The Kids Are All Right (Postgame Notes 19 July 2009)

Perhaps because it was Old Timer's Day, the ghosts of Yankee Stadium(s) decided that something special would have to happen today.

It wasn't anything that will enter record books or baseball lore, but Joba Chamberlain's six-and-two-thirds innings pitched, while surrendering only one run on a solo home run is notable in its own right given Chamberlain's recent struggles.

It seems as though the nine days' rest did him good--whereas AJ Burnett and CC Sabathia were too strong, Chamberlain finally appeared strong enough, throwing 107 pitches, and certainly efficiently enough to earn the designation of a quality start.

It's a good thing Chamberlain was on his game, because like Justin Verlander before him, the Tigers' Edwin Jackson was throwing gas, too.

The difference was simply that while Chamberlain made only one mistake pitch, Jackson made two, and he made them to guys named Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira.

The three-game sweep of the Tigers is not just the best possible way to come out of the All Star Break, but winning each game by a close and low-scoring margin shows that the Yankees do not need offensive shootouts to win games.

Everything, as always, comes back to pitching.

Yankees survive Bullpen Scare; Ride Swisher's Two HR to Win (Postgame Notes 29 April 2009)

The final score won't reflect it, being 8-6, but Joba Chamberlain had his best outing of the season, allowing only one run on two hits and three walks.

He had little-if any-command in the early innings and eventually worked himself into a bases loaded situation in the early goings with Miguel Cabrera, a .444 hitter with the bases loaded, due up before striking out.

That was a turning point, and Joba never looked back. He was dominant for the rest of his appearance and probably could have come back out for the 8th inning had he not been sitting so long since the Yankees worked the bases loaded via walks.

The Yankee offense fell back into a pattern they had often in 2007, where in they used one big offensive inning-tonight seven runs, including one of St. Nick Swisher's two home runs, instead of 10-to stake themselves out to a big lead they could ride all the way past a rough outing for Jonathan Albaladejo and a three-run home run off of Mariano Rivera that brought the Tigers to within two.

While Ken Singleton commented that Mo may not have had time to warm up, one had to worry a bit that it's the second time he's given up a home run in as many appearance, and that on the radar gun his velocity was way down.

He had not pitched since Friday, which might have something to do with it. At least, one hopes that's the case and there's not something more sinister at work here.

Yankees at Tigers, 29 April 2009: A liveblog

4.49 PM: Relatively few updates today because I have a lot of work to do and not a whole lot of time to do it.

The most important news of the day concerns Ian Kennedy, who had felt numbness in one of his fingers.

He saw a MD today and was diagnosed with a vasospasm, which, in layman's terms would seem to involve a spasmodic blood vessel.

This is potentially very bad if they cannot find an underlying cause. The vasospasm itself can be treated with medicine, but it's a condition that, IMO is more likely to be a symptom of a larger problem.

Here's wishing him the best.

4.51 PM: Jorge Posada is getting the start today, and please, for the love of all that's holy, stop this nonsense about Molina beint a better everyday player. No one denies Molina has a cannon for an arm, but without Posada's bat, you miss the playoffs. Exhibit A: 2008.

7.12 Pm: I admit it. It's kinda hard to root against Rick Porcello. Why, oh why, did the Tigers get to draft ahead of us that year?

7.47 PM: Did Ken Singleton seriously just ask if a golf course was "white only"? I'm not sure if I should be amused or horrified. Just imagine if Cone had asked that...

7.49 PM: I should either brush up on my golf or get my hearing checked. Possibly both.

7.56 PM: Ayayay Joba...bases loaded, one out. Now 1-0 Tigers on a sac fly. Joba's command seems to be off tonight.

8.13 PM: ...Jorge Posada just stole a base. If this doesn't portend the apocalypse...

8.17 PM: Swisher hit a bomb to left. 3-1 Yanks, and the hitters are working Porcello's pitch count real good.

8.23 PM: Hopefully Porcello will wipe this start from his memory and go on to bigger and better things. I have to root for the Jersey kids.

However, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I absolutely love it when the Yankee offense explodes.

8.27 PM: The Tigers screwed themselves there. They should have pitched to the slumping Teixeira, but instead Matsui, who has been on fire, made them pay. The intentional walks seldom work.

