CC Sabathia … worth the money.
Game 5: Girardi keeps balancing the lineup
In Spring Training, Joe Girardi said that he’d find enough at bats for Nick Swisher, who lost the right field competition — though it wasn’t really a competition — to Xavier Nady. Swish sat on the bench for the opener and Game 2, but came on strong in Games 3 and 4. To make sure that Swish continues to get at bats, especially while he’s hot, Girardi has slotted him in left field for Johnny Damon tonight.
This is the kind of balance Girardi will have to find all season. Sometimes he’ll have to go with the hot hand, but if everyone’s hitting it’s going to be a tough balance. The early indication, though, is that he knows what he’s going to do. That’s all we can ask for at this point.
Here’s the big question: if Hideki puts up another 0-for today, does he get another day off tomorrow? He has just one hit and no walks in 10 plate appearances, and that he’s hitting in the middle of the order doesn’t help his case. HIs at bats haven’t looked particularly good either, as he’s trying to pull a lot of outside pitches and has been stepping in the bucket with a frequency you’d like not to see in a major leaguer. It’s early, and I have complete faith that Hideki will come around and help the lineup. For the time being, though, it might be better to stick with the guys who are hitting, which includes Nick Swisher.
Brett Gardner gets the start again tonight, which is slightly surprising at first glance. Girardi stressed that Melky Cabrera didn’t lose the center field battle, and with a lefty on the mound it would seem a prime opportunity to get him at bats. Yet Melky is demonstrably worse as a righty hitter — .648 OPS over his career vs .725 as lefty. One has to wonder, then, how Girardi will work him into the lineup…if he does at all.
Lineup:
1. Derek Jeter, SS
2. Nick Swisher, LF Johnny Damon, LF
3. Mark Teixeira, 1B Nick Swisher, 1B
4. Hideki Matsui, DH
5. Jorge Posada, C
6. Robinson Cano, 2B
7. Xavier Nady, RF
8. Cody Ransom, 3B
9. Brett Gardner, CF
And on the mound, No. 52, Carsten Charles Sabathia
Late Update by Mike: Kat O’Brien is reported that Mark Teixeira is out of the lineup with a sore left wrist. Swisher slides in at first and Damon will man left after all. It’s probably just a precaution, he’s been driving the ball pretty well the last few days.
Game 4 spillover thread
Farnsworth just retired Damon. Damn. We’re moving the operation here so the other thread doesn’t take a bajillion years to load.
Series Preview: Yankees (1-2) at Royals (2-1)
After a rough start to the season, the Yanks picked up their first victory on Thursday and hope to ride that into their first series win of the season this weekend in Kansas City. They’ll see the season debuts of Andy Pettitte and Joba Chamberlian, and CC Sabathia gets a chance for redemption on Saturday.
The Royals are rolling after their first series with the White Sox. If not for a poor decision to let Kyle Farnsworth face Jim Thome, the Royals could have swept the defending AL Central champs, but they’ll take two out of three any day. Their starting pitching was stellar, allowing just one run over 20 innings while amassing 21 strikeouts and issuing four walks. Shaky youngster Kyle Davies impressed in his start yesterday, going 7 innings while allowing no runs on 3 hits and 2 walks, striking out 8.
The offense, while racking up just six runs during the series, hasn’t been too hot. New leadoff hitter Coco Crisp has two doubles and a homer — and the homer won the game in the top of the 9th yesterday. Alex Gordon recorded the first Royals run of the year with a homer on Tuesday, but that’s one of just two hits he has on the season. It’s still early, of course, and some of these guys could pick up the pace. Yet it’s not promising that the team has zero hits from first base so far this season, and that Jose Guillen, surprise surprise, has more strikeouts than hits.
The Yanks starting pitching struggled in the first two games, but Burnett rebounded with a solid outing yesterday. The bullpen has been a bright spot, as it’s had basically one bad inning — the eighth on Opening Day — but has dominated in the past two games, allowing no runs in relief of Wang and Burnett. Pettitte could make it all right by going deep this evening and giving most of the bullpen a day off. That’s one of the strengths of the rotation: a bunch of guys who, when they are on, can go deep into games. The one exception, Joba Chamberlain, is surrounded by workhorses Sabathia and Wang.
On the offensive side of the ball there wasn’t much to complain about. The exception, perhaps, is the number of men they left on base, but that’s going to happen when you put a lot of guys on base in general. The Yanks put 45 runners on base in the first three games and scored 21 runs, so that’s not a terrible ratio by any means. Just imagine this lineup once A-Rod makes his triumphant return.
Here are the pitching match-ups for the series. All games are on YES and CBS 880 AM.
Friday, 4:10 p.m.
LHP Andy Pettitte vs. RHP Sidney Ponson
After getting bounced from the rotation late last year, Ponson went unnoticed for most of the winter until he turned in a decent WBC performance for the Netherlands. Kansas City then signed him to a minor league deal, and he won the fourth rotation spot out of camp. Hopefully the Yanks offense can repeat the last time they faced Ponson.
Saturday, 7:10
LHP CC Sabathia vs. LHP Horacio Ramirez
Nothing has been more frustrating over the past few years than the Yanks’ flailing efforts against soft-tossing, mediocre lefties. Over five appearances against the Yanks in his career Ramirez has held them to a .739 OPS, among his best against any team. They fared a bit better off him last year, when he faced them twice in relief appearances. The totals: 1 IP, 3ER, 0 K. He faced the Yanks as a starter twice with Seattle in 2007, going 6.1 innings of one-run ball the first time, but getting smacked around for four runs, three earned, in 5.2 innings the second go-round.
