SI.com’s Jon Heyman reports that Johan Santana has broken off contract extension talks with the Twins. Santana, who wants a Barry Zito-sized extension, has a four-year contract that ends after 2008. The Twins offered him two years at $18 million a season, but Santana is looking for long-term stability. I can only dream that one day Santana, Hughes and Wang will be the subject of some bad sexual pun on the back of the Post or Daily News.
Who had April 10 in the injury pool?
Ex-Yankee Jaret Wright went down with shoulder pain yesterday. Surprise.
Update by Joseph P.: From the article:
“However, when Wright started warming up for the fifth inning last night, he was alarmed by a familiar feeling in the back of his right shoulder. Wright made it through one more inning before getting removed with shoulder stiffness…”
I understand there’s a bit of personal pride in toughing out injuries, but there has to be a point where you say, “I’ve had two surgeries on this shoulder and it has placed me on the DL as recently as 2005. Maybe I should tell someone NOW.”
Remember, back in April 2005, Wright “felt something” in his shoulder, and pitched until something popped in the fifth or sixth (maybe it was the fourth, I can’t remember). And then he missed nearly four months.
I couldn’t be happier to have him on another team.
Yanks crush Twins, sky ceases falling
| Player | WPA | pLI | Pitcher | WPA | pLI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alex | .168 | 0.27 | Pettitte | .232 | 0.73 |
| Melky | .100 | 0.48 | Vizcaino | .021 | 0.19 |
| Damon | .043 | 0.48 | Rivera | .000 | 0.00 |
| Cano | .025 | 0.19 | Proctor | -.009 | 0.33 |
| Jeter | .019 | .027 | |||
| KT | .001 | 0.01 | |||
| Minky | -.012 | 0.41 | |||
| Giambi | -.012 | 0.30 | |||
| Posada | -.036 | 0.27 | |||
| Abreu | -.040 | 0.36 |
Now, the only question that remains: do we cut off Chicken Little’s head for the false alarm? Or do we let him suffer the same fate as the proverbial boy who cried wolf?
It appears all has returned to normal in Yankeeland, as they got their second straight “normal” start. Like with Pavano last night, there were a few things I didn’t like from Pettitte tonight. Thankfully, most of those concerns amounted to his control, which is surely the result of a shortened Spring Training. This really isn’t troubling, especially considering he’s still on a rough pitch count (though he kind of blew through that last night).
I must point this out 15 or so times a season, but it is incredibly difficult to put together an interesting recap of a blowout like last night. Yeah, they hit a lot. Yeah, Pettitte pitched like we remember him. But there was little that sparked any emotion, save for Alex’s first-inning home run.
At least Melky was able to avoid looking foolish at the plate yesterday. He went 3 for 4, and didn’t seem to be flailing at pitches like he was in the season’s first week. I noticed this especially in his at bat in the ninth (which coincidentally followed a nice play on a liner to left to end the 8th). He laid off a first-pitch off-speed offering, which he might not have just a few days ago. He still has plenty to work on, but at least he’s got some semblance of a swing working for him.
A couple of notes:
- I’ve been hearing a lot lately about all the times that Minky has saved errors this season. While it’s great that he’s playing solid D at first, I sincerely doubt that he’s saved more than two errors over what Giambi could have done. That’s because Giambi’s more glaring shortcoming isn’t his ability to scoop errant throws, it’s his complete lack of range (followed closely by his inability to throw the ball). But, as long as the Yanks are hitting like this, I’ll take him at first basel.
- Ben had mentioned something about the weather in his previous post, which got me thinking. Writers and bloggers all around the league are complaining about the weather in some form or another. The thing is, though, that most are blaming it for their poor hitting, while Yanks fans blame it for their poor pitching. Maybe we should lay off the weather argument?
- The biggest WPA shift for the Yanks today: Alex’s home run, of course (.174). The most detrimental to the Twins: Mike Cuddyer grounding into a double play in the fourth, with the game still close at 3-0 (-.126).
Mike Mussina gets his chance tonight against Ramon Ortiz. The Yanks just gotta take advantage of this crappy pitching.
Yanks win; Proctor struggles
Short post from me tonight on the game. We’ll have the WPA graph in the morning. Good work all around tonight. Alex Rodriguez is in the Zone with a big, fat capital Z. It’s something special when a player of his caliber enters this other-wordly hitting zone. I would think that no one will pitch to him soon.
Nice to see Andy Pettitte step up tonight. His success tonight and the Yanks’ overall play leads me to believe that the bad, cold weather had something to do with the Yanks’ lethargic opening week. Baseball is a warm weather sport. No team should play in 35-degree weather or the snow. Just as Indian fans.
Finally, a quick note about one of my favorite relievers. I’ve always loved Scott Proctor’s Stuff. His mid- to upper-90s fastball and complimentary breaking pitches made me a believer, and last year, he delivered on the goods. He also appeared in over half of the Yankees’ games and threw a career-high 102.1 innings.
But tonight, he threw 11 of his 17 pitches out the strike zone. He was pulled after 0.2 innings of work in what was then a seven-run game. On the short season, he has just 4.1 innings under his belt — small sample size, I know — but has given up four hits and three earned runs. His K:BB ratio, nearly 3:1 last year, is actually 1:2 this year. I just hope he wasn’t ran into the ground last year.
Down on the Farm
I made a pretty substantial error in yesterday’s Down on the Farm: I wasn’t paying full attention to the Double-A box score, and jumped the gun thinking Trenton lost the game after the top of the 9th because they were on the road. In fact, Trenton was home, and they rallied to tie the game in the bottom of the 9th, and eventually won in 12. My bad, here’s the box score.
On to tonight’s action:
Triple-A Scranton (4-3 loss to Richmond)
Bronson Sardinha: 2 for 5, 1 2B, 1 RBI – signs of life…
Eric Duncan: 0 for 5, 3 K – coming back to Earth I see…
Shelley Duncan: 3 for 3, 1 R, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 1 BB, 1 CS
Steven Jackson: 5 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 10-0 GB/FB -Â just when you thought that deal couldn’t get any better…Â
TJ Beam: 2 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 E (pickoff)
Does he know Derrick Jeter too?
Insufferable Red Sox fan and generally annoying know-it-all Bill Simmons referred to the Red Sox closer as John Papelbon in his most recent blog posting. Even Yankee fans who hate the Red Sox know that Papelbon’s first is Jonathan. The righty goes by Jon with nary an H in sight. As Yankee fans now know how to spell Mientkiewicz and Red Sox fans can’t even get the name Jon right, well, I leave the conclusions up to you.
The Abreu effect
Peter Abraham has an interesting piece up on the effect Bobby Abreu has had on Alex Rodriguez in the Yankee lineup. It seems that Abreu’s presence in front of Rodriguez has greatly helped the Yanks’ oft-beleaguered third baseman. I want to look at this more in depth later to see how Abreu stacks up with Sheffield in the three hole in A-Rod’s other years, but it’s an interesting find from Pete.