Game 134: Small Axe

Tonight, the Yanks begin another series against a bird-named division rival. The four game set with the Blue Jays will cap off their 7 game road trip and the Yanks need only to take one game for it to be a winning one after sweeping the O's. When the Yanks return home they will see both of these teams again, closing out their season series against them during a 10 game homestand in the Bronx.

After leading the division as late as May 23rd and being 8 games over .500, the Blue Jays have faded 14 games under and 25 1/2 back. They are currently twice as close in the standings to the Orioles than the Rays... and that's never a good thing. Even our optimistically-named pal eyebleaf is having a hard time stomaching the downward spiral and it's tough to blame him.

Roy Halladay wasn't traded, which should have made most Jays fans happy, but due to his poor performance since the deadline and the erosion of the time left on his contract, his value is steadily decreasing for what is looking more and more like an inevitable trade this offseason. Alex Rios is gone and in return, the club got salary relief which theoretically could be used in the future, but the fans got a heaping helping of nothing for now. We don't even need to talk about Vernon Wells.

However, tonight's starter for the Jays, Ricky Romero has been one of the remaining bright spots on the team. The 24 year old rookie lefty has pitched 136.2 innings, struck out 104, is averaging 6 innings per start, has a 3.95 ERA and a 11-6 record, behind only Halladay in those categories. The Yanks have seen him twice this year and he's earned a win and a no-decision by pitching 6 & 6 1/3 innings and giving up 3 runs each time.

Chad Gaudin will be making his second start as a Yankee today. He had a rather odd start his other time out, facing another one of his former teams, the A's. Gaudin gave up no runs, and onyl one hit in 4 1/3 innings, but walked 5 and saw his pitch count quickly escalate, finishing with 90. Gaudin didn't get the win, but the Yankees did. It's hard to expect a whole lot out of Gaudin today and logic dictates that his pitch count will be limited once again. But the bullpen is deep with call ups and waiting to back him up.

Gaudin was one of the minor moves Brian Cashman executed this season and I discussed earlier today; just a small solution to a seemingly big problem.

So if you are the big tree,
We are the small axe,
Ready to cut you down (well sharp),
Sharpened to cut you down.

The Obligatory Joba Post

Yeah, Joba Rulez!!1!

Apparently the editors at the Daily News aren't capable of calculating that two runs in three innings equates to a 6.00 ERA. That's not good.

Actually, lost in all the discussion about his innings limit is the fact that since throwing 8 shutout frames against the Rays on July 29th, Joba hasn't been good at all. He's allowed four or more runs in every game (with the exception of yesterday of course) and hasn't made it into the 7th inning once. He's watched his ERA rise from 3.58 to 4.38 over that time and even though the Yanks scored an average of 8 runs a game behind him, he only walked away with one victory.

Joba is now at a level of innings pitched that he's never reached before, so perhaps he's running into a natural limit of sorts, without regard the one that the Yanks are placing on him.

Although I was critical of the fact that the Yanks keep changing their plans for Joba, the latest version does seem to make the most sense of the options available. What I didn't know before noting that 35 pitches seemed a little low in last night's recap was that the Yanks plan to start Chamberlain off slowly, and sort of re-stretch him out so that he's ready to go as deep as necessary when the postseason rolls around.

It makes more intuitive sense than having him start on extended rest and still allows him to contribute to the team and be tested against Major Leaguers, as opposed to shutting him down or sending him to the minors. They got away with the tightest restriction in the only start Joba will make before the rosters expand so it's much less risky to the bullpen from here on out.

At this point, Joba is slotted for the 4th game of a postseason series only by default. Everyone is getting worked up about the way the Yankees are handling him (without providing a reasonable alternative), but they should probably be more concerned about the fact that he hasn't been a good pitcher of late. Let's focus not on how many innings he pitches, but how well he pitches in those innings.

Yanks Continue To Kick Ass, Take Names

[Photos]

The Yanks trailed twice in this game in the first and third innings, and true to their hallmark during their post All-Star break tear, answered as soon as possible, tying the game in the bottom of the first and taking the lead for good in the third.

As Joe Girardi predicted when he first unveiled the new and improved Joba Plan, Chamberlain did not factor into the decision. The three innings Joba threw weren't especially impressive and weren't much better than his previous start. He only struck out one batter and allowed two runs, but threw 23 of his 35 pitches for strikes (66%). Whether he was pulled just on the basis of the pitch count or the fact the he wasn't effective could be debated, but if 35 was the number they had in mind coming into the game, he could have easily blown through that allotment in the second inning.

