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Anyway, good game so far. Abreu is slowly giving me confidence that the first month or so was in fact an anomoly. We'll see.

He certainly appears to hae gotten his head out of his a$$ offensively. Maybe Coco can watch him and figure out the extraction procedure.

Torre really needs to stop giving Farnsworth the 8th.

I've been expecting Abreu to return to normal for quite some time now. Nothing about this surprises me. In the meantime, I expect the equivalent from JD Drew and, moreso, Julio Lugo, who has had an abysmally bad patch of luck with his .229 BABIP.

The Yankees played far below their Pyth and potential until 7 games ago. Here comes the run. The big factor is Clemens.

He could make a 5-game difference if you hold that his replacement would have been Clippard (through August and Hughes' return).

5 games might be enough, by itself, to take the WC. I still don't think that, even with Clemens, the Yanks as they stand have the potential to overtake the Sox for the Division. PECOTA agrees. That analysis does not include:

1) Cashman pulling horseshoes out of his ass named "Small" or "Chacon" again, nor...
2) Mussina pulling it together, since he is pitching in the 20%-low of his PECOTA expectation so far.

Mariano down to the last out, looking like... (agh) Mariano Rivera, dammit.

The immortal Chris Snyder staving off the first notes of "New York" by Frankie S.

Save #8 for Fruitbat.

They are at .500

The Yankees are coming!
The Yankees are coming!

Read your quote.

Actually somewhere I posted that I refused to be concerned with NY as long as they were under .500... Oh well, it was fun saying they were losers while it lasted.

As long as we can remain 9-10 games ahead while they play great ball we should be fine. I doubt they will play like this for the rest of the year.

gene mauch used to say that a veteran hitter would end up hitting within 10 points of his career average either way, no matter how slow or fast he started. unless he's hurt.

clemens was in uniform tonight. no big deal about that. but the d-backs left randy johnson at home so that his back wouldn't tighten up on a long plane ride after pitching on sunday. i guess he'll rejoin his teammates in time for his next start.

brandon webb is nasty. "mystique and aura" might have affected him and his teammates in the first inning. after that, he gave the yanks nothing until the 7th. i'm not kidding about the M&A. that's a young club. i don't know if anybody is left from the 2001 team.


yanks still have to win tomorrow night or they're back under .500.

it's amazing what good pitching will do for a team in close games. same goes for boston tonight. with the hitters in a team slump, they still win with just two runs. that's the sign of a good team. one phase of the team picks up the other.

Oh, I'm not worried.

If the JayWorVF (actually, a really good stat to decide if you should be worried or not) goes under 4.0, I'll start worrying.

When the colonists cried out "The British are coming!" they were determined to win that war and did so. We're fine; it'll be an entertaining summer. But the yanks are going to lose a lot of 6-4 games and 9-6 games when everyone's juices get going and the race heats up and Clemens has a reocurrence of some random injury, possibly a groin thing, unless that was gamesmanship.

Time to change my sig.

Do it with pride.

There is nothing to fear.

looks like you're developing a sense of humor, SAS. we could yet be friends!

I don't care about the division, other than for obvious reasons...like rubbing your face in it should we come back to take it. Although I strongly doubt the division is reachable at this point.

As it stands, the WC is very doable, so that's fine. Clemens is not the big factor. Mussina is. If this turns out to be his fall off a cliff year, we got issues. I doubt there are any big trades for starters available out there.

I don't know. Mark Buehrle is in a walk year. If the White Sox continue to sink they'll likely move him. That's just off the top of my head. The best thing the Wild Card has done for baseball is it has slowed trades such as these. (The worst thing it has done is let the Red Sox into the 2004 playoffs.....and 2003 Marlins....and the 2002 Angels...) I hate the Wild Card, unless of course we win it this year.

I just realized something about that stat that is a bit flawed. It only works perfectly if you are the 2nd place team. For example, If over the next 10 games both teams were to go 6-4 that would be an advantage to Boston because there would be less games left for the Yankees to catch up. However, in that scenario the number would actually go down because the square root of games left would drop by 1.

Might as well add the 37-29 (soon to be 37-30) Diamondbacks to the list of teams that are paralyzed and struck dumb by the Yankee Mystique and Aura.

