Down With Doc

Roy Halladay's last loss against the Yankees came on Opening Day, 2008. His career numbers against the Yankees sound like a Cy Young candidate's. Sixteen wins to only five losses with a 2.90 ERA, 223 1/3 IP, 3.4 K/BB and 1.115 WHIP. And that's against the team who has had the most runs scored over the course of his Major League career. He's 7-1 with a 2.10 ERA in his last 10 starts against the Yankees. There are players who seem to have the Yankees number but a statistical analysis doesn't bear that out. Roy Halladay is not one of those players.

The two Bombers who actually have good numbers against Halladay combined to get to Doc in the first inning. In the first inning, Johnny Damon singled and was doubled in by A-Rod, who scored on a throwing error by Kevin fackin' Millah.

The two quick runs apparently did Andy Pettitte quite well, because the Yanks never surrendered the lead from that point forward. The Jays plated a run in the 4th inning on a sac fly by Alex Rios, but that was the extent of the damage on Andy's watch.

With the score still 2-1 after two quick outs in the 7th, Pettitte had thrown only 94 pitches and looked to be headed for the eighth inning and beyond. Instead, a four pitch skirmish with Edwin Encarnacion ended in a double and he walked Rob Barajas on six pitches. Joe Girardi called on Phil Hughes who got Jose Bautista looking to end the inning. Pettitte walked four and allowed more than his fair share of hard hit balls which the defense turned into outs, but walked away with a chance to win.

The Yanks widened the margin to 4-1 on back to back homers by Johnny Damon and Mark Teixeira in the top of the eighth but it was not smooth sailing from there. Hughes allowed the first two batters he faced to reach base and the cameras panned to Mariano Rivera loosening up in the Yank's bullpen. Hughes buckled down, striking out both Adam Lind and Kevin Millar looking, but Girardi called on Mo to face Vernon Wells. Grrrrrr. Wells has a career 1.014 OPS against Rivera, but only a .614 OPS against Hughes, albeit in half as many at bats. Why ask Mo for another 4 out save? Wells worked a 3-0 count before ripping a two run double, to bring the Jays within one run. Rivera bent but didn't break and got Alex Rois to ground out to end the inning.

Cito Gaston left Roy Halladay in for the 9th, for some odd reason, and Hideki Matsui led off the bottom of the ninth with a prodigious bast to deep center on the first pitch he saw. Doc finished the inning and took the complete game loss, ultimately throwing 103 pitches, giving up 10 hits, striking out 5 and walking none.

Rivera allowed two singles during the course of the 9th inning, but Aaron Hill flew out to shallow center with men on first and thrid with tow outs and Melky Cabrera caught it to close out the victory for the Yanks and for Pettitte.

Going into tonight, any rational Yankee fan would have jumped at the chance to take a game which Roy Halladay started. Maybe Mo won't be available tomorrow because of the four out save tonight and the impending four game series against the Red Sox (who are still locked up at 2-2 in the 12th as I post this), but let's hope Girardi isn't faced with that decision. The Yanks got all they could ask for tonight.

Game 106: Wasted Words

After the off day and the shift in the rotation, it will be Andy Pettitte on the mound for the Yankees tonight up in the Rogers Centre. Pettitte has a solid run over his past three starts, even though he's taken two no-decisions and a loss. He's thrown 20 innings, given up 16 hits, struck out 23 and walked only 3. His ERA over that span has been 2.70 and as the fine fellows at The Yankee Universe note, his FIP is only 1.86. They attribute some of Pettitte's success over that span to the fact that he's been throwing to Jose Molina, but that won't be the case tonight as Jorge Posada will be doing the catching.

This is the first time the Yanks have played the Blue Jays since the trade rumors about Roy Halladay started swirling. The two teams had just wrapped up a four game series which the Yankees won 3 of when Ken Rosenthal wrote that article on July 7th. One of those contests took place on the 4th of July, when the Yankees scored 5 runs off of Halladay and won in extra innings (in what might be the last game started by Chien Ming Wang as a Yankee, no less). Despite the successful outcome that day, I think most Yanks fans were either excited about the slim chance of acquiring Halladay or at least the possibility that he would be gone from the AL East.

