Game 31 Recap

1. What Alex Rodriguez lacks in range he can often make up for with his arm. However, it was a throw that cost him an error and the Yanks two runs in the first inning. After Magglio Ordonez rapped a two out single to right, Miguel Cabrera hit a sharp grounder to A-Rod at third. Alex managed to knock the ball down, keep it in front of him, hop to his feet, do a full turn and fire to first in what should have been enough to get Cabrera, but he short hopped the throw. The ball bounced over Mark Teixiera and into the stands, leaving the Tigers will runners on second and third, still with two outs.

Rookie outfielder Brennan Boesch made the Yanks pay as he hit a hot shot just past the diving try of Teixeira, scoring both Cabrera and Ordonez and giving the Tigers an early 2-0 lead.

2. The Tigers tacked on another run in the second inning, but Sergio Mitre didn't have his defense to blame this time. Mitre began the frame by walking Scott Sizemore and then allowed a single to Gerald Laird. A sacrifice by Adam Everett moved the runners up and Sizemore scored on a ground out to Derek Jeter at short. 3-0 Tigers.

3. As he did in the first inning, Nick Swisher worked a one out walk in the third. Mark Teixeira took two balls and then turned on a fastball down and in, ripped it down the right field line and just inside the foul pole to make it 3-2. A-Rod followed with a single but was erased when he attempted to steal second on Brad Thomas' first motion but was picked off. Cano then grounded out to end the inning.

4. Johnny Damon hit his second home run of the year off of Sergio Mitre in the fifth. The first pitch he saw was a sinker right down the middle of the plate and Damon put one of his signature wristy swings on the ball, and deposited a few rows back in the right field seats. That was Mitre's 69th and final pitch of the night and he left the game with the Yankees trailing 4-2.

5. Boone Logan started off the seventh inning with a walk to Johnny Damon but got Magglio Ordonez to ground into a 6-4-3 double play. Logan wasn't out of the woods quite yet, however, as he walked Miguel Cabrera and gave up a triple to Broesche that extended the Tigers' lead to 5-2.

6. The Yankees loaded the bases with no one out during the 8th inning on consecutive singles by A-Rod and Cano and a walk by Jorge Posada, all off of Zumaya. Marcus Thames pulled a soft grounder to short stop that allowed A-Rod to score and every to move up one base safely and made the score 5-3.

At that point Jim Leyland called on Phil Coke to face Brett Gardner. Brett drove in Cano on a grounder to second to bring the Yankees within one and Randy Winn to the plate. Winn took a bad swing at a 2-0 pitch, popped it to third and passed the buck to Derek Jeter.

Leyland made another pitching change, this time calling on Ryan Perry to get the Tigers out of the jam. Jeter worked the count full before slicing a ball down the right field line that Magglio Ordonez made a nice sliding catch on, ending the inning and leaving the Yankees down 5-4. Since the count was full and there were two outs, Brett Gardner was going on contact, meaning that he almost certainly would have scored had Ordonez not made the play.

Jose Valverde came on to close out the game for the Tigers and struck out the side in the 9th. Game over as the Yanks dropped their second in a row after winning six straight.

IFs, ANDs & BUTs

• Sergio Mitre didn't pitch that poorly, all things considered. One of the four runs that he gave up was unearned (could have been two) and at one point he retired eight straight Tigers. On the other hand, he only threw 37 of his 69 pitches for strikes and allowed seven runners to reach base. David Robertson, Boone Logan and Joba Chamberlain combined for 3 2/3 innings of one run ball so almost all of the damage came on Mitre's watch. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it wasn't all that surprising.
  
  
• Brad Thomas did roughly as well Mitre; he lasted three innings and gave up two runs. It was right about what you would expect from two relievers making spot starts. It was a battle of the bullpens from there on out and the Tigers had been spotted two runs.
  
  
• The Yanks went 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position and left nine men on base. In the second inning they put two men on with no one out but failed to drive in either of them. In the sixth, they had A-Rod on third with one out and left the bases loaded without him scoring. In a game that you lose by one run, these are the things that you tend to point to after the fact.
  
  
• Eddie Bonine, who replaced Thomas, struck out Derek Jeter on a knuckleball for the first out of the fifth inning. PitchFX had it as a change up, but the YES cameras clearly showed a knuckleball grip and almost no rotation on the ball. It looked like he threw a few more of them during his 2 1/3 innings of work but that was the only one YES made a point of highlighting.
  
