Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
Much like they did against in Tampa two weeks ago, the Yankees arrived in Baltimore last night and delivered a statement: they're not fooling around this time. On a night when the Indians (due to the schedule) and the Red Sox (due to the rain) were idle, the Yankees beat up on the Orioles in Camden Yards, winning 11-3 in a game that wasn't even that close.
Unlike the Devil Rays' game, this one wasn't a blowout from the start. In fact, the game almost didn't start at all. Delayed an hour and a half by rain, the game finally got underway in a mild drizzle just after 8:30. The Yankees leapt into action, with Derek Jeter singling on Rodrigo Lopez's second pitch, followed by an Alex Rodriguez walk, and, as the rain picked up, a Jason Giambi fly out to center that moved Jeter to third. Gary Sheffield then fouled off a pitch only to have his at-bat interrupted by a twenty-minute rain delay.
When the game resumed, Lopez worked out of the jam by striking out Sheffield looking on a pitch in off the plate and getting Hideki Matsui to ground out to second on a 3-0 count. He then settled down and exchanged zeros with Randy Johnson for a couple of innings before Hideki Matsui singled on the first pitch of the fourth.
Matsui's single, a bouncer back up the middle, seemed innocent enough. The Yankees' lead-off man had singled in the first and second without scoring either time. In the second, that batter was Ruben Sierra, who in the fourth followed Matsui's single with a strikeout. Robinson Cano then singled to right to put runners at the corners, at which point Joe Torre signaled for the safety squeeze with John Flaherty at the plate. Flaherty squared to bunt, but pulled the bat back to take a strike as Matsui scampered back to third, where Melvin Mora, likely surprised by the squeeze attempt, failed to cover the bag. Flaherty then fouled off the next pitch from Lopez and, amid what seemed like a few hundred throws to first, took four straight balls to load the bases. Bubba Crosby then hacked at three pitches, missing the first two and popping the third to Tejada in shallow left field.
That left it to the Captain with the bases loaded and two outs. Jeter took a trio of pitches just off the plate, the first off the outside corner called a strike. The second off the inside corner called a ball, and the third in the same spot called a strike. Lopez then went back outside for a foul, then way outside, and way inside to run the count full, finally losing Jeter on a pitch high and inside to drive in the first run. Alex Rodriguez followed with a hard double past Mora at third to plate another pair of runs. Jason Giambi, then 1 for his last 17 since his back started acting up in Toronto, hit Lopez's very next pitch into the bleachers in right center for a three-run home run to run the score to 6-0. It was his first homer in two weeks (since that opening statement against the Devil Rays, actually). After a four-pitch walk to Sheffield, Matsui hit a warning track shot to dead center for the third out.
Randy Johnson pitched around a pair of singles in the bottom of the fourth and with that the route was on. The Yanks added five more runs in the sixth off relievers Eric DuBose (who started the inning by walking Giambi, Sheffield and Matsui on twelve pitches to load the bases), and Jason Grimsley, thanks in part to a through-the-wickets error by Melvin Mora on a bases-loaded grounder by Flaherty.
By the time Derek Jeter singled to make it 10-0, Joe Torre began putting in his subs and, although the weather had long since cleared, when Randy Johnson got Tejada to fly out to Bubba Crosby in center to end the sixth and make the game official, the game was, for all intents and purposes, over.
With Tino Martinez, Felix Escalona, Mark Bellhorn, Matt Lawton and, yes, even Tony Womack (who singled in his first at-bat since September 2, his second AB since August 24) in the field, Scott Proctor and Felix Rodriguez pitched 1-2-3 seventh and eighth innings respectively.
With the Orioles turning to the likes of Walter Young, Eli Whiteside and Ed Rogers, Joe Torre then turned to maligned LOOGY Alan Embree for the ninth. After getting Chris Gomez to fly out on his first pitch, Embree surrendered an opposite field single to the left-handed Young, then gave up the right-handed Rogers' first major league-hit, a two-run homer to left. After a four pitch-strikeout of Whiteside, Luis Matos lifted a fly to right that Matt Lawton failed to track, letting it drop for a double. Eric Byrnes then singled Matos home to run the final score to 11-3, hopefully eliminating the likelihood of Embree ever pitching in a Yankee uniform again.
