Tagged: pitchers

Great Day for MLBtv Mosaic

Great day for baseball.  Some suggestions below.

Check out the ERA’s in the first 2 games. Indeed, Redding (Nat’ls) is the man who surrendered 6 runs to Boston in 1 inning for the Yanks back in 2005. He has a more interesting history than that, however.  Now, about this Saunders fellow (Angels)….

Times – ET

12.10     Nationals @ Mets    
          Probables: Redding (1-2, 2.92) @ Hernandez (6-4, 3.14)

03.55     Tigers @ Angels
          Probables:  Miller (5-3, 3.78)  @  Saunders (4-0, 2.89) 

03.55     Padres @ Houston    
          Probables: Maddux (7-7, 4.19)  @  Oswalt (9-6, 3.80)       

07.10     Yankees @ Orioles    Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
          It’s Clemens, & he’s been great, mostly & lately. Yawn.
          Probables: Clemens (3-4, 3.72)  @  Burres (4-4, 4.33)   

07.10     Blue Jays @ Right Sox     Now THIS is a match-up.
          Probables: Halladay (11-4, 4.15) @  Buehrle (7-6, 3.23)

07.10     Cubs @ Reds     2 oddball teams w/ interesting pitchers
          Probables: Marshall (4-4, 3.25) @ Harang (10-2, 3.45)

09.10     Marlins @ Giants     2 good pitchers having off-years?
          Probables: Willis (7-10, 5.15) @ Cain (3-12, 4.02)

The Overdue Return of the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah Awards

David Wells Loses His Win Again 6IP, 1ER.             June 26, 2007
San Diego beat the Giants 2-1, but a blown save by, of all people, the very reliever whose retention he had  championed offseason (Scott Linebrink) took away his W.  A tightly-pitched game overall, though Wells gave up an unusually high number of walks (3), for him.   Maybe it is more accurate to describe it as a tightly-managed pitching game, at least by the Padres, who used 6 pitchers to keep the Giants from scoring more than 1 run in 10 innings The 6th was Trevor Hoffman, who earned his 20th save.  Only Zito — who went 8 innings — and Meredith pitched for the Giants, and they kept the Pads to 2 runs in 10.  Not bad, eh?

Ever wonder what it’s like being Doug Balsley, the pitching coach  for Padres’ manager Bud Black?  As pitching coach for the Angels in his previous job, he looked intense and hands-on, if you know what I mean. 

**SPECIAL NOTE**  I have a bad feeling that Andy Pettitte is going to win the YEAH, YEAH, YEAH Award of the year.  Today fit the bill, and I haven’t the heart to explain.  If you can stand it, listen to the game, bad umpire calls and all.  Calls that favored the Yankees, mind you. 

At Least It’s the Right Sox Tonight

Wow. What a Weekend. Well, at least it’s the Right Sox tonight. A breather, even if they do win, which is how it’s looking right now. Roger the Rocket looked pretty fat at Pinstripes on the Park last Thursday. Hate to but I must tell you that the audience — just like at the Stadium the Saturday prior — was definitely not swayed by his charms or promise. His promises, on the other hand, were inspiring. He said we’d take the Series this weekend, and we did. We could use a cheerleader from Texas. One who’s on OUR payroll.

I hear from Floraine Kay that we might take Runyldys Hernandez off the hands of the Red Sox. We might have saved some money and the risk of a double agent (ala Ramiro Mendoza working for us in in their clubhouse in 2003 — and then back with us in the minors last year — where is he now?) had someone LISTENED TO ME and bought him straight from Kansas City. It’s hardly a secret that I have a soft spot for oversized lefties like David Wells (San Diego — HELLO, anybody LISTENING?), CC Sabathia (Cleveland), and, yes, Runyldys, who definitely needed some guidance while he was with the Royals. It will be interesting to see where he is.

So we need a fielder who doesn’t have to hit, eh? Um, anybody look at our bench? MIGUEL CAIRO? And, does anyone remember that he makes things happen? Why hasn’t he been working? He worked in April during some shortages, then NOTHING. Even a DH needs SOME time on the field, and he is a good fielder when he gets a chance to play.

Besides Miggy, there’s Super Joe McEwing, former Met, beloved by fans in Kansas City, and now somewhere else, I will have to check. I loved watching him field. Like David Dellucci as a Yankee, Super Joe was everywhere before you knew where to look. Then, there’s Jeff Keppinger, another former Met, though he may have found a home, as I know Ty Wigginton has as a Devil Ray. Wiggington is a bat more than a fielder, anyway. I’ll always remember the story Floraine told me about how, when he was playing 3rd base for the Mets, knowing he was prone to errors, he wrote E-5 on the inside of his visor.

