A Couple of Firsts and a 500th (Postgame Notes 28 June 2009)

First:

Chien Ming Wang notched his first win of the 2009 season, facing a depleted Mets line up at Citifield.

The win should not be confused with a good pitching performance--Wang only surrendered two runs, true, but he had very poor command and against pretty much any other legitimate line up, would have likely got roughed around.

Still, for the first time all season he did not just make it into the sixth inning, but made it into the sixth inning with a 3-2 lead. Had he been able to get two more outs it would have officially been a 'quality start', but with just a one run lead, Girardi, perhaps rightly, wasn't going to take any chances.

Phil Coke got the one out he needed and Phil Hughes was again excellent.

Hughes' dominance in the bullpen is captivating and eye-opening. To be quite honest, between Joba and Hughes, if you're going to have one of them in the bullpen, I think Hughes has shown better bullpen stuff.

Brian Bruney, however, struggled and could not get through the 8th inning. It's a risk you run with Bruney, who can struggle with his command; with more than a one-run lead it might not matter so much, but the one-run, high leverage situations are when set-up men need to be at their very best.


Still, the focus here should be Wang, who, for the third time in a row was not great or necessarily even good, but still not bad enough to forgo his next scheduled start (in this case, TOR). It's his first win of the season--the others should be easier.



First:


Mariano Rivera had his first career RBI, walking with the bases loaded while facing a very wild Francisco Rodriguez tonight.

(Don't believe me? Look here

The entire situation was as amusing as it was nerve-wracking as the Yankees only had a one run lead at the time, but from Girardi trying to play mind games with the Mets and get them to pitch to Jeter (they did, until they got to a two-ball count), to the reaction from the Yankee bench--who looked as though someone had just hit a World Series game-winning grand slam.

The most surprising thing, perhaps, here is how important the run actually was.

Despite walking eleven times, the Yankees only managed four hits--and only two after the first inning.

Part of this is due to hitting balls at Mets' fielders, but some attention has to be paid to the four DP balls that Robinson Canó hit--only two were actually double plays because the first was dropped by Daniel Murphy and the fourth was hit with two already out.


Five Hundredth:

Tonight, Mariano Rivera notched his 500th career save, becoming only the second pitcher in all of Major League history to accomplish this after Trevor Hoffman, and it was a four-out save to boot.

Yankees fans know how valuable Mo has been to their team, and tonight gave them a reason to celebrate it.

In his career, Mo has converted 500 of 581 save opportunities and if conversion percentages are how you measure a closer, Mo clearly exists on a different plane altogether.


Here's to Mo!





[oh, and a minor note, I know the Braves can be inept and the Mets are hapless, but games are games and the Yankees have won five straight. And Boston and Toronto both lost today, too.]

Burnett, Yanks One-Hit Mets (Postgame Notes 27 June 2009)

I'm not sure if it was AJ Burnett dominating or the New York Mets trotting out a line up that would have a hard time beating some AAA teams; maybe a combination of both, but the Yankees one-hit the Mets tonight.

It always comes back to pitching, and tonight AJ Burnett was en pointe.

Maybe it's something to do with the Mets--he pitched shut out ball against them back on the 14th--but tonight, he dominated, striking out ten in seven and allowing just one hit. He did walk three, but giving the rest of his performance one can hardly complain.

As Bryan Hoch (@bryanhoch) pointed out on Twitter via another, right now, Brett Gardner has more hits (5) in this series than the Mets (4), and I'd like to add that Gardner had an 0-fer today.


To be fair, the Mets lineup has been utterly decimated by injuries, as it has all season, but one should consider that that team did take three of four from the St. Louis Cardinals, who are not, if a spectacular team, certainly not a bad one.


For the Yankee, the offense was not the same sort of spectacular it was on the 14th, but they scored one run on Nick Swisher's home run, and then added more later in the game, with four runs in the top of the sixth inning--and who knows, perhaps the long inning disrupted Burnett's tempo and his quest for a second career no-hitter, but then again, only giving up one hit is no room for complaint.

It was especially gratifying to see Jorge Posada hit a home run--he had a .219 average in June going into the game, and more importantly, to see him so in synch with Burnett.

Perhaps now the "who's better, Posada or Cervelli" debate can stop.

I love Cervelli, I do, but, I mean...really now.

Anyway, the Yankees are back to 10 games over .500 as they've won four straight, and with a win tomorrow (and with the Mets trotting out Livan Hernandez, anything is possible) they could revisit the high-water mark of the season.

