Game 45: Two

At 7:10 EDT or 30 minutes after the conclusion of the first game, whichever comes later, the Yanks and Twins will start the game originally scheduled for today. Much like last night's game today's game the first game of this series, the pitching match up will be a rematch from the series in the Bronx the weekend before last.

Southpaws Andy Pettitte and Francisco Liriano faced off in the middle game of that three game series, with Pettitte coming out on the long end of a 7-1 final. It was the final Yankee victory before this recent cold spell started. Entering play today, the Yanks have gone just 2-6 since that game.

Both of tonight's pitchers have made a start since their last meeting. Pettitte had a rough outing and took the loss in the series finale against Tampa Bay. That same night Liriano started in Fenway and got knocked around by the Red Sox.

Most recent outings notwithstanding, both pitchers have begun 2010 in impressive fashion. Pettitte enters this game at 5-1 with a 2.68 ERA, though his FIP (4.00) and xFIP (4.33) suggest he hasn't been quite as outstanding as his ERA indicates. Meanwhile Liriano comes in at 4-3 with a 3.25 ERA, backed by an impressive 2.65 FIP and 3.65 xFIP. He's helped by an incredibly low 4.3% HR/FB rate. That's bound to increase over time, but if Target Field continues to play large and the Yankee bats continue to play dead, it's not likely to go up tonight.

But it takes two when it used to take one
It takes two when it used to take only one

[Song Notes: So really, it takes one and four ninths when it used to take only one, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it. This one won't exactly fire you up for the game, but it's the best song I could think up that plays on today's unexpected one and a half header. Plus it's Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, who were one of the best bands going until Adams decided to marry Mandy Moore, break up the band, move from NYC to California and start an ill-advised metal project. Still, when he's on, there are few better. 2005's Cold Roses remains my favorite album of the aughts (one of three Adams released that year, plus a stint with Phil Lesh and Friends). "Two" is from the 2007 follow up Easy Tiger, which is also excellent. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we get something like this from Adams again someday.]

-Lineups-
Because of the fractured nature of today's proceedings, we don't know the lineups quite yet. Francisco Cervelli has caught every inning since the last Twins series wrapped. Will he make it nine starts in a row tonight? What roster moves will be made to accommodate the Chad Gaudin signing? [Update: Boone Logan has been optioned to Scranton to make room for Gaudin and as Matt guessed earlier, Shane Lindsay has been DFA'd.]

Stay tuned, Jay will update this post with the lineups as they become available.

Yankees: Jay here with the lineups. Swisher (who has been quite hot as of late) slides into the #2 slot as Brett Gardner (who is going through a bit of a slump but did pick up a hit yesterday's portion of the game) will bat last. As expected, Teixeira is back at first base after getting a break from the field in the series opener. Marcus Thames gets the start at DH against the lefty Liriano and bats 6th.

Jeter SS

Swisher RF
Teixeira 1B
Rodriguez 3B
Cano 2B
Thames DH
Cervelli C
Russo LF
Gardner CF

Twins:

Denard Span CF
Orlando Hudson 2B
Joe Mauer DH
Justin Morneau 1B
Michael Cuddyer RF
Delmon Young LF
J.J. Hardy SS
Brandan Harris 3B
Drew Butera C

Game 36: The Return

After Damaso Marte coughed up the lead with two outs in the top of the seventh last night, the Yankees got a massive boost from A-Rod's grand slam in the bottom half of the inning. The Bombers have their work cut out for them if they are going to carry any of that momentum over into today, as they'll be facing a resurgent Francisco Liriano.

If it seems like a long time ago that Liriano was tearing up the league and was tagged as the heir apparent to Johan Santana, well, that's because it was. Coming into August of 2006, Liriano had compiled a 12-3 record with a 2.16 ERA over 121 innings, striking out a robust 144. However, he was scratched from his start on August 1st with pain in his forearm and thus begun a downward spiral that culminated with Tommy John Surgery that November.

