ByKyle Farnsworth, “experienced” reliever, just came into a 1-1 game. Three batters later, the score turned in the Blue Jays’ favor. This overpaid piece of crap’s continued presence in close games is the number one reason why Joe Torre shouldn’t be managing and why his managerial decisions are going to cost the Yankees a playoff spot this year. The pieces are there; the strategist on the bench is not. · (20) ·
ByCheck out who the Yanks signed. The Yanks have had some success signing Indy guys recently (Justin Christian, Scott Patterson, and the great Edwar Ramirez come to mind), so lets not write this guy off an organizational player just yet. · (2) ·
Hughes or Joba?
By · CommentsThis is a couple of days old, so you may have seen it already. My bad for missing it.
Anywho, John Sickels asks a pretty interesting question over at his blog:
True or False:
Joba Chamberlain will win more major league games in his career than Phil Hughes. Discuss.
I recommend checking out the discussion in the comments, there’s some good stuff there.
As for me, I say FALSE because, well, Hughes is the better pitcher. His control is better, his command is better, his secondary stuff is better, he’s been healthier (Phil’s had some pretty fluky injuries), and I like his delivery better. Hughes has a chance to have one of those “15+ wins a year for 15 straight years” kind of runs. That said, Joba’s got a chance to do some serious damage, like 250+ K in a year.
Long story short, I think Hughes has a longer career with more wins, while Joba has a greater peak with more “holy crap” moments. Â
Jesus debut-eth
By · CommentsAustin Jackson’s incredible run with High-A Tampa has earned him the #4 spot on BA’s Hot Sheet, where he’s joined in the top 10 by . . . oh who am I kidding, you know who. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that personal fave Phil Coke was named FSL Pitcher of the Week. Props go out to former Yankee farmhand Randy Ruiz, who honored his old mates by launching a 3-run job off a certain Red Sawx prospect (who’s stats really aren’t that much better than Ian Patrick Kennedy’s, by the way) tonight.
Oh, and if Torre is going to steadfastly refuse to use Edwar Ramirez, just send him back to Triple-A so he can get some regular work. This is effin’ ridiculous. Stats after the jump…
BySheesh, and I though Steven Lombardi was a pessimist! (hat tip to Pete Abraham) (I’m just messin’ Steve, but would it kill ya to see the little ray of sunshine in Yanks’ universe every once in a while?) · (10) ·
Elbow woes for Betances
By · CommentsFrom the SI Advance:
Right-hander Dellin Betances left after three innings because of tightness in his throwing elbow, overshadowing what was an already forgettable 7-2 loss to the Vermont Lake Monsters yesterday at the Richmond County Bank Ballpark at St. George.
“We took him out because he was complaining of stiffness in his elbow. We wanted to error on the side of caution,” said Staten Island manager Mike Gillespie of Betances, a highly-touted 6-foot-9 prospect out of Grand Street Campus HS in Brooklyn, who received a $1 million signing bonus in June of 2006.
“He’ll be seeing the doctor (today),” said Gillespie of Betances, who was making his sixth start of the season for Staten Island yesterday after pitching last year for the Gulf Coast Yankees. “The good news was that he wasn’t complaining of pain. We’ll just keep our fingers crossed. There’s no real reason to think he’s done (for the season), but we’re a little bit worried.”
(hat tip to BAPR+)
Update: I had some time to think about it (mostly because my boss was looming over my shoulder), and I’m just thankful it’s not his shoulder. Elbows are relatively easy to fix (but they have a crazy long recovery time), and this is his first trouble with it (as far as I know). I remain optimistic, and hope this isn’t a precursor to something more serious down the road.
Update Part Deux: I find it pretty funny that an injury like this would be devastating to most team’s farm systems, but the Yanks have so much pitching depth these days that they can absorb the injury without missing a beat. In the words of my Italian grandfather: Beautiful, fuckin’ beautiful.
Igawa’s start could get ugly fast
By · CommentsThe Toronto Blue Jays are a pretty potent offensive team. They’re tenth in OPS and eighth overall in home runs hit. But those numbers shoot up when they face a lefty. Against southpaws this season, the Blue Jays are downright brutal. With a .293/.364/.470 line, the team is third overall in OPS vs. lefties.
So who are the Yankees sending up against a team that seemingly struggles with right-handed pitching? Not any righty farm hand who has a good chance of shutting them down. No, tonight, they are going with their lefty specialist Kei Igawa. Kei, who in an alternate universe, is a good pitcher, stands as good a chance as any at getting utterly shelled tonight. Let’s review.
When last we saw Mr. Igawa, I noted that the Yanks were winning in spite of Igawa’s contribution. Since he hasn’t pitched in over 10 days, things haven’t really gotten any better for his season numbers. I wrote then:
Specifically, Igawa has thrown 16 innings, surrendering 17 hits while walking 9 and striking 12. He’s given up 3 home runs and has retired just 14 batters via the ground ball as opposed to 21 via the fly ball. He pitches like a disaster waiting to happen, and it’s only a matter of time before he gets pounded for an ungodly number of runs in, say, 1.2 innings.
And so this is the Igawa that will stride to the mound in Yankee Stadium tonight at 7:05 p.m. to face a lineup of Blue Jays who devour lefty pitching. Tonight could really be that night that he’s out after 1.2 innings never to return to the Bronx.
Now, for the Yanks’ sake, I hope that’s not true. They’re above .500 for the first time in over three weeks. They’ve trimmed a few games off of Boston’s lead this weekend and stand a manageable nine games out of first and eight games behind Cleveland, the Wild Card leader. They won, in dicey fashion, three out of four in Tampa Bay and now need to manage a 17-7 record over their next 24 games to meet our expectations of 20-8 against sub-.500 teams to start the second half.
A decent start tonight by Igawa would probably mean 5 IP and 4 ER. The Yanks are facing Josh Towers, a righty in the Blue Jays’ rotation only because no one else has worked out. I expect this to be a game decided by the bullpens, and I hope the Yanks can keep up their post-All Star Break winning ways. But with Kei Igawa on the mound, it’s tough to be optimistic.
A bad start would exile him from New York. A good start would be great for the Yanks as a team but bad overall because Igawa would inevitably get rewarded with another start. Tonight, we’ll see what happens.
Horne-ible
By · CommentsDid you see what I did with the post title there? Horrible . . . Horne-ible . . . eh, eh? Oh screw you guys…Â
Anyways, it looks like Eric Duncan has become a platoon player for Scranton; tonight marks the 3rd straight time he’s sat when the opposing team started a southpaw. Even though E-Dunc has demolished LHP throughout his career, he’s hitting only .151-.258-.226-.484 against them this year, justifying the move.
Triple-A Scranton (3-1 loss to Louisville)
Brett Gardner, Justin Christian & Andy Cannizaro:Â all 1 for 4 – Gardner K’ed…Cannizaro scored a run
Shelley Duncan, Angel Chavez & Chris Basak: combined 0 for 12, 4 K
Mighty Matt: 7.1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, 2-13 GB/FB - picked a runner off first…tough luck loss prior to what could prove to be an ideal situation in his Saturday start with the big league squad
Sean Henn: 0.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 1 K
Chris Britton: 0.1 IP, zeroes across the board – in other news, Kyle Farnsworth is terrible at his job
ByWhy couldn’t Luis Vizcaino stay in the game there?
And as I write this, Andy Phillips makes a great play to bail out Farns. Kyle, you owe Andy a steak dinner, or about $5.25M of ‘em… · (16) ·
