Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
The Yankees and Orioles combined to hit nine home runs through the first five innings of last night's game. By the time the smoke cleared, both starting pitchers were gone (though the Yankees' Ian Kennedy left due to a strained latissimus dorsi muscle after a scoreless inning) and the game was tied at 8-8. Seven relievers then combined to push the game past a one-hour rain delay and into the 11th inning with the score unchanged.
Facing Matt Albers in the Oriole hurler's second inning of work, Johnny Damon led off the top of the 11th with a walk. Derek Jeter followed Damon and reached base when Baltimore third baesman Melvin Mora picked up a bunt that might have run foul. When Mora threw that ball to first base only to discover that Brian Roberts wasn't covering the bag, Jeter and Damon moved up to second and third. Baltimore manager Dave Trembley then had Albers walk Bobby Abreu to set up the force at every base despite the fact that it would bring Alex Rodriguez to the plate with the bases loaded and no outs. The gamble paid off as Rodriguez took a ball, then hit a screaming one-hopper at the drawn-in Roberts. Roberts dropped to a knee and snagged the ball as it skipped over his head, then started a 4-2-5 double-play that erased Damon at home and Jeter by an eyelash at third base. Still, with men on first and second, Hideki Matsui delivered a two-out RBI single right through Albers' legs to give the Yankees a 9-8 lead heading into the bottom of the 11th.
To that point, Joe Girardi had done what I've long admonished Yankee managers to do, that is use Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning of a tied game on the road. The first part of the plan worked perfectly. Rivera pitched two scoreless innings, extending the game to the point at which the Yankees were able to take a lead in the top of the 11th. Unfortunately, because of Kennedy's injury, by that point Giardi had also used both Edwar Ramirez and Kyle Farnsworth for 1 1/3 scoreless innings each and Ross Ohlendorf for 2 1/3 innings of long relief, leaving just LaTroy Hawkins and Jose Veras in his bullpen.
Both Hawkins and Veras had pitched and pitched poorly the night before with nearly identical pitch totals. Girardi chose Hawkins, who had thrown 12 1/3 consecutive scoreless innings prior to Monday, over Veras, who had allowed four runs over his last 4 1/3 innings, all four runs being scored by the Orioles on home runs by Aubrey Huff and Luke Scott, who were the third and fourth hitters due up in the bottom of the 11th. It was the right choice, but Girardi got the wrong result.
Hawkins gave up a leadoff single to Melvin Mora, then, after a fly out, a game-tying double into the left field gap by Huff. The relay home from defensive replacement Melky Cabrera to Jeter to catcher Jose Molina was just a bit late and offline and allowed Huff to advance to third. Girardi then intentionally walked Scott and Kevin Millar, who had two of those nine early-game homers, to set up the force at every base in the hope of an inning-ending double play, or at the very least a force out at home. Instead, Alex Cintron, who had pinch-run earlier in the game, hit the first pitch he saw from Hawkins to deep right field. It might have been the second out, but it was deep enough to plate Huff with the winning run even if it was. Bobby Abreu chased it briefly but ultimately let it fall as the Orioles began to celebrate their 10-9 win.
It was an ugly, sloppy game that saw the teams combine to make five errors, and the Yankees blow a pair of four-run leads (one by Kennedy, one by Ohlendorf), but Joe Girardi gave his team its best chance to walk away the victors. The best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry and leave us not but grief and pain for promised joy.
As for Ian Kennedy, he might have solved the Yankees' rotation crunch by landing on the DL with that lat strain. He'll also allow the Yankees to bring up a reliever today to stock the overtaxed bullpen. Joba Chamberlain's scheduled outing tonight should also help give the pen some needed rest. The Yankees won't be able to speculate about Joba's ability to take Kenendy's next start until they see the former's performance tonight, however.
For all of you cursing LaTroy Hawkins' name last night, but who missed his post-game interview, Hawkins was at least as hard on himself as you were on him. Sounding like he was trying to keep from screaming or crying, Hawkins appeared to have the weight of the entire 11-inning game on his shoulders and had this to say for himself:
LH: After the long hard game that the boys played, and the rain delay, and every time we gave up the lead they came back and took it back, it was just . . . not good.Kim Jones: The pitch to Huff, was it just too good a pitch for him?