Once again, the Yankees took advantage of the opportunity to effect a permanent half-game swing in the standings with a rival idle. In this case, they pulled even with the current Wild Card leaders, the Cleveland Indians. Meanwhile, the rain-out in Boston will force the Red Sox to play a double header against the Blue Jays today. Unfortunately, the change in schedule has wiped out Saturday's dream match-up of Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, as Schilling, who was scheduled to pitch last night, will now throw the night-cap of the double header and be pushed to Sunday's season finale, with Tim Wakefield, who will pitch the day game, pitching on short rest on Saturday. Elsewhere, Curtis Granderson's bottom of the ninth home run for the Tigers handed the White Sox yet another loss, leaving them just two games ahead of the Indians (and Yankees).
The thing that I don't get is that y is Ruban Still on the DH role while he's not really good for the past 2 weeks or so... hitting 3 out of 40 ABs.. y not just use Posada as DH for the game..
oh well, maybe that Torre just wanna give Posada a break.. who knows...
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/roy_johnson/09/26/joe.torre/index.html
Now I'm not going to sit here and bash Joe. I'm not as critical of Torre as many of our friends here are at times, but I'm also not dim enough to think he deserves Manager of the Year. That honor has got to belong to Indians manager Eric Wedge.
While Torre has done a nice job juggling egos and injuries this year, his $200 million dollar advantage and blind allegiance to certain proven failures hurts him in any conversation about MOTY.
Eric Wedge may not even make the playoffs if the White Sox can punish them in the final 3 games. Boston and the Yankees are playing top baseball right now and any stumble will push the Indians out of the playoffs.
That having been said, Wedge has taken an unheralded group of young players to the brink of the division and the playoffs. Who would have thought that the season would turn out like this in May?
Wedge is one of those guys who could go from hero to goat in the span of a season or two depending on where the Tribe goes from here. If they fall backwards next season and if they can't challenge for the playoffs on a regular basis, fickle fans will call for his head.
This year, at least, he has put Cleveland on the map, and with a week remaining and the final 3 games against the division leading White Sox, he has his team in a position to win the WC, the division, and the hearts of the restless midwest. MOTY in my book.
Go Blue Jays.
The game will go on while I'm at work tomorrow morning Japan time and I'll be sneaking Gameday in a minimized box on my desktop. Can't let the other teachers know I'm dividing my attention between my lack of work tomorrow and the Yankees. ;)
I get a feeling that A-Rod is about to stamp himself on the Yankees with an MVP worthy close to the 2005 regular season. I don't know why but I'm overcome by the sense that A-Rod will play out the rest of his career in pinstripes breaking into the pantheon reserved for the all-time greats. That's one of the reasons he agreed to move to 3B and come to the Yankees, right?
I think it starts here. I feel that he's about to carry the team on his back (of course with the help of the other Bombers) and put us in the playoffs as AL East Champs. I feel like he's going to put on a display of greatness over the remaining games that will leave no doubt as to his status as MVP, "True Yankee", all-time great, and hopefully Champion for the 1st time.
Giambi, Matsui, Jeter, and Sheff will undoubtedly have something to say about the outcome of the season and the pitching staff as well, but I sense something in the fabric of the baseball universe about to unfold for A-Rod that will propel him even higher in the esteem of the Hall of Fame. Fingers crossed. See you at game time. Good night.
http://tinyurl.com/dv9zf
ALso, Boston is right up there too - 3.90 ERA for the starters in Sept.
http://tinyurl.com/8osl5
These teams look to be pretty evenly matched. It's a good thing we have an MVP third baseman :)
Sox likely to eliminate their similar worst case scenario with at least one win today. The matchups actually look pretty good today for a doubleheader sweep...it's the next two days, with Clement and Arroyo pitching, that are more of a crapshoot.
