Wednesday Linkage

Did the Twins beat reporter actually devote a story on MLB.com to the squirrel that ran on the field last night? Yes she did. Watch the clip embedded on that page and hear one of the Twins' announcers rip a squirrel he supposedly saw at Yankee Stadium 15 years ago. Not kidding.

When last night's game resumes at 5:00 today, it will be on YES.

Old Hoss Radbourn can't believe it was suspended in the first place.

Over at Big League Stew, Curtis Granderson fielded some questions from fans about his conditioning during the offseason, life in New York, what he thought of the Yankees as a player for another team and his opinions on some of the more advanced stats being used today.

Granderson's rehab stint rolled on last night in Scranton as he went 0-3 with a strikeout. So far he's 4-14 (all singles) with one walk. He's going to take tomorrow off, play one last AAA game on Thursday and then join up with the Big League team on Friday back in New York.

Javy Vazquez's finger felt fine during his bullpen session yesterday and as of now, he's scheduled to make his start on Thursday.

Alfredo Aceves' rehab is not going as smoothly. He suffered a setback while throwing off flat ground yesterday and will be flying back to New York to be evaluated by team doctors.

A.J. Burnett is into acupuncture? According to Marc Carig, Burnett thinks it's helped him stay healthy and part of the process of him signing with the Yankees involved Brian Cashman hiring an acupuncture specialist to work for the team.

Hideki Irabu's downward spiral continues. Two years ago he drank 20 beers and assaulted a bartender when his credit card got rejected this time he got a DUI after he nearly hit a parked car.

The WSJ talked to Yanks' VP of Operations, Mark Newman about the state of the farm system.

The Red Sox have taken the first two games of their series against Tampa, the one last night by shutout, allowing just one hit (but 6 walks). The good news is that it brings Tampa back down to earth a bit, but the bad news is that the Sawx are creeping up on the Yanks, now just a game and a half back.

Larry from Wezen-Ball has had his eye on David Ortiz's glacial home run trots all year long and one of Papi's leisurely strolls around the bases finally broke the unprecedented 30 second barrier. By comparison, Adam Rosales, owner of the fastest trot of the season had already gotten back to home plate in the time that it took Ortiz to get to second. Rays players were questioned about the amazing anti-feat but no word on whether or not Papi knows how historically slow he is.

The New York Times cited a study about pairs of brothers that played in the Majors and found that 90% of the time, the younger one tried to steal more bases.

Loyal commenter Matt on Earth conducted a mock interview with Michael Kay.

At Baseball Analysts Jeremy Greenhouse examined the differences between a 90mph fastball and a 95mph one. According to Jeremy's findings, David Robertson actually has one of the very best 90mph heaters in the game, even if it hasn't helped him pitch respectably this year.

The Fightins comes through with some prime Youkenfreude.

Remember how U2 made Major League Baseball juggle their schedule because apparently it takes 10 fucking days to set up their stage? Oh, well Bono's having back surgery so it was all for naught. This makes me like U2 even less (if that's possible).

The Super Bowl is officially coming to New York in 2014. It took the full four ballots for the Meadowlands to secure the vote over Miami and Tampa Bay, which pretty much never happens. Joe Posnanski calls it a "Real Super Bowl" while Matt Ufford from Kissing Suzy Kolber gives the pussies who are complaining about the weather a stern talkin' to. I hope it snows two feet.

Game 30 Recap

1. Marcus Thames' defense cost the Yankees once again in the second inning - although this time Javy Vazquez wasn't the recipient of it. J.D. Drew singled to lead off the frame and moved up to second on a curveball in the dirt that got past Francisco Cervelli. Burnett retired David Ortiz on a high fly ball, struck out Adrian Beltre on a nasty hook and was one out away from stranding Drew. However, Jeremy Hermida lined a ball to left field that Thames got to in time, but the ball caromed off of his glove and Drew, who was running on contact, scored easily to put the Red Sox up 1-0.

