Low Voltage

Sometimes, the forces conspire.

Tonight, for example, it wasn't just that Edinson Volquez was a stud on the mound for Cincinnati, or that Johnny Damon made what should have been scored a costly error, or that Mike Mussina decided to walk Jay Bruce and pitch to Jolbert Cabrera, who was already 2-2 that evening, but rather, it was a combination of all of these things.

A four-two loss can not be considered a clunker by any means, though the deficit seemed to loom larger just because of how well Volquez has been pitching.

So while a bad decision and a bad play doomed the Yankees tonight, in the long run, it can not be considered a terrible loss.

For one thing, Mike Mussina pitched into the eighth inning, sparing the bullpen on a night when Mariano Rivera, Jose Veras and Kyle Farnsworth were all likely unavailable. He threw 110 pitches, 76 of them strikes.

Despite the loss, it cannot be considered a poor outing from Moose--merely an unlucky one. Had he pitched to Jay Bruce, or had Johnny Damon caught a fly ball, the entire complexion of the game changes, and he very well may have picked up his eleventh win.

That said, the Yankees were sloppy on defense and ran themselves out of innings on a few occasions. They seemed to have forgotton that they weren't playing the San Diego Padres any more, and not every catcher is Michael Barrett.

Hideki Matsui, and, surprisingly, Robinson Canò had multi-hit games, but the Yankees were not able to do much else offensively.

Still, there's little to complain about--the Yankees are still six games over .500, the pitchers they face tomorrow and Sunday will not be named Edinson Volquez.


Also---I don't know if any of you are soccer fans but the Turkey-Croatia match today might explain why it's such a popular sport.


Apparently, as of about ten minutes ago, I'm going to the game tomorrow, and have seats second row behind home plate.

So, uh, if you see me on tv, holler.

Seeing Reds (Exhibition Game Notes)

So I saw most of today's baseball game, which is the first time i've been able to do that since, like, the beginning of last week, though I did miss most of Joba's pitching to eat dinner. Anyway, some notes.

1) Joba does need to get his pitch count down. He got the job done, but if he is to succeed as a starter, he's got to throw less than 45 pitches over two innings. I have no doubt Joba can do it, but I won't lie, I was a little nervous in the first where he was getting behind in counts and whatnot...but maybe I've just been spoiled by Phil Hughes.

2) Ian Kennedy got notably better as his innings went on.

3) Traber and Hawkins were good; Rivera was vintage. You would think he's got fifteen years left on his contract.

4) Cincinnati has this pitcher named Volquez, which keeps making me think of Star Trek, but the point is, Volquez struck out eight in four innings, including six in two. I haven't heard of him before tonight, but DANG.

5) The offense did its thing, of course.