Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
Well, I guess Chien-Ming Wang has solved Fenway Park. Wang shrugged off his career 6.17 ERA at the Fens last night and dominated the Red Sox for nine innings. Wang only struck out three men and gave up more than his share of fly balls and line-drive outs, but he needed just 93 pitches to complete the game and held the Sox to just three baserunners on the night.
Wang set the first ten Boston hitters down in order, striking out David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez along the way. With one out in the fourth, Dustin Pedroia hit a hard grounder to Alex Rodriguez's right. The Yankee third baseman hit the dirt to backhand the ball, scrambled to his feet, and fired high to first base as Pedroia reached with what was initially ruled an infield hit. On the very next pitch, Wang got Ortiz to ground into an inning-ending 5-4-3 double-play. In between innings, Pedroia's hit was changed to an E5.
With two outs in the fifth, J.D. Drew hit a fly ball to the front of the Boston bullpen in right field. Bobby Abreu had the ball measured. He drifted back, found the five-foot-three wall with his bare hand, and lept to make the catch. Unfortunately, he got a bit too close to the wall and, as he jumped, his back caught the top of the wall and stopped his momentum. Drew's fly ball tipped off the end of Abreu's glove and fell into the bullpen for a home run that knotted the game at 1-1. Wang wouldn't allow another hit until Coco Crisp's bunt single with two outs in the ninth.
Clay Buchholz was good, but he was no match for Wang. The two pitchers combined to face one man over the minimum through four innings (a Hideki Matsui single in the second), but Buchholz started the fifth by walking Matsui and Jorge Posada. (Posada was again serving as the designated hitter. Johnny Damon took a night off while Matsui played in Fenway's small left field.) After Buchholz rallied to strike out Jason Giambi, Jose Molina struck a first-pitch double into the left field gap that plated Matsui and gave the Yankees a slim 1-0 lead. Buchholz escaped further damage when Alberto Gonzalez, who followed Molina with a walk, strayed too far off of first base and was doubled up on a Melky Cabrera line-drive to Sean Casey. The Yankees threatened again in with two outs in the sixth when Alex Rodriguez singled and Hideki Matsui doubled him to third, but Posada ground out to end the threat.
With his young starter up to 98 pitches and no margin for error given Wang's performance, Boston manager Terry Francona went to his pen in the seventh, calling on Mike Timlin, who had just been activated from the disabled list before the game. Timlin's first batter was Giambi. Giambi got out to a 3-1 advantage, looked at strike two, then sent the payoff pitch 379 feet to dead center for a skin-of-his-teeth homer into the nook to the right of the Green Monster. That gave Wang all the runs he'd need, but another Molina double, a Gonzalez sac bunt, and a Cabrera sac fly added another before Hideki Okajima managed to get the Sox out of the inning. The Yanks then added one more for good measure against should-be Pittsburgh Pirate David Aardsma in the top of the ninth when Gonzalez led off with a double, was bunted to third by Cabrera, and scored on a two-out infield single beaten out by Abreu.
The Yankees are now 6-5 on the season. Wang has three of those six wins. Wang also has a 1.23 ERA, a 0.73 WHIP, and is averaging 7 1/3 innings per start. In other Fun With Small Samples news, four members of the bullpen (Mariano Rivera, Joba Chamberlain, Brian Bruney, and Billy Traber) have yet to give up a run in a combined 18 1/3 innings. As a team, the Yankees are only allowing 3.55 runs per game and have allowed two runs or fewer in six of their 11 games. None of that will persist through the whole season, but it's nice to see. Similarly, Jose Molina, who was 2 for 4 with a pair of doubles last night, is hitting .346 and slugging .577 while filling in for the sore-armed Posada. Six of his nine hits have been doubles, which ties him for the American League lead in two-baggers. Alberto Gonzalez is hitting .375/.444/.625 after three games of filling in for Derek Jeter, boasting a pair of doubles of his own. Again, that won't keep up, but with both Jeter and Posada hoping to return to action by Monday, when the Yanks will be in the climate-controlled Tropicana Dome, it won't have to.
As for Wang, new pitching coach Dave Eiland has him working inside to batters (Wang struck out Ortiz in the first with a series of inside pitches), working both sides of the plate, and mixing in his slider, changeup, and split-finger. Eiland was also able to make an in-game correction with Wang last night following the inning in which Wang gave up Drew's homer and three other loud fly outs. Sez Eiland, "It was just his hand position behind the ball. He was kind of getting on the side of it and it was staying flat. He just repositioned his hand and threw down through the baseball and got his sinker working again and got back on track."