I think the real turnaround in this season occurred in early August when our starting pitching got a lot more reliable (the odd Mussina/RJ/Leiter hiccup notwithstanding). Again, the unheralded guys really saved our season in this respect.
The sun is shining brightly here in Boston, and the forecast is sun and low 70s all day, and then clear and upper 40s tonight. I think very little work will get done in this city this afternoon.
FWIW - thunderstorms forecast for Thursday here . . .
And those hundred throws to first while Flaherty was batting really were something, esp. if you were sitting the drizzling remnants of a thunderstorm.
Great write up.
Would be familiar territory, albeit a year removed, for sox fans as they are all used to the end of the season choke and love to wallow in their misery - and they need to get back into their proper place after last year's anomaly!
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I think that's a load of crap. 40 ABs is way too small a sample to make a judgment on. With the Mets, only Lawton's batting average and power numbers were down - but Shea depresses average and power, especially for lefties. He'll probably be fine, if he were to get playing time.
And a loss isn't out of the question to the Os. Yeah, we handled Chen pretty well last week, but he's still a pretty hot pitcher -- didn't allow more than 2 runs in eight of his previous nine starts (and 3 runs in the one other start in that stretch). Plus Chen's numbers are better at home, I believe.
Even if Moose gives 6 1/3 or so good innings, that still leaves the 7th and 8th innings, which have never been breathe easy time around Yankeeland.
If we win today and tomorrow, then I start to look forward to the weekend. But only then.
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2005/09/27/painful_season_eats_at_schilling/
Must he always play the holy victim? What a self-serving asshole.
I wonder why people think last night was Embree's last game. He's been doing what he did all year and Torre keeps on coming back to him. My guess is that we'll see him in Fenway as Torre will think given his experience in Boston he'll be able to handle his old mates.
I'm taking faith in the fact that the Jays have done well against the Sox this year, and they seem fired up to play spoiler, but my real concern is Baltimore. Not so much on an intellectual level, the Yanks are clearly a better team, more just that nagging feeling that after so many losses, they're just due to win, no matter who they're playing.
Of course, what was that streak of consecutive wins we had against the Twins?
I don't have the constitution for this...
That said, I'm not sure he deserves one. Fellow lefty Bubba Crosby, despite an 0 for 5 last night, is hitting .333/.333/.431 on the month and playing outstanding defense. Meanwhile, Lawton has been a poor second half performer over the past several years:
2002-2004
Pre-break: .268/.359/.446
Post-break: .233/.337/.342
Oops. Lawton's a more valuable bat off the bench than Womack, as he can work a walk and hit a homer (he has two as a Yankee, one of which accounted for all of the runs in a Yankee win). But he falls short of even Womack in the field.
["All the glory of last fall has not blunted the repercussions of a new season in which the Sox have gone from ''cowboys" and ''idiots" to injury-ravaged survivalists."]
Oh woe is us, Red Sox Nation! "Injury Ravaged Survivalists" my ass. maybe they should look South at the team in the Brownx before they cry about injuries. Do the names Pavano, Mussina, Wright, Sheffield, Wang, Brown, and Giambi mean anything? These were all major players and pitchers who have spent some time injured during this season.
["...He remembers Ed Wade, his former general manager with the Phillies, once saying Schilling was ''a horse every fifth day and a horse's ass the other four."]
HAHA, I couldnt have said it better myself.
["And he will never forget some other detractors, including Pedro Gomez, a former writer for the Arizona Republic, who chose the day Schilling started Game 7 of the 2001 World Series to describe him as ''a con man, someone more intent on polishing his personal image by whatever means possible."]
Pedro Gomez is my hero!
Schilling's not the only player in the news today:
Tiger Woods Signs $15 Million Deal To Endorse Alex Rodriguez
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40739
Schilling has grown accustomed to the sniping. He remembers Ed Wade, his former general manager with the Phillies, once saying Schilling was ''a horse every fifth day and a horse's ass the other four."
HAHAHAHA
Keep Lawton for walks, Sierra for power, and Womack for speed - but mostly keep them stapled to the pine. Bubba plays RF or CF everyday here on out.
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