More on umpires, especially regarding this last weekend, to come.

Youkilis Charged the Mound and Didn’t Get Thrown Out?

You are pitching with a 9-3 lead in the bottom of the 9th.  You just got 2 outs in a row.  You are 2-2.  If you get this out, your team wins.

  • DO YOU HIT THE BATTER?   I DON’T THINK SO!

  • Pitchers weren’t warned despite 4 previous hit batsmen (3 hit by Red Sox, of course) and yet Yankee Scott Proctor — who has every reason to avoid another suspension — is thrown out of the game?  Was he more likely to be guilty because he has a "record"?  Even Joe Torre, who took an unusual position earlier in the game and got himself thrown out on behalf of a bad call against Bobby Abreu, would not back up Scott Proctor, who swears he didn’t mean to hit Youkilis.  I believe him, and Joe’s job is to believe what his players say, at least publically.  Instead his position is that he understands why Proctor was thrown out, because the ball could so easily have hit the head of Youkilis.  In my opinion, that is all the more reason to believe Proctor, who would not want to take a risk like that.  He’s no Roger Clemens, who didn’t get  punished for those Mike Piazza incidents, by the way.  And remember Pedro as a Red Sock?  No umpire dared throw him out, despite his history, which always went unpunished.  Clearly his hit batters were purposeful — he stopped hitting batters when he switched leagues and started batting, for the Mets.  By the way, John Sterling and Susan Waldman were critical of Proctor, too.  I am disappointed, especially because earlier in the game, they sounded as if they were finally speaking out straightforwardly about the bad calls that the Yankees have been receiving these last weeks.  Susan even said she was going to start keeping a list.  Yet, they made no comment on how Youkilis – screaming – came at the mound. 

  • Youkilis — the hit batter — came at Proctor screaming.  I think that’s why the benches cleared for a brawl.  WHY DOESN’T YOUKILIS GET THROWN OUT?
    • OK, it turns out Youkilis was scared.  Weee Weee Weee.  (Kudos to Posada for calming him down.)  Regardless, a big guy is charging the Yankees’ pitcher Proctor, who — several pitches into the at-bat, at 2-outs in the 8th with a score of 9-3– hits him up and inside.  It just doesn’t sound like an intentional hit.
    • Shame on the umpire, Torre, and Sterling/Waldman for not backing Proctor, or at least  supporting the possibility that he did not hit Youkilis on purpose, especially after he went straight to Torre’s office to say so.

It’s Opening Day!

Well, we should be fair.  The Mets and Cardinals opened the Season.  But today is the Yankees’ opener, and PAVANO is starting.  Our year will be um interesting!  I am hopeful of course yet I sense some inanity in our roster.  Perhaps Miguel Cairo will learn a new position or two.  I close this brief entry with the last 2 paragraphs of George King’s article in today’s New York POST: 

A 61-64 career pitcher, Pavano signed a four-year, $40 million dealafter the 2004 season and has pitched in 17 games (4-6; 4.77 ERA) for
the Yankees.

"He has the ability to certainly have the fans
embrace him," Torre said. "He is a good guy. I know some bad things
have happened around him and probably he is responsible for most of
them. But hopefully, with the understanding that the priority is
baseball, I think he is in a pretty good place right now. He has to go
out and pitch. If he stays healthy, I am very confident he will do
well."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04022007/sports/yankees/yankees_ready_for_arms_race_yankees_george_king.htm?page=0

 

PLAY BALL!!   Let’s go Yankees!

SEND HIM OUT WITH A BOOM — WE HAVE OUR CHANCE RIGHT NOW

Wells_2006_denis_poroy_apWe let Jeff Nelson retire in pinstripes.  We had just re-hired him, again, and he retired before spring training. Could that have been pre-arranged?!  Surely we can do something for a man who loves the Yankees more than he loves his beer and ego combined.  He even has some good games left in him to boot, and we saw him pitch well into the postseason again last year as a Padre.  WHO could this be???!!!!

It could only be….

BOOMER!!!!                                                            Denis Poroy / AP

San Diego sounds like they want him but can only go so far, and you know we can beat that number.  We need another lefty, don’t we?!  Wouldn’t it be cool?  And, if there’s any chance we are going to fulfull Petitte’s wish for Clemens, can we show Wells some respect by hiring him back first?  After all, we let him go the first time in exchange for Clemens, who took some time to fill Wells’ shoes.  I know, I know about Boomer’s second time around with us, and his book and his back and how he wasn’t throwing off the mound, and how some that season’s disappointment on his untimely departure after a perfect first inning with back pain.  Despite the debacle, there was no way he could accept the minor league contract for a couple hundred thousand that we offered him after that year. 