8.42 PM: So what did Swisher have for breakfast this morning? Where can I get some? His second home run of the night, and it's 8-1 Yankees.

9.01 PM: Aww, Zach Grienke gave up an earned run. He has an ERA now.

9.07 PM: Robbie's hit streak is alive and well. Missed first base and grimaced as though he was hurt, but it was just a scare. Phew.

9.39 PM: Is there anything Swisher can't do?

9.40 PM: A warning system has gone off. Don't know why. Now I am very curious.

9.42 PM: False alarm. Someone just ruined their life by tripping the alarm in a crowded ballpark.

10.07 PM: Uh, Mo? Is everything okay?

Hughes Dominant as Yankee Offense Explodes in the Seventh (Postgame Notes 28 April 2009)

You may be forgiven if, in the ninth inning, you forgot that the first six innings had been a crazy good pitcher's duel.

Still, you should not forget how dominant 22-year-old Phil Hughes was-providing the Yankees with exactly what they needed.

Having lost four straight games, the Yankees really needed a win, perhaps more for the sanity of their fans than for the team itself, and with the way the offense had been performing over the past two games, it seemed like the Yankees would need an almost unhittable pitcher to have a chance.

Hughes gave them that chance.

Hughes had pretty much just one shaky inning, when the Tigers loaded the bases with two outs, but escaped that inning without allowing a run-and the ability to do that is a staunch difference from last year in which the flood gates would have (likely) opened.

Meanwhile, the Yankee offense didn't do much of anything while Edwin Jackson was in the game.

Take Jackson out in the 7th, however, and the Yankees fully exploited the weak underbelly of the Tigers' kittenpen (uh, it's certainly not a bullpen...)

The statement du jour came off of José Molina's bat. Probably the least likely in the line up to hit a home run (Gardner could give him a run for his money, although running isn't really fair to Molina), Molina cranked a grand slam out to left center and the Yankees went up 10-0.

Mark Melancon pitched just one inning today, but the usual caveat of his multiple inning minor league appearances held: he only threw 10 pitches.

Now, the Yankees have a chance to take two out of three in Detroit, and tomorrow's Joba-Porcello match up should be more than worth the wait.

Yankees at Tigers, 28 April 2009: A Liveblog

3.47 PM: Lots doing today. First, you got Phil Hughes making his season debut. He had solid numbers at Scranton, but he's struggled in the big leagues, though he spent much of last season hurt.

Second, check out this post on the Yankees reducing luxury seat prices for the 2009 season.

Of course, for the rest of us who don't work six figure jobs, prices will remain the same.

4.10 PM: Word on the street is that A-Rod's target date has been moved up by the team. We shall see.

As for arguments that A-Rod will only marginally improve the team, these are specious. He can't improve the pitching or the bullpen, but he can and probably will improve the offense just from his presence alone.

4.18 PM: Posada is not in the line up again tonight. Cue questions about being injured...

Honestly, I think it's probably just to have Molina work with the young pitcher, but hopefully it's not anything worse.

The Line up

Jeter SS
Damon LF
Teixeira 1B
Matsui DH
Cano 2B
Swisher RF
Cabrera CF
Molina C
Pena 3B

5.08 PM: So of course there's this whole swine flu thing going around. A few thoughts:

1) I can't stop playing Pandemic 2. It's addicting.
2) People out in nice little suburbs are worried about catching it, and yet I'm living in the Big City and kinda 'eh' about it. I find it incredibly interesting and am washing my hands much more than I normally do, but other than that I'm not freaking. Yet.
3) So of course I wake up today with a scratchy throat...(however, I am fever/nasuea/other stomach upset/weak/dizzy free, so let's chalk it up to some pretend allergies that I don't really have).

5.45 PM: Took a walk outside down to the grocery store and my favorite bakery on Arthur Ave. There was a guy in the bakery wearing shorts and a Johnny Damon t-shirt. If you're him and reading this post, speak up! Hot damn, it's hot outside.

5.46 PM: Posada's out of the line up tonight with a sore hamstring. This likely explains his "dogging it" yesterday.

Let's hope 'sore' isn't a word for something more sinister.

7.13 PM: Yet another blink-and-you-miss-it inning. Damon was the only one to remotely work a count. It's only the first inning. I really shouldn't be this despondent.

