Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Relief!
The dominant emotion, as the Yankees finally won a close game, but did so without playing the sort of solid fundamental baseball normally required to prevail in such contest. Sheffield ran around a pop fly early on and played it into a hit; Matsui failed to pursue a pop fly aggressively a couple innings later and played it into a hit; on the next batter, Sheffield and Damon both ran around a fly pop and played that into a hit and putting Mussina in a jam, from which the Jays only run came. Three of the first five hits Mussina gave up were on outfield misplays of pop-ups. I mean they looked terrible out there. What's more the Yankees winning run came by way of a baserunning error on the part of Posada. So they were lucky too. Finally they left the bases loaded without scoring any runs not once but twice. Situational hitting remains unbelievably weak for a lineup so statistically strong.Finally there was a doozy of an error by none other than Torre himself. With runners on second and third, two outs, he calls for a double steal, which Jeter and Sheffield successfully execute. The only problem was that the play freed Lilly to intentionally walk Arod, who has killed him historically (he hit a homer in his next at bat) and pitch to Giambi lefty to lefty. Lilly's breaking stuff makes him murder on lefthand hitters and sure enough Giambi struck out to end the inning harmlessly. The double steal in effect saved Lilly's bacon. Oh, they would have pitched carefully to Arod in any event but they would have pitched to him, if only to avoid the chance of a bouncing curveball wild pitch with a man on third. I know I've been harping on slow-Joe to play some small ball. but leave it to him to pick the precise worst moment to do so.They only won because for the fourth straight time Mussina was strong. He's opounding the strike zone more than last year nibbling less and looks to be in better overall shape. Last year he'd flag every time in the fifth. This year he's been carrying through to the 7th or 8th.It looks like Chacon has been sent to the bullpen, which makes some sense if Torre plans on starting small and Pavano in the immediate future. but if this is a move designed to put Jared Wright in the starting rotation, well then the dittoheads that still think Torre is a good manager will have lost any excuse for their misjudgment.
Relief!
The dominant emotion, as the Yankees finally won a close game, but did so without playing the sort of solid fundamental baseball normally required to prevail in such contest. Sheffield ran around a pop fly early on and played it into a hit; Matsui failed to pursue a pop fly aggressively a couple innings later and played it into a hit; on the next batter, Sheffield and Damon both ran around a fly pop and played that into a hit and putting Mussina in a jam, from which the Jays only run came. Three of the first five hits Mussina gave up were on outfield misplays of pop-ups. I mean they looked terrible out there. What's more the Yankees winning run came by way of a baserunning error on the part of Posada. So they were lucky too. Finally they left the bases loaded without scoring any runs not once but twice. Situational hitting remains unbelievably weak for a lineup so statistically strong.Finally there was a doozy of an error by none other than Torre himself. With runners on second and third, two outs, he calls for a double steal, which Jeter and Sheffield successfully execute. The only problem was that the play freed Lilly to intentionally walk Arod, who has killed him historically (he hit a homer in his next at bat) and pitch to Giambi lefty to lefty. Lilly's breaking stuff makes him murder on lefthand hitters and sure enough Giambi struck out to end the inning harmlessly. The double steal in effect saved Lilly's bacon. Oh, they would have pitched carefully to Arod in any event but they would have pitched to him, if only to avoid the chance of a bouncing curveball wild pitch with a man on third. I know I've been harping on slow-Joe to play some small ball. but leave it to him to pick the precise worst moment to do so.They only won because for the fourth straight time Mussina was strong. He's opounding the strike zone more than last year nibbling less and looks to be in better overall shape. Last year he'd flag every time in the fifth. This year he's been carrying through to the 7th or 8th.It looks like Chacon has been sent to the bullpen, which makes some sense if Torre plans on starting small and Pavano in the immediate future. but if this is a move designed to put Jared Wright in the starting rotation, well then the dittoheads that still think Torre is a good manager will have lost any excuse for their misjudgment.
posted by joe valente | 7:03 PM
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