Yankee Talk: Subway Series Edition – Hughes decision

While pitching great, Yanks need to manage innings for Phil

BRONX – It would be so easy to say, “Let him go”.

That would be the tempting thing to do when you consider the performance of Phil Hughes this season.

You see the presence that he has on the mound and you marvel, as if he were a ten-year veteran.

Hitters swing and miss at his fastball, hit weak groundballs when they swing at his cutter, find themselves fooled when he occasionally breaks out his changeup and stand at the plate frozen when he unleashes his 12-to-6 curveball.

There are no histrionics or overwhelming signs of emotion. Hughes is just a pitcher going out start after start doing his job with a businesslike approach.

With an American League leading 10 wins against only one defeat, Hughes has exceeded the expectations of everyone and the projections that anyone could have had for him before the year began.

Being among the best when you consider the DH and pitching in the AL East put him on a different level than several of the National League pitchers pitching to astounding low earned run averages.

He is an elite starter who just happens to be pitching in the backend of the rotation. He is halfway to 20 wins and with a little luck, he will have a great chance to win the CY Young award.

All of this presents a serious problem.

The old “innings” cap.

Yes, the innings limit. The same innings limit the Yankees had on Joba Chamberlain last year (famously known as “The Joba Rules” now shifts to Hughes and it will be up to the organization to figure out a way to best deploy this strategy.

Unlike last year when Chamberlain was inconsistent for a majority of the year, Hughes has arguably been, if not in the top-5, then one of the 10 best pitchers in baseball. With the strong starts he has consistently had, no team would want to remove him from the rotation if they did not have to.

The Yankees though have a small luxury now, because outside of the current struggles of AJ Burnett, they have a rotation of guys performing tremendously. Very few teams can say they have four quality starters all pitching well at the same time. This is what they have now since Javier Vazquez began to pitch well from the beginning of May.

While the Yankees have yet to release the exact number of innings Hughes will pitch this season, the overwhelming belief is that he will pitch no more than 180. At 82 innings after 13 starts (an average of over 6 1/3 innings per start), he is nearing the halfway point.

With minimal off days in the second half of the season, the times to work around these parameters will become more difficult.

Just by coincidence, the Yankees have an off day coming in between their road trip Thursday before they go to Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Friday and another off day Monday when they fly back to New York. The other two times they may have is the weekend before the All Star Game and holding him back until the fifth game after the break.

It is incumbent on the Yankees to make sure they preserve him in order to pitch at least 20 innings in October to secure a 28th world title. If you had to align your postseason rotation, you would start with CC Sabathia, and the next two pitchers you can flip-flop between Hughes and Andy Pettitte.

This is nothing against AJ Burnett, who pitched well in the postseason last year or Vazquez, who has also found himself. However, would you trust either one of them in playoff game either home or away in October?

Putting both of them in the playoff rotation and sending Hughes to the bullpen would be a catastrophic mistake.

It has been a long road back for Hughes. He won the fifth starter role out of spring training and the team just looked for him to stabilize the spot and not have a blowup reminiscent of 2008 when he did not win a game, encountered immense control problems, and eventually found himself out of the rotation.

While dominating the second half of last year pitching the eighth inning in the championship season, he learned to pitch with a lead and learned how to be aggressive and trust his stuff. A mentality touted of him coming up in the minors that he had lost, but now regained it.

Now that he has it, and is showing the rest of the league, it is now up to the Yankees to reel it in somewhat for not only Hughes’ long-term future, but for their own sake. Finding pitchers to give you elite performance and minimal cost is very rare and of incredible value to a team.

The Yankees know this.

Hughes will always be ready to take the ball. He is a bulldog and that is his mentality.

However, the Yankees need to look at the future, not just for today.

Yankee Talk: Subway Series Edition – Phil-er up

Hughes gets 10th win, Yanks snap skid

BRONX – Do not ask Phil Hughes about possibly making the American League All Star team.

It is not a topic he will discuss for any great length, except to say that it would be an honor if selected by his manager, who happens to be Joe Girardi.

The site of the midsummer classic, Angel Stadium in Anaheim was ten miles from where he grew up in Santa Ana. If he continues to pitch the way he has this season, he will definitely find his way there in July.

Hughes bested Mike Pelfrey to notch his tenth win of the year to tie the American League lead with the Rays David Price against one loss to help the Yankees snap a three game losing skid in front of 49,073 at Yankee Stadium in a 5-3 victory over the Mets.

It was a game where he did not have his best stuff early, but despite a slow start, he found his groove, proceeding to shut down the Mets offense.

Jose Reyes drove Hughes’ second pitch of the game into the right field seats for a leadoff homerun that stunned the Stadium crowd while Mets fans made their presence known.

Coming into the game at 9-1 and 2.39 ERA, Mike Pelfrey looked to improve on those numbers. The Yankees lineup finally showed signs of life in the bottom of the half as Brett Gardner (starting in the leadoff spot, as Derek Jeter was a late scratch) singled to begin the bottom half and moved to third on a hit-and-run single by Nick Swisher. Gardner scored when Mark Teixeira grounded into a double play to tie the score.