Sunday, 2:10
RHP Joba Chamberlain vs. RHP Gil Meche
As mentioned above, Meche had an impressive start to the season, allowing one run through seven innings of work, striking out six and walking none. He was in line for the victory until Kyle Farnsworth blew it in the eighth. He’ll get another chance at his first win against Joba, who gets his first start of the season. In 13 games lifetime against the Yanks, Meche has held them to a .734 OPS. In one start last year he went six innings, allowing one run and striking out eight. The Yanks are hoping for a result closer to 2007, where they mashed Meche for 13 runs over 17.1 innings, with just six strikeouts.
Keys to the series
The key to any series is scoring more runs than you allow. It’s a revelation, I know, but that seems to be the way you win baseball games. Specifically, the Yanks will have to tee off on the ass-end of the Royals rotation and pick up those first two games. There’s no reason that Pettitte should lose to Ponson, and even less reason (yes, less than none) that CC should lose to Horacio freaking Ramirez. Meche is a dicier proposition, but if the Yanks head into the game already up 2-0, it might make things a bit easier.
One thing I’d like to see in the series: Ramiro Pena get a start at third. The best time would have been tonight, though, since Cody Ransom’s strength is against lefties. There’s always Sunday.
Tonight’s lineup:
1. Derek Jeter, SS
2. Johnny Damon, LF
3. Mark Teixeira, 1B
4. Hideki Matsui, DH
5. Jorge Posada, C
6. Robinson Cano, 2B
7. Nick Swisher, RF
8. Cody Ransom, 3B
9. Brett Gardner, CF
Keeping up with the Royals:
I often talk about keeping up on all 30 MLB teams with an RSS reader. For the Royals, I mostly read beat writer Sam Mellinger’s blog and his newspaper, the Kansas City Star. If any Royals fans are reading and write a blog which is updated at least once daily, email me and I’ll check it out: josephp at riveravebles dot com.
Game Three Spillover Thread
Keep the convo going here.
Game 3: My kingdom for a K
Two days, two clunkers for the Yankees and their starting pitchers. While the team is scoring runs, the starting pitchers are doing everything but preventing them, and they’re doing so in dubious record-setting fashion.
For the first time in Yankee team history, the team’s starting pitchers have failed to strike anybody out in back-to-back games to start the season. While Chien-Ming Wang isn’t known for his K’s, this achievement speaks volumes of the lack of command exhibited by Wang and Sabathia this week.
On the season, Yanks’ starters have thrown 8 innings and have allowed 13 runs on 17 hits and eight walks. A.J. Burnett can’t really do much worse, right?
Anyway, as Burnett prepares to make his Yankee debut at 1:35 p.m. this afternoon, there have been some good signs early on this season. Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter and Robinson Cano have been on base a combined 16 times, but the trio have scored just 4 runs among them. It will all click soon enough.
So for the Yankees, A.J. Burnett will take the mound this afternoon. The Yanks signed Burnett to a five-year, $82.5 million deal in December, and at the time, Joe didn’t like it. Burnett was impressive this spring, but after watching the Yanks the last two days though, that’s a pretty useless evaluation. He throws a high-90s fastball, an excellent change-up and a great curveball. When he’s on, he’s as tough a pitcher as anyone in the AL, and he led the league in strike outs last year.
Offensively, the Yanks are shaking things up today. Nick Swisher is making his first start in pinstripes. He bats sixth and plays right field. Jose Molina is spelling Jorge Posada, and Hideki Matsui is the odd man out as Xavier Nady will be the DH and, oddly enough, the clean-up hitter. The Yanks facing Alfredo Simon, another pitcher against whom they have never hit.
Jeter SS
Damon LF
Teixeira 1B
Nady DH
Cano 2B
Swisher RF
Ransom 3B
Gardner CF
Molina C
Burnett P
Game Two: Far East Matchup
The last time we saw Chien-Ming Wang take the mound was, well last Friday, but the last time we saw him take the mound in a game that actually meant something was June 15th of last year, when you know what happened. Wang said that ten month hiatus felt like five years, and I’m pretty sure we can all agree with that. He had a good spring, putting up a 4.15 ERA in 21.2 IP covering 6 starts, but hopefully he gets back to being the dominant groundball pitcher he was before the injury.
The Wanger will be opposed by Japanese import Koji Uehara, who will be making his North American debut. The first Japanese born player in Orioles history, Uehara is a nine year vet of the Japanese leagues, where he was a teammate of Hideki Matsui with the Yomiuri Giants. As Tyler Kepner noted, he won the Sawamura Award in 2002 (Cy Young equivalent), the same year Godzilla was named league MVP and Yomiuri won the league title. Uehara is known as an extreme strike thrower, racking up just 195 unintentional walks in 1,354 career innings (1.30 BB/9) on the other side of the lake. Those kind of pitchers have been known to give the Yanks’ fits, but hopefully they can buck that trend tonight.
Tiny bit of roster news before we get to the lineups: Dan Giese was claimed off waivers by the A’s. Judging by their current pitching situation, he might make it back in the bigs before long. We wish him well. Here’s tonight’s lineup, same as Monday’s:
Jeter, SS
Damon, LF
Teixeira, 1B
Matsui, DH
Posada, C
Cano, 2B
Nady, RF
Ransom, 3B
Gardner, CF
And on the mound, the Taiwanese Terror, Chien-Ming Wang.
Notes: I thought Chris Britton was getting the shaft with the Yanks, but the Padres sent him to Double-A. Poor guy … how do you define yourself as a Yankees fan? … don’t forget to vote in this week’s Fan Confidence Poll if you haven’t already … please consider contributing to our Pledge Drive benefitting Joe Torre’s Safe At Home Foundation if you haven’t already, it’s a great cause.
Photo Credit: Wang via Getty Images, Uehara via AP
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