Game 84: G'z Iz G'z

Gio Gonzalez gets the ball for the A's as the Yankees go for the sweep. That is all.

'Cause bustaz is bustaz, and G's iz G's,
But ain't nobody fuckin' 'round wit' MCs like these.

-Lineups-

Maybe later?

Game 83 Recap

[WE data via FG]

Highlights:

• Alex Rodriguez's DEEP third inning grand slam, his third this season and 21st of his career
  
  
• A-Rod's second homer
  
  
• A-Rod makes a nice catch and doubles off Rosales
  
  
• Teixeira's slick catch in foul territory in the fifth
  
  
• CC Sabathia's 7 2/3 dominant innings

Not In The Highlights:

• Jeter just beating out a double play ball in the third. Not saying it was a great play or admirable in any capacity because he's The Captain Derek Jeter®, but if he gets doubled up there, A-Rod leads off the next inning instead of coming to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded.

Basically:

• It was clearly A-Rod's night, driving in five of the Yankees six runs and playing strong defense, but CC Sabathia was quite impressive as well. CC allowed one run in the first inning and loaded the bases in the fifth, but was otherwise never really in trouble, striking out ten A's while allowing seven hits and three walks. His pitch count climbed to 118 with two outs in the seventh and David Robertson got the final four outs (two via strikeout) without allowing anyone to reach base.

New recap style. Thoughts? Suggestions? Comments? There would probably be more in the "Not in the highlights" section if I didn't fall asleep in the 6th inning.

Game 83: (Love Is Like A) Heatwave

It's far too hot to piece together anything resembling a cogent preview. It's the middle game of the series between the Yankees and A's, as hometown guy CC Sabathia faces off against Trevor Cahill. Both hurlers were named to the AL All-Star team on Saturday. However, with both starting tonight they're on pace to start again on Sunday, thereby making them ineligible for the mid-summer classic.

Forecasts call for a 62 degree game-time temperature in Oakland tonight. It's currently 97 in my neck of the woods and 102 in NYC. By the time Cahill delivers the game's first pitch, the sun will have been down for a good hour plus on the East Coast, yet it will still be a good fifteen or twenty degrees warmer here than at the Coliseum. And there isn't much relief in sight.



[Song Notes: If Martha and the Vandellas aren't exactly your thing, here's a version from Standing in the Shadows of Motown, featuring Joan Osborne backed by the Funk Brothers, the Motown house band. Also, apparently The Who covered this one too, which I never knew until seraching YouTube earlier.]

-Lineups-

Yankees:
Brett Gardner leads off for the second night in a row, Nick Swisher DH's for the second night in a row, and Colin Curtis starts in right field for the second night in a row. Jorge Posada is back behind the plate; he left Sunday's game after a foul ball sprained his ring finger.

Brett Gardner LF
Derek Jeter SS
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher DH
Jorge Posada C
Curtis Granderson CF
Colin Curtis RF

A's:

Coco Crisp CF
Daric Barton 1B
Kurt Suzuki C
Kevin Kouzmanoff 3B
Mark Ellis 2B
Jack Cust DH
Adam Rosales SS
Matt Carson RF
Rajai Davis LF

Game 82 Recap

[Data via FG]

Out of the 26 batters he faced last night, Javy Vazquez allowed 22 of them to put the ball in play. Luckily, he only walked two, didn't allow any homers and induced a lot of weak contact (10 grounders, 9 flyballs). Only three of those projectiles fell in for hits, phelped significantly by some excellent defensive plays by Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Colin Curtis and Curtis Granderson.

Ben Sheets threw the ball awfully well last night too, but gave up a two out double to Nick Swisher in the second inning, then fell behind Granderson 3-1 and left a fastball over the plate that was redirected into the right field corner for an RBI triple. Frankie Cervelli came up next and flipped a curveball back up the middle that scored Granderson and gave the Yanks a 2-0 lead.

Cliff Pennington tripled in the third and scored on a sac fly by Coco Crisp but that was all the scoring the A's would do on the night.

Mark Teixeira added a solo home run to straightaway center in the top of the sixth to give to Yanks a little more breathing room, but they really didn't need it. Vazquez pitched two more perfect innings after that and neither Joba Chamberlain nor Mariano Rivera allowed a batter to reach base in the eighth or ninth innings.

