CTR Week in Review: Week Three (and a half)

Record: 4-3 (10-9)

Runs Scored/Allowed (Ranks): 117/76 (4/1 in MLB)

Projected Pythagorean Record: 111-51

Key Wins: April 19 3-1 at Toronto; April 22 6-1 vs. Baltimore; April 23 7-1 vs. Baltimore; April 25 9-1 vs. Tampa Bay.

Bad Losses: April 18 10-5 at Toronto; April 21 6-5 vs. Baltimore; April 26 4-2 (10 inn) vs. Tampa Bay.

How on earth do all the games get to be either a key win or a key loss? Certainly some of these can be chalked up “April baseball” or “on any given day ...” right?

Well, let’s break it down.

April 18 - You stake Randy Johnson to a four-run first-inning lead and you ought to win the game going away. Period. Well, the bad Randy Johnson showed up and coughed up seven runs in 3.1 innings of work, coughing up a pair of two-run homers and nine hits in his shortest outing of the season. Good work, Randy.

April 19 - Who are you? And what did you do to Bad Moose? Mike Mussina has been the unquestioned staff ace so far, and if they handed out the Cy Young in April, he’d be a contender. Moose’s two starts in this period have been gems:

13.3 innings, 11 hits, 2 earned runs, 1 HR, 14 strikeouts, ZERO walks, 1.35 ERA, two wins.

Just fabulous numbers, bearing in mind that he was pulled early in the second start after the Yanks blew it open and the weather turned nasty.

On the season, Moose has been nearly as good: 2.45 ERA in 33 innings, just three home runs, a 30/6 K/BB ratio and a K/9 rate of 8.2, and most importantly - no tangible sightings of Bad Moose™. How, well SI’s Tom Verducci has a theory: slowing his roll down. (hat tip to Bronx Banter’s Alex Belth)

“I threw in an intrasquad game in spring training,’’ Mussina said. “People were like, ‘Why are you pitching in an intrasquad game?’ Really, the only reason why I did was that you back everything up from the start of the season, counting five days between starts, and five days before my first spring training start happened to be a day when we had an intrasquad game.

“So I’m pitching in this intrasquad game and [Jorge] Posada is up. The count is 3 and 2 and I throw a changeup. Now for some reason, Posada is right on the pitch and he smokes it. Hits it on a line. We got him out, but I was surprised that he would be right on a 3-and-2 change.

“So after the game I asked him, ‘How could you be right on that changeup I threw you?’ He said, ‘I saw your fingers on top of the ball as it was coming out of your hand. I could tell it was a changeup.’”

What Posada saw were Mussina’s index, middle and ring fingers splayed across the top of the baseball, a grip that makes it impossible for a pitcher to throw anything but an off-speed pitch. (Only two fingers, the index and middle, top the ball for a fastball.) Posada saw the dead giveaway, kept his hands and weight back and timed the changeup perfectly.

Mussina is 37 years old and has been pitching in the major leagues since 1991. No one had ever told him what Posada told him. So Mussina decided to change his grip. He slid his index finger more to the side of the ball than the top of the ball—not quite the grip for a circle changeup, in which the thumb and index finger form a circle on the side of the ball, but a modified version of it.

The pitch worked perfectly. Not only was Mussina able to disguise the pitch, but he also was able to throw it slower and generate better downward movement on it. “It doesn’t so much run,’’ Mussina said, referring to the sideways motion some pitchers get from their changeup, “but it just kind of dies at the end. It tumbles under the hitter’s bat. And to think if I didn’t bother pitching in an intrasquad game, none of this would have happened.”

Just in watching, overall Moose’s velocity is down a bit at the top end (working 86-90 mph) but it waaaaay down at the low end (working in 60s).

Tom Seaver did an instructional video with Mickey Mantle and Gary Carter in the 1980s where he talks about the three things a ball can do - it can move at a speed, it can move to a spot and it can move in a particular fashion. Moose may not have the giddyup he once did, but he can put it to a spot and he can spin it with the best of them.

April 21 - Just hosed. Chien-Ming Wang failed to build on his success in Minnesota and the Yanks had to mount a comeback. Down one and with the sacks drunk with Yankees, a slumping Godzilla (.172/.250/.241 this week) watched a 3-2 fastball from young Chris Ray miss the outside corner. And then he watched Phil Cuzzi ring him up. Just a brutal call.

April 22 - Shawn Chacon, escape artist. The Yanks bounced back despite Chacon looking shaky all game long, throwing 111 pitches over seven innings.

April 23 - Welcome back Randy Johnson! Eight innings, just one run on a Tejada solo shot, five strikeouts and just 94 pitches. This game should put to rest all of Randy’s jackassery about personal catchers. With Posada, Johnson is 2-0, with 8 Ks and has allowed just two earned runs in 15 innings. With Stinnett, he’s 1-2 with 15 Ks, allowing 20 hits and 11 earned runs in 16.1 innings. Said shortly, Posada gives the Yankees the best chance to win offensively, and there doesn’t appear to be any negative impact on Johnson’s pitching with Posada behind the plate, in fact it appears that the opposite is true.

