Before Joe Girardi managed to grab defeat from the jaws of victory with his bullpen moves, Joba Chamberlain pitched well in his first start of the year, allowing just one earned run in six innings. He threw only 88 pitches because he hadn’t gone beyond the 75 pitch plateau during Spring Training, and predictably worked off his fastball. Here’s the breakdown:
Fan Confidence Poll: April 13th, 2009
The season kicked off last week in inauspicious fashion, even though the Yankees lowered their Opening Day payroll from 2008. CC Sabathia and Chien-Ming Wang fired clunkers in the first two games of the season, and there was much concern over Sabathia’s use of a heading pad. Thankfully the march to 0-162 was halted by AJ Burnett and a scorching hot Nick Swisher in the third game of the year, and Andy Pettitte followed by dominating the Royals the next day. Sabathia rebounded in a big way in his second start, firing nearly eight innings of shutout ball. Down in the minors, some of the Yanks top young pitching prospects had strong season debuts, none better than Ian Kennedy.
Joe Girardi overmanaged the way out of a sweep of the Royals yesterday, and Mark Teixeira has missed two straight games with a sore wrist. Everyone is concerned, but I’m hopeful the Yanks are just playing it safe early in the season. Let’s not even mention Cody Ransom’s struggles. Poor guy. At least Alex Rodriguez is closer to returning.
Please take a second to answer the poll below and give us an idea of how confident you are in the team. Long time RABer Bob Stone was kind enough to put together a Fan Confidence Graph which you’ll be able to view anytime via the nav bar above, or by clicking here. Thanks to Bob and thanks in advance for voting.
Yankees Game 6 WPA
What is this nerdy graph?
Today, goat is spelled C-O-K-E. His -.684 WPA is among the worst I’ve seen since starting to follow the stat in 2006. The worst part is, as Ben noted earlier, is that Coke probably shouldn’t have been in the game at all. Joe Girardi is not Tony LaRussa, nor should we want him to emulate the second-longest-tenured manager in the majors. Not that LaRussa’s unique bullpen strategies aren’t good; it’s that they should stay just that–unique.
Like all games, it takes a team effort to lose and this one wasn’t all on Phil Coke. Nick Swisher’s error in the fourth cost the team plenty. Not only did it put KC up 2-1, but it led to John Buck’s run-scoring single. The error was -.125 WPA and the Buck single was -.101, so that’s -.226. Gardner’s double play in the sixth cost the team -.107, and Melky’s two DPs added up to -.160.
Most surprisingly, Joba’s WPA was in the negative, despite his leaving the game with a lead — and that he only allowed one earned run. But because of the way WPA scores these things, apparently the Swisher error was actually charged to Joba. Again, if the WPA spreadsheet worked on my Excel for Mac, I would have scored that as a negative for Swisher and not Joba, leaving Joba with a .050 WPA for the game and Swisher with -.137. The subsequent Buck single was all Joba, whether he should have been out of the inning or not.
Yes, this was a tough game to stomach — always is when victory is in sight and it never comes. However, as we like to say, it’s just one game of 162. There are still 156 games in which the Yanks can steal a victory in the manner the Royals did today. If they do that a couple times and manage to hold their leads, they’ll be in good shape. For the good teams, these things have a tendency to even out.
Cold Cody
There’s no denying that Cody Ransom is having a terrible start to the 2009 season. With A-Rod’s ramping up his rehab tomorrow, Ransom’s days on the Yanks are mostly numbered, but let’s take a quick look at how he’s doing. Ransom is 1 for 20 with 7 strike outs. So on balls hit in play, Ransom is just 1 for 13. That’s a BABIP of .077.
So while Ransom has been admittedly awful at the plate, he’s been rather unlucky too. If his BABIP were around .300 — generally the league average — he’d be hitting .200 on the season. While hardly stellar, that’s significantly better than .050. Hopefully, Ransom’s luck will turn around, and he can be even semi-useful until A-Rod returns. Six games in though, he’s been about as bad as Yankee fans feared, and those seven strike outs aren’t helping the cause.
Maybe Kevin Cash can play third?
