Game 66: Take another series (with first pitch at 6:30 p.m.)
ByThere’s nothing good about a loss to the worst team in baseball. The best thing the Yanks can do is put it behind them and trounce their inferior opponents this afternoon. Unfortunately the game is in limbo right now, as New York has morphed into a combination of Seattle and London. It has rained all freaking morning, and there are no signs of it letting up.
Yet the Yanks will do everything in their power to play this game today. The Nats will not be back in New York this season, so the two teams would have to find a mutual off-day on which to make it up. The Yanks have already blown three mutual off-days to make up games against the Angels, A’s, and Rays. Do they want to further burden themselves this summer? They could just do it on Monday, but that would put the Yanks in Florida, back to New York, and then down to Atlanta. Not optimal. Yet it’s the only off-day the two teams share for the rest of the season. I guess the only other solution is to make it up “if necessary.” That’s a shame, because the Yanks could use the win right now.
Joba Chamberlain gets the call for the Yanks. He’ll look to improve over his performance against the Mets, in which he tossed 100 pitches in just four innings. He’ll have Cervelli as a battery-mate this time, rather than Posada thanks to this being a day game after a night game. If Joba pitches well, look for plenty of clamoring for Posada DHing, Cervelli becoming the full-time catcher, and Matsui benched. They won’t necessarily be right, but they’ll be loud.
Rookie Craig Stammen toes the rubber for the Nats. He’s tossed 27.2 innings this year and, well, hasn’t fared so well. He’s struck out just 13 to nine walks, allowing 28 hits over that period. This is, of course, scary territory for the Yanks, as we saw on Tuesday night. Hopefully lightning only strikes once in this instance, however.
Lineup:
1. Brett Gardner, CF
2. Johnny Damon, LF
3. Mark Teixeira, 1B
4. Alex Rodriguez, 3B
5. Robinson Cano, 2B
6. Nick Swisher, RF
7. Hideki Matsui, DH
8. Francisco Cervelli, C
9. Ramiro Pena, SS
And on the mound, number sixty-two, Joba Chamberlain.
Update 3:15 p.m.: The Yankees have announced that first pitch is scheduled for approximately 4 p.m. today. It’s really dark outside, but the two teams are going to try to squeeze this one in.
Update 3:55 p.m.: The Yankees have just announced that “another round of showers is in the forecast. The start time for today’s game has been pushed back. First pitch time is TBA.” They should probably just pull the plug on this one.
Update 5:54 p.m: The game is set for a 6:30 p.m. first pitch. Reports from the stadium say that the tarp is coming off and the grounds crew is hard at work.
Cant imagine this game starts any earlier than 2 or 3
I blame Girardi.
I blame A-Rod.
alex cora wins games
I blame Cashman.
This front office is an embarrassment.
[insert RAB meme here]!1!11!!!!
[insert RAB meme here]!1!11!!!!
F*king positive posse!!11!
Brackman’s a bust after pitching for 2.5 months!1!11!!!!
(Sorry to rehash… I wasn’t in the DOTF thread last night. Absolutely ridiculous.)
cashman is teh sux0r for drafting him
Is anything being said on the pregame about the delay or possible first pitch time?
They said they’ll try around 3.
Thank you, sir.
It’s raining buckets in midtown at the moment and shows no signs of slowing down. We’ll see…
Yea, I’m in midtown as well. The skies are rather ominous.
same here. all the midtown ants down 46 floors are scuttling around with umbrellas.
Wow, lots of midtown drones on here. We all should have a party!
heartland brewery! huzzah!
w00t – I’m only two blocks away from the Empire State Building.
im right across the street from the radio city one. in fact its my company’s emergency meeting place. you know, for emergencies.
heartland brewery is awesome
I’m on only the 13th floor, but count me in as a Midtown drone this summer. I was going to toss out a RAB lunch/game-watching meet-up for today, but the weather ruined that plan. Next day game we should do that.
Why not do an after-work get-together instead at some point? Probably more people could make it to that, myself included.
