Series Preview: Boston Red Sox

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(Photo: Flickr user Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau via Creative Commons license)

Weren’t the Yankees just here? And isn’t this like the tenth series they’re going to play in Fenway this season? Anyway, you all know the story by now. The Yankees are just 2-10 against the Red Sox this year and yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah. None of these games are must wins, obviously, but they’re definitely “boy it sure would be wonderful to win this one if they’re serious about going for the division title” games. The Yanks were a Mariano Rivera blown save away from taking two of three from the Sox earlier this month, and I’d happily take my chances in that situation again this time around.

What Have The Red Sox Done Lately?

Well, they haven’t played in a while, since Saturday in fact. The Red Sox scheduled a doubleheader against the Athletics on Saturday to avoid Hurricane Irene on Sunday, plus yesterday was a regularly scheduled off day. They swept the A’s in the doubleheader and won two of three in the series, and before that they won three straight and three of four against the Rangers in Texas. Overall, the Sox are 82-51 with a +163 run differential. Maybe they’ll be flat after the long-ish layoff.

Red Sox On Offense

(Photo Credit: Flickr user Keith Allison via Creative Commons license)

As you’ve probably heard, the Red Sox can hit. A lot. They’ve got a .279/.349/.458 batting line (.352 wOBA) as a team, numbers that rank either first or second in all of MLB. They’re even better at Fenway Park, hitting .297/.362/.478 as a team. It all starts with Jacoby Ellsbury at the top of the lineup, who’s hitting .312/.369/.521 on the season but a much more human .265/.318/.496 during the last month. Dustin Pedroia is up to .308/.398/.474 on the season and he crushes lefties (.386/.500/.593), but he’s been batting cleanup of late because Kevin Youkilis is on the disabled list with a back problem. Marco Scutaro (.270/.333/.370) has temporarily taken over the two-hole for the time being.

Adrian Gonzalez (.345/.405/.559) might be the best pure hitter in the league, and he recently snapped a lengthy homerless drought (95 plate appearances, still just eight homers in his last 285 PA). He figures to see Boone Logan a few times in the series (.445 wOBA vs RHP, .343 vs LHP). David Ortiz actually leads the Red Sox in OPS (.311/.396/.587) and the last super serious threat in their lineup. Carl Crawford (.251/.285/.388) is terrible, Jed Lowrie hasn’t hit since coming off the DL earlier this month (.242/.279/.306), and the right field platoon of Josh Reddick (.278/.326/.475 vs. RHP) and Darnell McDonald (.215/.295/.468 vs. LHP) is about league average for the position. Jarrod Saltalamacchia has power (.220 ISO), but he’s gotten on base less than 29% of the time over the last two months.

Like the Yankees, Boston doesn’t really have much use for their bench because their regulars are so good. At some point we’ll see Mike Aviles (.321/.339/.358 in limited time since the trade) and Jason Varitek (.234/.310/.432), and there’s a chance Youkilis will be activated at some point during the series (starts rehab today, so he might be back Thursday).

Red Sox On The Mound

Tuesday, RHP John Lackey (vs. CC Sabathia): Lackey’s been pretty terrible this year (5.98 ERA and 4.71 FIP) but he’s pitched slightly better since the All-Star break (4.65 ERA and ~4.40 FIP). His strikeout rate (6.33 K/9) has gotten worse ever single year since 2005, and although his walk rate is solid (2.78 BB/9), his homerun (1.25 HR/9) and ground ball (39.5%) rates aren’t. The Yankees have scored nine runs in eleven innings off Lackey this season, and he works with a pair of low-90 fastballs (two- and four-seamer), a high-70’s curve, and a mid-80’s slider. The lefty bats have to step up in this one, they’ve destroyed him this season.

(Photo Credit: Flickr user ToonariPost via Creative Commons license)

Wednesday, RHP Josh Beckett (vs. Phil Hughes): In most years, a guy with Beckett’s numbers (2.43 ERA and 3.46 FIP) would get some Cy Young love, but he’s thrown about 40 fewer innings than most of the true candidates. He’s shut the Yankees down four times already this year (three runs in 27 IP), but the last two times he faced them he was merely very good and not utterly dominant. It’s all about the curveball for Beckett, if he’s throwing his mid-70’s yakker for strikes on the corners and/or at the knees, he’s as good as it gets. If not, he gets predictable and leans heavily on his mid-90’s heat. Hopefully the fifth time is a charm.