The Yanks' bats were still largely dormant last night, but they pitched and defended well enough for it not to matter. They've got another 10:00 start tonight as CC Sabathia takes on Trevor Cahill.

Game 82: Mississippi Half Step

Today is the first day of the second half of the season. The Yankees, despite weathering a seemingly never-ending storm of injuries of varying severity and playing fairly mediocre baseball over the past three weeks or so, still find themselves on top of the standings and on pace for 100 wins.

It's easy to forget because of how dominant last year's team was from the All-Star Break on, but when the midpoint of the '09 season rolled around, the team was only 48-33, two games behind the pace set by the 2010 Yanks. Of course, the '09 squad won an incredible 55 games in the second half and rolled through the playoffs, but it's worth noting that this year's team had put itself in pretty good position despite all that has gone wrong for them so far.

Big injuries to Nick Johnson, Curtis Granderson and Jorge Posada (and countless other bumps and bruises distributed throughout the rest of the roster) have kept the team from being at full strength since early May. Robinson Cano has been a man possessed over these first 81 games, but he's had to pick of the slack left by Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter, three of the teams biggest stars who have been producing below their career statlines. Brett Gardner and Nick Swisher have helped fill in some of those gaps as well, but the third starting outfielder, Granderson, has been below league average as a hitter in the 57 games he's appeared in.

Without Alfredo Aceves there to pitch crucial bridge innings since May 8th, the bullpen has been the Yanks' biggest weakness. Joba Chamberlain, David Robertson and Chan Ho Park, the three relievers the Yankees have depended on in late inning, high leverage situations, all have ERA's over 5 and are allowing from 1.46 (Park) to 1.9 (Robertson) baserunners per inning. Luckily for the Bombers, their starting rotation has taken a lot of pressure off of them.

Andy Pettitte, Phil Hughes and CC Sabathia have all collected 10 wins and are pitching admirably and aside from some sustained rough patches, A.J. Burnett and Javy Vazquez have been okay as well.

Vazquez goes tonight in Oakland against Ben Sheets, who the Yankees might have been in the market for, had they not pulled off the deal for Javy. Sheets is in an eight game streak during which he has either gone six or seven innings and given up three or four runs and watched his ERA hover right around the 5.00 mark.

The main difference between the situation the Yankees were in last year and this year at the midway point of the season is that there is a very tight three team race atop the division. The Yanks were a game behind the Red Sox and Tampa was six games back and fading fast at this point, whereas this year, all three teams are within two games of each other.

Like Nick Swisher said, coming into the season, if the Yanks knew they would have the best record in baseball at this point, they would have signed up for it immediately. The Yanks have no reason to be ashamed of the half season that they've left behind and there are reasons to hope that the one upcoming could be a little better.

If all you've got to live for, is what you left behind,
Get yourself a powder charge, and seal that silver mine.
Lost my boots in transit baby, a pile of smokin' leather,
I nailed a retread to my feet and prayed for better weather.

Halfstep, Mississippi uptown, toodeloo,
Hello baby, I'm gone, goodbye,
Half a cup of rock and rye,
Farewell to you old southern skies,
I'm on my way, on my way.

[Song Notes: Naturally, with the Yankees visiting the Bay area, we turn to their native sons, The Grateful Dead. This has long been one of my favorite Dead tunes and was one of the first songs I managed to sing and play at the same time - while I was on Semester at Sea. This two part video is from a show they played on April 26th, 1977 at the Capitol Theater in Passaic, NJ, right in the Yanks' backyard.]

-Lineups-

Yankees: X-Rays were negative but Jorge Posada is day to day after the foul tip that deflected awkwardly off of his glove hand. As a result, Nick Swisher takes his place in the six hole, Derek Jeter slides into the two slot for the first time this year and Brett Garnder makes his third appearance at leadoff.

Brett Gardner LF
Derek Jeter SS
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher DH
Curtis Granderson CF
Francisco Cervelli C
Colin Curtis RF

Athletics:

Coco Crisp CF
Daric Barton 1B
Ryan Sweeney RF
Kurt Suzuki C
Jack Cust DH
Kevin Kouzmanoff 3B
Gabe Gross LF
Mark Ellis 2B
Cliff Pennington SS

Game 81: Fireworks

The Yankees were held scoreless by the Blue Jays in seven out of the eight innings they batted in yesterday. The good news was that they pushed across 11 runs in the third, their most productive frame in five years. Unlike Friday, when they blew an opportunity with the bases loaded and no one out, the Yanks actually packed the sacks three different times yesterday, leading to a two run double by Mark Teixeira, a grand slam by Brett Gardner and a bases-clearing "hit" by A-Rod that left fielder John McDonald just lost in the sun.