My ugly commute says no to that
(I live in Somerset county, NJ).
yeah door to door im about an hour and 15/hour and a half…lame
That’d be cool. I can basically take any time off I want with little to no notice
Of course, I pay for that for having to work on weekends if I’m behind on my work. Blegh.
count me in for either.
Hmm thats very interesting
If you factor in offense, defense + base running etc
Posada + Cervelli out weigh Matusi+ Posada
No, it really, really, really, really, really, really, really doesn’t.
It isnt like Matusi is tearing the cover off the ball.
I think the .176 difference in their OPS’ more than makes up for the slight upgrade in defense Cervelli provides.
but the grit factor is unmeasurable, cervelli wins hands down
We’ve brought up the sizable OPS difference numerous times, but some people just don’t want to hear it.
But, just in the interests of accuracy:
Cervelli’s OPS: .644
Matsui’s OPS: .822
Championship teams are built on pitching and defense. We have enough fire power in the lineup to survive without Matsui’s bat…
Why should the Yankees make their offense worse, though? That doesn’t make any sense.
There’s more to winning than offense. Ask the Tampa Bay Rays…
Because making their offense worse might make their defense (defense + pitching) better.
That’s why we dominated the Nationals yesterday. Again I’d rather take Matsui and Posada over Posada and Cervelli.
The American League is littered with teams that have great offense and mediocre pitching and defense. Shouldn’t we be maximizing or pitching and defensive performances by putting the best lineup possible out there?
YankeeScribe: Unless you can figure out a way to put a number on your assertion that Cervelli’s defense and game calling will save runs, you will be pummeled into submission by the OPS police.
Even though, still, nobody has given me a calculation, or even a ballpark figure, for what a difference between .822 and .644 OPS means, in terms of actual runs, and actual wins. The number is does equate to runs, doesn’t it?
I fucking hate rain delays. I wonder how much money it would have cost the yanks to have gotten a retractable roof. They spent 1.5 billion, why not a few extra bucks more for a roof??
I’m sure it wasn’t the money…they probably thought it wasn’t right for Yankee Stadium.
Seriously?
well, yea. It came off like i was complaining here, which wasn’t what i was trying to do. I’m just throwin it out there.
What’s the point of spending another what, $100M, $200M, $300M or whatever it is for something that they’ll use maybe a dozen times a year?
This isn’t Seattle or southern Florida.
yeah, nothing feels like October baseball like a dome, and climate control set to 72 degrees
Tex and CC… roof… costs about the same. I know which option I favor.
And you can just use CC pants to cover the stadium!!
It stopped raining in Baltimore about 2 hours ago and Philadelphia appears to be starting on time, these have to be good signs right?
http://www.weather.com/outlook.....k_business
I’m not so sure…
I swear to @#%&*! I am worn out by the way this version of the NYY can not seem to find a consistent means of putting away weaker opponents. If I could get one night w/the chick in the chat room ad on the right >, I’d forget the effin Bronx Bombos. Grow some or go golfing girls.
Which one? Angelica Chavez?
I think he means this one.
she would prob violate you in ways no man should be violated
A 37-21 record against teams not from Boston surely means they can’t beat weaker teams. It’s the good teams they have trouble with.
Sigh, this ballpark is a JOKE!!
Blaming the “bandbox” for the rain delay? That’s a new one.
The level of suck being produced in the Bronx is attracting all the rain clouds in the 1000-mile radium. Seems perfectly logical to me.
I was going to try to link rain delays/rain outs with posada, but then i saw cervilli got the start.
The eddy currents that blow balls over the fences also tend to trap low pressure systems over the stadium. I’m a closet meteorologist, so I know.
what cano seen 10 pitchs in the 9th last night gardner on third arod cant steal bases anymore ??? he didnt run once wtf !
Just read this note from Rob Neyer. In his last 26 innings Phil Hughes has 31 K’s and only 5 BB’s. Shit.
That’s tremendous. He’s actually one of the few yanks that throws consistent strikes.
Charlie (NY, NY)
Why did you make that negative comment about Austin Jackson? You don’t think he’ll be a good major leaguer?
Keith Law
I think his ceiling has dropped every year. I don’t see much chance remaining of him becoming a star.