7.21 PM: Great first inning for Hughes. Great play by Peña at third. Cody Ransom probably doesn't make that play. Berroa definitely does not.

7.27 PM: Yankee bats go quietly again. After being near the top in many offensive categories, Yankee bats have cooled significantly the last couple of days.

7.36 PM: Hughes works around a lead-off single. The second out of the inning, a strikeout, was nasty. Welcome back to the bigs, kid.

7.50 PM: Melky Cabrera leads off the inning with a single; but Jeter's single is sandwiched between three outs and once again the Yankees are held scoreless.

8.01 PM: Hughes works around a two-out walk and despite falling behind on Polanco 3-0 escapes with no damage done. He is getting squeezed on a few of his pitches, which can come back to haunt him if it ups his pitch count substantially.

8.18 PM: Do you think maybe the Yankees should hire a sports psychologist or something to figure out why these guys can't buy a hit with RISP? Yankees, by the way, have not hit a home run since Saturday.

8.30 PM: The good news is that there are two outs. The bad news is that the bases are chucked with Tigers.

8.31 PM: And Hughes works out of the jam. It's like he loaded the bases just to see what it feels like!

8.39 PM: You know that old poem that goes "don't go quietly into that good night?" Would it kill Girardi to plaster it everywhere in the locker room?

8.45 PM: Hughes has a perfect 1-2-3 bounceback inning, with a k, pop out and ground out. The 0-1 pitch to Polanco was beyond nasty-a knuckle curve that looked like it would hit the batter before diving back in for a strike.

8.53 PM: Hideki Matsui just hit a triple. No, I'm not making this up. Yes, you read that right-bum knees and all.

9.00 PM: I'm out of ideas here. The Yankees won't hit with RISP. Maybe they're trying to spite me because I got into an argument with someone earlier...

9.10 PM: This is by far the best I've ever seen Hughes. Granted I missed the starts when he first came up, but if he doesn't get that win tonight, there's gonna be at least one really, really unhappy girl in the Bronx.

9.19 PM: Jorge Posada in to pinch hit, which means the defense at third is gonna take a major hit the next few innings. And now the count is 0-2.

9.21 PM: Well, defensive hits are easier to take when you're up 2-0. What should have been a sac fly was just not caught and two runs score. Posada-now-Berroa is on second with one out.

9.35 PM: Apparently the Tiger bullpen is perfect medicine for anemic offenses.

9.43 PM: José Molina just hit a grand slam. I repeat. José Molina just hit a grand slam.

9.47 PM: Was that an amazing half inning, or what? 10-0 Yankees.

9.59 PM: Getting so distracted by the Devils forgot to mention Melancon got through the bottom half of the inning on ten pitches. And Matsui was just kind of robbed of a single if not a double.

10.11 PM: I really, really hate Carolina right now.

10.15 PM: It'd been a while for Swisher, hadn't it? 11-0 Yanks. Singleton's call was great, like 'oh, hey, yeah, that's a home run'.

Yankees Outpitched in Mo-Town; Slip below .500

Over the weekend it could be argued that the Yankees got themselves beat, especially in the first two games of the series.

Tonight, however, it was much simpler: Justin Verlander pitched better than CC Sabathia.

It wasn't that Sabathia pitched poorly--in fact Sabathia pitched all eight innings for the Yanks in one of his best performances on the young season--but even the 1998 Yankees would have had a hard time beating Verlander's gas.

It's not that the Yankees didn't have their chances.

On more than one occasion, the Yankees had men on base with no one out, but they did not score a single run until the ninth inning, and by then it was simply too late. Jorge Posada came up as the tying run, and as if personally sticking a dagger in the hearts of Yankee fans, bounced into a double play.

The loss wouldn't really be so hard to take if the Yankees hadn't already lost their three previous games. As far as losses go, this one wasn't a bad loss-not in the way that Friday's or Saturday's was.

There were some bright spots.

Ramiro Peña had two hits along with some quality glove work; Robinson Canó is doing a very good job of atoning for last year, and no on in the "firestarter five" (thank you PeteAbe) had to come into pitch.

On the other hand, Damon just looks really sore and Teixeira is still not quite right. A couple of the deep fly balls he hit would have been home runs if he was locked in and healthy.

