Game 51: Lost Highway

The last home game that Javier Vazquez started took place exactly one month ago. It didn't go well. Facing the manager who validated the belief that many people had already held about Vazquez's inability to pitch under pressure, in front of an increasingly restless home crowd, Javy allowed more runners to reach base (11) than he retired (9). He came out for the fourth inning but went single-homer-walk against the bottom third of the White Sox line up and was pulled after issuing a walk to punchless leadoff man Omar Vizquel.

Since he was removed from the game mid-inning - something that Joe Girardi probably wanted to avoid at all costs - Vazquez handed the ball over and made the long walk from the mound to the dugout while being serenaded with a chorus of Bronx cheers (and probably much worse things that I couldn't make out from watching the game on TV).

Since then, due to some shrewd pitching rotation tinkering and a couple of skipped starts, Vazquez's only other three outings in May came on the road in what are considered to be three of the best six or seven pitcher's parks in the league: Comerica Park, Citi Field and Target Field.

The Yankees claimed to have other reasons for the re-shuffling, but from a distance it seemed as if they were trying to give Javy a chance to build up some confidence without the relentless home crowd breathing down his neck and waiting to vocally object to his failures. And for the most part, the plan went fairly well. He threw seven innings of two run ball in Detroit and six shutout frames against the Mets before injuring his finger on a bunt attempt. However, Vazquez's most recent outing in Minnesota was far less impressive.

Whether or not the bruise on his finger had anything to do with it, Javy was hit hard by the Twinkies. He gave up 11 baserunners and couldn't finish the sixth inning. But I think his performance was actually worse than his line (5.2IP, 5ER, 8H, 3BB, 2K) indicates. Javy got only 4 swinging strikes in 112 pitches while allowing seven line drives and ten fly balls. The Twins were making solid contact over and over again, and Javy was lucky not only that Sergio Mitre got the final three outs of the fourth without allowing any inherited runners to score but also that more of the Twins' balls in play didn't fall for hits. Or that he wasn't pitching in a different ballpark where more of them likely would have ended up as home runs.

It hurts to even think this, but that start reminded me of one of Chien-Ming Wang's last year where the ball just seemed to be breaking right along hitter's swing planes and they could hardly miss.

In my opinion, if you want to be optimistic about Vazquez's chances putting together a strong performance tonight, you have to A) have absolutely no respect for the Orioles, B) convince yourself that the flat, tailing fastballs and hanging breaking pitches in Minnesota were a result of the bruise on the top of his index finger but that has healed up over the long weekend or C) completely disregard that game in Minneapolis all together. I can't bring myself to do any of the three.

Maybe this is just an elaborate, subconscious form of reverse psychology, but I have less confidence in Vazquez heading into tonight than I've had at any point since they reacquired him over the winter. It certainly felt like he made some progress in those two starts against the Tigers and Mets and there is a chance that he shuts down the Orioles, who have scored the fewest runs in the American League by a wide margin. But I can't shake the sneaking feeling that this is going to turn into another ugly scene with a sub-par effort and subsequently rowdy fans.

What I don't think many Yankees fans want to acknowledge is that Vazquez is skating on some very thin ice right now. He's clearly working with a diminished pitching arsenal and has produced all of two quality starts in his eight times out. The Yankees have been nothing but patient with him this far, but tonight he's going to have to make that outing against Minnesota look like it was the anomaly, not the two good ones in Detroit and Queens. He's going to have to put together a strong start at home or else he might not have too many more chances to do so. There are only so many exits left.

Oh the day we met, I went astray,
I started rolling down that lost highway.

I was just a lad, nearly 22,
Neither good nor bad, just a kid like you,
And now I'm lost, too late to pray,
Lord I paid a cost, on the lost highway.

[Song notes: There is a musical, a book and several collections of songs dedicated to the life and times of Hank Williams entitled "The Lost Highway". There was also a shitty movie that came out in 1997 and a terrible Bon Jovi song by the same name, but you didn't think I was going to use that one did you?

Interestingly, "Lost Highway" was not actually Williams' original song. It was first recorded by Leon Payne, most famous for his tune "I Love You Because". Williams' version wasn't popular when it was first released but because he died while on the road in a Cadillac on New Year's Day, 1953, it took on increased significance.

It's a poignant tune regardless of Williams' untimely demise, and like many of his other songs, the combination of his voice and the slide guitar in the background is uniquely evocative. I'm not a country music fan by any stretch but I do thoroughly enjoy a lot of Hank Williams' catalog.]

-Lineups-

Yankees:

Matt here with the lineups. Derek Jeter's sore hamstring was enough to force him to leave yesterday's game, but not enough to keep him out of tonight's. With a lefty on the mound Nick Swisher replaces Curtis Granderson in the two spot. Granderson drops to eighth. Brett Gardner gets the night off with Kevin Russo starting in left field. Marcus Thames is the DH and Jorge Posada has not yet been activated, so once again it's Francisco Cervelli behind the plate.

Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Marcus Thames DH
Francisco Cervelli C
Curtis Granderson CF
Kevin Russo LF

Orioles:

Game 23: Whipping Post

The Yankees did what they were supposed to do last night and took the first of three from their guests from Chicago. The pitching matchup clearly favored the home team yesterday, but today's pairing will make for more of an uphill battle.

This afternoon, the White Sox send John Danks to the mound. Danks is off to a tremendous start this year, having given up just five earned runs in four starts, spanning 29 innings. The Texas-born righty has allowed 6 hits and two walks per nine innings while striking out eight. He's only given up three extra base hits in four starts and is about as hot as any pitcher in the league. His last outing was an eight inning effort against the Mariners during which he gave up two runs didn't walk a batter. Before that, he pitched eight one run frames to the Rays, allowed just two hits and struck out nine.

While Danks looks to put together another strong performance, Javy Vazquez is still waiting on his first. The best of his previous four starts was a 5 1/3 inning, 3 run effort in Oakland, so it's not like he's set the bar very high for himself. He's going to have to do significantly better than that if he wants to get the fans off his back during his second start at Yankee Stadium this year.

The crowd was restless the first time around, booing him as early as the third inning, and the leash figures to be even shorter this time following Javy's poor outing in Anaheim. This time he'll be lucky if he makes it through the pre-game introductions without a few Bronx cheers coming out. And this afternoon, he'll have added (perceived) significance because he'll be pitching in front of Ozzie Guillen, the manager who gave credence to what many people already thought when he said that Javy wasn't a big game pitcher.

This isn't a make or break start as far as his season is concerned, but it means a lot in terms of fan perception. Javy held his head high after his last start, but the longer he goes without putting forth a representative effort at the Stadium, the more the vitriol is going to snowball. A strong effort today could go a long way towards earning some respect from his detractors.

Yankee fans can be unfairly harsh, but they won't hesitate to applaud a strong performance if they are treated to one as well. One way or another, there are going to be plenty of fuckheads just waiting for a chance to voice their displeasure this afternoon and Vazquez will have nowhere to hide. He has to get off to a good start and continue it or else he's going to hear it from the hometown "faithful". No pressure, dude.

Drown myself in sorrow, and I look at what you’ve done,
But nothin’ seems to change, the bad times stay the same,
And I can’t run.

Sometimes I feel, sometimes I feel,
Like I been tied to the whipping post,
Tied to the whipping post,
Tied to the whipping post,
Good lord, I feel like I’m dyin’.

[Song notes: This is some fairly rare footage of the Allmans playing together when Duane was still alive at the legendary Fillmore East.]

Lineups? We won't be providing that service today as both Matt and I will have more pressing things to tend to when they are posted. But you know where to get them. Enjoy the game.

Calcaterra & Carton Clash Over "Classless" Comment

The distinguished gentleman on the left, levitating a baseball with only the considerable powers of his mind, is Craig Calcaterra of NBC's Hardball Talk. The douchetastic brotard on the right is something commonly referred to as "Craig Carton". Those of you who live in the NYC area and hate your jobs so much that you can't help but fill your ears with obnoxious and nonsensical sports-related soliloquy to dull the pain may be familiar with him.

What do these two lifeforms, separated by about 70 IQ points have in common? Not much, aside from a first name, last initial and a short and highly entertaining radio segment.

The catalyst was the infamous Javier Vazquez post that Calcaterra wrote on Wednesday, which prompted a wholly non-sensical rebuttal from Carton which can be heard at around the 6:00 mark in the first audio clip on this page. Lisa from Subway Squwakers transcribed some of the quotes:

"I don't like it when people write columns attacking the integrity of the fan base," Carton complained, saying it was "open season on us Yankee fans," and promised to "defend New York fans to my death."

[...]

"How dare anybody tell Yankee fans" not to boo Vazquez, Carton griped, saying "Vazquez sucks, I'm gonna boo him."

If you listen to the segment, you might also notice that Carton pronounces it "Vass-Kwez" instead of "Vaz-kez", which might be excusable if he didn't, you know, get paid to say athletes names all fucking day long.

Naturally, a NYC radio host is going to pander to his audience railing against a blogger accusing them of being "classless and ignorant". But you might not expect a humble Midwestern gentleman such as Mr. Calcaterra to call up and defend his point.

Oh, but he did. The caption for the clip on the WFAN website (which spells C-a-l-c-a-t-e-r-r-a's name wrong) claims that "Craig and Boomer [Esiason] had him on and took the guy to task for his stupidity", which, as you might expect, is wildly inaccurate. See for yourself.

Carton does the typical egomaniac talk radio host and shouts down his guest to the point that his co-host Boomer Esiason has intervene to let Calcaterra get a word in edgewise. Predictably, the call ends as Carton calls Calcaterra "a nobody" and "a clown" and emphatically hangs up on him.

