Archive for May, 2011
Looking back at recent complete game shutouts
Posted by: | CommentsAfter going an AL record 341 games between nine-inning complete games, the Yankees have received two such efforts in the last week. CC Sabathia did the honors against the Blue Jays last Tuesday and Bartolo Colon did the same to the Athletics yesterday, but you might remember that Sabathia’s was not a shutout. He allowed four runs in the early innings of that game before settling down. A big reason why the Yankees have had so few complete games (shutouts or otherwise) in recent years is Mariano Rivera, and that’s a pretty damn good reason. In honor of Colon’s gem, let’s look back at the last five complete game shutouts thrown by Yankees’ pitchers.
(AP Photo/Rob Carr)
CC Sabathia (May 8th, 2009 vs. Orioles)
This game is more memorable for Alex Rodriguez than Sabathia. After missing the first 28 games of the season due to his hip surgery, A-Rod returned to the lineup in Baltimore and promptly hit a three run homerun on the first pitch in his first at-bat. That swing gave the Yankees a lead Sabathia would protect for all nine innings, allowing four hits and a walk on 112 pitches. Two of those hits led off the ninth, but CC rebounded to punch out the next three for outs numbers 25, 26, and 27. This was Sabathia’s “welcome to New York” moment of sorts; he came into the game with a 4.85 ERA and the Yankees were just 2-4 in his starts. (Game Score: 86)
(AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Chien-Ming Wang (July 28th, 2006 vs. Devil Rays)
Two years before his career effectively ended while running the bases in Houston (sob sob), CMW tossed nine shutout and fairly typical CMW innings against the team former known as the Devil Rays at home. He struck out just one of the 30 batters he faced, getting 19 ground ball outs and seven in the air. Tampa didn’t put a man on base until the fifth inning, when they got one of their two hits. It was vintage Chien-Ming Wang, he threw just 104 pitches thanks to the impatient Devil Rays’ batters. (Game Score: 82)
(AP Photo/Ben Margot)
Aaron Small (Sept. 3rd, 2005 vs. Athletics)
Yep, Aaron Small. Fun fact: He made just nine starts in 2005 despite that 10-0 record. The other win came in long relief. The Yankees gave Small just one run of support through the first six innings, so his margin for error was small. He allowed five hits and two walks on 112 pitches, but only once did Oakland have two runners on base at the same time. Small struck out just three, getting most of the other outs in the air and on line drives. Good thing he was pitching in spacious Whatever They Called It Back Then Coliseum. (Game Score: 78).
Mike Mussina (June 14th, 2005 vs. Pirates)
It wasn’t until the fifth inning that the Pirates put someone on base, and Bernie Williams saved the shutout by throwing a runner out at the plate in the sixth inning. No, seriously. Bernie really threw a runner (Matt Lawton) out at the plate. Moose struck out six and walked one, surrendering five hits in this game, throwing a tidy 109 pitches in the interleague matchup. The Yankees scored seven runs before the fifth inning was over, making life a little easier for their starter. (Game Score: 82)
(AP Photo/John Froschauer)
Carl Pavano (May 17th, 2005 vs. Mariners)
Pavano didn’t do much for the Yankees, so this game was easily his best in pinstripes. This was before the days of the completely punchless Mariners offense, and Pavano allowed just five singles and a hit batsman against seven strikeouts. Two of those hits came in the fourth inning and another two came in the ninth, when the Yankees were up six-zip. This was Pavano’s ninth start of the season, and he’d make just 17 more over the next three and a half seasons with New York. (Game Score: 84)
* * *
Moose owns four of the six complete game shutouts before those five games, with the other two going to Roger Clemens and David Wells. Boomer actually threw nine complete game shutouts in pinstripes, six more than Andy Pettitte did in 273 fewer starts. Wow. Here’s a list of all 806 CG SHO in Yankees’ history.
Colon dominates A’s in Memorial Day shutout
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Like a boss. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
How did you celebrate Memorial Day? Bartolo Colon honored those who gave their lives defending this country by throwing a complete game shutout, and I doubt you did something as cool as that. The Athletics managed to hit just seven (!!!) balls out of the infield in nine innings, and two of those balls were leadoff doubles that did not come around to score. The final tally: nine innings, four hits, no walks, six strikeouts, eleven ground balls, and just 103 pitches. Amazing. That’s what Colon has been. Amazing.