With that sort of guidance, one wonders if Wang might actually be taking his game to another level in his age-28 season. It makes Eiland's career 5.23 ERA as a Yankee seem totally worth it, don't it?
Obviously, this isn't going to last all year, but I think the Molina signing is one of our better minor deals in a long, long time.
A-Rod showed some class accepting the E, but come on! Since when does a infielder get an E when he leaves his feet, stabs a hard grounder and throws a little high-missing a spectacular play by a half a step? But then again, I didn't think he deserved an E at last year's opener.
Doesn't the scorer have a day to change his decision?
Waqng's post-game comment showed a sense of humor I didn't think he had. Probably wouldn't have said it if Joey T were still there.
Horrid weather, cold, nasty, and rain in almost half our games.
Jeter, Posada and Giambi all missing games.
A terrible, terribly slow start by our offense.
Cano hitting like he wouldn't make an AA club.
And yet we are over .500.
And we are winning on pitching.
No starts from Joba, uncharacteristicly poor starts from IPK....
yet we are winning on pitching.
Think about that a minute.
We are winning on pitching.
This is gonna be a really fun year.
1 I feel for you man. I hope the girl's ok. My Shepherd just passed one year and I couldn't imagine how I'd feel if anything happened to her. Best dogs in the world. All the best to you and your girl Zack.
Strike zone!
http://www.thevinceblackshow.com/wordpress/?p=75
While I love that he mixed it up, I thought the Sox hit a lot of balls hard... more then 2 hits worth. Am I trying to find something wrong? Should we want more sinkers and more GBs? Was Wangs final line better then he pitched? Help me guys....
And Bobby really HAS to make that catch. It wasn't even that high a leap.
OYF, to make you feel better, in his 2 previous starts, Wang's GB/FB ratio was a decidedly more Wang-like 21/9.
Yes, you are trying to find something wrong. Ralax and enjoy the win--I suspect today we will see a lot balls drop for hits against the Yanks' starter.
But the HP ump is standing RIGHT behind the plate. His eyes are no more then 4' away. How can they miss SO MANY calls?
What is the point of having a good eye and being disciplined if the umps blow the calls? Bonds, Giambi and others famous for 'good eyes' are punished for their skill.
And what about Questek? Shouldn't this be evidence of poor calls? Is MLB doing anything about it? Maybe the results (which calls were 'blown' according to Questek) should be made public, so writers and fans can voice there objections.
I think it's a major issue. If MLB wants to make the plate wider... then do it. But this is NOT horseshoes. There is no such thing as a 'close strike'. It's over the plate or it's not. There is no CLOSE!
As far as I am concerned, if you can slip the edge of a piece of paper between the plate and the ball, its a BALL! Like steroids, MLB simply turns it's back to poor ball/strike calling. And the majority of these guys make 6 figures?
I'm pissed!
/rant
Should it happen at all? I think not, but there's always going to be some error present. Not even a fully automated system - which I'm on record as wanting the umps to use to call balls and strikes - would be right 100% of the time.
Has it been a bigger problem in other games I've "seen" on Gameday this year? You bet. Last night, in comparison, was not bad at all.
11 I disagree completely. Except when his mechanics were a bit off in the 5th, even the line drives died in the air. And the important thing is most came off of the heat, not the sinker. He's purposely changed his approach against the Sox and it worked - almost perfectly. The game score was 82. When's the last time a Yankee pitcher had better?
15 I couldn't agree more.
What was the quote? And why wouldn't he have said it under Torre? And why is everything still being compared (hypothetically) with Torre?
If he did it specifically because Wang was pitching and he wanted the glove in there, OK. On the other hand, I don't want to assume that, because that's just projecting.
If Betemit sits out again today against the righty Beckett, then why is he even on the team?
I don't actually quarrel with any of this, having thought about it, and not sure why someone 'on the team' in the infield has to be considered a solid full-time ss replacement to have the job. He backs up 3 positions fine, one not-so-well, and is a switch-hitter on the bench. Good enough for 24th, no?
personally i'm fine with pitches 2-3" off the plate being called strikes, as long as it's consistent. it's not as if those pitches can't be hit.
The only (minor) annoyance I had was that the offense wasn't able to bust open the game so that Mo/Joba wouldn't have had to even warm up. Still, the rest of the pen is rested enough to take over from Moose in the 6th.
Why not eliminate the whole debate and just call the strike zone--inside and out, up and down--as it's written in the rule book?
"Mussina owned Ortiz over a large part of the designated hitter's career, as Ortiz was 2-for-29 against him, with no extra-base hits, three walks, and 14 strikeouts through the 2004 season. Ortiz, in fact, has called Mussina the toughest pitcher that he has ever faced (http://tinyurl.com/5ng9sf)."