On the day, Gardner went 2-for-4 with two runs scored.

After a walk to Henry Blanco with one out in the third, Reyes would blast his second homerun of the day over the wall in right to give the Mets a 3-1 lead.

Jorge Posada set the pitch to go inside, but Hughes would miss the target by a foot, moving toward the middle of the plate, enabling Reyes to extend his arms.

The Yankee quickly responded when Teixeira homered to right-center to tie the game on hanging splitter that he was able to lift. In the fourth, Curtis Granderson would give them the lead when he took another hanging pitch from Pelfrey, this time a curveball and hit it into the lower deck in right to give the Yankees a 5-3 lead.

Armed with the lead, Hughes would go to work. After allowing the homerun in the third, he allowed only one hit until the sixth inning when the Mets put up their best threat of the afternoon.

Angel Pagan started the sixth with a single. After David Wright popped out to second, Ike Davis walked. With Jason Bay representing the tying run, Hughes got him on a first pitch cutter to ground into an around the horn double play to end the inning.

An eighth pitch seventh closed the game in style for the Yankee right hander, who gave up three runs on five hits, walking three and striking out four over 99 pitches.

Pelfrey battled through the homeruns to go seven innings, allowing five runs, seven hits, walking three and striking out to over 106 pitches, seeing his ERA increase to 2.69. Outside of the two homeruns, he held the Yankees offense down as noticed by the 1-for-8 they hit with runners in scoring position (now 2-for-17 in the series).

With the two run lead, Manager Joe Girardi chose not to go back with Hughes for the eighth inning and instead went to Joba Chamberlain, who pitched around a two-out double by Pagan to strikeout Wright half-swinging on a slider, stranding him as the tying run at the plate.

Mariano Rivera pitched a scoreless ninth, running his hitless streak to 18 consecutive batters as the Yankees could finally exhale. It has been their winning formula all season. It begins with a strong outing from the starters, followed by Chamberlain and Rivera in the late innings to close the game.

Hard to believe this was the same team that beat Roy Halladay and Pelfrey lost games to Jamie Moyer, Kyle Kendrick and Hisanori Takahashi.

Go figure.

Sunday is the finally of the Subway Series as aces Johan Santana and CC Sabathia match up.

Yankee Talk: Subway Series Edition: Offensively Offensive

Yanks bats have gone dead

BRONX – Baseball is a funny game sometimes.

You can go from hammering arguably the best starting pitcher in the league in Roy Halladay, as the Yankees did on Tuesday night, to resembling a group of minor leaguers the next.

How they ever allowed Jamie Moyer, who singlehandedly drove up the stock in AARP with his eight-inning, two-run masterpiece on Wednesday is beyond anyone’s explanation.

This was then followed up a seven inning, one-run performance the next night by Kyle Kendrick, who despite pitching well as of late, has been up-and-down all year and made Yankee hitters look foolish.

However, nothing was worse than the ineptitude displayed by the offense last night as for the second time. They saw Hisanori Takahashi fool them with a repertoire of pitchers that would not remind anyone of Sandy Koufax, though effective enough once again for six scoreless innings as the Mets won the first game of Subway Series Part 2 at Yankee Stadium 4-0.

After Takahashi stymied them last month at Citi Field in his major league debut that also saw them hold the Yankees scoreless for six innings, to a man they felt the reason for their ineffectiveness was that they had never seen him before.

This has been a normal line of thought when an unknown starts against them and pitches well (of course, this is never said when they clobber an unknown), so coming into Friday night, the Yankees offense felt the story would be difference the second time around.

Instead, hitters came up to the plate looking to feast on the soft-tossing lefty and some found themselves swinging too early and some too late, amounting to weak hacks and numerous groundballs and fly balls that had very little lift to them.

There were not many good swings on the night and very few over the last three games. Of course, this could simply be a small sample size for the league’s best offense statistically. Yet, one would have to be a fool to see that this team in no way resembles the group from last season that was able to consistently score despite the occasional rough patch.

Injuries to Nick Johnson, Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada have forced Joe Girardi to adjust his order. Add in the lack of production of the aforementioned Rodriguez along with Mark Teixeira, Curtis Granderson and the back-to-earth market correction by Francisco Cervelli, and it is no wonder why the team cannot always put runs up on the board.

The shuffling has given more at bats to Ramiro Pena, a less than part-time player. Marcus Thames’s injury, a recently released Randy Winn, and Granderson’s inability to consistently hit lefties has given the likes of Kevin Russo and last night’s left fielder Chad Huffman at-bats when they truly should not be out there.

Now, a pity party will not take place for the team with the best record in the sport, but it goes to show that how different the team is without its full complement of players and how dominant the starting pitching has been this year, as they have been the catalyst to this point.