Thursday, LHP Jon Lester (vs. A.J. Burnett): After two straight years of sub-3.20 FIPs and three straight years of sub-3.70 FIPs, Lester is up to a career-worst 3.83 FIP while posting a career-best 3.09 ERA. Go figure. His strikeout rate is down a touch but still excellent (8.44 K/9), and right-handers have really hurt him more this year than ever before. Lester’s a true five-pitch pitcher, throwing a low-90’s four-seamer, a low-90’s two-seamer, a high-80’s cutter, a mid-70’s curveball, and a mid-80’s changeup. He loves to backdoor that curve to righties, it’s got more 11-to-5 break that the usual 12-to-6. He’s pitched well against the Yankees this season but not really great, exactly six innings each time out and either three or four runs allowed (three total starts).

Bullpen: The late game duo of Daniel Bard (2.83 FIP) and Jonathan Papelbon (1.75 FIP) is as good as it gets, but the rest of the cast is a little shaky. Al Aceves (2.15 ERA but 3.80 FIP) is filling the same role he filled with the Yankees in 2009, and Matt Albers (3.33) has been given every opportunity in high-leverage spots but doesn’t seem to want the job (19 baserunners and 13 runs in his last 4.2 IP). Dan Wheeler (3.63 FIP) has been dynamite since coming off the disabled list in May (~2.80 FIP in 34.2 IP), but lefties still pound him (.288/.347/.455 against). Franklin Morales (2.97 FIP) is the only lefty they have out there, but we could see Andrew Miller (3.68 FIP) in relief. Tim Wakefield (5.56 FIP) is another possibility.

Recommended Red Sox Reading: Over The Monster.

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Freddy leads Yanks to a win in return from DL

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A four-game series with the Orioles that started so terribly on Friday ended with a split on Monday. The Yankees rode some homeruns and strong pitching to the win, putting last week’s ugly stretch further away in the rear-view mirror.

(Greg Fiume/Getty Images)

Freddy Sez: Nice Job!

It’s been more than three weeks since we’d last seen Freddy Garcia on a big league mound, and if his 21 splitters and changeups are any indication, the cut on his right index finger if perfectly fine. The only blemish on Garcia’s ledger was a solo homer by Mark Reynolds, a fifth inning shot that was the first long ball he’d allowed in 69 IP. That’s a span of eleven starts (the last homer he surrendered was a leadoff shot by Jacoby Ellsbury in the first inning of that 1.2 IP, 4 R disaster on June 7th) and the longest such streak in the AL this season. It was like Freddy never left, he was mixing his pitching and getting hitters to pop-up on soft stuff off the plate.

All told, Garcia threw six full innings on just 88 pitches (six swings and misses), and he probably had another inning in him if need be. I don’t have a problem with Joe Girardi taking it easy on him in his first start back after the long layoff. Sweaty Freddy’s ERA is down to 3.09 on the season, and he’s held the Orioles to just three total runs in three six innings starts this season. He’s been pretty awesome this year, and like I said, it was like he was never gone. No rust whatsoever.

(AP Photo/Nick Wass)

Smokin’ Hot

There was a time, maybe a month and a half ago, when it looked like Nick Swisher was going to finish the season with maybe 15 homers if he got lucky. He slumped so badly in the first two months of the season that he had just ten long balls through the team’s first 90 games. Then he got hot, hitting four homers in the next nine games, and now he’s hit seven homers in his last eleven games following a two-run job off Alfredo Simon in the fourth inning. It was a no doubter off the bat, and his sixth bomb in his last eight hits. At .177 WPA, it was easily the biggest play of the game. Meanwhile, Swisher is up to .267/.383/.464 on the season, which is a minor miracle considering that he was at .206/.321/.288 as late as May 28th.

Leftovers

The first run of the game came on a Mark Teixiera double in the first, a 3-2 fastball that he hooked into the right field corner. Curtis Granderson (who walked) was running on the pitch and scored rather easily. Robinson Cano also had two hits and nice diving defensive stop, plus Eric Chavez doubled to left-center field. Add in Swisher’s homer, and that’s all the Yankees hits. Five of them, three for extra bases (all three of Baltimore’s hits when for extras, by the way). Brett Gardner drew a walk and stole a base, might as well note that somewhere.

The three-headed bullpen monster of Rafael Soriano, David Robertson, and Mariano Rivera wasn’t as stellar as usual, but they did the job. Soriano walked a batter with one out in the seventh, then struck out the next two guys with some serious heat. He was up to 95 with the fastball. Robertson gave up a solo homer to J.J. Hardy, a poorly located fastball in an 0-2 count. It’s the first homer he’d given up in 366 days, when Alexei Ramirez of the White Sox got him. It’s also the first run he allowed on the road this season. Mo was untouchable in the ninth. Flawless victory, fatality.

Derek can't figure it out either. (Greg Fiume/Getty Images)

Can anyone come up with a logical reason why Andruw Jones didn’t pinch-hit for Jorge Posada with two outs in the top of the ninth against lefty Mike Gonzalez? Maybe because they had a short bench with Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez banged up? Otherwise it doesn’t really make sense. Posada hasn’t hit lefties at all, and at least Jones has a chance of running into one for an insurance run. Very odd.

