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That is all.
I’m bringing it back Kooz, COME ON MAN! Earlier today, Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports reported that Roy Halladay was on the market. http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/9777314/Jays%27-Halladay-all-but-gone-in-Toronto The Yankees need to act quickly and precisely and make whatever trade they can to get him, especially with how horrible our starting pitching has been looking lately. Joba is bad, Pettite gives up 5 runs a game, and Sabathia and Burnett have been anything but great, so this may be just the shot in the arm we need to get us past the Red Sox and firmly put us into the playoff picture this October. The Yankees as a team are in a slump. 5 games back from the Red Sox, dreadful offensive performances, pitchers who can’t get through 5 innings… I have a solution, a very simple solution, one that I’ve heard many people echo. Fire Joe Girardi. The team is stagnant, the coach is making some horrible decisions, players aren’t motivated. So when this occurs, we fire the coach. Girardi is not nearly the manager that we thought he was, as his 2006 season with the Marlins is at this point assuredly a fluke. His players seem to be in a tailspin: no one can hit, pitching is okay one day, terrible the next. These are all things the manager needs to work through, whether it’s motivating the players or getting the veterans to set everyone in line. The problem being that none of this is occurring, A-Roid looks pathetic, Matsui can barely hit, Damon is no longer hitting or able to run, Swisher is back to his mediocre self, Robby can’t get a hit in a big spot to save his life…and that doesn’t even address the bullpen issues. Teams do this all the time, when they are playing terrible baseball, they get rid of the manager. The Yankee front office, however, won’t take the necessary actions due to the hubris they now possess because of the mistake they now realize they made in not rehiring Joe Torre after the 2007 season. When it comes to criticizing their hand-picked manager, Cashman and the rest of the front office are pretty mum. And will continue to be. But by the end of the year, if we don’t make the playoffs for the second straight year, Girardi will be fired. Let’s just do it now and get it over with, and maybe let Tony Pena fire the team up. What’s the worst that could happen, we already missed the playoffs last year. The Yankees are sitting at 37-27. That is 10 games above 500 and 2 games behind the AL East leading Boston Redsox. The Yankees are also leading the AL Wild Card race as of right now. They just took 2 out of 3 against the Mets and have won the first game against the Nationals. I am assuming they will either sweep or take 2 of 3 against the Nationals and do the same against the Marlins. Does that mean they are a World Series team? No. I think it is clear that they are far away from that. I think there are a couple of “elite” teams in MLB right now. The Redsox, Phillies, and Dodgers are clearly up there. I think the Mets are also up there if they are healthy. The Met team that we played had some key players out such as Jose Reyes and Carlos Delgado. Keeping that in mind, the Yankees are 1-10 against these elite teams. I am not counting the Mets series because they weren’t at full strength. How can the Yankees be a World Series team if they can’t beat the elite teams? Some might say that the Yankees are missing key players as well. Early on we didn’t have A-Rod and Wang. Guys like Posada were hurt as well and Tex was struggling. That is why our record against these elite teams is bad. So what. The Redsox were playing without Youkalis and Ortiz was struggling. If you watch these guys, you will see that the difference is not night and day between these teams. It is the little things that make the difference in a win and loss between these teams. They Yankees just can’t finish games against elite teams or can never come from behind. They find a way to lose. Out of the 11 games, more than half of them were winnable. However the Yankees found a way to lose. So you might sit there and think the Yankees are not in bad shape and only 2 games behind the Redsox but you are missing the big picture. We don’t play the Redsox again until August and a lot can change between now and then. Who knows, the Yankees can be in first place by then. That will get us into the playoffs, but how far will we get? We will square off against an elite team in the playoffs and then what? Can the Yankees beat one of those teams? The good thing is that we have a lot of time until the season is over. The Yankees have time to improve their flaws and that starts with the bullpen. There is definitely fight in this baseball team and we have seen it by all their come from behind teams. However lets get some against good teams. Until I see that, this Yankee team has a small chance of winning it all. So last night the Yankees defeated the worst team in MLB, and possibly the worst franchise in sports, 5-3. CC pitched a good game, leaving in the 8th, and got his 6th win of the year. All around good game, even though we lost Jeter to ankle soreness in the 7th inning. Girardi said he’s day-to-day after the game and losing him for a few games shouldn’t be too terrible with the way Pena is swinging the bat and fielding. The real test comes tonight when Wang takes the mound. Let’s see if he can maybe, oh I don’t know, make it through 5 innings without giving up 10 runs. Here’s some links to a few recaps from yesterday: http://espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=290616110 We’ve now seen it. The definitive example of why Joba Chamberlain needs