You can get away with subpar offense as long as you have the pitching the Yankees have. In October, this same dominant pitching will win in the postseason as long as they can scratch out a few runs. Right now, scoring runs has been hit or miss, at least when the opponents do not include the Indians or Orioles, the dreads of baseball.

Teixeira is not hitting much and Rodriguez is not hitting for power. Not having the two best hitters in the middle of the lineup not providing the kind of impact that their hefty paycheck reflects provide a ripple effect to the entire lineup.

While Robinson Cano is having a career year, it is hard for him to produce when there are not men on base. The two-hole in the lineup has been a problem all year, starting from when Johnson’s batting average hovered below .200. Brett Gardner felt too much pressure in that spot and immediately saw his average dip. Granderson and Nick Swisher have alternated turns in that spot, but neither has consistently stuck to provide the same cohesion that Johnny Damon did.

So as the Yankees continued to make outs against Takahashi, it became frustrating. There was almost a look of disgust and disbelief around the team feeling that should get good swings off him, but instead were making very non-threatening outs.

It was not until the sixth inning when they finally had their first real threat. They loaded the bases after two singles and a walk. With two outs, Posada ground out on a barehanded play by David Wright on the infield grass to end the inning.

In the seventh, with the score still only 1-0, they got the tying run on second base after a double by Francisco Cervelli. Pedro Feliciano, a tough lefty specialist, entered the game and got a strikeout of Granderson and successive groundouts by Gardner and Derek Jeter shut down another potential rally.

The final chance came in the ninth when the lead now 4-0 and with the help of the Mets, who brought in reliever Raul Valdes to get the final three outs instead of the previously warmed up Francisco Rodriguez, gave the Yankees hope.

Two singles and a walk with one out loaded the bases and brought the tying run to the plate. However, Jeter would strikeout swinging and Swisher would pop out to end the game.

In three games, the offense produced three on Wednesday, one on Thursday, and now zero Friday.

There is nowhere else to go from here but up.

Yankee Talk: Subway Series Edition - Tak rolls on

Takahashi shuts down Yanks again, Mets win eighth straight

BRONX – The last time the Yankees faced Hisanori Takahashi last month at Citi Field, they saw the left-hander throw six shutout innings at them.

To a man they said if they saw him a second time, the story would be different.

One month later, Takahashi was back on the mound, this time at Yankee Stadium.

Showing that it was not a fluke, he threw six more shutout innings, flummoxing the Yankees suddenly impotent offense as the Mets won their season-tying eighth straight, pitching their way to a 4-0 shutout in front of 49,220 at Yankee Stadium.

It was a tough loss to take for Javier Vazquez, who pitched great in his own regard. However, he was a victim of poor run support from an offense that has scored four runs over the last three games, making three soft-tossing pitches render the bats inept.

After getting the first two outs to begin the game, the Mets scored all the runs they would need. David Wright doubled to left and a soft single by Ike Davis scored Wright, who got his right hand just underneath the tag from Francisco Cervelli to take the early lead.

Vazquez would settle in to shut the Mets down after that, surrendering only hit over the next six innings, walking three and striking out four to continue his resurgence.

Since having ten days off after his May 1 meltdown against the White Sox, he has pitched a 2.68 ERA over seven starts. In those seven starts, he has thrown at least seven innings five times.

While Vazquez was great, Takahashi was even better. No Yankee hitter reached second base until the sixth inning when the offense finally mounted a threat for the first time in the game.

Back-to-back one out singles by Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira brought Alex Rodriguez to the plate, who then grounded to first to move the runners over. Robinson Cano would then draw a walk to load the bases, but Takahashi got Jorge Posada to groundout to Wright, who made a great barehanded play to nail him at first base to end the inning.

Takahashi (6-2) throw 103 pitchers on the night, yielding only four hits, while walking two and striking out three as he continues to be a revelation for the Mets.

Cervelli doubled to left to begin the bottom of the seventh off reliever Elmer Dessens and represented the tying run. This brought up Curtis Granderson, who pinch hit for Chad Huffman. Mets Manager Jerry Manuel countered by going to his best reliever, Pedro Feliciano, who would strike him out swinging for the first out. Brett Gardner and Derek Jeter would follow with successive groundouts to first to preserve the 1-0 margin.

Chan Ho Park would come into the game to start the eighth walking Ruben Tejada, who would go to third when Jose Reyes doubled to right. Angel Pagan would then take a 1-0pitch and lift it over the head of Rodriguez inside the left field line for a two-run double to extend the Mets lead to three.

The Mets would add what seemed to be a lowly insurance run in the ninth when Reyes’ RBI single drove in Jeff Francoeur, who had doubled off Boone Logan to begin the inning to make the score 4-0.
Closing out games in Yankee Stadium is always tough no matter whom the opponent is and thus the Yankees would make it interesting in the bottom of the ninth.

With Raul Valdes in the game to protect a four-run lead instead of Francisco Rodriguez (who sat after Reyes drove in the run in the top half of the ninth), he surrendered successive one out singles to Cervelli and Granderson.