Although Toronto is, for the moment, losing, Boston looks as though they may never lose another baseball game ever again.

With the Angels coming up after this series, things look kinda bleak in Yankeeland in the early goings of the season.

Still, the team's still missing their best offensive player and one of their starters. It's not really time to be calling for Girardi's head just yet.

Yankees at Tigers, 27 April 2009: A Liveblog

4.13 PM: Lots of discussion today about Molina's catcher's ERA versus Posada's. You can find a good discussion here. There are a few caveats:

1) Posada has caught all of Wang's starts
2) Molina has started less than Posada
3) It's still a really small sample size.

Still, Molina is getting the nod at catcher tonight and it will be interesting to see if it alters CC's performance in any way.

5.00 PM: They're kidding, right?

5.37 PM: Weather forecast for Detroit doesn't look that great...it'd be awesome if they bumped the start time up an hour, but of course I'm sure it's not worth the lost revenue.


5.39 PM: You can view a weather map here.

6.12 PM: My brother just showed me this and you have to see it to believe it.

Go to espn.com and Press these buttons and then keep on pressing enter Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Enter.

6.43 PM: Johnny Damon doesn't want to get his shoulder looked at. Everyone with me here: "uh-frackin'-oh".

7.11 PM: This could be a looong night. Yankees go down in order in the first and it's not even close.

7.17 PM: Miguel Cabrera hits a single past a diving Jeter (where have we heard this before?) and it's 1-0 Tigers as Magglio Ordoñez scores from second. Like I said, this could be a long night.

7.23 PM: Jim Joyce must have the most remarkable vocal chords known to mankind.

7.27 PM: Robbie Canó hits a one out single and is stranded as Swisher and Melky Cabrera strike out. I wonder, if I build a temple in Jerusalem and start sacrificing red bulls, if that will do anything...

7.38 PM: CC works around a one out hit and gets a GIDP.

7.38 PM: José Molina hit pretty well the last game he played, too. He is just toying with us.

7.43 PM: Why do I feel like Jeter read the post I wrote last night?

7.51 PM: Quick 1-2-3 inning for Sabathia. Meanwhile, these stop smoking PSAs are really grating on me. I don't smoke. I have no plans to start. So why do I have to sit through this?

7.55 PM: Hey! Look! Nick Swisher with a hit! I'm an idiot. It was Matsui.

7.58 PM: Ayayay Robbie...Okay, here is Nick Swisher.

8.00 PM: And just like Swisher, there's the strikeout. The Yankees right now are making my head hurt. A lot.

8.03 PM: Head, meet desk. Seriously, what does the team have to do to get a run-scoring hit with RISP? Sacrifice virgins or something?

8.11 PM: O Hai Thar CC that we paid craploads of money for in the offseason! That was a beautiful half inning to watch.

8.18 PM: Through 4.5 innings, Verlander has struck out eight. The Yankees may have gotten themselves beat this weekend, but tonight I'm not sure anyone could beat Verlander. Then you add in the Yankees' chronic inability to hit with RISP...

8.22 PM: Swisher may have forgotten how to hit, but he can still play some decent D.

8.25 PM: Good, ole' fashioned pitchers duel right here. If you're a baseball purist (and, uh, not a Yankee fan) it doesn't get better than this.

8.31 PM: Right now looks like Verlander could pitch a complete nine and not even feel it. Great for him and fantasy teams everywhere, bad for the Yankees.

8.39 PM: I think I counted five seconds before someone in a Yankee uniform got to that baseball. Damon looks like he's really hurting.

8.56 PM: Molina took a hard one there. Hope Molina's okay, head injuries are no laughing matter. Dude's tough as nails.

Meanwhile, the Yankees have six outs to score four runs.

Yeah, I'm tempted to turn the channel, too.

9.11 PM: The Yankees may never score a run again.

9.22 PM: Whoa. A run? Where did it come from?!

It's a Hitting Holiday (Postgame Notes 1 September 2008)

There's that old saying again--they don't have to be pretty, they just have to be wins.

Such was the case today.

Unfortunately, while the good ole' slugfest was fun to watch, for a while, it may be a case of too little, too late.

