Posts tagged ‘new york yankees’

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May 10, 2012

David Robertson Blows The Save, But Don't Panic Yet

by Jamie Insalaco

Yankee fans are used to the near perfection that having Mariano Rivera as their closer provided. That’s gone now, and we’re riding the D-Rob Express right to a heart attack.

But don’t jump off the train yet. We all know how good David Robertson is. The guy has put up great numbers, but we all know why they call him Houdini – he gets into trouble, and then he gets out of it. Almost every time. D-Rob was more than over due for a blow up – the dude hasn’t given up a run since… what, August of last season? It was bound to happen eventually, it’s just that when he takes his licks and fails, it’s going to happen in the 9th inning. It’s too soon to say D-Rob can’t handle the closer roll, and what’s more, I’m sure that he can. He’s just not going to be as near perfect or efficient at it as Mo was (hopefully is), but then, no one has ever been Mo, and no one else probably ever will be. I’m not trying to apologize for D-Rob, but let’s just call this what it is – him blowing a save and having his first really bad inning in a really long time. Let’s see how this goes over a larger sample size of save opportunities.

On David Phelps
Let’s take a quick moment to congratulate David Phelps on another good outing. I know 4.2 shutout innings isn’t exactly what you want from your starter, but given the circumstances he’s had to pitch through this season as his role has changed, I think he’s been very impressive. I’m sure he’ll be the one to lose his job when Andy Pettitte returns to the team on Sunday, which sucks, but there it is. At some point, the Yankees are going to need someone to make a spot start or fill in while someone is hurt/ineffective, and David Phelps should be that guy.

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May 6, 2012

In Praise of… Phil Hughes?

by Jamie Insalaco

I often give Phil Hughes a hard time… because he’s usually screwing up.  However, he tossed a quality start today, so I have to give him props.

(Although I must point out that the term ‘quality start’ is faulty; the definition being 6 IP and 3 ER works out to a 4.50 ERA, and that sort of number doesn’t exactly make me think of the word ‘quality.’  Also, Hughes faced the Kansas City Royals today.  The 9 – 18 Kansas City Royals.)

Here are Hughes’ numbers for today:

IP 6.2

H 6

R 3 /  ER 3

BB 1

SO 7

HR 1

ERA on the season 6.67

THE GOOD
I’m impressed that Hughes was able to get through not only 5 IP  today, but worked into the 7th inning.  He hasn’t done that much at all this season.  With the injury to Michael Pineda, Hughes needs to step up, and maybe today was the first step.

More than a K per inning?  Yes, please!  Again, he was facing the Roayls, but me likey.

Limiting the walks was also a nice touch.  Again, against the Royals.  Still haven’t won 1o games this year.  It’s May.

THE BAD
Another home run?  Can’t Hughes get through one start without giving up a home run?

THE UGLY
Almost a hit per inning.  Against the Royals.

I’m looking forward to Hughes’ next start, which is a strange feeling.  It should be against the punch-less Mariners, so maybe we’ll get more of the same.

Maybe.

 

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May 5, 2012

“Say it ain’t Mo!” The Yankees Next Closer

by Jamie Insalaco

As the hours blend into days, Mariano Rivera’s injury truly sinks in, and it’s time to stop being sad and move on.  Mo insists he will return to the team and can never be replaced anyway, but someone will have to step up in his role for now.  Who will it be?

I think this is an enormous opportunity for the Yankees to break with convention and stop using designated roles for their two best relievers.  Instead, when it gets to the 8th and 9th inning, Joe Girardi should look at who’s coming up in the 8th inning and line up the best pitcher to face the best hitters.  For example, if the 2, 3 and 4 hitters are due in the 8th inning, I think I’d like to see the best pitcher available face (David Robertson or Rafael Soriano) those hitters rather than saving that pitcher for the bottom of the order in the 9th.

If Phil Hughes continues to struggle and the Yankees have a serious need in their bullpen, he could slot in there nicely.  We know he’s had great success out there and I’ve never been a huge fan of his work as a starter, so it seems like a good match.  Not only that, but Hughes is well suited to be an old school, multy innings reliever in the style of Goose Gossage or Sam Malone.  Or even a young Mariano Rivera, who would dominate the 7th and 8th innings.

Who knows what will happen… and suddenly, the Yankees biggest strength (the bullpen) now has a serious question mark.  The Joba Chamberlain injuries loom even larger!

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May 4, 2012

Mariano Rivear's Career is probably over

by Jamie Insalaco

Let’s just start saying it, start getting used to it: Mariano Rivera’s career is probably over.

Say it and exhale. Then say it again.