The Dominican left hander split the 2008 season between the Twins and their AAA affiliate in Rochester, logging 76 solid Major League innings and 118 very good ones in Triple-A. In 2009, he was added to the Twinkies' Big League roster out of Spring Training but the results were less than optimal. By the end of May his ERA was close to seven. Although he put together some better starts during the summer months, Liraino found himself primarily relegated to relief duty by the time September rolled around. He made the roster for the ALDS but pitched only two innings out of the bullpen.

This year, however, Liriano is showing flashes of the potential that everyone saw in him back in 2006. He threw three straight short shutouts against the Red Sox, Indians and Tigers, but has followed that with two more pedestrian efforts his last two times out. Still, he's carrying a 2.36 ERA and an even better 2.24 FIP through six starts and has yet to allow a home run. He's held lefties to an OPS (not a typo) of .333 and opponents on either side of the plate are slugging just .292 against him.

The Yankees got to Liriano for six runs in a start in Minnesota last July and two more in two innings during the ALDS, but it's apparent that they will be facing an entirely different pitcher this time around. He's throwing with more velocity and more movement and his results so far speak for themselves.

Andy Pettitte was actually off to a better start than Liriano is this season before he took a 10 day hiatus to allow some inflammation in his elbow to die down. Pettitte reportedly wasn't happy that his turn in the rotation was skipped, but the Yankees weren't about to take any chances with a 37 year old pitcher who has meant as much to the team as Pettitte has so far this year. If Andy really takes the skipping personally, will have a chance to show the world that he was fine all along.

Today's game feature returns of different types. Liriano has seemingly returned to his earlier form while Pettitte is back from a much shorter time in exile. As such we are treated to a matchup of two of the best left handers in the American League so far this year and the gloves are coming off. I'll take the guy rocking the NY colors.

I run through obstacles, take off my shackles,
Proper backing with the bangers and the rhyme singers,
I run with dem and others, rock NY in colors.

[Song notes: Vintage DJ Premier track behind this Brand Nubian joint. Props to Lord Jamar for rocking the Yankee hat, even though the verse we are quoting belongs to Sadat X.]

-Lineups-

Yankees: Swisher is in the two hole while Francisco Cervelli gets behind the dish, allowing Jorge Posada to DH.

Jeter SS
Swisher RF
Teixeira 1B
Rodriguez 3B
Cano 2B
Posada DH
Thames LF
Cervelli C
Brett Gardner CF

Twins:

Denard Span CF
Orlando Hudson 2B
Joe Mauer DH
Justin Morneau 1B
Michael Cuddyer RF
Delmon Young LF
Brendan Harris
Nick Punto 3B
Drew Butera C

Wednesday Morning Odds & Ends

Good morning, Fackers. It's going to be another slow one around here today so here are a couple things of interest for your perusal:

Something I forgot to include in last night's recap: when sitting in the dugout during the 5th inning, Javier Vazquez nearly got hit with foul ball by Nick Markakis. It ended up narrowly missing him, but he still caught got on the ricochet and said that it's going to leave a mark.

Here's hopeful forecast for Javy from Paul Bourdett at FanHouse:

Even his FIP -- which assumes he'll continue to give up more than two homers per nine innings -- is almost three runs lower than his current ERA. That's still not very good, but it does go to show that in addition to being off the mark, Vazquez has been exceptionally unlucky. His strand rate sits around 57 percent (about 15 percent lower than the league average) and his BABIP is an inflated .342 (career .309). Javy's always given up his fair share of homers, but his HR/FB percentage (18.5 percent) is more than seven points higher than his career mark (11.2 percent). In short, he couldn't be this bad over his next four turns if he tried.

An interesting tidbit from George King in the Post:

Once in each of the three games against the Angels, hitters in the lower part of the order bunted with runners on first and second and no outs. Brett Gardner popped up, Nick Swisher was successful and Curtis Granderson was, too, but he was hitting eighth and that left it up to No. 9 hitter Francisco Cervelli, who walked.

