I hope Joba treats the O’s like the last place team they are.
Game 31: Finding a new way to lose
The Yanks are 1-6 in their last seven games, and are 5-11 in their last sixteen. They’ve lost games in every way imaginable; walk-offs, blows outs, defensive ugliness, pitcher duels, you name it. You can bet the team would like to go into tomorrow’s off day on the heels of a victory, rather than having to think about what went wrong in yet another loss.
Joba Chamberlain will make the start this afternoon despite popping a blood vessel in his pitching thumb yesterday. I’m a bit shocked that they’re sending him to the mound, the Yanks have always treated their young arms with kid gloves. The fact that he’s going pitch makes me feel better, because the thumb issue can’t be that serious then. Hopefully he’s ready to go from first pitch, rather than waiting until the game has pretty much already been decided, like in his last two starts. Joba will be opposed by Koji Uehara, who beat the Yanks in the second game of the season.
The lineup:
Jeter, SS
Damon, LF
Teixeira, 1B
A-Rod, 3B
Matsui, DH
Swisher, RF
Cano, 2B
Melky, CF
Cervelli, C
And on the mound, the blood vessel poppin’ Joba Chamberlain.
Happy Mothers Day to all the RAB moms and wives out there.
Enter for a chance to win a Fourth of July Luxury Suite
Longtime RAB reader David Yaskulka brought this to my attention, and I wanted to pass it along. The nonprofit organization Green Chimneys is raffling off the chance to win an amazing Fourth of July outing at the New Stadium. The organization is dedicated to helping children with emotional, behavioral, social and learning disabilities by promoting a philosophy of dignity and sense of worth through animal-assisted therapy. You can read all about the great work Green Chimneys does at their website.
As for the raffle, here’s what you’ll have a shot to win:
- Luxury Suite between home plate and the Yankees’ dugout with accommodations for 16 people for the Saturday, July 4th game against Toronto
- VIP parking for three vehicles
- All the food and drinks your heart desires.
Only 500 raffle tickets are available, and you can get yours for just $100. The drawing will be held on June 7th, and of course all the proceeds go to Green Chimneys. If you’re interested in purchasing a raffle ticket, go here to do so. Don’t wait, they may run out faster than you think. Good luck!
Melky leads Charleston to victory with another homer
Lots of notes tonight, so let’s bullet point ’em:
- For some unknown reason, the DJ Mitchell was removed from the Low-A Charleston roster and assigned him to Short Season Staten Island. Manny Banuelos was activated from the DL and takes Mitchell’s roster spot. Staten Island’s season doesn’t begin until June 19th, so this is just a paper move. I’m sure Mitchell’s down in Tampa working out with the Extended Spring Training crew, but this seems odd because he was dealing (42-6 K/BB, 2.21 GB/FB, .228 BAA in 37 IP). I’ll let you know if I hear anything else.
- The 9th Inning took a look at the correlation between Carmen Angelini errors and Yankee losses. Hopefully he stops botching so many plays soon.
- The Yanks signed Josh Towers to fill out the Triple-A rotation. As long as he never sees the Bronx, I’m cool with it. DJF must be laughing though.
- Last, but certainly not least, the Yanks are scouting Yu Darvish. I suspect the other 29 clubs are too. He won’t be a free agent for another five years, and he’s still relatively cheap (making $1.75M this year) so his team has no reason to post him anytime soon. Hopefully the Yanks do their homework, we don’t want another Kei Igawa.
Also, make sure you scroll down for news on Joba’s popped blood vessel.
Update (11:30pm): Mitchell was sent down to control his innings according to Robert Pimpsner at Baby Bombers.
Triple-A Scranton (3-2 loss to Louisville)
Doug Bernier & Luis Nunez: both 1 for 4, 1 R – Bernier drove in a run & K’ed twice … Nunez swiped a bag
Eric Duncan: 0 for 5
Todd Linden: 1 for 3, 1 2B, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 2 K – 18 XBH in 29 games
John Rodriguez & Juan Miranda: both 0 for 4 – J-Rod K’ed
Austin Jackson: 2 for 4, 1 2B, 1 K – breaks out of a little 2 for 15 (.133) funk
Chris Malec: 1 for 4, 1 K, 1 SB
Chris Stewart: 2 for 5, 1 PB, 1 E (throwing)
George Kontos: 6.1 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 7 K, 1 WP, 6-5 GB/FB, 1 E (throwing) – 63 of 92 pitches were strikes (68.5%)
Mark Melancon: 1.2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K, 4-1 GB/FB – 11 of 15 pitches were strikes (73.3%) … vintage Melancon
Game 30 Spillover Thread II
One last thread to bring this one on home.
Game 30 Spillover Thread
Ron: Boy, that escalated quickly… I mean, that really got out of hand fast.
Champ: It jumped up a notch.
Ron: It did, didn’t it?
What made CC so effective last night?
Last night, CC Sabathia showed the Yankees and their fans exactly what he was capable of. After a month of starts that were nothing more than adequete, Sabathia shutout the Orioles in impressive fashion, retiring twenty-three of twenty-four at one point. He recorded the final three outs in the ninth on strikeouts, then followed it up with a roar that announced to everyone that the real CC Sabathia had finally arrived.
But what made Sabathia so much more effective last night than his Opening Day assignment? Since both starts were in Baltimore, we can take a look at Sabathia’s stuff through Pitch f/x without having to worry about slight differences in the PFX cameras. Let’s start off with Sabathia’s pitch selection (remember to click on any graph in this post for a larger view):
The two outings are similar, except that Sabathia broke out the changeup more often last night. Back in April he was basically a two pitch pitcher, throwing either his fastball or slider 87% of the time. That dropped to 80.3% last night. Half of Sabathia’s eight strikesouts came on changeups, evidence that the pitch was keeping O’s hitters off balance.
After the jump, we’ll take a quick look at Sabathia’s individual pitches.