Yanks Meet the Mess (Postgame Notes 26 June 2009)

Quietly, or perhaps not-so-quietly, it looks like the Yankees have begun to emerge from their June swoon.

In the past three games, the Yankees have scored at least eight runs...and, while these games weren't necessarily laughers, given the timing of the scoring, the wins still count.

Tonight, the Yankees did the type of things that a competitive team needs to do: pitch well, take advantage of the other team's miscues, and add a couple of tack on runs just for form's sake.

Let's break it down:

1) Pitch well...

CC Sabathia, apparently recovered from his biceps tendinitis, had a very good outing, allowing just three hits in seven innings. Had the Yankees not blown it open in the 8th, he would have come back out again.

Although he was no doubt the beneficiary of a very pitcher-friendly appeal umpire at first, Sabathia's performance was what the Yankees needed after Pettitte's struggles and thus the stretching of the bullpen last night.

While Sabathia may not have received the attention that the FA success stories of K-Rod and Raul Ibañez have, he is pitching up to the standards expected of an ace. His record doesn't reflect it as the Yankees haven't always scored on his behalf, but he is clearly giving the Yankees what they need.


2) Take advantage of the other team's miscues...

The New York Mets had three infielders commit an error in the 2nd inning, though, strangely, Luis Castillo didn't have any of them. Ok, bad joke aside, the Yankees turned the three errors into four runs, all with the names like Gardner (who had the game of his career, thus far, with five hits), Peña, Sabathia...(Sabathia is no automatic out).

With the early lead, the Yankees didn't falter. It's a good thing they got the lead, too, because after that inning the Yankees had only one baserunner until the seventh inning.


3) Score some tack on runs...

I don't know if the Yankees want to play mean and keep Mariano Rivera from getting his 500th save, but you can't really complain about the tack on runs.

Three runs can be erased with one swing. Seven can't. And with eight runs to work with, you have more than enough time to change pitchers if yours starts to struggle (thankfully, Tomko was excellent).

And, you know what, the tack on runs weren't useless.

They meant that CC didn't have to pitch the 8th, got the Yankees a comfortable lead, and let them rest Teixeira and A-Rod, if only for a half inning. Still, with a flu bug going around, any rest would likely be welcome.




AJ Burnett takes the mound tomorrow, but the real interesting pitching match up comes Sunday when Wang takes on Livan Hernandez.

Oh boy.

Yankees Need An Alarm

I don't know who told the Yankees that it was okay to snooze through series with the Nationals and the Marlins.

Because they have, they're now four out of first and once again in third place.

It's as though something happened when they got swept in Boston. Everything had been going swimmingly well, and then, boom, not any more.

The weather hasn't helped, but they are losing now on the road as well as at home. It can't be the excuse for everything.

The hitters right now aren't hitting, and look suspiciously like those of the 2008 team. It's not just that Alex Rodriguez is mired in an awful, awful slump, or that Canó's fallen off to the point that Paul O'Neill's noticed, or that Jorge Posada hasn't been doing much with the bat, either...it's that all of these things are happening at the same time.

The starting pitching has been the best it's been in a while, which would be even better if the offense could do something. Losing CC Sabathia today is especially worrisome given his tough-as-nails reputation.

There's no question that the blame for this game lies on the bullpen's shoulders, but it should have never gotten to that point, if the offense could have done its job properly.

Now, it's only June, but of the past six games, going 3-3 would have seemend a disappointment. 2-4 borders on an unmitigated disaster.

Next the Yankees go to Atlanta, and Atlanta has some great young starters--the kryptonite for this Yankees' team.

It might be a long road yet.

This Yankees Fan Goes to Citifield. Stuff Ensues.

Sometimes it's really easy to tell what a day will be like.

For example, when you have a twenty page paper due the next day and you haven't started writing it, it's a fair bet your day isn't going to be a whole lot of fun.

Other times, however, the future is less clear, when everything sort of teeters on a horizon you can't see.


My friend Robin is a Mets fan. She has her reasons (and perfectly legitimate ones) for being so, and we've happened upon a tradition of going to one Mets game a year. I forget who they played the first year we did this--Arizona I think, but not sure--they played the Dodgers last year, and this year, it would be an interleague match up with the Rays, and with Johan Santana on the mound, no less.

The trouble was, however, when we woke up that we didn't know if the game would be played at all.

