When you assume...

We assumed.

We assumed and we started to plan, as though all that was left was tying up some gift ribbons and signing the greeting card.

We forgot, in the process, that the Yankees still had to win the game.

They had to win the game, in Anaheim, against the best Angels pitcher. Even on paper it was no easy thing.

We assumed, and we were wrong.


You can attach blame wherever you'd like, though only assigning blame does not do much. As my father has told me, some are in love with assigning blame and others prefer to fix problems.

So, here we go:

Some will blame AJ Burnett, some Joe Girardi, and some Phil Hughes.

I am no baseball manager and I've never played in an organized baseball game, but this is what I would have done:

In the seventh inning, I let Burnett come out to start the inning. He's at 80 pitches and has more or less been doing all right since that let's-not-talk-about-it first inning.

Once Mathis reaches, that's when I replace Burnett, instead of giving him the chance to put the tying run on base.

The reliever I bring in is not Phil Hughes or Joba Chamberlain, but David Robertson. I know, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but both Hughes and Chamberlain have been hit this postseason and Robertson has more or less worked some miracles.

At this rate, Robertson right now is the most valuable reliever not named Mariano Rivera.

This isn't to detract from what Hughes or Chamberlain have done this season--and without Hughes, especially, the Yankees aren't even playing tonight--but both have had issues this postseason.


If I leave AJ in to face the first two batters and they both reach, I consider bringing in Mariano Rivera. It's undoubtedly the highest leverage situation at that point, but my issue arises if the Yankees don't add any more insurance runs and the game goes to the ninth still a two run game and your team on the road.

***

Unlike most of you, I suspect, I'm not all that bothered by Girardi's decision to pinch run for Alex Rodriguez in the ninth.

With two outs, and down by one, you do anything you can to tie the score, and while Rodriguez isn't a Molina, Guzman is much more likely to score from first. Again, your team is down two outs, so you don't have any more outs with which to work.

Nick Swisher, of course, killed us all with the 3-2 pop up. I don't know if he was swinging at ball four or not, but the Yankees lost the game in the seventh, after coming so close to winning.

***

So we go back to New York.

The forecast on Saturday calls for rain and thunder.

After everything that's happened this season, the possibility of being able to clinch at home, in the rain--possibly even, well, you know how--has a certain romanticism to it.

October baseball lives on.

Don't Blame This One on Andy

Andy Pettitte, since the All Star Break:

20 IP, 16 H, 7 R, 6 ER, 23 K, 3 BB (Yes, that's 23 strikeouts to three walks over twenty innings pitched).

In those starts, he's also received a grand total of three runs of support.


The Yankees have scored more runs than any other team in baseball, but apparently Pettitte did some sort of voodoo curse on the bats because they are very much not scoring for him.

It's a shame, because Pettitte has been stellar since the break, and even if he isn't exactly the Andy Pettitte of the late 1990s, he's certainly pitching well enough to be 3-0 in his last three starts, and not 0-0, with the Yankees having lost two of those games.

*****

It's tempting to blame the loss on Phil Coke, but Coke didn't put that runner on second, Hughes did. To be fair, Hughes was probably a bit gasses, and Girardi remains afraid to use Rivera in a tie game on a road.

At any rate, if you're going to blame anyone for this game, blame the offense that struck out seven times looking.

If the home plate umpire has a strike zone the size of a small state, you should probably at least swing at anything remotely close.



Some of you will consider this loss more grating than the game Sabathia recently lost; I disagree. Most nights if you get an effort from your starting pitcher like Pettitte gave, your team will win.

The Weirdest Walkoff You've Ever Seen (Postgame Notes 12 June 2009

Michael Kay, for all of his faults, said it best: How many times can you fail, and still win?

Because that is, more or less, what happened tonight.

The Yankees failed in many, many ways.

They didn't get good starting pitching, with Joba walking pretty much everyone he saw and throwing 43 pitches in one inning.

They didn't get great bullpen pitching--Tomko was awful, Robertson was good, all right, Coke couldn't hold the lead and Rivera still can't pitch in tie games, even in the eighth.

They got some offense (I mean, dude, they scored nine runs), but they could never build more than a one run lead.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, they had the tying run on second base and the winning run on first, with two out and Alex Rodriguez at the plate. And A-Rod, as we have so often seen, popped up.

Except, this time, Luis Castillo dropped it.

Luis Castillo dropped it, and Mark Teixeira had the grit and the good sense to run hard on a routine pop up, and he and Derek Jeter BOTH scored.

How often do we see a pop up and automatically draw the conclusion? How often do we forget they actually have to see it into the glove? K-Rod forgot; he did a fist pump as A-Rod popped it.

This wasn't so much a game the Yankees won as it was a game the Mets lost; though, to be completley onest here, I think any question about ghosts moving across the street has been resolutely answered.

Anyway, what it means is that instead of the Yankees having lost four in a row, they've opened this portion of interleague play with a win and keep from falling any further behind in the standings.

Yankees fans can sleep just a tiny bit easier tonight.

Luis Castillo may want to watch his back. The Mets fans are apparently not very happy.

Witness to a Loss (Postgame Notes 06 June 2007)

"Take that shirt off, they lost today!" A middle-aged man shouts it from the passenger seat of a car while I am crossing 3rd Ave, walking back from the subway to my apartment.

"I know," I say, "I was there."