Hundreds of blog posts and columns were devoted to the subject and it generated literally millions of pageviews for sites like MLBTradeRumors.com, but in the end we're right back where we started. Halladay was not "a goner" like Rosenthal assured us and the process did stop even though Lil' Ken claimed it was "nearly impossible" for it to. (Props to Craig from Shysterball who never bought it to begin with.)

Great job, Ken. Think of all the time, thought and writing that was wasted as a result of your breathless speculation. Next time a General Manager says he's "leaning more towards listening", why don't you try not blow blow it completely out of proportion? It would save us all some time.

You seem really sure 'bout something I don't know,
Take that load off, looks like chests about to go.
Your wasted words so absurd,

Are you really Satan, yes or no?

Winning Against Winners

Perhaps you've noticed that the Yanks have struggled against the better teams they've faced this year. You'd be on to something, because they are only 24-29 against teams with winning records. Maybe you think that is a bad thing since those are the teams they are likely to face in the playoffs. Would you be wrong? (h/t Shyster @ CTB)

This actually isn't a bad sign at all, though. In fact, it's the mark of a champion. In recent years, winning the World Series has had nothing to do with being good against good competition. Five of the nine champions this decade posted losing regular-season records against opponents that were .500 or better, including the 2008 Phillies (43-46).

Conversely, teams that excel against tough opponents tend to flop in the postseason. Not since the 1995 Braves has the team with the best record against .500-or-better competition won the World Series that same season. The Los Angeles Angels keep demonstrating this: They dominated such opponents in 2007 (.594) and 2008 (.605), yet lost in the first round both years.

Our pal Craig goes along with this theory and throws out an admittedly "untestable yet moderately-satisfying hypothesis" comparing baseball teams to marathon runners. He proposes some interesting ideas, but I'm not buying the original premise of the article.

First, let's point out the sketchy logic from the quote above.

1. I wouldn't say winning a World Series has "nothing to do" with how teams play against good competition. Five of the past nine champions is A) a limited sample size and B) only one Game 7 (in 2002) away from saying 5/9 had winning records against opponents that were .500+.
   
   
2. Why would the author, Darren Everson, break it at 2000? What happens when you go back from 1995-1999? Every single World Series Champion had a winning record against winning teams during the regular season. So from 1995-2008, nine out of 14 have fit that mold. Kind of undermines the point of the article, huh? Don't let the facts...
   
   
3. "Not since the 1995 Braves has the team with the best record against .500-or-better competition" - Eight teams make the playoffs and one can have the best record against +.500 competition. Do you know how many times the team with the best record overall has won over that span? One (and a half). The 1998 Yankees (114 wins) and the 2007 Red Sox who, along with the Indians, won 96 games that year.
   
   
4. "The Los Angeles Angels keep demonstrating this..." - By doing it twice in a row? Not much of a trend when looking at 14 years of data, is it?

One further point that I would like to add is that by definition, the entire league plays under .500 ball against teams with winning records.

Starting with 1996 (so as to include only 162 game seasons) 191 out of a possible 386 team seasons have ended with winning records. In total, those teams are 17,321 - 13,611, which equates to a .570 winning percentage. So on average, teams can expect to go 35-46 if they play 81 games against teams with winning records. That makes .500 against those teams look pretty good, right?

Is it imperative that a team plays well against winning teams during the regular season? No, but if you take an objective look at the data and go a little further back, it certainly appears to be a good sign.

It Ain't The Scoops

We all knew Mark Teixeria was going to be a gigantic improvement over Jason Giambi in a number of ways when the Yankees signed him just before Christmas. He figured to hit for a higher average, have an equal or better OBP, hit as many home runs or more, run the bases more effectively and perhaps most obviously, be able to play first base almost daily and field the position well.

In my post about Derek Jeter's defensive improvements this year, here is what I said about Teixeira's positive impact on him:

Teixeria's glove probably helps, but Jeter has never made many throwing errors. He is on pace for 5 this year and has averaged 6.5 per season since 2001.

It was a pretty blunt measurement, and it turns out I might have actually oversold Teix's influence on fielding throws to first.

