Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
The complete game shutout. Last year, the Yankees got four of them, the first coming on May 7 when Mike Mussina shutout the A's on a sunny Saturday in the Bronx. That kicked off a ten-game winning streak that pushed the 11-19 Yankees over .500 for the first time since the fifth game of the season. The last of those ten wins was the Yankees' second complete game shutout, thrown by some guy named Carl Pavano in Seattle. Less than a month later, Moose tossed his second shutout, this one at home against the Pirates, kicking off a five-game winning streak that pushed the 30-32 Yankees back over .500 yet again. Finally, Aaron Small bookended things nicely by shutting out the A's in Oakland on a sunny Saturday afternoon in September.
Last night, the Yankees received their first complete game shutout of the year as Chien-Ming Wang made short work of the Devil Rays by limiting them to just four base runners, two on singles, two on walks. Wang needed just 104 pitches to shut out the Rays in a game that lasted two hours and 33 minutes primarily because the Yankees put 17 men on base and scored six runs. Wang was perfect through four innings, faced just 30 batters, and recorded 18 of his 27 outs on ground balls. The only man to get past first base was Julio Lugo, who reached on an infield single with two outs in the sixth, stole second and moved to third on a wild pitch only to be stranded when Rocco Baldelli flew out to center.
As for the Yankees, they got on the board right away when a two-out Alex Rodriguez single plated a Johnny Damon lead-off double in the first. They added two more in the second. Andy Phillips led off with a single and was called safe at second when Julio Lugo bobbled and dropped the pivot on a double play ball off the bat of Melky Cabrera. Miguel Cairo then bunted both runners up and Derek Jeter drove them home with a single to right. Two more runs came in the fourth when Devil Rays' starter Tim Corcoran (no relation) followed a Derek Jeter one-out double by walking Giambi, Rodriguez and Posada, the last two on nine pitches. Posada's walk drove in the Yankees' fourth run and drove Corcoran from the game. Chad Harville then came in and, after getting Bernie Williams to fly out to shallow left, walked in the Yankees fifth run by giving Andy Phillips a free pass on five pitches. Two innings later, Bernie homered off Harville to put the final score at 6-0
As evidenced by his performance last night, Wang continues to improve as the season progresses. Nothing sums that up better than his monthly splits:
April: 4.80 ERA
May: 4.28
June: 3.19
July: 3.03
That said, Wang is about to enter uncharted territory in terms of innings pitched. In 2004 Wang threw 149 1/3 innings between double and triple-A. Last year, he threw a career-high 158 innings between Columbus and the majors, including his start in Game 2 of the ALDS. With last night's performance, Wang has thrown 148 innings this year. Wang is on pace for 233 innings this year in the regular season alone, a number not far from his current major league total of 255 1/3 innings over the past two seasons. This is just one more reason why the Yankees would be well served if Brian Cashman can wrangle up a starting pitcher by Monday.
In other news, Phillips has just 11 walks on the season, but three of them have come in last three games, following Joe Torre benching him for a couple of games and criticizing his plate discipline to the press. Phillips, who has received heavy criticism for his dismal on-base percentage of late, has reached base seven times in 13 plate appearances since returning to the line-up.
Finally, Tim wasn't the only pitcher named Corcoran to get beat up last night. The Nationals Roy Corcoran got lit up in relief of Tony Armas Jr. in the Dodgers' pasting of the Nationals in L.A. Together the two Corcorans posted the following line: 5 1/3 IP, 11 H, 11 R, 8 ER, 1 HR, 9 BB, 3 K. Myself, I sat home and ate a delicious bowl of chili while watching Chien-Ming work his magic. Good times.
Effin Corcorans damn you all (just kidding)
Speaking of which, I have an extra ticket (in the bleachers) for Sunday's game.
If anyone is interested email me at:
jen AT nosenseworrying DOT com
Though watching tonight, he really didn't need any Ks anyway. the two hits were a blooper and a infield hit... this is almost definately the best pitching performance by a Yankee this year.
I wonder if they the groundskeepers at Yankee Stadium work any magic on the infield when he pitches to slow down the ground balls?
Yes, another starting pitcher would probably be a good thing. How about Shawn Chacon? ;-)
From the various hints dropped here and there, it sounds like he was demoted as much for his attitude as anything else. If he's turned that around, he might get another chance. If he's got his curveball working again (which he seemed to, in his last win), he could be the pitcher he was last year.
I'd like to see some of the AAAA guys get a(nother) shot like DePaula, Henn, or Mendoza, but I don't know if any of them are any good even at Columbus. :=:
The Yanks don't seem to think DePaula or Mendoza are ready for prime time yet. Dunno about Henn, but he didn't exactly blow me away the last time we saw him.
Kris Wilson was an all-star in Triple-A, but horrible in the big show. Kind of makes me hesitant to count on anyone we have in Columbus now.