I was there to see CC struggle in the middle innings, to see David Price allow only two hits, to see Rivera falter, Coke implode and BJ Upton's reach be just long enough to end the game, and quash a rally.

I was there, to see, in the ninth inning, as a foul ball knocked out a young girl and made everyone who could see it--those in the area and those sitting immediately above--forget about the game.

Did Mo know it happened?

If he did, it might explain why he couldn't pitch through the ninth. Alas, I have my doubts that such was the case.

Rivera struggled against the Rays in a tied game in the beginning of May, so while it doesn't excuse it, it might help to explain it.

Much is being made of the decision to take CC out of the game after eight, but I never thought much of it. I'm not sure if it was the right or the wrong decision, because it wasn't as though the Yankees were going for the ninth inning with Jose Veras or David Robertson. Still, you have to balance that with Mo's struggles this year, and you end up playing games of what-if-this and what-if-that.


The only real knock on the Yankee offense today was Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada being unable to even reach base in the ninth, though to his credit Posada did battle.

The Yanks' couldn't hit Price well, but looked as though they were running wild against the Rays' bullpen. Teixeira's jack bounced off the wall on the luxury suite level--utterly no question about it.


Ah well.

Tomorrow's another day.

Looking at the Yankees on an Off Day

Now that the season is over a month old, there are some judgments that can be made. Although it's too early to know for sure what will hold out and what won't, there are some general trends:

• Whatever the team's problem, it's not the offense.
• The starting pitching can show flashes of brilliance, but has mostly been pretty average.
• The bullpen has two reliable pitchers and the rest are firestarters.

Let's take a more in-depth look, shall we?

The Starting Pitching

Joba strikes out 12. CC pitches a four-hit complete game. Yankee pitching of late has shown flashes of brilliance. Yet, for ever four hit complete game shutout, there's a pitcher that can't get out of the second inning.

The starting pitching was supposed to be the Yankees' strong suit, but it's been mediocre for the most part. While CC looks like all it took was a flip of the calendar page, others in the rotation look decidedly human.

• CC Sabathia: Yankee fans hope the four-hit complete game shut out of the Orioles is a sign of better things to come. That stopper performance is what the Yankees paid to get. Don't pay too much attention to CC's record here; the bullpen has been more than responsible for keeping CC from some more wins.

• AJ Burnett: Started off as the Yankees' stopper, but has faltered a bit since then. The match up on Tuesday against Halladay should be telling. His ERA is skewed because of the eight runs allowed in the one Boston start; other than that he's allowed, going backwards 3, 4, 3, 2 and 2--certainly enough to give his team a chance to win. The Yankees are 4-2 in his starts.

• Andy Pettitte: The Yankees are 4-2 in his starts as well, but his ER total has gone up: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 5. Not entirely surprisingly, the Yanks are 1-2 in his last three starts. Granted, Pettitte is supposed to be the fifth starter, so the Yanks aren't quite looking for utter domination here, but the rising ER totals are not a trend the Yankees would like to see continue.

• Joba Chamberlain: Opponents hit .480 off of him in the first inning, but after that, they're lucky if they reach base. The Yanks are only 3-3 in his starts, but this may perhaps be more the fault of a lack of run support (and, uh, that bullpen) than it is Joba's--he has not allowed more than five runs in a game, and when he did, the Yankees won that game. In the future, he'll probably be the pitcher more like the pitcher that pitched innings two through six against Boston as opposed to the first inning.

• Phil Hughes: Holy small sample size, Batman! Phil Hughes has looked progressively worse each start. It's only three starts, so you can't make much of it, but it's probably not much of a coincidence that Chien Ming Wang will make a rehab start for Scranton tomorrow.

• Chien Ming Wang: Told you it was the foot.

The Starting Line Up

The offense has been working quite nicely here. They've been held to less than four runs no more than five times over the course of nearly thirty games and have not yet been shut out. What's interesting here, though, is while guys like Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira are struggling, others such as Johnny Damon and Melky Cabrera have picked up the slack.

• Derek Jeter: Only hitting in the .270s, and this is a little concerning. His OBP is helped by his walks, but his OPS is nearly a hundred points lower than his career average. It's still early in the season, and Jeter struggled early last year, but it's getting to a point where Jeter's offense can no longer mask his not-very-good defense. If this was anyone else, you'd probably see a team trying to trade him while he still has residual value, but this is Derek Jeter. And you don't trade Derek Jeter.

• Johnny Damon: En Fuego. Not only does this guy have a hitting streak, but he has an extra base hit in seven straight games. Yesterday, it won the Yankees the game. Yes, there's a caveat that it's a contract year and he's playing for a contract, but if it helps the Yankees win, how much of a caveat can it be? I'm not sure we'll see 40 home runs from him, but whatever he's eating for breakfast, it's working.
  

• Mark Teixeira: Struggling as all struggling has ever struggled before. Hovering around the Mendoza line is not how he wanted to start out in pinstripes, but perhaps he's beginning to come out of it. The double in the rain to tie the game against Tampa would have been a seminal moment had the Yankees found a way to win the game.

• Alex Rodriguez: One pitch, one home run, and Alex Rodriguez has more home runs than David Ortiz, who did not miss the first 28 games of the season. Alex only has one other hit and has swung at a bunch of pitches out of the strike zone, but no matter how much you rehab, there's nothing quite the same as facing ML starters who have already had a few weeks in real game situations to practice. He might not run well, but he should hit just fine once he's had a few more games.