Now a save situation, Manuel called on Rodriguez to get the final two outs. Gardner worked a lengthy, 12-pitch at-bat for a walk to load the bases and bring Jeter up as the tying run. However, Jeter would strike out swinging and Swisher would pop out to

Wright in foul territory just over third base to seal the victory.
The Yankees finished a dreadful 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position and left 11 men on base in losing their third straight.

For the Mets (39-28) they moved to within a half game of first place, and can win this year’s edition of the Subway Series with a win in one of the next two games.

Phil Hughes and Mike Pelfrey meet Saturday in a rematch of their meeting last month where Pelfrey got the better of the young Yankee right-hander.

Yankee Talk: Off The Mark

Struggles for Teixeira continue

BALTIMORE - Do not tell Mark Teixeira he is in slump.

Ok, I’ll say it.

The man is in a slump!

Teixeira, a man who keeps an even keel at all times during good and bad moments at the plate sees better times ahead, but right now the numbers and performance at the plate are inescapable.

Struggling for 10, 20, even 30 games and you look that as a slump. While Teixeira has had several games where he has gotten hits and driven in runs in bunches, the totality of his season has been awful.

For a man who led the American League in homeruns and runs batted in last season in his first year as a Yankee, this is not about his inability to perform in New York.

Rather, the question becomes simply this:

“What is wrong with Mark Teixeira?”

57 games into the campaign and the Yankee first baseman finds himself hitting a pedestrian .211.

This would be understandable if he was the sole source of power on the team and they were overly dependent on him to come through.

Lucky for him, the Yankees are so talented that they have the second best record in the league (only good for second in their own division – two games behind Tampa Bay going into play Tuesday) and this issue has been nothing more than quiet fodder.

For a player known for being incredibly streaky, Teixeira does not think there should be cause for concern, as many fans patience with him has become thin.

“I’ve been through plenty of ups and downs in my career and the back of my baseball card says it all,” said Teixeira. “I’m amazed sometimes when I look at it, because it’s not an easy game.”

However, if the offense was struggling mightily and the Yankees further in the standings, this would be a serious problem.

Saturday was the low point of his season in a 3-2 loss to the Blue Jays when he went 0-for-6 with five strikeouts, mostly on changeups down and away out of the zone. The next day in a Yankee comeback win saw him at least touch the ball despite a 0-for-4 day with two flyouts and two groundouts.

The numbers showed that Teixeira had a good May and even he deluded himself to the beat writers recently by saying that he was not that bad (he does have 35 RBI). In 29 games, he did drive in 25 runs and hit six homeruns, batting .280.

Further investigation though showed a different story. At the start of the month of May after hitting only .136 in April, he was on fire, driving in 20 runs and hitting five homeruns (including three in one game) while hitting .339 in the first fifteen games.

However, since May 17, he has gone back into his early season funk, hitting only .188 with one homerun and five RBI, striking out 16 times in 20 games, appearing lost at the plate by over-swinging and excessive guessing.

There has been the notion the Yankees should move him out of the three spot in the lineup and flip-flop him with Robinson Cano, the team’s offensive MVP so far.

Why?

Such a move would cause a domino effect scenario that the team does not need to bring to themselves.

One, it would create a (drive by) media controversy with daily updates and turning this portion of the season into an episode of “Days of our Lives”.

Second, this would be to concede that there really is problem at hand rather than allowing to sink-or-swim on his own.

Third, by swapping him for Cano, you leave Alex Rodriguez with no protection in the lineup.

Why would you do that? Teams have been far more aggressive with Rodriguez at the plate knowing that Cano lurks behind him. To be struggling hitter behind him, you give Rodriguez less good pitches to hit and put even more pressure on Teixeira to come through, as teams will intentionally force him to get the job done.

Based on his performance to this point, why the hell would the Yankees even consider that?

Just all Teixeira to play this out for the foreseeable future. If he is still hitting .200 in the month of August, then we have story. He is one good week away from taking over the team lead in RBI.

Can we be a little patient here?

Time for some Yankee Random Thoughts

For as good as the Yankees have played this season, they have been a mediocre 16-15 on the road.

There is no reason as to why this is only to say that the role players hit better at Yankee Stadium than on the road. An investigation of the numbers shows an incredible discrepancy so far.

At home, the Yankees as a team are hitting .316 and OPS of .908 compared to a pedestrian .252 and OPS of .724 on the road.

Using last year’s standards, it would be the equivalent of the Yankees having nine Alex Rodriguez’s at home and nine Melky Cabrera’s on the road.

One would figure these numbers would even out as the season progresses, at least on the road.

Don’t compare this team to the old Bronx Bombers so far. The numbers show them only eighth in the league at homeruns, 35 blasts behind the Toronto Blue Jays who have 97, 18 ahead of the second best team.

Pitching is reason both Tampa Bay and the Yankees are ahead of the baseball pack right now.

The Rays and Yankees rank one and two in the AL in pitching ERA, fewest earned runs, batting average against and WHIP.

