The Yankees world according to Hal

Hal Steinbrenner gave an interesting if not terribly insightful interview to the Daily News’ Mark Feinsand in which he discussed many topics of importance to fans of the New York Yankees. But a few of his comments are worth highlighting:

 

·         Steinbrenner talked about how important it is that Derek Jeter retire as a lifetime Yankee. Re-signing Jeter will be a major priority for the Yankees if he declines his $8 million option after this season, which I suspect he will if he has another strong year. The Yankees don’t have a good replacement for Jeter, unless you consider defensively challenged Eduardo Nunez to be a viable candidate. The last contract negotiations left Jeter bruised and angry and I doubt that he is going to be very eager to give the Yankees a hometown discount. But Steinbrenner said the Yankees are going to do what they tried to do during the last round of negotiations, which isn’t very promising considering the Yankees let the supposedly private talks become very public and nasty. Hal has insisted that Jeter’s agent started the fight, which is illogical when you take a close look at the timeline of comments and the fact that he was the first to speak publicly about the negotiations, not Casey Close. If Hal refuses to take responsibility for his role in that ugly situation, I don't see much hope of preventing a similarly nasty disagreement with the Yankees Captain down the road.

 

·         The Yankees managing general partner reiterated that the $189 million payroll target to get the Yankees out of those annoying luxury tax repayments remains the goal and firmly stated that he does not believe a team needs a $200 million payroll to win the World Series. Spoken like a true businessman, though his father George Steinbrenner is probably spinning in his grave. However, Hal said that the team will absolutely not sacrifice fielding a championship-caliber team to reach this $189 million target. He also thinks he can get below that figure even though he will need a lot of cash to re-sign Robinson Cano and Phil Hughes. Personally, I don’t understand how Hal thinks he can have it both ways. He seems to be banking on the Yankees young pitching talent – Ivan Nova, David Phelps and Michael Pineda – making an impact in the next few years at relatively cheap prices. But the Yankees haven’t historically had much success relying on young starters so it seems a stretch to think that they can fill the void for a contending team.

 

·         Steinbrenner hit back at criticisms that the price of attending Yankee games is way too expensive. He argued that half of the Stadium seats are $50 or less and that the Yankees took on a lot of debt to pay for the brand-new ballpark. I understand his argument, but he has to understand that these are still economically-challenging times for fans, despite the soaring stock markets. If faced with the choice of paying rent, food and other bills or going to a Yankees game, the vast majority of fans are going to make the right choice and forgo the game. I myself will likely attend the fewest number of games this year than I ever have in my years as a Yankee fan and most of that decision will be driven by the costs.

Is Teixeira injury the death knell for Yankees?

It’s starting to feel like the New York Yankees season is over before it even starts.

I’m not normally a negative person, but I can’t help feeling that the spate of injuries to key Yankee players is a sign of things to come for the 2013 baseball season. First, Phil Hughes went down for a few weeks with a freak back injury, but at least things look promising for a relatively quick comeback for the youngster. Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixeira are not so lucky.

Granderson suffered a broken arm during his first at-bat in spring training, an injury that will likely keep him out until mid-May. Now Tex, who was excited to represent Team USA in the World Baseball Classic, is sidelined for at least two months with a strained right wrist. I praised the Yankees for being cautious with their injured players the other day and I’m sure we won’t see either Granderson or Tex before they are fully healed.

But what do the Yankees do in the meantime? In what is expected to be an ultracompetitive American League East, they cannot tread water for the first month of the season and hope reinforcements arrive sooner than expected. Their internal options to replace Granderson are mediocre at best, but their first base choices are much worse because their best option is moving Kevin Youkilis, who was hired to fill in for the already injured Alex Rodriguez at third, across the diamond.

Since this is the Yankees, commentators are already loudly calling for a trade. Mike Francesa was incredulous about the notion that the Yankees could stand pat and wait until the end of the month to see who other teams let go. He thinks they have to make a big move and suggested Justin Morneau, who actually wouldn’t be a bad idea given that he’s got only one year left on his contract and the Minnesota Twins are not expected to contend this year. But the Twins would sense desperation on the Yankees part and hold them up for the Yankees’ best prospects. The Yankees hierarchy would fiercely resist giving up any of their good young talent, but they may not have a choice this time.