Keith Law
He’s hitting .330, but has too many strikeouts. That usually works out well.
By the end of this year, Montero will probably be their best prospect, and Heathcott may insert himself above Jackson too.
This is depressing if he’s right, especially the first two parts.
but did you see his comments on Lars Anderson being ‘overrated?
” I question whether anyone would actually make such an absurd statement about a 21-year-old in AA with a great track record coming into this season.”
just saw it, he took that very personally.. hmmm…
Before you assume KLaw is a Red Sox fan or apologist, he grew up a Yankees fan.
Here are comparative minors stats for the two of them
Ks BA OBP SLG OPS
Lars 282 .297 .395 .470 .865
Ajax 463 .292 .363 .417 .780
Klaw appeared to be worried about Ajax’s strikeouts
they’re different type of players, and austin is in AAA, Lars is in AA
oh those are total minor stats? nevermind then
still they’re different type of players
career minors stats i’m guessing…
Yea career minors stats from bref. I understand that they’re different players OF vs. 1b, but Lars has been ranked pretty high by all scouts, while Ajax hasn’t been ranked as high. Maybe Lars has been overrated, who knows? I hope Klaw is wrong, and I’m not as pessimistic about Ajax, but Klaw tends to be right, and he’s the one that’s paid to be a scout.
Where does it say he was a Yanks fan? I believe you, I just want to see how you know. Is he not a Yanks fan anymore?
He’s from Smithtown, I believe, has stated it a few ties,don’t have a link handy, and has said that working professionally in baseball forced him to give up his allegiances.
makes sense, thanks
i would assume ESPN forced him to become a sox fan or else he wouldn’t have the job
heh
Adam Jones used to strike out a lot too. How does Jackson compare to Jones? AJ really turned it around this season…
Every stadium in baseball should have a retractable roof. Not doing so is a slap in the face to the fans. What about those who take off work to go to the game? What about those who have alittle bit of time to try to catch the game before going into work?
These teams have billions of dollars. It wouldn’t hurt them that much to have a retractable roof so we the fans do not have to deal with this ridiculous garbage. Waiting around like idiots for a game that may or may not happen. Baseball is the only sport that has to deal with this. If Selig ever wanted to mandate anything, retractable roofs for all MLB stadiums is what he needs to do. It’s bad enough that they mandate socialism by taking from the big market Yankees and give to the small market teams that are not required to spend the money on baseball. If you must rob from the rich to give to the poor, why not do so to fund retractable roofs for all teams?
Think about it, you look forward to watching or going to the game. Especially after a tough loss to the worst team in baseball. Instead it’s taken from you by another rain delay or possible rain out. To make matters worse, how many times do they start playing then have long rain delays throughout the game making the fans wait even longer? What about the possibility of injury as players are trying to play on the slick field?
Once again MLB is showing they could care less about it’s fans
As attendance grows every year, and as cities keep passing bonds ordinances to finance stadiums, the owners have been given zero motivation to care about the fans. This should neither surprise, nor outrage, anyone.
At some point, it has to come back to bite them in the ass.
would you really want to see an indoor game on a friday night? its not hockey/basketball. baseball was meant to be outdoors. i’d rather sit around and have a couple beers during a delay than sit inside an auditorium
Not doing so is a slap in the face to the fans.
Major hyperbole warning!
Yankee fans will seriously find anything and everything to complain about. It’s a tiring routine.
It’s a rain delay. Get over it.
Even more tiring is hack bloggers who don’t respect the opinions of those that actually took the time to read/post on their blog!
I guess I don’t deserve to watch the game right?? Nevermind that I have to work tonight and was looking forward to watching the game this afternoon. What about the fans who spent good money to go the game and have to waste a whole day of sitting around in the rain and then possibly having to switch around their schedules to attend a makeup game?
In the end the fans are the ones that get screwed. It’s a great new stadium that has everything except a roof which would’ve actually made it convenient for the fans! Instead the Yankees get to make a ton of money selling concessions during a game that will likely be rained out.
Thanks again Ben, for being so respectful of my opinion! It’s much appreciated.
You are bonkers.