This interaction tells you pretty much all you need to know about the current state of sports talk radio vis-à-vis the blogosphere. Typically, you can comment on a blog and debate the relative merits of your arguments with the author, but if you try to call into a sports talk radio show to make a point, you'll get ridiculed, shouted down and hung up on if the host doesn't agree with what you're saying. Not to mention that the level of analysis and discourse found on blogs is several light years beyond what you are likely to hear on most talk radio shows.

Now if you'll excuse me, my acute case of Bill James Disease is flaring up and I need to get that taken care of.

Booing Vazquez

Good morning, Fackers. As I'm sure you know by now, Matt and I are unabashed Javier Vazquez supporters. We spent several posts this offseason discussing whether or not his reputation as someone who is not clutch is deserved and during Spring Training, I explained why I was rooting for for Javy to do well this season. Matt wrote the previews for both of his starts this year and in yesterday's, he said:

Yet as Javier Vazquez returns to the Bronx, makes his first home start of 2010, and tries to re-establish a home in New York, I fear he may be facing a higher degree of difficulty than most, particularly in light of those who saw what they expected to see in his first start. I hope that these fans, who are so often told they're the best in the world, don't prove my fears to be well founded.

Of course those fears came to fruition when Vazquez had a poor outing - which was exacerbated by the fact that Joel Pineiro had an excellent one - and a vocal minority of fans decided to boo him. It's not surprising, but the fact that we were expecting it doesn't diminish the ridiculousness of it.

Everyone has a right to voice their displeasure if they want to, but the right to do something doesn't absolve you from being wrong for doing it. Just ask this guy.

Although the type of people who root against their own players are probably not the same ones who read a lot of baseball blogs, I'm glad that Craig Calcaterra noticed the "classless, ignorant" reaction to Vazquez's outing and wrote a short post at NBC about it:

These boos are almost certainly a function of people thinking back to 2004, which is amazingly weak given that, you know, the team just won the World Series five months ago. For a fan base that fancies itself so much more knowledgeable than anyone else's, this was pretty bad.

Obviously there are painful memories of Vazquez that none of us have completely forgotten, but as Craig points out, the Yanks just won the fucking World Series. All grudges concerning 2004 should have been erased by now. I'm not sure it's about "knowledge" so much as arrogance and entitlement, that are the issues at hand though.

A lot of New Yorkers (rightfully) believe that it's the best city in the world, which isn't exactly a controversial point, but it tends to taint the way that some of them follow their sports teams. Success and failure are magnified through the lens of the Big Apple to the point that the city becomes the reason for every poor performance that happens in it, which of course, is bullshit. These are the same people who take it upon themselves to determine who "belongs here" or "can handle it". They feel like they are a part of the city and telling themselves that not everyone can "make it here" as Sinatra said, grants them an added feeling of supremacy.

Rob from Bronx Baseball Daily thinks that the expectations for Javier Vazquez are too high, but I actually believe the opposite to be the case. I think the jerkoffs who booed Vazquez as soon as he gave up runs in the third inning were fully expecting him to fail and pounced on the first opportunity to display their disgust. Obviously we saw the same thing happen with A-Rod in Octobers past as his postseason struggles began to snowball. We even witnessed it in the beginning of last year when Mark Teixeira got of to a slow start and the home fans got restless.

To his credit, Vazquez is keeping his head up and saying the right things ("I feel like it's unfair because that was so long ago"), but I'm still ashamed that people I share a rooting interest with fans would treat someone who is vital to the team with such derision the first chance they got. Clearly they don't think he's cut out to play in New York, but apparently haven't figured out that booing the guy is just going to put more pressure on him.

Michael Kay and John Sterling both love to tell us that Yankee fans are "the best in the world", but that's only true when things are going well. As Neyer says, passion cuts both ways. When it turns sour (or in this case, before it even has a chance to), there is a contingent of Yanks fans who can be some of the absolute worst.

Game 35: #1

A smattering of boos, but a largely positive reception for A-Rod.

A-Rod Is... (Dramatic Pause)

"Keep focusing on my magical three run home run while I proceed to go 2 for 20"

Could you imagine the media vultures circling over his head if he didn't hit that homer back in Baltimore? The stories in the tabolids would be telling us how he came back too early from his hip surgery, or he wasn't mentally ready to deal with the media attention. Instead, with one swing, he bought himself a free pass good for at least six games without intense scrutiny of his performance. 

Tonight is a different story. I'll be at the Stadium and it will be interesting to see how he is received. I didn't boo Chien Ming Wang when he got shellacked and I'm not going to boo A-Rod either. Do you think other people are going to? The Twins are in town, so it's not like they are going to have an overwhelming fan presence. I'm guessing there will be a mostly positive reception in his first at bat and from then on it will be solely based on his performance. If he goes 0-5 like he did last night, they'll be booing him by the 4th at bat.