Andy Pettitte, who had given up a two run homer to Jose Bautista in the first, just put it into cruise control at that point and made the obligatory quality start of six innings and three runs, the final one coming on a sixth inning tater to Alex Gonzalez. Dustin Moseley made his Yankee debut, pitching two scoreless innings during which he gave up no baserunners and retired every batter via either strikeout or groundout.

Today we have a match up of young right-handed studs as 25 year old Brandon Morrow opposes 24 year old Phil Hughes. Morrow held the Yanks to one run over seven innings when he faced them about a month ago in Toronto but for whatever reason, he's struggled on the road so far this season.

Phil had his worst start of the year last time out, allowing seven runs in 5 2/3 IP against the Mariners, but as we said when it happened, he didn't pitch nearly that bad and it wasn't because they skipped one of his starts. Phil will be phine going phorward, and hopefully he can bounce right back today.

The violent one inning outburst that the Yanks had yesterday was fun to watch, but they didn't get a runner past second base aside from that. Runs are runs, but it would be encouraging to see a more balanced offensive display (perhaps punctuated by a nice finale).

Searchin' for that feelin', tell me where is the magic?
Let's stay together till we're ghosts
I want to witness love, I've never seen it close
Yeah, but I guess I gotta find it first
That's why I'm really goin' off, fireworks

I've missed them before, but won't miss them again
I keep having the same dream
And I think that I just realized what it means
All I see is fireworks

[Song Notes: I picked up Thank Me Later recently and Fireworks is the first track off of it. I've only listened to it all the way through once, so I don't have a great feel for it yet, but the first impression was pretty damn good.]

[Totally random note: Last year on the fourth of July, Chein-Ming Wang pitched his last game as a Yankee, a contest in which the Bombers tagged Roy Halladay for five runs and Jorge Posada won with a walkoff single in the 12th.

It's also George Steinbrenner's birthday, obviously.]

-Lineups-

Not today either, but Mr. Jennings and company will have you covered.

Game 80: U.S. Blues

Holiday weekend mode here Fackers. It's a good lefty-lefty match up at the Stadium today. Andy Pettitte faces Ricky Romero in a pairing of two of the AL's better pitchers thus far in 2010. Meanwhile the Yankee offense looks to shake off their week-long malaise and put some runs on the board. Let's hope the bats don't have the blues again today.

Red and white, blue suede shoes
I'm Uncle Sam, how do you do
Gimme five, still alive
Ain't no luck, I learned to duck

[Song Notes: Yes, we used this one last year against the Nats. While we had a sweet black and white version for that game, today we go with a performance from The Grateful Dead Movie.]

-Lineups-

Not today folks. LoHud has your hookup.

Game 79 Win Expectancy Chart

[Data via]

Game 79: Brighter Days

Quietly - because they have taken and maintained the AL East lead in the process - the Yankees have lost seven of their last fourteen games. Aside from A.J. Burnett, their pitching has performed fairly well; it's the offense that's been the problem. After scoring 5.7 runs per game over their first 64 games of the year, the "Bombers" have managed to plate just 3.9 each time out over their last 14, putting them on the wrong side of the league average.

It's a small sample so it's not exactly cause for concern or reason to do something dumb like call up Jesus Montero (who isn't even hitting particularly well in AAA), but production is down across the board. The Yanks are still averaging about one home run per game and actually striking out somewhat less often that usual, but have collected about two fewer hits and one fewer walk over this more recent span. As a result, their slash line is .232/.302/.376 over the past two weeks, as compared to .280/.366/.448 from the beginning of the season until the can of whoop ass they opened up on Roy Halladay two Tuesdays ago.

While Brett Garnder, Derek Jeter and A-Rod all missed a game or two each over that time, aside from the "rehabbing" Nick Johnson, the lineup was mostly at full strength. What gives, then?