  
• With two outs in the 5th, Brett Gardner lost a high fly ball from Miguel Cabrera in the lights that should have ended the inning but instead went for a double. There was no blood in the inning and no error charged. It just looked like he lost it in the twilight and/or wind.
  
  
• There was a pregame ceremony to honor Ernie Harwell. Over 11,000 people filed by his body inside the gates of the park and several former Tigers including Al Kaline and Willie Horton were on hand to raise a flag sporting his initials that flew below the American flag in center field. The Tigers will wear a patch with a similar design for the rest of the season, much like the Phillies did in honor of Harry Kalas last year.
  
  
• It was brutally cold and windy in Detroit for a game in May. The game time temperature was 54 degrees and got colder as it progressed. The wind was gusting in from center, making the already cavernous dimensions of the park seem even deeper.
  
  
• Either the radar gun at Comerica was hot or the wind was helping out in during the later innings. Joel Zumaya was living in the triple digits with his fastball and Joba Chamberlain was in the upper 90's. Both those guys throw hard, but I doubt they were brining that kind of heat given how chilly it was.
  
  
• According to WPA, the Yanks never had greater than a 50% chance of winning the game but it really felt like they were going to take the lead in the eighth inning. The ball that Jeter hit looked to be ticketed for extra bases but the typically poor-fielding Ordonez made a great play. Thems are da breaks, I suppose.
  
  
• Jose Valverde was doing some odd shit after every strikeout he recorded. He'd walk over to the side of the mound, kneel down and take his hat off. When he got A-Rod swinging for the final out of the game, he did a couple of jumping fist pumps that would make the 2007 version of Joba Chamberlain blush. Not sure if this is par for the course for him, but it was pretty annoying to watch after how close the Yanks came to stealing this one back.
  
  
• Not about this game but conveyed on the broadcast: According to Kim Jones, an uncomfortable bed in Boston forced Alfredo Aceves to sleep on the floor. That likely contributed to the stiff back that forced him from Saturday's game. Fortunately, he's back on the mattress in Detroit. Hey, Alf, why don't you keep it on the bed from now on, okay?

Same time, same place tomorrow night. If the Yanks want to win this series and make it 10 out of their first 11, they are going to have to sweep the final three.

Yankee Rumor Du Jour: Curtis Granderson

As soon as Joel Sherman found out that the Tigers were willing to listen to offers for Curtis Granderson, he immediately speculated that the Yankees would be "near the top of the list" of possible trade partners. This is not a knock against Sherman, who was the one person responsible for consistently churning up "news" at an unusually dull GMs meetings in Chicago while others were content to tell us that nothing was happening. It's his job to concoct interesting theories based on pseudo-facts to keep people reading about baseball even though very little is actually happening.

However, this morning, he really put on his tin foil hat thinking cap and got to work:

Curtis Granderson would be an ideal fit for the Yankees and is available. He is a very good player with a reputation as a better person. So he would enhance both the exceptional lineup and strong clubhouse community the Yankees already have.

GM Brian Cashman’s vision for the Yankees has been younger, more athletic and more cost efficient. Granderson will play next season at 29, which would give the Yankees another prime-aged player in their everyday lineup along with Mark Teixeira, Robinson Cano and Nick Swisher.

The problem is that Granderson is neither younger nor more cost efficient than 25 year old Brett Gardner who will be making close to the Major League minimum this year or 24 year old Melky Cabrera who will take the $1.4M he made last year to arbitration. So trading for Granderson would make the Yankees younger and cheaper, by making them older and more expensive.

To acquire Granderson, Sherman suggests that the Yanks deal Austin Jackson, Ian Kennedy and Zach McAllister and if that doesn't work, take on some players who are very old, extremely overpaid, and can't play the field. Exactly what Cashman was envisioning!

For example, Carlos Guillen has two years at $26 million left. Could the Yankees take that on and hope his deteriorating body and game holds up enough for him to provide switch-hitting depth in left field, first base and DH?

Or do they take on Magglio Ordonez, who is due $18 million next year and has a games started/plate appearance trigger for another $15 million in 2011. Like Guillen, Ordonez’s body and game are wearing out. He did still hit .310 last year, but with just nine homers. He played his best late in the year, hitting .401 from Aug. 1 to the end of the season, a period of 50 games in which he walked (19) more often than he struck out (17).