Stop following the team if they make it so hard on you.
Your opinion is the same I would expect from a bratty nine year old
Kabak gave it the respect it deserved.
Get over yourself.
I hope you enjoy sitting out in the rain for a 3-4 hours then having the game cancelled.
Neither you nor Kabak are worth my time.
Good riddance.
your bridge called; it misses you.
IETC
So you say the Yanks should build a roof because you are going to miss one day game due to an insane rainstorm? And then you get upset because I had the audacity to call you out on a absurd comment that upon elaboration is simply selfish?
See ya.
All I did was express my frustration over something that’s completely preventable. Then you insult me for doing so.
Nevermind the fact that the new stadium has everything but a retractable roof. The additional $150 million or so could’ve been amortized over 10 or 15 years and easily made up since in the winter there is no comparable indoor facility that could house large concerts and other events.
Very classy. You and your fellow blog writers seem to have a big problem accepting the fact that people have opinions different from your own!
Your numbers are way off. Maybe you could build a retracteble roof in some podunkville, but not anywhere in the NY area. The question was posed to the Giants and Jets ownership on why they did not build a retractable roof on their 1.6 million dollar stadium, it was a simple matter of cost the estimated cost to put a retractable roof on the stadium was 800 million to 1 billion dollars. A little more then 150 million. And there is no guaranty of getting business from large concerts and the like which traditionally favor summer dates.
/oaktag
Rain screws the fans. Interesting. I bet it doesn’t screw the fans of rain!
What about the fans like myself who are at work buy now get to watch the game because the start time was pushed back to 1. This is a win for me.
But it would have been better with a retractable roof.
Ask Mike said, you can’t force a team like the yankees to spend 450 million on a retractable roof that they’re going to use 4 or 5 times a year. That’s absolutely ridiculous.
I’ve read my fair share of insane rants on here, and elsewhere, but this is definitely one of the most insane.
Congratulations.
In a perfect world there would be a roof but it’s not.
It’s 6 games a yr that are affected. Get over it.
Your real problem should be with Giants stadium because they would have a Super Bowl every 6 yrs and a Final Four every 6.
“Get over it.”
From you? Hilarious.
bat arod 9th
Yes that’ll solve everything.
Posada is 38 years old. Regardless of how well the pitchers do with Cervelli, Jorge needs to catch fewer games. Having him make trips back and forth to and from the DL because he still wants to catch 80% of the games doesn’t help the team.
Hows the rain looking? Any idea on start time?
radar map looks like the rain has essentially moved out (or will shortly). My unofficial SWAG is 20-40 minutes to get going, after which, they ought to be able to get it in.
Thank you very much, good Sir.
It’s looking to screw the fans. You know how rain is.
I know exactly how rain is: communist.
Hey, don’t blame this on the rain. Blame it on major league baseball for not carry about the fans and forcing every team to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on retractable roofs for the 15 games a year that are affected by rain.
caring, not carry, caring.
Why is it the rain’s fault? The Yankees obviously have 10 billion dollars and a roof will only cost one penny. The Yankees are selfish bastards for buying players while not making a roof. What assholes.
I noes!1111!!!
The bastards.
Did Francesa just say A-Rod stole a base!?!? Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?!?!
A-Rod never stole a base this season.
Epic fail on my part.
he only has 2, lets not go overboard like arod has 10 or something
oh you missed the ‘this season’ part?
either way he’s wrong alot so oh well
My guess is that we’ll start at 515 ish.
will the roof be in by then?
Any word yet?
looks like the tarp just came off
6:30 first pitch
wow, so basically its just a regular night game instead of a day one.. i still doubt they get the whole game in w/out a delay
A letter to the Yankees:
I bought four field-level tickets to the June 18 day game, taking my son and my father as a father’s day gift. It was to be a special day for a family of long-standing Yankee fans, including a four year old who has watched nearly every game (or at least the first few innings).
It had been raining for nine straight hours prior to the game and then for five hours after 1pm, the scheduled start time. The forecast showed nothing but rain until the early evening. Why on earth wasn’t the game cancelled? Because it would have been difficult to reschedule as it was an interleague game, a reason good for the Yankees but terrible for Yankee fans. What kind of organization allows a five and a half hour rain delay?
