How about those Yankees? They look like a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter during their first thirty-seven games. They can’t hit, especially with runners in scoring position. And their defense was never their strong point.
The Yankee pitching, with the exception of Chien-Ming Wang and Mariano Rivera is totally unreliable at best. Whenever one of the relief core steps up his game the disabled list is just around the corner.
The wheels are spinning but the hamster seems to be dead.
Although their future is bright the strongest things that the Yankees have going for them today, are their yesterdays.
Now the Yankee pitching staff has to endure the horrors of Kei Igawa. This guy has as much control as two rabbits on their first date. On the mound his appearance seems to project the luminance of a black light.
It is quite obvious New York or the major leagues are out of Igawa’s league of mental endurance. During the game, when the pressure is on, Igawa appears to be as smart as a box of hair. Sort of like our great president George W. who on occasions (like everyday) is a few clowns short of a circus under pressure. “Hey Ya’ll, the government is open seven days a week and weekends too.” “It`s tough to make predictions, especially about the future...”
Sorry for the side bar it’s that dementia thing creeping in and politics are on my mind. “ Where’s my watch?”
The Yankees invested forty-six million dollars on Igawa, this body by Nissan brains by Mattel toy. The Yankee scouting team was a few peas short of a casserole when assessing Igawa’s talent. Revoke their passports please.
Packaging Igawa in a deal to acquire a player with a pulse has certainly had to cross management’s minds. I’m sure Cashman and Hankenstien are afraid that Igawa will suddenly find his niche the minute he is dealt to another team. But even in Japan his pitch location was up in the zone. He will do no good here.
Management’s assessment of its young pitching staff was a bit premature. Patience has never been a virtue with this organization no matter what they preach. The rest of this year should be interesting if things continue to deteriorate. If the Yankees are still close to their division leaders by the end of June look for a packaged deal for pitching.
Getting A-Rod and Posada back will at least help this anemic offense. But the offense has not helped them in the playoffs. That is IF they make the playoffs. It’s all about pitching.
With a new stadium in the mix and the economy in the state of flush attendance next year could be an issue. Although corporate America seems to buy it’s share of seating in the Bronx, so maybe not.
The Yankees need some front line pitching and this off-season should produce some major changes. There is a lot of money coming off the books so look for a major free agent or two to be signed.
Well you get the idea. A man is only as old as the woman he feels. (Sorry, I just had a senior moment and that was truly uncalled for).
If I were a tree there would be more than twice as many rings in my trunk than in the Yankee organisation. So why is it that I still have not taught myself the rewards of patience?
I guess it all goes back to when I was young and I started out to try and save the world. Then I saw something shinny. A.D.D. Attention Deffisate Dissorder. Riddlin would have been the drug of choice to address that syndrom but the drug makers hadn’t formulated that yet. So for my generation our Riddlin was Catholic school. I’d prefer Ridlin.
Back to my original thought and that was my attention and attitude towards baseball. Specificially, the Yankees.
On any given game day I will treat that days game as the seventh game of a world series. I know you can’t win every game but yet that is what I expect. Years of therapy haven’t corrected that character flaw. Unlike women who won’t admit their age I refuse to act mine when it comes to watching the Yankees.
Each day I read about the team and all of the current events surrounding them. (By the way, at my age I don’t need glasses. I just drink straight from the bottle). After reading I rationalize, with great logic, the reality of this team’s place in time, talent and standings. I put all of this information into my logical storage vault somewhere in my cranium. I go about my daily business and the world goes round .
I will proceed to have daily conversations with other sports people regarding the Yankees. My comments are very rational and analytical. I never make predictions. I know better. Sometimes I am even respected… Okay, let’s not get carried away.
Then I settle down to watch the game and it’s like I fell out of the #### tree and hit every branch on the way down. I become a cynic like the guy who smells flowers and looks around for a coffin. I think every Yankee is going to hit into a double play given that game situation. A-Rod is a piece of #### and will strike out with runners in scoring position. Mariano is washed up and will blow every save opportunity. Johnny Damon throws like a girl. Well that one makes sense.
In other words my in game logic is rather sad. Sort of like a mosquito sucking on a mummy. I become the inventor of stupidity.
It is this inconsistency in my mental behavior that makes me a true sports fan. It makes me ponder my age, my self worth and my commitments. Whenever I feel all knowing and wise I look forward to watching a Yankee game. This always humbles me back to reality. Home is where you can scratch where it really itches.
Blessed are the cracked people for it is they who let in the light.
by Ron Prezzano Parity in the baseball business is surely paying dividends. Another season comes trotting around third and heading for home with another walk off home run for attendance.