John Dewan, author of The Fielding Bible II, contends that there isn't much evidence to suggest that Teixeira is better at rounding up errant throws than the Big G: (h/t BBTF)

In fact, in 2008, Giambi's 29 scoops for the Yankees were good for 0.26 scoops per game started, while Teixeira's 2009 scoops for the Yankees are only 0.23 per game.

Dewan's Plus/Minus System keeps track of positive and negative fielding plays made by each player in every game and recently added "scoops" by a first baseman which would have prevented an error by an infielder as a positive play. These stats are tallied by actual people watching the games, so there is a human element involved, but on the whole would figure to be pretty accurate.

The only thing I can think of which would skew the results is that Teixeira can cover more territory with his foot on the bag than Giambi, and this extended range allows his to field balls Giambi would have had to reach for without scooping them. But I don't think that could occur often enough to make much of an impact.

So where does Teixeira surpass Giambi?

The true difference between Gold Glover Mark Teixeira and Jason Giambi is in handling grounders. In the last two years Teixeira has saved his teams 18 runs fielding grounders, while Giambi has cost his team 18, a 36-run difference in Defensive Runs Saved.

Keep in mind those numbers are over the course of two years, but that is a massive gap in terms of fielding ability. To put it another way, Teixeira's career UZR/150 (Ultimate Zone Rating averaged over 150 games) is 2.2 while Giambi's is -7.2. Giambi might think he's a great defender, but that's obviously not what the numbers say.

Defensive performance is never going to be as easy to put a numerical value on as offensive production, but this should at least help us appreciate what Teix brings to the table on both sides of the ball.

Slim Pickings

Good morning Fackers. The Sergio Mitre Show doesn't take to the hill again until tomorrow night, but I'm plum out of ideas for this morning, so we're gonna get after it a day early. It's only been three starts, but it's looking increasingly obvious that Mitre isn't the answer for the fifth starter spot. That the Yankees used yesterday's off day to shuffle their rotation and keep Mitre from facing Boston speaks volumes as to just how tenuous his grasp on the job is.

Brian Cashman has until August 31st to pick up another starter through a waiver deal, but as Joe at RAB has pointed out, there might not be a lot available that way.

So what are the options amongst the currently unemployed? As you might imagine, they're not too appealing. These guys are the unemployed - or as Homer Simpson called them in Mr. Plow episode, the unemployable - for a reason. (Unfortunately I can only find the clip here, and it's in Spanish - jump to the 8:10 mark - and for the record Fack Youk does not condone copyright infringement, even if it is a crappy overdubbed video.) Here's what's out there:

• Paul Byrd: In semi-retirement, the former porn addict and HGH enthusiast has not pitched all year. Probably not a good idea. But, he was with the Red Sox last year, so maybe he knows their signs. If nothing else, maybe he could help Godzilla overcome his addiction.


• Sir Sidney Ponson: By now I'm sure you've heard that the Round Mound of Throwdown has been DFA'd by the Royals. Look, if you can't pitch for the Royals, then you can't pitch (I'm looking at you Tomko). This would be Ponson's third stint with the Yankees. That would be like a Hollywood studio making one really shitty movie, then making another really shitty sequel to it, then inexplicably making a third movie in that series. In an unrelated story, Fast and Furious was released on DVD last Tuesday. I bet Jared Remy is totally jacked up about that.


• Daniel Cabrera: Nevermind. The D-backs signed him yesterday. Probably a good thing it was them and not the Yanks. Although, he would probably knock A.J. Burnett out of the AL lead for BBs. That reminds me, Victor Zambrano is also out there, and there have been rumors that TB was shopping Scott Kazmir. Maybe lightning will strike twice.


• Elmer Dessens: He's not really a starter anymore. The Mets DFA'd him last week. Much like the Royals, if you're getting DFA'd by the Mets, you may want to consider another line of work.


• Brett Tomko: Oh if only poor Brett wasn't treated so badly during his two and a half months of drawing a Major League paycheck from the Yankees in exchange for pitching like garbage. If only. He could easily fill this fifth starter void, but there's no way he'll come back after the indignities he suffered. Who's laughing now Yankees? Maybe you'll be nicer to the next mediocre journeyman pitcher on your roster. At the very least it might have gotten you in good with Mrs. Tomko.


