-Sergio Mitre seems to be the focus of many fan’s ire with this 3 game skid. I’m not ready to send him back to Scranton just yet. Firstly, we don’t have any other alternatives that are ready to go, and even Aceves appears to be working out some issues with his last 2 outings. Mitre’s stuff looks serviceable, he just needs to make some minor adjustments and figure his 1st inning issues out. His pitches were up Saturday, and guys like him get killed when they can’t get the ball down. Don’t forget Joba was having 1st inning issues a few months ago, so we know those things can be worked on. I was also very impressed by the fact that Mitre stayed on the bench for most of the rest of the game talking to Pettitte. Most starters don’t do stuff like that. That tells me he cares, he’s trying very hard, and is willing to learn. I don’t give up on him just yet. Cody Ransom, however. . . .
-Jesus Montero hurt his hand catching Lance Pendleton yesterday, and according to reports from the game he was in a lot of pain. No more info at this point, so we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed.
-In other minor notes, Humberto Sanchez appears to have lost some weight and is taking Baseball more seriously. Its about time, at 26 he is fast approaching the point where he loses his prospect status.
-Very quietly, Mark Melancon is putting together some nice outings in his last few appearances. Bruney looked much better yesterday as well, and I agree with Girardi that he appears to be getting closer. If those two guys can contribute in a meaningful way to the bullpen, that frees up Alfredo Aceves to take Joba’s starts once he starts approaching his innings limits, which is soon. With Hughes as dominant as 07 Joba and Wang out for the year, I’ve come to the conclusion Joba needs to start in the playoffs, not return to the bullpen.
-Phil Coke’s ERA just went from 3.77 to 4.98 after yesterday’s outing. Giving up 6 ER in .1 innings will do that to you. His luck appears to be running out, as his ERA is now more in line with his 4.84 FIP. Marte should be back soon, let’s hope he’s 100%.
-The Yanks may need a starter, but it wont be Phil Hughes. Check out this Girardi interview from WFAN on Friday. Evan Roberts tries to nail Girardi down on the Joba ‘plan’ and he was evasive. The only thing he was definitive on, and shot down immediately was moving Hughes to the rotation.
- I love how Nolan Ryan is the leader of the ‘Anti-Innings Limit’ movement for pitchers under age 25. Nolan has been very outspoken about the fact that he doesn’t believe in restricting innings for young pitchers, saying they need to pitch more to learn how to pitch and ‘build up their arms’. Guess what? That’s right, Nolan HIMSELF never broke 152 IP until he was 25 years old, which is exactly what modern sports medicine suggests. He was well under that mark for the first 4 seasons of his career. In his case it was unintentional, he had Military service obligations that forced him to miss some time, along with the occasional injury. But its ironic the leader of the Luddites tells his pitchers to ‘do as I say, not as I did myself’. The Emperor has no clothes.
-Here’s the pitching match ups for the upcoming Red Sox series at home. Lester goes Wednesday, so we’re going to miss him:
Thursday vs Boston: Joba vs Smoltz
Friday vs Boston: Burnett vs Beckett
Saturday vs Boston: Sabathia vs Bucholtz
Sunday vs Boston: Pettitte vs Penny
Not exactly a preview of the playoffs. We really should make some hay with those matchups.
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TIQ IQ
One of the differences in the game yesterday: Our 9th hitter K 3 times, 2 of them with men on base. Their 9th hitter walked 2 times with the bases loaded!
Yeah but our 9 hitter is usually the best in baseball because it’s either Melky (hitting .290) or Gardner (hitting .280) it just happen to be an off night for that spot in the line up, I think Jose was their right?
The pitching matchups for the Boston series look good. The Yankees have advantage in 3 of 4 of them. If they can pull that off, that´s a 4 game swing in the standings.
So you just shut Joba down and have him start it back up again for the playoffs?
No you do what Girardi is already doing move his starts back and skip him in the rotation from time to time so that he reaches his innings limit later. This would be made easier by adding another starter.
Thursday vs Boston: Joba vs Smoltz
Friday vs Boston: Burnett vs Beckett
Saturday vs Boston: Sabathia vs Bucholtz
Sunday vs Boston: Pettitte vs Penny
Joba V Smoltz is a great way to kick this off and with the way Chamberlain has been pitching and with the way he shuts the Sox down historically we have a real shot at winning the opener. Sabathia V Bucholtz will have some interesting story lines to it with Sabathia (even today) not pitching well as of late and really he hasn’t dominated since well before the all star break and it will be Clay’s first taste if Yankees Red Sxo this year (although he has pitched in the rivalry before). Pettitte V Penny is another winnable game and it is for both teams as we both send out our shaky veterans, both have pitched great games this year and both have pitched terrible games this year. Bring on the series I’m looking forward to getting on the board this year.
Why is Cody Ransom still on this team? I thought acquiring Hairston was suppose to spell the end of Ransom in New York, right? Well apparently not and I can’t understand why, it’s not like there aren’t options in the system you can go with Shelley and have aright handed bat with power off the bench against Lefties or you could call up Juan Miranda and have the same but against Right handed pitching. Hopefully when Gardner comes back it will mark the long awaited DFA for Ransom, but the way things are going I wouldn’t be surprised to see Arod DFA’d over Cody (obviously a joke), I swear this guy has something on Girardi or Cashman!
Boston moved Lester to start this Tuesday so he can start the last game of the series against the Yankees.
Historically he owns us so no real surprise here but now the tables tip a little bit and we only have a pitching advantage coming into two of the four games now and we desperately need to at least split this series.