Alfredo Aceves played the role of Joba's babysitter today, pitching three scoreless innings and allowing only two hits while throwing only 32 pitches. When added together Joba Aceves combined for a quality start and turned the game over to the rest of the bullpen with the lead after the sixth inning.

In the top of the 7th, Girardi called on Damaso Marte to face Jim Thome, and then stalled momentarily before calling on David Robertson. D-Rob struck out Jermaine Dye but allowed back to back singles to Mark Kotsay and Alexei Ramirez. With the Yankees leading by only one run at the time, Girardi went to the bullpen for the second time in the inning, this time summoning Phil Hughes. As Joe G. might say, "Hughesy" got Jason Nix to fly out, ending the inning.

The offense awoke in the bottom half of the inning, but their explosion could have easily been stifled had the second batter of the inning, Robinson Cano been rightly called out at first as the second part of a double play. Instead, the ump missed a bang-bang play and the Yanks ended up capitalizing to the tune of 5 runs, capped by a three run shot by Mark Teixeira.

Johnny Damon was removed from the game in the 9th inning, but apparently it wasn't a big deal. Phle Coke gave up yet another HR but with a 6 run leadthat wasn't too much of an issue, either. With the sweep of the White Sox, the Yanks only kept pace with the Red Sox, who took all three from Toronto.

Yanks Go Yard, Go Home

Tonight's game was a vintage late summer contest with the gametime temperature sitting at a balmy 80 degrees with the threat of thunderstorms lurking. At one point, the grounds crew was in position to deploy the tarp but it was never necessary. It was far closer to a so-called playoff atmosphere than the either two games before the first pitch was thrown.

However, Derek Jeter quickly quieted the Fenway crowd by ripping said first pitch into the home bullpen in right centerfield. Hideki Matsui did almost the exact same thing to Beckett's first pitch of the second inning.

In the bottom of the 2nd, the Red Sox continued their two out hit barrage that started last night with a double, a single and another double but Mike Lowell, Rocco Baldelli and Jason Varitek to bring the score even at 2-2. The Yanks answered with two of their own in the 3rd on three straight singles by the top third of the order and a RBI ground out by A-Rod. An error by Robinson Cano in the fourth allowed another Sox run, but the Bombers kept their foot on the gas, plating runs each of the first five innings.

Matsui added a dinger in the 8th for his 2nd multi-HR game of the series while A-Rod and Cano each went yard as well. Amazingly, the Yanks only had 3 at bats with runners in scoring position, but didn't need them with all the long balls that were flying.

Sabathia threw 118 pitches and due to the fact that 80 of them were strikes, didn't walk a batter. Nor did Beckett who threw 87 of his 120 pitches over 8 innings for strikes. Beckett gave up all 8 of the Yankees' runs and was tagged with 5 homers for the first time in his career. Allowing 4 runs and 8 hits over 6 2/3, Sabathia picked up his 15th win on the season and fifth in a row. His ERA is now lower than Beckett's, despite being 0.20 higher when the game started.

Phil Hughes and Mariano Rivera shut down the Sox for the final 2 1/3 innings and the Yanks pulled out of Boston last night having taken the series, turned a road trip which people were suggesting would test their dominance at 7-3. I'd say they passed that "test".

They boys are rewarded with another day off today, before they begin a 6 game homestand and host the Rangers on Tuesday. Derek Jeter seemed to be nursing some sort of a leg injury he picked up during the third inning and he could probably use a breather anyway. The lead is 7.5 games once again while the Sox edge the Rangers by one and the Rays by 3 in the Wild Card.

Game 121: Estimated Prophet

It was apparent from the time that the Yankees acquired Chad Gaudin that his time to take a spot in the starting rotation would come eventually. Although the details of the plan to limit Joba Chamberlain's innings this season hadn't been fully divulged, it was assumed that he would either have to be skipped or shut down and both of those scenarios would result in the need for someone to start in his place. With Sergio Mitre still holding his spot in the rotation and no one else having been picked up off of waivers, the Yankees turn to the former Mr. Weird Beard, who spent two and a half seasons as a member of the A's from 2006 to 2008.

Gaudin made 19 starts for the Padres this year before being traded, registering a 5.23 ERA and 1.539 WHIP. He gave up almost exactly a hit per inning while striking batters out at the same rate, but he walked 4.7 per 9 IP, which is unfortunately right near his bloated career average of 4.3. Worse still, he put together these numbers while pitching for the Padres and making 8 of his starts in spacious Petco Park in the NL West. Oddly though, Gaudin's numbers were actually worse in the 8 starts at home than the 11 on the road. His BABIP was .406 at Petco and .281 away from it, which begins to explain away some of the difference there.