Man, is Jeter have a quiet .350 year or what? For a guy who is generally thought to be so overrated, he's been terrific this year, as if this is just what we've come to expect. It's Jeter being Jeter.
Man, it would be terrific if the bullpen can get a little more rest today as well. But it is hotter'n'July--wait it is July!--out there and I always brace myself for bombs-away offense on days like these. Still, if Johnson can give em seven and then they go straight to Farnsworth (provided his back is ok) and then Mo, then Proctologist can get another day to rest.
I like the part in the NY Times saying that Wang doesn't talk much in any language. That language barrier just seems more and more like a coverup.
Wang has to enter that uncharted territory eventually, with all the Yanks' been going through this year, what can be better if this is the year Wang starts that journey.
And yes, Cliff, great summary. Thanks.
I've been wondering whether that's his overall problem - that he's a bit of a slacker. Anyone have any such info?
Chacon also complained to the press about having his turn skipped, and I'm sure that didn't endear him to Torre, either.
"Offensive Substitution: Pinch hitter Curtis Pride replaces Vladimir Guerrero."
what happened?
Johnny Damon CF
Derek Jeter SS
Jason Giambi DH
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Jorge Posada C
Bernie Williams RF
Andy Phillips 1B
Melky Cabrera LF
Miguel Cairo 2B
Here's the D-Rays:
Julio Lugo SS
Carl Crawford LF
Rocco Baldelli CF
Ty Wigginton 1B
Jorge Cantu 2B
Jonny Gomes DH
Damon Hollins RF
Dioner Navarro C
Tomas Perez 3B
"One of the members of the Cuban team who deserted [this past week] is star second baseman Yulieski Gourriel, considered as one of the best in the world at his position," The Bogota Times reported Friday. "It appears that his next destination would the New York Yankees."
I wouldn't mind the Yankees getting the strugglin Abreu, but I don't like idea of them obtaining Lieber as well. They need another starter, but Lieber is a money pit with little reward.
Joe's going to play Bernie every day, except when he needs rest. "Platoon" means Bernie as DH vs. Bernie in RF. At least as long as Andy Phillips is hot.
Go Yanks! Let's get this one!
Finally! He gets K-Rod up, Jesus Mike get with the program!
Nixon base hit. 1st and 2nd 0 out. I guess is was too much to ask for Boston to lose today.
MVP! MVP! MVP!
Guiel vs righties: .224/.348/.517
.865 ops vs. .678.
What is wrong with Torre?
And Giambino!
All you have to do is call them and tell them where you are and they'll change your home market and you'll get the Boston game. I did it all last year while I was traveling.
Varitek K. 1 out.
Jorge Posada is a real speedster.
Thanks. Is that new? Last year they kept making me call them from a land line to check my location.
He was really slow, but he beat the throw.
74 SF Yanks, you're in right?
Because he's a pussy, that's why. I guess the Angels don't want to hold on to first with give-ups like that from Juan "StonedWash Hair" Rivera.
112 Bklyn,
This just in: RJ is old and bad, a number three starter on his best day.
Is it me, or is Francona or one of the players complaining to the umps EVERY inning?
Meanwhile another scorcher served up by RJ. Torre better get someone up in the pen soon.
You mean when he allows the winning run to score at home while standing on the mound instead of backing up home like he was taught in little league?
Two words: Carlos Beltran.
I really wish Joe had started Guiel instead of Bernie...
Schilling and the alksjdjalksjdf Beckett though, now those to I can hate, and hate with a passion.
(Did I mention he looks like a Beaver?)
Yea, I guess I should just continue going along with the crowd that believes Cashman isn't a bumbling idiot.
Beckett is just an ass.
I don't trust him now, let alone in the playoffs. Given the BA of most of our club, I'd love to get Schmidt right now. FSN had a good point yesterday, given D Lee's problems with his wrist, and the difficulty of wrist injuries generally, it may be foolish to think we'll get anything from Matsui or Sheff. Unless we can tear Tejada from the O's and DH him, we have got to get a pitcher.
Tavares in to blow the lead in the Fens and Jorge puts us in this game.
OK ok, I've changed my mind a little. We need a serviceable DH. Put Giambi at 1st. Hell, even C. Wilson would be better than what we've got.
Andy is horrible. I mean I guess it quiets all the fools who were whining at the beginning of the season that he wasn't getting any playing time.
Manny keeps gunning them down.
Look, when you're 28, and haven't seen the light of day or been traded because other teams see potential, I don't have a clue why anyone thought Phillpis was going to be anything more than a defensive replacement.
That's TWO DOUBLES by a batter with an AVG. BELOW .200 and an OPS BELOW .500!
Chacon is warming.
WHAT? I didn't even finish typing and Chacon is warming up??