If this is the end, it sucks hard that it had to end this way; stumbling on the warning track while shagging batting practice fly balls. Rivera has been doing it for years, and I’m sure no one ever thought he’d get hurt doing it, never mind have it threaten his career. If he did decided to retire after this season, he should have rode off into the sunset like the hero at the end of a western – now, he probably won’t have that opportunity. Instead, he’s been torn from us in tragedy – one minute he was there, the next, he was gone.

Rehabbing a knee at Mariano Rivera’s age and at this point in his career, when he was so close to (most likely) retiring anyway seems like a daunting task. Sure, he’ll have to rehab no matter what, but will he want to come back and pitch again? Mariano Rivera, who is a deeply spiritual man, may interpret this as a sign from God that his time in baseball is done. I can’t argue with that as the only thing he has left to accomplish is proving that he can come back from this knee injury. I don’t need to cite his resume; the man is a living legend.

It’s still early in this process to know for sure, but Rivera’s probably gone for good. We’d all best make peace with it.

Baseball will never be the same.

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May 3, 2012

Say It Ain't So, Joe Girardi

by Jamie Insalaco

Why, Joe? Why?

I just don’t understand why Joe Girardi sent Ivan Nova back out there for the 7th inning. It just didn’t make any sense. He’d had struggles often during the night, but had managed to come up big when he needed to – it had been a tough 6 innings. He held the Baltimore Orioles to 7 hits and 3 walks, but most impressively, the Os were 2-11 with RISP. That’s a lot of base runners, a lot of stressful innings, but in the end, the Os only came up with 2 runs in the first 6 innings. And Nova was at 99 pitches.

So what does Girardi do? Ne sends Nova back out there and he gives up 3 more runs.

You just can’t lose a series to the Baltimore Orioles at home. No matter how well they’re playing. It just can’t be allowed. I don’t know what’s up with the Yankees pathetic bats and Girardi can’t go out there and hit the ball for them, but he has to control what he can control, and sending Nova back out there was a mistake I can’t even being to understand. There’s just no rational. He used Corey Wade anyway, and if the Yankees somehow got 3 runs in the bottom of the 7th, Girardi would have went to his formula guys. If Wade gives up 3 runs, then he goes to Freddy Garcia for the last innings – like he did anyway. I don’t get it. Didn’t he take Hiroki Kuroda out of the game after 7 innings with an 89 pitch count just to go to his formula? I only bring this up because clearly Girardi doesn’t care about his guys getting stretched out to 115 – he just wants to win the game… right? Then why leave Nova in, who put runners on base all night? I don’t get it. There are a million defenses Girardi could use if he took Nova out after 6 and the bullpen let the game get out of hand:

"Nova was gassed."
"Nova had guys on base all night."
"Nova was at 99 pitches."
"It was a stressful 6 innings for Nova and I didn’t want to tempt fate with 9 outs left for our bats to try to get some runs."
"I wanted to get Nova out of there so he could feel good about this start. Six innings and two runs is nothing to be ashamed of."

I hate to join the bandwagon, but Joe Girardi’s pitching management and match up binder are starting to bug me.

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May 2, 2012

Another Hughes Start, Another Loss

by Jamie Insalaco

Phil Hughes has pitched better in 2012 than Freddy Garcia, but that’s not saying much. Watching Hughes pitch is an exercise in frustration.

While Hughes has decent strike out numbers, he let’s up way too many home runs (I think he’s averaging something like over two homers per nine innings), and when you couple that with 28 hits in 21.2 innings… whew. The 23 strike outs are encouraging, but that just makes me think maybe Hughes really does belong in the bullpen. 7 walks in 5 games isn’t terrible, but it sure would be nice if he could limit those if he’s going to give up billion hits. He gave up 3 runs to Baltimore in less than 6 innings… and a fourth runner was allowed to score by the bullpen… that’s pretty crappy. But, I guess Hughes pitched well enough to get another start, even if he can’t handle an offense as lackluster as the Orioles, featuring the hitless Nick Johnson. Oh right, Nick Johnson! We’ll get back to that..

OTHER PROBLEMS:
The middle of the order
Robinson Cano, Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira are like the nightly version of Phil Hughes. We’re into the second month of the season and these guys just aren’t hitting. Maybe they should start following Derek Jeter and Curtis Granderson around – both of those guys are absolutely destroying the baseball. Joe Girardi has already tried the jiggle the lineup trick, and that didn’t do diddly, so at this point… I don’t know, I guess we wait around another week or two and if nothing happens, he’ll have to do it again. I guess they could bat Granderson fourth… yeah, maybe Jeter, Cano, A-Rod, Granderson, Teixeira, Swisher… but that still leaves us with Cano and A-Rod and their 2012 woes right in a row. I usually say things like "These guys are too good to struggle for too long," but Mark Teixeira, despite the homers last year, has changed my thinking a bit on that stance. A-Rod is older and Cano can be extremely streaky. Still, I can cling to the idea that they’ll warm up with the weather.