In the Bronx, it was dark and sullen, as has been pretty much every day this month. In New Jersey, where Robin was, it was raining.

I can't help but think all of this rain is punishment for something--for Bloomberg running for a third term, for some scandal up in Albany, for failing to get the Giants or the Jets a stadium within the actual boundaries of New York City--who knows? What I do know is that the rain is constant, and even when it doesn't rain, there is nothing but this bleakness that somehow has to pass for summer.

I've spent four years in Syracuse, NY and four months in London, and still I can't remember it ever being so...bleak.

Anyway, I'm going to stop waxing philosophical now.

So we, Robin and I, both woke up to pretty awful weather and weren't sure if we would bother heading to Citifield, which is out of the way for both of us, and we decide in the end that we'll go. After all, neither of us have been to the ballpark and so, even if it pours, we'll still have things to keep us busy.

My first hint that today will be unpredictable comes on my subway ride to Penn Station, where I'm meeting Robin, when a mariachi band starts playing. I'll give them this much: they certainly woke me up.

Anyway. After meeting up at Penn Station we took the LIRR to Citifield, two stops on the line to Port Washington. I must say, why does the LIRR have nicer trains than NJ transit? It's not fair!

Right.

So, amidst the bleak and gray of a rainy day, this was the view from outside the park



Even from the outside, this park's got character. It's a different type of character than Yankee Stadium, however. Yankee Stadium is kind of all HONOR GLORY PRIDE in terms of its invoking the past; Citifield is much more "ooh, the past is a friendly muppet". Which, as a student of history, I feel qualified to explain, is not necessarily true.




Outside, people bought bricks to lay out as such. It would be impossible to do it at Yankee Stadium because the space isn't there, but here it gives the Mets much more of a family sort of feel. Again, HONOR GLORY PRIDE vs "ooh, friendly muppet!"



Inside the Jackie Robinson Rotunda from the main entrance. Compare that and the Yanks' Great Hall, and again it's the same sort of feeling evocation...Jackie Robinson = warm and fuzzy (again, what Robinson had to experience, not so much). Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Berra, Mantle, etc... HONOR GLORY PRIDE!

Anyway. Today was cap day. I gave my cap to Robin because she'll know people that will wear it. In my case it would just sit on the window sill. I do have to say, I felt really weird not wearing a Yankee hat today...




At 3.30 PM, no one was in the seats, but given the rain this wasn't all that surprising. Interesting trivia factoid: the Mets do the anthem and then the line ups; for the Yankees it's the other way around.



One of the many concession options. Since I can't eat (most) ballpark food, I can't honestly say anything about the quality of the food offered here as compared to Yankee Stadium, but in addition to also having sushi (although, unlike YS, I'm not sure you can watch them make it), they also have a Subway, so I have multiple choices as to culinary options here. They also have this thing called Shake Shack. Maybe you've heard of it.

No garlic fries, that I could find, though.






The view of home plate. I can't actually spot the luxury boxes. Citifield doesn't intimidate. Well, I mean, unless you're David Wright and trying to hit a HR. I kinda like that.



View from our seats.



I didn't actually notice when they took the tarp off of the field. One moment it was there, and the next it wasn't. It was like magic. And hey, it meant an on-time start!



The scoreboard in center field. It's really tall. I'd mention something about tall and NYers preoccupation with size, but I'd hate to have to bring Freud into it. Guy always bugged me.



Hey! People in the stands and like a game thingie and stuff.



Do I have a great zoom on my camera or what?

Some dude named Johan Santana had a no-no through four and a third. I guess he's kinda good.



It's nigh on the first day of summer and the lights are on at 5 PM. This was the type of day it was--kept waiting for the rain to show. It did, eventually. And the heavens so totally opened when it did.





So...

You know what's interesting? The first time I went to the new Yankee Stadium, it was raining, too. The difference was, however, since it was at night, you didn't really notice it.

I keep trying not to compare the two parks, but I kind of have to, and what it comes down to is this:

Both parks are awesome, but for different reasons.

Yankee Stadium is about the Yankees, first and forever. It's about what the team has done on the field, for over 100 years, and it's meant to intimidate you if you are not already awed at the all-magnificence of the 26-time World Series Champions.

Citifield is about baseball. The Mets, yes, but, minus the HR apple in center field, you get the feeling that if need be, another team could come and play a game here and feel just as at home. This isn't a bad thing.

So many times, so many, including the Yankees, forget that nothing, in the end, is bigger than the game. No rule, no policy, no player and no team is bigger than the game.

