Girardi absolutely right about Strasburg

If Joe Girardi was the National League All-Star manager, the issue of whether Stephen Strasburg should be named to the team wouldn't even be an issue. The New York Yankees manager said the ultra-talented youngster would not be on his squad if the decision was his. He is absolutely right.

There's no question that Strasburg is a supreme talent and deserving of the hype. His record is only 2-2, but that's mostly because the Washington Nationals haven't scored many runs for him. His ERA is 2.45, but he lost one game and got a no-decision in another despite only giving up one run. He has 53 strikeouts in six big-league starts.

But there's no way the kid should be selected, no matter how talented he is, over someone who's played the full first half. If Strasburg makes the All-Star team, it's going to come at the expense of a more deserving player, possibly from his own team. That's not good for the kid and it's not good for what’s left of baseball’s credibility.

There are a couple of things we know about Girardi. He sticks to his guns, doing what he thinks is best without regard for the negative consequences, as when he planned to take CC Sabathia out of a start when he was no-hitting the Tampa Bay Rays in April. The Yankees manager is also a long-term thinker, as he's shown in resisting pressure to put Phil Hughes on the mound every 5th day or use Mariano Rivera for multiple innings any time a game is close.

There's tremendous pressure on Charlie Manuel to take Strasburg, particularly from Fox because of the ratings boost (and please Joe Buck, be honest and say your network wants him for the ratings, not because baseball is a fan's game--if it were, playoff games would start at 7pm like regular season games). I hope Manuel is willing and strong enough to pull a Girardi and not succumb to the pressure to take the kid, who by the looks of things, has plenty of All-Star appearances in his bright future.

Thanks to dbking via Wikipedia for the photo.

Gardner deserves to join mates on All-Star team

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post encouraging New York Yankees fans to vote Nick Swisher onto to American League All-Star team. I should have written one for Brett Gardner at the same time.

I obviously voted for both Swisher and Gardner when I was filling out my ballots. But while Swisher's candidacy has gotten a lot of attention, Gardner has quietly made a compelling case for an All-Star spot. Not counting his multi-hit, Grand Slam performance today, Gardner is hitting .311, with 23 ribbies, 49 runs scored and 24 stolen bases, a pretty strong argument to be considered one of the best players in the league this season.

"He's had such a tremendous year," Swisher said. "I couldn't be happier for him."

You would think Gardner could benefit from having his skipper Joe Girardi managing the team. But that may not be the case, with Girardi talking about all the tough decisions he will have to make.

"Gardy has had a great first half for us," Girardi said. "I definitely think he deserves consideration. It's great to be the All-Star manager, but there’s also a difficult part about it. You know you're going to disappoint some people and that's not what you really want to do."

Translation: Gardner will probably not get a spot on the team, as much as he deserves one. I hope I'm wrong. We'll know tomorrow.

Yankee offense wakes up for just one inning

Let's not get too excited about the 11-run rally the New York Yankees posted today.

It was a great sign that Mark Teixeira doubled and Brett Gardner homered with the bases loaded. As Gardner noted after the game, the Yankee offense had been scuffling. But the hitters woke up to score 11 runs in about 40 minutes, more than in the previous four games combined. You could see the pressure lift off of them, with a jubilant Nick Swisher nearly knocking Gardner's arm off while congratulating him for his grand slam.

“It was good for them," said Andy Pettitte, the Yankees starter and primary beneficiary of all those runs. "To score that many runs in that inning was amazing to watch."

But the one-inning explosion does not mean the slump is over. All 11 runs came during the third inning and three of them only scored because John McDonald dropped a fly ball off the bat of Alex Rodriguez in the sun. Prior to that inning, the Yankees offense extended its hitless streak with runners in scoring position to 0 for 25 before the Tex at-bat. And the offense was very quiet the rest of the day, failing to score any more runs.

Can the Yankees offense build on that one inning? Maybe. It’s hard to imagine that a lineup as talented as this one could continue to be so inconsistent. But for at least one frame, the batters did their jobs.

Girardi baffled by inconsistent bullpen

It’s good that Joe Girardi shaves his head because otherwise we could count the new white hairs that appear every time he calls for someone not named Mariano Rivera to come out of his bullpen.

The New York Yankees bullpen imploded again today, turning what was a tight 1-0 lead into a 6-1 loss. Afterward, Girardi tried to explain what went wrong, but had trouble coming up with answers.

“We’re just not making the pitches when we have to at times,” Girardi said. “We need to be better.”

Joba Chamberlain’s struggles are the most perplexing, characterized by his Jekyll and Hyde routine. He was helped out initially by a fantastic play by Brett Gardner, slamming against the wall to take away an extra base hit. Girardi seemed most frustrated by the fact that Joba gave up a walk to the next batter rather than a hit, eventually giving up the tying run. Joba was bothered by not being aggressive enough, particularly after AJ Burnett pitched so well.

“He pitched his tail off … that’s really, really frustrating because he went out and did what he needed to do for us to win and we didn’t do our job,” Chamberlain said.

