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Fear of the Unknown
2005-05-17 09:16
by Cliff Corcoran

The Mariners are pulling Julio Mateo out of the bullpen to make his first major league start tonight. This may look like a great opportunity for the Yankees to extend their winning streak, but this sort of set-up always seems to go awry for the pinstripers.

Mateo, for example, may not have started since A-ball in 2000, and he may be averaging just two innings per outing this year, but that 2IP/G is up from his career average, and his last two outings have been the longest of his season at 3 1/3 innings each. What's more, he has a 0.41 ERA, the opposition is hitting .154/.205/.179 (.137 GPA) against him (ten singles, two doubles, two walks against ten Ks in 22 innings), and in his second-most-recent outing he held the Yankee's scoreless over 3 1/3. He's pitching so well that Jason over at U.S.S. Mariner actually suggested the M's move Mateo into the rotation in a post this past Saturday, with no expectation that the Mariners would actually do it, let alone so soon (to be fair, this is a spot start while Joel Pineiro works on his mechanics in the minors).

More encouraging for the Yankees and their fans, Dave added a very informative post yesterday that reveals that Mateo pitches to contact in the Quantrill/Lieber style except that instead of throwing ground balls, Mateo is an extreme fly-ball pitcher. Thus far this season Mateo has an absurdly low .176 opponents' average on balls in play (against a league average of .293) and has yet to allow a home run. In other words, he's pitching way over his head. Dave fears the odds will catch up with Mateo tonight over an extended outing against the Yankees' major league leading offense. Here's hoping he's right.

Meanwhile, the Yankees have to hope that whatever ailed Carl Pavano in his last start (in addition to Alex Rodriguez's defense, that is) has subsided in the days since. Especially since Joe Torre has inexplicably decided to bump Chien-Ming Wang out of his scheduled start at Shea on Sunday and use Thursday's day off to let Pavano move up a day in his place. Wang should start one of the first two games of next week's homestand against the Tigers instead.

In other news, don't look now, but Mike Stanton is the only active Yankee reliever with an ERA over 4.00. Meanwhile, Ruben Sierra is playing extended spring training games in Tampa (batting left exclusively for the moment) and should start a Florida State League rehab stint mid-week. Take your time, Ru.

Comments
2005-05-17 13:59:24
1.   Dan M
I hear you, Cliff, but the Bombers' penchant for bad nights against the unknown are usually just that: against the unknown. Surely they've faced Mateo before out of the pen. Hopefully that makes the difference (as well as the odds that he comes back to earth).
2005-05-17 14:06:47
2.   Knuckles
Uh oh. This has shades of every rookie pitcher from KC/CLE/MIL that inexplicably shuts us down year in and year out.
2005-05-17 15:54:09
3.   Cliff Corcoran
According to M's manager Mike Hargrove and Mateo himself over on MLB.com, Mateo features a slider, splitter and fastball and throws them all for strikes, the last at about 90-92 MPH. Hargrove singles out Mateo's slider and mentions that he will use both sides of the plate. Because of the brevity of his outings thus far this year, Mateo will be on an 80-pitch limit.
2005-05-17 20:39:59
4.   redshift
Hey - its Giambi! 3AB, 3H, 3RBI, HR.
Looks like he might want to stay on this team after all.
2005-05-17 20:53:33
5.   singledd
redshift - beat me too it. If Giambi is real, we're going to the post season. Gotta love Pavano tonight
2005-05-17 21:39:41
6.   alasky
dear joe---it's 6 to 0----pavano's thrown 120 pitches---is carl on your fantasy team?
2005-05-17 21:55:20
7.   markp
The Giambi and Arod (or are we going to continue using E-rod?) haters here had a really bad night: 5 of the 6 RBIs were from those guys.
2005-05-17 23:23:26
8.   Zack
I wouldn't call us haters (on Giambi in my case) more like disrespecters...I personally love A-Rod, but Giambi just doesn't do anything for me either way, so when he is a dead weight, I would rather he go, if he hits, fine, keep him around. He's not like Brown who is easy to actively despise, or like Matsui, who is impossible to hate, he is just sort of there for me...

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