Simply put, the Yanks faced a lot of tough pitching recently. They got lucky to get to Roy Halladay, but Cliff Lee, Johan Santana and Clayton Kershaw are some of the most talented left handers in the game. Jamie Moyer and Hinsanori Takahashi are certainly not, but they both put together solid performances when they faced the Yanks. King Felix and Mike Pelfrey are two of the more overpowering young righties out there and the former most certainly was in his full glory on Wednesday night. Hiroki Kuroda isn't widely though of as a top-of-the-line pitcher, but he has a solid Major League track record.

It doesn't work out perfectly, so the Yanks beat some of the better pitchers (Dan Haren) they faced and lost a few of the marginal ones (Rodrigo Lopez), but those are the kind of things that pile up to form a slump. However, even if they break out of that funk in a big way today, a lot still depends on whether their starting pitcher can recover from five consecutive terrible starts.

A.J. Burnett looks to finally steer out of the month-long rough patch he's been in against his former team. Now that Dave Eiland has returned to the team and used his unparalleled expertise and rapport with A.J. to discover the problem that plagues pretty much every pitcher when they aren't throwing the ball well, perhaps it will finally come together for him.

Today will be the second of four consecutive day games for the Yankees, the longest such streak so far this season. So while they literally find themselves in the middle of some games where the sun is expected to be shining, hopefully things will get a bit brighter for Burnett and the Bombers' bats.

If I live till I die, will I be justly rewarded
If I sleep till I wake, will I remember the dream
If I lie to myself, will I have something to believe in
If I face my fears, will I know what they mean

-Lineups-

Yankees: In roster news, Dustin Moseley has been called up from Scranton, lest the Yankees allow him to opt for free agency. He'll likely take Boone Logan's place, but the move isn't official yet.

Francisco Cervelli catches Burnett today, which should probably provide A.J. a little more leeway to find his curveball and probably save him a wild pitch/passed ball or two. A-Rod returns to third base and opens up the DH slot for Posada, who will bat 6th. Brett Gardner is back in the order for the second day in a row, the contusion on his wrist apparently a thing of the past.

Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Jorge Posada DH
Curtis Granderson CF
Francisco Cervelli C
Brett Gardner LF

Blue Jays:

Fred Lewis LF
Alex Gonzalez SS
Jose Bautista RF
Vernon Wells CF
Adam Lind DH
Aaron Hill 2B
Lyle Overbay 1B
John Buck C

Images From The Farm

On Wednesday, my mom (like Brian Cashman) watched the New Britain Rock Cats host the Trenton Thunder. Andrew Brackman was starting and although she didn't write up an extra detailed report of the game and sit near Steve Balboni like Matt did back in May, she did bring a camera with her. Here are a few of the pictures that she took:

Two shots of Andrew Brackman.

The 7' 1" Netherlands native Loek Van Mil pitched the eighth inning for New Britain which, along with the 6' 10" Brackman appearing for Trenton, I'm guessing sets some sort of combined height record for two pitchers in one game. Oddly, the 5' 3" Chris Cates, one of the shortest players in organized baseball at the moment, started the game (fittingly) at shortstop for the Rock Cats.

Apparently there was some sort of a kid's day promotion going on at the park but Ma Dukes said they were mostly well-behaved. One of the little tykes was displaying a good sense for the history of the game by rocking the Babe Ruth jersey shirt. Attaboy.

=====

The Thunder ended up losing the game, but Brackman pitched fairly well until he hit the skids in the 5th, and as you can see in the pictures above, it was a gorgeous day for baseball.

Game 78 Recap

CC Sabathia carried a shutout into the 8th inning and had allow just four baserunners to that point. It was widely assumed that since the Yankees were facing Ryan Rowland Smith, their bats would come to life, but instead Sabathia had only a two run cushion at that point.

The Big Fella walked the light-hitting Josh Bard on four straight pitches to begin the 8th and after getting Michael Saunders to pop out, allowed a single to Ichrio to put the tying run on base. Sabathia induced another very shallow fly to Chone Figgins but with Russell Braynan at the plate, Jorge Posada let a change up slip past him and the runners advanced to second on third. Braynan then pulled a clean base hit to right field and spoiled not only CC's shutout but the Yankees lead as well.