• Hideki Matsui: Was the Yankees' hottest hitter while A-Rod was still rehabbing. He's cooled down some, but he no longer looks awkward and lost like he did at the beginning of the season. Godzilla's always been fairly streaky; when he's right and protecting Teixeira and A-Rod, there should be some interesting offensive games.

• Nick Swisher: Doesn't like hitting at the New Yankee Stadium. His numbers overall have come way down, more in line with his career numbers as opposed to deity-like. He still seems to work the count every at bat, and guess what? On this team, working the count seems to be contangious. And as long as he keeps being a bon vivant, campaigns such as VoteSwisher.com will continue to have an actual shot at working.

• Robinson Canó: Has cooled off after a torrid April. As per most of his career thus far, he's hitting much better on the road than at home, which may partly be why the Yankees don't seem to have much luck at the new Stadium. Still, if your number 7 hitter hits .300 or better for the most part of the season, you can't find too much to complain about.

• Melky Cabrera: It's too early to call this a breakout season, but it seems to be how this is shaping up. Melky was given a second chance when Gardner couldn't, well, hack it, and he's taken every advantage. It's a small sample size galore thing here, but if he keeps taking pitches like he's taking, the likelihood he'll regress will grow slimmer and slimmer.

• Francisco Cervelli: He's not in there for his bat, and yet, if he doesn't beat out an infield hit yesterday, the Yankees don't win that game. Every time he's interviewed in the clubhouse, he is positively beaming. If only he hadn't missed so much of last season with that wrist injury...

• José Molina: Has a grand slam. Which is cool. And a strained quad. Which is not.

• Jorge Posada: Never injured before the big, bad contract of doom, and now injured twice in two years. At least this is his hamstring and not his shoulder, so he should not be gone for too long. When the Yanks get his bat back, with A-Rod, it's going to be one heck of a line up.

• Brett Gardner: Seems to have gone MIA except for late inning defense. That's what happens when you are given a chance and you can't take advantage. It's also why spring training stats mean nothing.

• Ramiro Peña: Was good enough as a fill in for A-Rod to still be on the ML roster. Didn't hit much but wasn't necessarily an automatic out, and played doable defense. Wouldn't be surprised to see him spell A-Rod or perhaps even Jeter every once in a while.

• Angel Berroa: He's on the Yankees? Since when?

• Xavier Nady: Will attempt some light throwing to see if he can start rehab or if he will need a second Tommy John surgery. The injury didn't seem like a big blow to the Yankees at the time, but depth is only nice when you don't have to use it.

• Kevin Cash: Has yet to make appearance as a Yankee.

The Blow Bullpen

Somehow, someone in the bullpen thought it was a good idea to watch footage of the 2008 Mets and try to emulate them as best as possible. Mariano Rivera and Phil Coke decided that wasn't for them, but they haven't been spotless, either.

• Mariano Rivera: Gave up back to back HRs for the first time in his career to Tampa Bay. He's not injured, apparently, since his command's okay, but his velocity's a bit down. This is probably a repercussion of the shoulder surgery and he should be okay, but it doesn't help that he was, well, so darned good last year.

• Phil Coke: The only other reliable reliever. He's not flashy and he struggled in the beginning of the year, but he has calmed down a lot since then and (generally) gets the job done. In the absence of Bruney, the 8th inning is his.

• Jonathan Albaledejo: Occasionally pitches a bunch of scoreless innings, and occasionally gets tagged. Flip a coin; that's basically what it comes down to.

• Edwar Ramirez: See above.

• José Veras: Last year's seventh inning guy has utterly no command this year. Aside from one good performance against Oakland, has shown absolutley nothing to suggest he can get batters out. What's even more frustrating is that he's out of options, so the Yankees are basically stuck.

• Dámaso Marte: Why did the Yanks wait so long before DLing him? Such things continue to blow my mind.

• David Robertson: Good when throwing strikes. Doesn't always throw them, however.

• Mark Melancon: Needs more time at AAA, believe it or not. Kid's still young and coming off of TJ surgery. He'll be fine, but just not yet. Right now, it's about building the confidence so he's not afraid to throw strikes.

• Brett Tomko: Heard the debut didn't go so well, but was dealing with an awful migraine at the time so I missed it.

• Alfredo Aceves: the Mexican Gangsta may yet save the bullpen. The reason he didn't pitch in Hughes' debacle was because the Yanks weren't sure if Joba could start. Since Joba could and did start, Aceves should be raring to go the next time a starter fails.

• Bruney, Bruney, o where art thou Brian Bruney?
  

Joba's 12 K performance undermined by bad first and bullpen (Postgame notes 5 May 2008)

If you ask someone whether it's more important that Joba Chamberlain struck out 12 batters in five innings or that the Yankees can't buy a win against the Red Sox, the answer they give you will probably tell you where they sit on the Joba-as-starter-or-in-the-bullpen debate.

There's no getting around the fact that Joba's first inning was bad, and I mean really, really bad.

The first five batters all reached base and before Joba recorded an out it was 4-0 Sox. No matter what Joba did the rest of the game, this would hang over him and the Yankees.

So what did Joba do?

He did the only thing he could do after that inning.

He went back out and pitched some more, and dominated. I don't mean he pitched well. I mean dominated.

He struck out 12 Red Sox and the last eight were all in a row. The last time a Yankee struck out 12 at Yankee Stadium? Mike Mussina in 2003.

