Yankees Bend, don't Break, win Sixth Straight and Sweep Twins (Postgame Notes 18 May 2009)

For a while, it seem scripted that the Yankees might have to settle for a fourth-straight walk off if they were going to win the game. Going into the ninth with a 7-5 lead and an unavailable Mariano Rivera, there was perhaps more tension here than in any of the walk off wins, as going to extras here would have meant blowing a one-time 6-2 lead.

Yet, with Carlos Gomez dancing off of first, Francisco Cervelli and Ramiro Peña--and not Derek Jeter--went out to the mound to calm the young Phil Coke, who like the rest of the pitching staff buckled, but never broke.

The Yankees were down 2-0 at the end of the first--Minnesota scored first every game of this series--but got to work quickly on Glen Perkins.

The first four batters all reached base and scored, thanks to home runs from Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez, and Perkins was knocked out of the game in the first.

The Twins' bullpen, was, however, very effective, and slowly the Twins began to chip away. A run here, a run there, and soon enough the score was 6-4, a two run lead and only a depleted Yankees' bullpen to protect it.

Teixeira added another home run to make it 7-4, and after Edwar Ramirez served up a home run to Michael Cuddyer Denard Span, it became very clear that the extra run was needed.

It's perhaps fairly surprising that the combination of Veras and Ramirez only gave up one run, but it was quite hairy. The Twins didn't have a 1-2-3 inning all game.



The Yankees were perhaps also helped by stellar defense from Ramiro Peña, Derek Jeter, Robinson Canó and Mark Teixeira. They were making plays that I doubt Jason Giambi or a still slightly gimpy Alex Rodriguez would have made, and they loom large now.


Still, despite the hairyness, the Yankees have won six straight to get to four games over .500 for the first time this season, and Brian Bruney should return tomorrow (and Mo should be available, of course).

Mo, Bruney, Coke and Aceves is not quite an imposing bullpen core, but the four have been steady all year when healthy (or in Mo's case, all career).


CC is on the mound for the Yanks tomorrow night; the last time he pitched Baltimore, it was crack. Hopefully he can emulate the performance.

It's March 1st. It's okay to step away from the ledge

Apparently, I never realized that Grapefruit League games actually matter.

Right.

Are we so starved for baseball that we take games in the first week of an extended exhibition season and use these to judge the fortunes of our team in 2009?

Right now, the "regulars" leave the game after four or five innings and the pitchers you see are not your Opening Day starters.

Right now, all that matters is keeping the team healthy and getting them up to full strength.

Thus, Jorge Posada and Edwar Ramirez and Jonathan Albaladejo are legitimate concerns (even if grouping Albie here is pushing it a little bit).

Jesus Montero is a bit of a concern, sure, but he is not supposed to impact the major league team for a couple of seasons...kid's 19 years old! When I was 19 years old, my biggest concerns were staying up till 3.30 AM to finish that paper on African myths...

What isn't a legitimate concern: worrying about losing games in the first week of exhibition play.

Seriously. Remember last spring training? How Robbie Canó hit .440ish? How'd that work out during the regular season?

While, right now, Brett Gardner is pwning Melky, remember, there's still a whole month before the regular season starts, and anything can happen, so, I'd exercise some caution before going out to buy those "Gardner" t-shirts just yet.

Spring Training right now is a time to sit back, be jealous of sunny Florida while in NY it's about to dump a foot of snow, take a seat with a cup of hot tea and Baseball Prospectus 2009, take a deep breath...

...and relax.

X-Men Cometh (Postgame Notes 03 August 2008)

Down 5-0 in the fourth inning, Yankees fans were just praying the deficit wouldn't get any larger.

Maybe, just maybe the Yankees would be able to chip away and make the game close, and maybe, just maybe, there would be that little glimmer of hope that the Yankees could end the series on a positive note.

When a base-running error with one out in the fourth inning by Bobby Abreu kept the Yankees from scoring on a sacrifice fly from Xavier Nady, you could hear the collective groaning from Yankee fans everywhere: that was our inning, and we missed it.

Guess everyone forgot that 27 outs are a lot of outs.

From the fifth inning on, the Yankees scored at least one run every inning--one in the fifth, three in the sixth, four in the seventh and then six in a wild eighth inning.

Xavier Nady had a career high 6 RBI, including a home run in the seventh to put the Yankees ahead 8-5. As a Yankee he is hitting .385 with three doubles, three home runs, and ten RBI in eight games--and that's despite a very slow start in Boston.

Boston can keep their Jason Bay; the Yankees like the X Man just fine.

In terms of pitching...well, there wasn't much of it unless you count what John Lackey did in the first three innings, and what Dan Giese did in the middle innings.

If anything, Giese made a case for him to start next Friday night against Lackey in Anaheim in place of Darrell Rasner, who did not have a good performance.

Edwar Ramirez was overdue for a couple of baserunners, but the grand slam he gave up to Mark Teixiera was a crushing blow after the Yankees had just taken a three run lead. Had the Angels played something remotely resembling defense in the eighth inning, it would have been a crushing loss for the Yankees.

As luck would have it, however, the ghosts seemed to be out today, and the Yankees, seemingly sparked by Justin Christian's double steal in the eighth, would not lose the game, and battled themselves to a split with the league's best team.

A word of caution: Apparently Mariano Rivera was unavailable to pitch today due to back spasms.

Eight Wins Up (Postgame Notes 26 July 2008)

In the first inning, Andy Pettitte simply could not get a pitch called a strike.

Boston pushed two runs across before the Yankees had their second at bat, and they were looking for more.

...and still, the Yankees won.

