"The Funnest I've Ever Had"

So this is what the World Series, the real World Series, feels like, huh?

What with the pitching and the timely hitting and the Mariano-ing and the Hoosierdaddy-ing and the mid-game-change-your-luck-Tweetups with Amanda Rykoff and Brent Nycz and the OHMIG-D YOU DID NOT REALIZE PAUL O'NEILL WAS THROWING OUT THE FIRST PITCH!

This is what it feels like.

It feels pretty darn good.

This isn't just baseball.

This is love.


***
Unlike last night's cold, rainy and windy drudge, tonight felt like October baseball.

There was, first of all, getting off the subway and walking, in the pale, dying sunlight, across the street to the Stadium. There, you find yourself transported to another world, one in which nothing matters except baseball. Nothing.





There was, in the pregame, the Jay Z/Alicia Keys mini-concert.

I'm not even a Jay Z fan, but the show the two put on seemed to set something off: the Stadium came alive, as if, finally, finally, we realized what it is our team has accomplished.







We're here, in the World Series.

We've reached the last round, we will play in the last Major League baseball game on the 2009 calendar; we will play into November.





The National Anthem is sung by John Legend and there's a flyover which goes right over my head, all of which is utterly awesome and makes it hit me again: HEY THIS IS THE WORLD SERIES, but it pales in comparison to the reaction when Paul O'Neill comes out to throw out the first pitch.




We are ready for this game to start.


AJ Burnett takes his warm up tosses not to the 300 soundtrack as normal, but instead to Marilyn Manson.

I don't know if today will be Good AJ or Bad AJ, not yet, but the music choice soothes me: almost every other time I've seen Burnett pitch this season with his normal warm up music, he's been bombed. Maybe the change will do him good.









After a few innings, after the Phillies take a 1-0 lead and Pedro Martinez refuses to let the Yankees do anything besides chant "Who's Your Dad-dy?", Amanda Rykoff and I start texting. She's scored a last second ticket to the game and we're talking about a mid-game tweet-up, along with Brent Nycz, to change the Yankees' luck. We decide: Top of the fourth inning, by section 413.

So, we meet and we walk over to one of the concession stands so I can buy myself some Twizzlers.

We watch the game on the screens, which are about 10 seconds behind the actual play on the field.

We watch AJ Burnett pitch a 1-2-3 inning, and then we watch Mark Teixeira hit a game-tying home run into the Yankees' bullpen, and we decree the tweet-up a success: our luck has been changed.



After we part, Burnett pitches as though he has taken it to another level. Slowly, we stop holding our breath with every pitch AJ throws, and instead begin to long for the next one. It may not be Lee's dominance, but you could have fooled us.

In the seventh inning, the crowd senses that this is something spectacular. So we chant: "AJ! AJ! AJ!"

He dazzles.

Later on, while speaking to reporters, he'll say it's "the funnest I've ever had".



In the bottom of the seventh, with a one run lead, the Yankees threaten for more. With first and third and no one out, a Melky Cabrera singles makes the score 3-1 and knocks Pedro Martinez from the game. Hoosierdaddy!







After a pinch-hitting Jorge Posada reaches, Derek Jeter bunts foul ("I was stupid", he is rumored to have said) and Johnny Damon comes to the plate.

I'll examine this in more detail tomorrow, but from our seats, what we saw was him ground to Ryan Howard, who, without touching first, threw the ball wide of second base. It should have left the Yankees with the bases loaded and no one out, but it was instead ruled a double play.

Somehow, you get the feeling, that it's impossible to conduct a 2009 postseason game without some sort of major umpiring scandal.



Still, the umpires' awful call notwithstanding, the Yankees took no chances, and went straight to Enter Sandman.

With the top of the Phillies' lineup due up in the eighth inning, going to Mariano Rivera is, in terms of, leverage-baby-leverage, a no-brainer. With the off day tomorrow, the Yankees could afford to do it, and so they did.

Rivera did make things a little exciting, but, being the great Mariano, he found a way.



Ball game over, Yankees win, theeeee Yankees win!



****

I found and purchased a "Got Pie" t-shirt. It's a much better souvenir than the program, which cost $5 more than normal and is mostly a reprint of the LCS program.

I still can't get over the umpires' call in the bottom of the 7th. I will address tomorrow, likely in the afternoon.


Any photo taken after the fourth inning is credit Brent Nycz. The video of the final out (will be uploaded in morning) is credit Amanda Rykoff.

Reflections

By the time you read this post, it will have been 24 hours since the first pitch of last night's ball game and last night's win that was everything that 2006 and 2007 were not.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that last night's game was a microcosm of everything this season, a microcosm of the team, of its flaws and its strengths, of its poise and of its fight.

We've been following this team all year. We know about the walk off wins, about the pies, about the pitching staff that at times is unhittable and at other times can't find anything that looks remotely like a strike zone. We know about all the breaks that just seem to go the Yankees' way, about the A-Rod story that is over and done, and we know about the life injected by Sabathia, Burnett, Swisher and Teixeira.

So last night played out like any important game this season did: a close game with just enough breaks going the Yankees' way and a pie a la AJ.

It can't be a coincidence that Rodriguez has the two biggest home runs (thus far) of the 2009 Yankees: the bottom-of-the-fifteenth inning blast to win a scoreless marathon against Boston, and last night's game-tying ninth inning blast. Rodriguez has hit many other home runs--like the first pitch he saw of the 2009 season and a three run home run and grand slam in the final regular season game, and it seems odd to say but he may very well have been the most underrated Yankee this year.

It can't be a coincidence that, not since the middle of October 2003, did such a thing seem possible.

Yet, this is, historically, who the Yankees are: they reign in October. They find heroes in the likely, in the unlikely, in those in need of redemption and in those further cementing a legendary glory.

Just look at Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and David Robertson.