2. Burnett walked Marco Scutaro on five fastballs to begin the third. The next batter, Dustin Pedroia, ripped a ball right down the third baseline that ricocheted off the part of the wall that faces the plate and back out into left field. When he fielded it, Thames briefly looked towards third base at Marco Scutaro but that moment of hesitation allowed Pedroia to dig for second.

That ended up being just a drop in the bucket. Burnett walked Youk and Drew followed with a sacrifice fly to make it 2-0. Burnett got ahead of the ghost of David Ortiz 0-2 but threw him three straight balls to fill up the count. Ortiz fouled one off and then sliced a ball down the right field line that bounced into the stands for a ground rule double, scoring Pedroia but holding Youk at third. Someone named "Adrian bel-TRAY" then rapped a two run double to left which was followed by a RBI single by Jeremy Hermida. When the dust settled, the Sox were ahead 6-0.

3. The Yankees got on the board in the top of the fourth inning with a massive home run of the Sports Authority sign on top of the Green Monstah. Two batters later, A-Rod followed with a tater of his own atop the Monster, albeit less convincing, landing just one row deep. Sawx 6, Yanks 2. The pitch was actually a pretty good one,

4. Lil' Dusty worked a one out walk in the fourth and was doubled in by Youk to make it 7-2 Boston.

5. Hermida homered on 1-0 fastball from A.J. Burnett in the 5th, putting the Sawx up 9-2 and chasing Burnett from the game.

6. Ramiro Pena replaced Derek Jeter at shortstop and led off the 8th inning with a single. Robinson Cano drove him in with a base knock of his own with two outs to cut the Yanks' deficit to 6, but that was as close as they would come. Final score, 9-3 Red Sox.

IFs, ANDs & BUTs

• A.J. Burnett's struggles at Fenway Park continued. He allowed nine runs on nine hits in 4 1/3 innings, walked three and struck out four. He command wasn't great and it was one of those nights when every hard hit ball (and a few softer ones) found a place to fall.
  
  
• Lester was on point, throwing seven innings of two run ball, allowing six baserunners and striking out seven. He threw 103 pitches and might have been able to at least begin the 8th inning but with a seven run lead, he called it a night.
  
  
• Joe Girardi got tossed in the fourth inning. Thames struck out looking on a curveball that was well outside stuck around to jaw at Tim McClelland, whose strikezone had been erratic (to put it kindly) all night. Girardi came out and separated the two and after they exchanged words and Girardi started walking back towards the dugout and got bounced. He got his money's worth after that, apparently complaining about some low strikes that were being called.
  
  
• A-Rod's homer was his 586th, tying him with Frank Robinson on the all-time list.
  
  
• Romulo Sanchez made his Yankee debut when he replaced Burnett in the 5th. He touched 97 on the ESPN gun but has a wild motion, falling off the mound to left, seemingly off balance and out of control. For whatever reason the RomBomb (just made that up) pitched the final 3 2/3 innings despite the fact that the Yankees have a 13 man bullpen. He was effective though,
  
  
• As proven tonight, ESPN's K Zone is horseshit. Since it always aligns perfectly with the centerfield camera, you can tell it's not based on PitchFX and is just done by some guy in the production booth who decides where to place the strikezone can mark where he thinks the pitch crosses the zone. It's just someone's opinion but the ESPN crew acts like it's some sort of official measure. It's not.
  
  
• For some reason, the ESPN production crew was showing shots from behind the plate when batters were leading off innings early in the game. It was pretty disorienting as it made a flyball by Marcus Thames in the third inning look like a home run.
  
  
• Jon Miller claimed that Kevin Russo made his Major Leauge debut tonight when in fact it was yesterday. When he corrected himself he said that it was his first appearance on Sunday Night Baseball "the only game we really care about". It was the most accurate thing anyone said in the booth all night.