As for the rest of the team … Mark Teixeira hit a first inning two-run homer, his seventh jack in eleven games. Robinson Cano doubled and tripled, Frankie Cervelli and Brett Gardner each stole two bases, and Nick Swisher even managed to reach base twice (single and a walk). Solid day all around and a textbook win. Great pitching, the long ball, and a few manufactured runs. Everyone’s happy.
The Yankees have won two in a row, four of six, six of nine, and nine of 13. They also held multi-run leads in their two most recent losses, so those games were winnable. RAB will back to normal on Tuesday, when Freddy Garcia gives it a go against Brett Anderson. Here’s the WPA graph and box score of Bartolo gem.
Betances strong in Trenton win
Posted by: | CommentsTriple-A Scranton (8-5 loss to Indianapolis)
Austin Krum, LF: 1 for 5, 1 R, 1 RBI
Ramiro Pena, SS: 0 for 4, 1 R, 1 BB, 3 K
Jesus Montero, DH: 2 for 4, 1 2B, 1 K
Jorge Vazquez, 1B: 0 for 4, 2 K, 1 E (missed a catch)
Justin Maxwell, CF: 0 for 3, 1 BB, 2 K
Brandon Laird, 3B, Kevin Russo, 2B & Dan Brewer, RF: all 2 for 4, 1 R – Laird and Russo doubled, Brewer whiffed and caught stealing … Laird also committed a fielding error
Gus Molina, C: 1 for 4, 1 RBI, 1 K
Adam Warren, RHP: 6 IP, 9 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 1 WP, 5-6 GB/FB – 53 of 92 pitches were strikes (57.6%)
Kanekoa Texeira, RHP: 1 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 1 K, 3-0 GB/FB - 20 of 32 pitches were strikes (62.5%)
George Kontos, RHP: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K, 2-1 GB/FB – eight of his dozen pitches were strikes
Open Thread: It is … off the pole! See ya!
Posted by: | CommentsI was putting the Athletics Series Preview together last night and writing about Grant Balfour reminded me of that shot from last September. That bat speed is just ridiculous, it’s a fastball up around his eyes and Curtis Granderson still got so far out in front of it that it nearly went foul. Don’t ever change, Curtis.
Anyway, here’s your open thread for the night as you wind down from the long Memorial Day weekend. The Mets are playing the Pirates (Gee vs. Morton), and that’s pretty much it. Talk about whatever you want, go nuts.
2011 Draft: Dillon Howard
Posted by: | CommentsThe draft is just seven days away, so between now and then I’m going to highlight some players individually rather than lump a few together in one post.
Dillon Howard | RHP
Background
The best draft prospect in Arkansas, Howard has been on the radar for a long time thanks to his consistently impressive performances at showcase events and with summer traveling teams. He hasn’t had a great senior year at Searcy High School, but no one gets drafted based on high school stats. He’s committed to Arkansas.
Scouting Report
A 6-foot-3, 200 lb. right-hander, Howard has pitched consistently at 91-94 with a fastball that runs in on righties, and he’s gotten it up as high as 96 in the past. He could legitimately sit in the mid-90′s once he’s done growing. Howard’s breaking ball is inconsistent, resembling a curveball on some days and a slider on others, but he’s certainly shown the ability to make the ball spin. His changeup is very much a work in progress, as is his overall command despite a sound delivery. Howard is an athletic kid that played all over the infield in high school, and his passion for the game shows in his play.
Miscellany
Last week we heard that the Yankees are “heavily in” on Howard, who is supposedly asking for big bucks to skip out on the Razorbacks. The kid has a chance for a big time fastball with a power breaking ball, which are instant tools for success. Howard has significant upside, and adding a changeup will give him true top of the rotation ability. The draft class is deep enough that teams unwilling to meet his asking price will have viable alternatives, so it’s not impossible that he could still be around when the Yankees pick at number 51.
Keith Law and Baseball America ranked Howard as the 18th and 31st best prospect in the draft in their latest rankings.