Losing two out of three to Boston was bad enough, but two out of three to Toronto as well was a dagger--and I had the honor of seeing the 7-6 loss on Saturday in person.

As far as today's game went, however, one has to wonder where this offense has been the entire season. Games like today were games the Yankees were supposed to have in spades this year, and they simply have not.

This game would have fit in nicely last year, with the Yankees winning in spite of their pitching staff, and not because of it (okay, Phil Coke had a very nice debut, but that was about it in terms of pitching).

The Yankees now head to Tampa for three before heading out to Seattle and Los Angeles.

Swept (Postgame Notes 1 May 2008)

I only caught the bottom of the ninth inning tonight, but it seemed to play out like the rest of the game--it got off to a decent start, and then stagnated, before imploding with a whimper.

OPTIMIST TAKE: Bobby Abreu had a three-run home run in the first. I'm sure there's more to be optimistic about, but like I said, I only caught the bottom of the ninth.

***

My actual evening, however, was more entertaining. I had tickets to the Syracuse-Pawtucket game; because the weather was awful, cold and raining, there were not many people that made it out to see the game.

I somehow am now in possession of a foul ball. I don't know how I got it, but somehow a ball hit the back of my leg while I was walking, and, well, it's got a nice scuff to it. The ball, not my leg, though my leg will probably have a small bruise tomorrow.

One of the best parts of minor league games that no one goes to is that no one sits out by the bullpen, so in the late innings, you can wander down there, and the security guy might stare at you a little bit (especially if your friend has beer), but he will generally leave you alone.

There were about four of us out by the Syracuse bullpen--Dan and myself, and two other guys we did not know--and, despite the cold, rainy evening, it was fun watching the pitchers warm up, hearing their conversation (though it was too cold for there to be much of a conversation) and even interacting with them.

I guess you can say I am easily amused.

Pregame Notes 1 May 2008

If, at the beginning of the season, you said that the Yankees would be a game under .500 at the end of April, you probably wouldn't have been too happy, but given the Yankees' month-long road trip, you would have probably been okay with it.

However, even thought that's what the Yankees have, the cost of it is looking like it is prohibitively high. The Yankees have lost a large percentage of their offense with the injuries to Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada, and their young pitching has not only not been there, but is now getting hurt as well.

The Yankees will attempt to avoid a sweep tonight and get their first win since returning home, but they will need a better performance from Ian Kennedy than they have been getting, and much better production from their bats.

To that end, Joe Girardi continues to draw the line up at random; tonight Shelley Duncan will bat fourth, Morgan Ensberg will man third and Chad Moeller will catch. Melky Cabrera will once again bat in the sixth spot.

I have some more minor league tickets tonight so the postgame wrap will be a little late, unless it does like the radar says and rains, and then it might be on time.

The Hurts Keep Coming (Postgame Notes 30 April 2008)

It's as if the injury bug is contagious.

Tonight's loss to the Tigers is further compounded by the knowledge that Phil Hughes has been placed on the 15 day DL with a strained oblique.

There was nothing pretty about tonight's game, especially after the fifth inning.

Andy Pettitte started the game given the Yankees exactly what they needed--good, solid, pitching, but in the middle of the fifth Pettitte made a mistake to Marcus Thames and did not recover.

The Yankee offense managed just five hits tonight, three in the first inning and two off of the bat of Melky Cabrera, who seems to be providing the near entirety of the Yankee offense this season. Unlike last night, where the Yankees brought the tying run to the plate in the ninth inning, they went down easy tonight, looking lackluster at best.

OPTIMIST TAKE: Not a lot to be optimistic about tonight, but Melky Cabrera's bat remains strong. He was moved up to the sixth spot tonight and the way he hit, you wouldn't have realized it. April is at last over, and the Yankees can theoretically look for some warmer weather and a lighter schedule.


I'm off tomorrow to go see some more minor league baseball because I can; will have postgame notes up late.

Good, Bad, Ugly and Pregame Notes (30 April 2008)

One month into the season, and it is still hard to get a clear picture as to where this Yankee team is headed.

On one hand, they have just escaped a mammoth, 18-of-20 on the road, April and will, at worst, be one game under .500. It's certainly not where a team wants to be, but it is much better than it could be.

