Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
The Yankees wrap up their season series with the Rangers this afternoon on another gorgeous day in the Bronx. The Yanks have taken the first five games and Chien-Ming Wang will be on the mound in his first start since his near-perfect game looking to give the Yankees a six-game sweep. The Rangers, meanwhile, send out Brandon McCarthy, who's been a disaster in three of his last five starts, allowing at least five runs while getting knocked out before the fourth inning.
Things have turned around dramatically for the Yanks in the past week. Wil Nieves finally got his first Yankee hit last night after three years of trying (bringing his career OPS+ up to -6). Andy Pettitte got his second win of the season on Tuesday after seeing the bullpen blow three others in his previous four starts. Doug Mientkiewicz has raised his batting average 94 points over the last ten games, batting .407/.433/.741 over that span.
Of course the big news is the performance of the starting rotation, which finally has its intended Big Three of Wang, Pettitte, and Mussina active at the same time. Removing only the stink bomb laid last Friday by the since-demoted Kei Igawa, here's how that Big Three plus rookies Phil Hughes, Darrell Rasner, and Matt DeSalvo have performed over their past eight games:
51 IP, 27 H, 8 R, 2 HR, 14 BB, 28 K, 1.41 ERA, 0.80 WHIP, 6-0
The only games over that stretch in which the starter did not earn the win (again excepting Igawa's stinker) were the win Luis Vizcaino vultured from Pettitte in Texas and that ugly 3-2 loss to the Mariners on Monday night after DeSalvo's gem. The best stat of all from this run: 6 1/3 innings pitched per start.
Incidentally, here's the bullpen over those eight games:
21 IP, 18 H, 6 R, 3 HR, 6 BB, 13 K, 2.57 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 1-1
Of course, they've blown as many saves as they've converted (including one of each type in that Pettitte/Vizcaino game in Texas), but then one of those blown saves came on that blown stolen base call on Monday. If Bloomquist is called out, there's a good chance that Rivera records the save with Beltre standing in the on-deck circle. More encouraging than that, however, is the fact that, with the Yankees on an 8-3 run with the returns of Clemens and Hughes on the horizon, one needn't cling to those kind of what-ifs.
http://tinyurl.com/36v8yb
"'Hughes is fine,' Joe Torre said. 'He'll have a rehab start, probably.'
But Torre was not specific about a timetable for Hughes's return.
Roger Clemens and Hughes will soon be in Tampa together to work out at the team's training complex and spring headquarters"
http://tinyurl.com/2jvhup
Where is everybody?
Wow, K for Tiger Wang - good way to end the inning!
Hopefully Wang gets it together for the rest of the day.
The pitch locations suggest that Jeter and Abreu should have creamed the balls they flew out on. Anyone watching on TV - bad swings maybe?
13 Abreu ripped a line drive, Shaun, but wuz robbed by a sweet diving catch.
Didn't see Jeter's.
Not that I'm speaking from personal experience or anything. ;)
A-Rod was ready for the pitch he popped out on, but just missed it.
There we go Po! Batting lefty, drives one into the gap in left center for a double.
Let's go Cano!
http://www.totallyabsurd.com/toiletsnorkel.htm
Peace and Love -
Jim
"While you can detect a slight downward trend as the game wore on, the difference between the first inning amounts to less than two-tenths of a mile per hour in destination velocity from the first to the seventh inning."
Yeah, Hugh's arm just wasn't strong enough for the bigs. Gotta build that arm strength in AAA.
/sarcasm
21 You're welcome! The only thing I wonder about is RIYank's comment in 15 about Gameday's location reliability. How accurate is it, I wonder? How would MLBAM test it?
Because, of course, if Gameday's accuracy is off, then any studies based on its data may also be off.
Melkman!!!
I was worried about an URP (though McCarthy isn't really unknown, or a rookie) - but I'm less worried now.
Waldman: Last homerun also off McCarthy in August of last year.
:-)
Oh wait, he's right there in the dugout.
He struck out, but I'm glad A-Rod fouled so many pitches off. He must be seeing the ball well.
YES replays reveal he beat the tag, even though the ball beat him.
It is high, it is far, it is over Abreu's head.
Laird stumbles and chugs to third.
Someone I read the other day (don't remember where) that as more and more people get HDTVs, the calls for replay will skyrocket. Sounds good to me.
As Kay notes, Posada didn't run Laird far enough back to third.
A-Rod probably should have thrown home rather than attempt the diving tag.
Poorly done.
Yanks not getting breaks here.