All three of them have had an impact on 2009--two of them with salaries more than the GDPs of some small nations, and one of them whose role last night might, some years from now, be forgotten by all except his teammates and the most die-hard among his team's fans.

Rodriguez had helped his case with his Game One performance, but he still needed that ultimate redemption, that signature moment in the postseason in which fans could forever ask, "remember when A-Rod hit that home run?".

Mark Teixeira had found himself welcomed this season in the Bronx with open arms--his defense alone, perhaps, being worth the honor--but he was on the verge of an 0-for-two-games and there was not a single Yankee fan that wanted to stomach, no matter how briefly, that as being a possibility.

Then there was Robertson, a bullpen pitcher who has largely remained unnoticed because he has been so effective. The closer and eighth inning spots already taken, Robertson often appeared either earlier, or later, in extra innings, when the most climactic moments of the game seem to have passed by. Robertson, who has none of the experience of Mariano Rivera, found a way to exhibit the same poise.


Three different players, at three very different points in their careers, three different personalities and three different projections and postulations by the media, and yet all three crucial to the win.

That's the thing about the Yankees that resonates so well: sure, there are the heroics from Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio and Derek Jeter, Reggie Jackson and Alex Rodrigues, but then there are also the heroics from those like Bucky Dent and Chad Curtis, Luis Sojo and Jose Vizcaino.


We don't know what tomorrow's game will bring; the only guarantee is that since the Yankees are not the home team, they can't have a walk off win.

That doesn't seem likely to matter, however, as this team, like the great ones not so long ago, has found a way to win in nearly every situation.

Will the game story be the starter, Andy Pettitte? Will it be another hitter? A baserunning play that saves the Yankees' the game or costs them it? We don't know, and that, perhaps, might be why we love this team so much.

Anything is possible.

Demonize This

"I can't believe this," Jason says. "I can't believe we're going to lose to this team."

"I can," I say, sighing. "My luck isn't that good."

We're sitting in luxury suite 32, tickets that were a gift from my father. We've got a view that looks a bit like this:



Only, now it's night time and everyone's in a bit of a state of disbelief. It's not that the Yankees are losing this game that has us baffled, it's that the Yankee offense has only managed one run and that two of Minnesota's three runs were gotten off of Phil Hughes and Mariano Rivera.

Phil Hughes and Mariano Rivera. The back end of the Yankees' bullpen. The reason the team won 103 games. They are going to cost the team the game.

****

Earlier:

The story heading into the game was whether or not Joe Giradi (#27 below) and his decision to start Jose Molina over Jorge Posada would be cause for concern.



As it would turn out, the decision would be a non-issue. Molina, as we suspected, did not get a hit, but he never came to the plate in a crucial situation, either.

When AJ Burnett was done pitching after the sixth inning, Jose Molina was done catching. And so it went.




The Yankees didn't score a run until late in the game, when Alex Rodriguez drove in Derek Jeter after Jeter hit a double to right field.



We celebrated A-Rod's RBI hit, his third RBI in two postseason games, further strengthening the notion that A-Rod's demons are stuff of myth and slow-news-day media constructs. We didn't know what would happen later.

After Burnett came out of the game, Joba Chamberlain came in to pitch the seventh.



Chamberlain was sharp, getting the first two hitters he faced out before failing to get the third and Girardi, with a quick hook, pulling him from the game.



We were treated mid-seventh inning to Ronan Tynan's stirring rendition of God Bless America.





The entire Stadium sang with him, maybe because it was him, maybe because it was the postseason, but whatever reason, we sang.

****

In the eighth inning, Phil Hughes fails. The game is a 1-1 tie, and Hughes gets two quick outs, but can't get the third. Minnesota scores one run and Girardi goes to Mariano Rivera, who is more or less the Hammer of God, as multiple sources call him. If Mo can just hold it here, we think, we'll have a chance.

Thing is, Mo does not. The Twins score another run and it's a 3-1 game with only two at bats left for the Yankees.

It gets worse in the bottom of the eighth, when the Yankees go down 1-2-3, not even making an effort of it.

Jason is inconsolable, but the man sitting to my right is stoic.

"They're going to win," he says.

****

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Mark Teixeira is first up.

"He really needs a hit here," Jason says, "he can't take an oh-fer for the first two games." Jason is right. Teixeira doesn't have a postseason hit yet, and if he doesn't get one here, he'll fast become a goat.

Maybe Teixeira hears us; he lines the pitch into right field for a single. The Stadium begins to sense something and gets a little excited.

After all, Alex Rodriguez comes to the plate.



My thoughts are simple: I just want Alex Rodriguez to get on base without making an out. I even pray: please, G-d, please let the Yankees do this. Please let them win.

Jason's are more elaborate: "This place is going to go ape-shit if Alex hits one out."

We watch as Joe Nathan deals ball one to Alex. Then ball two. And ball three. Nathan gets Rodriguez to a 3-1 count and then...

...A long, high, grand drive. It's going to be pretty darned deep. It's going to be at least a double. It's going to hit off the wall. It's going to be GONE.

One swing, and all of the past Rodriguez playoff demons are forgotten as though they had never existed in the first place.





The Stadium crowd is so loud, so excited that it's literally shaking. A home run. A game tying home run. A game tying home run by Alex Rodriguez. A game tying home run by Alex Rodriguez in the ninth inning.

Whatever happens from here on out, we've all beared witness to this. We'll all remember this. Everything about it. Everything that went into it, and everything that came out of it.

We make Rodriguez take a curtain call.

****

The Yankees don't win the game in the ninth, and they don't win the game in the 10th although they should have: Brett Gardner, running for Jorge Posada makes it to third base on a bad throw to second while trying to steal, and Derek Jeter is on first base with only one out.





All Johnny Damon needs to do is hit a fly ball deep enough to score Gardner and the Yankees will win.