This game was pretty miserable but like we said in the preview, the Yanks were playing with house money. They will see the Sox again for a quick two game set in the Bronx starting on May 17th but won't be back at Fenway until the last series of the season. For now, they head out to Detroit and begin a four game set tomorrow night at 7.

Thursday Morning Linkarooski

Joe Girardi would have split the last 4 links up into their own posts.

R.J. Anderson at FanGraphs examines Robinson Cano's season to date and finds that the only part of it that's definitely not sustainable is his home run rate.

Moshe from TYU directs us towards a glowing profile of pitching prospect Jose Ramirez written by a fan who goes to a lot of Charleston River Dogs games. The post includes video and some detailed scouting and is certainly worth scoping out.

On Tuesday, Rob Neyer looked at the first month of results from trade that brought Curtis Granderson to the Yankees. With Granderson on the DL, it's obviously not looking very good on our end, but neither Austin Jackson nor Ian Kennedy would be on the Major League roster right now and Phil Coke would probably be the 10th man in the bullpen. The players that the Yankees gave up didn't have the potential to be as valuable to them so far this year as Granderson did. Maybe this goes down as a bad trade eventually (especially if Austin Jackson has magically learned how not to strikeout), but there's pretty much no chance it ends up looking as bad as it does right now.

Speaking of Martha Stewart's favorite Yankee, Curtis Granderson wrote a tribute to Ernie Harwell over at Big Leage Stew.

Also at BLS, author Jason Turnbow lists 10 unwritten rules of baseball that you may or may not have heard of. Most are pretty intuitive but I didn't know you weren't supposed to swing at the first pitch after back-to-back home runs.

"Maybe we already are seeing the beginning of The Core Four morphing into The Sore Quad." ~ Guess Who

In the NYT, Karen Crouse wrote about the connection between Mark Teixeira and PGA Tour pro Ben Crane.

Cliff from Bronx Banter nails what makes Francisco Cervelli so much fun to watch.

Over at The Hardball Times, Josh Levitt thinks that the likelihood of the Yankees signing Carl Crawford has gone down since the beginning of the season, mostly because of Brett Gardner.

Dallas Braden is still chirping about the incident with A-Rod, talking about how they do it "in the 209", waxing all philosophical about "respect for the game", intimating that he's going to throw at him and that they will probably fight before this is all over. Dude, your 15 minutes is up. You had it rough on the mean streets of Stockton, we get it, but you're the only one who is still upset about this. So if you need A-Rod to beat some sense into you before you let it go, that's your problem.

Also from the farm system, Greg Fertel offers up some sabermetric-style Yankees MiLB leaderboards.

Via Pinto, the story of a player who was selected twice in the 1970 draft (one of those times by the Yankees).

You know what the Yanks need? A washed up, left handed corpse who can't hit or play the field and every fan of the team despises. If they didn't want to sign Barry Bonds when he was looking for a job and probably still productive, something tells me that they aren't going to sign Big Sloppy after the Red Sox decide that he's not even worth a roster spot despite being owed the remainder of his $12.5M salary.

Even though it involves the Red Sox, I enjoyed this story from WoW.

Via Jason, Jesse-Douglas Mathewson takes a methodical look at the length of games and finds some interesting correlations including, curiously, attendance (although that might be swayed by Yankees-Sox games). That post is part three of a four installment series, so here are one, two and four.

Meech from the Fightins' discovers the real problem with the Phillies bullpen. Let's just say that a high walk rate isn't the only thing they have in common with Al Leiter.

Rinku and Dinesh got their new "cards of baseball" from Upper Deck (and are looking forward to seeing Ironman 2).

You know you're old when you are leaning on the halcyon days of 100 years ago to make a point about what's wrong with baseball today. Players used to make about 50 times less back then they do now, even after adjusting for inflation. The game done changed.

Here's a short interview with Larry from Wezen-Ball from USA Today's website that went along with his appearance in the actual paper.

I'm with Tango, I think WPA is just fine the way it is.