LH: Heh. It was a bad pitch on my part. Just not getting the ball down. Ball up, you're going to get hit. Just bad pitches . . . terrible pitches.
KJ: You seem . . . are you pretty upset with yourself right now?
LH: Yeah because, you know, the guys, they played they butt off tonight, and I came in and just let it go just . . . just like that. Just like that. You know? I usually don't get too upset, but, you know, a game like this you wanna come in and, after we scored, and shut them down from scoring, and I didn't do that. . . . Just bad. I just didn't do the job, just plain and simple. I mean, I'm embarassed 'cause, you know, the guys, they played they butt off, they played they butt off and to go out there and give up the lead like that . . . say if I made good pitches, but I didn't make no good pitches, I made all terrible pitches. . . . When I make good pitches and get beat it's fine, but when I make terrible pitches I'm pretty upset at myself. I can make better pitches than that and I should make better pitches than the ones I was making.
Well, there are plenty of shoulders to share that loss, anyway.
I wonder if Jeter skipped out early, or if the NY media are giving him the Torre treatment? Watching Hawkins beat himself up made me think that Jeter should have insisted he be the one to stand in front of the cameras and take the heat.
I never expected Phil and IPK to be saviors, but simply to be league average. I don't think anyone expected anything close to what has transpired. It's like throwing snakeeyes twice in a row.
I was, and still am, behind the Santana non-trade... but Cashman is going to get beat up pretty badly over this turn of events.
In a tiny bit of good news, somehow Seattle escaped an 8th inning 1st and 2nd, no outs, with Manny up and won the game. TB also lost. Small consolation.
I think he made the right move with the non trade, but the talking heads are going to lump it in with Cashman's growing list of pitching blunders.
Ohlendorf, once again, leaves me distinctly unimpressed.
One thing that took the edge of my optimism, though, was that we didn't exactly crush the Oriole bullpen.
I love all the tolerance for the manager's decisions when the Yankees lose these days. Got to be a first on this blog.
Hey, the Sox lost to the M's last night, not to mention Dice-K.
I also agree that although Hawkins messed up, and saying 'sorry' doesn't mean he didn't, there's gaffes enough to go around, here. I'm not a Girardi fan yet, but this one isn't on him, from where I sit.
Hmm, promising kid starters breaking down young ... where have we seen this scenario? The Cubbies? Say it ain't so, Cash.
10 I guess it depends on how you read the signs. The bullpen, which was once a strength, now seems like a real weakness. Joba has to be a productive starter asap to mitigate against the negative effects of his removal from the pen. The Yankees do not have the luxury of taking their time.
The problem with trying to look in the bright side is the Yankees haven't played well for any stretch against a team other than the Mariners. Usually, I don't think you can exclude games to make a point, but the Mariners are so bad, I think it's a valid practice in this case. The Yankees are 8 games under .500 against the rest of their schedule...that's very alarming with 1/3 of the season completed.
11 The refusal to give Britton a chance on this team is mystifying.
OK fine, Jeter made a mental error on the bases. I think that's only part of his culpability for that play. I know many will get upset over the suggestion, but I suspect that Jeter may not have hustled to third base after misreading the play, which, if true, is worse than a mental mistake. After watching the replay several times, Jeter does break back, but is moving back toward third base shortly after Roberts' pick. You don't see Jeter until the end of the play, but what you do see is Roberts lob the ball home slowly and Arod absolutely bust it to 1B. My question is if Arod could prevent a play from being made on him, how could Jeter not make it to the third?
The Mariners are bad, but the Sox just lost to them, so a sweep still counts in my book. The Yankees have had some serous problems, and I'm not trying to sweep them under the rug. But, Giambi is hitting, Damon is hitting, the tide seems to me to be turning.
while in many ways i agree that joba needs to be a productive starter asap - i don't think it is a fair expectation.
i'm okay with this being a transition year.
i fortunately missed this game - but by all accounts jeter could have been in alex's photos the other day in the park - i am hoping that this performance will sanp him out of his funk - i don't want to accuse him of something that is not so, so if i am off, i take it back, but to my eye he is kind of taking things for granted
i don't think you can make bullpen plans that include him or albaladejo
And so, the pitcher who'd given up more than 9 H/9IP and less than 4 K/9IP in the last three seasons turns out to be a terrible pitcher. How about that?
