— Twenty-four, Twenty-five, Twenty-six.... ?
Taking Stock
I think most analysts and fans were pretty bullish on the Yankees going into tonight’s game, and there wasn’t much to dispute those feelings, however let’s take a look at what we saw tonight.
BUY
Derek Jeter
While he’s not as clutcherrific as the sycophant mediots would tell us, he does have a flair for the dramatic. Five-for-five with three extra-base hits, two doubles and a dinger, and three runs scored counts as a good day at the office.
On the defensive side, he participated in two double plays and made all the plays you hope your shortstop makes.
He did get caught stealing on a night when Jason Giambi swiped a bag, but in his defense, it appeared to be a busted hit-and-run.
Jason Giambi
Got plunked twice, but hit a bomb that McCarver believed was a “routine” flyball in the decisive five-run third.
Bobby Abreu
A pair of two-run knocks – a double and a single – in his first meaningful postseason experience.
Chien-Ming Wang
Was cruising until Joe foolishly took him out with two down in the seventh (he’d retired six in a row to that point). Four punchouts, three times as many grounders as flyouts – all on just 93 pitches.
Gary Sheffield
“Only” went 1-for-4, but played pretty well around the bag at first including a hell of a stretch to complete a twin killing in the third to snuff a Detroit rally.
Alex Rodriguez
Yes, the box score says he had three LOB, but he hit two bullets right at Tiger defenders on his way to a 1-for-4 night. Also made a nice tag play on Magglio Ordonez in the third.
Johnny Damon
Two-for-five with a pair of runs score, just what you expect from the leadoff spot.
HOLD
Jorge Posada
Had a pretty quiet 2-for-4, but played well. Solid, but nothing special.
Andy Phillips
Didn’t make any errors as a defensive replacement and narrowly missed a hit in his lone plate appearance.
Mariano Rivera
Typical Mo. Came in, did his thing. Even if he had to do it with a four-run lead. Nothing flashy, just another strong performance.
SELL
Joe Torre
Went to the ‘pen far too early in my estimation. Wang was cruising, and probably could have gotten through the eighth – or at least two it. The results couldn’t have been predicted, per se, and its not right to penalize Joe for that. But putting the bullpen in that position was not Joe’s finest hour.
The non-Mariano relievers
Mike Myers served up a jack to lefty swinging Curtis Granderson and Scott Proctor and Kyle Farnsworth, while not surrendering any runs, certainly did little calm the nerves of Yankee fans. Farnsworth was particularly excruciating, and the Fox crowd shots showed how he was literally sucking the life out of the Stadium
Hideki Matsui
Took the collar and left four on and played a Marcus Thames single into a double in the third by not paying attention and assuming a fan interfered with the ball. Its obvious there’s some ring rust there and perhaps a Melky start in the near future wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Robbie Cano
Yikes. Another collar and five LOB. Not his finest hour, but I’m guessing he’ll rebound, but it was not a good night.
The forecast sees Mike Mussina matching up against Justin Verlander. If the Tigers don’t come up with something to slow the Yankee offense, it’ll be a short stay in the playoffs for the Wild Car champs.
Sean McNally
Posted: October 03, 2006 at 11:57 PM |
33 comment(s)
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Two-for-five with a pair of runs score, just what you expect from the leadoff spot.unless you're a red sox fan...
it was awesome.
Robby Cano may be the God, but derek jeter is the God of Gods. look upon his works, ye mighty, and despair.
In any case the Yankee offence is going to be pretty hard to contain.
I disagree with your premise. This is not a zero sum proposition. A good night for Jeter can co-exist with a good night for A-Rod.
It's not a huge deal, but it seems to me that you've got to push the Yankees to make every defensive effort to beat them. The one place they're the weakest is team defense, and if you don't try to exploit that, you're giving them a free ride.
Is it possible that there was something wrong with Wang, or that Torre wanted to keep his pitch count down so as to save him for the late games of this series? That's the only way that move makes any sense.
By the way, although I'm glad the Yankees won the game, I was not really encouraged by the pitching. Their best starter looked average-to-good against the worst offense in the AL playoffs and the non-Mo bullpen looked atrocious. FOX flashed a graphic about how the Yankees are the third-worst in MLB at losing games in which they had a lead.