A Yankees-Mariners game will be broadcast in 3D this July. That would be great if anyone actually had a 3D TV.

The Angels have the fourth worst run differential in the league, notes Dave Cameron, and while they aren't truly that bad, it doesn't bode well for the rest of their season.

Hey look, Milton Bradley has already gone off the wagon. The "Kanye West of baseball" bought him a spaceship and flew away from the ballpark after striking out with the bases loaded on Tuesday night.

The assumption that Tiger Woods makes his competition play worse? It's actually true.

And that's that. The Yankees might be off today, but we are not.

Yet Another Linkaround

A fresh batch of links everyday is what you get when one blog author goes away on business and the other one has essentially no original material to offer. Better than nothing though, right?

Alex Remington of Big League Stew wonders if David Ortiz is nearing his end, the cartoon by Tuck from The Hardball Times implies that Papi already has.

If you only read one of these links, check out Jason Fry's post about finding a connection with someone he never knew through baseball.

Ben Shpigel of the NYT notes that a big part of the reason David Robertson has an ERA of 10.80 is that he's sporting a ridiculously high BABIP of .600 right now. Shpigel also recalls some of the unfortunate luck D-Rob has had in the past.

Larry from The Yankeeist mediated on the subject of Yankee blogging and hit on a lot of things I've thought about (and a few I hadn't).

The Yankees are looking for nominees of people and organizations to honor during HOPE Week. What's that? Oh well, that's awfully nice of you, but I don't think they would accept a vulgarly-titled sports blog for the honors.

Jorge Posada's knee was pretty swollen after the game and he probably isn't starting tonight. Joe Girardi stopped short of blaming Jeremy Guthrie and didn't imply that any of the plunkings were intentional but made it clear that he was frustrated by the incident.

Via Iracane, the Yankees single-A affiliate - the Charleston River Dogs - are now offering a pickle dog. Instead of a bun, the frank is served on a pickle. Yes, please.

Check out this graphic from Wezen-Ball which charts the careers of some of the longest tenured baseball broadcasters.

Parkes over at Drunk Jays Fans and Will Leitch both explained why the alleged MLB.com beat writer Twitter crackdown is completely counterproductive.

It's probably safe to say that Rob Neyer is not in favor of expanding the rosters for the All-Star Game. Jason gives a point by point breakdown of his feelings on the issues.

Ross from NYY Stadium Insider has a small but helpful tip for the next time you are looking to buy tickets for a Yanks game. He figured out how to find out how many seats are in your row so you can determine how close you are to the aisle.

For those scoring at home, I believe this brings the tally to Craig Calcaterra, 156; Jon Heyman, 0.

Russell Adams at the WSJ came up with a formula to rank the greatest Yankees of all time. Guess who comes in first.

Over at his blog, prolific commenter Matt on Earth asks a few questions about Ken Singleton and a few more about Kate Smith. Lisa from Subway Squawkers provides some answers in the comments.

Carson Cistulli gives a thoughtful response to a simple question.

Orioles prospect Chris Tillman threw a no-hitter in AAA last night and will probably be working his way back into their rotation soon.

Tango looks at the value split between pitchers and non-pitchers and finds that hurlers account for just over 40% in most years.

Matt Klaussen notes that while fans are likely to give GMs a hard time over a bad deal, they are far less inclined to rake a player's agent over the coals if they are the one who takes the short end of the stick. It's interesting, because a good fan roots for the organization and understands that the team is much larger than any one player can be. It usually doesn't make sense to root for management over labor, but it does when you are a fan of a team.

Dave Cameron talks about Mariners Manager Don Wakimatsu, the courage he has in his convictions and the way he attempts to transfer confidence to his players. You know, the kind of stuff that mangers do on a daily basis but fans never give them credit for.

Be back a little later with the preview.

I'll Show You Overpaid...

