Yankee Talk: Rays Have Staying Power

Tampa shows Yanks they will not go away

ST. PETERSBURG – For three days in July that blended its way into August, we saw the two best teams in the league do battle.

In this battle of heavyweights, it was the Rays that would hold serve at home, winning two of three from the Yankees in response to what the Yankees did two weeks earlier.

There was nothing to settle over this weekend. The season still has eight more weeks to go and these two teams still have to player each other eight more times, even though by the looks of it, these teams appear poised to meet more than seven times by the time this 2010 concludes.

What we saw from this young, feisty bunch from Tampa Bay is that they have no fear of the defending world champions. The Rays, American League champions two seasons ago when they were able to outlast the Red Sox in both the regular season and in a seven-game ALCS, are battle-tested and were able to stand up to the Yankees and put them on notice that they will go away anytime soon.

They have the starting pitching, ability to get timely hits and have the relievers in late innings to get key outs and hold their leads. On the surface, the Rays do not have a definable weakness.

Friday and Sunday saw Wade Davis and James Shields handcuff the Yankee lineup. Davis, after giving up a two runs after five pitches Friday, settled in to shut down the vaunted lineup through seven innings. Sunday saw Shields pitch the best game of his season. Coming in at a mediocre 9-9 with an ERA hovering close to five, he completely dominated, throwing 7 1/3 shutout innings, striking out 11.

That the Rays were able to do this without potential CY Young candidate David Price and a subpar outing by Matt Garza illustrates the depth and quality of their rotation. Seeing that makes you know right away envision them and the Yankees meeting in October with a World Series berth at stake.

Price, Garza, Shields, Davis and Randy Niemann are as good a rotation as anyone in baseball and can stand toe-to-toe with the Yankees. This is why they have the second best record in the league and for as great a year as the Yankees have had, only one game separates the two.

You would have thought the Yankees were on their way to putting their foot on the Rays early on Friday night after Nick Swisher hit that two run homer in the first inning. With the way Phil Hughes was pitching through the first five innings, they were comfortably in control.

Suddenly, with two men on, two out and a 2-2 count to Matt Joyce, Hughes misplaced a fastball that went out for a three-run blast to give the Rays the lead.

The combination of Davis, Joaquin Benoit and Rafael Soriano teamed
up to hold the Yankees hitless the final three innings to win the opener.

Saturday night, the Rays jumped out early with runners on second and third with no one out in the first inning, but Javier Vazquez limited the potential damage to only one run.

By the end of five innings, Tampa Bay held a 3-1 lead and Garza had his good stuff even if he was not throwing a no-hitter as he did last Monday against Detroit.

However, the Yankees finally got to him the sixth. After Derek Jeter doubled, Mark Teixeira connected on a fastball and hammered it deep to right to tie the game.

After Joyce hit his second homerun in as many nights to retake the lead in the bottom half, Swisher would answer with a blast of his own in the seventh to re-tie the game.

In his two previous at-bats, Garza would pound the zone with fastballs only to finish him off with a breaking ball. This time, Swisher knew it was coming, sat on it, and got a hanging curve that he drove over the wall.

Boone Logan and David Robertson kept the score tied until the ninth. Benoit did the same on Tampa Bay’s side and now closer Rafael Soriano was in the game looking to give his team a chance to win in the bottom of the ninth.

He did not get that far.

After Soriano got Alex Rodriguez to pop out on the infield for the first out, Robinson Cano connected on a fastball down and in, crushing deep into the right field seats to give the Yankees a lead that Mariano Rivera would hold down in the bottom half for the save.

For the Yankees, it allowed them to breathe easily. The win assured them that they would leave St. Petersburg still in first place as both teams played one of the most intense games anyone will watch this season.

While Joe Girardi will not say it, he knew that winning Saturday allowed him to tinker with his lineup on Sunday. Resting was Rodriguez and Brett Gardner to go along with Teixeira as the designated hitter and Ramiro Pena playing third base.

The “A” lineup was not there which led to Shields pitching his best game of the season. Newly acquired Lance Berkman made two defensive miscues that eventually led to the three runs the Rays scored off CC Sabathia.