"There is a time and place for it," said Girardi, who explained the bunt sign wasn't on in any of the three cases. "We discussed it."

It was kind of surprising to me that these were the player's decisions. We've been conditioned to think that players want to swing when they are at the plate so I had assumed that, for whatever reason Girardi had the sign on. It's good news that he didn't, because that means there shoud be fewer stupid bunt attempts in the future.

Tim Brown at Yahoo had an interesting conversation with Jorge Posada about the different pitchers he's caught over the years and singled out guys who did things particularly well. Two of the more interesting answers:

Best curveball

Hideki Irabu had a very good curveball. Just a straight up and down, swing-and-miss curveball. John Wetteland had a very good curveball. He threw it for a strike, too, in any count, any situation. But, he really didn’t use it much. He didn’t want to throw it. He wanted to throw fastball-slider. I would say Irabu. El Duque had a very good curveball.

Scariest guy when he went to the mound

David Cone. I was just intimidated. I would not even go to the mound. I was, like, scared, you know? He was the nicest guy in the world, but when he pitched, oof, don’t get near him. He was scary. He gave up a home run to Ken Griffey Jr.(notes) in Seattle once. I wanted him to come in and he didn’t want to. He gave up a home run on a split. Probably hung in there and Griffey hit a home run. So, I go out there and he says, ‘How the hell would you pitch him?’ I said, ‘I think we gotta come in.’ Next time, Griffey comes up, we go in and he hits a double.’ I go back out and Cone says, ‘How the hell you gonna pitch him now?’

Nick Johnson changed his number from 26 to 36, the one he wore during his initial go-round with the Yanks and most recently donned by the legendary Edwar Ramirez.

At the Wall Street Journal, Darren Everson wrote about Johnson's unwaivering patience even in the face of his dragging batting average.

More interesting visuals from Kevin Dame at the Harball Times.

Navin Vaswani made his way up to Fenway and back down to the National's Capitol as #TBRTOAL rolls on.

Joel Sherman has identified the reason that the Yankees late inning relief has been lackluster: they traded Tyler Clippard, who Sherman claims "might be the best set-up man in the Majors".

Here is Jonah Keri's extended take on the Ryan Howard signing that tries to balance the perspective of the fan and the organization with those of people less involved with the team.

All the credit for this one goes to my buddy Cliff. Read the first three paragraphs of this article wherein Phil Sheridan explains that Ryan Howard hustling out one ground ball on Opening Day explains everything you need to know about who he is. Now check out what happens starting at the 15 second mark of this video.

Aaron Gleeman looks at the reinvention of Francisco Liriano as does Jack Moore at FanGraphs.

Yesterday, Gleeman heard that the MLB was cracking down on their beat writers for using Twitter for non-baseball topics. The league has since denied the claim but Aaron thinks that the actions and tweets of the writers speak for themselves.

The Mets have won 8 of their 9 games since Ike Davis was called up and are now in first place. Let your Mets fan friends gloat but be sure to file it away for when they inevitably fall apart down the stretch.

There will be a preview for the game later but in the interest of full disclosure, Matt is traveling today and I'm not sure I'll be able to get to anything else before then. Let's face it, the Yanks have lost 4 out of 5 and there aren't too many exciting things to talk about anyway.

Glen Perkins And Undeserved Demotions

Way back in May, when Jay decided to take a little getaway, he blindly handed me to the keys to the blog for the week. The Yankees were about to wrap a four game series against the Twins, having won the first three via walkoff. The series finale was a Monday night affair, one I was to attend. But before I could escape the office and get on the road, I had to author my first game preview.

In keeping with Fack Youk tradition, I had to choose a song to work into the preview. After looking at the pitching match up for the night, I decided to riff on the name of the Twins starting pitcher for the night and went with "Carl Perkins Cadillac" from the very awesome Drive-By Truckers.