Damon, however, does not. He lines out, and because Gardner is halfway to home--having gone on contact--it becomes an easy double play.

The Stadium deflates. Minnesota has another chance and the Yankees are running out of pitchers.

****

Damaso Marte enters the game because Joe Girardi has already used Phil Coke.

Marte hasn't had a good season and none of us have much faith in Marte's ability to get three outs. We'll take just one, and Marte can't even do that tonight.

Girardi has three choices: leave Marte in, go to Chad Gaudin or go to David Robertson. Gaudin is a generally effective long reliever, but Robertson, who has occasionally struggled in high-leverage situations, has the better stuff.

Girardi goes to Robertson.

At first, the choice is disheartening as Robertson allows a single that loads the bases with no one out.

"There is no possible way this can end well," I say, not because I'm Optimist Prime, but because I want to temper my own expectations.

Yet, Robertson gets the next batter to line out to Teixeira, so hard that no one has a chance to tag and score.

After one out, there's a soft grounder that Teixeira throws home for out number two, and all of a sudden, there is a palpable relief of tension. It doesn't matter how the third out is gotten, just as long as there's the out.

There's a fly ball to Brett Gardner, who sets under it, catches it, and runs off the field.

***

It's fitting that in the bottom of the eleventh, Teixeira is first at bat.



He had the two stellar defensive plays last half inning, and had he not had that single in the ninth inning, Rodriguez's home run would have meant little.

Here, we'd just like Teixeira to get on base. We want the game to end this inning.

So Jose Mijares, a rookie reliever who's not actually that shabby, pitches to a $180 million first baseman.

There's a drive to left field.

We know it's hit hard enough, but we don't know if it's fair or foul.

It stays fair, but we don't know if it's high enough.

It has the height. Just. Barely. It grazes the top of the wall, and if you watch the replay, you can hear a hush as the crowd tries to process what has just happened. Then we realize:

"It went over! It's over! We win!"









We stay for the pie, because you have to. These are the New York Yankees, this is 2009. You stay for the pie.




****

I had never before been to a game and thought, afterwards, "I'll remember this for the rest of my life."

Never, that is, until tonight.


*****

I was able to meet up with a fair few: fellow bloggers Ben Kabak of River Ave Blues, Amanda Rykoff (@amandarykoff), fellow blog reader Justin Y. and beat writer Marc Carig (@ledger_yankees).

I went to meet Justin while the Twins were taking BP. Justin was sitting in the bleachers, but we'd never met before, so while I was looking for him I wasn't entirely paying attention to what was going on on the field.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a bad idea. My head was nearly lopped off by a home run ball, saved only by my very innate and well developed instinct to duct.

I attended the game with Jason Rosenberg from It's about the money, Stupid. He has a much, much better camera than I do so please hit him up for some truly amazing shots.

Joe Mauer for MVP

A few weeks ago, some of you will no doubt be aware that I did a guest post on River Ave Blues arguing that Derek Jeter should walk away with the MVP.

No disrespect to Jeter, who is still having an amazing season and an even more amazing road trip, but I need to change my vote.

I have seen the light, and the light is Joe Mauer.

How have I seen the light?

Mauer's average, .383, is higher than Mark Teixeira's on-base-percentage. That means that Joe Mauer is getting a greater percentage of hits than Mark Teixeira--one of the league leaders in OBP--is getting on base.

Mauer has 139 hits and 25 home runs to go along with it--and let's not forget, he missed the entire first month of the season.

As one might now expect, his walks and strike outs are almost exactly identical (46 and 47), and this is already mid-late August.


The only, and I mean only, knock on Mauer here is that the team he's playing for is, well, not very good, and the award is most valuable and not most outstanding player.

Still, it can't be much of a complaint. Alex Rodriguez, after all, won on the last place Texas Rangers, right?

Take heart, supporters of Jeter and Teixeira, however: those two could very well pick up some other hardware that might skip Mauer by (this season, at least)--and that hardware is plenty valuable on its own.

Thanks, Brian Cashman

AJ Burnett takes a one-hitter into the eighth on Friday--and the only hit was the very first batter of the game, a ball that possibly should have been caught.

CC Sabathia takes a no-hitter into the sixth on Saturday.

Mark Teixeira breaks a 2-2 tie with a moonshot on Sunday.

Eric Hinske would have won Friday's game had it not been for a spectacular catch by JD Drew.

*****

Some more awesomeness from the weekend:

The Yankees trailed in three half-innings all weekend. They went on to at least tie the game in the next half-inning each time.

Between Friday and Sunday, the Red Sox scored two runs. Two runs on one swing. Say what you want about Boston's offense, but Yankee pitching has to be at least somewhat responsible for this.

Yankee relief pitching allowed four runs in two games--two on one swing, and the other two in the ninth inning of a blowout game, using a pitcher with an ERA so high that it actually went down when the runs scored.

Yankee starting pitching allowed four runs over the sweep of the four game series. All four were in the first game.

The Yankees right now have their fourth seven-game winning streak of the season.

Boston Sweep Party

If there was any question, any doubt, any uncertainty about the character of the 2009 New York Yankees, this weekend it was answered.

Oh, was it answered.

All the talk, all the rumors that the Yankees could not beat decent teams, that they were a bully team that could only beat up on teams like the Mets and the Orioles, all the insinuations that Alex Rodriguez couldn't hit in the clutch, all of it has gone for naught.

The Yankees came into the weekend set with the Red Sox needing to win one--just one--to ensure they woke up on Monday morning still in first place, and to get the 0-fer off their backs.

So they won the first game.

It wasn't pretty, a 13-6 slugfest in which the Yankees walked twelve of the Red Sox, but it counts.

After winning the first game, the rhetoric turned to winning the second. Win the second game and ensure a split, ensure that no matter what there is no net loss in the standings. Win and get AJ Burnett's own Boston monkey off his back.