If these two meet in the ALCS, that will be the reason.

I will not concede any games to the Baltimore Orioles.

I’m sorry, but after thinking they could challenge to win 80 games this year, they officially stink.

Usually, bad teams play out the string in August and September.

Here, the Orioles are already playing out the string, and its only June!

They have numerous talented players and should not be this bad. No one really knows what the reason is.

Sure, being in a division with the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays is like death, but that’s the way it is.

Toronto projected as a last place team before the year and they have been one of the surprise teams of the league. At least they will finish a respectable fourth in the division.

Baltimore? No.

Tracking Phil Hughes’ next five starts before the All Star Break shows starts against the Orioles, Astros, Mets, Diamondbacks and Mariners. All teams with offenses that range from average to woeful.

At 7-1, unless he has a bad start, poor offensive support or the bullpen blows it, 11 wins and possibly 12 are in his future. This would put him on track to start the All Star Game in Anaheim at Angel Stadium, a place Hughes used to ride his bicycle past when he was a child.

He probably will not win 20 games because the Yankees have a plan in the second half of the year to manipulate the off days to skip his starts when needed and keep him from that all-important “innings cap”, which would appear to be around 185.

This is why the sudden emergence of Mental Patient has been vital to the roster. His great pitching of late (five starts, four wins, 2.76 ERA) allows for not only favorable matchups during the season, but also less of an onus on Hughes to produce big during his starts.

If Vazquez can perform to his yearly numbers of over 200 innings, this allows the team monitor Hughes’ innings to the degree they want.

Surely even the organization would concede that no matter how well Vazquez pitches, they want him nowhere near a mound during the postseason considering how dominating Hughes has been. Having that arm in Game 4 of a playoff series is deadly.

Right now, he is a fifth starter performing like an elite starter at minimal cost. It is the ultimate in getting bang-for-buck value.

The most unlikely rally of the Sunday came on Sunday with the Yankees trailing 2-0 to the Blue Jays on the verge of being swept.

Vazquez had a no hitter going until Vernon Wells cranked a 0-2 pitch with two outs in the sixth to give Toronto the lead.

Starter Brandon Morrow kept the Yankees off the board for the first seven innings. However, when he hit Francisco Cervelli to begin the eighth, his afternoon was over.

Scott Downs came in and hit Brett Gardner with the first pitch to put runners on first and second.

Derek Jeter would then line a double inside the first base bag down the right field line to cut the margin to 2-1.

Nick Swisher would strikeout looking for the first out and then Manager Cito Gaston would tempt his fate like the Twins and Indians before him by walking the frozen as ice Teixeira to face Rodriguez with the bases loaded in another edition of idiocy.

Jason Frasor would come into the game and his wild pitch (obviously fearful of the slugger) went far enough to allow the speedy Gardner to score to tie the game.

Rodriguez would strike out looking, but with first base open again, Toronto elected to pitch to Robinson Cano (with Jorge Posada on deck) and he lined a single into left center, scoring two runs and giving the Yankees the lead.

It started with two hit batsmen. Ending with two hits from the offense and four runs came to the plate.

Another improbably Yankee rally.

Yankee Talk: Writing is on the wall

Posada sees future in front of him


NEW YORK – Most times, the player is the last one to know.

He still thinks he is capable to doing the same job he has been doing for years and performing at the same high level throughout his career.

Unfortunately, father time reaches everyone and no one is immune no matter what you try to do to escape it.

For Jorge Posada, only know has the reality begun to reach him.

Once one of the most durable players in the league at an age where the durability of the position has a shelf life and any more is nothing more than gravy, Posada has given the Yankees far more than they ever could have.

He was an ironman for most of this career. Posada played at least 137 games every year since 2000 before playing only 51 in 2008 and 111 in 2009. This year, a hairline fracture sidelined him for three weeks, raising more questions about his decreasing durability.

While this has gone on, the Yankees have found a revelation in Francisco Cervelli, a man being called-up last season, was in Double-A and hitting .190, needed only due to the team simply needing a catcher after an injury to then backup catcher Jose Molina.

Cervelli was merely to be a stopgap and nothing more. Instead, he made the most of his chance, displaying tremendous defense and a good arm to throw out runners. He quickly became a favorite of the pitchers, and even showed an ability to handle the bat.

This year, during the times Posada was out, Cervelli has performed admirably. No longer a hole in the lineup, he was actually a threat. In early May in Boston he drove in a career high five RBI, and at one point was 11-for-14 with runners in scoring position.

Seeing Cervelli improve on his game to such a degree caused many in the base along with the (drive by) media to say that he should be the full-time catcher when Posada returned (he returned to the lineup on Wednesday). Those same people then wanted to have the veteran take the currently vacant DH role occupied by no one as Nick Johnson is out until at least August.

Posada, as prideful a person as you will meet, bristled at the thought of not being a catcher anymore. The thought of relinquishing his role as on-field captain did not sit well with him, and that in part spurred his quick return to the team after doctors told him the hairline fracture in his foot was going to keep him out for nearly a month.