Maybe these injuries are just a sign that this isn’t going to be the Yankees year. I’ve seen crazier things happen so I’m not going to give up on the idea that the Yankees will compete for a title. But I’m a little less excited about the 2013 baseball season than I was a week ago.  

Mets wrong to publicly criticize Johan Santana

I know the New York Mets have to do something to keep people interested, but picking a fight with the team’s ace seems like a pretty bad move.

Johan Santana, once again the ace of the Mets pitching staff after RA Dickey was traded to Toronto, came into spring training still trying to fully recover from the shoulder surgery that caused him to miss most of the last two seasons. I’m sure Santana didn’t expect to be criticized by his general manager Sandy Alderson for supposedly coming into camp out of shape. If Alderson had any problems with the way Santana handled his offseason training, or lack thereof, he should have taken it up with Santana and his agent privately rather than igniting a media controversy that pissed off his ace.

Sometimes managers, general managers or baseball owners will criticize players in the media as a way of motivating them. New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner was a master at this as proven by his “fat toad” comment about a hefty Hideki Irabu or his condemnation of the relatively vanilla Derek Jeter for his supposed late-night partying. It’s unclear if Alderson was trying to pull a Steinbrenner to motivate Santana, a guy the Mets will need to pitch well if they have any chance of contending. If that’s the case, the criticism clearly had the desired short-term effect of getting Santana back up on the mound.

But I think public criticisms of baseball players tend to have a negative effect on the long-term relationships between ballclubs and players. Do you think there’s any chance Jeter has forgiven or forgotten the remarks by his general manager Brian Cashman during the negotiations for his last contract? If Jeter has another big season this year and declines his 2014 option, rest assured the Yankees won’t be getting the hometown discount that they’ll be looking for.

At least the Yankees don’t demand that their players play hurt. Unlike the Mets, the Yankees tendency is to hold a player back for his own good as they are now doing with Phil Hughes and his injured back. The Mets, for some reason, do just the opposite. They would rather a player go out and risk further injury rather than letting him take time to heal (they better hope Santana didn’t injury himself trying to prove his general manager wrong). The Mets would prefer to publicly criticize players who do not succumb to their demands. At least this time, Alderson put his name to the criticisms rather than engaging in an anonymous smear campaign. But it still seems like the wrong approach.

Disappointing early setback for Hughes

This is the year Phil Hughes was planning to take control of his own destiny, perhaps even finally becoming the #1 starter the New York Yankees once projected him to be. So I can only imagine how disappointed he must be that he has to sit out the next two weeks with a back injury.

His 2013 campaign got off to a very rocky start when he was diagnosed with a bulging disc, an injury he sustained during a routine training drill. Hughes has a history of injury problems and his manager Joe Girardi admitted that this latest injury is something to worry about. The righty is being counted on to provide youth and stability to a baseball rotation whose top three starters are either older or coming off surgery so the early setback for Hughes is not a good sign.

The timing for Hughes also couldn’t be any worse in the sense that he is one season away from free agency. He is one of the few Yankees that can be counted on for an honest answer so I wasn’t surprised to see him admit that he was watching the free agent market this past offseason and admiring the contracts other pitchers were getting. I’m sure he is looking forward toward a similar payout after the 2013 season (although his $7 million+ salary for this year is nothing to sniff at). Hughes has a solid resume and youth on his side, but his injury history would likely be a major question mark for teams considering long-term bids for his services.

Perhaps Hughes will sit out the next two weeks and fully recover in time to slot into the Yankees rotation as planned. He is definitely helped by the fact that the injury occurred very early in spring training and that he came into camp in pretty good shape. But I can’t help but wonder if Hughes is destined to suffer these strange injuries throughout his career. I hope that’s not the case because he has shown us flashes of brilliance. Hopefully, this is just a disappointing setback for him, one to be quickly overcome.   

Yankees set 2013 plan in motion

We don’t know all the details yet, of course, but the New York Yankees have finally put their plan for the 2013 baseball season in motion.

The first element of the plan was picking up the options on second baseman Robinson Cano and center fielder Curtis Granderson. Picking up Cano’s option was a no brainer, even though his agent Scott Boras had been clamoring for a multi-year extension, which the Yankees were unwilling to do right now. I’m slightly surprised they were so quick to pick up Granderson’s option, but the Yankees could have decided to give him another year to right himself, meaning to correct the bad tendencies that made him a swing-and-miss hitter, before they let him walk as a free agent. There is also speculation that Granderson could be traded, which would not surprise me in the least.

