Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
The day after his best bud Andy Pettitte broke the Yankees' three-game losing streak by shutting down the Tigers over eight innings, Rocket Clemens turned it into a winning streak with six strong frames of his own. As has been his way this season, Clemens used up a lot of pitches and gave up a fair number of hits, but he clamped down with runners on base yesterday afternoon, didn't walk anyone, and used a particularly crisp and accurate fastball to rack up eight strikeouts, four of them coming with runners on base.
One of those strikeouts started an extremely rare 2-1 double play in the third inning. With one out, rookie Cameron Maybin on first via his first major league hit, a groundball through Robinson Cano's vacated second base position on a hit-and-run play, and Brandon Inge on third, Marcus Thames battled Clemens to a full count. Maybin took off on the next pitch, which Thames swung through for Clemens' sixth strikeout of the game (91 mph fastball up and in). Jorge Posada then fired to second, but Clemens cut the ball off and charged Inge, who had taken off for home when Posada released the ball. Inge was a dead duck as Clemens applied the tag for the final out. According to the FOX broadcast, the last time a runner was caught stealing by a throw to the pitcher was a whopping 21 years ago, when the Cardinals Vince Coleman was nabbed by the Giants Bob Melvin and Juan Berenguer in the fifth inning of this game (note how the play-by-play differs from the play in the second inning of this game, on which a runner was thrown out at home trying to advance on a wild pitch with the pitcher covering the plate), and even that wasn't a double play. I find it both difficult to believe and very disappointing that no pitcher has caught a runner by cutting the throw from his catcher with runners on the corners and the man on first stealing second in 21 years. I am, however, encouraged by the fact that, in this case, the play was entirely premeditated as Posada and Clemens had conferenced at the mound before the previous pitch.
Despite nailing Inge (and nail him he did, Clemens almost knocked Inge into the Tiger dugout with the tag) and stranding eight other men, Clemens left the game trailing Detroit. In the fourth, Clemens got into a one-out, bases loaded jam and escaped after allowing only one run on a sac fly. In the fifth, the rookie Maybin led off the inning by hitting what looked like either a lame splitter up in the zone or a rare curveball (Clemens' fourth if not fifth best pitch) to dead center for his first major league homer and just second career hit. The Yankees, meanwhile, had managed just one run off quadruple-A journeyman Chad Durbin, who was making just his third start since mid-June.
Durbin allowed just three hits and a walk through the first five innings, one of those hits being a solo Jorge Posada homer to the retired numbers in the second inning. He then allowed three more hits to start the sixth, including a two-run Bobby Abreu tater off the left field foul pole that would give Clemens the win. The Yanks then scratched out two more in that inning against relievers Tim Byrdak and Jason Grilli and shut the door with Farnsworth, Vizcaino, and Rivera each pitching a scoreless inning to wrap up the 5-2 win.
For what it's worth, Farnsworth looked as good in the seventh inning yesterday as I've seen him all year. It took him ten pitches to get leadoff hitter Sean Casey to fly out, but he came back from that to strike out Gary Sheffield and Magglio Ordoñez, the two most dangerous hitters in the Detroit lineup, on a total of eight pitches, finishing both off with high heat in the upper 90s. The last pitch to Ordoñez was 98 mph, but the third strike to Sheffield was the most exciting as it was 97 miles per hour and literally head-high. In his last four outings, Farnsworth has allowed just one baserunner, no hits, and struck out five in four scoreless innings. That's his best multi-game stretch of the season.
The Yanks look to take the series this afternoon in a matchup of excellent young pitchers who have struggled of late. Chien-Ming Wang has allowed 20 baserunners and 13 runs in his last two starts totaling just 8 2/3 innings. Most of that was his disaster outing in Toronto, but his last start was one of just three others in which he's allowed five or more runs this season. Jeremy Bonderman was actually excellent in his last start in Cleveland (7 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 8 K), but before that he put together a 11.28 ERA across his previous four, all losses. Like Wang, most of that damage came in a single disaster start (Bonderman's came in Anaheim), but he still posted an 8.10 ERA in the remaining three starts from that rough patch.
Don't praise Worthless. Someone might hear you.
It was a good game, and Military Appreciation Day was cool. The parachutists had a bit of trouble hitting their spots because the wind came up just as they were landing, and one had to literally "slide" to land on his feet. The F-18E/F flyover was cool, those suckers are pretty silent even when just overhead. Not as cool as the B2 flyover last year, but still amazing.