Glen Perkins started for the Twins that night, and the Yankees touched him up pretty good. It marked the fifth straight start in which Perkins surrendered at least four earned runs. The next day, Perkins was placed on the DL with an elbow issue. He returned a month later, and continued to struggle through another nine starts and a relief appearance. He was disabled again, and instead of being activated at the end of the month when rosters expanded, the Twins optioned him to AAA, despite the fact the minor league season was essentially over.

Though Perkins struggled in 2009, it was still an unorthodox move, particularly for a club that was in a pennant race. Perkins thought so too, and filed a grievance against the Twins. Being optioned out, rather than kept on the DL, prevented Perkins from accruing Major League service time. Not only did he fail to earn a Big League salary in that time, but the lack of service time prevented him from attaining Super Two arbitration status. That in turn has a major impact upon Perkins' salary for this year and beyond.

Back when I wrote that preview, I noted how cool it must have been for Perkins, born and bred in St. Paul and a former member of the University of Minnesota baseball team, to be drafted by and playing for his hometown team. But as we saw in the 1990 Sports Illustrated article about Dave Righetti that we linked to Friday, sometimes living out a boyhood dream isn't all it's cracked up to be. There's now a rift between Perkins and his club, and there's a chance he won't be a Twin much longer. It appears Perkins won't have quite as happy a story as fellow hometown hero Joe Mauer.

In the bigger picture, Perkins' story is part of an interesting and possibly troubling trend around the game: teams questionably optioning out young, but established players in effort to keep them under club control longer. The Twins took a similar tact with Francisco Liriano in 2008, and the Royals treated Alex Gordon the same way last year. We've seen teams delay calling up prospects like Evan Longoria, David Price, and Matt Wieters in order to keep them from Super Two arbitration status. But in my eyes at least, there's a difference between a club doing that to a minor leaguer on the way up as opposed to doing it to established Major Leaguers like Perkins, Liriano, and Gordon.

The past decade has seen Major League clubs look to exploit market inefficiencies. Valuing young, cost controlled talent has been amongst the leading ways teams have looked to gain an edge. Holding back Longoria, Price, and Wieters and sending down Liriano, Perkins, and Gordon are all part of that process. If Dave Cameron is right and veteran players are the latest market inefficieny, it'll be interesting to see if this trend of demoting established young players continues.

Game 85: Outshined

It's our second matinee in four days as the Yankeess and Twins wrap up their season series this afternoon. The Yanks look to sweep the season from the Twinkies for the first time since they went 7-0 in 2003. Barring a playoff matchup, this will also be the final time the Yanks play at the Metrodome.

Former phenom Francisco Liriano gets the start for the Twins. The lefty was part of the Twins' haul from San Francisco in the A.J. Pierzynski deal (nice work again Mr. Sabean). Liriano set the world on fire as a rookie in 2006, moving from the pen to the rotation in May and going 12-3 with 2.16 ERA (200 ERA+), a WHIP of exactly 1.00, and 10.7 K/9. An elbow injury allowed him just two starts after August 1st and cost him all of 2007.

Liriano returned last year. He got off to a rough start, carrying an 11.32 ERA after three starts, earning him a trip to AAA. He lit it up at Rochester, leading to his agent and the MLBPA investigating filing a grievance to get him recalled. He came back up in early August and went 6-1 with a 2.74 ERA, a 1.19 WHIP, and 8.2 K/9 over his final 11 starts. But the wheels have come off this year. Liriano leads the AL in losses with eight, has a 5.49 ERA (74 ERA+), and his WHIP has ballooned to 1.48. One of his better starts this year came against the Yanks on May 15th. He went six innings, gave up just one run, fanned six, but also walked six and took a no decision.