April 25 - More Moose (see above).

April 26 - 16 LOBs. Just a disheartening loss. Added to by the fact Wang did turn in a good performance.

The only pattern here is that there is no pattern. The Yankees like the rest of the division really haven’t gotten any significant traffic yet.

Look at the division’s record over the last ten games:

Boston: 6-4
Toronto: 6-4
New York: 5-5
Baltimore: 4-6
Tampa Bay: 4-6

This goes along way toward explaining why the whole division (minus Tampa Bay) is within 2.5 games of first place.

So the Yanks are lucky (in a non-pythagorean sense - in that context they are unlucky by about three games) that no one in the AL East has gotten off to a start like Chicago or Houston has.

On the offensive side of the ball, the Bombers have just barely slipped under their 1000-run pace (after 4/26 they are on pace for 998), but when they are on, they are impressive.

Jason Giambi, who’s accomplishments will always be clouded, has been an absolute beast so far this year. He’s hitting .340/.553/.840 on the year with 7 HR and 20 RBIs (both leading the team). His last week, he’s been just a machine: .333/.567/.944 with 3 HR and 9 RBI in just 18 official at bats. How’s that possible? 10 walks. Just incredible.

His on base percentage is now higher than Bernie williams’ OPS (.553 vs. .541), and it appears Joe Torre might be waking to the idea that Bernie is to be protected from rather than protected.

Over the last week, Bernie got just two starts and 9 total plate appearances. Andy Phillips by comparison got four starts and 15 PAs. He hasn’t set the world on fire to be sure (.214/.267/.214), but he’s currently the best of a bad lot.

Phillips competition for 1B/DH at bats, Carlos Pena, hasn’t exactly been tearing it up at Columbus (.190/.379/.238) but has an out in his contract that he can go pursue other work if he’s not a Yankee on May 2.

This just in - Robinson Cano never walks or strikes out. Just three of the former and six of the later in 70 PAs this season, the free swingin’ second baseman is hitting a cool .358/.386/.493 on the season, including an extremely hot week of late (.409/.480/.545). I don’t know if this kind of success is sustainable, but he’s fun to watch. Torre has been smart in protecting him by spelling him against lefties, which is probably good initially, but he’ll have to face them in October, so better to get it done now.

All is not well offensively - Damon and Matsui are scuffling, and Posada and A-Rod have cooled a bit after hot starts.

The annual Mariano Watch is in full effect, so that’s also an area of concern. Blowing a save in Minnesota and coughing up a pair of runs in the 10th against Tampa Bay, the questions have surfaced - will “What’s Wrong With Mariano Week” last a month due to lack of use. So far, among pitchers not named Matt Smith, Mo is the least worked member of the Yankee ‘pen - Proctor leads in innings and Myers and Farnsworth lead in appearances.

After racking up six appearances in the first two weeks of the season, Tanyon Sturtze has only been trotted out twice, once in a blowout and once when the Yanks were already behind. His optimal usage in my opinion.

Down on the farm, the Tampa Yankees are really loaded.

First, there’s Phil Hughes (23 IP, 15 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 24 K), who, based on Trenton’s horrendous 4-14 record, should be in New Jersey by Memorial Day.

Then there’s Brett Gardner, who’s riding a 10-game hitting streak and hitting .406/.542/.531. However, Fabian over at RLYW has his doubts that this early start will translate at Double-A right away. “Gardner has struck out 21 times in 64 at bats and that worries me. Hitters with strikeout rates in excess of 25% worry me, especially those who aren’t or don’t project to be power hitters. Gardner, at 33%, looks like he might have trouble with upper level pitching.”

Cody Ehlers is having a nice season in Tampa too - .333/.395/.681 with six homers in his first 20 games.

Also in Tampa, Octavio Dotel played catch after taking a week off after feeling pain in his elbow during an extended spring start.

Further up the rehab ladder - Aaron Small is slated to make a rehab start in Columbus before coming to the Bronx. Also, Sore-assed Pavano threw BP back down in Tampa, and should do so again this week.

The week ahead: Are you ready for some nonsense?! [/end Hank Williams Jr.]

Yes, the Yankees and Damon visit Boston for the first time this on Monday after finishing up with Tampa tonight and a three-game set vs. Toronto at the stadium, so be ready for lots of hyperactive flapping heads. After the Johnny Damon Hype Invitational in Beantown, it’s off the Tampa Bay and Texas.

The Yankees have a chance to make some hay in the month of May, but get ready to be sick of “rivalries.” Nine games against the Sox and three against the Mets. Also, get used to a tired team - the Bombers play 29 games in 31 days during May. Where’d those amphetamines go again?