I'm going to single Joel Sherman out here, but he is just stating a general sentiment that I've heard in several other places the most unequivocally (emphasis mine):

But, at this moment, Peavy has a foot injury and Rios is one of the most overpaid players in the majors. The risk is huge -- and fascinating.

"At this moment"? Alex Rios is making $5.9M in salary in 2009, which pro-rated for 112 games equates to $4.3M, and has already been worth $4.9 to the Blue Jays. He's actually slightly overpaid. And in general, saying a player who makes $6M is "one of the most overpaid players in the majors" is like ripping someone for driving a Jeep for getting bad gas mileage. Is it great? No, but let's look at the supercharged H1 Hummer parked directly next door.

Even if you are talking about Rios' value going forward, you could do a lot worse than paying a guy capable of playing a strong center field with a career OPS of .786 who steals about 20 bases per year an average of $11.75M over the next 5 seasons. For instance you could be giving $18M to Vernon Wells who can't play center and is putting up a .717 OPS to Rios' .744 this year, under the exact same circumstances.

It's not Rios' fault that the Blue Jays left him in right field because Wells and his reprehensible contract were blocking him in center, where he could have created the most value. Wells, by the way has been worth negative $3.6M to the Blue Jays this year according to FanGraphs, while making $18M.

Using this methodology, I've compiled a short, non-comprehensive list of MLB position players who, like Wells and unlike Rios actually are overpaid:

[values are extrapolated to a full season to match annual salaries,

all #'s via Cot's MLB Contracts and FanGraphs are in millions]

The guys with negative value get screwed by the extrapolation, because it multiplies their negative value, but you get the idea. Vernon Wells is the most overpaid position player in the MLB and it's only close because Jose Guillen (who actually apologized for sucking so badly) is even worse. Apparently the stank of his contract is rubbing off on the man to his left on defense.

This isn't to say that the Blue Jays handled Rios' contract well, even if he is currently appropriately valued. As Keith Law points out, they made a mistake with Alex Rios, whether it was overpaying for him initally or giving him away for free yesterday.

"You Got No Wins Here, So Better Luck Next Time"

Victor Martinez probably thought he was going to be the hero of last night's game. You could tell by the way he watched his two run homer run off Phil Coke soar into the left field seats in the eighth inning. It was understandable. He was 1-14 in the series to that point, the Red Sox had been trailing 1-0 and were mired in a 31 inning, 116 plate appearance scoreless drought. The difference between 4.5 games back and 6.5 is increasingly significant at this point in the season considering there are only 6 head to head match ups remaining. Instead of saving the Red Sox from a brutal four game sweep, Martinez's shot was more of a last stand; a heroic effort that only temporarily stemmed the tide.

The game started as another pitcher's duel up. Andy Pettitte distributed seven baserunners over 7 innings while striking four without allowing a run. Jon Lester was almost as good, with the only run he allowed in 7 frames coming on a solo shot to A-Rod in the bottom of the seventh inning to break the scoreless tie.

Daniel Bard came on in the bottom of the 8th and looked as if he was about to hand the lead over to Jonathan Papelbon after Hideki Matsui and Derek Jeter both grounded out after a barrage of 97 and 98MPH fastballs. However, Johnny Damon scorched the next one of those he saw into the Yankee bullpen. For the third time in the series, the Red Sox had taken the lead and the Yankees responded by scoring in the next half inning. But they weren't done there.

With Mark Teixeira at the plate, Bard went away from his fastball and instead threw two breaking pitches. In stark contrast to Damon's bullet before, Teix turned on the second one and lofted a sky high shot down the right field line and followed it towards first base with his bat lofted triumphantly in the air. It hung in the air interminably, allowing the crowd noise to swell even louder before landing in the second deck. Teix stole Victor Martinez's thunder and then took a curtain call to top it off. Bard had faced 138 hitters in his major league career to that point and allowed just one home run. Make that that 140 and 3.