Sherman also names Nate Robertson ($7M), Jeremy Bonderman ($12M), Dontrelle Willis ($12M), Brandon Inge ($6.6M) and even Miguel Cabrera, who has $126M left on his deal and no ostensible defensive role in the Bronx.

The Yankees have one position that is occupied by truly young and cheap players and that is center field. Could the they stand to upgrade their production there? Yes. Do they need to trade for someone who is owed $32M over the next 4 years to do so? I really don't think so. Should they take on horrible and/or huge contracts from the Tigers in addition to do so? Absolutely not.

Twins & Tigers Thrill Through Twelve

Good morning, Fackers. Did you see that game last night? If you didn't, you're probably already regretting it. It was one of the all-too-rare moments in sports in general and baseball in particular when a game with huge implications delivers huge drama. One of the few times that we can look at incredible over hyping that led up to the event after the fact and it actually seems less ridiculous. It would have been a great game had you stripped away the context of what was at stake.

With the spotlight pretty much all to themselves on a quiet Tuesday night in the world of sports, with their seasons on the line, the Twins and Tigers played like it. I hate do trot out the old boxing metaphors about "trading blows" and "having each other on the ropes" but there isn't really any other way to characterize the changes in momentum. The game even went 12 rounds innings.

We've been lucky with the last three play-in games. The Rockies and Padres came down to a play at the plate in '07, the White Sox and Twins last year turned on an 8th inning home run and ended on a great catch, but this year's version might have been the best of the trio.

Check out the WPA graph. It looks like the results of a polygraph test.

I didn't "see" the game until the bottom of the 10th inning. I was doing some painting (housework, not art) and started with the Tigers' radio broadcast on WXYT with Dan Dickerson and Jim Price. Then I flipped over to the Minnesota guys to see if I liked it any better, but that was a terrible, terrible mistake. John "Gordo" Gordon has a laughable token radio voice and constantly places the emphasis on the wrong words. I'd say he's a cut-rate Jon Miller, but that would be giving him too much credit.

I stuck with the Detroit fellows until I had to run an errand and got the ESPN Radio team for the whole 9th and top of the 10th inning. I believe it was Gary Thorne and Dave Campbell and those guys were excellent. I finally got in front of the TV for the bottom of the 10th until the end and by then I wasn't paying attention to a word Chip Caray said.

There's nothing like some mindless labor and a good baseball game on the radio. If you're with around other people or the game isn't compelling, it's easy to lose track of what's going on. But when you are alone, applying coat upon coat of latex paint to a metal door, it's easy to get entranced in a hardball battle as good as the one last night.

After striking out one batter in each of his last three starts, twenty year-old Rick Porcello matched his season high in K's with 8, all swinging. Neyer surmised yesterday that he might have been a little tired down the stretch, so maybe the fact that he hadn't pitched in a week cured what ailed him. The kid should just be starting his junior year in college but instead he was starting a game with an MLB team's playoff chances in his hands, and did a pretty damn good job.

He pitched 5 2/3, and allowed two runs, one earned. However, the unearned run scored on Porcello's error - a botched pickoff throw to first in the third inning that could have been worse had it not his Twins first base coach Jerry White. He had nearly picked off Denard Span a few throws earlier but made the rookie mistake of not realizing that you usually only get one good chance to get someone snoozing with a big lead. The earned one came in the 6th when he allowed a solo homer to Jason Kubel.

In so far as it's okay to like a Boras bonus baby from another team, I think I like Rick Porcello. One more of these and I'm sold.

The villain in this game, aside from the Metrodome, was clearly Miguel Cabrera. The (wife) slugger was booed vociferously anytime he came to the plate or touched the ball. He responded in a big way though, with a double in the gap in his first at bat and a two run homer that temporarily put the Tigers ahead 3-0 and hushed the crowed in his second.

The hero was probably another man named Cabrera... Orlando. He hit a two run homer in the 7th inning that gave the Twins a one run lead and afterwards said it was the best game he ever played in.

In the top of the 9th, the Tigers looked to be set up with runners on 1st and 3rd with no one out but Joe Nathan struck out Placido Polanco looking and then got Magglio Ordonez to line out into a double play to short.