We spent an hour in transit and then four hours at the stadium watching the rain before we finally left to go home only to find that the Yankees were determined to wait all night, if need be, to play the game, fans be damned. This meant that if my group of two senior citizens and a four year old couldn’t (literally) stand there for over four hours BEFORE THE FIRST PITCH that I would lose $1300 worth of tickets I’d spent months saving for.
At the very least, the Yankees could have pushed back the start time and communicated it early in the day so people didn’t have to waste an entire day standing in a wet, crowded hallway waiting for a game that may or may not have been played. At best, they simply would have done what was right and rescheduled.
It might not seem like a lot to the “new Yankees”, but $1300 for tickets to a game is a HUGE amount to me. I also took a day off from work to get there.
The Yankees acted in their own selfish interest without giving a thought to their fans. I feel cheated.
Dude, 1st of all the yankees are not going to read your letter on this site. Secondly, rain delays happen, its part of life. Thirdly, the yanks already have to make up a bunch of games and they only have so many off days they can use up. They said all along they’d try their best to get this game in so its your fault for leaving. Weather predictions aren’t always that accurate, so they tried to find a window the best they could. I don’t see any validity in this complaint, sorry.
Question: do they allow refunds for long rain delays? If they don’t, you have a point.
They don’t. Was told I’m S.O.L. This sucks.
That really sucks.
Yankees dont play Washington for the rest of the year, they do not share an off day until after the season is finish. Game was scheduled for 1, its raining, they’re going to push it back as far as they can.
The Yankees apologize they cannot control the weather, they’ll try harder next time
So expecting a family of four to stand for five hours and spend a total of 9 hours at the ballpark is reasonable? They only wanted to get the game in so as not to inconvenience the team to have to fly (charter) Florida to NY at a later date. Better to inconvenience 50,000 people? They couldn’t have just announced a 6:30pm start time at say, noon?
At 10.30 this morning, it was pretty clear that the earliest they would start is 3.00.
No because they didn’t have updated weather reports at noon, as a general rule if its raining I don’t go to the stadium until I know the official start time. (Full disclosure: I live about 15 minutes from the stadium, so it doesnt take long for me to get there) But going to the stadium for a 1:00 start when there is a veritable monsoon going on outside is just stupid (dragging your 4 year old along is even stupider) it was obvious the game was not going to start then.
I agree with the complaint. I called the Yankees at noon and they said they had not pushed back the start time. Either way, a 5+ hour delay?! Yankees 1, Fans 0
Young pitching prospect getting injured on a wet mound. Yankees 0, Fans O
They almost never push back an official start time until just prior. Sometimes you have to use common sense.
I spent several hundred dollars a piece on 6 seats behind home plate for Old Timer’s Day a few years ago and two people were from out of town and had never been to a Yankees game.
It had rained all morning. They introduced the Old Timers but never played the OT game. Then there was a rain delay for hours. Then they started. The game was called in the bottom of the third. We had been there for hours before the OT festivities and waited for hours due to delay. This was the old Stadium and going to the concourse is not the picnic it is now.
THAT’S BASEBALL. Deal with it.
Both teams have an off day on Monday.
Yankees are in Miami playing a 5pm game, that means they wont take off until midnight, fly to NY, play a game, get back on the plane and fly down to atlanta, they’re not going to do that to the TEAM.
You’re a pissed off fan and thats fine, but they’re not a traveling circus, they get paid to win and they’re not flying their team up and down the east coast because thats what the fans want.
Anyone see what their doing at the open? Anyone who bought tickets are screwed no refund and can’t be used tomorrow. That’s rough.
Joba is getting hit pretty hard to start.
did anyoe read this about papelbon joining the yankees after his redsox career.
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/.....n-on-.html
that was vry cool of the yankees doin dat.
The Yankees are letting everyone who stayed sit in the field level seats. They don’t care about the fans.
Both teams appear to be trying to get the game in in less than 2 hours to make up for the rain delay.
I’m baffled by how terrible we are playing.