Archive for August, 2009
Offense leads Tampa to division title
Posted by: | CommentsOne year ago today on DotF, Ian Kennedy pitched Triple-A Scranton to a division title.
Triple-A Scranton
Game 1 (5-3 loss to Pawtucket in 7 innings) makeup of yesterday’s rain out
Kevin Russo & Frankie Cervelli: both 2 for 3 – Russo drove in a run & walked
Ramiro Pena: 0 for 4 – played CF
Austin Jackson: 1 for 4
Shelley Dncan & Yurendell DeCaster: both 1 for 3, 1 R, 1 HR, 1 RBI – Shelley K’ed & threw a runner out at home from RF
Juan Miranda & Reegie Corona: both 0 for 3 – Corona K’ed
Cody Ransom: 0 for 2, 1 R, 1 K, 1 HBP, 1 E (fielding)
Ivan Nova: 4 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 6-4 GB/FB – 46 of 74 pitches were strikes (62.2%)
Amaury Sanit: 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 4-1 GB/FB – 23 of 35 pitches were strikes (65.7%)
Anthony Claggett: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 0 K, 3-0 GB/FB – 7 of 11 pitches were strikes
Open Thread: A-god
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s amazing that there are still people talking about the White Sox as possible contenders in the AL Central, isn’t it? Remember when Mark Buerhle was Mr. Perfect and Alex Rios was going to solve the centerfield problem and Jake Peavy gave them four dominant starters? Yeah, those were the days. Anyway, now that the Yanks have swept those frauds out of the town, I want to point two stat lines out to you.
First…
.304-.390-.575-.965
Second…
.313-.431-.553-.984
That first set of numbers is Alex Rodriguez‘s career batting line. His career line is basically equal to what Miguel Cabrera is doing this year. Think about that for a second.
The second set of slash stats? That’s A-Rod‘s batting line since June 24th, which is the day Brian Cashman visited the team in Atlanta. That 22 point difference in SLG … you know what that is? It’s one stupid double every 47 at-bats. I’ll take the 41 point boost in OBP over those missing 22 SLG points every day in the week. So please, let’s stop all this nonsense about A-Rod not being the same hitter he was before the hip surgery. He’s got 100 OPS points on MVP candidate teammate Mark Teixeira since that fateful day in Atlanta. The guy is a machine.
* * *
So anyways, use this as your open thread. The Braves and Phillies are the ESPN Sunday Night game, and you’ve also got Jay Cutler returning to Denver on NBC. Anything goes, but be cool to each other.
Game 130 Spillover Thread
Posted by: | CommentsAceves is looking good, but of course the White Sox suck, so take it with a big grain of salt.
Game 130: How long will Joba go?
Posted by: | CommentsJoba Chamberlain will start the final game of the series for the Yankees this afternoon, but no one knows exactly how long he’ll go. As we learned on Friday, there is a new set of Joba Rules which will allow for Joba to take the ball every five days and keep his innings in check. This is a departure from the previous plan, which was to give him extended rest. The Yankees weren’t happy with the results they got so far, so rather than stay the course they’ve decided to alter the plan. They’ll achieve the same result, just using different means.
The plan is to keep him in a rhythm by handing him the ball every five days. The catch is that he won’t be going many innings in some of these outings. Entering play today Joba has thrown 130.2 innings, so he probably has around 30 to go for the season. He might not go that long today — the plan is to build him back up to six innings per start by the end of the season, in preparation for the playoffs, so they’ll have to skim some innings from starts in the interim.
Backing up Joba will be Al Aceves and David Robertson. Some of Aceves’s best performances this year have come in relief of Chamberlain, though he hasn’t been great in his last few outings. He did hold his own against Texas on Thursday after a four-day layoff, so perhaps he’s had time to recover. The Yanks could use a good two or three innings out of him today. If they can get four from Joba and three from Aceves and Robertson, they should be set up to toss Hughes and Mo to close it out.
That, of course, depends on the offense. They’ll get their chance against Freddy Garcia. You might remember that the Yanks expressed interest in the righty prior to the season, but he ended up signing with the Mets. That experiment didn’t last long, as the Mets jettisoned him before he could make a major league appearance. The White Sox later picked him up, and have given him two starts to date.
Those starts haven’t been all that great. He allowed five runs in 4.1 innings to the Royals his first time out, though that could have been shaking off the rust. Last time out he faced the Red Sox and allowed three runs over 6.1 innings. He used only 93 pitches in that span, so perhaps Freddy is coming around to be a serviceable pitcher for a second-tier team. Hopefully the Yanks get to him before he fully comes around.
There was a complaint about Melky starting in our Twitter feed. I have no problem with this. He’s the starter. He got a day off yesterday, and that’s fine. Good even, considering how he’s been slumping. Now he’s back in the lineup. We’ll see if he can start swinging the bat a bit better.