Brandon Inge had a double and an RBI, but also a diving, game-saving catch in the 9th on a bounce that almost certainly would have scored the winning run. I just listened to the highlight on MLB.com and in typical Chip Caray fashion he declared that the play saved a run but didn't acknowledge that said run would have ended the game, since the score was tied at 4-4 and it was the bottom of the 9th. Get ready!

Ryan Rayburn was very nearly the goat after he badly misplayed a single into a triple, putting what proved to be the tying run on third with no one out. He partially redeemed himself by catching a line out by Nick Punto and gunning down Alexi Casilla at home plate to end the inning. The speedy Casilla blundered by tagging up a moment too late, and was tagged out by Gerald Laird by the slimmest of margins.

Casilla got some redemption of his own in the bottom of the 12th when he lined a one out single to right field to drive in Carlos Gomez from third and send the Twins to New York.

Get some rest, Twinkies. Don't stay up too late savoring your thrilling victory. Wouldn't want you to be all tired for the game tomorrow...

Game 163: Find Out

It's not a Yankees game, but I thought I'd put together a preview for the match up between the Twins and Tigers taking place at 5:00. Yes, folks, 5:00. A lot of you will probably be stuck at work for the first few innings and it's not going to carry the night like a typical 7:00 game would, but it should be entertaining nonetheless.

The Tigers have completely backed themselves into this position after taking 2 out of 4 head to head games against the Twins which most everyone assumed would be enough to secure the AL Central. It was not, however, as the lost two out of their last three to the White Sox and the Twins swept from the Royals. Denard Span doesn't want to say the Tigers choked, but well, he kind of did.

The Tigers take the field under the dark cloud of Miguel Cabrera's domestic incident that some are saying should lead to his suspension for the rest of the season. Other, more rational people are saying that the Tigers already knew about this incident on Saturday and let him play anyway, and if they bench him now, it will only be for PR purposes. As a Yankee fan, I hope they let him play in tonight's game, have him contribute to a Tigers' win, and then suspend him for the postseason. Am I right?

Tonight may also be the last game at the Metrodome unless the Twins, their homer hankies and the baggy have anything to say about that. Joe Posnanski compares the building roundly-despised disgrace to baseball to a movie villain who just won't die. Curtis Granderson had already bid it adieu last month. I had hoped the Yankees would never have to play there again but now there a relative coin flip will determine if that is the case. Rob Neyer thinks it might be better than that. David Pinto seconds that motion, as does the betting line, Baseball Prospectus and Cool Standings so what do I know?

The bottom line for our purposes, which FanGraphs reaffirmed and we Yankee bloggers have been saying for a while now is that either way, game #163 is good news for the Bombers. Whoever wins is going to have a plane sitting on the runway, ready to sweep them off to New York where the Yanks will be waiting, after working through a leisurely day of meetings and workouts.

The second ever inductee of the Fack Youk Hall of Fame, Rick Porcello starts for the Tigers tonight. While Neyer points out that he has only struck out 10 batters over his last 33 innings (and 3 over his last 17 1/3), Porcello has a 3.00 ERA over his last 7 starts. He held the Twins to one run over 6 1/3 innings exactly one week ago, but that could work against him since the hitters have seen him recently.

Scott Baker will take the Twins playoff lives into his hands this evening. Baker faced the Tigers last Thursday and held them to 1 unearned run over 5 innings but needed 106 pitches to make it through those 15 outs. He'd been unimpressive in his 4 starts before that though, giving up 14 runs in 23 innings (5.48 ERA).

Tonight should be fun to watch. The Yankees get the chance to play emperor and spectate while these two teams fight 'til the death, awaiting the winner. Whichever way it goes, it will be good to finally find out who the Yanks' first round opponent will be.

[Minnesota is basically Canada, so it's time for everyone's (well, my) favorite Canadian rapper, Classified...]

(You gonna find out)
Sooner or later,
(You gonna find out)
Are you ready for this?
(You gonna find out)
Tell 'em who it is...

The Hook

We sort of left off on a sour note last night, but you had to be encouraged by the way the Yankees played. 

The star of the show was of course the Jobanatior, who needed only 88 pitches to get through seven innings. The only bump in the road was the third, in which he allowed only one run, despite issuing three walks and a hit. He shut down the threat by striking out one of the last guys in the league you'd want to see in that situation, Miguel Cabrera, on a diving 74MPH curveball down and away: 


 
 Doesn't get much better than that. And that's his third pitch.