So what’s next? The next news out of Yankees land will likely be Rafael Soriano officially opting out of his deal to secure a rich, multi-year contract after his successful year closing games for the Yankees. But I don’t think the situation will be resolved anytime soon, not until Mariano Rivera commits to another year or retirement. And we’ll know soon enough if the Yankees, as expected, decline to retain Nick Swisher’s services, although this seems like a foregone conclusion given his constant struggles in the playoffs.

The Yankees will have to decide what to do with their other free agents or players just a year away from free agency such as Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain. There seems to be a movement to send these two out the door in exchange for cheaper talent. I’m frankly surprised at how eager people are to get rid of two young, but experienced pitchers. I know they are going to cost money when they hit free agency, but I doubt the Yankees are willing to bid adieu to either one just yet, especially Hughes, who at times this year pitched like the top-flight starter the Yankees projected him to be. The Yankees will likely give these two one more year to prove that they can consistently perform in the Bronx.

Given that the Yankees failed in their quest to win another World Series championship, I expect some major changes. It will be interesting to see who the Yankees show the door. 

Girardi deserves kudos for gutsy move

I was lucky enough to be at last night’s game and I still don’t believe what happened.

New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi looks like a gutsy genius for finally lifting a struggling Alex Rodriguez in favor of Raul Ibanez, who promptly launched a blast into the right field seats, followed by another blast into the same general area three innings later to lift the Yankees to victory. As Derek Jeter joked afterwards, Girardi obviously knew that Ibanez would hit the game tying and game-winning home runs. But in all seriousness, Girardi deserves a lot of credit because it was a daring move to pinch hit for a guy who could be heading to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The situation was ripe for such a bold decision. ARod has looked lost at the plate. Ibanez has come through in the clutch several times for the Yankees this year. And I was grateful to him, particularly for that second home run, because it was freezing at the ballpark in the Bronx last night and even one more inning in those windy conditions would have been brutal. But if I can describe the general sentiment of those lucky enough to be in the stands for such a fantastic ballgame, I would sum it up in one word: Wow!

So the Yankees have a chance to finish off the pesky Baltimore Orioles behind Phil Hughes. Let’s get it done guys. 

Girardi costs Yankees game with Hughes hook

Phil Hughes technically was the loser in last night’s game, but his manager’s obsession with numbers and matchups is what really cost the New York Yankees a victory.

For some reason, Joe Girardi did not see what the rest of us saw: that despite having a bases-loaded situation, Hughes was still dealing. Instead of giving the righty one more batter after a fierce strikeout for the second out of the 7^th inning, Girardi removed Hughes in favor of lefty Boone Logan, who promptly gave up the lead for good in a game the Yankees had in their grasp. What was even more disappointing about the loss is that the New York Yankees missed an opportunity to put some distance between themselves and those pesky Baltimore Orioles.

Hughes, trying to be a diplomat and a good teammate, did not place the blame on his manager or criticize a lousy decision. But his disappointment and frustration were obvious from the moment he took a seat on the bench before Boone’s implosion through his post-game press conference, when he twice said that he didn't make decisions and just pitches to who he is told to. Hughes, I’m sure, believes he earned the right to clean up that 7^th inning mess and he’s absolutely right (this isn't a second guess by the way, I started screaming at my television the minute I saw Girardi walking out toward the mound).

Girardi has a lot of strengths as a manager, but one of his weaknesses is his inability to read his players. He should have given Hughes, who has more victories than any Yankee pitcher this season, the opportunity to work out of the jam. Showing that kind of confidence in your players is a key part of being a good manager. It can’t be all about statistics and I think Girardi too often loses himself in the numbers game instead of trusting his players.

Phil Hughes didn’t cost the Yankees a game last night. Joe Girardi did. 

Derek Jeter puts Yankees on his back

Derek Jeter has put the New York Yankees on his back and is trying to singlehandedly carry them across the finish line.

The Yankees Captain got a big assist last night from Phil Hughes, who shut down a beleaguered Boston Red Sox team, avoided giving up the long ball (no small feat as his is one of the league leaders in this category) and got his 15^th victory last night, tops on a Yankees rotation that includes CC Sabathia and Hiroki Kuroda. But as impressive as Hughes was in Fenway Park, Jeter showed us why he is the true captain of the team, not just in title, but out on the field.