The outfield
While Phil Hughes didn’t let up any hits to Nick Johnson, Eduardo "Scissorhands" Nunez did. Yeah, when a position player misjudges a routine fly ball but doesn’t get called for an error (he didn’t, right?), I can’t fault the pitcher, which was Rafael Soriano in this case. I guess I can’t blame him too much, because he’s not an outfielder, but I’ve watched him play the infield a bunch, and he doesn’t look like an infielder, either. If you can’t play left field… well, I don’t know what to tell you.

Coming up…
When Andy Pettitte’s busy schedule of training to pitch and testifying in Roger Clemen’s case reaches it’s conclusion, we’ll get the lefty back. Maybe that’ll take another 2 or 3 turns through the Yankees rotation, and if Hughes continues to do those 5+ IP, 3 run starts, I bet he keeps his job – unless David Phelps is lighting the world on fire, which seems unlikely. The Yankees schedule is pretty lean from now until about the All Star break, so it shouldn’t be too tall an order for Hughes. If he’s bad… that will really tell you something.

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April 17, 2012

Hughes or Garcia

by Jamie Insalaco

The fate of the Yankees starting rotation has been in flux since… I don’t know, since last season. Who will stay in and who will get pushed aside for better talent has become the question of the day. Now that both guys that are on the hot seat (Freddy Garica and Phil Hughes) have gone through the rotation twice, we can take a look at this tiny sample size and guess what the Yankees will do when the time comes about a month from now.

When I look at a sample size this small, I go right to WHIP, which doesn’t help us here because they’re both tied there. They’ve both given up 13 hits and their walks are only separated by 1 in favor of Garcia. When we look at hits vs innings pitched, Garcia is again the better pitcher, but he got to face the basement dwelling Orioles and Twins while Hughes got the Rays (who aren’t exactly barn stormers with the bat) and the Angels (who have the talent to hit a lot), so that’s tough. When it comes to numbers, the best thing I can say about Hughes is he’s got more strike outs per innings, which makes sense when you think about how great his bullpen results are. The best thing I can say about Garcia is he only walked 3 guys in the game against Baltimore and his splitter was bouncing 2 feet in front of the plate. They’re both giving up way too many homers in the early going.

Now we go to the eye test. Although Hughes is striking guys out, I feel as though he gets in too many deep counts and still struggles to finish batters off. His fastball and curve ball look much better than last year, but it doesn’t seem to be enough. He hasn’t made much in the way of progress when it comes to developing his change up, so maybe he needs to concentrate on his cutter… or something… or a slider. I don’t know… maybe a sinker? He needs something else. Garcia had much better command of his splitter against the Twins, but the Twins are so awful, it’s hard to accept when your starter can’t give you 6 IP and 3 ER.

At this point, I think the Yankees are still committed to Hughes and when Andy Pettitte is ready to come up to the big leagues, they’ll demote David Phelps (who’s been great, by the way) and send Garcia to the bullpen as the mop up/long man. As long as Hughes is healthy, I think they’ll keep him in the rotation, unless he’s unbearable for too long. They’ll give Hughes, who is still young, every opportunity to regain his 2010 form, which I still don’t think was that great, but good enough for the back of the rotation and sacrifice Garcia to do it. Garcia is fine for organizational depth, but at his age, he could decline rapidly or just decide to retire at any time.

I think Garcia is probably the better ‘win now’ solution, but Hughes is probably the better ‘long term’ pick, and I think that’s the way the Yankees are going – staying with younger, cheaper players so they don’t have to go out on the open market to flesh out the back end of their rotation.

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April 13, 2012

"Mariano Rivera Is Done" Articles

by Jamie Insalaco

I thought all of the "The beginning of the end for Mo?" articles after the season opener were about Mo’s pending retirement announcement coming some time this summer, but no, they were about how he blew the save against the Rays and perhaps time has finally caught up with him. Once i realized this, I didn’t bother reading any further because I’ve read that article before many times over the last few years and as we all know, Mo always recovers.

What i didn’t realize was I’d read these articles a million times over the last 10 years. An awesome cut and paste of various "Is Mo done?" articles from the last decade or so can be found here. Of course, since blowing the save in game 1, Mo has pitched 3 scoreless innings for 2 saves, so yeah, business as usual

Why does Mo struggle in April? I’d say that in the past, it was probably winter rust – even his training program can’t simulate live baseball conditions against the pros. These days, I’d say it’s a combination of rust and his revised winter throwing program – and by that, I’m pretty sure Mo said he stopped throwing over the winter a few years ago. I believe this is because there is just too much wear and tear on his arm at this point, which has had it’s fair share of surgeries over his career.