So they won the second game.

It was pretty--a thing of baseball beauty--until it went too long, well into the early morning hours. Eventually, Joe Girardi out-managed Terry Francona's bullpen strategy; while Girardi maximized the relievers he did use in extra innings, Francona opted for one-inning stints and eventually Junichi Tazawa made his Major League debut, and Alex Rodriguez was waiting.

After winning the second game, the rhetoric turned to winning the third. Win the third game and ensure a net gain in the standings. Win the third game and ensure a series victory in a series in which most would have been satisfied with a split.

So they won the third game.

It was pretty, too. The pitching was pretty--more, actually, like domination than pretty--and with a starter like CC Sabathia on the mound, domination seems a better term to describe it. The offense scored early enough and the team never looked back. It wasn't a 15-0 thrashing, but the way the Red Sox had been hitting, it might as well have been.

After winning the third game, then, the rhetoric turned to winning the fourth game.

To a sweep.

No one wanted to utter that word before--too much attached to it, it might too quickly act as a jinx--but now, three wins already down, the fans (and, one senses, the Yankees) smelled blood in the water.

The match up, on paper, favored Boston. Jon Lester, in his career, is (still) undefeated against the Yankees, although he has not always won.

Tonight, Lester wasn't much different. He made only one mistake--a solo home run to Alex Rodriguez--in seven innings of work. That the Red Sox were held scoreless, too, had less to do with Andy Pettitte (though it must be said that Pettitte got much stronger in his last two innings of work) than it did the Red Sox offense, which has simply disappeared.

Between the ninth inning of Thursday's game and the eighth inning of tonight's, the Red Sox did not score a single run. Thirty-one-and-a-third scoreless innings. Blame Boston's offense or laud Yankee pitching, it's your choice, but the fact remains that in four games against their rivals the Red Sox scored eight runs and four of those came before the fifth inning on Friday.

If there was one blemish tonight, it was Phil Coke giving up a two-run home run to Victor Martinez, but Girardi's reasoning for using Coke in that spot was sound: Phil Hughes was unavailable after pitching four games out of five, and if the game got to extra innings, the Yankees needed pitchers available who could give length.

During the postgame interview on YES, Coke explained that the pitch to Martinez was supposed to be up near his hands, and not down by his thighs. He was angry about it, and then was not angry anymore once the Yankees won. "So much for 8-0," he said.


Johnny Damon and Mark Teixeira were there to bail Coke out, though, with back-to-back home runs in the next half inning. In fact, while with two outs, the Yankees would proceed to bat around in the inning.

So the Yankees won the fourth game.

They won the fourth game and swept the Boston Red Sox.

Had they swept this series against any other team it would be noted for the stellar pitching, clutch hitting, brilliant defense and everything else that went right. Since the series was against the Red Sox, though, it'll be remembered, rightly or wrongly, mostly for being a sweep of the Red Sox.

The Yankees are now 6.5 games in first place--the first time since 2006. It's still early, and there's still a long way to go, but there it is.

This is a team that is not just playing like it could, but playing like it will go on to do special things.

They can't get complacent now. They have to keep going. This has the feeling right now that the Yankees have just clinched the division. They have not, and with a month and a half to go it's not really that close, either.

Look for some of the regulars to get a day of rest while playing Seattle--after that it's back to the West Coast and then Boston again the weekend after.

For the moment, enjoy what you've seen.

And so much for Boston being 8-0, huh?

Garza Needs To Learn Unwritten Rules

1) You don't admit when you're intentionally throwing at a batter:

Quote from ESPN recap

"Teixeira was plunked after one of Chamberlain’s pitches sailed over the head of Longoria, who was hit by a pitch by Yankees reliever Jonathan Albaladejo. Garza said he was standing up for the Rays’ All-Star third baseman.

'They can take whatever they want from it, but I just kind of got tired of people brushing him back. It’s about time someone made a statement,' Garza said.

'I hate to be that guy, but someone had to take a stand and say we’re tired of it. You go after our best guy. Well, we’ll make some noise, too, and that’s what happened.'"


If a Yankee made that comment, you could expect a full on six game suspension. We'll see what happens here--while everyone's distracted by the trade deadline this comment could very well pass unnoticed.

Baseball From the Bleachers

This is not the first time I've sat in the bleachers, but the last time I did, it was sunny and the entire stadium--the old stadium--was packed.

Tonight is different.

It's been raining all day, sometimes quite hard, and no one has any idea if the game will be played at all, never mind what time the game starts.

The Stadium is more empty tan full; those that have made it here are those for whom the game is everything--the real, true, hardcore fans.

There's something different about the bleachers.

Instead of the idea that each individual experience is important, the bleachers are about the experience as a community. Before you know it, you are high-fiving people you've never met before, engaging in chants and taunts that you would probably never consider on your own.

The most creative of the night?

In the late innings, long after the fans have made the rain delay pass via imbibing whatever was available, someone notices a fan wearing a Mets jersey sitting in the right field bleachers.

The normal chant is, of course, "ass-hole, ass-hole", but on this occasion my friend Brent gets an idea.

"Lu-is Cas-ti-llo", he starts.

The rest of us join in, poking fun at the Mets' second baseman whose dropped pop-up cost the Mets a game against the Yankees this season.

At some points in time, you almost forget what is happening at all during the game, though the game itself tonight was a good one.

CC Sabathia didn't have his best stuff, but he still gave the Yankees seven innings of work.

The Yankee offense wasn't stellar, but again did enough to build a lead, add some insurance runs, and thus give Sabathia and the bullpen (today taking the sole form of Phil Hughes) some extra breathing room--which they did not need.

All told, it was the seventh straight win for the Yankees, important as it were as it came after a long rain delay, did not burn the bullpen and increased the Yankees lead over both the Red Sox and the Rays.