Ignoring the pain that has him hobbling and limping all around the bases, he managed to once again come up in the clutch, with a well-earned single that gave the dominant Hughes a small cushion. We shouldn’t really be surprised by anything Jeter does, except the man is playing on one leg, which, of course, he won’t even talk about. I wish I had Derek Jeter’s pain tolerance (my recent back injury has shown me that I do not).

It has become obvious to everyone that the Yankees are still in the division race only because of Derek Jeter. In the YES postgame show, David Cone said the Yankees Captain is basically willing the Yankees to win the American League East and get them into the baseball playoffs.

By the way, Jeter also tied the incomparable Willie Mays for 10^th place on the all-time hits list. As amazing an honor as that is, Jeter doesn’t have time to think about it. He was too busy dispatching the hapless Red Sox. Now he will turn his attention to beating the Tampa Bay Rays, on his one good leg. 

Time for Yankees to show O's, Rays who's the boss

Coming into the 2012 baseball season, I never thought I would say this but the New York Yankees face a tough test against the Baltimore Orioles starting tonight.

After another disappointing performance by ace CC Sabathia, the Yankees stumbled into an off day losing two out of three games against the injury-riddled, Triple-A Toronto Blue Jays. The Yankees are going to have to step up their game if they want to maintain their slim three-game margin in the American League East, with their next 10 games against the Orioles and the Tampa Bay Rays.

We knew the Rays would be good, with their superior, youthful starters, but who saw the O’s coming? Not me. I have to give Buck Showalter a lot of credit for the Orioles resurgence (although with his luck he will get himself fired right before the O’s win it all, as happened in both New York and Arizona). And you can’t call their rise a fluke, not when they are coming to Yankee Stadium on the last day of August with a chance to grab the division from the floundering Yankees hands.

Can the Yankees manage to take two out of three this weekend to keep the O’s at bay, then continue to play well against the Rays and the O’s again in Baltimore next weekend? I never thought I would say this, but I’m not sure. With Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira out, the only reliable bats in the lineup belong to Derek Jeter and Nick Swisher and they can’t drive themselves in all the time. Sabathia has not pitched up to his ace billing, and Phil Hughes, who salvaged the series against the Jays with another strong performance, doesn’t start again until Monday. I feel confident that Hiroki Kuroda, who has been the best starter on the Yankees over the last two months, will give the team a great chance to win, but it’s anybody’s guess if his offense will give him any type of run support.

The Yankees are in for a brutal final stretch, starting for real tonight. It’s time to step up and show the O’s and Rays who’s boss. If they can. 

Hughes’ disappointing outing adds to Yankee blues

I was bummed that the New York Yankees could not sweep the Triple A Toronto Blue Jays this weekend, even more so because Phil Hughes was the main culprit.

After two months of strong pitching, it is completely baffling why Hughes has all of a sudden lost it again. His last two outings have started off fairly well, but he has run into major trouble in the fourth inning, jams he simply cannot get out of, even with two outs in the inning. It does not bode well for his next outing against the Boston Red Sox, a team he has struggled against in the past although he had a solid performance against them the last time they were in town.

The Yankees could have strengthened their position by sweeping the hapless Jays and remaining six games ahead of their nearest competition before starting what will be a tough week against the defending American League champion Texas Rangers and the Red Sox. They are already at a disadvantage by not having CC Sabathia available to start things off against the Rangers with his unexpected second disabled list stint of the year.

Phil Hughes could have made things a little easier by helping the Yankees solidify their lead against diminished competition, but he couldn’t do it for whatever reason. Hopefully, this is just a blip and he can get it together against the hated Saux. 

Crisis averted for New York Yankees

Balance is restored to the Yankees Universe, at least temporarily.

Some fans of the New York Yankees were on the verge of nervous breakdowns before the Yankees took the final two games from the Detroit Tigers. Granted, the Yankees have given them a lot of reason for their fears, playing terribly during a recent three-week stretch and watching their seemingly insurmountable 10-game lead dwindle in half. The Yankees themselves were starting to become concerned with their poor play, with Eric Chavez bravely voicing what others in the Yankees clubhouse were probably worrying about, but didn’t dare say publicly.

But the Yankees managed to escape Detroit with a split thanks to a turn-back-the-clock performance this week from Chavez, filling in nicely for the injured Alex Rodriguez, decent starts from CC Sabathia and Hiroki Kuroda following poor outings by Ivan Nova and Phil Hughes, and a frustrated and angry Joe Girardi forcing the umpires to eject him and firing up his team in the process.  

Does that mean the Yankees are over the hump? Not in the least. They got lucky that the Tigers fell short in their comeback attempts these last two games. And they have to seriously hope that moving him down in the order is exactly the tonic Curtis Granderson needed to get over his slump.

Despite his recent struggles, I’m incredulous at the notion that Yankee fans would turn the ire they normally direct at ARod to the affable Granderson, but that’s what the New York Post said is happening (and, of course,  everything in that newspaper is gospel, according to my friend Scott). Sure, I was frustrated by Granderson’s weak pop up to end Tuesday night’s game and his numerous strikeouts, but the man does have 30 home runs, 66 ribbies and 78 runs scored so it’s not like he’s been a bust this year. And I seriously doubt he’ll ever take steroids or kiss his reflection in the mirror so I don’t think he deserves the level of scorn usually reserved for ARod.

I’m happy the Yankees took these last two games, but I’d feel a lot better about them if I see them sweep the Toronto Blue Jays up north before they come back to New York for a brutal 7-game home stand. They have four games against the defending American League champion Texas Rangers and three against the Boston Red Sox, who can always put up a good fight against the Yankees despite their dysfunction. It’s going to be a tough week for them and I’d like to see some signs that they can handle it. 

Hughes comes through for Yankees again

Despite all the haters out there, nobody is harder on Phil Hughes than Hughes himself.

If I hadn’t seen Wednesday’s game, I would have thought that he had gotten smacked around Yankee Stadium from the way he evaluated his performance in his post-game interview. The old Hughes might have been in for a rough day if, as Phil said, he didn’t have his best stuff. But the new and vastly improved Hughes managed to get out of several jams en route to pitching six-innings of one-run ball in a game that the New York Yankees desperately needed to win to preserve their sanity and that of their fans.

Hughes got a more positive review from his manager Joe Girardi, who thought his pitcher did a good job of managing innings and minimizing the threat with runners on base. Girardi is obviously willing to criticize one of his players, as he chastised Ivan Nova for his dreadful performance and loss of focus on Tuesday evening. The Yankees manager seem thrilled that Hughes did what Nova could not, get past the feeling that his stuff was not up to par and pitch a good game when his team staked him to a sizeable lead.

How ironic is it that Hughes, despite all his struggles and the calls to trade him away, is the one keeping the Yankees afloat during this rough stretch? The Yankees have won two games during the current home stand, both of which Hughes started. He lost a tough luck game to a hot Oakland A’s team despite a strong outing the week before. But this week he managed to do what the Yankees’ top starters CC Sabathia and Hiroki Kuroda could not: beat a division rival, two times no less. Hughes should give himself a little credit for that. But he won’t.

Hughes’ performance against the Baltimore Orioles was overshadowed in the news by the offensive outburst of the Yankees and the long-awaited return of Joba Chamberlain. But I’m sure his teammates appreciated his effort. 

Joba Chamberlain a sight for sore Yankee eyes

Joba Chamberlain was a sight for sore eyes.

Watching Joba standing on the Yankee Stadium mound yesterday warmed my heart. He didn’t pitch particularly well, which was to be expected given his long pitching layoff and the jumble of emotions he must have been feeling. Not that it really mattered how he pitched. Just seeing him on the mound was a testament to his perseverance.

His manager Joe Girardi talked about how he never had any doubt that Joba, a famously quick healer who didn’t even feel his elbow coming apart before his Tommy John surgery, would pitch again this year, even after the grotesque ankle injury. I genuinely believed Girardi when he said that, not always the case to be honest. I had been following Joba’s recovery as closely as possible and his determination to return to the pitching mound and prove all the doubters who said his career was over wrong was evident. Not only did he heal more quickly than expected, he was lighting up the radar gun during his rehab assignments and I have no doubt that he will be lighting up the Yankee Stadium gun once he gets comfortable again.

Despite his rough first outing, the New York Yankees are confident that he can solidify the bullpen, much as he had done last year before his unexpected and unfortunate elbow injury. They are so confident in Joba that Brian Cashman felt comfortable trading away Chad Qualls for some bench help before Tuesday’s deadline. The Yankees, overly cautious in their handling of Joba at times, were so sure that he was healthy that they called him back up to the big club rather than sending him to Trenton for a scheduled rehab assignment, no doubt disappointing a lot of New Jersey-based Yankee fans hoping for a glimpse of Joba.

But it was a thrill watching him pitch in a big-league game again, something a lot of people suspected he would never do, even if Joba himself never doubted it for a second. 

Ichiro trade, Tex feud keep things interesting for Yanks

Geez, I can’t go on vacation for one week, happily leaving my laptop behind and my Blackberry on silent mode, without the New York Yankees making headlines.

Even on a day dominated by news of the crippling, but well-deserved sanctions against Penn State, the Yankees managed to sneak into the news cycle with news of their trade for Ichiro Suzuki (yes, I did watch SportsCenter while on vacation). For the record, the trade for Ichiro feels like a panic move from the old Yankee years, when it was common for them to go after aging stars to fill a perceived hole on their team. It felt a lot like something George Steinbrenner would do (I read a terrific Steinbrenner biography while on vacation—more on that in another blog post), something that could have been incredibly disruptive to a team that was jelling despite a rough West Coast trip. I’m not sure that Ichiro is much better than who the Yankees already had on their roster, but at least Brian Cashman didn’t give up much to get him.

Fast forward to this weekend with Ichiro and his new teammates taking on the archrival Boston Red Sox, who continue to flounder in last place despite getting some of their injured stars back. Who would have thought that Phil Hughes would put the Red Sox down with a bigger performance than CC Sabathia? Well, I would have, but I have a lot of faith in the kid and CC has not pitched like an ace this year while Hughes has definitely found himself once again. But the Yankees still need Sabathia to be the guy he has been the first three years of his Yankee career if they are going to get very far in the baseball playoffs.

I thought Bobby Valentine was going to be the one to revive the dormant Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. I never anticipated that unassuming Mark Teixeira would be the one to shake things up with his ongoing feud with headhunting Saux pitcher Vicente Padilla. I don’t like anyone styling after a home run, but I can’t say I blame Tex given Padilla’s rather strange comments after their last battle up at Fenway Park. But Tex better duck the next time he faces Padilla.

I’m heading to the game tonight, where I will welcome Ichiro with open arms, even if I’m not convinced we needed him, and hoping to see the Yankees put the Saux out of their misery for good. Yes, there’s still two months left in the baseball season, but Boston looks and is playing like a deflated team and I can’t see them turning it around. 

Thanks to Googie man via en.Wikipedia for the Ichiro photo. 

Yankees leave Red Sox in the dust

The New York Yankees could not feel better about themselves heading into the All-Star break, with a commanding lead in the American League East standings after another Boston beat-down.

Granted, the Yankees’ play was pretty sloppy at times this weekend, with Hiroki Kuroda giving up the 5-run lead his offense staked him to on Friday night and Phil Hughes unable to pitch out of the mess his defense put him in during Saturday’s double-header nightcap. But they took three out of four games against the Boston Red Sox after getting strong performances by Freddy Garcia and Ivan Nova and a resurgent Mark Teixeira, who wisely decided not to further escalate his feud with a nut like Vicente Padilla.

More surprisingly, they got a turn-back-the-clock performance by Andruw Jones, who has been terrific subbing for the injured Brett Gardner all year, but really stepped up his game against the Red Sox this weekend. He hit four Monster home runs, constantly breaking the hearts of Saux fans anytime they thought their team might finally have a leg up on the hated Yankees. But even more impressive to me was his outstanding defense, including slamming against the Green Monster to make a terrific, rally-killing catch, which immediately conjured up images of a young Jones patrolling centerfield for the Atlanta Braves.

So despite all their injuries and lackluster play during the first six weeks of the season, the Yankees find themselves comfortably in first place with a 7-game lead over the Baltimore Orioles, nearly 10 games up over the Saux (which, let’s face it, is the only team that all Yankee fans truly care about regardless of their problems) and the best record in baseball.  