Chien Ming Wang seems to have matured overnight, rounding the corner from 'very good' to 'ace'--not sure? Consider the 2-0 win against Tampa Bay, the 2-1 two-hitter against Boston, and the 1-0 shutout against Cleveland. Also consider the performance against Chicago--far from stellar, but the type of battle, grind-it-out start that is the hallmark of a good pitcher. He's already 5-0, with just one poor start.

Mariano Rivera looks like he is on his way to a career year--eight saves already, an infinite K-to-BB ratio, and an ERA of 0.00.

Melky Cabrera, the supposed 'throw in' for the Santana deal, is doing his best to say "thank you for not trading me" and, by all accounts, doing a very good job of it as well.

In fact, all the M guys seem to be perfomring well--Chien Ming, Mariano, Melky, Matsui, Molina...even Mike Mussina is giving the Yankees what they need when he's not pitching to Manny Ramirez.

On the other hand, there is no getting around the fact that Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy have been struggling. They--especially Phil--are young, and the struggles are to be expected, but that neither of them have a win or an ERA under 5.00 is not a good sign if the Yankees expect to contend this year.

The offense has been stagnant, largely unable to get the "big hit" when needed; Jason Giambi and Robinson Canò have been the most notable of those struggling and Canò has the second lowest batting average of all American League qualifiers, despite his home run last night. The Yankees are confident he will heat up, but such an extended slump has got to play with his psyche.


The biggest blow of all, however, are the injuries. Andy Pettitte, Derek Jeter, Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez, Jose Molina, Jorge Posada, Wilson Betemit and Brian Bruney have all missed or are missing considerable time with injuries--Brian Bruney, Jorge Posada and Alex Rodriguez have all needed to go on the disabled list.

It's impossible to know how much of the injuries are due to the poor conditions the Yankees have played in, or to other reasons, but to say they will have an impact on the Yankees is an understatement. They will have an impact, when two guys who provided the center for the Yankee offense last year are out of the line up for an extened period and so many others are struggling.


That said, the situation could be a lot worse. The Yankees do have things going for them, and it would be foolish to ignore the positives, just as it would the challenges they face.


***

Andy Pettitte takes the mound tonight in a role that has become very familiar to him over the years--that of the "Yankee Stopper". He will go against Jeremy Bonderman, one of Detroits young pitchers.

If the Yankees win tonight, they have a chance at winning the series with the Tigers tomorrow. Ross Ohlendorf pitched three innings tonight, so if Pettitte gets in trouble, it's likely that Jonathan Albaladejo will be the long man.

Hughes Lose (postgame notes 29 April 2008)

At what point do the growing pains end and the serious concerns begin?

This is the question that is going to creep up, sooner or later, on the minds of Yankee fans if Phil Hughes continues to have bad outings like he had tonight.

While the start in Chicago seemed to be encouraging, tonight's start was a regression back to the first couple of weeks of the season. No doubt, the cold weather probably affected it a little, but someone as hyped as Hughes has been, should have a win before the end of April. He was down almost immediately in the first inning, and after the Yankees tied it up at two, Hughes gave up two home runs in the next inning.

That said, it is far too soon to call Hughes a bust. For those that would, look at the rookie year stats of Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Johan Santana and Fausto Carmona. It is much, much too soon to start thinking in those sort of drastic terms.

However, that doesn't mean there should not be a reason for concern. Hughes was if not magnificent, then service-ably good, in his first start, and the reason for the drop off in the performance is confusing. Is it a mechanical thing? A mental thing? One has to hope (well, a Yankee fan, at least) that between Dave Eiland, Joe Girardi and everyone else on staff that they can figure it out.


Another concern, one that's been building for a while now, is the lack of offense. There's no denying that the losses of Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada hurt, and that Jason Giambi and Robinson Canò are not having great seasons right now, but, as in the eighth inning, when the Yankees had the bases loaded, the lack of any discernible offense is frustrating to say the least.

As good as Chien Ming Wang has been, he won't pitch the Yankees to 1-0 or 2-0 wins every game (though it might seem like it) and with two young kids in the rotation, the offense has got to give the pitchers some better run support. I'm not sure if there's a voodoo ritual or perhaps some sort of Larry Boa-ish talking-to that the offense can get, but it needs a spark, badly.


