While many of us grew frustrated at the lack of Alfredo Aceves tonight, after the game Joe Girardi revealed his rationale. Turns out that Joba Chamberlain popped a blood vessel in his thumb, and his start tomorrow is in question. Given how the Yankees have treated Joba with kid gloves, I wouldn’t expect to see him starting the game, despite Girardi’s claims that the trainers think he’ll be fine. It’s not like we haven’t heard them say something one day and go back on it the next. Then again, that could be pessimism running over from tonight’s loss.
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?
Game 30: Yanks look to Hughes for continuation of last night
Phil Hughes has yet another chance to make a big impression with Yankees fans. He already ingratiated himself with the fanbase on April 28, shutting out the Tigers and breaking a four-game losing streak. Staff ace CC Sabathia snapped a five-game skid last night, and tonight Hughes could continue the turnaround. If successful he’d hand the ball to Joba Chamberlain in hopes to start a winning streak. Nothing could remove the sting of the current losing streak quite like a triplet of wins from the $161 million man, followed by the two home grown phenoms.
Last time out Hughes wasn’t that great, as he allowed seven hits, four walks, and four runs, three earned, through just four innings. That it came against the Red Sox made matters worse. The start was marked by some command issues, but that can be expected from a young starter. He still flashed his stuff, though, maintaining the fastball velocity and curveball break we saw in Detroit.
Tonight marks Hughes’s fourth start against the Orioles since his debut in April 2007. He hasn’t fared particularly well, allowing 10 runs, nine earned, over 16 innings. He’s also walked six in that span while allowing 21 hits. That he has struck out only eight, just 4.50 per nine. Thankfully, Hughes looks like a different pitcher than he was at this point last year, so the results could be markedly different than they were last time, when he allowed five runs in 5.1 innings, striking out just one.
Adam Eaton has had limited exposure to the AL during his career, having pitched for Texas one year between stints with San Diego and Philadelphia. He’s made two starts against the Yankees, allowing five runs over 10.2 innings, walking seven to eight strikeouts. His last appearance against them came in 2006 with Texas, when he lasted just 3.2 innings. The Yanks would love that to happen again. Not only would it be good for morale, but it would take some pressure off Hughes. Not that Hughes can’t pitch under pressure, but it’s always nice to stake your young starters to leads.
While it’s understandable that the Yankees swapped David Robertson for Brett Tomko (and DFA’d Eric Hacker), the roster still isn’t optimal. The bench right now consists of Kevin Cash, Angel Berroa, Ramiro Pena, and Brett Gardner. In other words, there’s not a significant advantage to pinch hitting for Francisco Cervelli. This kind of bench is serviceable (but by no means good) when Melky is the worst hitter in the order. The Yanks could still use a decent bat to pinch hit, which makes me wonder why they don’t swap out Ramiro Pena for Juan Miranda if they’re not going to DFA Berroa. Pena can always be recalled if there’s an injury to A-Rod, which I suppose is the rationale for keeping Berroa around at this point. Also, there’s still no word on the 40-man move to accompany Tomko’s addition. I’m not sure if they can put Kennedy on the 60-day, since he wasn’t on the active roster. If that does in fact disqualify him, look for Nady to slide to the 60-day. Otherwise, count on Kennedy.
Lineup:
1. Derek Jeter, SS
2. Johnny Damon, LF
3. Mark Teixeira, 1B
4. Alex Rodriguez, 3B — felt good to type that for the first time this season
5. Hideki Matsui, DH
6. Nick Swisher, RF
7. Robinson Cano, 2B
8. Melky Cabrera, CF
9. Francisco Cervelli, C
And on the mound, number sixty-five, Phil Hughes.
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.
Tomko up; Robertson down
According to PeteAbe, the Yanks have made another roster move today. The purchased the contract of Brett Tomko from AAA and optioned down David Robertson. Because Tomko isn’t on the 40-man roster, the team will have to make another move today. It hasn’t been announced yet, and I’ll update this post when it is.
I guess the team made this move for depth, but I don’t see why. Tomko had been pitching well at AAA, but he’s 36 with a career ERA+ of 92 and a WHIP of 1.374. The Yanks could use him as a long man, but Al Aceves did an admirable job earlier this week. Robertson had made five appearances for the Yanks. In 4.2 innings, he had allowed two earned runs on four hits and four walks while striking out seven.
Update 6:35 p.m.: Eric Hacker has been DFA’d. Ian Kennedy can’t be put on the 60-day DL because he was not on the Major League roster when he was disabled.
Constructing a roster the Yankee way
Over at The Times Bats blog, Tyler Kepner is doing some truly excellent work. With the Rays in town earlier this week, Kepner used it as an opportunity to explore how the Yankees value their players. His conclusion is one with which I agree: They don’t do a very good job of it.
Kepner’s piece focuses around the discrepancies between what Evan Longoria will be making over the next ten years and what A-Rod has heading his way. Now, there is an obvious comparison problem here; Longoria is a very young star with little service time and less leverage. A-Rod is a bona fide superstar and a player widely regarded at points in his career as among the best all time. But Kepner’s point stands:
Now, the Yankees were never in position to draft Longoria, who went third over all in 2006, a year the Yankees picked 21st. But they’re likely to be tormented by Longoria again and again over the next nine years, while he improves and Rodriguez inevitably declines.
So for one extra year and $260 million more — repeat: two hundred sixty million — the Yankees have an older player who just had serious hip surgery. And there’s nowhere on the field to move him as he ages, because Mark Teixeira is locked in at first base through 2016.
It’s really incredible to think about the makeup of the Yankees’ roster right now. Over and over, the Yankees meet the salary demands of older players, tossing extra years and dollars on the pile. It hamstrings them constantly.
Was anyone else going to sign Rodriguez through 2017? Or Jorge Posada through 2011? Maybe the Mets would have done that for Posada. But considering his age — he turns 38 in August — maybe the Yankees should have let them. And what do they do when Derek Jeter needs a new deal after 2010, when he’ll be 36?
One of the problems with Kepner’s argument is the lack of alternatives. Who would the Yankees have catching if not for Posada? Who would the Yanks have put at third base who could even approximate A-Rod’s level of production? Ken Davidoff recently suggested the older and less healthy Scott Rolen, but most numbers don’t bear that one out.
Overall, though, Kepner has a point. The Yankees continue to tie up players on the wrong side of their careers to overpriced long-term deals. They have A-Rod for eight more full seasons after this one and Teixeira for seven. If CC Sabathia sticks around, he’ll be through 2015. Meanwhile, the Posada and the Mariano Rivera deals are sure signs of paying for the past. I don’t even want to touch the Derek Jeter issue right now.
After this week’s sweeps at the hands of the Red Sox and Rays, Yankee fans seemed to believe that the Yanks are indeed the third-best team in the AL East even in the standings don’t show it yet. That feeling starts and ends with the way this team is constructed. Whether Brian Cashman should be blamed or the Steinbrenner sons as they try to find their ways atop a baseball organization, that could very well be the reality in this league for the foreseeable future.