WTF? He should have had Laird at home, but missed him, and so Wilkerson takes second?!?!
Posada only chased the runner i/2 way back to third before throwing the ball. ARod caught the ball. Wang was covering the plate. It seem ARod did NOT want to make Wang make the play, so he dove after the runner, but got the tag too late.
I think I should re-focus on that patent application.
Gonna need the whuppin' sticks to get a win today. I think they'll crack McCarthy's two-digit combination lock soon enough.
...and he's bringing the manicure kit with him.
;-)
We're still in this game, definitely. Wang could pitch a couple more good innings, and we could have one rally, drive McCarthy to the showers, and get a lousy righty reliever in the sites...
Okay, I was thinking of a different kind of "should have won", I guess.
We have to start getting baserunners for Melky.
Minky with the hacktastic K on the changeup.
Melky with the... dunk single to center, stretched into a double!
Living dangerously, Melkman, but we'll take it.
Let's go Damon!
Well, next inning is the big one. I bet McCarthy leaves as soon as we get a baserunner.
Okay, here we go, this is the big inning.
Let's go Ziller!
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2865760
Get past the disgusting in-text pimp of his book and it's decent ("These days, [Arod] is all-seeing, all-hitting, all-world. And in April, he almost single-handedly propped up the last vestiges of a Yankee dynasty that effectively ended on Nov. 4, 2001, the night Luis González looped a broken-bat single over Derek Jeter's head to win the World Series for the Arizona Diamondbacks.)
"On May 1, in his second big league appearance, Hughes walked Rangers leadoff man Kenny Lofton after starting him off with a couple of strikes. The kid called Posada out to the mound. "If I walk another hitter after starting out 0-2, punch me in the mouth," Hughes told the veteran catcher."
sputter, fizzle, plop.
one of those games to this point.
YEESH!
But we need baserunners. Melk and Mink have to answer the call...
121 125 Olney's book-pimping and 'dynasty' crap drive me crazy. His other info is gold, though.
I say we close this one out with no more than 4 pitchers.
GO HALLADAY!
It always seems to turn out like this
I smell a midsummer trade....
Just remember two things:
1) This only counts as one game
and
2) As per the post's title about roses; well, you can't grow roses without some manure.
Some of you may have participated in Community Projections I did during Spring Training. I would like to do one now for Roger Clemens.
If anyone wants to participate, please do so in the comments section of my blog.
jeteupthemiddle.blogspot.com
GO BLUE JAYS!!!
I've spent most of the afternoon trying to write an office action response and trying to ignore the game. I've done neither very well.
I should have gone with my first instinct:
"Broom, Broom, Broom, Let's Go Back to My Room" (or alternately and awkwardly "Boom, Boom, Boom, Let's Go Get Out Our Brooms")
LOL!
However, I now have that horrible song (Boom Boom Boom Boom) stuck in my head. I may have to re-read Scott's arena rock post to get one of those songs stuck in its place.
Now I understand the Arod/fan dynamic a little better. If the sample of fans that were present on the field level third base side are representative of what's usually there, I'd be walking next year, too. These were some of the dumbest jackasses I have ever heard at a game. The incessant commentary was so moronic I was tempted to pull a Uecker and sit in the Tier with P.S. 59. I'd rather hear Beatlemaniaesque reactions to Jeter at bats than listen to some New Jersey real estate developer complain at length about how much Abreu sucks at getting on base and racist commentary directed at Chien Ming Wang. These clowns made Mike And The Mad Dog seem like Branch Rickey.
And they were everywhere. Watching this game was a trial for more reasons than just what was happening on the field.
Did Wang have a bad day, or what?
On a more baseball-related note, how did people on the West coast ever follow the Yanks before the Internet? Gameday is not perfect, but it definitely helps to feed my pinstriped thirst.
Try Australian mate. Oh and Sox up 7-0. And gee Zack I think I know this isn't Belth's site, and I invited myself. Isn't that the fun of being online...total anarchy. A century where the Sox have won the series and the Yankees haven't. Listen, I'm in my 40's, grew up in California, been a Sox fan since year dot and the Nation waited a long time to gloat. Just give us our due. We finally got some front office people who are willing to put a winning product on the field.
But damn, the Jays suck and the Sox are on a role...The Yanks can't be squandering these games the way they are
"The Sox are on role . . ."
I think that's my new motto.
All I can say is, I have fond memories of 40-17.
THIS ISN'T ALEX BELTHS SITE
LOL!!!!
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