“Holy Cow, White! Did you see those attendance figures? There aren’t enough canolis on the planet for all these fans. Tell Cora I’ll be home early to beat the rush out of here and happy birthday to Roseallie Bonadondo, from the Bronx, who is eighty-three today and a life long Yankee fan.
God bless the Scooter.
You know the sport is healthy if forty-three thousand fans turn out for a Milwaukee Brewers game on a Monday night in September.
Americans are willing to shell out doles of hard earned cash to watch their favorite pastime sport. This, despite allegations and evidence of unfair play by its players and the blind eyes of its organizers. This is America, this is how we do business. So be it. I love baseball and sport imitates life.
Perhaps we should inject our political constituents with some performance enhancing supplements. Maybe they can rise to the occasion and bring the troops home and return billions of our tax dollars to hard working Americans. Instead of lining the pockets of already financially bloated big business and scheming mercenaries. Revenue sharing in American big business and government is beaurocratically impossible, but it works in baseball. Food for thought.
Can anyone predict a front-runner in this post season? It will once again come down to good starting pitching and a reliable bullpen, plus solid defense. What else is new.
The Yankees have played the best baseball since June 1st. but their pitching has been erratic and the bullpen has been dreadful. Joba Chamberlain has added late inning strength to the pen in the last month and is a true link to Mariano Rivera. Mariano has shown cracks but knows how to close a game. If the Yankee starters cannot get through seven innings then they will be out early. Good pitching will once again shut down this Yankee offense. If the Yankees get through long enough to face the Red Sox, I pick the Yankees. The Red Sox are one of the teams with good staring pitching that the Yankees can handle.
If the Mets make it to the World Series I would suggest that the Washington Nationals kidnap the Mets team bus and uniforms and go about their business.
With the exception of the Chicago Cubs all of the playoff teams will be around the ninety to ninety-five win mark. Can you imagine Lou Pinella pulling this one off? Free Chicago deep dish pizza for life for Lou and family and Steve Bartman can move back home.
This has been an interesting year for baseball. Something is working. Holy Cow!
Well, as most logical baseball fans have sensed for months the New York Yankees reign on the American League East title is over. There are thirty one games remaining and New York trails the well balanced division leading Boston Red Sox by seven and one half games. This is not the nineteen seventy-eight New York Yankees.
Although New York leads MLB in many offensive categories their pitching is in the middle of the pack.
Andy Pettitte has been all the Yankees have asked of him with all but three or four bad starts. With a decent bullpen, early on, he would more than likely be among the league leader in wins. After Pettitte and more often than not, Chien-Meng Wang, it is a real #### shoot.
Roger Clemens, playing half a season, has given them innings but at forty-five years of age is not the Clemens of previous years. Still it is amazing how well he pitches at times.
Mike Mussina has been more awful than respectable. He will throw a gem every eighth or so start. His velocity is down, again, and he needs to be almost perfect with his location to be effective. Not an easy task given the diverse strike zone of many umpires. Add to that equation how Mike shows his arrogance and displeasure when an umpire squeezes his strike zone. Not mister public relations along those lines. Umpires are turning into stage performers, but I digress, that is for a future article.
Phil Hughes is poised for a twenty-one year old but is still a rookie with little experience and will make rookie mistakes. This year, with injuries, has been hard but helpful for this future front line starter.
The procession of raw rookie starters that paraded through the Yankee rotation early was not impressive, at all, at this level. With more minor league development they will thrive given their talent. The Yankee farm system has never been stacked with this quality of young gifted arms. This seems to be the trend for many quality franchises to develop their own young talented arms.
The bullpen has been erratic to dreadful, at best, for most of the season.
Luis Vizcaino, Scott Proctor, Brian Bruney and Kyle Farnsworth were basically the same type of pitchers and were having the same kind of problems. Location, location, location. They walked everybody and gave up a ton of extra base hits. So did the likes of Ron Villone, and Mike Myers.
Mariano Rivera, due to lack of work early, has shown signs of age and inactivity. His velocity is down a notch. He really is only a one inning pitcher but unlike Farsworth can pitch on multiple days and still be effective. He still is among the elite in MLB as a closer.
The bench was weak and shallow.
Given that assessment the Yankees have improved both the bullpen and bench dramatically in the past five weeks. With the addition of Joba Chamberlain and Edwar Ramirez, the resurgence of Vizcaino, the bullpen has a more balanced and diverse feel for Torre.
The bench has been shored up with power defense and diversity. The acquisitions of Jose Molina, and Wilson Betemit proved to be wise. The promotion of Andy Phillips and Shelley Duncan ads some power and energy to the mix.