Gaudin has made two appearances for the Yanks, once holding the Blue Jays scoreless in the 10th and 11th inning and getting the win and the other this past Sunday, giving up two runs in a game that was already lost against the Mariners. At least he picked the right spot to surrender the runs. He only threw 74 pitches combined in those two outings but Joe Girardi indicated that he would be available to throw up to 85 tonight.

Opposing Chad the Bad will be Brett Anderson. Anderson is a rookie lefthander, but fear not, the Yanks have already faced him twice this year and scored 9 runs in 12 innings. Anderson's last start was a slugfest with the White Sox wherein both he and Jose Contreras gave up 7 runs. Before that though, he put up a 2.22 ERA over his previous 8 starts and went 4-1.

This isn't the end of the road trip of the Yankees, but they do head back to the East Coast tonight and have a day off tomorrow before beginning a series at Fenway. The West Coast swing has been relatively successful as they've gone 4-2 and picked up a half game in the standings. Thanks in part to an excellent performance by CC Sabathia last night after the Red Sox had already recorded a win, the Yanks don't have to worry too much about what happens when Chad Gaudin is leading the way tonight.

[Music starts around the 1:30 mark]

My time coming, any day, don't worry about me, no.
It's gonna be just like they say, them voices tell me so.
Seems so long I felt this way, and time's sure passin' slow.
Still I know I lead the way, they tell me where I go.

Don't worry about me, no no no, don't worry about me, no.
And I'm in no hurry, no no no, I know where to go.

California, a prophet on the burning shore.
California, I'll be knocking on the golden door.

I Think We Know Whose Fault This Is

Do you think that A-Rod knew Wang would be shown on TV and therefore moved over so as to insert himself into the shot? The guy does love to be the center of attention...

58 pitches... 3 outs. That's not gonna do it.

The line above is actually not accurate.

After that Carlos Pena grand slam served up by Albaladejo, it's 8 ER in 1+IP.

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It's 10-0 as of now (8:40), so if you hang in there and watch the rest of the game, you are a better fan than I tonight.

Game 7: Kashmir

As the Yankees send their groundball machine Chien Ming Wang to the mound tonight to avenge his horrible showing in Baltimore, the Tampa Bay (Nothing Ungodly-Sounding) Rays counter with lefty strikeout tallier Scott Kazmir.

Scott's dad co-owned a company with Adam Dunn's father in Houston and despite being 5 years apart, used to play wiffle ball together growing up. Kazmir was quarterback of his football team in high school, but found that his talents on the pitcher's mound far exceed those under center. Kazmir threw two no-hitters as a sophomore and then four consecutive no-hitters his junior year. As a senior, he broke Josh Beckett's strikeout record for the state of Texas by punching out 175 in 72 innings and was named Baseball America's High School Player Of The Year.

The Mets were surprised when he fell to them at the 15th pick in the draft and signed him for $2.15M, the largest bonus the team had ever given out (guess who his agent was). Kazmir continued his dominance on his rise through the minor leagues, but was traded when he was still in Double A. He was moved to the (at the time Devil) Rays for Victor Zambrano and Bartolome Fortunato at the behest of pitching coach Rick Peterson who thought he saw a fixable flaw in Zambrano's mechanics. Although Steve Phillips is commonly assumed to have made the trade in hindsight (since it was retarded), it actually occured Jim Duquette's watch.

After missing the first month of the 2008 season, Kazmir signed an extension last May with TB that locked him up through 2011 with team option for '12. He made 27 starts last year and had a 3.49 ERA, but averaged only 5 2/3 innings per start (5.8 for his career). As is the case with many strikeout pitchers, Kazmir has trouble keeping his pitch count down. In his first start this season he went six innings and gave up one run, but needed 111 pitches to do so.

I know Mets fans pine for Kazmir like an old girlfriend who got away, but he's not a guy that I particularly wish was on the Yanks. Don't get me wrong, if Scott Kazmir is your second or third best pitcher, you've probably got a great staff. But he doesn't seem like a true top of the line starter to me because he puts too much pressure on the bullpen. And I hate guys who throw too many pitches.

Don't go proving me wrong now, Scott.


[I know, the spelling isn't the same, but it's close enough]

It's Only One Game, Now Excuse Me While I Blow It Out Of Proportion

Hat Guy is at it again. Someone must have told him that FJM shut down their operation and he's taunting them into starting it back up again. I don't care if this is unoriginal. Ken Tremendous is rolling over in his digital grave right now, and I must do something about it. It would be a bigger sin to let this article sit there on NBC Sports without pointing out how factually incorrect and schizophrenic it is. Celizic is simultaneously telling everyone to relax because it's only one game, and totally, wildly, insanely overreacting to that game.