Game 52: Memorial Day
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I dunno, what do you think? They’re certainly better than those bright red monstrosities from two years ago, thought I actually liked the all-white hats from last year. They had an old timey feel to them, I guess. These two-tone hats aren’t completely awful, but I won’t be rushing out to buy one anytime soon. Here’s the lineup…
Derek Jeter, SS
Curtis Granderson, CF
Mark Teixeira, 1B
Alex Rodriguez, 3B
Robinson Cano, 2B
Jorge Posada, DH
Nick Swisher, RF
Brett Gardner, LF
Frankie Cervelli, C – Russell Martin was scratched with a sore toe
Bartolo Colon, SP
This afternoon’s game can be seen at 4:05pm ET on YES. Enjoy and happy Memorial Day.
Yankees will stay on rotation despite off day
Posted by: | CommentsVia Marc Carig, the Yankees intend to stay on rotation this week and will use Thursday’s off day to give the five starters an extra day of rest. That means Ivan Nova will start Friday even though he could have easily been skipped since Thursday would have been his normal day to pitch. Following Saturday’s dismantling at the hands of the Mariners, Nova has now allowed 16 runs and 39 baserunners in 18.2 IP over his last four starts. He’s also dangerously close to a sub-1.00 K/BB ratio on the year (27 K, 24 BB), and his 3.9% swing-and-miss rate is dead last among qualified starters. Meh.
Series Preview: Oakland Athletics
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Robbed. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
After having multiple run leads in all three games against the Mariners and losing two of them, the Yankees are heading down to the Bay Area for a three game set against the Oakland Athletics. These two teams have quite a bit of recent-ish history, like Jason Giambi, Scott Brosius, and the 2000 and 2001 ALDSes. The Yankees won nine of the ten games against the Athletics last year, including five of six in Oakland.
What Have The Athletics Done Lately?
The A’s are coming off a three game sweep of the Orioles, outscoring the orange birds 16-8 over the weekend. They had lost seven of nine before that, including six straight at one point. Overall, the Athletics are right at .500 with a 27-27 record, dead last in the division even though their +12 run differential is second best.
Athletics On Offense
He's the Hit-deki, you know. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Eh, they don’t really have much of an one. Despite several notable offseason additions, the A’s have the third worst team OBP (.307) in the AL and they average just 3.65 runs per game. The problems start right at the top, where leadoff man Coco Crisp gets on base just 30.7% of the time and number two hitter Daric Barton gets on base just 32.6% of the time (.393 OBP for Barton last year).
The remade middle of the order features David DeJesus (.247/.323/.385), Josh Willingham (.244/.328/.446), and True Yankee™ Hideki Matsui (.266/.282/.346), and those three aren’t exactly Gonzalez-Youkilis-Ortiz. Kurt Suzuki (.250/.314/.372), Mark Ellis (.213/.249/.295), Cliff Pennington (.259/.312/.341) and Kevin Kouzmanoff (.220/.262/.347) round out the rest of the lineup, though we might see lefty Ryan Sweeney (.320/.414/.413) and righty Conor Jackson (.264/.349/.345) is various matchup situations. With a team batting line of .241/.307/.351 on the season, facing the A’s is almost like facing a lineup of nine Derek Jeters. Think about that.
Athletics On The Mound
Monday, RHP Trevor Cahill: Last year looked like a fluke, given a .236 BABIP and a 56% ground ball rate. The extremes of those two stats usually don’t go together. The 23-year-old righty has shown that he’s legit by repeating his dominance this year, using a 7.07 K/9 and 57.2% ground balls to carve through lineups. Cahill’s approach is pretty simple; he pounds the zone with low-90′s sinkers pretty much all day long, though he’ll occasionally bust out a low-80′s changeup and an upper-70′s curveball to get swings and misses. The Yankees have roughly him up in the past, but that was before Cahill took a step forward and turned into one of the best pitchers in the AL. He’s everything we wish Ivan Nova could be.
(AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
Tuesday, LHP Brett Anderson: A personal fave, Anderson employs the same strikeout (6.90 K/9) and ground ball (62.3%) heavy approach as Cahill, just with his other arm. He throws two fastballs in the low-90′s, using his sinking two-seamer a little more often than his four-seamer, but his money pitch is the slider. It’s absolute death on lefties and Anderson will throw the low-80′s offering more than 46% of the time, so he’ll go to it in any count. A curveball and changeup fill in the gaps, but he just uses them as show-me pitches more than anything. When healthy, which wasn’t often last year, Anderson’s the best pitcher on this staff, even better than Cahill.