It is very likely that even the best lineup was not going to beat the Tampa Bay right hander the way he was throwing Sunday, but the Yankees did not take the loss as if it was going to have any bearing in the future. They see the long term in this season and with both teams firmly in playoff position, would rather tend to the health of their players than anything else.

No much separates these teams in August. Nothing much will separate the two the final eight weeks.


The two best teams in baseball appear headed for a classic matchup in October.

Time for Yankee Random Thoughts

Clearly seeing that the moves made in the off-season were not of quality or simply just did not work, the Yankees felt the need for a slight makeover without doing anything drastic.

In acquiring Lance Berkman, it was an admission the signing Nick Johnson and having him replace Hideki Matsui was an abject failure.
Johnson only hit .167, amassing double the amount of walks (24) than hits (12) in 24 games before suffering a hand injury that has put him out ever since.

Johnson was looked upon to make up for Johnny Damon’s slot in the number two hole, but despite working counts, never truly fit. His chronic health problems were always a concern and they resurrected immediately upon his return to the Yankees.

Now that they have replaced him with Berkman, the question has to be asked of why the Yankees got rid of either Damon or Matsui despite their advanced age and injury history for a man whose body breaks down faster than Carl Pavano’s did when he was here.


Berkman has always been a gamer on the field. However, his numbers have been in precipitous decline the last four seasons to the point where his current salary could not be justified. This is why the Yankees demanded the Astros pay a sizeable portion of his contract before even taking him.

It will take time for him to adjust. Since 2005, he has not played in any meaningful games for the Astros, and the change to a new league, new team, and playing in games of this magnitude, with this scrutiny and at this level take time to adjust.

All the Yankees are in search of is a quality at bat either in the number two slot (which he was in on both Saturday and Sunday) or even down in the lineup. Perhaps his new surroundings will invigorate him and he can perhaps find past glory.


Bringing in utility man Austin Kearns was a clear signal that the organization finally concluded that Curtis Granderson’s history of being poor against left-handed pitching was real and even they could not correct it.

When acquired, the Yankees talked in glowing terms that several mechanical flaws in his swing would help at least be competent when facing a left-hander at the plate.

Instead, with an average of .219 against them this year (.188 last year), those numbers were not trending upward in a way the Yankees could continue to justify keeping him in there.

Kearns brings a professional bat from the right side that hits lefty pitching and can start on those days, allowing Brett Gardner to shift to center.

Looking to October, Granderson would have been a near automatic out against potential lefty starters such as Cliff Lee, David Price, Jon Lester, Francisco Liriano and John Danks.


Putting a more competent bat in there strengthens the lineup and allows for Marcus Thames, a sold hitter against lefties, to not play in the outfield and rather, have him as a pinch hitter.

Kerry Wood as an addition to the bullpen is simply a “buy low” proposition. He still have tremendous stuff, but is often injured and just recently returned from a blister problem that landed him on the disabled list for several weeks.

Before that, the numbers were not good. Peripherally, he still strikes out a batter an inning, but has a few too many walks despite reasonable hit-to-innings pitched numbers.

The best thing one could say was that his addition was good only
because it meant the last of Chan Ho Park, who the Yankees released the next day.

I was on the Park bandwagon back in spring training and thought it was a bargain to get a guy who performed the way he did out of the bullpen for Philadelphia. Somehow, upon arrival to the Yankees, he lost 5 MPH on his fastball and lost all sense of how to pitch.

At least he gave us a great YouTube moment about how his poor pitching came from a case of diarrhea. It would not have surprised us if he had that the entire season.

All Wood has to do is stabilize the pen just a little bit. If he gets hot and can pitch 25 good innings the rest of the season, the Yankees will take that. With him, Chamberlain and Robertson to go along with the recent hot streak of Boone Logan, hope to finally build a solid bridge to Mariano Rivera.

Sunday he threw a knee-buckling 3-2 curveball to Evan Longoria for a strikeout. That type of power arm can help the team as he struck out three.


However, he did have two walks and left the game with the bases loaded.

Not good.

Not getting Cliff Lee made these moves appear like second prizes. The equivalent of this would be like asking for Playstation 3 and ending up with a Sega Genesis.

I was not a fan of the A-Rod “Chase for 600”, and now that the chase is ten games old, I think we have had enough of all of this.

Listen, Rodriguez is going to hit another homerun at some point before the end of the season.

However, this has become tedious.