It takes no genius to tell he can see the future and it does not include him. Posada’s four-year contract expires after the 2010 season. Cervelli is 24 and behind him are two more premium catchers in Jesus Montero and Austin Romine in the minor leagues poised to make an impact with the big club either in 2011 or 2012.

Catchers usually decline in their mid-30’s, but the Yankee catcher (much like Mariano Rivera has done as a closer) has beaten father time. However, the bill eventually is due.

“I understand what’s going on,” said Posada after last Wednesday’s game. “We’ll see what happens. There’s going to be a time when I’m not an everyday catcher. It’s been tough (physically) the last couple of years.

Therein lays the problem. When healthy, there is no better switch-hitting catcher in baseball. Few players at his position provide the production and lethal offense that he does. Now it is on the Yankees to find a way to get maximum value out of him while keeping him healthy and playing mostly every day.

“Catching is the best (position) in the world. You’re involved in every aspect of the game. It’s a challenge. You work with different pitchers. You’re going to see me behind the plate soon. I still have my glove, my gear. I’m not at that age yet.”

The Yankees best lineup is one that has Posada in it and behind the plate at catcher during the postseason. As well as Cervelli has played, there is no getting around the fact the team is less off if his bat is in there as opposed to Nick Johnson (assuming he returns), especially against high quality pitching.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, if they want me to DH or be behind the plate,” Posada would later say. “I’m in the lineup. That’s all that matters.

At age 38, Posada is still a threat with the bat, but consistently being able to remain in the lineup has been an issue for the long-time backstop.

Even he knows now time is running out.

Yankee Talk: Beating up on the stupid

A-Rod, Yankees making teams pay

NEW YORK – When you play the worst teams in the league, not only is the disparity between the teams evident, but also the intelligence.

Therefore, it came as no surprise in the bottom of the seventh inning on Monday with the score at a then-manageable 2-1 that Cleveland Indians manager Manny Acta elected to enter “The World of the Stupid”.

Runners were on first and second and a wild pitch moved the runners over with Mark Teixeira at the plate. As the count stretched to 3-0, the decision Acta had was as a tough as it was simple. Walk the suddenly resurgent Teixeira with first base open, or pitch to Alex Rodriguez with the bases loaded in an effort to set up the double play and get out of the inning.

We saw this happen several weeks ago when the Minnesota Twins elected to do the same thing only to have Rodriguez deposit on into the seats.

Here we were again and the Indians were about to tempt fate and hope for the best. They brought in their best right-handed relief pitcher Chris Perez into the game to face Rodriguez. In a past life, the Yankee slugger would become overanxious at the plate. The enormity of the moment would be enough to make him press and get himself.

Oh, but these are not “those” days.

Rodriguez over the last year has become one of the league’s best hitters in these situations. The numbers go up substantially whenever Teixeira draws an intentional walk in front of him. This is not hyperbole and the numbers back it up.

Nine times teams have put the onus on Rodriguez to come through. Only once has he made on out. The other eight instances have seen him go 4-for-5, with a sacrifice fly, two walks and two grand slams.

Clearly, the Yankees had these numbers at their disposal and quietly smiled. Perhaps Acta did not have record of those numbers or the Indians do not have the resources to supply themselves with that information.

Nonetheless, Perez took his chances and saw the count run to 3-1. As Acta would say later, based on statistical analysis, a 3-1 count to a hitter in that situation made every player resemble Barry Bonds circa 2003.

Uh oh.

Rodriguez took his hack at Perez’s fastball next. Five seconds later, the ball landed near Monument Park for a grand slam to blow the game wide open.

It was the third straight time he had hit a grand slam after teams intentionally walked Teixeira to put him. Let the record show that despite his slow season to date, team still fear the Yankee first baseman as evidenced by his three-run homer the previous day that completed a three-run deficit.

The larger question still is, “Why would you intentionally pitch to Alex Rodriguez?”

In any world, it makes no sense.

I use to wonder why teams would do the same thing and pitch to Manny Ramirez whenever they would give David Ortiz a free pass to first when they were teammates with the Red Sox.

Ramirez would kill teams for doing this and now Rodriguez is doing the same to the rest of the league.
The numbers now stand after that blast that Rodriguez is 5-for-6 in nine plate appearances with 19 RBI’s.

Lethal.

Acta said if the same situation presented itself again, he would gladly take his chances and do it again despite what the number say.

I guess they will never learn.

Soft Patch

Just when the Yankees were playing perhaps their worst stretch of the season, the baseball gods were kind enough to present a healthy stretch of games to allow the team to fatten up.

Starting from this past Friday, the next 16 games are against several of the worst teams in the league.

They have taken three of four from the Indians (and it should have been all four), they play three games home and home with the Orioles, followed by three with the resurgent Blue Jays and concluding with three more at home against the Astros.

Seeing these woeful teams the last few days has been an insult to baseball. They are beyond terrible, and even I know it’s a matter of time before they eventually allow the Yanks to take control before eventually winning the game.