Bard allowed the inning to continue by walking A-Rod and was lifted in favor of Hideki Okijima. The lefty allowed three consecutive base hits, a double to Jorge Posada and singles to Robinson Cano and Nick Swisher, which pushed the Yankee lead to 5-2. In all, they sent six runners to plate with two outs in the 8th.

The Sox brought the tying run to plate in the top of the ninth after Mariano Rivera walked David Ortiz, but Jacoby Ellsbury grounded out to first base to end the game.

The Sox are now reeling, having lost 6 straight and fallen into a tie with the Rangers for the Wild Card with the Rays lurking only a game and a half behind them. The Yanks have won seven straight and have the best record in baseball.

I know we don't usually drop songs in our game recaps, but this one is too good to pass up.

Straight like that, straight out the gate,
Cause it's never too late, to set this fuckin' record straight.

But it is too late, for you and your crew, son,
You had the audacity to come against me, the gifted one?
And Primo with the tracks, to inspire my next line,
You've got no wins here, so better luck next time.

You thought you brought your best lines,
But they couldn't touch mine,
I rocked you in your knot,
Hope you have better luck next time.

Maybe The Seventh Time Is A Charm?

[Pics from here since MLB.tv still doesn't have the archived game up yet]

The last time A.J. Burnett and Josh Beckett squared off was the day of the NFL draft. That afternoon both of the former Marlin teammates were lit up with very similar lines, giving up 8 runs each, including 2HRs, in five innings of work.

Impossibly, Burnett's performance was actually worse tonight, the night of the MLB draft. He gave up 5 runs (3 earned) in 2 2/3IP, walked five batters, only struck out one and blew through 84 pitches (40(!) strikes) to get those 8 outs. He allowed his 12th home run this year in as as many starts, a deep blast to straightaway center to some chump with a .308 slugging percentage entering that at bat. In an amusing and unintentionally pathetic display, Sox fans called Papi out after this second inning two run jack for a curtain call. Congrats, Papi... You know you are a sad case when people are applauding things that you used to make look pretty routine not too long ago.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Josh Beckett subdued the Yankees offensively like they had been hit with a tranquilizer dart and stuffed in his trunk. In the process of being rung up on strikes eight times in six innings, only three men were able to reach base. No Yankee achieved that feat more than once in the game. Beckett carried a no-hitter into the fourth inning until he was unceremoniously jinxed by an anonymous commenter on the game post. When your team's lone offensive highlight is of someone breaking up the opposing pitcher's no-hitter, you know it wasn't a very fun contest to watch. After only 94 pitches through six innings, Terry Francona went to the bullpen, who kept the shut out in tact.

One of the pitchers he called on was highly touted prospect Daniel Bard. He worked a perfect ninth inning and came out throwing hard. So hard, in fact, that the YES guns repeatedly clocked his offspeed pitches in the high 90's and once at 100mph. Amazing.

The final pitch of the game was clearly a slider to Robinson Cano. 100MPH?

Although there were 11 walks issued in the game (7 by the Yankees), it wrapped up in a tidy 3:04. It was a damp affair, as mist swirled around Fenway throughout the entire contest. It was a horrible game to watch, but it least it didn't take all night like every Yanks vs. Sox game seems to. The six in a row the Sox have taken from the Yankees is the longest such streak since 1912.

That's enough masochism for tonight, I think. Hey, the Yanks are still tied for first with the Sox despite being 0-6 against them. Yaaay...

/downs more scotch.

Let's try it again tomorrow.

David Ortiz's Eye Chart

Big Papi, after being left out of the lineup for the Sox' victory 6-3 over the Tigers, is going to have his eyesight checked:

"I've been thinking about getting my eyes checked -- for real," he said. "My vision has always been 20-20, and I'm not feeling anything crazy, but I'm going to get it checked out."

Being the helpful chaps we are over here are Fack Youk, we have set up a free and easy eye test that our good buddy David or any other washed up slugger can use. Papi, just print the image below out on an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of paper, tape it to the wall at eye level, and stand 10 feet away.