Lineup:
1. Derek Jeter, SS
2. Johnny Damon, LF
3. Mark Teixeira, 1B
4. Alex Rodriguez, 3B
5. Hideki Matsui, DH
6. Jorge Posada, C
7. Robinson Cano, 2B
8. Eric Hinske, RF
9. Melky Cabrera, CF
And on the mound, number sixty-two, Joba Chamberlain.
Betances undergoes Tommy John surgery
Posted by: | CommentsVia Mike Ashmore, pitching prospect Dellin Betances had Tommy John surgery a few days ago and is starting the rehab process in Tampa. Betances made eleven starts for High-A Tampa this year, but between various injuries he’s managed just 159.2 IP over the last two years. Hopefully he’s ready to go in 2011.
A fruit stand grows in the Bronx
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The Yankee Stadium Farmers Market on a cold April day. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)
I first saw this odd fruit stand right inside Gate 4 at the new Yankee Stadium on a cold day in April, and it seemed fairly gimmicky to me. After all, bananas were two for $3, and both navel oranges and Anjou pears carried the same price tag. For nearly one-third the price, I could just grab a banana at the fruit store on the way to the subway before heading up to the game.
Yet, over the course of the season, these fruit stands have become quite successful, and yesterday, The Times’ Manny Fernandez explored the stadium fruit stand phenomenon. Apparently, fans turned off by the high prices — and more importantly, the high calorie counts — of the regular stadium fare are turning to the fruit stand for relief.
At Yankee Stadium this week, in the entrance hall just beyond Gate 4, the fruits were arranged in baskets and trays on a wooden pushcart and on two other displays. It is a place of only-in-New York moments: men and women, some in Yankee pinstripes, shorts and sneakers, some holding tall half-empty cups of beer, squeezing fruit and asking if the peaches were fresh.
Several customers said the stand was a pleasant surprise. In the third inning of a game on Tuesday against the Texas Rangers, Randy Ian Brandoff, 33, an executive at a private jet company, had trouble deciding between a nectarine and a peach, and walked away with one of each. A few minutes later, Ronnie and Carole Meyer, a retired couple from Bloomington, Minn., bought two bananas. “There’s too much greasy food,” said Mrs. Meyer, 64, adding that she and her husband would probably have bought popcorn had they not found the fruit stand.
Angela Mangels, 31, a health-conscious architect from Long Island, was not planning to eat anything at the stadium. “I don’t normally buy anything at ball fields,” she said. She bought two nectarines, an apple and a banana at the stand for $6.
As Fernandez relates, the fruit isn’t as local as one would prefer. The stand is run by a Los Angeles-based fruit importer and distributor, and the fruit is shipped in from Washington, California, Oregon and even New Zealand. “I’m thrilled that it’s there,” Michael Hurwitz, the head of New York’s very successful Greenmarket program, said. “I just think that there’s a great opportunity to support our regional economy and our regional growers, particularly in this economy. You could have New York State apples, you could have New York State peaches, you could have New York State pears.”
The company, Melissa’s Produce, defended its cross-country shipping by citing the weather. A spokesman said that fall may bring some local apples as well.
Meanwhile, the fruit stand sells around 200 pounds of produce a game, and even at a mark-up of nearly 300 percent in some cases, that’s still an impressive total. Who would have thought we’d see the day a fruit stand thrives inside a baseball stadium?
Kennedy: ‘It doesn’t feel like anything ever happened’
Posted by: | CommentsChad Jennings checks in with a report on rehabbing hurler Ian Kennedy, who made a brief cameo in the Triple-A Scranton clubhouse yesterday. “It feels good,” Kennedy said. “It doesn’t feel like anything ever happened. It’s a long process, but I understand we have to be on the cautious side because if something did happen, I’d be pretty upset at myself for pushing it.” IPK has been throwing 35-pitch bullpen sessions in Tampa, working on all four pitches to both sides of the dish.
He’s not going to make it into a game before the minor league season ends in a little over a week, so instead Kennedy will head to instructional league at the end of September before reporting to the Arizona Fall League. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to seeing him at full strength next spring.
Inside the world of New Era caps
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Around New York City — and the world, really — Yankee hats are forever popular. While I’m a big supporter for the on-field 59Fifty New Era cap in midnight blue with the white interlocking NY, some fans look for caps of every stripe and color. While we would rather forget it, Spike Lee originated the red Yankee cap made infamous by Fred Durst in the late 1990s, and that marketing stunt has led to atrocities such as this one.
Earlier this week, Ken Belson profiled New Era’s efforts at staying profitable in a bad economy. I found the article to be a fascinating glimpse inside one of baseball’s most ubiquitous and successful brands:
The hundreds of embroiderers and stitchers hunched over clattering sewing machines at the New Era Cap factory could be forgiven for thinking these are good times. After all, they churn out 72,000 baseball hats a week, about seven a minute. But modesty has been a byword this recession, and baseball caps are no exception. Consumers are opting for Corollas over Cadillacs, Formica kitchen counters over granite and, it turns out, hats with traditional designs over garish ones.