I would have loved it if the D-backs had found some way to rearrange their rotation so that Randy had to make the trip to Yankee Stadium, even if they had to send him 3 days ahead of time with a trainer and masseuse to fix his back after the plane trip.

it would have been great theatre, seeing the stadium crowd boo the hell out of him. thing is, randy owned the yankees over the years and he probably would have done the same thing to the yanks that he did to boston. six strong innings. but that's his limit at 44 years old.

randy coming back to the stadium would have been similar to roger's debut later this summer in fenway. i would say randy still has better stuff than clemens. roger's got a better head.

strange YES stat of the day: cano's hitting under .150 in day games and .329 in night games. john flaherty says a lot of single players have that problem. the married ones get up earlier every day because the kids wake them up.

can remdawg and orsillo beat that kind of inanity?



this is also why i don't buy the stat about how many over-.500 teams are left on the schedule. that doesn't account for what a team is playing like coming in. the red sox took 2 of 3 from arizona over the weekend. then the d-backs fly across the country, which is never a plus, even with an off-day. and then they play a hot ball club.

next up for the yankees is the mets, losers in 9 of their last 10. a good team has to wake up sometime. so you never know until the games are played.

The Yankees have one of the easiest schedules of all time until the All Star break, up until the Angels their toughest opponent is the Twinkies. I am not even counting the Mets because, they are just garbage right now and the Yankees are just killing the NL.

I love it when fans whip this shit out.

Too bad the Yankees fans calling for Torre's and/or Cashman's head on a spike didn't get their way. These f*ckers is woked up.

I can pretty much assure you it had nothing to do with Joe Torre.

Here's an AP story that may not make too many papers tomorrow:

NEW YORK (AP) — The Arizona Diamondbacks arrived at Yankee Stadium this week tied for the NL West lead and 10 games over .500. The Yankees swept them, extending their winning streak to nine.
Here's what the Diamondbacks' scouting report said about how their pitchers should approach the New York hitters. The report was found on the floor of the Arizona dugout by an Associated Press reporter after the Yankees' 7-1 win Thursday:
— Alex Rodriguez: “HOT right now. ... Chases a lot of BB's w/2-strikes, both away and in dirt. CH is fine when away. ... (vs. left-handers) Hard in, soft away. Ladder FB w/2-strikes.”
— Derek Jeter: “Will bunt and H&R. ... Runs early. ... Struggles w/ball down/in and will chase SL away. ... Get ahead. Fairly aggressive so will need to mix pitches and locations 1st pitch.”
— Bobby Abreu: “HOT right now. ... Good guy to crowd once you're ahead. Hammers 1st pitch FB's away w/RISP.”
— Johnny Damon: “(vs. right-handers) Struggling w/soft stuff. ... (vs. left-handers) Keep honest w/FB up/in.”
— Jorge Posada: “Sits on off-speed when pitcher is ahead. ... Good cripple hitter.”
— Melky Cabrera: “Need to ladder the FB w/2-strikes. Chases up A LOT! ... Hacker throughout count.”
— — —
FB-fastball; CH-changeup; SL-slider; BB's-balls; ladder-high fastballs, out of strike zone; cripple-pitches when hitter is way ahead in the count; H&R-hit-and-run.

[codebox]New York Yankees Team Batting Statistics v. arizona (first two games)

NAME BA OBP SLG OPS
Hideki Matsui .600 .714 1.20 1.914
Jorge Posada .200 .429 .800 1.229
Alex Rodriguez .286 .286 .714 1.000
Robinson Cano .429 . 429 .571 1.000
Bobby Abreu .250 .333 .625 .958
Derek Jeter .286 .444 .429 .873
Miguel Cairo .286 .286 .429 .714

Yankees .246 .333 .492 .825
Oppponents .212 .243 .348 .591

[/codebox]

Yeah, that scouting report worked out so well for the D-Bags Backs. Kind of explains why it was found on the floor.

I know... I would hope Josh Byrnes has more detailed scouting reports than that... b/c I could prepare a better scouting report on the Yankees. Nothing is so much wrong, but if youre going to boil down a detailed scouting analysis to this, is it really necessary to note what Abreu does on the first pitch with RISP?