In my opinion, if the Yankees continue to play like this against some superior competition late in the playoffs, they won't be winning those games.
I think Matsui needs to sit down and we need to get Cabrera in there.
There was only one out, but Polanco isn't really the guy to hit a deep fly ball to score the runner from third.
Of course, part of the problem was batting Casey 3rd, but knowing that, you've got two weaker hitters up next and the ball wasn't that shallow.
I was also surprised about the quick hook for Wang. Maybe Torre is playing light against the Tigers with the big lead and wants to have the option to ride him hard (ha ha, ride Wang hard) in later rounds?
I wouldn't normally have sent him. However, if you've decided you're going to be aggressive and do damnfool things like that hit and run then I think you should try for the run on that situation. IOW, making the RF throw you out at home isn't nearly as foolish as making the catcher throw you out at third with no outs.
I think when you are the underdog, particularly when your team isn't great at not making outs, you need to push more. But getting thrown out at third like that was awful.
If the throw comes home, you end up trading an out for a faster player on 2B. Not a fantastic trade, obviously, but that's your worst case scenario.
First off, remember that Wang was solid last night, but not lights out. The Tigers really had him on the ropes in the 5th (the K of Ordonez to end that inning may have been the biggest play of the game). While he had retired six in a row when he got pulled, he had thrown 93 pitches, and it may have made some sense to pull him on a "high" note as opposed to waiting for him to get back into trouble.
Second, without sounding too hyperbolic here, Wang may be the most crucial guy on the roster for this year's championship run. He is really the only dependable starting pitcher. He's young, he's never done the whole October thing before, and he's going to be called on to throw a lot of important innings on short rest over the next few weeks. Running up his pitch count with a 7-3 lead in the 7th (when you only need 4 outs to get to Rivera) didn't make a whole lot of sense.
And what happened? Myers, Proctor, and Farnsworth all looked awful out there, but they got the 4 outs needed. As long as they didn't give up the lead, they did the job.
If the lead had been 1 or 2 runs at the time, that's a much tougher call for Torre, but I think he played it smart this time around.
He did it last year, he really pitched well enough to win, but the defense (ARod, Jeter, & Cano) really let him down.
It seems the more whiffs have accompanied a generally less impressive streak of pitching for the Wangster. Perhaps he is strugging to adjust his style.
What I meant was, he's never been the horse for 3 weeks in October, which may well be what the Yankees are going to need him to be to win the WS. Wang is the guy the Yankees need to fill the role that was filled by guys like Pettitte and Clemens in the past. Those are some big shoes to fill.
Tony Cuccinello (931)
Tony Lazzeri (925) *
Jorge Cantu (921)
Yogi Berra (910) *
Jimmy Williams (910)
Cupid Childs (909)
Fred Dunlap (905)
Paul Molitor (899) *
Eric McNair (898)
Ron Hunt (897)
Yogi Berra?!
Tony Cuccinello (931)
Tony Lazzeri (925) *
Jorge Cantu (921)
Yogi Berra (910) *
Jimmy Williams (910)
Cupid Childs (909)
Fred Dunlap (905)
Paul Molitor (899) *
Eric McNair (898)
Ron Hunt (897)
Yogi Berra?!
Cano breaks Sim Scores. For the highest score to be 931 after a season and a half in virtually unprecedented. Note also the plethora of pre-1900 stars on that list (Dunlap, Childs).
Let's just savor our unique young star...if the Gods are at all favorable, he'll have a nice, long, starring career.
I think we are using the whole season, you know, the one that Matsui wasn't playing in?
I am actually more distressed about Matsui's defense. Lolligagger.
To be fair to Matsui, I was sitting in the LF bleachers, and I found the umpires signals to be completely confusing...I could have sworn that he gave the "dead ball" signal to Matsui.
He was pitching against a team that swings and misses a lot.
I thought this was one of the rare cases where showing the crowd actually added to the experience of watching the game.
"Don't blame Hideki Matsui for what happened in the third inning. Right-field line umpire Larry Vanover made the "safe" sign when the ball went fair and bounced off the wall. But he raised his arms too high and it looked like he was indicating the ball was dead and that Thames had a ground-rule double"
He was part of the other middle infield duo that hit greater then .340. I think they both hit greater then .350 that year. Of course, the league OPS was like .845 that year (I've been using the new Bbref alot lately).
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