Triple-A Scranton (14-4 in over Lehigh Valley) outscored Lehigh 39-13 in the four game sweep
Kevin Russo: 2 for 6, 2 R, 3 RBI, 1 K, 1 E (fielding) – 7 for 21 (.333) on the young season
Angel Berroa: 1 for 5, 1 RBI, 2 K – picked off first … he’s still > Ransom, and that’s sad
Todd Linden & Justin Leone: combined 0 for 9, 1 R, 3 RBI, 2 BB, 1 K – Linden drove in a pair of runs with a ground out & bases loaded walk
Juan Miranda: 3 for 6, 2 RBI – 9 for 19 (.474) with 11 RBI
Austin Jackson: 2 for 4, 2 R, 1 RBI, 2 BB, 1 SB – had at least one hit in every game so far
Eric Duncan: 2 for 4, 3 R, 1 BB, 1 K
Doug Bernier: 2 for 3, 3 R, 2 BB
Kevin Cash: 3 for 3, 3 R, 1 2B, 1 HR, 3 RBI, 2 BB – Kevin Cash on base five times & triple short of the cycle? … that’s usually a good month for him
Phil Hughes: 6 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, 4-8 GB/FB – 63 of 96 pitches were strikes (65.6%)
Steven Jackson: 1.1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 0 K
Mark Melancon: 1.2 IP, zeroes, 4 K, 0-1 GB/FB – 13 of 22 pitches were strikes (59.1%) … meanwhile, Joe Girardi just made another pitching change
Instant Analysis: A too-quick call to the bullpen
It is ironic that, in a game in which Joba Chamberlain started and allowed just one earned run, the Yanks’ controversial fifth starter would be done in by his bullpen. But it wasn’t just the bullpen that did in Joba and the Yanks; it was Joe Girardi, making unnecessary moves in bad situations, who cost the Yanks a sweep and a chance to go two games over .500.
The Yankees got off to a quick start against Gil Meche and the Royals today. Brett Gardner singled, stole second, advanced to third on a ground-out and scored on a wild pitch. 1-0 Yanks.
Meanwhile, before the rain came, Joba was rolling. He retired the first seven Royals he faced before John Buck blasted a home run on a hanging slider. In the 4th with the rain pouring down, the wheels came off a bit. Joba walked David DeJesus and hit Mark Teahen with a pitch. While he then got two quick outs, Alberto Callaspo rolled a ball toward Robinson Cano. Nick Swisher, overly enthusiastically filling in for an injured Mark Teixeira, ranged too far to his right, missed the ball and screened out Robinson Cano for a costly error. Two unearned runs would score. 3-1 Royals.
That score would stand until the seventh. Following a few hits and Melky Cabrera’s second double play of the game, the Yanks would take the lead 4-3, and it seemed as though the formula would work. Maybe Joba, at only 88 pitches, could toss another inning. Maybe the Yanks would turn to Brian Bruney, Damaso Marte and Mariano Rivera to steal a game from Gil Meche. It wasn’t meant to be.
Bruney dispatched with the Royals in the 7th. Marte induced two quick fly outs in the 8th, and then, Joe Girardi stopped managing and started overmanaging. The Royals pinch hit Billy Butler for Mike Jacobs. Butler, a righty, hasn’t been a terrible hitter in his career. He’s not really a huge power threat, and while he does hit lefties well, he’s 1 for 17 on the season. He wasn’t really a huge threat at that point, and the Yanks have expressed the view that Marte can get out lefties as well as righties.
Instead of allowing Marte to get Butler, yanking him for, ideally, Rivera if Butler were to reach, Joe Girardi pulled Marte and turned to Jose Veras. It was a disaster. Veras inexplicably walked Butler. Girardi then yanked Veras for Phil Coke. The lefty gave up three straight hits to the bottom third of the Royals’ order, and the Yanks were suddenly, shockingly down 6-4, still with two outs in the 8th, still with no sign of Mariano Rivera.
While the folks who argue that Joba should be in the pen will point to this game as Exhibit A in the 2009 season, the reality is that Joe Girardi should take the loss. There is no reason to be paying Damaso Marte $4 million a year if he can’t be left in to face a weak-hitting member of the Royals with two outs and no one in a one-run game. That’s simply inexplicable overmanaging.
Last season, when entering the 8th with a lead, the Yanks were 73-2. This year, they’re 3-1 and lost a game they should have won. This one hurts with a very good Tampa Bay team and Scott Kazmir on tap tomorrow.
Game Six Spillover Thread
I wonder how much longer they’ll let this one go.