It's been a long time.

Joba's pitch count did get up there fairly quickly because of the first inning and because strike outs tend to take a lot of pitches, but, if Joba's doing this at 23...


Alas, the good news for the Yankees ends there.

The bullpen was handed a 4-3 lead, and within a couple innings it was 6-3. The only reliever right now who seems to be able to get anyone out with any sort of certainty is Phil Coke; Veras and Ramirez inspire little confidence, Melancon could not throw a strike and Albaladejo simply had nothing.

The offense was never able to get the clutch hit, but with Posada injured and A-Rod still at least a few days away, the Yankees will have to get used to a Peña-Molina combo at the bottom of the line up. It doesn't help that Robinson Canó seems to have gone ice cold, either.

Granted, Canó was never going to keep up his hot start, but it's been a few games now without a hit and the Yankees really need everything to be working.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed it, but Nick Swisher doesn't seem to like to hit at Yankee Stadium. His hitting on the road sorta makes up for it, but it'd be nice to see him hit at the Stadium.

Right now, Melky's attempt to stretch a double into a triple looms large, as he was the tying run, but with one out it wasn't an awful decision, and he very nearly made it.

It's only the fourth time all season the Yankees failed to score four runs, and they would have if not for that play.


So there are two things to take from tonight's game:

1) Joba is a starter. No question. Yes, he could help the team in the bullpen, but the bullpen isn't even a factor if the Yankees can't get to it with a lead or a close game.

2) The bullpen is an abyss. It's baffling. These guys were so good last year, so why are they so bad this year? It makes little sense.

Such is the nature of baseball, however, and if you can't handle that, then you need to find a different sport.

Baseball and a Birth (Postgame Notes 2 May 2009, with Life Update)

I'm sitting in Yankee Stadium. My friend, Brent, and I, have seats on the Terrace level, row 7 out in right field.

It's very high up, but it's not too high--you can still see the players as people--and you can see the entire field.

The sun is shining, and though the day is chillier than it has been in a while, it's still good fortune, given the rain that had been forecast.

So we sit, and we watch.

We watch as the Yankees stake out to a 1-0 lead, fail to get another hit for, well, a while, and ultimately relinquish it.

We watch as there's a tremendous fight in the grandstand that diverts attention from Matsui's attempt to knock in Jeter, stranded at third.

We watch, as the father next to us teaches his young daughter how to keep score.

We watch, as the umpires seem to botch call after call.

We watch, as what seems to be the entire Angels bullpen gets up to warm at the same time, perhaps the only bullpen in the league right now that inspires less confidence than that of the Yankees.


Some time, in between innings, they play the Birthday song and on the video screen in center field, there's a list of names that flash past.

It's missing a birthday, that of my nephew, Eli. I can understand it: Eli didn't turn one today, he turned 0. If that makes sense.

Brent turns to be and says, "hey, you have an actual birth day!", and he is right.


Before the infamous sixth inning of doom, I wander to the team store and buy a baby Jeter t-shirt and a baby Yankee outfit. I am going to see Eli (and my family) after the game, and I know my brother will get a kick out of it. My sister-in-law, I'm not so sure--she comes from a family of Mets fans.

I want to burst out and tell everyone that I'm buying these clothes for my nephew who was born this morning, but I don't. I've got to hurry to get back to my seat.



I leave the game after the 8th inning. I would like to stay for the whole thing, but a 1-2-3 bottom of the eighth when you are not yet out of the game rubs me the wrong way, and I want to see Eli. I need to see Eli.

I wait forever for the D train, and it's hot and stuffy inside.

There's a pregnant lady that sits next to me. I can't help but to shake my head, and smile.

I get out of the subway at 59th street. I'm only out for a few minutes before I get a text: LA Angels 8, Yankees 4. My thoughts are: hey, we still scored four runs, and my kingdom, my kingdom for a bullpen!


From Columbus Circle I take a cab down to the NYU medical school. The driver weaves in and out of lanes and for a moment I think he thinks that *I* am the one who needs medical assistance.

I call my brother to tell him I am on my way and that I can't wait to see him.

The cabbie slows down after that.



I get to the hospital, take the elevator up to the 13th floor (guess New Yorkers aren't ones for superstition...).

My brother's in the waiting room, with my parents and his parents-in-law. They all come up to me and say congratulations to me and I am amused: I didn't exactly do anything.

They ask me about the baseball game, and then my brother asks me if I want to come see my nephew.

So I put my purse down and tell Mom not to peek--the present for my brother and my nephew is inside. She peeks anyway.


We go to see Eli and I am shocked at how tiny he is--although, technically, he's a big baby. He cries a little and opens his eyes just briefly. Just for a second, and in that second I am amazed it is in our power to create something so wonderful.



A little later, I give my brother the present. He doesn't just like the baby clothes; he loves them.

I tell him that Eli is a good name for a Yankee fan.


He agrees.

Yanks Blow Big Lead; Boston set for Possible Sweep (Postgame Notes 25 April 2009)

The hits keep coming.

Literally and figuratively.

AJ Burnett started today's game, way back when, and through the first three innings was magnificent as Robinson Canó almost single-handedly staked the Yankees out to a 6-0 lead.

Alas, someone in the Bronx must have burned a stack of 20 bibles or something because there's nothing else that could describe what happened afterwards except pure, unadulterated bad karma.