The YES telestrator was off all night, every time Michael Kay or Ken Singleton tried to use it to point something out, they were wide left. This, now this is the type of hard-hitting analysis you expect from RAB.

The Rays lost to the Blue Jays and the Red Sox were idle, so the Yankees are 1.5 games back in the division and 7.5 games up on the wildcard. As you can see in the sidebar, their magic number for a postseason berth is just 23.

Box Score, WPA Graph & Box Score

MLB.com has the box score and video highlights, FanGraphs the nerdy stuff, and ESPN the updated standings.

Up Next

Off to Boston for the final Fenway Park series of the season. CC Sabathia will kick things off against John Lackey on Tuesday night. If you’re interested in going to the game, RAB Tickets can help get you there on the cheap.

Banuelos dominant, Montero homers in win

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Mason Williams claimed the top spot in Penn League Report’s list of the top 30 prospects in the NY-Penn League. “He has great strike-zone judgment and drives pitches anywhere over the plate,” says PLR. “Many I’ve approached suggested Williams as the number one prospect even before I showed them my list.”

Meanwhile, no Yankees’ farmhands were named to the High-A Florida State League All-Star Team. For shame. Also, Terry Tiffee was apparently released. On behalf of the Yankees organization, thanks for the 112 plate appearances, Terry.

Triple-A Scranton Game One (3-0 win over Pawtucket in seven innings)
Ray Kruml, LF: 0 for 4, 1 RBI, 1 K
Kevin Russo, 2B: 1 for 4, 1 K
Jesus Montero, C: 2 for 2, 1 R, 1 HR, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 1 K – the homer was pulled into left … the walk was intentional
Jorge Vazquez, 1B, Brandon Laird, 3B, Greg Golson, CF & Doug Bernier, SS: all 0 for 2, 1 BB – Laird also struck out
Mike Lamb, DH: 1 for 3
Jordan Parraz, RF: 1 for 3, 1 R, 1 K
Manny Banuelos, LHP: 7 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, 1 HB, 10-2 GB/FB – 59 of 98 pitches were strikes (60.2%) … took the no-hitter into the sixth, and based on the play-by-play, he allowed just three balls out of the infield and only one after the second inning (a sixth inning ground ball single through his legs)… dominant, easily his best start of the season and arguably the best of his career … he crushed them with offspeed stuff, getting lots of swings and misses with the curve and changeup

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Game 132: Escape from Baltimore

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(AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Just one more game left in this stupid series in Baltimore, with games rained out due to hurricanes but not made up as part of a doubleheader in advance because the Orioles didn’t want to give up the gate revenue Yankees don’t care about Mike Flanagan. Derek Jeter (knee) and Alex Rodriguez (thumb) are still banged up and are unsurprisingly out of the lineup. Here’s the starting nine…

Brett Gardner, LF
Curtis Granderson, CF
Mark Teixeira, 1B
Robinson Cano, 2B
Nick Swisher, RF
Jorge Posada, DH
Eric Chavez, 3B
Russell Martin, C
Eduardo Nunez, SS

Freddy Garcia, SP

The game is scheduled to begin a little after 7pm ET and can be seen on YES. Enjoy.

Injury Updates: Jeter is available in an emergency tonight … A-Rod went back to New York for an MRI (the results were good) and he’ll meet the team in Boston, though he might not play in the series … both Pedro Feliciano and Damaso Marte suffered setbacks in their rehab from shoulder troubles and are done for the year. Just like they were in April.

Yankees activate Freddy Garcia, demote Hector Noesi

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In a move that should surprise no one, the Yankees have activated Freddy Garcia off the disabled list in time for tonight’s start against the Orioles. Hector Noesi was sent to Triple-A Scranton to make room on the roster. September call-ups are three days away, but the ten-day rule does apply so Noesi won’t be able to come back until next week. There are some loopholes though, so I wouldn’t be shocked if he was back with the big league team on Thursday. Anyway, tonight will be Sweaty Freddy’s first start in 22 days because of that cut on his right index finger. He’s held the O’s to two runs in a dozen innings this season.

A Bench Role Reversal

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(AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

For the first time in what seems like forever, the Yankees started the season with a legitimately strong bench. In recent years they’d begun the season with various cast-offs before seeking upgrades throughout the summer, but this year they targeted pieces for the bench in free agency and had a strong reserve corps from the get-go. Part of that had to do with $20M+ worth of Cliff Lee money burning a hole in the team’s pocket, obviously.

Although Frankie Cervelli missed the season’s first month a broken foot suffered in Spring Training, his absence and Gus Molina’s presence wasn’t that big of a deal because all those April off days allowed the team to play Russell Martin almost every single game without running him into the ground Tony LaRussa-Yadier Molina style. Eduardo Nunez made a strong impression in limited action early on and has since done fine work as medium-term fill-ins for Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. The other two pieces on the bench have seen their seasons go in opposite directions.