I hope Joe Girardi and his squad enjoy their All-Star break vacation. After their first-half performance, they’ve definitely earned it. 

Old Timers' Day never gets old

Some people might find the pomp and circumstance of Old Timers’ Day at Yankee Stadium annoying. I am not one of those people.

Despite the already sweltering heat at 11am, I arrived bright and early for Sunday’s Old Timers’ Day festivities because it’s one of my favorite days of the baseball season, one I look forward to every year. I take pictures of every single former New York Yankees player introduced and cheer wildly for all my old favorites, including Tino Martinez and Bernie Williams, who got the loudest ovations. I was kind of hoping Tino would hit one out again this year, but it didn’t happen. Maybe because he wasn’t facing David Cone, who grooved him a pitch in last year’s game and has no problem taking partial credit for that homer. 

The Clippers beat up on the Bombers to a 6-2 score, but it was all in good fun. The game was close heading into the last inning, but Sterling Hitchcock got slapped around a little bit and this being an Old Timers’ Day, there was no relief in sight. Some of my favorite moments: Mick the Quick still hustling, with Rivers nearly beating out a grounder to short to start the game, Tino’s infield popup that nobody bothered to try to catch, Homer Bush, ever the good sport, donning the catcher’s gear and bumping into the home-plate umpire in futile pursuit of a foul ball. I was also glad to see Bernie have a good day, driving a ball out to Rickey Henderson in centerfield for a sacrifice fly and hitting a line drive for his second ribbie in his next at-bat. I also got a kick out of seeing Tanyon Sturtze come off the mound to catch a popup, something current pitchers are reluctant to do, as part of a 1-2-3 inning and then head out to right field to replace Paul O’Neill.

The bonus of the day was that one of my favorite current Yankees, Phil Hughes, pitched a fantastic game. I was beginning to feel like I was Phil’s jinx after the 1^st inning when he gave up those two runs. He has gotten hammered in a couple of previous starts I attended. After that rough first frame, I vowed that I would never attend another one of his starts if he lost, just in case I was in fact his jinx (yes, I can be ridiculously superstitious when it comes to baseball). But luckily for me, I mean for Hughes, he took the bull by the horns and pitched an outstanding game, surviving what must have been brutal on-the-field conditions to throw shutout ball the rest of the way.

So my favorite youngster pitched a hell of a game after my favorite old timers had the time of their lives. It was a good day all around, despite the heat. But after sweating through two baseball games this weekend, I may avoid the stadium for a while, at least until this heat wave breaks. 

Bad break for Pettitte means trouble for Yankees

Has a first-place team ever experienced such bad luck?

Out of an abundance of caution, the New York Yankees put ace lefthander CC Sabathia on the disabled list due to a groin injury. Out of necessity, the Yankees announced his #2 Andy Pettitte would join him on the disabled list just hours later. So the team with the best record in baseball suddenly looks like it could be in a lot of trouble.

I wasn’t terribly concerned about Sabathia’s injury, which appears to be relatively minor. Heading into the All-Star break, I thought it was absolutely the right move to be cautious and not let Sabathia risk worsening the injury by trying to pitch through it. But the Yankees had to be exasperated by the misfortune of Pettitte getting hit with a comebacker that broke his fibula, forcing him off the mound for at least the next six weeks.

I feel really bad for Pettitte. Despite my personal feelings over his actions during the Roger Clemens trial, Pettitte had stepped up to help right what had been a struggling Yankees rotation both by pitching extremely well and serving as counsel and mentor to guys like Phil Hughes. I admire Pettitte’s bulldog mentality in trying to stay in yesterday’s game, but I cringed after he threw that first pitch after getting hit with that comebacker because it was obvious that he was in an extreme amount of pain. The silver lining of this injury, as Brian Cashman noted, is that the 40-year-old Pettitte will be really fresh when the Yankees truly need him in September and October.

So for the time being, the Yankees rotation will comprise of Hiroki Kuroda, Ivan Nova and Hughes, with some help from Freddy Garcia and a couple of Yankee minor leaguers. Kuroda, Nova and Hughes have all pitched well of late, but I do worry that they might put too much pressure on themselves to try to make up for not having Sabathia or Pettitte. As for Garcia, this is a great opportunity for him to show that he still has something left in the tank and should not be relegated to mop-up duty.