Yankee Stadium is an homage to the greatness of the Yankees' past.

Citifield reminds us why we are baseball fans in the first place.

Yanks Get Early Lead, Hold Ground versus Fish (Postgame Notes 19 June 2009)

By the end of the third inning, the game felt like a blow out, even though it was only a four-run lead.

Still, that is what early hits--nine in the first three innings--can do for a team, especially one coming off of a performance where, let's face it, they were simply going through the motions against the league's worst team.

Once Angel Berroa and Andy Pettitte had back-to-back doubles in the second (yes, you read that right), however, the game was firmly in the Yankees' hands, and the only question would remain how Pettitte pitched.

Pettitte allowed three hits (including a solo HR) over seven innings, struck out seven and walked no one. It was one of his best starts this season, and came at a time when the Yankees needed an effective start.

Brian Bruney pitched an excellent eighth inning, which the Yankees really, really need, and Brett Tomko had a nice rebound outing in the ninth.

The one real blemish here was that the Yankees left 11 men on base, though some of this has to do with being in an NL park and losing both the DH and A-Rod's bat (as A-Rod will be taking the first two games off since he's slumping something awful), but I think the key here is that when the Yankees had to get the runs, in the beginning of the game, they did. Had the Marlins played a better game on their end, I'm not sure the Yankees' bats appear to get so lacksidasical at the end.

Derek Jeter is still limping a bit--I guess tomorrow we'll see if there are any lingering effects.


****

I'm headed to Citifield tomorrow with my friend Robin, who is a Mets fan. I'll get to see Johan (probably not that) up close and personal. I will actually be rooting for the Mets--because they're playing the Rays.

It's Always About A-Rod (Yankees at Marlins, 19 June 2009)

6.12 PM: Well, the best way to summarize what's going on: Alex Rodriguez has been slumping something awful. Last night he asked to be taken out of the line up today, but was in the original line up. After a conversation that involved Brian Cashman, he's out of today's line up and tomorrow's as well.

Ayayay.

Anyway, the line up:

Jeter
Damon
Teixeira
Posada
Canó
Swisher
Cabrera
Berroa
Pettitte (NL parks for nine straight days, oh joy!)

You should all check out this post from RAB about the offense's struggles in June.

7.15 PM: Lead off doubles are cool. Now, score.

7.20 PM: Teixeira and Posada hit back to back singles, Jeter scores and the Yanks have a run. Jeter's limp is a little concerning, though.

7.30 PM: Pettitte retires the side in order and Jeter seems to be all right in the field. Life is good.

7.35 PM: Maybe Girardi isn't as stupid as so many think. So who was complaining about Berroa in the line up again?

7.37 PM: I didn't remember that Pettitte could do stuff with a bat. But apparently, he can. 3-0 Yankees.

7.40 PM: Someone got to the Yankees after yesterday's game...4-0 Yankees in the second, all on 8 hits.

7.52 PM: Girardi and Donahue raced out as though there was something wrong with Andy. Pettitte waved them off, but his last couple pitches have been awkward.

7.55 PM: And then Pettitte gets the K anyway.

7.59 PM: To hit a HR here you have to absolutely crush it. Melky Cabrera did just that. 5-0 Yankees.

8.21 PM: Nothing doing that inning, but that happens when your pitcher leads off...

8.31 PM: This game has fallen into a rhythm and I'm only semi-conscious of what's going on. In that case, that's a good thing as the Yanks nurse a four run lead.

8.48 PM: Yanks get 2nd and 3rd, no out, and then the Marlins stick in a reliever who's got legit nasty stuff to face the bottom of the Yanks order. No, the Yanks didn't score there, but it's not as bad as it looks, considering.

9.46 PM: Wow, has it really been an hour? Yanks have left 11 on, but still lead 5-1. Now it's up to Bruney, and, if there's any trouble, Mo.

Yankees Do Just Enough to Beat Lowly Nats (Postgame Notes 16 June 2009)

Someone must have sent the Yankees a memo: beating the Nationals (or, as some prefer, Natinals) is a simple affair.

Hang in against the starter, get a few off the bullpen and pitch competently on your own side.

Was it the best game the Yankees have played all year?

No, probably not. The pitching was decent sure, but the offense could have been much better. Still, when one plays a team on pace for as many losses as the Yankees had wins in 1998, one's flaws are more easily hidden.