• Julian Tavarez: DFA's by the Nats. Ugh. Worse than KC, worse than the Mets. Would significantly increase the crazy quotient in the clubhouse though.

I sure hope something halfway decent creeps across the waiver wire.

Off Night Links: Monday, Monday

Here we are on another off night, the first in 17 days. There will be another 16 games before another break for the Yanks and at least as far as the starting rotation is concerned, this one is a welcome relief.

While Joba Chamberlain was originally supposed to start tomorrow night against Roy Halladay, he will now be pushed back to Thursday for the first game against the Red Sox and oppose John Smoltz. This means Andy Pettitte and Sergio Mitre will pitch against the Blue Jays and Mitre will be the only starter the Sox don't get to see, which is obviously the best case scenario. The extra two days will also help to keep Chamberlain's innings total down, a factor that will make for some tough decisions as the season wears on.

Meanwhile, here are a batch of links to keep you busy on this relatively quiet night in the MLB. See you tomorrow morning. Enjoy.

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Oh, you thought the price for Roy Halladay was high? Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times says that the Red Sox offered the Mariners 5 of the following seven players for Felix Hernandez and they turned the offer down: RHPs Clay Buchholz, Daniel Bard, Justin Masterson & Michael Bowden, LHPs Nick Hagadone & Felix Doubront, OF Josh Reddick or SS Yamaico Navarro. As Matt said earlier over GChat, "That means the Yankees would have had to exhume Ruth and Mantle for King Felix". Click through to see the alternate 3 team deal that almost happened including the Padres and Adrian Gonzalez.

This guy? Steroids? GTFO! The man to the left, son of Sox broadcaster Jerry Remy, was one of two former security guards fired by the Red Sox for connections with steroids. Remy and Alex Cyr (a part time assistant of Manny Ramirez) had connections with a paid employee of David Ortiz and openly discussed steroid use with him. Once again, how about a round of applause for George Mitchell, ladies and gentlemen? Boston had it's own Kirk Radomski and Brain McNamee right under their noses and mysteriously had no idea. But then again, who would have ever thought the man pictured in a fucking Gold's Gym man-tank, looking like a body builder might have been taking steroids?

Well, bully for Youk. It appears that the our anti-namesake had himself quite the weekend down in Baltimore and has emerged from a two month long slump that saw his OPS drop as low as .952, but is now back over 1.000.

Here is a raffle for a good cause. The prize is 10 seats atop the Green Monstah for the August 20th game between the Yanks and Sawx. It benefits the Mark Bavis Leadership Foundation, started in honor of a former BC Hockey player and NHL Assistant who was killed aboard Flight 175 on 9/11. Tickets are $2 and there is a minimum purchase of 5. If you win, don't forget who told you about it.

This is a pretty sad sight. (h/t NSI, who alternatively called today "Moldy Monday")

Will Leitch makes the case for Billy Beane as the next GM of the Mets over at New York Magazine. My favorite quote:

If every general manager in baseball thought like Minaya, Beane would still be in top form; as it is, he had to forage for newer, more elusive inefficiencies.

John Heyman also weighs in with his thoughts on GM candidates from around the league.

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In New York Football Giants news, it appears that Antionio Pierce will not be indicted by the Grand Jury for his involvement in the Plaxico Burress fiasco. Perhaps this fucking mess will finally start to go away?

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If you've got anything else, leave it in the comments.

Are The Mets The New Knicks?

[Here is a guest post I did for River Ave. Blues last week, and figured the off day would be a good time to re-post it here.]

The similarities go beyond just the blue and orange. Both teams are owned by father/son duos and have been plagued by recent failures despite having payrolls near or at the top of their respective sports. Each franchise has only two championships in their history and has made the playoffs exactly one out of the past eight seasons. They both have had their front offices' dirty laundry aired in the New York tabloids in recent years.

Not that Jose Reyes ever asked a Mets intern if she was going to "get in the truck" or Omar Minaya sexually harassed a fellow member of the front office, but there is a big distinction between having an unsuccessful franchise and having the details of why your organization is a disaster printed for the world to see. At the center of these two debacles are two executives who have/had close relationships with the owners of their teams but terrible ones with the media.

