't helped by a small and inconsistent strike zone on the part of Mark Wegner, the home plate umpire, but neither was Brian Bannister. Both starters had thrown over 50 pitches by the start of the third inning.

The lack of Derek Jeter in the line up was felt at both ends--defensively, Wilson Betemit had trouble with a couple of throws that would have otherwise caught Kansas City baserunners attempting to steal, and offensively, Robinson Canò could not muster anything in the number two spot. Betemit did have an RBI single, which was about the only serious offense the Yankees mounted in the entire game.

Alex Rodriguez, especially had a rough day; he was the not-so-proud recipient of the Golden Sombrero, striking out four times. Jorge Posada came out of the game in the late innings; no official word yet, but given his recent shoulder problems, they might have been an issue.

OPTIMIST TAKE: Despite the over-all ugly stepsister feel of the game, there are bright spots. Phil Hughes escaped bases-loaded situations a couple of times without surrendering a run, which, at the very least shows that he is maturing as a pitcher. Billy Traber and LaTroy Hawkins pitched well. Hideki Matsui has hit in every Yankee game so far. The Yankees don't play again until tomorrow evening, so now they can get some rest and hopefully not play like zombies, like they did today.


SCORES AND STUFFS

Don't have time to go through them all, but the ones of interest:

Boston beat Detroit, 5-0. Detroit is now 0-7, and while the first week in baseball usually doesn't mean anything, it's quite a hole to have to climb back from--Detroit is already 4+ games out in the Central. Boston is now 4-4, equal with the Yankees.

Baltimore beat Texas, 8-1 The Orioles are now 6-1. It's still probably a fluke start, but even so...

The Mets lost their home opener to the Phillies, also 5-2.

2 comments:

  1. The only thing you can say about the Red Sox is that the team they beat is winless?

    Dice-K had a good day, and so did the bullpen, but that doesn't merit a mention????

    Is this a baseball blog or a Yankees' blog?

    Oh . . . wait . . . .

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  2. I say we just forget about this game and come back again tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete