Friday, April 16, 2010

Series Recap: Angles v. Yankees

So, this whole "education" nonsense is starting to interfere more deeply with my progress on the blog. It looks like I might be resorting to these kinds of series recap-type-posts for a while. Hell, maybe that's for the best; I'll become more concise with my ramblings and save you readers some unnecessary eye-strain. A win-win right?

Anyway, the two day games were not conducive to my schedule this past week, so I missed virtually all the action. However, I did get a decent feel for these three from the internet At-Bat Gameday thingy on the MLB website, as well as from the highlights. So without further to do, let's get on with it.

GAME 1: Angles 5, Yankees 7

This shouldn't have even been as close a game as it turned out to be. Pettitte picked up his first win of the year in another impressive effort. This time he hurled 6 scoreless innings, allowing 5 hits and 3 walks while striking-out 6 batters. With his no-decision against Lackey and the Sox, Andrew Eugene's ERA is now a minuscule .075. Not bad for a guy who turns 38 in June. He had a nasty cutter/slide-piece going right from the get go, making Abreu and Matsui look like fools in their first two ABs. It wasn't the typical severe dive-bomb cutter that we're accustomed to seeing from Pettitte, but more of a looks-like-a-fastball-until-the-last-nanosecond tight, sharp cutter that he was spotting to both lefties and righties on the black of the low-outside corner. Almost like a lefty version of Mo's snapper, but with less velocity. His control looked spot-on in certain ABs, but then not quite there in others. He has now amassed 6 bases-on-balls over 12 innings, a little higher total than you'd like to see, but it's still hard to argue with the movement on his pitches, his mix of inside-outside, hard-soft, and his ability to get out of tricky situations. For example, a nifty double-play turned by Jeter and Cano on a soft ground to short got Andy out of a jam in his final inning and kept the Halos off the scoreboard.

While Andy has been the model of reliability so far for the Yanks pitching staff, the bullpen has been on the other side of the fence. Chan Ho Park, who has been up, down, and mostly average so far, and he contributed 2 innings of 1-run baseball in this affair. The one blow struck came off the bat of Kendry Morales, a p-rod of a home run to the short porch in right off a hanging curveball. But with a five-run lead, Park threw strikes as he was supposed to and mixed up his pitch selection enough to get six outs. We'll take it.

All right Davey boy, time to finish her up. Oh what's that? You'd rather make it more interesting? Give them a few runs just for drama's sake? Great. Good. I was getting kind of bored of winning, too. Here's was the problem with Dave Robertson: he (or Dave Island or Posada) seemed to think that the same exact sequence would work to every hitter. That formula read, two fastballs to get ahead, then throw curves to get him out. With a six-run lead, it's an understandable strategy. Only problem is, he didn't have the breaking ball going so great, and the Angles hitters were jumping on it with two strikes. The bunt single by Mathis might have rattled the youngster as well. I don't know what it is about bunt singles, but they always appear to mess with a pitcher's head. I can relate, having similar experiences myself in my diamond days. The worst thing that probably happened to him is that with the bases juiced after three straight hits, Aybar fell victim to the formula, as he somehow failed to realize that an 0-2 curve was on its way and got frozen by it. That probably gave both Daves and Posada confidence that they could pump two more fastballs into Abreu to get him him 0-2 like everyone else. But Bobby is a veteran, and when a fat, belt-high, over the plate fastball was served up as the second pitch, he made it hurt; a grand-slam over the center field wall. Hey, that's what you get for being stubborn. A smart hitter picks up what you're doing and makes you pay. No first-pitch curves to break-up the monotony, and of course no change-ups. C'mon dude, this ain't high school.

Now it's a 7-5 and it's panic mode, so Girardi pulled the fire lever and out came Mo. Taking maybe a half a pitch to warm up before trotting on the field. But did that bother his 40-year old wing? Not in the least. He made mince meat of Hunter, who always looks awful against him, for a strikeout. Then who should come up for the last out but Hideki himself. And before any even realized what an epic last-out showdown they were witnessing, Godzilla popped-up on the first pitch to Cano for the final out. Ha, we've seen that one from you before Matsui! I don't know if there could have been a more fitting way to end it.