While serving as President of Basketball Operations for the Knicks, Isiah Thomas spoke with the placid monotone of someone who was heavily medicated, spouting off cliches and dropping wincers such as "To me, it’s win or die. And I literally mean death. I don’t mean walk away. I mean death. That’s how I approach it". Omar, on the other hand has a penchant for mixing metaphors, inaccurate tensing ("He has lobby myself") and verbal tics, you know what I'm saying?

Initially credited with making the Mets an attractive destination and recruiting players like Pedro Martinez, Carlos Delgado and Billy Wagner, Omar's track record is tainted by severely overpaying for Luis Castillo, giving Moises Alou $15M for 414 plate appearances and locking up Oliver Perez, (who is currently humming along to the tune of a 7.42 ERA) for three years and $36M. The Johan Santana trade alone puts Minaya ahead of Thomas in terms of transactions that turned out favorably for their team, but the number of playoff appearances and dollars each team has spent speak for themselves.

Back on March 12th, 2007, with Knicks holding a record of 29-34 and sitting at 8th place in the Eastern Conference, James Dolan singed Isiah Thomas to a three year extension. Nine months earlier, Dolan had issued an ultimatum, saying the Knicks would have to make "evident progress" in order to Isiah to return as coach the following year.

The team had gone 23-59 under Larry Brown the year before, so they did improve, but the timing was curious. Dolan could have waited to see how the season turned out, but instead said "the improvement needs to be recognized now and not wait". The team responded with a horrid 4-14 stretch and finished 7 games out of the playoffs. Thirteen months later, Thomas was "reassigned" and banned from having any contact with the team, effectively ending his tenure as Knicks GM and coach.

Immediately following the conclusion of the 2008 season, the second one in a row which concluded by the Mets getting nudged out of October on the last day of the season after holding a significant lead with less than three weeks to go, Jeff Wilpon extended a three year contract extension to Omar Minaya. The timing again was questionable, as the GM had a full year left on his current deal, but Wilpon said "we think he deserves another chance to keep getting us to where we want to be".

The Mets are currently in 4th place in the NL East and behind 7 other teams in contention for the Wild Card, 5.5 games back. Unfortunately for Minaya, the on-the-field performance can be largely explained away by injuries, but the power structure of the Mets organization has come under fire as of late. First with the clumsy axing of Willie Randolph last year but most recently the zany antics of Tony Bernazard and the ensuing unsuccessful attempted public sacrifice of beat writer Adam Rubin's journalistic integrity, the team has become a punching bag for the New York Media. Rubin wondered aloud how he could continue his duties as a reporter covering theMets after the incident, but one has to question whether Omar can continue running them.

Even since they hired Donnie Walsh to head their basketball operations back in April of last year, the Knicks have had an air of credibility around them, even though their play on the floor was still sub-par. A well-respected veteran of the Pacers' front office, Walsh is candid with the media and his Wikipedia page doesn't have to have a separate section for "Controversy". Could the Mets benefit from a similar move?

It's quite unlikely that the Mets leapfrog 7 teams (or three in the NL East) and sneak into the playoffs this year. Since Minaya's new contract doesn't even start until the end of this season and won't end until 2012, keeping him around would be a prudent financial move. Rob Neyer doesn't think that will play a role in the decision, though.

Has Omar passed the point of no return?

I personally don't think so and don't feel certain that his successor would necessarily bring a new direction to the franchise, other than the symbolic overture of axing Minaya. That said, public perception and fan placation is a big part of being a successful sports team in New York, and theWilpon's have to be prepared to deal with a lot of backlash if they stand by their man.

Slam Duncan

[Image via The Sports Hernia]

Chad Jennings, who does a fantastic job of keeping tabs on the goings on down in Scranton has a great feature story on Shelley Duncan for the Scranton Times-Tribune.

Everyone seems to know Shelley. Or they think they do. They think they know him because he arrived in New York two years ago hitting home runs and bashing the forearms of his teammates with something bordering on recklessness.

That's not even the tip of the iceberg, so if you've got some time, click through and give the whole thing a read.

I was hoping to see Shelley get some at bats this weekend against the Sox, but the trade for Jerry Hairston, Jr. sent him back down to the minors. With his brother Chris now in the Red Sox system, Shelley returned to the SWB Yankees just in time to play against him on Sunday, something that hasn't happened since they were both in A-Ball.