Breaking Down the Yankees for the Second Half--The Starting Lineup, Part One

[So the All Star Game is officially over--and we can thus consider ourselves in the second half.

This is where it gets fun.

All of those days players got rested in the first half? Well, now they have to play. Now the pennant races start to heat up, and every move a team makes, be it a trade, a free agent signing or simply bringing someone up from AAA has even more added meaning.

What do we expect from the Yankees?

I'm going to do a series of posts addressing this, because there's so much to say that having it all in one post would a) kill your eyes and mine, and b) give me carpal tunnel at the age of 23.]

For your lunchbreak, I'm going to tackle the one area that's remained relatively problem-free: The starting line up.

Here I've included hitters 1-5, because I think any more and the post will get too long. I'll be back with the rest of the line up a little later on today.


The Starting Line Up

The goal of an offense is to score as many runs as possible. The Yankees? Their 495 runs scored is tops in the Major Leagues and frankly is not too far off the pace if this team wanted to score 1000.

The most impressive thing here isn't just that the Yankees are scoring runs; it's the way they are doing it. Aside from the Chien Ming Wang disaster starts, games in which the Yankees have been blown out are few and far between. The twenty-five come from behind wins and eight walk off wins are illustrative of an offense that keeps fighting.

The offense alone can't win a World Series, but with these guys, it's not for a lack of trying.

In the second half there will probably be more attention paid to Mark Teixeira--who has been slumping--now that the excuse of cold weather is no longer acceptable. Joe Girardi will still have to do a balancing act in center, with Brett Gardener and Melky Cabrera--and both of them seem to perform better when they are not playing every day. Johnny Damon and Nick Swisher will need days off--for different reasons, mind--but as the pennant race heats up these will become harder to come by.

Still, out of all the problems the 2009 Yankees have, the offense is pretty low down on the list.

Derek Jeter

The renaissance that Jeter had in the first half was good enough to make him this year's leading AL vote getter in All Star voting. Getting him out of the second spot has drastically cut down on his grounding-into-double-plays, even if we're still not quite used to seeing him hit first.

The biggest boon to the Yankees, however, may very well be his improved defense, which has been attributed to playing further back in the field. It's as though Yankees fans have been whisked back to 2000...

In the second half, the Yankees just want more of the same from Jeter: great hitting and good defense. They could, perhaps, do without him trying to steal third with none out, but such are minor complaints.


Johnny Damon

Damon's first half witnessed a power resurgence that was unabashedly aided by the short right field at the new Yankee Stadium. He's been a good choice to bat second because of his relative lack of hitting into double plays, and he's also been a very poor ambassador for whatever bat company he uses--breaking at least one bat a game.

Going into the All Star break, Damon was hitting a not-so-robust .147 for the month of July--perhaps indicative, again, of his body beginning to betray him. Certainly, a nagging calf injury has kept him out of the line up on occasion and even kept him from fielding decently while in it.

For the second half, what the Yankees need is simple: they need Damon not to break down. An outfield of Swisher-Gardner-Cabrera for any length of time won't give the Yankees a whole lot of power, and it will over expose all three (who may be over exposed already). Hideki Matsui probably can't play the outfield all year unless there are literally no other options aside from forfeiting the game and Eric Hinske is, many believe, not an every day player. The Yankees will easily take Damon's kind-of-cringeworthy arm and misplays if it means his bat is in the line up.



Mark Teixeira


Perhaps the most important thing Mark Teixeira did in the entire first half is show the Yankees just how wonderful it is when everyone on the infield can play a little bit of defense.

Sure, the 20+ home runs and loads of walks help, as does his hustle in running out routine pop ups, but the defense is the first thing you notice when comparing him and Jason Giambi.

In the second half, Teixeira's fate will probably be even that much more bound up with Alex Rodriguez.

When A-Rod is on a roll and crushing pitches, Teixeira will likely get more pitches to hit as teams figure out that it's a bad idea to pitch to A-Rod with men already on base. If, however, A-Rod slumps--and he does--teams will again pitch around Teixeira. It would not hurt Teixeira's cause if he were to hit for a higher average. Right now his .275 average is his worst since his rookie season. Of course, when your OPS is .913, you tend to let these things slide.


Alex Rodriguez

His tumultuous first half saw him miss a month with a hip injury, come back and hit nothing but home runs, which slowly morphed into nothing at all, and then, only after a two-day rest period, has he begun to look something of the A-Rod of old. He may very well be the only player you've ever seen with a batting average of .256 and an OBP of .411.

A lot of this has to do with the inordinate about of games in which Robinson Canó hit fifth. Since Canó has some sort of can'thitwithmenonbaseitis, pitchers simply worked around A-Rod and pitched to Canó, who more often than not grounded into a double play--but more on him later.

Now that Canó has been moved out of the fifth spot--hopefully for good--Rodriguez is getting more pitches to hit. Rodriguez hit all of .207 in June, but is hitting .350 in July. A lot of that probably has to do with him being rested, but don't discount actually having protection in the line up.

In the second half, the Yankees need Alex Rodriguez to hit like Alex Rodriguez. They need to be careful that they actually do rest Rodriguez--once a week if possible--because the hip is only going to get worse until the entire thing can get repaired in the off-season.


Jorge Posada

The most notable thing about Posada thus far is that despite the hamstring injury that had him on the disabled list, his shoulder doesn't just seem to have held up okay, it actually seems to be stronger than it was before last year's disaster.

Teams were--rightfully--willing to run all over Posada to test the arm; while he may be no Molina Brother behind the plate, he has certainly held his own.

The controversy of him having tiffs with the pitchers is overblown--he's found a way to work well enough with AJ Burnett and Joba Chamberlain's had problems with every catcher--so please, please don't get too caught up in that.