"Leash Just Got Shorter For Girardi, Yanks"

Yes... 1/162nd shorter. 0.0617% shorter.

It’s a good thing for the Yankees that you don’t draw broad conclusions from one game, because if you did, the conclusion would be expressed in two words: they stink.

It's a good thing the first part of that sentence doesn't say you can't do something, only to have the second half of the sentence do that exact thing.

Most of the time when a team loses, they are going to look like "they stink". If a team wins 90 games in a season, they are going to look good in probably 90 of them (most wins, but some close losses) and look bad in the other 72 (most of their losses and a few sloppy wins). No matter how good a team is, they aren't going to impress you in every game they appear in. That's baseball.

The offense rallied to cut the Baltimore lead to 6-5, but when Derek Jeter, who had three hits in the game, had a chance to tie it, he failed. And then when expensive free-agent acquisition Teixeira had a chance to put the team ahead, he, too, failed.

I can see knocking Teixeira for having a bad day at the plate after the Baltimore fans put the focus on him by booing him mercilessly, but Jeter? He went 3 for 5 and left one guy on-base. Reading this column, you would think that the first three hits counted towards Spring Training. A message from Mike Celizic to Derek Jeter: If you can't hit in the clutch, don't bother hitting at all.

You wouldn’t expect to find panic in the clubhouse after one loss with 161 left to play, and you didn’t. Girardi was calm. The players were calm. It’s a powerful team and they just need to play Yankee baseball.

So why are you writing this article again?

This is all good, but the fact remains that the Yankees didn’t just lose. They played a bad baseball game. That’s not supposed to on Opening Day.

YES IT IS!!!! This is exactly when it is supposed to happen. It's the first fucking day of the season. Everyone is still rusty. Teixeira is a notoriously slow starter. Sabathia had a 7.76 ERA in April last year.

What had to be mystifying to Yankee fans was watching Sabathia’s pitch count mount into mid-season levels without getting any relief. Even when it was obvious Sabathia had nothing left (How could he? He had nothing to begin with.), Girardi left him in the game as his pitch count climbed to 96.

Count me among the unmystified. 96 pitches is not "mid-season levels" for CC Sabathia, you hysterical moron. You know how many times he threw fewer than 96 pitches last year? Fucking TWO (April 11th & 16th), and he gave up nine earned runs in both of them.

Too much may be made of pitch counts in today’s game.

Sort of like what you are doing right now?

But when your ace pitcher is struggling in the season’s first game and it’s so cold he has to hold a heating pad to his stomach — Sabathia’s favorite organ — between innings, it seems senseless to let him throw that many pitches.

If Sabathia is like any other guy I know, his favorite organ is a little further South. And it's 96 pitches. I've never heard anyone complain about a starter throwing fewer than 100 pitches before. Senseless is letting him take the hill in the ninth inning when his pitch count was already 111 and the Brewers were up by 7 runs.

Sabathia is not in mid-season form. Why give him a mid-season pitch count? It just seems a risky thing to do in a game that the Yankees were already out of.

Except they weren't out of it, were they, Mike? Take a look at the box score. Yes, they were down 6 to 1, but if you hadn't rushed to your computer to start writing this retarded column, you might have noticed that they Yankees pulled to within one run in the 7th. You mentioned it above. Remember? It was when you were crushing Jeter and Teixeira for being unclutchiferous.

But it’s early; just one game and one questionable pitching decision by the manager.

Questionable if you wear a fedora and refuse to look up Sabathia's pitch counts on Baseball-Reference.com.

If the Yankees win on Wednesday and keep winning, it will all be forgotten. If they don’t, by the time the team opens their new park, there will be calls in the tabloids for Congressional investigations.

What sort of Congressional investigations they would be calling for? That doesn't even begin to make sense or be funny.

Somewhat ironic that he uses "tabloids" derisively here. This is the epitome of knee-jerk, tabloid "journalism", except it's not even well written enough to appear in the Post or Daily News.

Last year was a free one for Girardi and the Yanks. This year isn’t. It’s just one game and one loss, but the pressure is already on.

It's just one column which constantly contradicts itself, but Mike Celizic still has no idea what he's talking about. The pressure was on when they signed Sabathia, Burnett and Teixeira. It didn't come from losing the first game of the season.

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Keep them coming, Mike. I'll be here waiting.