Perhaps Duncan is the perfect example of a AAAA player, a guy who mashes in Scranton but whose power doesn't quite translate to the MLB. He's the kind of player that should be frustrating to watch, with a giant cut that far too often produces pop ups and strike outs, but he's not. Chad's article does a great job of unpacking exactly what it is that makes Shelley the likable character he is. Read it.

A Triple For The Ages

In a sport with a boatload of arbitrary stats and quirky accomplishments, the cycle stands out as perhaps the most contrived of them all. It's not like a perfect game/no-hitter, where the end goal is the best possible outcome. If Melky Cabrera had hit two homers, a double and walked once it would have equal or greater value but wouldn't have met the narrow definition of a cycle and therefore would been remembered as a great individual game, but not recorded in the annals of baseball history.

As Mike from RAB pointed out last night, cycles occur about as often as no-hitters, but are in fact much rarer considering only one pitcher per team has a chance to throw a no-hitter in each game, whereas nine batters per team have a chance at a cycle. Coincidentally, there have been roughly the same amount of "natural" cycles, which is achieved by hitting 1B, 2B, 3B, HR in order (14), as there have been perfect games (18). Only three players have ever hit for more than two cycles, Babe Herman, Bob Meusel and John Reilly, with three apiece.

Despite the fact that a cycle doesn't have a perfect correlation to value within the context of the game, Melky's triple in the 9th inning was one of the most exciting moments of the season, in my eyes. So often, we hear the announcers point out that a player is "only a triple short of the cycle" when of course even a great triples hitter would only have maybe a 1 in 50 or 60 chance to hit one in that specific plate appearance. The odds were considerably longer for Melky, who hadn't hit a triple in over a year and before that not since August 25, 2007. That's one three-bagger in over 850 PAs... you do the math.

Just last week it appeared that Robinson Cano had a pretty good chance at a cycle, when he had notched a triple and a home run by the sixth inning. Alas, he did get two more plate appearances but only managed to walk and fly out to center. For him, walking twice in the same game was quite rare, but Tony Fernandez's 14 year old achievement still stood.

Until yesterday. Over the 289 cycles that have been recorded I'm guessing that Melky's .381 WPA would rank pretty high up on that list. The Yankees' offense as a whole only contributed .457. He drove in four runs and scored three, directly contributing to the 6 of the Yankees' 8 runs. He put them up 3-0 with a 3 run homer in the second, scored the tying run in the 4th after Sabathia gave back the lead, put the Yanks ahead 5-4 in the 5th with a single and scored a big insurance run in the 9th, stretching the lead from 2 to 3.

Michael Kay said that the game was "too close to take a chance" in reference to going for a triple on a ball hit into the gap when Melky was up in the 9th, but the Melk Man motored into third and beat the throw by the slimmest of margins.

Baseball has a lot of quiet moments in between pitches, innings and at bats. There are a lot of lopsided games where the outcomes are seemingly already determined in the ninth inning. It's not often that a play in baseball reaches such an extended crescendo, with a 270 foot sprint, capped by a slide successful by only a split second. Remember this one because they might be mentioning it during Yankees games for a long, long time.

Wrapping Up The Weekend

Good morning Fackers. I don't know about you, but the weekend came and went far too fast for my liking. It was a mixed bag for me. Saturday's Gov't Mule concert was a great one - featuring a nice birthday tribute to Jerry Garcia in the second set. The night was not without its casualties though, as I somehow managed to lose my beloved Yankee hat over the course of the night, leading me to retrace my steps repeatedly in a futile effort to find it. The dirty hippy jamband show claims another innocent victim. Oh, and my cousin somehow managed to score stage seating while I watched from the lawn with the rest of the massess. Then I managed to zonk out in the middle of the after party I was hosting. Not my finest hour.

Sunday involved a hungover trip to Old Sturbridge Village for a Revolutionary War reenacment. Dorky, I know. But it was fun to harass the Red Coats, telling those limey bastards they were going down. Finished the night with a victory in my hockey playoff game, so all's well that ends well. Besides, it beats last week's non-existent weekend for me.