With a bat, Posada is having a usual Posada-like season; his batting average fits in nicely with career norms; the on-base percentage is on the low end, true, but Posada makes up for this with a higher slugging than normal. It's not Posada's 2007 campaign--a career year hidden by A-Rod's antics--but the Yankees will take that production from a catcher without blinking.

The biggest concern going forward is, like Johnny Damon, what the wear and tear of late summer and a pennant race will do to a 38 year-old catcher's body. The Yankees know full well now how valuable Posada's bat is, so don't be surprised if he gets a number of half-days at DH or Girardi seems to pick odd days to just rest him entirely. The last thing the Yankees want is to go into that final Boston series with Posada being unable to play because he's too beat up.



[That's long enough for now, I'll be back with the Lineup, Part 2, later on in the day, followed by the bench and the bullpen].

They Don't Need No Stinkin' Homers (Postgame notes 07 July 2009)

They were playing in the Metrodome, aka the Homerdome, but the Yankees won 10-1 tonight without the aid of a single home run.

Unless, of course, you count the grand slam that A-Rod hit that Carlos Gomez just happened to time perfectly, jump up and steal.

At any rate, the 10 Yankee runs came on singles, bloops, walks, a triple (Gardner)--perhaps none more important than a 2-out bases loaded hit from Robinson Canó (yes, THAT Canó) that turned a 5-1 game into a 7-1 not-tie-able-by-a-grand-slam lead.

In other words, while CC Sabathia was excellent, which is great considering his poor start against Seattle, the real star of this game was the Yankee offense.

The offense proved tonight it doesn't have to hit home runs to win ball games, it can do plenty of other things, too.

Mark Teixeira perhaps best exemplifies this--he had four hits tonight, and they were all singles.

In fact, thirteen of the sixteen Yankee hits tonight were singles.

Against a starting pitcher that had been untouchable over his past four starts, the Yankees thrived.

The best part is that they get to throw AJ Burnett at 'em tomorrow and have an excellent chance to win the series.

It is way too tempting to blame this one on the umps...(Postgame Notes 6 July 2009)

...but you can't.

The umpires today made three hideous calls, but it was the Yankees' job to pitch and hit around them.

Yes, Derek Jeter was safe on the attempted steal of third base, but he should have never attempted the steal with none out in the first place.

Yes, Derek Jeter's jump play should have been an out, but Andy should have still thrown a better pitch to Alex Rios.

On and on.

Ultimately, the Yankees' pitching is the culprit here; Pettitte had another shaky outing at Yankee Stadium and the Yankees have to be very concerned about Brian Bruney.

Mark Teixeira's been slumping something awful (along with Robinson Canó any time a runner is on second base), but these have been masked because on the whole the Yankees are scoring enough to win games.

In fact, despite being down 7-1 at one point, they nearly won again today. Alas, they simply ran out of outs.

Still, the Yankees have won 10 of their last 12.

Yes, there are some issues, but trust me. Things could be a lot worse.

Does Mark Teixeira Know What He's Saying?

Lifted from LoHud:

“He was a little fired up,” Mark Teixeira said. “There was no yelling, Cash isn’t that kind of guy. But he was here; he wanted to make himself known. … Sometimes the principal needs to show up in the classroom if the teacher’s having trouble with the students.”

You know, Teixeira's only been a Yank for half a year, but already he has a way of saying a lot, even without really saying so much...


***

After the game, Mariano Rivera told reporters that he had been told not to swing in his at bat. He swung anyway. "It's unacceptable," he said...

...with a grin so big you would have thought he had won the World Series.

Yankees Make a Game Over It but Still Can't Beat the Sox (Postgame Notes 10 June 2009)

Officially, today's game was the first game in a week where the Yankees did not officially commit a fielding error.

Unfortunately, an error on the basepath way back when in the second inning may have cost the Yankees the game.

It's kind of funny--Nick Swisher's all out diving catch in the later innings is likely to make ESPN's highlight reels (okay, maybe not ESPN's...), but the awful baserunning move, where he strayed too far off first base and was doubled off in the second inning is what looms large.

With Chien Ming Wang starting, it was not really much of a secret that the Yankees would need to score a lot of runs to win, and when Wang somehow escaped the first inning only giving up one run, it seems the Yankees were poised to make good on the opportunity.

After Jorge Posada homered, the Yankees had two runners on first and third when Melky Cabrera came to bat, and one double play later, the entire complexion of the game changed.

The Yankees did have some good performances--Mark Teixeira was 4-5 and Phil Hughes, Phil Coke and Alfredo Aceves pitched relatively well in relief, though the two run HR was ultimately the difference maker--but they were overshadowed by two poor performances in particular:

Wang's yet-again poor outing and Derek Jeter and Robinson Canó combining to go 0-10.

The bigger issue, of course, is Wang--it's highly unlikely Jeter and Canó will go 0-for-the-rest-of-the-season.

The problem with Wang will be discussed in a post following this, but the fact remains that right now the Yankees are 0-7 against the Sox, and no matter what else they might do in the meantime, until they can beat the Sox, no one will count them a legitimate contender to win the AL East or win in the postseason.

Yankees Move To Ten Over .500 (Postgame Notes 02 June 2009)

Sometimes you win with pitching, sometimes you win by luck...

...and sometimes you decide you don't like it when the other pitcher hits you, go hard (but clean) into second to break up a double play, score seven runs in an inning, break a close game open, and never look back.

The Yankees won today not so much because they outhit the Rangers (though they did), but because they out scored them--if you look at the line score, the total hits-13-8 would indicate that the game was a lot closer than it was.

To be fair, over the first three innings it was a close game, but then the fourth happened.

The past few years, had a Yankees' batter been hit by a pitch in the way Teixeira was (and he was actually hit twice) the response would have been to simply ignore it.