A 6-0 game was then 6-6, 6-8, 8-8, 8-9, 10-9, 10-12, 11-12, and finally 11-16.

Burnett fell apart in the fourth and was done by the fifth; and the Yankee bullpen, beat up after two consecutive extra innings games and without Brian Bruney, could not support the offense, which did it's best. Most of the time. Except when they had second and third in the eighth with one out and couldn't bring home the tying run.

There really isn't much else to be said. After last night's heartbreaker the Yankees really needed a win today, and for the most part, the offense, at least, certainly tried. It just wasn't enough.

I don't know if it's that the Yankees are momentarily cursed or that the Red Sox just can't lose a game (they've won nine straight now), but the result is the same: another in the loss column.

Not much you can do about that except to etch-a-sketch it away, and try again tomorrow.

Lack of Bullpen Burns Yankees (Postgame Notes 24 April 2009)

Losses against the Red Sox always hurt.

Losses when you're one out away from a win and Mariano Rivera's on the mound? They can make you want to crawl under the covers and never, ever come out.

The Yankees played with fire all game, and, as is usually the case, they got burned.

In hindsight, the game should have never been as close as it was. Joba did not pitch that well, but lucked out with double play after double play. There were four in five innings at one point. Without the help of the pitcher's best friend, the game would have been over long before the ninth inning.

Rail all you want on Joe Girardi, but this loss is not his fault.

Girardi was not out there when the Yankees failed to break the game open, as they had the chance to do many times.

Girardi did not serve up the two run home run to Jason Bay, nor did he serve up the home run to Kevin Youkilis.

The biggest question that looms right now is: what's going on with Brian Bruney?

Had he been available to pitch the 8th, Mo would have likely only pitched the ninth, yadda yadda.

Word is, from Brian Hoch and Suzyn Waldman, that Bruney is in NY for an MRI on his elbow, but there has been no public announcement about this which has to start turning heads.

In the end though, what matters is not that the Yankees blew the save tonight--stuff happens--but how they rebound tomorrow. An afternoon game and short turnaround may be exactly what they need.

At What Point Does the Bullpen Become the Blow-pen?

Yankees starters' ER thus far

6 ER, 7*, 2, 1, 0, 1, 8*, 2, 3, 1

(CC, CMW, AJ, Andy, CC, Joba, CMW, AJ, Andy, CC)

*denotes Chien Ming Wang start

Yankees bullpen ER thus far

4 ER, 0, 0, 1, 3, 7, 0, 0, 9


As you can see, with the exception of Chien Ming Wang's starts, the Yankees' starters have been efficient, only allowing more than three earned runs once, and that in the opener. Those kind of number you take from your starting pitching every time, and do what you can to get CMW to join the club.

The bullpen has, on the other hand had four scoreless outings. Four. Out of ten. That is, uh, not a very good ratio.

One of those occasions the Yankees' one the game, but four of the ten occasions the bullpen couldn't stop the bleeding, the Yankees lost the game. That's four out of five Yankees' losses this season.

I know it's still early, and the bullpen road to Mo (who, by the way, exists on a higher plane than mere 'bullpen') hasn't quite sorted itself out yet, but that has got to be a concern.

If the bullpen allowed 0 ER, the Yankees right now would be 7-3 instead of 5-5. It's early in the season, but it's two games in the standings in a division that may only be decided by one game come the end of September.

Now, I'm not so reactionary as to be advocating a complete bullpen makeover-at least, not yet-but heads should be turning. We know what happened to the 2008 Mets.

The Yankees are getting pretty darn good starts from four of their five starters. There have been 10 games, 8 not started by Chien Ming Wang, and of those eight, five were quality starts--with CC's today being only an out shy of a sixth.

The bullpen has got to make sure they stand up.

Life, Death and Baseball (Postgame Notes 16 April 2009)

[As some of you know, I was informed of the death of a close relative yesterday]

I wanted baseball to comfort me.

I can't say why I turned to baseball over anything else, expect that maybe it's because it seems so normal to me. Something that will go on, play on, not stop for the trivial things such as life.

Anything I say, or want to say, and anything I do, or want to do, seems inappropriate.

So I guess it only seems fair that the Yankees should loose this game as they have.

It wouldn't be appropriate to celebrate a win today.

It's so selfish, isn't it? To think that the Yankees shouldn't win because *I* don't deserve to celebrate anything?

It's hard to imagine that at one point, as recently as the seventh inning, the game was a 1-1 tie and Sabathia had pitched on pure guts. Little command, but somehow kept the tribe to one run.

I keep asking myself if this loss is really the bullpen's fault, or if somehow it's my fault because I decided to watch it.

I know, I know. It sounds unreasonable. What possible control can I have over a game I am watching on television?

Maybe it's some consolation that they'll play baseball again tomorrow, where I can probably guarantee you that not one man on either 25-man roster or in the dugout or on the staff for either team is aware of my existence. That's okay though, because that's the way it's supposed to be.

Life goes on. We can only control so much.

Dude, People, It's Been Six Games

The level and the number of people freaking out over the Yankees' 3-3 record after six games in a 162 game season is astounding.

Don't know what I'm talking about?

Check out this post. It really only gets worse from there.

Look, I understand the importance of not blowing it in April, because, hey, I've paid attention the last couple of seasons. So yeah, if the Yankees go 10-20 or what have you, it's a pretty big deal, but 3-3 is not 10 games under .500.