In terms of the bats, the top of the Yankee order started the fireworks in the early innings. Johnson finally broke out of his power outage in the first frame, slamming a fat fastball deep into the bleachers for his first home run. He added another hit and two walks to his total to round out what was undoubtedly his best plate performance of the infantile season. Jeter also provided power from the top of the order, smashing another solo job off Santana in the third inning. The pinstripes should have had more though. They failed to capitalize on Cano's lead-off double in the second, which became a no out first-and-third situation after a wild pitch and a walk. Ervin battled back to fan Granderson, Swisher, and Gardener. Christ.

Cano got it going with another lead-off hit in the fourth, and this time Grandy and Swish got on base to load em up. Gardener smacked a hard one-hopper to Aybar, who made a brilliant play in on the grass to get the force out at home. Just when it looked like Santana was going to get out of it again, the captain batted a liner right back where hit came from. The smash deflected off the right-hander's hip (horrible fielding position) for an infield single, making the score 3-0. Huge two-out hit for Jeet there to pick up his teammates.

Speaking of huge hits with two outs, none other than A-Rod stepped to the plate in an identical bases-loaded situation in the sixth inning and delivered a hard single off the glove of Brandon Wood (random?). Nothing fancy, just a hard shot to the left side. Probably should have been clobbered into the troposphere, but at least he hit it hard. Jeter and a hustling Johnson both scored. They were just all over the place in this game...

...including the eighth inning, where Johnson lead-off with a double. Posada, who by the way was 3-4 at the plate, would eventually drive him in with a nice piece of hitting off Bobby Cassevah diving 2-seam fastball. Not exactly a good pitch to swing at 0-0, but he went down and got the bat head, looping it the other way. He even caught the Angles outfield off-guard on his hit, barely sliding into second safely. When Posada takes an extra base off you, you really need to look yourself in the mirror and think about how seriously you're taking this sport. For real, most people get farther on a treadmill than he does on ice skates. It's true. I've seen it. Maybe Captain Slowass was feeling his oats a bit after that sneaky base snatch, for when Grandy clubbed a 2-1 fastball through the right side (pulled an outside pitch, again), Jorge was right behind Cano, who scored from third. As Posada rounded the bag, it was abundantly clear that he would not be so lucky. Old man Abreu could have thrown him out with his left hand. Honestly, how many times have we seen Posada thrown out at the plate over the years? It's unreal. What would ever possess a third base coach to send him on a close play? The best-case scenario is that he doesn't get injured. Which, praise Allah, he didn't. It would have sucked if he did, cause he's bruising some cowhide right now. I poke fun at his speed in jest. Jorge's one of the steadiest offensive catchers to ever play the game. Truth.

As it turned, those "insurance" runs in that inning really lived up to their label, as has been previously noted in the Robertson account. All in all, it was nice to see the Yanks take the first game of the series for the first time this year, especially on the home opener. Top of the order was huge, but really contributions came from all over. Especially from...guess who? The original Yanks. Jeter, Johnson (yes, the Yanks drafted him way back when), Posada, Cano, Pettitte, and Mo in a pinch. But hey, let's not fool ourselves guys. We bought the win. Else it must have been something in those wonder rings.

GAME MVP: Andy Pettitte
Honorable Mention(s): Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada


GAME 2: Angles 5, Yankees 3

Yeah, this one didn't go so well. Mere coincidence that Javier Vazquez was on the mound? Does ABBA play heavy metal music? For the second straight start, Javy failed to make it through the sixth inning and he exited the game with his team down, surrendering 4 runs, on 6 hits and 2 walks over 5.1 innings. While in his previous outing against the Rays he was able to get some outs before things started to crumble, he didn't waste any time in letting us know he didn't have it in this one. You know it's gonna be a long day when your pitching coach has to come out to chat with you after you walk the #3 hitter (Torri Hunter, my boy) on four consecutive balls. Here we go. He managed to get out of that jam, thanks to an impatient Matsui (who had looked pretty awful against his old team up to this point) and a break on a hard grounder off Morales's bat right at Jeter. After an imporbable 1-2-3 inning in the second, his control issues surfaced in the third. Ahead 1-2 on Aybar, he let a curve hang to Aybar who knocked in Wood from second, then let change on a platter for Abreu who cranked a double into the gap to push him home (three straight hits for Abreu since the grand salami, if you're keeping track at home). Bobby did Vazquez and the Yanks a service, however, when he tried to take third on Posada three batters later. Nah, dude, you're not that slick. That's one way to kill the rally.

