Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
My headlines have been boring as beans recently. Sorry about that. Then again, there's something to be said for truth in advertising.
After last night's 15-2 massacre (I particularly liked the Daily News's WBC-inspired headline "No Mercy"), the A's look for a little get back with their ace Rich Harden on the mound against the mysterious Mike Mussina. Mussina has suffered a glaring decline the last two years, in part due to elbow problems that one can't expect will go away as he begins his age-37 season, no matter how good he may have felt at the end of spring training.
Harden, meanwhile, is a 24-year-old stud with a devastating repertoire, a textbook delivery, and a very bright future. Funny, then that the last time either pitcher faced tonight's opponent they did it against one another in Oakland in a game that saw Harden leave due to injury and Mussina pitch a gem.
Harden left that game, a 9-4 Yankee victory marred only by an ugly outing from Mike Stanton in relief, after an inning and a third with a strained oblique muscle, an injury which appears to be all the rage these days. He didn't pitch again for more than a month.
Mike Mussina made two starts against the A's last year. Those two starts came on consecutive turns in early May and turned out to not only be Mussina's best back-to-back starts of the year, but part of the salvation of the Yankees' season.
With his team 11-19 entering a Saturday afternoon game against the A's at the Stadium, Mussina took the mound and hurled a beautiful four-hit shutout that kicked off a ten-game winning streak. Game five of that streak was Mussina's second start against the A's described above in which Moose went seven allowing two runs on six hits and a walk and striking out nine. His season line against the A's was thus: 16 IP, 10 H, 2 R, 1 HR, 3 BB, 12 K.
That catch is that the A's lineups that Mussina faced in those two games contained just four of the hitters he will face tonight (Kotsay, Kendall, Chavez and, in the first of the two only, Ellis) while the rest of the order was filled out by men such as Scott Hatteberg, Keith Ginter, Marco Scutaro, Eric Byrnes, Bobby Kielty and an ineffective Erubiel Durazo (0 for 7 in those games and .237/.305/.368 on the year on his way to Tommy John surgery). Tonight those players will be replaced by Dan Johnson, Bobby Crosby, Milton Bradley, Nick Swisher and Frank Thomas. Add in a healthy Harden and Moose and the Yanks have their work cut out for them tonight.
Thanks for the summary. I belive that if Mike can draw on his Oriole days this season and plow some pitches up and and pitch from that and locate his knuckle curve, splitter and change-up, he'll be fine. Otherwise if he isn't locating, he'll get crushed.
Certain "language" comes naturally to me so I thought I'd ask.
The reason is because I wanted to express my displeasure over that banner on YES.
Nice hit, Derek!
Jete Jete Jete!
Well, we are playing the third best team in the west.
As for the YES banner/strip, I prefer it.
Also, while I have you, how do you reference a comment like that?
Naa. Andy was my boy. So long as he's in the NL, I'll pull for him to pitch well.
Up and in is no longer in his arsenal. I am hoping Guidry will change that horible trend from last year, across the entire staff.
reference comments with the number in brackets - [x]
I guess I expect better.
Cliff and all:
Is Paulie going to do some games on Yes this year? I need my Paulie ribbing Kaye fix!
:)
Remember you said that in August and the A's are in third place, and he starts barking and whining.
Jeter really got a break.
Nice hit, there, Gary!
Can't have it.
A little micomunication between Pena and Bowa so A-Rod ends up looking like the goat thinking there was a play at the plate comming.
Now can we have another six innings without boneheaded running and fielding?
Im getting the SS radio feed. Last inning Waldman mentioned how Cano was going over tape of himself hitting last night with Pena before the game - how he really wants to improve this year. Now he goes and makes a dumb error - of course, it comes right after an AB - taking the hitting into the filed with him. We should track this - what percentage of errors comes in the half inning after an AB? My bet is 75%.
has anybody seen the speed of Mussina's "fastball" or "not-so-slowball" tonight?
Was that so hard? See what happens when you just put the ball in play?
For a young guy that might be something he could grow out of don't you think? Getting a guy to concentrate on sticking to the basics after rolling over on one is doable.
Good to get that cheap ass run back.
wsporter... clikc the gameday link for stats on the game.
Anyway, I just wanted to get the radar readings from Mussina. anyone getting them?
This is a cool as shit way to watch a game with a thousand of your good friends.
now, let's go yan-kees!!
The PA and then Sterling just announced that the Cano error was taken away. Guess we'll have to save that research. But I agree, wsport, it should be something you can get over with some effort as you grow. Looking forward to that development from Cano.
That's what I'm talking about!
and then he singles...
They're taking him out?
Is this some kind of early-season, better-safe-than-sorry pitchcount thing?
I want a new junk stat--let's call it "starter kills"....
That Bunt was the right thing to do.
if myers faces on right-handed batter today I'm going to throw up.
Who wouldn't like to see that?
Matsui looks like he plans on honoring his contract. Shef hasn't looked sharp yet.
Of course the problem with LOOGies is if they walk the lefties, they have to face righties.
Lets go Yankess!!!!! (that's their new name right?)
Signing Cairo was a smart move though.
How about under-reported? I should have clarrified that I meant the media.
lets go Bernie (talk about bad signings)
Sacrelige! Had to sign Bernie!
Good to see Phillips getting PT! My god...
I must confess I did not.
I like our chances.
Sturtze and Villone will have to be replaced, but I like this pen. There's a solid Big Three, the first true LOOGY they've had since Graeme Lloyd, and Dotel is workin' his way back.
Back to the game, our Farnsworth had a great inning, showed some real cojones v. the Hurt.
I agree.
276 We've debated this before, but I don't buy the idea of tallying LOBs for each batter. I don't beleive you can leave the same runner on base more than once. 10 for NY, 5 for Oak.
Meanwhile, oh those bases on balls!
I'm usually pretty easy on Joe but that was plain bad...
Wasn't Proctor supposed to be the spot starter because they didn't like his approach out of the pen?
although credit must be given to the A's pitching, they threw some nasty strikes when they needed to. Harden, Douschbad and Street all faced very tight spots and came through with big balls.
too bad Torre sent Proctor to lose the game for the rest of the team.
good bye perfect season....
We had plenty of opps to win. Shef and ARod both had chances. Can't let games like this (giving up only 3 runs in 8) get away.
Terrible loss.
We had plenty of opps to win. Shef and ARod both had chances. Can't let games like this (giving up only 3 runs in 8) get away.
Terrible loss.
We had plenty of opps to win. Shef and ARod both had chances. Can't let games like this (giving up only 3 runs in 8) get away.
Terrible loss.
rant:
as a fan in california, it's pretty hard to watch Yankees games, so I decided to splurge on Extra Innings...and they don't f'ing offer it in Long Beach! ARGH
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