C'mon, Shawn. The door could be opening for you. You want out of the bullpen? Show us you deserve it.
Joe ought to tell Andy that he does back to the minors the first games he does not walk. The guy is so anxious to hit, he chases bad pitches, swings at first pitches when he needs to take a strike, etc.
If you ould count on him to walk in critical situations, he could help the team.
Papi with a walk off single. OUCH!
Chacon hitting people. Ahh, it is going to be a looong game.
The Yankees motto: Stay out of 1st place at all cost!
Its said a walk is as good as a hit.
Not true.
A walk is better.
Is Soriano knew that, he would be a superstar. If Andy knew it, he might be a ball player. Look how many times a Melky walk has won a game. Phillips doesn't get it.
Back to 1.5 down we go.
I would have left Johnson in.
Chacon is done. He was very, very lucky the last time he was in. The ball he caught was one of those "look what I found" deals. Normally, that would have scored 2 runs. Today, one walk, one HBP, and a 2 run single. I will go out on a limb here and say that unless he shuts down the Rays the rest of this game, he will be DFA'd tomorrow.
318 Ugly.
I mean, something else. ANYBODY with stones in the booth, Mel, c'mon. Anyone?
Well, I suppose one mention and at least the implication that it was actually stem cells that mean you're still alive there, Mel.
(Andy at Columbus last season: .300/.379/.573)
If you want to hear someone talk about stem cells, look up John Edwards. I'm sure he can guarantee the end of poverty like he did during the election.
And to be honest, I agree with your opinion on stemm cells
Tomas Perez came into this game hitting BELOW .200 and with an OPS BELOW .500. Today, he is 3-3 with 3 Doubles and 2 RBI. His AVG. is up to .209 and his OPS is up to .525.
339 Not for Hughes, I won't! And did you guys not just finish saying how older NL pitchers get evicerated in the AL?
I'd trade Hughes for Carlos Zambrano in a heartbeat if we could get him.
What do you think we do with RJ if we make the PS? We can't start him in game 1 because it's too important, and we can't start him in game 3 for the same reason. I guess Joe goes Moose, RJ, Wang if he has a brain cell left that is. That way if it goes 5 we have Moose to start and Wang to come out of the pen in game 5. What am I thinking, that would make sense. Joe would go Moose in game 5 and not use a starter out of the pen, god forbid.
and you say...
Nahhhhhh....
(I dont think so)
Theo would be jumping up and down for a week to get Roger. Full circle for the HOF, not to mention a major leg up for the PS.
Shit... both Sox win.
How can RJ pitch so badly against this team?
Sorry, singledd, I didn't see your question long ago, but I'm currently in Canada so the national blackout doesn't apply.
Now that Torre has gave up the game, Beam is in. How long before he takes out Jeter, Posada, Damon and Arod?
This loss is squarely on Randy Johnson.
Lately Derek Jeter has been saying, "It's all about pitching, pitching, pitching." Boy, is he right.
Error on Fasano but a real first baseman would have gotten it.
Why is Joe burning out Villone in this game? Just let Beam finish it...
We may be better off trying to hang around until Cano, Godzilla and maybe Sheff get back.
Abreu maybe, because no one else wants him, and they really want to dump his salary.
Bizarre stat someone posted at YES this morning: Since mid-June, Bubba Crosby has more homers than Bobby Abreu.
We have RJ as our ace. We will simply have to hope that 4 out of 5 games he is good. Blowouts like this happen. It's like the whole team has a mental lapse. It's meaningless... just like the 19 run game in Toronto.
Of our previous 4 loses, 2 were by one run. This is where another bat could make the difference. Since the 19 run Toronto game, we have given up exactly 4 runs/game (and some of those run were unearned, at that includes a 13 run game for Toronto). So all-in-all, our pitching has been good.
A lot of it has to fall on (Damon's) defense early on...if he doesn't bobble that ball, RJ gets out of the inning 1-2-3, and who knows how the rest of it goes. Oh well, take your lumps and move on. Hopefully Moose can pick them up tomorrow.
Abreu would almost be making a move just to make a move. Slim pickings out there, once again...
Cliché time: Better this than a 2-1 bullpen blown loss. Wash those uni's and go get 'em tomorrow...
Kim Jones asked him why he was bent over in the bullpen three times, and he ducked the question each time.
440 I don't think Cashman lost any bargaining power. It's one day, one game. It's baseball. Things like this happen. If we were trading Randy Johnson, we'd have lost some bargaining power, but we're not.
Amusingly, someone posted to a Phillies board tonight, claiming his "contacts" in the NYC media told him that the Yanks have offered Duncan, Clippard, Melky, and Proctor for Abreu and Lieber. ROFL! And many of them think that would be a ripoff...for the Phillies.