The offense was able to do just enough--take the lead, and add one more as insurance--to win without making one sweat too much, though, it could be argued, against a starter with an ERA over 5, they should have probably done more.

CC Sabathia pitched two outs into the 8th inning; Brian Bruney faced one batter and retired him, and Mariano Rivera, with some help from the Yankee defense (which, when one keeps the Nats in mind, isn't to be underestimated) retired the side in order in the ninth. Rivera, for the record, is fast approaching his 500th save.

The only real concern of the evening--don't mind the offense, they don't like hitting guys they've never seen--is that Derek Jeter left the game with left ankle stiffness. No word yet on the severity, but losing Jeter's bat for any length of time wouldn't be a good thing, to say the least.

Also, the Yankees might want to consider giving Alex Rodriguez a day off--while they probably don't want to play Angel Berroa and Ramiro Peña in the same game if Jeter is out for any length of time, Rodriguez needs the day off. Really, really, really.


Tomorrow, Chien Ming Wang, the proud new papa, will get what might be his last chance to stay in the rotation. Expect a quick hook if he can't get it going--the games against the Nationals are must wins because, really, do you expect Boston to drop any against the Nats?

Amazin' Yanks Blow Out Santana, Mets (Postgame Notes 14 June 2009)

If you had asked any Yankee fan before today's match up with AJ Burnett and Johan Santana, they would have probably told you that they were worried.

Johan Santana is Johan Santana, and AJ Burnett has not been what the Yankees had paid him $88 million to be.

Still, any real baseball fan will tell you that you still have to play the game. It happened yesterday, when Fernando Nieve shut down the Yankees despite having only made a few previous starts in his Major League career; it happened again today.

Far from his normal shutdown self, Johan Santana surrendered nine earned runs; four in the second and then five in the fourth to knock him out of the game, and the Yankees wouldn't let the Mets' bullpen off the hook either, scoring six runs off of Mets' relievers.

There is much to be impressed about; the most key moment came in the top of the third, when AJ Burnett loaded the bases with no one out...and then proceeded to get out of the inning without giving up a run. For any starter, being able to do so is important; for Burnett, it may have changed his season, though it's too soon to say for sure.

At any rate, it allowed Burnett to go seven, and thus save most of a much belabored Yankees' bullpen--the off day tomorrow could not have come at a better time.

Also worth mentioning is Francisco Cervelli's excellent day at the plate; he has blossomed in the majors, and you get the feeling the Yankees are telling jose Molina to "take your time, no, really".

If the Phillies hold on to beat the Red Sox, the Yankees will go into tomorrow's off day only two back of Boston and with the likes of the Nationals on the horizon.

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

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

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

The Yankees failed in many, many ways.

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

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

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

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

Except, this time, Luis Castillo dropped it.

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

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

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

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

Yankees fans can sleep just a tiny bit easier tonight.

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

And Now Things Get Interesting

Next week in baseball is one of the most controversial weeks all year: interleague play

Baseball purists argue that interleague play should be reserved solely for the postseason, while others think it adds something to be able to see teams you would not otherwise see throughout the course of the year.

There is, however, one issue that even interleague's staunchest defenders have to reconcile with: AL pitchers hitting in NL parks.

The issue here isn't the embarrassment that might be caused by, say, Mariano Rivera swinging a bat (it's happened); it's the injury risk that comes with running the basepath for pitchers that have not trained to do so.

Think it's a stretch?

That's how Chien Ming Wang lost half a season last season, and he wasn't the only one. Felix Hernandez, who admittedly did hit a grand slam off of Johan Santana, also hurt his ankle in the same game.

The simple solution to this, of course, would be to tell your pitcher to, at all costs, avoid swinging the bat, but the last thing you want is to make an automatic out that much more automatic

For the Yankees, the issue this year is magnified as they play nine straight games in NL parks. Nine.

Not only is that nine straight games of watching a pitcher bat (though CC isn't an automatic out, based on what he did last year), it's nine straight games without either the bat of Hideki Matsui or Johnny Damon. While Matsui would seem the more likely bat to sit, it's hard to justify the idea that he will sit for nine games in a row, especially if he hits well over the weekend.

This could end up being the kicker for Joe Girardi. If he manages to figure out a lineup each day that does a decent job and the Yankees go, say, 6-3 over the stretch (okay, with the Nats in there, let's make it 7-2), some of his critics will find it harder to complain. If, however, the Yankees falter (and dude, they're playing the Nats), all bets may be off.