River Avenue Blues

DotF Lite: Where’s Mike?

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Mike is out of commission for the next few nights. So I’m taking over the Down on the Farm reins for a few days. Don’t worry; I’m not staging a coup. I’ll have a link to the box scores and a few stat lines but not nearly as many as Mike features. Feel free to add more depth in the comments.

AAA Scranton-Wilkes Barre lost to the Toledo Mud Hens 4-3(box score).
Alan Horne – 6 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 3 BB, 4 K – He threw 96 pitches but only 53 for strikes in a losing effort
David Robertson – 2 IP, 1 H, 2 BB, 1 K
Shelley Duncan – 1 for 4 with his 7th AAA HR of the year

The Mud Heads featured former Yankee farm hand and Major Leaguer Fernando Seguignol as their clean-up hitter. The Yanks owe a thanks to the 33 year old as he was once traded by the Yanks to the Expos for a pitcher named John Wetteland.

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Open Thread: Evaluating RAB

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So things are good in Yankee-land tonight. While the Yanks have the evening off, an afternoon win brought the Bombers their seventh victory in a row. With a plethora of open threads lately, we figured now would be a good time for some site evaluations. Thanks to Mike’s tireless draft coverage, we’ve had a huge month traffc-wise, and today, Joe debuted first RAB podcast.

So I want to take this opportunity to ask you, our readers, to evaluate the site with a critical eye. If you think we’re doing a great job and shouldn’t change a thing, thank you, but we’re not fishing for congratulations. We’d rather reserve this thread for comments about what we aren’t doing or aren’t doing well. What would you do to improve the site? What would you like to see added to our coverage? Leave your ideas in the comments, and we’ll sift through ’em over the next few weeks. The feedback would be a massive contribution to the site.

Strike out-happy Yanks down punchless Padres

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Just two days ago, I wrote up a 14-strike out game tossed by Andy Pettitte and the Yankee bullpen. It was the first time in nearly two years that the Yanks had reached that lofty K plateau. Little did I know they would reach — and exceed — that level again less than 48 hours later.

Behind a strong, 100-pitch outing from Joba Chamberlain, four Yankee pitchers combined for a whopping 15 strike outs of the San Diego Padres. Joba started off the fun with 2 K’s in the first and hardly looked back. On the day, he threw a few too many balls (42) and issued a few too many walks (3), but in 5.2 innings, Joba struck out nine and gave up just four hits. Outside of a rough first outing, his transition into the rotation has been about as smooth as we could expect.

On the season, Joba has yet to pick up a win as a starter, but to anyone who follows the team, that matters very little. The Yanks are now 3-1 in Joba’s four starts, and the right-hander has thrown 18.1 innings while striking out 19. For all the analysts who said Joba couldn’t keep up his velocity and strike out totals, Chamberlain is doing a good job of proving them wrong so far.

Of course, it’s still early on in Joba’s career, and he’s still finding his way as a Major League starter. The walk total — 12 in 18.1 innings — is, point blank, unacceptable. It will get better.

After Joba’s departure, Jose Veras, Kyle Farnsworth and Mariano Rivera combined for 3.1 innings of scoreless, one-hit relief. The trio struck out six with Mariano Rivera’s continuing to utterly dominate the Padres. He faced San Diego three times this week and nailed down seven strike outs.

Offensively, the Yankees took advantage of the Padres’ weakness. While Josh Banks continued his stellar pitching this season, the Yanks exploited the Padres’ catchers. Melky Cabrera scored the Yanks’ first run of the game off a walk, two stolen bases and a sacrifice fly. A Derek Jeter stolen base put him in position to advance to third on a Bobby Abreu ground-out and score on an A-Rod single. Who says the Yanks can’t run?

With that win, the Yanks win their seventh in a row. It is their longest winning streak since they won nine in a row against the White Sox, Pirates and Diamondbacks in June of 2007. The Yanks, it seem, love beating up those weak NL teams.

Riding high on a win streak and just 2.5 games behind the Wild Card-leading Tampa Bay Rays, the Yanks will meet the Reds, another last-place NL team, this weekend. Edinson Volquez and his sub-2.00 ERA go on Friday. The Yanks are finding ways to win big and small, and I’m lovin’ every minute of it.

RAB trade deadline podcast

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Update: After listening to the mixdown through the internal audio player, I changed the levels and uploaded a new version. So if you caught a broken link, it’s back up and running now.

We’re going to try something a bit different over the next few weeks, leading up to the July 31 trading deadline. It’ll be a weekly podcast going over the trade environment at the time. We’ll talk about needs, wants, rumors, and other potential maneuvers.

This week, it’s me going solo, though I’ll be joined by Mike and Ben as time permits. Also, if you’d like to “call in,” so to speak, just hit me with an email and we’ll try to work something out.

Today I talk about — what else — starting pitching, Cleveland’s situation in evaluating a return for C.C. Sabathia, bullpen help, and a defensive first baseman.

If you want to download the podcast, you can right click here and hit “Save As.” Otherwise, it will launch the podcast in a new screen. Otherwise, you can just use the audio player below.

[audio:http://riveraveblues.com/podcasts/TradeDeadlinePodcast.mp3]

Game 73: 100 pitches

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Can you believe that, by the end of next week, we’ll be at the mid-point of the 2008 baseball season? It seems like only yesterday we watched the Yanks emerge victorious on Opening Day against the Blue Jays.

The story today, as it is every five day, is Joba Chamberlain. While Joba has yet to pick up his first win a starter, he’s done quite well for himself so far. In three starts spanning 12.2 innings, his ERA is 2.84, and he’s maintaining a high strike out rate. While he’s walked nine — that’s too many — his stuff has looked good. Today, he’s up over 100 pitches, and by all accounts, he’s basically off the pitch count now. It will be interesting to see how he does against a weak Padres lineup.

Hideki Matsui is out again. He says he’s available to pinch hit.

Game time is 1:05 p.m. Apparently, MLB likes to schedule getaway-day day games for teams that aren’t the Yankees or Mets. Go figure.

Damon LF
Jeter SS
Abreu RF
Rodriguez 3B
Giambi 1B
Posada DH
Cano 2B
Cabrera CF
Molina C

Chamberlain P

Site Notes: Check back later this afternoon for the first RAB podcast, and we’ll have an ever-popular Open Thread tonight, topic TBD.

Draftee signings update

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P-Abe notes that the Yanks signed a bunch of draft picks in the last few days, including 5th rounder Chris Smith and 8th rounder (and super sleeper) Dan Brewer. Smith is the kid that hit .708 with a .2100+ OPS as a senior in high school last year, and he’s already getting overhyped. They’re high school stats, throw them right out the window, they’re useless. Pete also notes that 7th rounder Kyle Higashioka was in the clubhouse yesterday and took BP with a team, while NoMaas shows that 6th rounder Brett Marshall was kickin’ it with the team during their recent trip to Houston. Signings for the top 3 guys will probably go down to the wire, but you can see all of the picks & signings here.

The physical toll of a road trip

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The Freakonomics blog points to a study about the impact of jet lag on baseball players. As Scientific American summaries, “A new study shows that MLB teams that travel such distances to play a game could have up to a 60 percent chance of losing.” The study goes on to note that the advantage dwindles as teams get more acclimated to the new time zone and suggests that MLB factor in days of rest at the start of long road trips. Freakonomics also links to a Science Blogs post noting that the Amphetamines ban may account for the jet lag effect.