Also, this seems like a minor violation of the clubhouse reporters code. If Edes or McAdam cant talk about what they see or hear from guys in the clubhouse, should this guy really be picking up trash from the dugout floor? What's up with that?

there's an old story in this vain from the mid-1950s when LOOK magazine somehow obtained a copy of the Yankees' scouting report on Jackie Robinson that labeled him as slow and fat and over the hill. the story came out right before the World Series and it humiliated Robinson, partly because it was true.

scouting reports are like playbooks in football. you shouldn't lose them. rookies have been cut for doing it in football.

The numbers are one thing, but do we really know if the scouting report had much of anything to do with the results? Scouting reports don't help you execute the pitches you're trying to make.

no action here tonight. had to work and missed a good yankees-mets game. probably saved a few months on my life by missing the telecast. sounds like it was a good, clean game.

lester pitched tonight for pawtucket. two runs in seven innings. the scouts behind home plate clocked his best fast ball at 92 mph. he threw free and easy with no pitch-count issues. pawsox got shut out by four richmond pitchers, 3-0.

ominous yankee stat of the day: they are 6-19 in games decided by two runs or less.

yanks win, sox win. just another day off the baseball calendar. the way they won their games today was somewhat revealing.

I didn't see an inning of the game, but I assume today was Clippard's last start for a while. I wonder who will be brought up-- Igawa's been pitching well but they probably want him to spend more time in Scranton. I guess it will either come down to him or DeSalvo again who has pitched well since his demotion and cut down on his walks.

clippard got farmed out after the game, replaced by kevin thompson so they have a fourth bench player for the NL games this week in colorado and SF. it seems certain igawa will be called up on saturday with a reliever going down. that's the lohud.com guy's speculation. sounds good to me.

igawa could be the key to the season now. if he can be decent as the No. 5 guy, the yanks can go on some more good streaks. they were fortunate glavine sucked today, too.

I would say that the most ominous Yankee stat of the day was Mariano Rivera's pitching line... but that's just me.


Well, come on, he did switch his dugout positioning.

mo's not perfect anymore. actually, he never was. i listened to the ninth on the radio and all five of the hits were grounders through the infield. i get worried when people hit him hard. first time he had been scored on in 10 games and he picked a good day to give up two runs, with a five-run lead.

They weren't hard hit at all and the one that hit him was a fluke, it looked like he was not set up properly after the delivery. Everything he gave up we have seen before; dinks and dunks. The Mets were just fortunate to string them together. He just needs some more use for his control to come back to normal and he will be fine. The numbers on the gun are the same as ever the cutter moves as much as it always did. Only noticeable difference is he is a tad less agile in the field. I am not really worried about Mo, we just need to get him in some more games to get his control back to normal. The man did not catch Mark Wohlers disease or something!

He gave up five hits in his inning. That's pretty hittable, regardless of whether they were dinks and bloops.

He's an old reliever; I don't think he'd be reliable in the postseason against good teams anymore, and I'd say that if he pitched for Boston, too.

This is pretty stupid, even for you.

You're right. The fact that he has the highest WHIP and ERA of his career are meaningless. In the minds of all Yankee fans it may still be 2000, but in Rivera's arm it is clearly 2007. He is still good. He is no longer dominant.

Where in my sentence did I say "Mo is still the best in the game"? Nowhere. That's your dumb leap, not to mention offering that his ERA and WHIP are the highest of his career, which considering that career it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to assume at his age they would tend to be higher. Especially when you consider that ERA is probably skewed from the start of a season where he wasn't used very much and had a couple of shit outings. However, over the last month or so, he's been as good as Papelbon (I use Papelbon as the watermark because I know in the minds of ALL Red Sox fans, he's Mo Jr).

Rivera is still a very good reliever, one of the best in the league. Or do you believe like SSA, that he's done? Should I attribute that thought process to "all" Red Sox fans as long as we're slinging dumbass generalities around?

Where in my sentence did I say he's "done"? I don't think he's "done", BronxBabyThat Babbles.

I said:

"He's an old reliever; I don't think he'd be reliable in the postseason against good teams anymore, and I'd say that if he pitched for Boston, too."

Now, other than calling me stupid, dipshit, what's possibly wrong about that? Has he been reliable in the past three postseasons?