All in all a great day at the stadium (with a Peter Luger's dinner afterwards!) Too bad Boston won.
Speaking of which, Shaun, what was the name of your family's bakery in Utica?
By the way, nice wrap. I love the way Joba and Hughes are making the rest of the pitchers self-conscious. Farnswacker has definately taken notice, and I'm glad for him that he has.
I hope great Wang shows up tomorrow - I miss him.
It looked to me like Clemens did in fact cut off the throw (he had to lunge a bit as I recall), but that he was surprised that Inge was off base.
Now, with hindsight you can see that Clemens didn't duck the throw or roam too far off the mound. He took one step toward third to get out of the direct line of the throw and reached out and grabbed it. See, the key to the play is convincing Inge Posada's throw is going to second. So to everyone else, he cut it. But to Clemens and Posada, he was supposed to.
At least that's the story. Hey, it's only been two bad starts.
he's still throwing strikes and getting most of it on the ground, but trying to be too fine and ended up getting hit a bit harder. combined with too many things finding hole is what's undoing him.
He should match up favorablly with the Tigers though, a no speed team that really go after everything , in YS no less. a favorable matchup.
i think Betemit needs to start for Jeter or something, El Captian's looking pretty bad over the last few games. he needs a rest
Re: Clemens cut-off. I really thought that Clemens just cut it off on his own. Posada rifled the ball and he just stuck his glove out and like rilkefan said, he looked surprised to catch Inge that far off. I have to hear Clemens or Posada say themselves that it was planned before I believe it because it sure didn't look that way. Have they already said it?
Re: Wanger. Yu-HC mentioned that Wanger has been getting the same amount of ground balls in his last two starts compared with all his other starts. I have to disagree, but I'm basing this solely off my memory and not stats. It looked like, in his last two starts, he had given up more flyballs and line drives then ever before. Again, I'd have to check the stats on that, but hopefully someone else can because I'm not good with that website. Was it is, B-R.com?
My two (and a half) cents.
As for Wang's ground balls, he got lit-up in Toronto, so there's not much to go on there. He only got eight outs, three on Ks, four on double plays (one a line-drive, one a groundball), and the last out on a grounder. In his last start he got 18 outs, two on Ks, five on fly balls, and 11 on grounders including one DP.
Of course, Wang at his best has a 3:1 or better GB to FB ratio
Still kinda freaks you out a bit
YANKEES
Damon LF
Cabrera CF
Abreu RF
Rodriguez 3B
Matsui DH
Posada C
Cano 2B
Betemit SS
Phillips 1B
Wang RHP (13-6, 4.09)
Pregame chatter: Derek Jeter is out of the lineup. Joe Torre said yesterday that the shortstop is "pretty banged up" and needs the time. I also suspect Hideki Matsui is more banged up than the Yankees are letting on. This will be the fifth time this month that he has been the DH. Godzilla has two big ice packs on his knees after every game.
21 I agree, but it sounds kind of "controversial" in New York. It'd be a fine move for the Kansas City Royals....
It's called "Yanks turn rare DP."
Anyhow, thanks for the links.
(I guess the Royals are smarter than us then . . .)
Man, I hope Wang brings the goods today.
If our game is short, and the Angels is loooooong, could be an advantage for us tomorrow night. Both teams should be tired after the cross-country trip, but an extra 2-3 hours could help us.
I don't like that. Especially since he sucks and the next 3 batters, um, don't.
But wait, thank you Sheff!
29 pitches, 24 strikes
The Tigers TV announcers are never all that good. When the Tigers picked up Neifi! last year, Rod Allen said that fans in Detroit would like him because he had a "nice personality."
http://www.theicecreamcellar.com/florentine.htm
(The second picture down on the left is my great Uncle Gabriele, who was, like so many other Italian immigrants, a huge Yankees fan, because of Lazzeri, DiMaggio, Yogi, and the Scooter.)
84 I think we're lucky to have such a reinforcement on the way for September....
Come on Matsui, drive em in.
This was around the time a lot of MiL teams were getting new stadiums. Utica didn't want to pony up for a new park (nor should they), and they lost their team.
Yay Mats
Posada is hacking today.
The Blue Sox were bought by Cal Ripken Jr and moved to Aberdeen MD to become the Aberdeen IronBirds - and I've had no use for that team stealer ever since.
tie game?