For the Yanks, it was a bit of mixed bag as well. After ugly, ugg-lee losses on Friday and Saturday, they managed to avoid a four game sweep by winning Sunday. But that was about the only good news. Sergio Mitre continued to show he's not the answer for the fifth starter spot.

Down on the farm, uber prospect Jesus Montero broke his finger on Saturday, which will cost him the remainder of the minor league season. Not 20 until November, Montero absolutely crushed it this year, hitting .356/.406/.583 in High A and .317/.370/.539 in AA. Those are insane numbers. He's 19 years old. He's in his second full season. The Florida State League is a notorious pitcher's league. Trenton's park is a notorious pitcher's park. This guy raked all summer long, and bashed 17 home runs against competition a few years older than him. Hopefully this injury is just a bump in the road and won't have any long term effects.

In other injury news, single A pitcher Brett Marshall, last year's sixth round pick, needs Tommy John Surgery. He hadn't been doing especially well down in Charleston, throwing 87 1/3 innings of 5.67 ERA ball, but perhaps the injury was the cause of his poor performance. Marshall was drafted out of Sterling High School, just outside of Houston. He's 6' 0", 190 lbs and there were some concerns about his mechanics and in turn his durability. In addition, his high school coaches probably weren't looking out for his future when they left him in to throw 146 pitches in the State Championship game in his last outing as an amateur. The good news is that he's only 19 years old and even if his rehab takes more than a full year, he'll have plenty of time left to develop.

So, in all, not the best weekend you could draw up. But hey, it's the dawn of a new week. Maybe this one will be a bit better. We've got an off day today, but we'll be back with more stuff later on.

Yanks Salvage Series Finale

The Yankees played the Texas Tornado to the White Sox Mr. Perfect on Sunday, touching up Mark Buehrle for 12 hits and 7 runs over 4.1 IP.

CC Sabathia wasn't particularly sharp, giving up four runs through the first three innings, leave the Yanks down a run. But he settled in from there, and finished the day scattering 1o hits over 7+ innings, giving up 5 runs, fanning five and walking none.

The story of the game however is Melky Cabrera, who homered in the first, doubled in the fourth, singled in the fifth, and tripled in the ninth, becoming the first Yankee to hit for the cycle in nearly 14 years.


Hey fans! Did you know that Tony Fernandez was the last Yankee to hit for the cycle, doing so on 9/3/95? Of course you did, YES only brings it up about once a week. Much like Derek Jeter's previous grand slam drought, this little nugget had become my pet peeve meaningless historical reference that the announcers beat into the ground. So as I texted to Jay, and he put up on our Twitter feed, the best part about Melky's cycle is that we never have to hear about Tony Fernandez again. I can only imagine what the next stat-to-beat-into-the-ground will be.

Melky finished at 4 for 5 with 3 runs scored and 4 RBI. He also made a nice diving catch. I've been critical of him as he cooled off considerably after his torrid April, but I have to say, since Gardner has gone down, Melky has really stepped it up, going 14 of his last 35 (.400), with 8 extra base hits and six walks. Now if he would just throw to the right base.

Nick Swisher also had a nice game against his former team, 2 for 3 with 2 BB and 2 runs scored. Jerry Hairston Jr started at third, giving A-Rod a half day off, and went 2 for 3 to raise his Yankee batting average to .500.

Phil Hughes and Mo closed it out. I don't quite understand Joe Girardi's rationale as to why Mo can nail down a four out save, but not a five out save, nor do I understand the rationale behind yanking Hughes mid inning at all. Maybe he'll tell us straight on WB Mason presents the Joe Girardi Show only on YES. It worked though, even if Mo had to sit through a 25 minute top of the ninth before getting back to work.

In all it was a nice to end an otherwise brutal series. The Yanks are still in first by a half game and I'm sure the Monday off day will be far more enjoyable having avoided a sweep - even if they do have to spend it in Canada.

(Photo from AP/ESPN)

Game 105: Perfect Day

CC Sabathia remains the Yankees last hope to scoop the last game of this series, leave Chicago with a portion of their dignity intact and guarantee that they will still have a share of the lead in the AL East when play ends today. The Red Sox are just a half of a game back now and begin play in Baltimore at 1:35, so you can expect some scoreboard watching.