Mr. Steinbrenner, PLEASE!  Let Mr. Clemens go to the Red Sox, and let Boomer come back to us where he belongs.  He can even pitch short starts, even out of the bullpen sometimes.  Let him pitch as a Yankee one more year, and retire in pinstripes. 

Surely Jeff Nelson would not mind the company, when the time comes.

Trachsel–pre NLDS Interview

RARE VIDEO OF EXTENDED STEVE TRACHSEL INTERVIEW before Game 3 of the 2006 NLDS, against his and my own hometown childhood team, the late 70s and early 80s Los Angeles Dodgers, when he rooted against his manager Willie Randolph, who was then 2nd baseman for those foes the New York Yankees. 

Trachsel Workout Day Interview     If this doesn’t work, try the link below:

Trachsel Workout Day Interview     Look under OCTOBER 6 and click.

He has not been to a postseason game at Dodger Stadium since he was 10 or 11, and now he’s working for a recent Yankee on a team that was built in 1962 to fill the hole left in the souls of Brooklyn Dodger Fans, New York Giants Fans too.  The team of orange and blue.  That’s Baseball.     (I miss Mark Gremse.  No question where he would stand on this match-up, though, even if I was his favorite LA Dodger fan.  Oddly, there might be a healing circularity in pulling for Trachsel, who, as a Cub in 1998, knocked out his beloved Giants in that one-game playoff to get to the NLDS.  Two stories go with that, and they are here and here.)

It’s Not Whether You Win or Lose….

…yeah, yeah, yeah.  We know. 

This week’s Yeah, Yeah, Yeah Awards go to…

  • David Wells (2-4, 4.71)   Fri 9-14-06          5IP     2ER     1 BB
  • Wrap + Box    Dodgers-3  Padres-2     Wells-L     Maddux-W–19-19–4.22, Broxton-H-9-2.51, Saito-S-19-1.93     

Wells pitched a beautiful game against the Dodgers, excepting the 4th inning, when he  unravelled after surrendering an unheard-of — for him — walk.  Unravelling — for him — nowadays means giving up 2 runs in 5 innings.  Why just 5, I do not know.  Fellow 40+ man Greg Maddux no-hit the Padres into the 7th, leaving Wells no offense to work with.

  • Shawn Chacon (6-6, 6.49)     Th 9-13-06     7IP     2ER     1BB
  • Wrap + Box    Milwaukee 2 @ Pittsburgh 1          Chacon-L     Sheets-W–5-7–4.08, Cordero-S-18–3.61

Chacon drew a hand very similar to Wells’ when he lost 2-1 to the Brewers.  Like Wells, his opposing pitcher — Ben Sheets in Chacon’s case — pitched a no-no deep into the game.  Unlike Wells, he will receive less sympathy, despite his recent return from the DL for knee problems, like Wells, which, unlike Wells’, are unrepaired.  Chacon is playing hurt — what he has is a publically-realeased diagnosis, better than he got from the Yankees, who gave him nothing but rumors, a demotion, and, in the end, a 1-way ticket to Pittsburgh. 

Meow, Baby: A Jim Kaat Tribute + Video

Links to the YES Network’s Jim Kaat Tributes:

Jim Kaat Video Tribute

Kitty’s Top 5 Yankee Broadcasts

Singleton:  10 Years Flew By

Calling It a Career, and more

  • When the YES Network booth crowds up with Kay, Kenny, and Oh-Mercer, and you can’t figure out how you could possibly be missing anyone’s voice, it will be Jim "Kitty" Kaat’s that you are straining for.  His sharp, well-timed explanations of pitching strategy and execution has reminded us that baseball is a skill and an art to be appreciated, and that we "pay" all these people because they have specialties the others do not know about.

  • Time to make it formal.  Turn the TV volume off.  Turn on John and Suzyn on WCBS AM.  The timing will be a little off, but we will know the score and get some analysis at least.  Suzyn lacks the insight of a player and could use a mentor like Mr. Kaat.  Meantime, she out-schools the bunch in the big Yes broadcast box in the sky.

  • We’ll miss you, Kitty.  Meow, baby, as Kojak would say.  Good luck, and please do not be a stranger.  Stop by the WCBS booth if you get a chance.