It’s going to be a challenge, but I think the Yankees can survive the next two weeks without their star lefties. But it’s going to take a lot of luck, something that doesn’t seem to be on the Yankees side right now. 

Yankees play it safe with ace CC Sabathia

I knew things were going too well for the New York Yankees.

The good vibes from a terrific performance by Phil Hughes extending the Yankees winning ways and the controversy over the catch that wasn’t a catch have been quickly cast aside by news that CC Sabathia is heading to the disabled list. It appears to be a relatively minor injury, but the Yankees, cautious by nature, are nottaking any chances with their ace, putting him on the DL instead of just skipping his turn in the rotation in the hope of a quick recovery. Can’t say I blame them.

CC being injured explains a lot about his inability to hold a four-run lead against the New York Mets last weekend. Yes, his defense failed him miserably, but he usually pitches around errors. And perhaps my expectations for CC are unfairly high (though he has mostly lived up to and surpassed them in his Yankee years). But the fact that he allowed that game to be tied by the Mets really took me by surprise. It’s not like the CC we know and love to blow that kind of a lead and the injury may explain why (although Sabathia would never use it as an excuse because he is a no excuses kind of guy).

Joe Girardi didn’t seem too pleased by Sabathia’s failure to inform the team of the injury he first felt on Sunday night. But he can’t really be surprised either. His ace is a bulldog who always wants the ball. He wanted to only miss a start rather than go on the DL with what he probably sees as a nuisance injury rather than a serious one. But CC lost that argument to Brian Cashman and Girardi, who know it’s more important to have their ace on the mound in September than late June, particularly with the Yankees on such a winning streak.

With the Yankees going so well, they can afford to be without their ace for two weeks, particularly with the All-Star break coming up. But it can’t be for much longer than that or the Yankees could find themselves in trouble. 

Happy birthday, Phil Hughes!

Ah, to be 26 again!

If I was 26 years old again, I probably wouldn’t be dealing with this achy back, unless I was a professional athlete like Phil Hughes. I do consider myself a professional spinner, or at least an obsessed one. But truth be told, I’m in much better health in my 30s than I was in my 20s. I can only hope for Phil’s sake and the New York Yankees that his health problems are behind him too.

Hughes seems to have righted himself after losing much of the 2011 baseball season to a baffling arm injury and getting off to a rough start in 2012. His last outing aside, Hughes has been on quite a roll in the month of June, giving up only 4 runs in three victories, including that masterful performance against the Detroit Tigers. My birthday wish for Hughes, and probably his wish for himself, is that the rest of the year looks more like those three starts in the middle of the month than his last one.

Happy Birthday, Phil!

Pettitte’s cocoon of silence won’t protect him from the truth

Andy Pettitte didn’t want to talk about Roger Clemens’ acquittal on perjury and other charges. I don’t blame him. If I were Pettitte, I wouldn’t want to talk about how I put my hand on a Bible, swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, then completely bent the truth to save my old pal.

Clemens was acquitted for many reasons, but Pettitte’s suddenly hazy memory didn’t help the prosecution’s case. I’m still quite shocked that the jury couldn’t bring itself to find Clemens guilty of even one charge. But the members of that jury were not baseball fans – some of them had never even heard of Clemens – and didn’t understand the context of just how much damage Clemens and the other performance-enhancing drug users did to the game and how he should have been punished for that.

It’s amazing how my opinion of Pettitte has completely changed since his appearance at the Clemens trial. I root for him to pitch well for the New York Yankees’ sake and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the starters have been on such a hot streak since he came back. (Phil Hughes, brilliant of late, has openly talked about how much of a help Pettitte has been to him). But I get no joy from watching Pettitte pitch. Not anymore. I went from being uncontrollably excited about Pettitte’s comeback when it was first announced to completely disappointed at his off-the-field actions.

By the way, I couldn’t disagree more with Derek Jeter about the acquittal being good for baseball. I know that the Yankees Captain grew fond of Clemens as a teammate, but what Clemens and the other baseball cheaters did has put a permanent black mark on the game. I believed that the biggest names among the cheaters, Barry Bonds and Clemens, had to pay for what they did for the game to truly begin to heal and neither of them did.

But Pettitte’s cocoon of silence won’t protect him from the fact that he went out of his way to bend the truth to get his friend off the hook. And that is something he will have to live with.