I also remember watching Chan Ho Park pitch in Arizona and wondering why this guy was still on the team and why Girardi keeps sending him out there. The manager gave a little bit of explanation when he talked about Chop having a history of throwing the ball well. But he hasn’t looked good recently, except for a clean two-inning stint against the Seattle Mariners this week. Today, he gave up the go-ahead run on a bases-loaded walk before giving up the triple that broke the game wide open.

“In this league, you have to make pitches,” Girardi said. “That’s the bottom line.”

Girardi is rightly determined to protect Mo, who only pitched one inning today before giving the ball up to David Robertson, the eventual loser of the game. As much as Girardi might have been tempted to ask Mo for one more inning to see if his offense could finish off the game, the manager knows he has to protect the most valuable 40-year-old arm in the big leagues and wasn’t willing to ask him to go two innings after he threw one frame for the save yesterday.

“I got to be careful how many times I do that,” Girardi said. “That’s not something that I’m going to push the envelope because we can’t afford to hurt him.”

Brian Cashman recently said that his bullpen is better than it has performed, implying that he was not actively looking for help in that area. He may want to rethink that after today.

“This is the group that we have right now,” Girardi said. “They have to get it done.”

Eiland's Arkansas talk pumps up AJ

I guess AJ Burnett really did need Dave Eiland to work on his mind and mechanics.

In his first outing since his pitching coach returned from a personal leave of absence, Burnett pitched pretty well, giving up no runs in 6 2/3rd innings. It was obvious early that Burnett was a different guy on the mound. He got two quick outs to start the game before giving up a hit, but promptly came back with a strikeout. "To come out of the first inning the way that I did gave me a little confidence and I built on that," Burnett said.

Yes, he did. The most encouraging part of today's game was that AJ did not fall apart when he had runners on base as he did in June on his way to an 0-5 record and a 11.65 ERA, including a depressing start in Arizona when he got smacked all around the ballpark by a last-place team.

In one of those situations today, Eiland came out to give him a 10-second pep talk, which Burnett dubbed Eiland's "Arkansas talk." I thought the Eiland absence was a weak excuse for AJ's struggles, but there was obviously some truth to the explanation. If this baseball coaching thing doesn’t work out for Eiland, he may have a future as a shrink because whatever he said to AJ on the mound and before the game obviously worked.

"It's good to hear his voice, it's good to have him back," Burnett said.

Even though the New York Yankees lost today's game against the Toronto Blue Jays, they had to be pleased with what they saw from Burnett. “It’s important for us to get him going because I know how frustrated he is and I know how hard he works at it and the importance of him in our rotation,” manager Joe Girardi said. “This was a great step for him and I’m extremely happy for him.”

Of course, it's only one start and we have to wait five days to see if AJ can build on it, but it's a positive sign for the Yankees.

Field mess shows baseball should come 1st

Curtis Granderson is absolutely right: the field at Yankee Stadium is a total mess. And it not's fair to the players who roam the outfield.

The grass got torn up pretty good during the Yuri Foreman vs. Miguel Cotto boxing match in early June and it still hasn't recovered. And now the Yankee players are concerned that the field will get destroyed even further when Jay-Z and Eminem do a gig on two nights in mid-September. Imagine that: a bad field right before the New York Yankees start their October run on national television. Wouldn't that be embarrassing for the richest team in baseball?

I understand the desire to make a little extra cash by hosting non-baseball events, but not during the season if the Yankees can't take care of the field. They need to keep in mind that their baseball team is their primary moneymaker and if they can't keep the field in tip-top shape for their players, than they should say no when people come asking if they can use the stadium.

CC Sabathia every inch the ace for Yankees

CC Sabathia did what every ace must do to earn their paycheck and the respect of their teammates: he stopped a two-game losing streak that could have become an embarrassing sweep at the hands of the inferior Seattle Mariners.

"You never want to get swept," Sabathia said in what qualified as the understatement of the day.
Sabathia dominated the Mariners through the first seven innings before giving up a couple of runs in the 8th, but still notched his 10th win when the New York Yankees came right back with a two-run homer by Alex Rodriguez. CC was the happiest guy on the bench when ARod hit the blast because if the Yankees had lost the game, CC said it would have been tough for him to sleep, being so close to giving the ball to Mariano Rivera with a two-run lead.

The hefty lefty has snatched his ace mantle back with his third straight dominant performance, coming at a critical time due to AJ Burnett’s struggles. You don’t want a two-game losing streak to stretch into four, which likely would have happened if the Yankees lost today and AJ took the ball tomorrow and had another rough outing.

I thought it was interesting that Joba Chamberlain didn't come into the game when Sabathia got into some trouble. But Sabathia is Joe Girardi's horse, so he gets a longer leash than the other starters for the Yankees.

“CC’s done that since he’s been here for us and that’s just the type of pitcher he is,” Girardi said. "We didn't give him a lot of wiggle room, but I thought he shut Seattle down today. That’s what you expect from your ace. When you're on a little losing streak, that's what aces do."

Indeed, that’s what aces do.