OPTIMIST TAKE: The bullpen pitched 5.1 nearly flawless innings, and because Ross Ohlendorf went three, the workload for the rest of the bullpen was lessened. Robinson Canò had a two run home run. The Yankees got their first two men on base in the ninth and were able to pull from down 6-2 at the beginning of the eighth to within 6-4.

Pregame Notes 29 April 2008

So that's it, then.

I will never have another undergraduate class, or another undergraduate final, ever again. Well, I still have two papers and a thesis defense, but that's besides the point.

Anyway, the stuff you care about:

The Yankees finally return home (you mean we don't get to hit first any more?), where they will start the homestand by facing the Detroit Tigers.

The Tigers, as you may have heard, got off to one of the worst starts that a baseball franchise can get off to, but they seem to be on their way to turning it around. They have Kenny Rogers on the mound tonight, who is getting up to Jaime Moyer territory in terms of age.

The Yankees are going with Phil Hughes at the opposite end of the spectrum; he is yet to have a win though he has pitched noticeably better in his last two starts.

Alex Rodriguez is sitting out the game with an aggravated quad injury; Morgan Ensberg will play third, Jason Giambi will DH, Shelley Duncan will play first, and both Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui will play in the outfield as Melky Cabrera gets a very deserved night off. Chris Stewart will get his first start behind the plate after being called up from AAA Scranton; it's really weird to think that I just saw him play on Sunday...

More after the game.

A Preview A Day Keeps the Winter Away, #27 & #28

For the month of March I will be doing a season preview, with a new team each day, going in alphabetical order by team so I can save the Yankees for last, because I am, in fact, that devious.

As this is a Yankees' blog, the previews for AL East teams will be more detailed than those of AL Central and AL West teams, and any AL team previews will be more detailed than NL team previews, save maybe for the Mets. Each preview will involve consideration of how much 'threat' a team is to the Yankees, for fairly obvious reasons.

Up today: The Detroit Tigers and the Minnesota Twins

At first glance, these AL Central teams look like they're heading in opposite directions. Detroit's recently stocked up with Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis, while Minnesota unloaded ace Johan Santana for....Phillip Humber?

Detroit is by far the easier team to read.

They are in a win-now mode, and with Magglio Ordoñez, Gary Sheffield, Ivan Rodriguez, Placido Polanco and now Miguel Cabrera in the line-up, it's hard to see how the team won't score 1000 runs this season.

Detroit's problem--and it could easily be one big enough to keep them from the postseason--is twofold: A very questionable pitching staff and the injury bug. In fact, these two things are combined in the personages of Fernando Rodney and Joel Zumaya, though you have to feel for Zumaya who injured his shoulder while moving furniture from those massive California wildfires last fall.

Still, outside of Justin Verlander, the Tigers' rotation does not inspire a terrible lot of confidence. Dontrelle Willis is coming over from the National League, on many accounts a league simply not as good as the American, and he did not have a great year last year. While he's young, he's not that young: he was on the Marlins when they won in 2003. Kenny Rogers is on the wrong side of 40 (for a pitcher not named Satchel Paige, anyway). Bonderman can be really good. Or not.

Worse for the Tigers, their bullpen is currently resting on the shoulders of Todd Jones, and not Joel Zumaya or Fernando Rodney.


Tigers threat to the Yankees: Orange, exercise extreme caution.

Despite the pitching question marks, the Tigers line up is that good, and if the Yankees falter or suffer a large growing pain, the Tigers could easily step in and make life very difficult.


The Twins are a harder team to read. On one hand, they lost franchise player Torii Hunter to the Angels and traded Johan Santana--the best player on the team, and one of the best pitchers in the entirety of baseball, and got next to nothing in return (as far as we can tell). On the other, they signed Joe Nathan, one of the game's best closers through to 2012.

Perhaps Francisco Liriano can come back from missing last season; but the fact that Livan Hernandez is the Twins' #2 starter is not encouraging in any sense of the word.

It's kind of confusing; a few years ago the Twins were a legitimate playoff team, and they could have easily built on a strong roster, but instead they seem to have gone all Florida Marlins on it. Strange times.

Threat to the Yankees: Yellow, Exercise Caution

They're not an NL team and we do play them. Liriano and Bonser could come through and surprise people. However, this is not a team that is likely thinking about October.