I didn't get to see the game last night due to the whole blackout thing, but watching on Gameday was a truly frustrating experience. How do you intentionally walk two men and then expect a wild pitcher to suddenly be able to return to pinpoint pitching?
Only gripe with yesterday's managing is Betemit at first.
Using Rivera for two innings in a tie game on the road was pretty good. Girardi probably consulted NoMaas.
It's tough to watch Joba's schedule proceed without regard for the actual game. Good reason to believe Yankees win that one if Joba was available.
Yeah, probably we would have won if Joba had been available even for three outs. But then again, probably we would have won if he'd been the starter. There has to be a transition.
Don't know what he saw in Wright & Pavano.
Gotta shake this one off and win the next one.
In reality, if Hawkins was having trouble keeping the ball down, as he said, then it made more sense to simply "pitch around" both Scott and Millar and hope they hit ground balls into a drawn-in infield.
But after today (maybe), we'll see: it's possible that Joba will be ready for a (shortish) start after this!
Even ignoring that, I thought Girardi was a numbers' guy. How could he ignore that the run expectancy with a runner on 3rd and one out is 0.99837, but the run expectancy with the bases loaded and one out is 1.58806? I like the idea of being able to get a force at any base, but I think that has to be balanced against Hawkins' shaky control (what if walked in the winning run?) and his poor strikeout rate. In retrospect, perhaps Girardi should have pulled Hawkins for Veras, and hoped for a K?
Here's where having a strikeout pitcher, which Hawkins is not, would really help. The run expectancy for a runner on 3rd and two outs plummets is just 0.31595.
I know I'm second guessing; I'm just trying to work through my frustration.
There isn't exactly an abundance of good relief pitching available on the market. The internal guys... hey, I'm up for trying those guys, but they could very well come up and struggle like IPK has at first, even if they are good pitchers.
24 IP, 25 H, 18 ER, 11 BB, 15 K
At least Ohlendorf has struck out about one per inning... If Hawkins really was a "try and catch lightning in a bottle" kind of signing, then they would have no problem letting an obviously struggling pitcher go. But if they're going to continue to run him out there, that's a problem.
His only use to this team right now is to make Kyle Farnsworth desirable by comparison. Which is tough to do!
I am not arguing that Hawkins hasn't been putrid. He has. I was simply saying it was an ok idea that didn't work. And I agree it's about time he gets cut.
"Dan Giese got the start, and had his first rough outing as a Yankee. In 4 1/3 innings, Giese gave up 7 runs on 5 hits and 3 walks, with 6 strikeouts. "
As they say, it's his first rough outing, and it doesn't invalidate his prior work. It is, however, an outing in AAA. Could he out-perform Hawkins? Maybe. Probably, even. But not certainly - and not necessarily right away.
What you want is Win Expectancy. With one out and a man on third, tied in a walk-off situation, the WE for the batting team is 83.1%. With the bases loaded, it's 83.4%. These are equal for all intents and purposes. (My gut feeling is with you, for what it's worth: the added pressure of having to throw strikes is worse than the problem of no force at home.)
The bullpen was always going to start being exposed a bit or a lot when Joba exited. Fact of life, anyone who didn't see that coming wasn't paying attention. We joked about it, and lamented: Farns for the 8th? Edwar? No one was happy. No one will be.
Farnsie has been decent this year. It's the sight of "The Fall Of" LaTroy Hawkins that makes me turn the game off these days; he's right, he's not getting his pitches down.
The issue with that is that he hasn't been getting them down since he was with the Cubs. The pitching coach needs to work with the guy, because he's throwing strikes...but that's the problem.
In my original post, I did definitively tout the possibility that he didn't hustle. Similarly, I don't think anyone can definitively refute it. I'd imagine the guys on the bench saw what really happened, and I guess what they think is all that matters.
Still doesn't explain why we haven't seen more of Britton.
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