With the mighty Red Sox striking out (and Brad Penney’s ERA continuing to balloon), an unlikely win last night with Sergio Mitre on the hill pushed the Yankees lead back to 2.5 games in the hotly contested A.L. East. Despite only getting 4 and a third innings out of Meatball, er Mitre, the bullpen managed to step into the breach and shut down the Jays, allowing only 1 run over the remaining 4+ frames.
Weaving together a tapestry consisting of Aceves, Coke, Hughes, and Robertson, the pen allowed only 3 hits and no walks while striking out 7 over the aforementioned 4+ – pretty stellar stuff. Aceves looked much better than his recent form, showing no signs of the rumored arm trouble, fatigue or soreness, committing only 1 mistake: an 0-1 changeup which Adam Lind deposited in the right field seats. Mitre was actually not quite as bad as his numbers indicate. The 2 runs in the first coming off of a series of ground ball singles and a jammed blooper to center. He was, perhaps, unfortunate to give up so many ground ball hits, but most of the grounders were hit pretty hard. He seems to have enough sink to keep the ball mostly on the ground when his sinker’s working, but his lack of velocity yields an awful lot of hard worm burners.
So if Mitre continues only to shine a sponlight on the Pinstripers desperate need for another starter, why was this such a big win? Well, several reasons come to mind:
- Any time they can get a W out of Mitre’s turn is pretty huge. The temptation at this point is to pencil in a shiny L next to every time his name appears as the scheduled starter.
- On the eve of the Red Sox series, it seems particularly important to right the Yankees ship and get it moving back in the proper direction, particularly with the apparent psychological edge the Sox have enjoyed so far this season in the head-to-head matchups. A little extra boost of confidence could go a long way.
- The bullpen is a significant key to the Bombers’ success. Getting Aceves straightened out, getting Coke in form, saving Mariano for the Red Sox and Robertson continuing to impress (kid has a +12 K/9!) are all great signs.
- The Swishometer has turned back to hot as Nick Swisher continues to mash, going 2-5 with another homer. This guy is one of the streakiest players I’ve ever seen and having him hot going into the Sox’ series can’t hurt.
- The Yanks were able to push back Joba a few days to get him some extra rest and put the team’s three best hurlers back-to-back-to-back for the big series.
So how confident are you guys going into the big matchup tonight? Do you think that all signs point to turning around the Yankees’ luck against the Beantowners?
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
10 Responses to Big Win for the Bullpen
Leave a Reply
TIQ IQ
It’s incredible that the team gained 2 games in the standings in games started by Halladay and Mitre. If they win only 1 game against the Sox they’ll still be in first place by next Monday, but I think a split is more likely. If they win 3 it’s a 4.5 GA cushion that will feel great.
The only reason the Sox are still in this race is the 8-0 mark against the Yankees. Other than that, they are just a good but not great team. The race could had been over by now if only the team showed in half of those games
Love the confidence, but remember that the Yanks have their own issues, with a 5th starter issue and Joba’s looming innings cap. Personally, I would rate all three teams as being roughly equal and I’m thrilled that the Yanks have the edge they do at this point. The Sox and Rays are so tough, that I’d be more than happy to take the wildcard this year.
Have to disagree that they all look about equal right now. The Sox are a mess at the moment. They have issues with there 3,4, and 5 pitchers. Drew is having his usual trouble staying healthy and is batting sub 250 and now Bay is out for a few days. There likely going to have to call Reddick back up who was in AA just a couple weeks ago because Baldelli can’t seem to play mutiple days. Nick Green ended up in left last night for them becasue they didn’t have anyone else. There choice of going after Martinez rather than outfield bat is hurting them already. If we can’t get a few W’s this weekend then it will be a huge dissapointment.
The Sox look bad right now in 3-4-5, but once Wakefield comes back, that solidifies 1-2-3. Conversely, once Joba gets shut down (if he does), the Yanks will suddenly look really shaky in the 4-5 spots. The Sox also have options the Yanks don’t have with Bucholz, Penney, Smoltz, etc. They each have their issues, certainly. You could probably poll 100 pundits and 50 would pick the Sox and 50 the Yanks. They’re both really good teams with a few glaring question marks. BTW, Youkilis is in left tonight – pretty weird, huh.
Youk in left???? They must be keeping an arm up in case Smoltz melts down early again…..The Yankees counted on old arms back in 04 and 05 and now its the Sox counting on a lot of old guys and guys returning from surgery. It didn’t work for the Yanks and it won’t work for the Sox either. Waiting two or three weeks for Wakefield and Dice K to get healthy is going to put them in a hole they can’t recover from….Have to love the pundits calling Theo a genius at the trade deadline. Now he has Youk in left because he didn’t address their lack of outfield depth. Ha Ha!
Still not totally convinced with Robertson.He spots a very straight fastball and often has no command with his curveball.
I’m afraid the more batters see him the less called strikes he’ll get, as they swing earlier in the count and he doesn’t really have the giddy yup on his fastball to strike good hitters out with men on base.
Must get that curveball going consistantly.
I understand the concern, but the numbers don’t lie. The fact that he’s retained the gaudy k/9 numbers is very, very encouraging. Missing bats is still one of the best predictors of future success and most guys who don’t have the pop on the fastball lose the k/9 when they hit the bigs. Edwar DID retain the k/9, but he gave up a lot more dingdongs than Robertson. I have high hopes for the kid.
Watching Mitre push is painful-like root canal wor. I am sorry he did ok last night but lets try towers. Maybe not much better but at least it wont be so damn painful
I’m not sure what you mean by painful, unless you mean stinking, in which case Towers will be just as painful.
At least towers has had a modicum of success at the mlb level. He was not a bad pitcher when he came up with Toronto-Mitre is just 2-2-3-1-3-0 on every htter it seems. I remeber thinking when I first saw Towers come up he was going obe pretty good, obvuisouly it did not work that way but I think he is a better option than Mitre