Despite another four-pitch walk in the fourth inning, Javy navigated through that inning with relative ease, and went 1-2-3 in the fifth. Looking harder at the game, maybe I'm being somewhat unfair to him. He did have two 1-2-3 innings, and all things considered, he limited the damage far better in this performance than the last one (albeit with some help from at-'em balls and bad swing choices by the Halos). A lead-off double by Hunter, followed by another two-bagger by Morales in the sixth inning ended his day. Both shots came with two strikes and off of belt-high pitches out over the plate. What this signals to me is that hitters are feeling cushy when in the batters box against him. They know that even with two strikes (or maybe even especially with two strikes), they can lean out over that plate because Vazquez never challenges anybody inside. It was a theme of his last game too. Javy, man, grow a sac and start shaving some beards; otherwise, you're gonna keep getting shelled out there.

It also doesn't help that every time he's pitched, the opposing pitcher has shoved our bats up our collective charlie brown. Coincidence? I'll let you decide that one. Last week it was David Price; this time it was Joel Piniero of Seattle Mariners infamy. If my memory has anything left in it, I believe Joel is usually a welcome sight for us. Apparently, he hadn't beaten us August of 2002 when he was with Seattle, so that should tell you something right there. He had the sinker sinking, the strikes striking, and the Yankees yanking themselves (contrived?) out of the batters box with a cane, as he fanned 7 pinstripes over 7.0 innings of 5-hit, 1-run baseball. Goodness. The sole score came courtesy of a two-out RBI-triple from Swisher in the fifth inning, another instance where the Angel outfield took forever to get the ball in. Up until that hit, Cano was the only Yankee to reach base safely (on a double and a single). Piniero was 1-2-3 in the first, third, and fourth. The sixth and seventh innings were pretty smooth as well.

The only reason the Yanks got any runs is because the Angles bullpen appears to be almost as clueless as their own. Scott Shields didn't hesitate to put the win in jeopardy for Anaheim, as he walked Gardener (bad idea) and couldn't field a dribbler by Jeter to set 'em up first-and-second to begin the eighth. Johnson hung tough in a nine-pitch AB and eventually dropped one into center for an RBI to knock Shields out of there. Enter Kevin Jesper, who promptly threw a wild pitch to advance Jeter to third and Johnson to second. Teixeira earned his paycheck with a groundout RBI (talk about a clutch hitter), and with two outs, the two hottest bats of the early season, Cano and Posada, both failed to get it done. That pretty much sealed the deal right there, as Fernando Rodney went 1-2-3 through the bottom third of the order for the save.

Not only did Vazquez pitch poorly again, but Aceves also looked off in relief, allowing Izturis to drive in Javy's fourth earned run (granted, on a ball he had no business swinging at, but was nevertheless where he could get the bat to it), and then gave up another after that on a ball that missed it's target to Hunter. If he's not on his game, I don't even wanna think about our bullpen situation. Ace, please don't fail us now. We need you more than ever. Either that or Joba and Marte need to start acting like major leaguers. They both pitched an inning of scoreless work each, so maybe they'll have one or two more good showings before they crap the bed again. What can I say? I'm always skeptical of our pen.