Huh? His OPS is about .850--or, better than any Yakee OF on the 25-man roster. We ahve to accept that Sheff is not coming back this year, and prpare for the likelihood that Matsui will not be effective for some after (if?) he comes back in August.
The question is not whether adding Abreu would help--he would. The question is whether or not the deal is too costly
Also — and I dunno, you hear things, I hear things — but he has the 'lazy' tag, the 'me first' thing beneath the surface. Not sayin' he is Raul Mondesi II by any means, but he ain't no Paulie either.
He is not putting up the power numbers I would expect we'd like to see for a contract of this magnitude.
We already have a few guys who can work counts and get on base, what we need is someone to drive them in. Abreu has 8 HRS? There are 13 rookies in MLB right now with 8 or more dingers.
Unless Philly throws in Lidel, Lieber or Flash and the Liberty Bell, I say pass on this. We need to get younger, faster, leaner ($) and meaner...
Bklyn,
Great post. I could not agree more. I don't know if it could be explained any better than the concise complete persuasive summary you wrote.
What scares the hell out me is that they will pull off some crazy deal like the one in 441. We have to understand that deals like that just don't work anymore in this league, no matter what your financial situation. We have to hope for the best. If we can make a small deal for a guy like Lieber or Lidle that would be great. I would hope they don't have to offer much to take on one of those contracts. There is no way the Phillies are trading Gordon, put it out on the curb for pickup. We cannot adopt the ESPN "YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHNING, AND SOON!" brainwashery.
As for Randy Johnson, I think he was hurting. However I liked that he wouldn't talk about it. We need him desperately and I like that he isn't making excuses. I believe he will bear down and do everything he can do to help the team. If he can't do it physically then he can't do it, but I don't think he'll give up. We're stuck with him, so all I ask is that he works hard to get better, and I think he'll try to do that.
Matsu AVG .295 | HR 23 | OBP .369 | SLG .482
Sheff AVG .298 | HR 33 | OBP .398 | SLG .524
Reading the above MLB career numbers, Abreu leads Mats (in OPS) by 60 pts and is equal to Sheff... so at $15 mil, he is overpaid by 15% ??? (this years he gets 13.6 mil)
In talking about if WE (meaning G. Steinbrenner) can afford Abreu, WE have to look beyond his salary.
1) What is the ultimate cost when we trade a prospect who, IF he turns into MLB material, would have been cheap for many years
2) How much money do WE NOT make, if we miss the PS. This is KEY in the 2006 equation.
I asked this before. If we sell 50,000 tickets per game, at $40 (including parking, food, etc)... that's 2 mil/game. If we win the series, thats 7 home games (14 mil).
I have NO idea what the numbers really are. I just threw out the numbners above. Player bonus, peripheral sales (hats, jerseys, all hard goods), endorsements/advertising, TV revenue, tickets sales... and probably a whole lot more go into the equation.
Just HOW MUCH is the WS worth in actual $$$ earned? HOW MUCH IS THE WS WORTH???
We know that the Yankees making the PS this year is close. 50/50 chance? Less?
We know that 2 or 3 wins COULD be the difference between the PS or not. One impact batter/fielder could certainly be worth 3 wins (over Bernie/Guiel).
So in looking at what Abreu will cost US, we can not even speak about this until we know what MISSING the PS will cost us in actual $$, not to mention the sheer joy/need to win this year.
Abreu is 5 years younger then Shef, and has very similar career numbers... although significantly less HRs (RBI being more a factor of team). If we get Abreu and swap him for Shef, the future $$$ difference is not that great... but we have him THIS YEAR. He might make THE difference THIS year.
Cliff/Alex/Anybody....
If someone has some idea of the actual CASH value of the PS, please post it or the link.
Sending your kid to college may cost over $100,000. Ouch! But how much does it cost to NOT send your kid to college?
Yes... Abreau is 10-20% overpriced. But for a few years, in order to save the farm for a less expensive team post 2008, we are going to have to overspend some for 2006-2008.
By the by, Sori's career OPS is slightly less then Matsui (.836 to .851). I imagine he will cost in the 12-14 mil range.
Please also consider that Damon will be a bag of bones by the end of the year. I don't think he can be an everyday player.
>> Abreu hasn't hit a home run since June 13 and he plays his home games in a Little League park. Why would the Yankees want this guy beyond this season? Under the new drug-testing rules, power statistics compiled in previous years are almost meaningless. I'm not suggesting Abreu did anything wrong. All I am saying is he has gone seven weeks without a homer. <<
I have to say, that thought crossed my mind, too. The curse of the homerun derby? Or the curse of steroids testing?
I don't know....I'd rather Yankees got someone like David Delucci. Solid, unspectacular, hardnosed. Another superstar on this team might just completely destroy whatever chemistry they've got going this year. Sad.
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