The Yankees could be the Red Sox, 2-4, or the Indians, 1-5, or the Nationals, 0-6, but they're not.

The Yankees are right now in third place at 3-3 behind two teams that probably have weeks left in the first place spot, if even that, in Baltimore and Toronto. Now, Baltimore and Toronto aren't as bad or playing as bad, as some make them out to be, but, whether or not they can hang with Tampa, Boston and New York over the long haul is another matter, entirely.

What's more important to take into account is how the Yankees have been playing their games.

The Yankees, in the six games they have played, have scored 5, 5, 11, 4, 6 and 4 runs. In 2008, over the same span, the Yankees scored 3, 2, 3, 4, 3 and 2 runs.

May I remind you that at this time last year, Alex Rodriguez was in the line up, though he is out so far this season, and, oh, over the past two games in 2009, the Yankees have scored 6 and 4 runs without Teixeira.

Now, 6 and 4 runs hardly counts as a blow out, but when you realize that if not for today's blow-pen, the Yankees would have won both games-even with today's line up including Gardner AND Melky Cabrera AND Cody Ransom AND Jose Molina-then the six runs and four runs loom fairly large, indeed.

Think of it this way: with the exception of the first two games, Yankees' starting has been stellar.

Since game three, ER from the starting pitchers are 2, 1, 0 and 1 (today's other KC runs were either unearned or ER from the bullpen of dooooom). When you consider that a quality start is 3 ER or less over six innings, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the Yankees have gotten four quality starts in a row. Niether Tampa Bay nor Boston has done that.

Now, it will of course be interesting to see how Chien Ming Wang rebounds from his poor outing last week tomorrow night (or tonight, depending on your time zone), but the fact is that with the Sabathia-Wang-Burnett-Pettitte-Chamberlain rotation, it's unlikely the Yankees will get more than two games in a row where the starting pitching doesn't give the team a chance to win.

In fact, if you consider that the Yankees trailed Baltimore by the score of 6-5 going into the ninth, you can argue that there has only really been one game the Yankees' starting pitching took the team out of the game early, and even then, the Yankees still came within 7-5.

There has not been a single game the Yankees have been 'blown out', which, for this purpose, I'll define as the Yankees scoring less than three runs while the opponent scores at least five more runs than the Yankees. There can be arguments, some valid, that the final score of the first game indicates a blow out loss while the majority of the second game was a blowout for the Yankees, but don't let that fool you: in both games the Yankees showed enough fight to have a chance to win, despite the poor starting pitching.


Even today's loss could be considered more of a result of over-managing the bullpen, though hindsight is still 20/20. Today's loss can be blamed as much on not giving Damon a chance to pinch-hit for Melky in the seventh as much as it is Coke's awful outing, but the fact is, that the Yankees have that option bodes well for the team in the near future.

Oh, also in the near future? The return of Alex Rodriguez.

Whatever you think of him as a person, he's still a damned good baseball player, and having him in the line up over Cody Ransom? Yeah, if Alex is even half as good as he normally is, he'll still be eight times better than Ransom.


So whatever your thoughts, the Yankees are playing well, for the most part. In the first week of April, while the record still matters, what's more important is how well the Yankees are playing, and they are, for all intents and purposes, playing well enough to have a chance every game.

They didn't do that last year.

Chin up.

It's April.

Hope abounds.

Yankees Snatch Defeat from Jaws of Victory (Postgame Notes 12 April 2008)

Must be something about my birthday but the Yankees didn't win on April 12th last year, either.

Anyway, it looked like the Yankees were going to have one of their best early season wins, coming from behind to take the lead against Kansas City's number one starter, and the Yankees were one out away from getting the baseball to Mariano Rivera.

Disaster struck, however, when Joe Girardi over-managed the bottom of the eighth. After Damaso Marte got two quick outs Girardi elected to play mix-and-match, but Veras walked his lone batter and Phil Coke gave up three earned runs and a 4-3 Yankees' lead turned into a 6-4 Royals win.

Joba Chamberlain pitched six decent innings, giving up one earned run and two unearned runs. Even with a line up that included both Gardner and Melky, not to mention Molina and Ransom, and without Teixeira or Posada, the Yankees still managed to score four runs. In that respect, today's game wasn't a disaster.

It just hurts like hell when you're that close.


The Yankees head next to Tampa. The Rays lost two of three to the Orioles, but won today by a score of 11-3.

A Lost Road Trip

So first off, I apologize for being so sporadic recently. I've been dealing with some personal issues which will hopefully sort themselves out, but it looks like I haven't been missing much.

This was, after all, a make-or-break road trip for the Yankees, and, well, when you only win three games out of ten, things don't look very good.

It's hard to pinpoint where it all went wrong.

It's easy enough to blame the injury to Joba as a death knell or contend that the Angels are simply unbeatable, but the fact is, the Yankees had a legitimate chance to win every game they played on the road trip.

In at least one of the Texas games, all of the Anaheim games and two of the Minnesota games, the Yankees had a physical lead. They only won three of those games, and in only two of the games, if memory serves, did they not relinquish a lead.

Teams that play baseball in October, it should be noted, know how to keep leads once they have them.

There wasn't any one part of the Yankees that has been more at fault than the other--when they hit, they didn't pitch, when they pitched, they didn't hit, when the starters couldn't go deep, the bullpen was overworked and prone to giving up even more runs.