For the Yankees, Alfredo Aceves gets the spot start. Alf has been a revelation out of the pen this year, versatile and valuable, and has earned this start. In four MLB starts covering 23 innings last year, he went 1-0 with 2.74 ERA and a 1.22 WHIP. He held opponents to a .238/.304/.393 batting line, but benefited from an absurdly low .236 BABIP. In four minor league starts this year Aceves was 2-0 with 3.80 ERA and a WHIP of just 0.97. He made two relief appearances against the Twins in May, pitching a perfect inning in both, and picking up two of his five wins on the year.

Alf last pitched Sunday, going four innings of scoreless relief, allowing just a single hit, and picking up his first Major League save. He needed just 43 pitches to cover the four innings. It would serve the Yanks well if he can be that efficient today, as he's expected to be capped at about 65 pitches.

The fifth starter spot won't be needed again until July 21st. There's no telling who will get that start, but it's looking increasingly likely that it won't be Phil Hughes - which is a huge mistake in my estimation. Aceves is likely the next best choice for the near future, and a good start today will go a long way towards ensuring he gets the ball again on the 21st.

As for the line-up, A-Rod will be the DH today with Cody Ransom starting at third. Might it have been better to DH him last night and play Hinske at third against a righty? Johnny Damon and his leftfield tightrope act get the day off, with Swisher moving into the two spot in the order and Melky playing in left. Posada catches the day game after catching last night's game.

There will not be a live chat this afternoon folks; sorry about that. While we still intend to do them for weekday afternoon games, doing two this week just isn't feasible. Feel free to use the comment section to discuss the game as it unfolds. I'll be kicking around there.

The good news is that if you're a Cablevision customer living in-market, and you're willing to pony up $20 to $50, you can watch today's game on your computer, which means my workday afternoon just got a little less productive.

Soundgarden got left out of our little Seattle inspired grunge-o-rama against the M's last week, so we'll make it up to them today. The Yanks will head to California after the game. But at 6-0 against the Twins this year, they're definitely feeling Minnesota as Alf tries to outshine Liriano.



I'm looking California
And feeling Minnesota
So now you know, who gets mystified
So now you know, who gets mystified

Show me the power child, I'd like to say
That I'm down on my knees today
It gives me the butterflies, gives me away
'Til I'm up on my feet again.
I'm feeling outshined.

Game 35: This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)

Tonight begins the longest homestand for the Yankees this year. They enter at .500 and play four against the Twins, and three apiece against the Orioles and Phillies without a day off. It seems like a decent time for the Yanks to start racking up some wins because none of these teams are playing particularly well. 

Game number thirty five game pits two young pitchers who not too long ago were absolutely untouchable within their respective organizations. In 2006, Francisco Liriano burst on the scene, pitching 121 innings to a 2.16 ERA and striking out 144 with a WHIP of exactly 1.000. He was seen as the heir apparent to Johan Santana's throne in Minnesota, but was sidelined with Tommy John surgery, missed the entire 2007 season and only pitched 76 innings in 2008. 

He started off this year with four consecutive losses, and was sporting an ERA of 7.06. Two of his last three starts have been solid and he's managed to drop that number down to 5.75. Although he's yet to find stride this year, he's got the potential to be dominant as he showed by striking out 9 in 7 1/3 innings against the Tigers on May 4th. 

When Liriano was setting the MLB on fire in 2006, Phil Hughes was still in the minors, but considered the best pitching prospect in the Yankees system and near the very top in all of baseball. Coincidentally, Hughes' best outing this year came against Edwin Jackson and the Tigers as well, just one turn in the rotation before Liriano's. 

Hughes has had neither the sustained major league dominance nor severity of injuries that Liriano has, but tonight they find themselves in the same place. 

I'll be up at the Stadium this evening, either picture posting from my iPhone or Twittericizing. It's Friday, so chances are at some point I'm going to Stop Making Sense. 

Home - is where I want to be,
But I guess I'm already there,
I come home - she lifted up her wings,
Guess that this must be the place,
I can't tell one from another,
Did I find you, or you find me?
There was a time Before we were born,
If someone asks, this is where I'll be.