On Sunday, the Indians led 1-0 before two unearned runs allowed the margin to increase to three. In normal games, this would have been a time to concern. However, these were the Indians and their pitching staff after the sixth inning is woeful, so there was no need to worry.

The result? Seven runs over the final two innings to win comfortably.

If Cleveland is bad, then the Baltimore Orioles are worse.

They should not be this bad. Offensively, they have some very talented players in Matt Wieters, Nick Markakis, Adam Jones and Luke Scott. Pitching wise, they have a few young pitchers that have some talent.

After that? Ouch.

They lost several games early in the season out of the bullpen and that set the tone for losing 16 of their first 18 games. Now they seem to be already beginning that slow death march, anxiously awaiting the season to end while there is still four months left.

Nonetheless, the Yankees will take it, playing them six times in the span of nine days.

My minimum requirement for this stretch is 13-3 and anything else would be a disappointment. None of these teams have a representative pitcher good enough along with a bullpen to get this current team out if the Yankees simply don’t play badly.

Pen full of bull

I was one of those saying that the bullpen going into the season was a big strength.

Through the first 33 percent of the season, I have been wrong.

There is an enormous hole in that part of the game and the supposed “Bridge to Rivera” currently needs repair.

Injuries and underperformance have depleted the relief corps, turning each nightly trip to the bullpen into a grueling session in need of having medicine handy just in case.

Thus far, the leaky pen sports an ERA of 4.98 over 137 1/3 innings as we stand on Memorial Day.

The worst case of this came on Saturday afternoon when after leading 10-5, the bullpen saw the lead dissipate and ending with an agonizing 13-11 loss to the Indians.

Cleveland scored seven runs in the seventh inning against four Yankee relievers. It started with David Robertson allowing two of the three batters he saw to reach base, ending in an RBI single by Austin Kearns before a back injury took him out of the game

Joe Girardi came to the mound to bring in Sergio Mitre, who would walk Jhonny Peralta to load the bases.

Girardi only needed four pitches to see enough and quickly called for Damaso Marte to face Russell Branyan and at least he did his job, inducing a fly out to center for the second out.

All it took was one more out and perhaps he could have stuck with Marte to get it. Instead, he opted for Joba Chamberlain, who has not been good in two of his last four appearances, notably giving up the 5-1 lead to the Red Sox nearly two weeks ago.

Chamberlain quickly got behind and gave up an RBI single to Mark Grudzielanek to trim the lead to now 10-7. He would then get behind Matt Laporta and walked him to load the bases. Lou Marson was down in the count 0-2, but then he drilled a double into the right-center gap to make it 10-9.

Panic time.

Girardi wasn’t going to use anyone else because he had no one else. Jason Donald would dunk in a single to shallow right to drove home two more runs to improbably give the Indians the lead as the Yankee Stadium crowd booed in disgust.

Another RBI single by Trevor Crowe to center finally concluded the damage as it was seventh heaven for Cleveland and seventh hell for the Yankees.

What has happened to Chamberlain? No one is sure. He will have his moments where his fastball and slider is crisp and is nearly unhittable. Then, there are these nights when he simply cannot locate the ball, has decreased velocity and just looks like a different person confidence wise.

Unfortunately, there is no one out on any other team that you can just bring in here and will produce under the pressure. The scrutiny is too great and as good as anyone in the league may be, putting them on the Yankees is a much different situation.

Alfredo Aceves is out indefinitely with back problems. Robertson may find his way to the DL soon, but was inconsistent before injury.

Chan Ho Park has effectively earned the verbiage “Chan Ho = No No” whenever I see him enter the game. Damaso Marte (like Chamberlain) comes and goes.

The Yankees are lucky their starting pitching has been dominant to where they can take games into and past the eighth inning with frequent regularity, minimizing the need for these guys to be in there.

Less I see of them the better.


Field right on Target

On Thursday, I took my World Series celebration road trip to Minneapolis to visit the new Target Field to see the Yankees attempt to sweep the Twins.


The place is beautiful from the outside and it makes you wonder why they did not have this sooner.

When I made the walk from my hotel to the game, you are right in the heart of downtown and the walk to the new stadium resembles that of going to Wrigley Field and Fenway Park.

You have many bars along the way that you stop at for a pregame drink before heading towards the area of the park. In addition, they have transit that if you are coming from outside the area, the train will drop you off literally five feet from the stadium.

I was going to get my ticket from the will call window until I saw a kiosk machine where you can pick them up instead. Rather than wait several minutes in line, I went up to the machine much like you would do at an airport and within 30 seconds, my game ticket was in hand.

After experiencing that, it is my contention that every team should have this at their stadium. It surely would not cost much to install one and it will save time.

All around the outside of the stadium you saw representation of the Twins past with blown up baseball cards serving as banners for many former players.