Wasn't just the stadium stuff - the Blue Sox's old "stadium" was really just a grandstand and bleechers, and can hardly be called a stadium. Attendance hadn't been great either, which is and was sad.
what's up with all the wildness - balks, wild pitches, double steals. sheff have 20 SB's this year? he had 18 in atl in 03...
overall it's a vast improvement over the last 2 start for sure, but he's still not completely right right now.
134 But Donovan was typical of A-ball stadiums. The A-C Yankees played in a park with a similar configuration.
Sometime in the late 90's an edict was handed down for minimum ballpark standards, and Utica was unable or unwilling to upgrade Donovan Stadium.
In fact, there was a thread on BTF recently where a story was reprinted from the OD regarding a really small league that just folded up there because after the first game, there were always more people on the field than in the stands.
Boy, that was a bad sentence.
Regardless, I always hated Ripkin for stealing that team. I Was hoping the re-shuffle this offseason would bring a Single-A team back to Utica. I guess the lack of the bells-and-whistles stadiums keeps them away. After all, it's working SO WELL for the Pittsburth Pirates and everywhere else that has a new park. (Exception being San Francisco)
I'm surprised they ran Bonderman out there again, considering he's over 100 pitches, and barely got out of the previous inning.
from minorleaguebaseball.com
1991--Baseball's Facilities Standards went into effect, setting minimum standards for Minor League ball parks and touching off the biggest building boom in history. More than half the teams in the Minors now play in stadiums built or completely renovated since that time.
Also, it looks like they got Chamberlain up too late with the inning ending so suddenly.
"Then, in 1990, the renaissance began. Like so much else in the fabled history of baseball, it happened by accident. Major League Baseball forced stricter standards on the minors for clubhouses, fields and such. That led to a boom in construction. More than 100 new stadiums with modern amenities (like expanded restrooms) married major-league economics—gross revenues are up 91 percent in the past 10 years, while franchise values have rocketed as high as $20 million—with traditional minor-league whimsy."
his etopps card (looking like old 1985 topps) isn't available til november, or some shit...
9 pitches, 8 strikes, 2ks and an infield pop.
I hope Farnsworth has to carry Joba's bags in the airport.
I predict another 10 day layoff and some crappy pitching as a result for our favorite Edwarrior. Sigh.
173 On Friday, Chamberlain hadn't been used in many days, whereas Edwar had. But he should have been used yesterday.
c'mon Willy B. you're due today! do your best Captain Clutch impression.
good to see Betemit make them pay!
we want the Warrior!!!
got leche?
we'll find out in a sec who it is...
Seriously, though, I hope this plus that last outing move the kid up in the pecking order.
and edwar bests joba by 1 k! ; )
meanwhile, king felix got out of early trouble vs. the last place pale hose...
Nice Betemit!
santana out after 112 pitches. finishes w/ 17 k's. nathan in to preserve the 1-0 lead.
since he's a stringbean, maybe we can call Edwarrior "Phantom" - any takers?
Nice to see Edwar pick up his first MLB save. Hopefully, he is now established in the pecking order.
Sox with 1st and 2nd, Lowell up, 2 out in the 8th.
And Edwar finishes it. How sweet it is!
283 congrats, Mr. Torre! wow, indeed...
Sox still with 1st and 2nd, 2 out in the 8th.
One "T" (shields) vs. Nancy
296 my bad. spieir struck his ass out!
Too bad "No H" (Jon Garland) sucks and the Ms are already up 3-0.
Tiger hasn't really stuck for wang, which is fine as that would've been quite confusing today. : ~
if it did, from the farm, we would've had:
Tiger
The Hut
Phantom
pretty cool.
ok, i'm getting restless. good thing i've got a gig in 2 hours - i get to hit stuff and kick stuff at the same time! ; )
unfortunately, i've gotta tone it down on tonight's gig. i'll be using Hot Rods (dowel/bundle stix) more than regular stix. no brushes tonight though. if i still need to rock out, i'll head to my studio after...
go halos! (ooh, i hate writing that...)
258 Maybe you're right bartap, there's something special going on right now. Destiny might just be the word.
seattle up 5-0. M's are 10th in AL in ERA. how are they doing this? then there's the shit bax in the desert defying the run differential.
go K-Rod. (if he's pitching...)
Of course, 27-11 is no mean feat, but it seems very realistic now. Two month ago I was preparing my "Well it's been a good run. . ." speech.
