After consulting with famed surgeon Dr. James Andrews and team doctors, Jorge Posada learned that his shoulder is only strained. According to Yanks’ manager Joe Girardi, Posada will probably be out somewhere around a week before he’s ready to catch again. Right now, the Yankees should proceed cautiously with Jorge; they need him healthy this year.
Fun times in the bullpen
Yes, David Cone did say last night that Ian Kennedy got jerked off in the bullpen. NYY Stadium Insider has the video. I don’t think Cone meant what he said though unless the folks in the pen were really bored by the 6th inning.
An elbow injury, a one-inning pitcher and a rain delay that never came
When Joe Girardi was in Florida, his handling of his young pitching staff during a rain delay earned him quite a bit of criticism and potentially a one-way ticket out of his job.
The day was September 12, 2006, and Josh Johnson was on the mound when an 82-minute rain delay hit. Girardi put Johnson back on the mound, but the youngster came down with a case of forearm tightness that night. He would throw just 15 innings in 2007 before losing last year and this to elbow surgery. While Johnson has publicly stated that the rain delay was not the cause of his elbow woes, this incident lingers on Joe Girardi’s record.
Nearly 19 months later, Girardi found himself faced with another young pitcher and another case of rain. The forecast in Kansas City tonight called for rain, lots and lots of rain, and so Joe Girardi opted to keep Kennedy out of the game so as not to burn a Kennedy start and so as to avoid managing through a rain delay.
During the early innings, it seemed like a wise strategy. For once, the weather forecast was right, and rain came down in sheets, blanketing the field in rivulets of water. But onward marched the game. Brian Bruney shut down the Royals; Billy Traber shut down the Royals; and for one inning, Kyle Farnsworth shut down the Royals.
But then disaster struck, and it is here that we have to wonder whether or not to nitpick tonight’s game. With no score in the fifth and the rain visually lightening up, Girardi left Kyle Farnsworth in to pitch a second inning. Kyle Farnsworth is the master of the one-inning appearance. He made a grand total of zero appearances last year of more than an inning, and while he has complained about that, the results tonight bore out Joe Torre’s one-inning handling of Farnsworth.
In this second inning, Farnsworth gave up a home run to John Buck, hitting just over .100 on the season, and then another run on an 0-2 slider to Jose Guillen, hitting .128 at the time. He lost his effectiveness, and he lost his pitching smarts at the same time.
In the sixth inning, Girardi brought in the starter Ian Kennedy for a brief three-inning appearance. Kennedy got into some wind-aided trouble in his first inning of work and gave up two runs. But he settled down after that to restore some faith in his pitching among Yankee fans.
The nitpicking is, of course, moot. The game should have been stopped for rain at some point; the field was a mess, and both teams were struggling through the weather. But had Girardi’s strategy been put to the test, the Yankees pitchers needed to pitch 9 scoreless innings to keep pace with this team’s anemic offense.
I can’t help but question Girardi’s decision tonight. Call it Monday-morning quarterbacking; call it the nature of a baseball blog. For four innings, Girardi’s choice looked like a solid one, but in the fifth, it fell apart. Why leave Farnsworth, a one inning at his best, in for a second inning? Why not go with Ian Kennedy when the game was clearly going on? Missing offense or not, the ghost of Josh Johnson’s elbow loomed large over this game.
More offense from Charleston
Triple-A Scranton (11-0 beatdown courtesy of Louisville)
Juan Miranda: 2 for 4, 1 K
Eric Duncan & Nick Green: both 1 for 3, 1 2B – Green committed a throwing error
rest of lineup: combined 1 for 21, 1 BB, 2 K – Bernie Castro picked up a single … Jason Lane drew a walk
Steven “don’t call me” White: 4 IP, 11 H, 9 R, 6 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 1 HB, 0-9 GB/FB – as ugly as it gets
Heath Phillips: 2 IP, zeroes, 2 K – this year’s Ben Kozlowski
Scott Patterson: 2 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 0 K, 2-4 GB/FB – okay, who kidnapped the real Scott Patterson?
Jose Veras: 1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 K, 1 HB
RAB day at the park?
I just want to throw out some feelers to see who would be interested in doing an RAB day at the park. It would be Sunday, June 8th, and we’d be sitting in the tiers. Figure on $20 a ticket, though they might be less. That’s the quote I’m getting now. We’d start by hanging out somewhere before the game — Lot 3 might be out, since we were busted for grilling there last Sunday. If you’re interested, leave a reply.
Game Nine: Sub at SS
No, we don’t have any answers on the great DL debate. PeteAbe says that it might actually be Morgan Ensberg who hits the DL. Something about a “mysterious knee injury.” Jorge’s injury isn’t being considered serious enough for a DL stint, and there is no further word on Derek Jeter.
Clearly, much of this can change in the 45 minutes leading up to the game. The Yanks have to make a roster move in that interim, and I’ll update this post once I get word, probably from Abraham or Feinsand.
Update: Yep, it’s Ensberg to the DL. And I’m apparently unfamiliar with Central time. The game starts at 8, not 7.
Your lineup:
1. Johnny Damon, DH
2. Robinson Cano, 2B
3. Bobby Abreu, RF
4. Alex Rodriguez, 3B
5. Hideki Matsui, LF
6. Jason Giambi, 1B
7. Jose Molina, C
8. Melky Cabrera, CF
9. Alberto Gonzalez, SS
And on the mound, number thirty-one, Ian Patrick Kennedy.
Kinda strange that Molina is hitting ahead of Melky, eh?
Photo of Ian Kennedy hurling while in high school courtesy of flickr user Miro-Foto. Click here for a bigger version and here and here for a few more shots of the Yanks’ righty back in the day.
Former Attorney General in KC
Mark Feinsand is reporting that Alberto Gonzalez is with the team in Kansas City. This suggests one of two things. 1) Jeter is headed for the DL. 2) Shelley Duncan is headed down temporarily. Feinsand notes, and I can’t argue with his logic, that if Posada was the one hitting the DL, we’d also be seeing Chad Moeller in KC. Still, the possibility exists that both Jetes and Po hit the DL.