His ERA the past three post seasons is slightly over 1.00 with a WHIP under 1.00. One earned run against Boston in 2004, one more against LAA last season. Other than the Red Sox series, which was pretty spectacular, he's been the same unhittable Mo.

Yes, he has. In those three seasons here are his stats:

1-0 ERA 1.08 WHIP 0.78 -- he blew 3 saves in 2004 but in two of those he was brought in with the tying run in scoring position and less than 2 outs. In 2004 he pitched almost 13 innings in nine games and only allowed one run. It's only because he's had such amazing success before that people think he's slipping now.

Is he as effective as he was from 98-03? Of course not, but no one will ever be. I'd still take him over pretty much every reliever out there today.

Yeah, I know, I just went and looked 'em up, and thought it would be disingenuous to edit my post that late after posting it.

But there was still no reason for BBtB to call me stupid, especially since I've gone out of my normal way to be civil to him recently, despite the fact that he posts as if this were a Yankee board.

I still think it's reasonable to say, in looking at his record so far this season, that he may not be reliable against good teams in the postseason. I know he's gotten off to slow starts before in recent years, but for him to have a 4.50 ERA, a 1.231 WHIP and to have allowed more hits than IP this far into the season is unusual for him. He's still on pace for ~80 innings (which is what he's pitched the past three years) so you can't just say "He hasn't worked much". He has, and he has not been as effective as usual.

i go by my gut. this year, my gut tells me mo bears watching because sometimes things get out of control when he comes in. the look on his face after scutaro took him deep and then beltre a few days later told it all. not to mention the april 20 debacle in fenway that was instigated by farnsworth and proctor. mo couldn't put that fire out, which sometimes happens.

i agree with one of my yankee colleagues who posted earlier. mo's stuff is still pretty good. his location, which used to be the most amazing part of his arsenal, has been spotty at times this season. i didn't see yesterday's game so i couldn't watch the catcher's mitt and see if mo was hitting it. but in previous games, he's been spotting the ball just like in the old days.

mo doesn't throw 98 anymore. when he came into the league in 1996, twins manager tom kelly said "he belongs in a different league." i would say right now, at 37, he belongs in the american league as one of its best closers. k-rod and pap are more dominating because they're younger. i still haven't seen what pap can do when the pressure is on. jeter did beat him one game last august. a-rod beat him a few weeks ago. pap is awesome but he's not perfect, either.

that's my clinical analysis of mo. as a fan, though, it's all about heart with rivera and jeter and posada. these guys are getting older the way bird, parish and mchale got older with the celtics. does that mean you would stop loving them as a fan? no way. we're riding this pennant race out with rivera. i would rather go with him in the yanks' bullpen than papelbon because mo is our guy and we'll defend him until the day he retires.

jeter and posada remain in their primes. we'll worry about them later on.

That's pretty much all I'm saying, too. I don't think Mariano is "done". I still would rather have him than all but perhaps two closers in the AL. I expect him to dominate poor lineups in the 9th inning.

My "gut" however says that perhaps this is the season that, inevitably, will be the tail-off, and that I wouldn't think "Lights Out" anymore against good lineups in the postseason.

BBtB thinks that's one of the stupidest things he's ever read, though, so, you know, maybe I'm wrong. After all, BBtB is our resident Yankee genius.

there have been days recently when mo has been lights out. as athletes get older, their bodies don't bounce back the way they did at 25. mo feels that sometimes, just as we all do. but i wouldn't discount him finding his dominance again, the same way i wouldn't discount manny ramirez hitting 30 homers in the second half of the season. with the great ones, you never know.

Crazy stat of the day:

Orlando Hernandez, after 9 starts (he spent half of May on the DL), 2.38 ERA (WHIP 1.01) at beginning of game. Chien-Ming Wang, after 10 starts (he spent half of April on the DL) 3.34 (WHIP 1.14) at beginning of game.

You'd think, going into this game, that Hernandez would be a shoo-in for the win. Not hardly.

Orlando Hernandez, after 6 earned runs given up in 4.2 innings of this game, 3.08 ERA.
Chien-Ming Wang, after 2 hits, zero earned runs, 3.25 ERA.

Fantasy team owners must be tearing their hair out.

Posada is in his prime? Hes 36 in a contract year?