TB coming up, 3-3.
hey, Guidry has THREE nicknames - gator, rajun cajun (seldomly used) and louisiana lightning (which scooter apparently bestowed on him, much to guidry's chagrin).
nice work TB. now, pull out a victory. keep comin' back white sox...
the seattle game is probably done as it's now 8-2. garland has nuthin'... be nice if tampa pulls this out...
ok, time for me to log off...
ooh, i got it! The Phantom Warrior -- maybe knuckles can turn that into a comic book hero! ; )
edwar: 2 nicknames ; )
nuclear Edwar - yeah eh
It's a motherf&*$^#@
Don;t you know
it's a m@#&%@$%&
Don't you know
nuclear Edwar - yeah eh
I think its the Angels, 'cuz if they had won the Sox lead would be down to 3.
373 PECOTA .5*, White Sox 0.
*The starting pitching hasn't been nearly as bad as PECOTA predicted; the hitting has been.
I spent the afternoon in the damn airport because of the damn weather in goddam Chicago. O'Hare, White Sox, the whole place sucks. When it became clear I wouldn't make my connection, I came home to try again tomorrow, rather than spend the night in O'Hare.
At least there was good news when I got home.
(And actually I like Chicago, so YF in Chicago don't get huffy or anything!)
But PECOTA whiffed big time on Vazquez (weighted mean projection of 4.50 ERA, 1.31 WHIP vs current 3.74 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, with a 144:39 K:BB ratio in 163.7 IP!) and Buehrle (weighted mean projection of 4.83 ERA, 1.42 WHIP vs current 3.36 ERA, 1.22 WHIP).
Vazquez is thrashing his 90th percentile projection, while Buehrle is just about at 90, and (FWIW) so is Jenks.
The Sox FO and some of the Chitown media gave BP a hard time in springing when (based on PECOTA) the Sox were projected to finish sub-.500 (72-90 I think?). If the Sox keep up their current 'pace', they'll finish 71-91 (tied for 4th worst record in MLB).
"An important moment in the Yankees' season came on July 20, in a blowout loss to Tampa Bay, when Edwar Ramirez imploded on the mound.
. . .
It also seems to have convinced Manager Joe Torre that resting a rookie for two weeks, as he did in that case, is counterproductive.
. . .
But now that he has two prized young arms in his bullpen in Ramirez and Joba Chamberlain, Torre says he is committed to using them regularly."
(From Tyler Kepner's awesome BATS blog at the Times.)
"The Saw are dead. So ar the Tigers...The Angels....D-Backs. Today I took care of all family business."
Meanwhile Joba is freakishly good so far. He made Magglio look like a little leaguer, almost as bad as Tejada last week.
I would actually rather see Joba pitch two innings or three innings at a time rather than one. In the old days, when they would call guys up who were planning on becoming starters, they would put them in the pen and build up their arm strength. With all the babying of pitchers these days, I find it ironic and downright stupid that clubs call youngsters up and throw them right into the rotation, almost guaranteeing more injuries than if they had used them out of the pen first. I think Joba's development would be better served by pitching a couple or three innings and then taking two days off, rather than one inning every other day, which, according to the evidence, is actually harder on the arm and shoulder than the former.
But I don't think it will matter. Joba in the rotation is a pipe dream if he keeps this up. He will go the way of Papelbon and never see the light of day in the Yankees rotation. There was a spirited discussion here some time back as to what role would make him more valuable, and although I think he has more value as a starter, given the evolution of the bullpen, that may not be true anymore. Most notably because Joe Torre has such a short hook. Almost never letting a pitcher stretch into the seventh or eighth inning once he gives up a hit if his pitch count is at or over one hundred. This short hook creates a situation where the Yankees routinely need someone to pitch the seventh inning. So Joba is certainly more valuable as a starter on a team with a manager who understands his starters, on the Yankees however, he may have more value in his current role, so long as Joe is at the helm.
I think he has a burning desire to succeed in the big leagues.
You can sort of sense that just in his interviews, but then in the postgame today, when Joba was asked about Edwar, Joba said that he and Edwar had talked a bit in the pen in Scranton, specifically about what it was like pitching out of the pen in NY, but then Edwar had added, "when I get back up there I'm never coming back down to the minors again."
I think this kid is special, and per today, I think maybe the 8th inning, sandwiched between a hard thrower like Joba/Farns and Mo in the 9th, would be ideal for him.
Apparently this brick wall is "the 21st century"
It is just too bad that Seattle chose this time of year to really get that offense clicking, ot we would be pulling away right now. We have to paste the Angels.
Guess what people. If we make the playoffs, we're probably facing the Angels in the first round. Should we forfeit the first round of the playoffs because "well, we always lose to the Angels!"
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