Back to basics. The Yankees are awful in one run and extra inning games. They do not play consistently well against the better teams in the league. They play bad on the road. On the plus side, they play well at home (excluding Baltimore) and have beaten up on the lesser teams in the AL.
Losing to a Sheffied-less Detroit on Friday night/ Saturday morning and again on Sunday was telling and painful. Derek Jeter was hurt and was hitting into many double plays lately. If he were healthy perhaps they win those two games. Perhaps.
Seattle has ten of it's next thirteen games against playoff contending teams. Will they crack? I thought they would a month ago. I was wrong, again. They are a legitimate club, with good hitting, pitching and a good bullpen.
The Yankees need to approach and play each game as a potential seventh game playoff. I am not crazy, this is what they need to do thanks to the enormous hole they dug themselves early on.
With Mussina going tonight there is a chance that the Yankees will be eight games behind the Red Sox when they meet at home on Tuesday. A sweep of Boston, while not impossible, is mandatory.
The Yankees are chasing two teams, well, really only one. The Red Sox are not going to fold with that pitching staff and their momentum.
More than likely the Yankees need to play .650 ball to advance into the playoffs as the wild card. Even that is not a given with Seattle playing superb baseball.
The Yankees play Boston six times Seattle three times and Baltimore (ouch) six times in the remaining thirty-one games. With tonights game against the Tigers that is more than half their remaining games against teams who will play them tough. Not an impossible task but not one favoring the Yankees given their season's history.
Watching the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim consistently feast off the New York Yankees is a work of art. How this team has not won more championships is more about timing than anything else. They have been a solid, if not an elite, team in MLB for more years than W. has been president.
Their pitching has always had quality starters and the bullpen, not so much this year, has been among the best in baseball. K-Rod is a quality closer despite his quirky mechanics. He has managed to stay healthy and consistent ever since his promotion several years ago.
Power has not been a mainstay for this Mike Scioscia managed team but don't let that fool you. They play situational baseball as well as any team in baseball and they score runs.
Base stealing, which they lead all teams in MLB, bunting, taking the extra base and challenging the defense is a characteristic part of their game. They are well managed and coached. There is only one player who swings wildly 100% of the time and that is Vladimir Guerrero. All he does is hit thirty plus home runs and drive in 120 RBI's on a yearly basis. By the way, his career batting average is .324. So swing away Vlad. Imagine A-Rod in this lineup.
Okay, that said, The Yankees continue to put up good offensive numbers 90% of the time but their pitching, still is their Achilles heal. Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens give them good quality starts and innings. So does Chien-Ming Wang, although he has slumped in his last four starts.
Mike Mussina is a huge question mark and not that reliable. He certainly will not get them innings and the bull pen has to be rested for his starts. Mike's performance can be a product of the home plate umpire. If the ump is liberal with his strike zone Mussina can have a good game. If not, it will be a short game for Mike and a long one for the Yankees and their bullpen.
Phil Hughes is going to be a solid pitcher and his mound presence is very stoic for a lad of twenty one. It would have been interesting to see how this staff would have performed if Hughes were not injured early on.
The bullpen looks different now than it did three weeks ago. The addition of Joba Chamberlain and Edwar Ramirez have given Joe Torre a diversity that was not there earlier this season. Joba throws strikes and has good velocity and a quality sinker. Ramirez has a career changing change up. Prior to these two young arms in the pen Joe was stuck with power pitching relievers with poor location, as the bullpen led the Majors in walks.
Luis Vizcaino, after a rough couple of months, has been much improved. Although the ability for Torre to overuse and abuse him still exists.
Then there is Mariano Rivera. Nothing needs to be mentioned here.
The rest of the bullpen is just awful. Kyle Farnsworth is a head case, Sean Henn is inexperienced and unpredictable and Ron Villone is the left hander no one else wants. Nothing to hang your hat on here.
The Yankees, with their injuries and inexperienced young rookie pitching replacements, early on, dug themselves a huge hole to climb out of. Add to that absolutely no offence, other than A-Rod and Posada, for the first two months and you have a formula for the possibility of no post season for New York. It is a realistic scenario.
This two week stretch where the Yankees play Anaheim, Detroit, Boston and Seattle is the make or break part of the season. So far the only thing predictable is their inconsistency. That won't make it. The Yankees need to win more than they lose. .500 baseball will not cut it for a chance at the playoffs.
Boston and Seattle continue to win. These are the teams who the Yankees are chasing. Seattle has surprised everyone. Their season is about to get harder though, as they come east to play the quality teams from both the East and Central divisions. Boston has too much pitching for them to fold. Unless they let Eric Gagne close all of their games.