to be our 8th inning setup man in the bullpen. Last night, somehow, someway, Alex Rodriguez had the intestinal fortitude to get a hit when we needed it, and put the Yankees in the position to win the game going into the bottom of the eighth inning. What ensued after the top of the eighth inning should serve as the immediate wakeup call for the Yankees front office, in much the same way that this eight game losing streak (nine games going back to last year) has affected the fanbase. It’s a simple enough question: If Joba Chamberlain were our setup man, would CC have been allowed to pitch the eighth inning with a 113 pitch count? The answer is an emphatic no. Last night was the epitome of a must win game, and our Ace went out, pitched a 4 hit, one run game through seven innings, which is about as good as it gets unless your name is Johan Santana or Harry Leroy Halladay III. This is where Bruney, if healthy, would have been the man to come into the game and lock it down to get to Mariano in the ninth. But, our bullpen being the pathetic piece of garbage that it is, we were forced to send CC back out to attempt to corral the Boston lineup and protect the lead. He proceeded to give up the lead as we know, and the one thing that we got out of the entire process was that, after a walk to the first man he faced, Phil Coke showed us some nice movement on his pitches and is really turning out to be a decent bullpen guy. But this entire process once again begs the question, Where was our 8th inning setup man? The answer is simple, he’s our number 4 starter and we’ll see him pitching tonight against the Mets. And when he leaves after throwing 110 pitches through 6 innings and we’re up 4-2 in the 8th, who are we going to call on to secure the victory for us. It’s a horrible, disgusting, dispicable dilemma: If we have a lead in the 8th, we either need to send Mariano out for a 2 inning save or play Russian roulette with one of the 5 or so useless arms we have sitting out in the bullpen. If Joba isn’t headed back towards the pen after the Allstar break, Girardi and Cashman should hand in their resignations and get out of town as fast as possible, because if they don’t, the fans might take the liberty of doing it themselves. The Yankees were playing at home tonight and that meant that HR balls would be flying out. That was the case in fact. The Yankees hit 4 solo home runs and won the game 5-3. Mark Teixeira, Nick Swisher, Johnny Damon, and Derek Jeter all hit HR’s. Tex hit his league leading 18th of the season and Damon hit the go ahead HR in the bottom of the 6th. Andy Pettitte went 6 innings, gave up 2 runs, and struck out 7. Phil Hughes and Phil Coke worked out of the bullpen and looked sharp. Mariano Rivera came on in the 9th inning for the save and pitched a flawless inning. People are writing off Rivera and assuming he is washed up. Those same people need to realize that he is the best relief pitcher on the team. He might not have the same cutter that he used to but it is still highly effective. Rivera’s ERA is still respectable. He has had 3 bad outings all year and if you take those away his numbers would be ridiculous. Rivera will get it together. My only fear is against the Boston Redsox. That team has had his number so if he can get some saves against that team, I will feel real good about him. Here are some highlights of tonight’s game from ESPN: I am not very happy with the move the Yankees made. First we took Hughes out of the rotation which I think was a mistake. He was just starting to pitch better and now we throw him back into the bullpen. I was okay with activating Chien Ming Wang because he looked like he was ready, paid his dues in the minors, and pitched out of the bullpen. However I lost my confidence when his outing yesterday. Wang gave up 5 runs in 4 and 2/3 innings. I know he is getting back to pitching as a starter so that is why he didn’t go longer. However look at his next two starts. He pitches Tuesday against Boston and then next Sunday against the Mets and Johan Santana. Do you think he can make it through that? We weren’t able to beat the Redsox when we had our better pitchers going, so what makes the Yankees and Joe Girardi think that Wang can get the job done against them. I rather have Wang go up against some weaker teams initially so that he can get back to his winning ways and gain some confidence. I don’t think that will happen against the Redsox who are possibly the best team in the AL and maybe the entire league. We’ll see what happens. Wang’s next opponent after the Redsox is the Mets. The Mets are pretty beat-up but that night they will have Johan Santana pitching. He is probably the best pitcher in the league and in order for us to win that game, Wang needs to be great. That is a huge task for Wang. I know he is a professional and is probably up for the challenge however the Yankees are asking too much. He didn’t get the win against the Rangers, may get bombed against the Redsox, and almost definitely lose against Johan and the Mets. I wonder what Wang is thinking about the up coming games? The bright side is that the weather is pretty bad in the NY area today and the game tonight may very well get rained out. In that case things might work out so that we don’t pitch Wang against Santana. However the point is….what were the Yankees thinking!? Tonight: LHP CC Sabathia (5-3, 3.46) vs LHP David Price (1-0, 3.00) Saturday: RHP Joba Chamberlain (3-1, 3.71) vs RHP Matt Garza (4-4, 3.67) Sunday: RHP A.J. Burnett (4-2, 4.69) vs RHP Andy Sonnanstine (4-5, 7.07) Monday: LHP Andy Pettitte (5-2, 4.33) vs RHP Jeff Niemann (5-4, 3.77) |
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December 14th, 2009 | 