Anyway, as per usual, I wouldn’t worry about Mariano Rivera any time he blows a save. He might pitch like a machine most of the time, but he is just a flesh and blood man, despite the fact that I worship the guy like a deity. If you want to worry about something, worry about the psyche of the guy who has to replace him. The first rough patch he goes through his going to be brutal.

ENJOY OPENING DAY AT YANKEE STADIUM!

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April 12, 2012

Yankees First 6 Games Of 2012

by Jamie Insalaco

The Yankees will play their home opener this afternoon, but before that, let’s take a look back at their first 6 games of the season in the road trip that started in disaster and ended in triumph.

Let’s break it down:

The Starting Rotation
Holy hell, what a disaster. Sure, it’s still early and I’m not rushing to judgement, but Ivan Nova is the only starter who’s put in a decent performance so far. C.C. Sabathia can’t command his fastball, Phil Hughes is looking better than last year (but that doesn’t say much), Freddy Garcia is trying to kill the dirt in front of home plate with his splitter and Hiroki Kuroda was up in the zone all night long. Here’s hoping he’ll be better today and everyone else will straighten out. I’m not worried about C.C. Sabathia, and what we’ve seen from Kuroda isn’t his reputation, so not much to worry about there, either – as for Hughes and Garcia… well, the clock is ticking. Andy Pettitte and Michael Pineda are on the way. How Sabathia got through six innings last night is anybody’s guess…

The Bullpen
All hail the bullpen! For it is the bullpen corps that were the road trip saviors! Sure, Mariano Rivera did blow that first game, but whatever – that’s going to happen from time to time – he’s rebounded nicely. Just because I worship the guy doesn’t make him an infallible god. David Robertson likes to make us sweat, but he gets the job done. Boone Logan and Rafael Soriano also deserve high praise for their performances last night.

The Offense
Some ups, some downs, but mostly, I’m happy with the overall production – what I’d like to see is some POWER! What do Mark Teixeira, Robinson Cano and Alex Rodriguez all have in common? No homers. I guess if they hang out with Derek Jeter, it’s a No Homers club – they’re allowed to have one. Derek Jeter is on fire so far this year – that guy sure is good at putting naysayers in their place.

The Defense
For the most part, I’m happy, but let’s do our best to keep Raul Ibanaz on the bench as the DH, hmm? And Eduardo Nunez… I just don’t know what to say about Eduardo Scissorhands. I’d need to see how he plays on a day to day basis (and I am starting to hope I never find out what that looks like) to know for sure, but I’m starting to think that this guy is just not an infielder.

Joe Girardi’s Match Up Binder
I’ve enjoyed Girardi’s tenure as manager so far, particularly his skill with the bullpen and keeping those guys healthy – a refreshing change after Joe Torre’s reign of terror (ask Scott Proctor, Mike Myers, Paul Quantral… you know, anybody that pitched out of the pen for Torre). Still, when he plays match ups in the first inning, I get annoyed – you can imagine what I was thinking when he went to match up strategies and started intentionally walking guys in the first inning of the first game of the season with his ace on the mound! On the other hand, I loved when he brought the extra infielder into the game, even if it was Eduardo Scissorhands.

Going Forward
I think things can only improve from here. Sabathia and Kuroda should round into form, I’m sure Sweaty Freddy will find his splitter and reinforcements are on the way.

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April 5, 2012

The Mystery of the Chris Stewart Trade & the Francisco Cervelli Demotion

by Jamie Insalaco

If you didn’t already hear, the Yankees traded RP George Kontos to the Giants for C Chris Stewart and demoted C Francisco Cervelli to AAA Empire State Yankees. Why they did this, I have no idea, but I can guess.

I’m sure this went down because AAA C Austin Romine is hurt, but I think Kontos might have been a tiny bit too much to give up for Stewart, but that’s not my primary concern: what irks me is that Stewart is not a significant upgrade over Cervelli, so why do this at all? I get that Romine’s ongoing back problems are a concern and that him being on the shelf means catcher depth is a bit low right now, but this doesn’t seem like the greatest of moves. I know Stewart spent some time with the Yankees in both 2008 and 2009, but how much does he really know the Yankees pitching staff? Spring training is over, so there is no time left to learn.

I don’t get it. Maybe the idea is that Stewart will be C.C. Sabathia’s personal catcher and Cervelli will help the organization monitor the top pitching prospects at AAA as he knows many of those guys and has caught them before, so he can provide valuable information in Romine’s absence. That’s the only justification I can come up with… unless this is just a depth move and Stewart is out of minor league options. That’s probably more likely.

I’m sure we’ll see Cervelli back with the big club at some point this year and I’m not especially morning his loss (although I will miss the fist pumps), but I’d love to hear someone from the organization explain this move just for clarity’s sake.

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