It should be interesting. My guess? The Yankees make it into the playoffs as the wild card. I like this scenario as it puts less pressure on A-Rod and the Yankees to be the team to beat.
Every year Mariano Rivera goes through a stretch for a couple of weeks that proves to the baseball community that he is not always automatic in save situations. Also that he is indeed human. In years past that time seemed to surface in late July and early August. Last year, because of his voluntary winter hiatus, that humanizing time was displayed in the very beginning of the season. Attribute that to building up arm strength after several months of not throwing.
What happened to Mariano last night and was evident two weeks ago against Toronto is a natural progression of events for Mariano. His velocity is just slightly off and his pitches were low in the strike zone. Just where power hitters love to drop the head of their bat and make solid contact with that pitch. Although the pitch that Vernon Wells hit off Mariano was belt high, the velocity was not vintage Mariano allowing Wells to get around and make solid contact.
He still will get out most hitters with his stuff but because of his location and velocity he is susceptible to some solid hits by the power and contact hitters. Once Mariano keeps that cutter up, belt high or higher and gets another mile or two per hour on his velocity, he will be that automatic closer we have been spoiled with for ten plus years. It will happen. It always does. He is human and it is August. Right on target.
Looking at the Yankees in the last five or six days and we see a team that is out of sync. Well it is about time. For the last month the Yankees have been fighting a valiant battle against the forces of nature, including Mother Nature. Injuries and illness have been mounting on the Yankees as fast as Joe Torre changes his relief pitchers. Until Wednesday, of this past week, the Yankees were winning that battle. Winning with a mixture of recruits from their minor league ranks and the walking wounded from their commissioned veterans. Button pushing was not an option.
Two wins to start a four game series at home against the rival Red Sox, this past week, and the Yankees and their fans were feeling pretty good about themselves. Things were falling the Yankees way even though their captain, Derek Jeter, was on the shelf with a bruised thumb on his throwing hand. Jason Giambi and Alex Rodriguez were recovering from a stomach virus. Robinson Cano, Melky Caberra and Andy Phillips were stepping up to the plate and delivering and playing some stellar defense. Miguel Cairo was filling in at short and third, also putting in some quality at bats and playing solid defense. Then Mother Nature stepped in and we all know you don’t fool Mother Nature.
Wednesday the rains came and cancelled a game and momentum. With that it also washed away the Yankee fans confidence that this new Yankee team look was the wave of the future. One that could capture the magic of that 1996 season. Four losses will command soul searching for any good team. This is still a good team and character has to be nurtured.
The present Yankee squad is a very good mix of some seasoned championship veterans, All-Stars, and rookies who are hungry. With a coaching staff that is second to none in experience, why be concerned? Well, for one, they have huge problems with all but one aspect of their pitching staff. Mariano Rivera. Unfortunately Mariano cannot start, or relieve himself (other than bathroom breaks) for three innings and close the game. Otherwise the Yankees could weather out this passing storm without pushing any panic buttons.
With the cross town Mets starting to look like a World Series caliber team I sense fingers of Yankee fans searching for the delete, panic and quick fix buttons. You know the ones. They are as big as Stienbrenner’s payroll. I’m hoping that Yankee brass, Cahsman,The Boss, whoever, are restraining from reading the media and fan reaction then doing something stupid. Yankee pitching is the problem and that should be the focus for improvement by management. Forget about adding corner outfielders who are thumpers at the expense of young talent. The veterans will produce and the rookies will follow. We’ve experienced that so why rock the boat. It will happen again.
It has been suggested that Randy Johnson go into the bull pen and pitch long or short relief. Hard to do at his age and at this point of his career. Intriguing thought though, but that won’t happen. With Octavio Dotel in the shadows his performance alone could have a ironing effect on the whole bull pen. That is of course if he comes back and pitches like his talent allows him. Big if.
The Yankees are hovering around first place and no American League East team seems capable of running away from the pact. There are still six weeks left to the trading deadline. By then, the teams who are willing to dump players and salaries will be well known. At that time the Yankees will have a very good idea of how well this current group of players will mesh. I subscribe to the patience theory here. After all, come late August and September the Yankees could have a very formidable bench with the return of Matsui and or Sheffield, although I think it is a stretch to include Sheffield here.
Jeter, A-Rod, Giambi and Damon will all come around and the rest will follow. Pitching, pitching, pitching that is the problem and has been the problem for four or five years. So let management focus and address those issues and back off the panic button when it comes to offense. Don’t be pressured into media and fan reaction for once. This is still a quality team with the foundation to be a contender for many years.