The Great Eric Chavez … Who Ain’t So Great Anymore

(AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

When the season started, Chavez looked like the replacement for Nick Johnson‘s vacant DL spot. He made spot starts at first and third bases in the first two months of the season, hitting .303/.410/.424 with more walks (six) than strikeouts (three) before injuring his foot legging out a triple in Detroit on May 5th. Chavez was only playing once or twice a week and he wasn’t hitting for much power, but he was putting together solid at-bats and contributing to the offense when he did play. His defense, particularly at the hot corner, was stellar. As far as bench players go, the Yankees had hit the lottery.

The foot injury kept Chavez out for more than two full months, and when he did return in late-July, he kept on hitting. He had eleven hits in his first 32 at-bats back, including his first homerun of the season, which prompted the Yankees to bench Jorge Posada and make Chavez the regular DH against righties. That lasted all of three games before Alex Rodriguez returned from the DL and promptly hurt his finger on a diving defensive play (forcing Chavez to play third), but his bat went silent after that. In his last dozen games, a total of 42 plate appearances, the former Athletic has just six hits and three walks (one intentional), leading to a .158/.220/.211 batting line. His season line has fallen to an unimpressive (but still solid) .262/.327/.350 in 113 trips to the plate.

That Bum Andruw Jones … Who’s Pretty Awesome

Andruw did a fine job of introducing himself to Yankees’ fans, clubbing a homerun in his first plate appearance of the season. It was all downhill after that for Jones, who hit just .195/.278/.356 before the All-Star break and .231/.315/.446 against lefties, the very demographic he was brought in to combat. Many fans were wondering why the Yankees didn’t just re-sign Marcus Thames in the offseason (without bothering to look at his performance with the Dodgers, I assume) or promote the righty hitting Greg Golson/Justin Maxwell given Andruw’s struggles as the fourth outfielder.

With a little help from his mother, Jones has completely turned his season around and is hitting .345/.463/.764 overall (.350/.469/.700 against lefties) in the second half. His seven homers since the break are more than guys like Paul Konerko, Adrian Gonzalez, Miguel Cabrera, and Jose Bautista even though he’s got about one-third the plate appearances of those four. Jones has gone from a bit piece to an important cog in the offense (especially against southpaws) thanks to his revival.

* * *

The season started with Chavez as the hot bench bat and Jones as the guy no one really wanted to see at the plate, but injury and some help from mom have reversed those roles. Now it’s Jones with the hot bat and Chavez that’s flailing away at everything. Of course, we have to remember that this is all small sample size stuff, it’s just the nature of the job. Because of that, cold streaks can turn hot in very short order, and vice versa. With any luck, Chavez will get back on track before the end of the season and the Yankees can head into a potential playoff series with two legitimate weapons off the bench, one from each side of the plate.

Link Dump: Burnett & Arbitration Cases

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It’s a gorgeous Monday afternoon in New York, beautiful blue sky with a light breeze … they should dome the Tri-State Area with weather like this. Anyway, if you’re stuck spending your lunch break inside, here’s a pair of links to help pass the time…

A.J. Burnett, Reliever?

Joe wrote a post about why the Yankees should stick A.J. Burnett in the bullpen earlier this month, and Lucas Apostoleris added to the argument today at FanGraphs. The graph above shows that Burnett’s fastball velocity drops a good two miles an hour during the course of a typical start, peaking right around 94 mph through his first 30 pitches. Unsurprisingly, his strikeout rate dips later in the game and he gets hit harder. Joe Girardi said yesterday that they’re going to get back to a five-man rotation after the upcoming Red Sox series, and right now A.J. is clearly the odd man out. Given the info presented in Joe’s and Lucas’ posts, it would be interesting to see what the right-hander could do in one-inning relief bursts.

Previewing The Yankees’ Arbitration Cases

The Yankees had three relatively simple arbitration cases last year, settling on one-year contracts with Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, and Boone Logan before hearings even had to be scheduled. It won’t be that easy this year though, the Yankees have six players up for arbitration as Tim Dierkes’ shows in his Arbitration Eligibles series at MLBTR.

None of the six players – the three guys above plus David Robertson, Brett Gardner, and Russell Martin – are non-tender candidates, and all together they could end up costing the Yankees around $18M or so. Most of that is Martin (figure $6M or so), who’s going through arbitration for the fourth time as a Super Two. Gardner will probably get something close to the $2.4M that Michael Bourn got his first time through arbitration last year, and the relievers will be lucky to top $2M each. I really have no idea what Hughes is looking at, but Tim suggests $3.4M or so. Hooray for cheap talent.