What a yucky half-inning that was.
Game 23: April showers bring May wins
We all knew Mark Teixeira wasn’t going to set the world on fire in April, but I don’t think we expected this. Tex is hitting just .200-.367-.371 and heard a nice chorus of boos last night after grounding into a rally killing double play and striking out looking with the bases juiced and two outs. He has just one extra base hit in his last 51 plate appearances, and that was last night’s double. Luckily Tex hasn’t been a total drain on the offense because of his 17 walks (third in the AL), although the Yanks aren’t shelling out $20M this season for something Marco Scutaro can do.
Now that the calendar has rolled over to May, it’s time for Tex to start heating up and being the player everyone knows he can be. I’m not asking for .350-.450-.650, but .280-.370-.530 (roughly his career line) would be nice. The Yanks have scored the fourth most runs in baseball this year; just imagine what it’ll be like once Tex starts hitting and A-Rod comes back.
The lineup:
Jeter, SS
Damon, LF
Teixeira, 1B
Matsui, DH
Cano, 2B
Posada, C
Swisher, RF
Melky, CF
Pena, 3B
And on the mound, the Crazy Boring Old Texan, Andy Pettitte.
Photo Credit: Reuters Pictures
Foley’s opens Irish Hall of Fame voting up to the fans
Last year, Foley’s, the excellent sports bar with a huge autographed baseball collection on 33rd St. between 5th and 6th Aves., unveiled its Irish Baseball Hall of Fame. While Yankee great announcer John Flaherty earned an induction into the first class, the bar fielded numerous complaints from fans who wanted to get involved. Today, Foley’s introduced fan voting for the 2009 inductee. Adam Dunn, Al Leiter, Paul O’Neill, Joe McEwing and Nolan Ryan make up the field. I voted for Paul O’Neill. All of those fans who got so defensive over LaTroy Hawkins’ number flap last year should do the same.
The Yanks’ $40-million mistakes
Last night in Scranton, Kei Igawa took the hill for the AAA Yankees. In typical Kei Igawa fashion, he threw 5.1 innings and gave up 7 hits and 5 earned runs. He allowed a home run — his ninth long ball of the season and managed just a 4/6 ground ball to fly ball ratio.
For Igawa, it was yet another in a line of mediocre-to-terrible AAA starts. On the season, the Kei Man is 2-0 but with a 6.75 ERA. In 21.1 innings, he has allowed 23 hits but has walked four while striking out 11. His 0.60 GB/FB ratio is destined to keep him at AAA for at least this year and next.
It’s clear today that Kei Igawa is one of the worst free agent signings of the last five years. He is no longer on the Yanks’ 40-man roster and is probably 9th or 10th on the team’s starting pitching depth charts. Last year, he threw just 4 innings in the bigs, and I expect that to be 4 more than he pitches this year for the Yanks.
So the Yankees, in Igawa, have a mistake. They paid $26 million to the Hanshin Tigers for what has amounted to a pitching lemon, and Igawa, earning $4 million a year, is probably the highest paid AAA pitcher in the history of the game. He is, by the way, under contract through the 2011 season.
Meanwhile, later tonight, another Yankee mistake is going to take the mound, albeit far, far away from the Bronx. In Detroit, the 0-3 Carl Pavano is going to take his 9.50 ERA to the hill as the Indians face off against the Tigers. We all know Pavano’s story. He had a career year in Florida right before free agency and landed with the Yankees after a four-team bidding war. He then went 9-8 in 26 starts spread out over four seasons and walked away with a 5.00 ERA, $39.95 million and a less-than-flattering nickname of “American Idle.”
The Indians gave Carl Pavano $1.5 million to pitch for them this year in the hopes that he could rediscover his groove. Outside of one start against the Yankees, ironically enough, Pavano hasn’t done much of anything, and he’s probably nearing the point of pitching for a job.
So as the rain begins to pick up in New York City, I am left not counting down the hours until a Yankeeography-filled rain delay, but rather I am left wondering which of these two pitchers was the worse move. It’s probably safe to say that signing one of them ranks among Brian Cashman’s worse decisions as GM, but does one take the cake?
RAB Live Chat
A RAB month to remember
Already today, I’ve tackled the Yankees’ April. I’d like to take a quick few minutes before Mike’s chat to run down RAB’s month that was. For us, it was a record-setting month. We had just over 900,000 page views and have seen more comments in April than we ever anticipated. Besides our devotion to the site, the readers are what help make RAB strong, and we want to thank everyone for stopping by. The season is just getting started.
April run showers plagued Yanks’ pitchers
We’re recapping April this morning on RAB. Earlier, I examined the offense. Let’s look at the team’s hurlers now.
As I mentioned a few hours ago, the Yanks’ pitching storylines have been dominated by Chien-Ming Wang. Returning from a foot injury, Wang looked downright terrible this spring. In three starts, spanning six innings, he gave up 23 earned runs and raised his career ERA by 0.29 runs. Ouch.
On the month, Yankee pitchers threw 188.1 innings. They have allowed 197 hits and 85 walks. The team WHIP of 1.50 is downright ugly, and the team ERA of 5.88 is even worse. Removing Wang from that equation drops the ERA to a still-ugly 4.94. In the early going, pitching just hasn’t been a strong suit for the Yanks.
Right now, we can point out fingers at the newcomers and the bullpen as the roots of the Yanks’ pitching woes. CC Sabathia, the highly-paid ace of the staff, hasn’t looked like himself. In 32.1 innings spanning five starts, he has a pedestrian 4.73 ERA. He has just 19 strike outs and has already walked 14. Last April, he went 1-4 with a 7.88 ERA but still managed a strike out an inning.
A.J. Burnett, the Yanks’ other high-paid ace, has been victimized by the home run. His strike out numbers — 7.11 per 9 IP — look great, but he has allowed six longballs 31.2 innings. His ERA stands at 5.40.
With the three front-end starters for the Yanks scuffling, the season’s pitching storylines have focused around a resurgent Andy Pettitte, an impressive Phil Hughes and an improving Joba Chamberlain. That trio has made nine starts, and they are 4-1 with a 2.72 ERA. That’s not exactly how I imagined the pitching to play out for the Yanks.
Of course, the starters are only half the tale. Half of the Yankee bullpen is currently sporting numbers uglier than CC Sabathia’s ERA. Jose Veras (5.73), Edwar Ramirez (6.48), Jonathan Albaladejo (8.18) and Damaso Marte (15.19) have left Joe Girardi with just a few reliable relievers. For the most part, those pitchers’ numbers are skewed by one or two bad appearances, but on any given night, the Yanks’ coaches are unsure which pitcher will show up. This inconsistency coupled with a Brian Bruney injury have thrust Mark Melancon and Phil Coke into the setup spot behind Mariano Rivera. It is a work in progress indeed.
So the Yankees have turned the page on April. It is just their second winning April since 2005, and it doesn’t even seem like that impressive of a month. The pitching has been scuffling, and the big bat hasn’t been producing. Yet, there they are at 12-10 and two games out of first. Despite the problems — the Boston sweep, the 22-4 loss — Yankee fans should feel confident knowing that once this team clicks, once the hitters are mashing and the pitchers dealing, it will be very tough indeed to beat this Yankee team.