The ERA of the pitching staff, once one of the best in the majors, has skyrocketed since the eight game win streak.

To add injury to insult---err, reverse that---it now looks like Derek Jeter and Dan Giese are hurt as well.

It's not time to write 2008 off just yet--speaking as an optimist, I won't until the Yankees are mathematically eliminated--but the team is fighting for its life right now, and the fight is not going in their favor, at all.

Miracles can happen, but the Yankees shouldn't have to rely on that for October baseball.

Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrggghhh (Postgame Notes 24 june 08)

Of all the Yankee losses this season, tonight's has to rank as one of the worst. It's not that Pittsburgh is necessarily is a bad team (they are), but that the level of play from the Yankees was just flat-out embarrassing.

They didn't pitch. They didn't play very good defense. They didn't hit when they needed to.

Someone needs to send the Yankees a memo that the idea of the game is to score more runs than the other team. Or something.

Seriously, when Darrel Rasner is arguably the best hitter of the evening? Yeah, there are some issues there.

The bats have gone ice cold. In their past four games they have scored nine runs--not as bad as it could be, but nowhere near what the offense is capable of doing. In fact, this offense has not hit a home run since the second game of the Padres series (though Melky missed a grand slam by inches). Okay, Bobby Abreu homered, but the point is still the same.

That the Yankees will have clunkers is a given.

The problem, however, is that the Yankees are having too many of them, and against the wrong teams.

Losing to Pittsburgh is bad enough on its own.

Getting blown out? Getting blown out against a starting pitcher with an ERA over seven?

That's not a performance from a team that wants to be considered a playoff contender. That's not even a performance from a third place team.


Again, the Yankees have some serious issues with their bullpen, especially now that Rasner's magic seems to have worn thin. With the trade deadline approaching sooner than you think, look for Brian Cashman and the Yankees to make some moves. They might be as simple as promoting David Robertson or Mark Melancon, or they might me more complex, but either way, the Yankees need help.



If you want some good news, though, Fresno State is winning--their Cinderella story looks like it might live on one more night.

Sputtering (Postgame Notes 2 June 2008)

Of all the types of baseball games one can play, ones like tonight's are by far the most frustrating to watch.

Every inning (or almost every inning), it seemed, the Yankees took the lead, only to lose it in the bottom half of the inning. Both the pitching and offense are to blame--as neither could pick up the other--even if, on the surface, it looks like the offense had a good showing.

As seemed to be the case for the entire month of April, the Yankees were able to get runners on base without a problem, but then unable to bring them in to score. Multiple innings they had runners in scoring position with less than two outs, and they could never build a lead larger than two runs.

Andy Pettitte, who has built a career around being a "stopper", is not having the best season of his life. While he is a second half pitcher, it can't be ignored that Pettitte's inability to provide some stability in the rotation is hurting the Yankees.

Kyle Farnsworth, simply, did not have a good outing. If the Yankees are looking to make any move in the coming days, one has to hope that they can find someone that can fill the bullpen void that Farnsworth seems to be unable to do. An 8th inning pitcher does not have to be Joba-good, but he has to be able to get three outs before giving up the tying run. It doesn't seem like it should be a hard thing to do...


OPTIMIST TAKE: Alex Rodriguez looked great at the plate; Jeter looks like he is finally coming out of his slump.

It's a dirty Joba (Postgame Notes 06 May 2008)

Nothing about tonight's game felt normal, but until the top of the eighth, the Yankees looked as though they might escape with a win.

They had a one run lead, behind solid pitching from Andy Pettitte, who made one mistake in the early innings to Jhonny Peralta, and Kyle Farnsworth (yes, that Kyle Farnsworth), and they had timely hitting from Jason Giambi (yes, that Jason Giambi) and Robinson Canò.

Of course, Joba Chamberlain was not going to go his entire career without giving up a run or losing a game at Yankee Stadium, and one might say the sooner he has to deal with adversity, the sooner he can overcome it.

Still, the fact is, Joba had very poor command tonight, as he walked two and nearly walked a third. One might argue that Joe Girardi should have gone to Mariano Rivera to pitch to David Dellucci, but if Rivera wasn't ready yet (and given Joba's general success in the eighth, he was probably in no rush), Joba would have had to pitch to Dellucci anyway.

It is a tough, depressing loss to take for the Yankees and their fans, but they happen. One can only hope that Chien Ming Wang is able to out duel the surprising Cliff Lee tomorrow.

OPTIMIST TAKE: Hideki Matsui had a three hit night and is now on a fifteen game hitting streak. Jason Giambi looked possibly the best he's looked all season, even if he only had one hit, he had quality at bats. Pettitte seems to have recovered from his fifth inning implosions in Cleveland and against Detroit.

Moose Call (Postgame Notes 23 April 2008)

Performances from Mike Mussina like the one the Yankees got tonight reminds you why the Yankees signed him in the first place.

Mussina pitched a gem--seven innings, two runs (each on a solo HR) and four hits. That's the kind of start the Yankees expect from Wang and Pettitte; to get that from Mussina has to be very reassuring.

He's not quite the burnt toast that everyone seems to think he is.

The bullpen, however, is another story. A 6-2 lead in the eighth should not necessitate a five-out save from Mariano Rivera, but with the Yankees, it invariably does.