While, in theory, the turn-the-other-cheek-mentality would nominate the team for sainthood, baseball players aren't, and are not supposed to be, saints. Heroes, yes; saints, no.

So today, Teixeira didn't try to be a saint...but he also took his revenge the right way--playing hard and clean on the basepath.

It's the fight in this team that we've seen all year that makes this the most fun it's been to watch the Yankees in years.


As for pitching, it was not AJ Burnett's best-ever start, but he walked only one over seven, and the Yanks will take that, likely, every single time.

I think the statistic is that the last nineteen of twenty-one games, Yankee starting pitching has pitched at least five innings.

The stat I like more? Since the start of the Yankees' nine game win streak--way back when on May 13th--the starting pitching has lost a grand total of one game. The Yankees have lost more games than just that one, of course, but those losses were taken by the bullpen which indicates 1) yes, the bullpen is an issue, 2) the Yankees aren't getting blown out, and 3) the Yankees are making a fight of it nearly every single time.

The Yanks are 16-5 in their last 21 (.761) and haven't lost two in a row since that five game losing streak that had everyone ready to jump off a cliff.


Do the Yankees have issues? Sure. They need to figure out that bullpen and whatnot, but at the same time, they're winning in a way we haven't seen in ages.

Everyone's contributing; they're playing well in nearly every facet of the game and not only are they beating teams like Baltimore and Cleveland, whom they're supposed to beat, but they are also winning against teams like Texas--and until tonight they had the best record in the AL--and they all count.



Some late night breaking news to wrap this up: Jesus Montero, it has been confirmed, has been promoted to Trenton. If you haven't, check out his stats for the Tampa Yankees. Dude can rake.

CC Dealing, Teixeira and A-Rod Smashing, Yankees Winning (Postgame Notes 19 May 2009)

A Yankees fan could get used to this.

For his third start in a row, CC Sabathia was great--tonight going seven innings giving up just three hits and one earned run; two of the hits and the one run in the first inning.

For the second game in a row, both Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez homered, and for Alex, it was his fourth game in a row with a home run.

The two sluggers are getting it done--while Alex hasn't been getting the singles or the doubles that Teixeira is, he's making up for them with home runs, most of them no doubters in any stadium.

While this game turned into a laugher, for most of the game, it was a tight 2-1 score.

Sabathia's dominant performance might not seem so important, but at the time it was. Baltimore scored one run in the top of the first; the Yankees responded with two via an A-Rod jack in the bottom of the inning, and then neither team did much of anything.

At one point Sabathia retired 12 straight birds while the O's starter Bergesen retired 13 straight Yankees, and it seemed the game would end up a good, old fashioned pitcher's duel.

That, however, did not count on Baltimore's bullpen.

After the first two Yankee baserunners reached in the seventh, O's manager called upon once-highly-touted-closing-prospect Chris Ray. A single, error, double and home run later, he was unable to record a single out, and the score had gone from 2-1 to 9-1.

The good news continued for the Yankees, as Brian Bruney was able to enter in the eighth inning for his first appearance since going on the DL and pitched a one-two-three inning.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what the $200 million team looks like.

A starting pitcher that keeps the team in the game (or, in CC's case, is utterly dealing), an offense that does enough against good pitching and crushes bad, and a bullpen that comes in and does it's job so proficiently that you don't notice.

The Yankees have now won seven straight, and are five games over .500 for the first time this season.

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.

Some More Thoughts From Last Night's Game...

...Now that I've had a chance to think about it.

• Brett Gardner was the first to run to Melky after Melky's walk off hit. The two might be competing, but that scene is what you want to see--competition, but healthy competition that makes everyone better.

• There had to be something to the fact that Tino Martinez was in the Stadium and it was a walk off win. I refuse to believe that it was nothing more than coincidental.

• The game did have 'walk off win' written all over it. I'm not really sure how you explain it, but somehow we knew. We just knew. Once Robbie Canó was walked it was all but over. If Melky keeps up his knack for walk off hits, he'll be a legend in his own rights.

• Hughes didn't pitch all that well, but Minnesota had a ton of chances they didn't take advantage of--not that the Yankees were necessarily much better. Still, it was better than Hughes' last inning. I think for Hughes, there's an issue with confidence soon as the first run scores. If he can get past that, he should be okay.

• On the replay, Mark Teixeira barely avoided having his arm shattered when Carlos Gomez ran past. He had a legitimate beef there.
  

I am not covering today's game in any way, shape or form, so all you need to know is that Joba is pitching, Teixeira's DHing and Swisher is playing first so that Gardner and Cabrera can play in the field--which seems to be a well deserved reward for their play last night.

Yankees Ride Three HRs, Good Bullpen to Victory (Postgame Notes 10 May 2009)

It was some old-fashioned Bronx Bombing that won the game for the Yankees today.

Joba Chamberlain continued to struggle in the first inning--giving up a three-run home run to Aubrey Huff in the first--but he settled down after that, and the Orioles did not score another run.

It was not Joba's best effort, but six innings and three runs is both enough for a quality start and a win, and the Yankees got just that.

To be quite honest here, Joba's putting together a quality start was the best possible retaliation for Aubrey Huff's home run fist-pump (which itself was a retaliation for Joba's fist pump). It puts Joba on a higher plane, above the fracas and hubbub about an issue that really should not matter.

For the Yanks, they received solo home runs from Mark Teixeira in the first, and Robinson Canó in the seventh, but the biggest blow was Johnny Damon's three-run home run in the seventh with two outs.

The important thing here is, perhaps, not that Damon hit the home run (he's had an XB hit in each of his last seven games), but how the runners got on base before him.

Francisco Cervelli has not played even a week in the Majors, and is certainly not in there for his bat, but when he does put bat on ball, he does the little things right. Like today, when he hustled down the line to beat out an infield single--I'm not quite sure I remember the last time a Yankee catcher had anything resembling speed, but with two outs, that single play changed the outcome of the game.