The Big CCheese hasn't been especially good as of late, and the offense hasn't been particularly productive behind him all year. Over his past 7 starts, he's been mixing in some solid performances (three games with 7IP and one or fewer runs) with some stinkers (three starts with more than 5 runs allowed). He's allowed more than a hit per inning over that time in addition to 12 walks while striking out 39. The Yanks need their man to step up in order to get their first win against a team with "Sox" in their name this year.

The White Stockings will counter with their own lefty ace. Mark Buerhle has been pitching in some rarefied air as of late, following up his perfect game against the Rays by retiring the first 17 batters he faced in his next start against the Twins. Dating back to his previous start against the Orioles, Buerhle had retired a Major League record 45 batters in a row without allowing a walk, hit, hit by pitch or having an error committed behind him. Pretty remarkable stuff.

Of course, the wheels came off for the lefty and he ended up getting tagged for 5 runs and the loss against the Twins. But such is the delicate balance of being a pitcher. For all of the efforts to reduce it down to mechanics and execution, it remains incredibly difficult to have extended runs of dominance and when they do occur, they can vanish instantly. It's not like golf where the ball is stationary. It's not like basketball where the hoop is. It's not like football where the person you are throwing it to shares a common goal. As evidenced by the at bat I detailed last night, a batter can intervene at any time and spoil the hurler's plan.

As a reminder of how rare elusive perfection can be, before Buerhle, the last perfect game thrown by a Pale Hose pitcher was by Charlie Roberston in 1922. It was followed by a league-wide perfect game drought that lasted over 34 years and ended with Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series.

It's yet another rainy shitshow on the East Coast, but it could scarcely be nicer out in Chicago. Great day for some baseball. Some might even say it's a...

Just a perfect day,
Problems are left to know,
Weekenders all night long,
It's such fun.

Just a perfect day,
You make me forget myself,
I thought I was someone else,
Someone good.

The Good And The Bad (But Mostly The Bad)

Since that game was unbearable and it's Saturday night, we are going with an abbreviated recap.

The Good:

• Jeter, A-Rod and Mark Teixeira combined to go 7-13 with 3 RBIs.
  
  
• Jerry Hairston, Jr. had a solid debut, driving in a run on one hit (although it should have been two when he dropped a single into leftfield in the 6th and Jorge Posada was forced out at 3rd).
  
  
• David Robertson and Mark Melancon each threw scoreless 2/3's of an inning.
  
  
• Seriously, that's it.
  

Okay, and The Bad:

• Cody Ransom started at first base. Did Eric Hinske have something better to do?
  
  
• A.J Burnett's great streak is now officially over. It was basically over when he allowed six runs in the 2nd inning. To start, he got Paul Konerko to fly out but then the Sox went: single, single, single, walk (to the #9 hitter), single, double, single before Burnett got the final two outs of the inning. His line for the day: 4 2/3 IP, 10 H, 7 ER, 2BB, 4K.
  
  
• Phil Coke's ERA went from 3.77 to 4.58 in 1/3 of an inning. 4 hits, three walks and six runs will do that to you. To be fair, two of those walks were called for by Joe Girardi, but they still count.
  
  
• The team went 2-13 w/RISP, leaving 8 runners on base. The White Sox were 8-19.

If I had to choose just one play to boil this game down into, it would be the at-bat between Phil Coke and A.J. Pierzynski in the 8th. Coke got him to swing over a slider on the first pitch, and then Peierizynykksssiki fouled off two more tough ones. On his second 0-2 pitch, Piersznik the catcher on the White Sox swung at a pitch that was a good foot off the plate and well below his knees, but fully extended his arms and just got enough of the bat on the ball to send it into left field and drive in a run. Tim McCarver called this a "great piece of hitting" which of course is complete bullshit because he swing at a terrible pitch and got unimaginably lucky.

Anyhow, this series has evolved into quite the disaster, hasn't it? One loss by walk-off followed by two blowouts. And tommorrow the Sox send Mark Buehrle to the mound who is about as hot as an pitcher could be against CC Sabathia who is 1-8 against teams over .500.

Here's my plan for tonight.