You would see Jim Kaat, Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew, Kent Hrbek, Jack Morris, Chuck Knoblauch and Kirby Puckett. They were great sights to see. Add to it the giant Golden Glove outside Gate 34 (aptly named for Kirby Puckett) that has become a sight for many fans to come and have their picture taken inside of it (see the picture to the right).

A statue of Kirby Puckett is several feet from the glove resembling his fist pump after hitting a game-winning homerun in Game 6 of the 1991 World Series that forced a seventh game the next night. Near that was a statue of Harmon Killebrew’s sweet swing.

Outside was a very great experience, inside you first notice the large scoreboard in left field above the Home Run Porch seats in left, along with shape of the state of Minnesota wrapped around caricatures representing the combination of the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

If I had known about the Minnesota food, I would have given their main meals a chance. After being there, I found out that walleye and pork chop was the food of choice. Instead, I settled for what they call a “Dinger Dog”, a ten-inch long hot dog to go with my hamburger, French fries and beer.

As it turned out, I saved $5 because the cashier did not listen clearly to my order that was not my fault. He brought a cheeseburger when I asked for a hamburger and fries and by the time they got it right, I didn’t get charged anything extra.

Carl 1, Target Field 0.

The seating was nice as I was behind the first base side in the upper deck and that provided a great view of the field. I could have sat in the lower area for a small increase in price, but those areas blocked the view partially of the scoreboard, centerfield and the overall skyline of the city.

However, around the sixth inning, a smattering of bugs made its appearance and their presence felt.

Soon after, they were all over the place with the bright spotlights inviting all of them as if it were a family meeting.

By coincidence, the Twins lead, initially 4-2 in the sixth when the bugs hit, went to 8-2 in a matter of two innings.

The Twins finally got a clean victory over the Yankees 8-2, making my trip unsuccessful, but it was a fun trip overall even if I was not able to get Javier Vazquez through six innings.

I will definitely make another trip to that ballpark in the near future.


Time for another edition of Yankee Random Thoughts


One of the better moments of the season came on Wednesday night when the Yankees were in Minnesota for the completion of the suspended game and then the normal game itself.

Derek Jeter’s homerun in the sixth inning gave AJ Burnett a win on a day he did not pitch in a 1-0 Yankees win.

But perhaps the best part came later that night in the bottom of the eighth inning.

With the scored tied at two, the Twins had runners on first and third with no one out against Andy Pettitte.

Girardi was not going to pitch anyone else because he used up most of his reliever in the first game to get the win.

Pettitte had a low pitch count, but this would be the most stressful part of his night. With Orlando Hudson up, he got him to chase a breaking ball for the first out and that brought up MVP Joe Mauer.
I was almost certain that even as great as Pettitte, even this situation might see Mauer win the battle and give the Twins the lead.

Instead, Pettitte delivered again, jamming Mauer with a cutter and getting him to sharply ground to Jeter, who turned double play as the left-hander pumped his fist in excitement as the score would remain tied before Nick Swisher hit a dramatic ninth-inning homerun that eventually gave the Yankees a 3-2 win.

Keeping in tune with a stat I began to track at the beginning of the season, the Yankees have only six “clean losses” this season, with the last one coming this past Thursday in the 8-2 loss to the Twins.

Even the disgusting 13-11 loss was not a clean defeat as the offense managed to get the tying run to the plate.

The number stands at five for the year.

Think about that. Only five times out of the 20 games they have lost have been of the “no-doubt” variety.

Could it be possible that the Yankees will bring three starting pitchers to the All Star Game?

It could happen if AJ Burnett, Andy Pettitte and Phil Hughes continue at the pace they are at right now. All three men have a chance to have ten wins and ERA’s in the two’s or three’s if they continue to perform at the level they are at right now.

If only CC Sabathia could join the party.

The number two slot in the lineup did not seem to fit Brett Gardner well when Mr. DL left the team, compounded by Curtis Granderson being out for a month put him in that spot.

His average suffered and it sure did look as if he was trying to do too much instead of doing what he does best.

Since moving back to the bottom of the order, he has been hitting well again.

Coincidence?

The teams best lineup, it’s “playoff lineup” has Gardner in the ninth spot in the order in a double leadoff spot with Jeter.

Stats showed Teixeira hit .281 in the month of May, but you could have fooled me.

He started hot and finished the month strong, but in between was woeful. It is the equivalent of a boxer flurrying early and late in a round in order to steal a round without doing anything in the middle.
At least he is drawing walks.

Do not worry about the slight power outage this season for A-Rod. He will come around.

No more Juan Miranda. He has a few holes in his swing and while he had a few hits and made a few nice plays at first, he resembles Shelley Duncan.

Marcus Thames injury is probably the best thing that could happen to me. At least I don’t have to see him play the outfield for the foreseeable future.

Last week the team released Randy Winn. Outside of a three-run homer he hit against the Orioles, he was never able to catch up to a plus-fastball and looked done.

Sorry Randy. However, I ask Brian Cashman the following question:

“What the hell did you see that led you to believe you could spend $1.2 million on him?”

Just needed something to get angry about.