Derek Jeter followed with another infield single, though with Melvin Mora playing back, that nubber was more obviously going to be an infield hit than Cervelli's--which had been grounded to the second baseman.

With those two on base, the Yankees' hottest bat came up to the plate, and did his thing.

It's probably not much of a surprise that Damon's playing for a contract here, but if he keeps hitting like this it won't be a very hard question to answer.

The bullpen today, in Phil Coke and Mariano Rivera did their job. They may be the only relievers that Girardi can trust, but that trust is not misplaced. Rivera's earned it over a fifteen-plus year career; Coke's done it in a few months.

***


I would like to wish all mothers out there a Happy Mother's Day.

Yankees at Orioles, 10 May 2009: A Liveblog

1.43 PM: Have a massive, massive migraine. Will do the best I can.

Solo HR there for Teixeira, and thus Joba has a lead.

1.44 PM: HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

1.58 PM: Three run home run for the Orioles there. Joba's thumb looks like its bothering him, but Girardi doesn't seem to want to admit it.

2.16 PM: Nothing doing there. Canó has a one out double, but Melky grounds out and Cervelli pops out.

2.23 PM: What is it with Joba and the first inning?

2.46 PM: Joba struggled with his command there but was able to get a GIDP to end the inning.

3.18 PM: Ugh. Just ugh. It's the @$#@$ Orioles.

3.50 PM: Robbie Canó just hit a solo HR and it's now 3-2 Orioles.

3.54 PM: Cervelli playing that game right; his hustle makes him safe at first. I wasn't aware catchers could run.

3.59 PM: If you're going to extend a hitting streak, do it right. Like a three-run home run on a 3-2 count with two outs in the seventh to put your team up, 5-3.

4.11 PM: Phil Coke may be the one reliable pitcher in the Yankees' bullpen till Bruney gets back. Even Mo has had his share of struggles.

4.22 PM: Girardi may not have faith in anyone other than Coke, but the faith in Coke is not misplaced.

Frustration Mounts for Team, Fans (Postgame Notes 06 May 2009)

It is almost a fact that every team in major league baseball will lose four games in a row at some point in the season.

Even so, some four game losing streaks hurt more than others.

For the second time this season, the Yankees had gotten to three games above .500, only to see it precariously disappear with some help from the Red Sox.

It's frustrating for everyone--the team, the fans--everyone that wants the team to do well.

This week has been one of the most frustrating experiences for fans at the new Yankee Stadium.

After taking two from the Angels--the second in dramatic, walk-off fashion--the Yankees have not won another game.

The rain has been there, every night, every step of the way, canceling some games, delaying others and otherwise cloaking the Bronx in a foul, furious air as if to say "I am holding the bright days of summer hostage."

It's as if G-d himself has decreed those who thought to tear down the original Yankee Stadium anathema.




My friend Brent is a senior at Fordham this year. Through one trick of fate and then another, he scored tickets to every Yankee game from Saturday through today, minus Sunday's rain out. This is what he told me, in his words:

I have never felt as shitty, frustrated and depressed about a ball club as I do now and I know the obvious reason why: I had to sit through all four of those straight losses...but as the rain poured to end the game, it just seem... fitting
like... when Matsui popped out to end the game...I now owe two friends 100 bucks, half my clothes are wet and damp, and as I was walking back, I'll be honest, I was pissed off. I have NEVER been as angry and upset as I was after tonight's game. As a kid growing up, you always expect the good guys to win and to win at least once when you go there, and yes, as a 21-year-old big kid, I still expected the same... at least one win out of those 4 games, but all I got was one sweet moment... that was as fleeting as the passing rain. Walking back from the Stadium was ridiculously appropriate... the weather fit my mood too well: it was absolutely POURING when the game ended, so me and J. just ran out, and I was honestly cursing up a storm, almost pumped into two people, but I didn't care, I was mad, and I wanted out...When I got off [the D train], I continued to get poured on, I kicked my cap across the street... and stomped in EVERY puddle I can... including one that wasn't the best...

So now, Becca, I sit here, cooling off but not completely... soaked from my shoes, socks, and shirt and cap...smelling like dog piss (that was the puddle)and... *sighs* I don't know. I rarely justify spending or owing THAT much money back but I did for this case, to see my favorite team the team I wanted to see just once more before I started to become an adult and to be a kid again, and I was let down, not once, twice, three times, but four times, and my last game before I graduate was a 4-3 loss in a game the Yankees didn't even deserve to be in in the first place, so yea, I just feel let down

Perhaps we shouldn't take this game so personally...but, if you're reading this post, chances are that you are way past the point where you can be convinced not to take it personally.

If this is how frustrated the fans are, how frustrating must it be for the team, who has seen every break go the other way? Doubles that bounce over the wall instead of staying in play, strikes given to other teams that aren't given to our pitchers, routine plays bobbled by athletes whose best asset is normally their glove and pitching decisions that work on paper but backfire in reality.

Mark Teixeira thought he made his, well, mark with the bases-clearing double in the 8th inning rain, but when he had a chance to bring Johnny Damon in from third to tie the game in extras, he flew out, just a little too shallow for Damon to tag. Another five, ten feet and we might still be playing baseball now.



Still, even despite this, there are bright spots on the horizon.

Alex Rodriguez will return, probably by the end of the week. Brian Bruney will return eventually. Xavier Nady's doing what he ca to get back as fast as he can. Jorge Posada does not have a history of hamstring injuries and will be back before the all star break.

Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes are showing flashes of brilliance. They might not be quite there yet, but if I have to sacrifice this season for years of domination down the road, it will be worth it.

The offense, though struggling a bit of late, has not yet been shut out this year.


This team will find a way.

The good ones always do.