Wow, high praise for Mussina. Let's hope the BBWAA remembers this nugget in a few years.
as for the first question, it's always going to be somewhat grey with human umpires. i said 2-3" because i think that most batters can still hit those pitches. but even if you want the rule book strike zone, should the umpire be calling balls and strikes based on where the catcher catches them, or based on a reasonable estimation of where they were when the crossed the plate. mo consistently gets strike calls on pitches that land in jorge's glove at the corner of the strike zone. buchholz was getting strike calls on huge curves that landed in varitek's glove at the batter's waistline. are those strikes? personally i think consistency is the best we can ask for, as long as umpires aren't calling strikes that a batter can't hit.
Also, wouldn't it be something if Gonzalez, not Ohlendorf, was the steal of the Big Useless trade
As for consistency--why must consistency and the rule book be at odds? This strikes me as a false dichotomy. Yes, all we can hope for is consistency: that the umps consistently call the game according to rule book to the best of their ability.
you also said something about the inside pitch. i do think that we should aspire for symmetry as well as consistency. i think umpires tend to call strikes on pitches just inside but not on pitches just outside. that annoys me. but we're also always looking at the strike zone from left center rather than dead center, which also annoys me. every once in a while a stadium will have a cameraman in dead center slightly higher than a pitcher, so you can clearly see the lateral boundaries of the strike zone. espn uses this angle when they show their "k zone" on replays. i think it's a much better angle, even though it takes a little getting used to.
In any case, if Jeter comes back and hist his career averages, his c. 840 OPS is worth more at SS than AG's .750, despite the latter's glove.
And really, do we want to see Jeter have to learn a new position after a 15 day stay on the DL?
Really, a few hits by a AAAA short stop have folks all worked up.
The interesting question if AG impresses is whether Betemit or Ensberg could be in trouble roster-spot wise. You have to think Shelley Duncan will be back up soon.
Bobby Abreu 68/.737
Alex Rodriguez 26/.885
Derek Jeter 25/.811
Melky Cabrera 23/.712
Johnny Damon 23/.685
Robinson Cano 22/1.167
Jason Giambi 21/1.257
Jorge Posada 16/.905
Hideki Matsui 15/.624
Wilson Betemit 6/.167
Morgan Ensberg 6/.667
Jose Molina 3/.000 .
I don't think so. AG only has value, it seems, if he can start as the slick-fielding SS. When Jeter comes back, AG goes to the bench. But in that case, Betemit has far more bench value than AG; once Jeter is in the lineup, Duncan comes back and AG goes to AAA.
wow, I think that I was really relaxed when I posted my comment. Let's see: I did have some coffee but it was decaf and I made sure to get hypnotized before logging on. Also, I flew yesterday so that Xanax I took is still in my system and I do feel kind of groovy. And I was listening to Donovan's "mellow yellow" when I posted my comment...Actually, I felt pretty fucking calm.
Seriously, my point was to start by acknowledging the sample size issue right up front. I'm not talking about Jeter returning today and we all just can't live without the former AG and his 3 for 8 batting line. I'm talking about Jeter going on the DL for 15 days and the AG playing in, say, 14 games. Let's say that over those 14 games he went 20 for 56 for a .360 batting average. Some people might get (dare I use this word) excited or even un-calm.
And isn't that kind of the point of baseball - dreaming having fun, speculating on what might be? Hoping that Kevin Maas, Shane Spencer and Shelly Duncan might be the real deal and feeling kind of sad that they weren't?
Every now and then someone pops up and is unexpectedly good. The Yanks are lucky that we have several guys like that right now who weren't being highly touted when they got to New York and developed to all-stars (Cano, Wang, Mo and Posada come to mind). Maybe Melky will be in that class too someday.
Seriously, you can disagree with someone without trying to completely discredit them by writing "calm down" as if they're typing while their hair is on fire and aren't worth addressing civilly.
OK, I disagree with you, but feel free to dream. It should be noted that there was a lengthy series of posts in a recent thread--maybe the game thread from last night--discussing the relative merits of moving Jeter to 1B or the OF in the next couple of years.
So, to go back to your original question: if Jeter goes on the DL and if AG hits OPS .750, does Jeter get his old spot back or learn LF? Easy: Jeter gets his old spot back and AG goes to AAA.
Yes, that was a 'bad' joke based on old, tired stereotypes. Just having some fun, so everyone calm down.
i'd like to have a kid...of course you have to have a date first
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