GAME MVP: Joel Piniero
Honorable Mention(s): Robinson Cano, for at least trying against Piniero


GAME 3: Angles 2, Yankees 6

PHIL HUGHES! Love that guy, although I will persist in saying he should be in the bullpen, even if he wins 17 games this season (prediction...I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'). The kid faired decently in his first start this year...well, sorta. Five walks in five innings isn't exactly ideal, but he did get the outs when they mattered most. Grandy's assist to nab Matsui at the plate was a nice boost for the kid's confidence as well (and a great thing to see from Curtis). Godzilla actually got the Halos on the board first with a shot into the seats in right field. I guess he needed at least one homer at the stadium for old time's sake. Hughes was definitely a bit nervous methinks, a bit nibbly if you will. He got into deep counts and I think he was a bit too reliant on his secondary stuff. Don't be scared, Phil. Work that fastball in under the chin, dude, and you'll be all right. Also, no change? Um, dude, isn't that what you spent all offseason working on? That would indicate that he doesn't have to much confidence in the pitch. That probably worries me more than the walks. He's really gonna need another pitch if wants stay in the rotation. He did use the cutter pretty effectively however, and that was promising. I think Girardi made the right move in taking him out when he did...even a blind guy finds the light switch eventually. That's a saying right? Robertson looked better in this appearance, despite the wild pitch. He got the outs, and hopefully a little bit of confidence too.

Marte can suck it. He got Abreu, but couldn't get Hunter or Matsui. He hasn't been mentally consistent in my view. You've got one job, dingleberry. A little focus would be nice. Joba has put together a nice string of appearances now, with 1.1 inning, 1 hit scoreless effort in this game, and 2.1 innings of scoreless, 2 hit baseball on the series. He's an integral piece of this team, and the sooner he rediscovers his 2008-self, the better. Keep pumpin' them strikes, Hutt.

Robby Cano continues to dazzle here in April on both sides of the ball. After Matsui's blast in the second, Cano responded defensively during the next AB with a diving stop of a Morales grounder. He then responded offensively in the bottom half of the stanza, launching Scott Kazmir's 1-0 fastball into a sea of Yankee fans in right field to put the bombers on the board. He burned Kaz deep again in the sixth on a 3-1 fastball in a similar location for the final two Yankee runs. Grandy also contributed in the field and at the plate, with the aforementioned outfield assist as well as an RBI triple into the right field corner in the fourth. This time, Grandy pulled an inside pitch. I get the feeling that it doesn't matter where the ball is, Curtis is gonna try and pull it every time. Hope it doesn't come back to bite him later in the season. After Randy Winn failed to plate Curtis (man on 3rd and no one out...thanks Randy), Jeter drove him in with an RBI double into left. Did I mention he had a solo homer to right-center in the third?

If I had to rank the Yankee order through the first three series, I'd say Cano's #1, Jeter's #2, and Posada #3, with A-Rod a close #4. Would you look at that? The top 3 hitters so far are all Yankee draft choices. Sure, I'm a biased observer trying to prove a self-referential point, but even still, you'd have to admit that those three have had the most significant impact on the pinstripe offense so far. As for guys who need to step their game up...Tex has been grinding out some long ABs and making most everyone he faces work to get him out, but the most he has had to show for it are walks. Not exactly as productive as you'd like your three-hole stick to be. It's just another unimpressive start to the year for Mark, and this time he has A-Rod hitting behind him, so he has no excuse. He's getting hittable pitches and has simply missed them. Johnson finally had a bit of an awakening in this series, and by that I mean he's swinging the bat. He was relying to much on that batting eye of his and not enough on his arms, so it was refreshing to see him knock in some runs. Other than Curtis, no Yankee outfielder has been particularly fantastic, but no one's been particularly bad either. Swish has gotten his walks and his occasional RBIs, Gardener has been slapping singles, Thames has looked real good and real bad; like I said, no one is shining, and no one is crapping themselves. The bullpen improved in this series but still has work to do. The same goes for Girardi. That's right, I'm watching you, Joe.

All-in-all, taking 2 out of 3 against three of the better teams in the league is nothing to scoff at. While the team looked somewhat sluggish in the first three or four games, they're really starting to pick up steam now in all aspects of the game. Hope Texas like it's meat well-done, cause they're about to get burned...wow, that was awful. My apologies.

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