-The Yanks have won 6 of the 7 games played against the Sox since Aug. 6, bringing the season series to 6-9. If the season ended today, the Division Series would be the Red Sox vs the Angels and the Yankees vs the Tigers. Detroit is clearly the weakest of the four teams and it’s tough to imagine the Yankees losing to the Tigers again. The Angels look better this season than they were other years when they played Boston, but for whatever reason the Red Sox seem to have their number come October.
-As Pete Abe noted last night, sometimes swinging at the first pitch is a good idea. Its very common that the better pitchers in baseball will have their highest BAA against on that very pitch. Remember this when you hear some fan bitching about first pitch swinging. With some pitchers, that’s the best pitch you’ll see.
-Josh Beckett’s last 2 outings:
IP-13.1
H-18
R-15
ER-15
BB-3
SO-6
Looks like Beckett’s wearing down again, but admittedly it’s too soon to tell. It is worth noting that he followed a similar pattern last year, and wound up on the DL from August 17 to September 5th. The lack of strikeouts jump out at me as much as the Runs scored. From what I could see on yesterday’s ESPN broadcast his stuff just isn’t as sharp. The curve is a little loopy and the fastball is straight. When Beckett’s on, his curve is sharp and his fastball will have a tail on it, moving sideways with late, hard movement. I’ll bet Theo planned on having his all powerful ‘depth’ to give him a blow around now, but we all know how that worked out.
-Andy Pettitte is already dropping hints he wants to pitch next season. With Phil Hughes ticketed to be the Yankee 5th starter next year, that will make for a very interesting decision. You never have enough pitching, but it doesn’t appear there will be an opening.
-Mike Ashmore has a piece up interviewing Yankee minor league pitching guru Nardi Contreres with some interesting notes on Andrew Brackman, Manny Banuelos, Humberto Sanchez and other Yankee farmhands. Check it out.
-Attendance note from NYTimes Bats blog:
The Yankees lead baseball in attendance in the inaugural season of the new Yankee Stadium, averaging 45,715 fans a game, which has them on a pace for a total attendance of 3,702,915. But it is a drastic drop from last season, when they set a franchise record of 4,298,655 fans, the second highest in major league history.
It should be mentioned that the new facility has less capacity than the old one, so it’s impossible to break the old record, even if they go slightly over capacity like the Sox and Phils.
-Maybe John Smoltz isn’t done after all, huh?
-This game ending play from yesterday’s Mets game may not look like much, but the Unassisted Triple Play is one of the rarest plays in Baseball. There have only been 15 recorded in the entire history of the game. They seem to come in bunches, there have been 3 in each league since the 1990s. But before then there were a few in the 20′s and then the NL went 39 years without seeing one and the AL went 65 years.
-For those of you up at that hour, be sure to catch Mark Teixeira on David Letterman tonight. I hope he makes fun of some of those faces he makes when he’s at the plate.
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0 Responses to Random Thoughts-Red Sox Wrap-up
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Even with Hughes in the rotation, Pettitte fits. Wang isn’t likely to pitch next year. Hughes would replace Mitre in the rotation.
Yup. He’ll be back for 2010.
I really see no real reason to put Hughes back in the rotation, you are going to have another year older Mo who will this time around start the season at 40 years old and no set up man as you put your best and most reliable pen piece in the rotation where he has little to no chance to be dominate. Keep Hughes in the pen and groom him to take over for Mo and groom Melancon to set up by pitching 7th inning roles!
I disagree that Wang won’t pitch next year, the question for me is does he pitch for someone else. There’s no way on Earth the Yanks offer him arbitration, but I can see the Yanks offering him an incentive laden deal with some reasonable guaranteed money. I wonder who else would want to, given his injury history, his 2009 campaign and the fact he’s coming off shoulder surgery. The Yanks know him best, so the feeling in other front offices would be “why should we offer more than the Yanks?” thinking its asking to be burned. Strikes me as a reach for other GMs.
I could see bringing Andy back on another incentive laden contract like this year. You can never have enough pitching.
If he is pitching like he is right now he could very well end up having a Mike Mussina year next year… I like Andy as a person so as long as he isn’t hurting the team he can come back and play and I won’t gripe.
Absolutely, Pettitte will be back. Wang, however, may be gone foreever.
No doubt the Yankees will not re-sign Wang, unfortunately he won’t wear the pin stripes again and neither will Hideki, I hope we win the series this year for those two to get rings for all their hard work in the past even if they have slumped this year.
I like the idea of bringing Andy back for another year and with the economic situation I don’t think it would take too much, if he wants to pitch.
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A rotation of CC, AJ, Joba, Phil and Andy sounds good to me! Better one would be; CC, AJ, Joba, CMW and Phil but, only if CMW is healthy.
Next year both Phil and (to some extent) CMW will be on a innings count so, keeping Andy around isn’t a bad idea. At this point in time, I think we get more bang for our buck with Phil then we do with Andy.
As stated above, we never have to much pitching (see Boston) so, if the price is right…sign Andy.
Wang will be on an innings count with another team, if you think the Yankees bring him back your smoking something real good and I want your number.
Exactly, if CMW is healthy then Andy (and Phil) becomes a very interesting decision. But Wang isn’t expected back until mid-2010, so it gets delayed until then and chances are someone will be hurt by the middle of next year.
He won’t be back on the team in 2010 his contract is up at the end of the year and there is no reason for the Yankees to give him a contract offer of any kind, if you were going to take a risk on an injured pitcher go sign Ben Sheets this off season at least he would be fully recovered… Mark my words we have seen the end of Wang in New York (unless he goes to the Mets) he will never pitch for the Yankees again!
What makes you think we will re-sign Wang as an “insurance” policy for an injury if he isn’t even going to be healthy enough to pass a physical at the time he signs the contract? The only way he could be back is if we sign him half way through the season and I think at least two starting pitchers have to go down and there be absolutley no one on the FA market for that to happen…