The tie was short-lived, however. Mark Teixeira came up with a one out single in the bottom half of the inning and Alex Rodriguez took a high fastball from David Aardsma the other way and into the short porch in right, thereby stealing back the win Sabathia rightfully deserved.

The Yanks did at least salvage some dignity in this series after losing the first two and they'll welcome Toronto to the Bronx for a three game set starting tomorrow night.

Game 78: Fell On Black Days

Hosting the lowly Mariners and their punchless offsense, logic dictated that the Yankees had a relatively easy series on their hands heading into the holiday weekend. Instead, the M's put up a seven spot in both of the first two games while the Yankee offense couldn't muster a counterattack.

It's a weekday matinee as the Yanks look to avoid the sweep. CC Sabathia looks to play the role of stopper. The big lefty won all five of his June starts, posting a 2.19 ERA over 37 innings and holding opponents to a .191/.269/.252 line. He went at least seven innings in each outing and has kept the ball in the yard since June 3rd. The Yanks could use some more of that today.

The Yankee bats will take their hacks against John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt Ryan Rowland-Smith, his 6.18 ERA, 6.75 FIP, and 2 HR/9. With any luck that'll be the cure for what ails them. The Yankee bats fell on black days over the past two games. As they play in the beautiful July sunshine today, we're hopeful things will get brighter.

Whatsoever I've feared has come to life
And whatsoever I've fought off became my life
Just when every day seemed to greet me with a smile
Sunspots have faded
Now I'm doing time
Now I'm doing time
Cause I fell on black days
I fell on black days

-Lineups-

Yankees:
Brett Gardner returns to the lineup for the first time since Sunday. Jorge Posada gets his first start behind the plate this series, opening up the DH spot for A-Rod to get a half day off.

Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Jorge Posada C
Curtis Granderson CF
Brett Gardner LF
Ramiro Pena 3B

LHP CC Sabathia

Mariners:

Ichiro Suzuki RF
Chone Figgins 2B
Milton Bradley DH
Jose Lopez 3B
Josh Wilson SS
Ryan Langerhans LF
Josh Bard C
Michael Saunders CF

LHP Ryan Rowland-Smith

New Poll: 30% Of Yankees Fans Know Nothing About Baseball

During the top of the 6th inning, the YES Network revealed the results of their nightly text poll which asked if viewers thought Ken Griffey Jr. would be a first ballot Hall of Famer or not.

It's a really stupid question, right? I mean, he is one of the guys that gets named when you talk about players who people think almost definitely didn't take performance enhancing drugs, probably the most iconic player of his era, played 22 seasons in the Bigs, made the All-Star team in 13 of them, has 630 home runs, won the 1997 AL MVP, has five more top 5 finishes and won 10 straight Gold Gloves while playing a premium defensive position. He has a better chance of becoming the first unanimus HoF inductee in the history of the game than not getting in on the first ballot.

Uh...

Michael Kay and Al Leiter took the results of the vote to task on air, so I'm not exactly breaking new ground here, but I can certainly use more vulgarity than they did.

Seriously, what the fuck? We think HoF voters are clueless, but if the vote was conducted among people who responded to a YES Network text poll, they would have made him wait an entire year (at the least) to get in because... um... they are fucking clueless?

I think there are a few possibilities here:

• People honestly have no concept of what it takes to get into the HoF and/or Ken Griffey's career because 14 year old kids are the only ones who respond to text polls and they weren't mentally conscious when Griffey was in his prime.
  
  
• It's a small sample size and, as we've delved into before, that sample is badly skewed.
  
  
• They are stupid. No one has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.
  
  
• The respondents are only Yankee fans, as opposed to baseball fans. But even still, if the only time you watched Griffey was when he played the Yankees and listened to the broadcast, there's a good chance that one of the announcers - amid the praise the were lavishing upon him over the clip of the home run he stole from Jesse Barfield - specifically referred to him as a "first ballot Hall of Famer".
  
  
• They just pressed the wrong button.
  
  
• Voters are confusing the term "first ballot" with "unanimous". Maybe people have just enough knowledge about the game to know that no one has ever gotten all the vote in their first year of eligibility but don't know the term or aren't paying close enough attention to the question.

It's probably a combination of all of these and some other things that I couldn't think of but I'm leaning towards the last one. One way or another, the results of the voting either illustrate the stupidity of the question or of the sample. Or both.