In terms of the games that the Yankees have pitched since the All Star Break, it wasn't the prettiest, but Pettitte got stronger as the game went on, and, as a true showcase of how good the bullpen has become, when Jose Veras struggled in the seventh, Joe Girardi went to Dàmaso Marte, Edwar Ramirez and David Robertson. The three did not allow another hit.

In fact, one may look at today's game as indictive of the differences between the Yankees' bullpen situation and that of the Red Sox.

Consider the statistics:

Yankee bullpen: 3 IP, 1 H, 2 BB, 3 K, 0 ER
Red Sox bullpen: 3.2 IP, 5 H, 3 BB, 3 K, 4 ER

In trading for Marte, the Yankees have made a strength stronger and kept the Red Sox from addressing what is probably the weakest part of their ball club.

More good news about today's win?

Today's offensive effort--ten runs in what is technically a come-from-behind win--means that the Yankees don't have to be concerned about the fact they only went 1-9 with RISP last night.

In fact, Bobby Abreu, Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi and Robinson Canò all had two out RBI (Canò had two and three RBI on the day).

Whatever this Yankee team is, the team it was in the first half is not it.

The starting pitching is giving them a chance to win every game, the offense is, post break, scoring 6.12 runs a game (read: what they were supposed to do all season) and the bullpen is phenomenal.

On July 6, the Yankees were nine games out of the division lead.

Today, on July 26, they are tied in the loss column with Boston for the Wild Card lead.

Everyone has said that if the Yankees were going to make a move, that it has to be now, this month.

That is precisely what they have done.

The Yankees will try to close out the series tommorrow evening. Whatever happens, the Yankees can rest a little easy knowing that no matter what they have taken two out of three from Boston at Fenway.

Office Correspondance (Postgame Notes

Memo

To: Yankees
From: Baseball G-ds
Re: Mariano Rivera

Of six runs allowed this inning, five have come in tie games. You may want to consider this before putting him in tie game situations in the future.


Memo

To: Yankees
From: Baseball G-ds
Re: Offense

Look, we can only help so much. If Robinson Canò and Brett Gardner are going to have good days, the least you can do is make sure the rest of the line up, including the "big names" like Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi, actually hit with runners in scoring position.

Seriously, we really do want to help. We understand that this is the last year of Yankee Stadium, so it would be criminal not to play baseball here in October, but we can only do so much. If it's on us for allowing free will, it's on us, but really, we help those who help themselves.

And dude, falling down while trying to steal second with no outs in the ninth? Not a great idea.


PS: By the way, someone's going to want to take Jose Molina out to dinner tonight.


Memo
To: Baseball G-ds
From: the New York Yankees
Re: Correspondance

Duly noted.


Memo
To: Yankees
From: Baseball G-ds
Re: Told ya so!

See what happens when you listen to us? Also, we would like to congratulate Robinson Canò on his best game of the season, and the pitching staff for their 18 strike outs on the day--eight from Joba Chamberlain alone.

The Dark Knight is Amazing. Go See It. (Postgame Notes 18 July 2008)

If only the Yankees could play like this every night.

Good starting pitching, clutch hitting, clean defense and an overpowering bullpen will get you a win almost every time, and that's exactly what the Yankees had tonight.

Mike Mussina was not dominant--he gave up nine hits over six--but he was effective. He allowed one run in the first and did not allow another run the rest of the game. He did not walk a single batter and struck out the side in the second--all looking.

Mussina now has more wins (12) than he had all of last season, and still has a potential, if unlikely, shot at 20 wins. Many agree that one 20 win season would give Moose the boost he needs to be a serious Hall of Fame candidate.

I could gush more about the season that Mussina is having, but tonight's win wasn't just Mike Mussina.

The Yankee offense did something it's not done much of late, and played a good game. It wasn't just one guy with a good night, but the entire team seemed to be playing well.

Bobby Abreu, Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Canò and Melky Cabrera all had multiple hit games that included extra base hits (doubles for Abreu and Melky; home runs for Alex and Canò).

More telling, however, was that six of the Yankee runs were scored on two outs--three of those coming on Robinson Canò's home run in the third to put the Yankees ahead. The Yankees never relinquished the lead.

The bullpen, which tonight didn't see Jose Veras, Kyle Farnsworth or Mariano Rivera, was absolutley dominant.

David Robertson struck out the side in the seventh; Edwar Ramirez struck out two of three in a one-two-three eighth, and LaTroy Hawkins had a one-two-three ninth, ending the game with a strike out.

In the last few years, and, most notably, last year, the Yankees have been a second-half team, and tonight, they posted one of their best-played wins this season to start it off.

If you believe in omens t all, consider tonight a good one.

I Miss Twinkies (Exhibition Notes, Game 5)

Okay, I miss all those devil dog-like things with immortal shelf lives, but that's not what you care about, I'm guessing.

Anyway, some notes:

1) I missed the first half of the game, when the Yankees scored all their runs, taking a mid-term. I'm assuming there's no correlation there.

2) I did see Joba's second inning of work. He looked shaky, but I'm assuming he was using the opportunity to work on a curve and a change, in which case the shakiness is to be expected. If he's still pitching like this in the middle of May, well, then I might get a little concerned, but, dude, if you can hit 97 MPH on March 5th, I'm not exactly worried.

3) Albaladejo was good enough, in my opinion, but Edwar is a little worrying. He's simply either really good or really bad, and, well, when it's the ninth inning with a one run lead in September at Fenway with the division on the line, do you really want to be worrying about whether or not it's a good day or a bad day?

4) So right now I'm thinking the Yankees may get more production out of their first base platoon situation than the mainstays. Or maybe Shelley is just that insane.

5) I'm waiting for this game to end so I can go make pasta and study Neuro, but it doesn't want to end. One of those things, I guess.