This is going to become the elephant in the room, if the bullpen can't hide behind a poor effort from a starter, and they will be able to do that less and less as the season goes on and the starters (hopefully) get stronger. The frustration is that one day the bullpen will be lights out, unhittable, but then, in a game like today's, the set up men can not get the job done.

That said, had Jason Giambi slightly more range, he would have likely gotten to the grounder off of Traber, and Rivera may have not had to come in in the eighth.

The offense had a good game tonight--scratching out their first run and getting the next five on solid hitting without any home runs. It finally seems like the offense is beginning to come around--Damon had another good game, and Posada, with three doubles, may have had his best game of the season.

OPTIMIST TAKE: The Yankees have won three straight and are now two games over .500. After losing the series to Baltimore, they can go for the sweep against Chicago tomorrow. They are now above .500 on the second half of the ROAD TRIP OF DOOM. As said above, the Yankee bats are beginning to pick it up.

Offensive Explosion, Bullpen Implosion (Postgame Notes 14 April 2008)

Ken Singleton summed up the offense back in the first few innings of the game:

"These are some real swings the Yankees are taking tonight."

Indeed, over the first four innings, there were three Yankee home runs and seven runs in total. The Yankees were overdue for an offensive breakthrough, and tonight it happened. Only Hideki Matsui missed being part of the hit parade, and even then, his last out was a long fly out that looked like it might clear the fence as well.

It's the first game of the year the Yankees have won on offense, but that should not take away from Ian Kennedy's start.

By all rights, Ian Kennedy should have gotten the win, going six innings and surrendering three runs (though Billy Traber was on the mound when the last one scored), and had he not been hit by Bartlett's infield single in the seventh, the complexion of the game may have remained a laugher.

However, as the baseball deities are fickle beings, it was not to be.

Going to Billy Traber in the seventh was the right choice. That needs to be clear. With three lefties in a row, you are supposed to go to your lefty specialist, and before today, Traber had been excellent. Every reliever will have a poor game, and today, Traber was the unfortunate one.

Brian Bruney had been good so far this season, despite faltering Saturday (probably just because I was there), so there was no reason be outraged at his appearing in the game; though if Joba was around he would have been in as soon as the game became a one run affair. The outrage, however, should come from Upton's home run on an 0-2 count.

Robinson Canò had been due to break out of his offensive sputtering; as far as moments to do it go, he picked a very good one. With luck, that will be the spark he needs to get back to the Robbie Canò we all know.


OPTIMIST TAKE: Best offensive showing so far, and a great bounce-back start for Kennedy. Four home runs, but more importantly, two hits with less than two outs and RISP from Johnny Damon and (a healthy) Derek Jeter. Mariano Rivera was himself in a four-out save. Theoretically, sometime before midnight tomorrow, I'll be done with the thesis. Theoretically.

Stung (Postgame Notes 04 April 2008)

Games like tonight, painful clunkers, will happen over the course of the season. How the Yankees respond to them, is what is more important.

Ian Kennedy simply did not have his command tonight. He did get squeezed on a couple of calls, but on the whole, he simply wasn't throwing enough strikes, and the hits that Tampa did get were good hits.

It says something about the Yankees as a team that, in the third, they came back offensively, and got the game to within 6-4.

For most of the game, the bullpen did a wonderful job--Albaladejo, Ohlendorf and Traber all pitched excellent, next-to-perfect baseball--and the Yankees were right in it, but they could not muster anything offensively once Andy Sonnanstine got it going.

Hawkins, however, had an even worse outing than Kennedy. Maybe it's part bad karma for wearing 21 (even if the intention to honor Clemente is itself very honorable) or just the cold night, but after tonight, you would think that it's Hawkins that should be sent down (even though he can't be), and not Albaladejo, to make room for Pettitte tomorrow.

Farnsworth did make the three-run mistake, but by that time the game was already 10-4.

So the Yankees fell a bit tonight, but, the score tomorrow starts at 0-0, and it's an afternoon game, so there's not too much time to dwell.

OPTIMIST TAKE: The job that Albaladejo, Ohlendorf and Traber all did inspires a lot of confidence in the bullpen. If Hawkins makes a habit of being awful, we have plenty other talent in Scranton itching for a chance. I'm thinking of you, Scott Patterson. Jason Giambi had his first hit of the season and Jeter had two well hit balls that didn't quite make it out. Matsui had his first home run of the year. Tonight's game also shows us just how much better defensively we are with Melky in center and Damon in left, so good thing that suspension's not any longer than two games.



SCORES AND STUFFS

Astros over Cubs, 4-3. Tejada with an important triple.

White Sox over Tigers, 8-5. The Tigers are still winless. However, the Pistons beat the Nets.

Brewers over Giants, 13-4. So the Yankee game wasn't the only clunker tonight.

Marlins over Pirates, 5-4 on a walk-off home run from Mike Jacobs.

Blue Jays over Red Sox, 6-3. Marcum pitched a one-hitter through six and Toronto has had a quality start in every game so far.

Orioles over Mariners, 7-4. The Mariners have placed closer JJ Putz on the DL.

Diamondbacks over Rockies, 8-1, as the Rockies are 2-hit.

Twins lead Royals 4-3 in the 8th, Cardinals lead Nationals 5-2 in the 7th, Phillies lead Reds 7-4 in the 5th, Rangers-Angels, Dodgers-Padres, Athletics and Indians are all scoreless in the 2nd.

Mets and Braves are postponed.