“We’re seeing a very jittery landscape,” said Peter Augustine, the president of New Era, which has its headquarters in Buffalo, 20 miles north of the factory here. “People are trying to stick to their most conservative plans. Even Yankee hats are down despite the year they are having.”
Sales have slipped 10 percent so far this year at New Era, a privately held company that is the country’s largest sports hat maker and the official provider of on-field caps to Major League Baseball. In the past week, the company has laid off 27 workers at its warehouse in Mobile, Ala., and 40 percent of its workers at its factories in the state because of low demand. Some of them could be rehired when production recovers.
Still, industry experts say that this is only a pause in the hat market, which has more than doubled in the past decade, when $35 fitted baseball caps became must-haves. Baseball caps remain the standard-bearer of the sports apparel market, and New Era, like its competitors, is trying to adapt to changing tastes and tightening strings.
The article goes on to detail New Era’s history in the game. The company first broke into the baseball world in 1934 when the Indians placed an order. The 59Fifties arrived in 1954, but it was not until 1993 that New Era became the exclusive provider of MLB caps. The piece gets into the ways in which various teams order hats and looks at how New Era can offer any color combination for hats.
Of note for Yankee fans though are the sales and stitch numbers. Yankee caps are the game’s top sellers. According to Belson, “Yankees caps..outsell all others by a 3-to-1 margin, not only because of the team’s success on the field but also because the logo has such broad appeal.” Meanwhile, the Yankees have a rather simple logo. According to New Era, one white interlocking NY features just 2,688 stitches, fourth least in baseball behind the Phillies, Pirates and Cubs. The Marlins’ crazy logo features a league-leading 10,966 stitches.
I’m a veteran hat collector. I haven’t missed a new Yankee patch hat since New Era introduced them in 1996. I’m eagerly awaiting the next addition to my collection, and I’m hoping it will be the 59Fifty that comes out with the 2009 World Series patch. I’ll hand over my $35 for those 2,688 stitches.
Ten games is just too many
Posted by: | CommentsSorry folks, but there was just too many doubleheaders tonight, so I’m going to take a easy way out and bullet point this one. Just so you know, both High-A Tampa and the Rookie GCL Yanks have clinched playoff spots.
- Triple-A Scranton (Game 1): Everyone in the starting lineup had at least one hit, except for John Rodriguez. Josh Towers threw six scoreless and Mark Melancon backed him up with two scoreless frames of his own. Jon Albaladejo was perfect in the ninth for his 11th save.
- Triple-A Scranton (Game 2): Postponed due to rain. They’re going to play two tomorrow.
- Double-A Trenton (Game 1): Eduardo Nunez reached base three times, Justin Snyder drove in three, and Edwar Gonzalez ended the game with a walk-off bases loaded walk. Jeremy Bleich struck out five and allowed three runs in five frames of work. As Mike Ashmore points out, it was their THIRTEENTH walk-off win of the season. And here I am thinking the Yanks were kings of the walk-off.
- Double-A Trenton (Game 2): Has been in a rain delay for over an hour now. Zach McAllister allowed just two hits in four-plus innings before the rains came.
- High-A Tampa: Damon Sublett tripled, but otherwise the offense was pretty much a no-show. That’s especially bad news when Jairo Heredia allowed seven runs in just two innings of work, like he did tonight. Position players Kevin Smith & Luis Nunez chipped in two and two-thirds hitless innings to polish this one off. It’s always fun when position players have to pitch.
- Low-A Charleston (Game 1): Abe Almonte & Garrison Lassiter each racked up a hit, and Andrew Brackman picked up just his second win of the season thanks to two scoreless, walkless, and wild pitchless innings.
- Low-A Charleston (Game 2): Multiple hits for Abe Almonte, Corban Joseph, Taylor Grote, Addison Maruszak, Garrison Lassiter, and Mitch Abeita. Cory Arbiso got shelled for eight runs in four innings, but various relievers bailed him out with seven innings of ridiculously good reliever (2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 9 K).
- Short Season Staten Island (Game 1): Zoilo Almonte picked up three hits, DeAngelo Mack ripped two doubles, and Luke Murton went deep. Carmen Angelini followed up his two jack game with an 0-fer. Sean Black struck out three in six innings of two hit, scoreless ball.
- Short Season Staten Island (Game 2): Almonte tripled & homered while Mack picked up two more hits. Caleb Cotham made his SI debut by striking out four in three scoreless innings, and the Gavin Brooks led bullpen slammed door over the final four innings.
- Rookie GCL Yanks: Kelvin DeLeon singled and JR Murphy doubled & drove in two, all while Mikey O’Brien struck out seven in six inings of work. Ryan Acosta made his org. debut with a scoreless inning after being picked up off the scrap heap. Their regular season ends on Monday.
We’re entering the home stretch, less than two weeks left in the minor league regular season…