Wednesday, LHP Gio Gonzalez: The Athletics have a pair of guys named Josh Outman and Guillermo Moscoso in their rotation, yet somehow the Yankees will run into their top three arms this series. Go figure. Gio’s the strikeout guy on the staff (9.10 K/9), though he also gets a decent amount of grounders as well (50.6%). The problem is that he’s shown a tendency to walk quite a few (4.04 BB/9), and we’ve seen the Yankees take advantage of that a few times over the last two seasons. Gonzalez goes to the mound with three true pitches that he uses almost equally: a low-to-mid 90′s four-seamer (30.0%), a low-90′s two-seamer (32.4%), and a big breaking curveball right around 80 mph (32.5%). About one in every 20 pitches will be a fosh changeup. Gio’s a bit of a wildcard, he’s the kind of guy that could walk six in five innings or whiff a dozen in nine. But again, the Yankees have had some success against him the last few times they’ve seen him.
Easy dude. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
Bullpen: The A’s are a model pitching and defense team, so they unsurprisingly have a strong bullpen that got even stronger yesterday when they welcomed All-Star closer Andrew Bailey back from the disabled list. We’re all familiar with the hard throwing setup man Grant Balfour (10.22 K/9), who joins the slider happy Michael Wuertz (9.88 K/9) to give manager Bob Geren a pair of high strikeout options in the late innings. Craig Breslow has been even more anti-LOOGY than Boone Logan (LHB are hitting .400/.424/.533 off him), though Geren could always turn to fill-in closer Brian Fuentes (.250/.308/.333) in those spots. The rest of Oakland’s pen is occupied by Joey Devine and Brad Ziegler, a pair of low arm slot (in Ziegler’s case, submarine) righties that do their best work against batters of the same hand. It’s the kind of relief crew that can create matchup nightmares in the late innings, and just about all of them miss bats.
Recommended Athletics Reading: Athletics Nation and Beaneball
Hughes could face hitters this week
Posted by: | CommentsPhil Hughes threw a 30-pitch bullpen session before yesterday’s game against the Mariners, starting off with 20 fastballs before incorporating a handful of curveballs and changeups. Everything went well and Hughes felt fine, no pain or anything. He will take today and tomorrow off before throwing another bullpen on Wednesday, and if all goes well there’s a chance that he could throw live batting practice before the end of the week. That would be pretty amazing, but the real test won’t come until he makes a minor league rehab start.
Fan Confidence Poll: May 30th, 2011
Posted by: | CommentsRecord Last Week: 3-3 (29 RS, 24 RA)
Season Record: 28-23 (264 RS, 209 RA, 31-20 pythag. record), tied in the loss column
Opponents This Week: @ Athletics (Mon. to Weds.), Thurs. OFF, @ Angels (three games, Fri. to Sun.)
Top stories from last week:
- The week started off with a three game series against the Blue Jays, but a stinker by Bartolo Colon resulted in a loss on Monday. The Yankees walked off with a win the next day, then they took the rubber game behind a pair of Andruw Jones homers.
- The first west coast trip of the season started off with a pair of blown leads and losses, though the Yankee salvaged things with a big win on Sunday.
- Injury News: Rafael Soriano will miss six-to-eight weeks with an inflamed elbow ligament following a setback. Phil Hughes threw off a mound for the first time since suffering a setback off his own. Pedro Feliciano will begin a throwing program this week.
- Kanekoa Texeira came back to the organization on a waiver claim. Minor leaguers Andy Sisco and Brian Anderson were both released, and the Yankees tried to acquire Franklin Morales.
- The Yankees have been heavily linked to draft prospects Tyler Goeddel, Jake Cave, Dillon Howard, and Brandon Martin.
Please take a second to answer the poll below and give us an idea of how confident you are in the team. You can view the (new and improved!) Fan Confidence Graph anytime via the nav bar above, or by clicking here. Thanks in advance for voting.
