...and whoever's playing the Yankees - 2008 Game Thread

[Mr Crunchy]

fair enuff answer men

im thinking its a horrid matchup with a 95 mph lefty going against this guy

hey

with all the bad things that happened to ny yesterday they made my afternoon with the walk off

it was also nice for the 3000 fans who stayed

[TheKilo]

BJ Ryan sucks

[a700hitter]

The Yankees and Pettitte are being spanked at the big bed pan in the Bronx. It's 5-1 after the top of the 3rd.

[a700hitter]

KC is trying to give back the lead in the bottom of the 4th. 5-2 with 2nd and 3rd and no outs.

[a700hitter]

5-4 KC with one out and a man on 1st after a Sac Fly by Betamitt

[a700hitter]

Captain Clutch pops out to RF for an inning ending DP. The Yankees fail to take the lead 5-5. DJ's second DP of the day. He's looked positively Lugo-esque this season.

[The Dustball]

The Royals really suck. 6-5 Yankees. Pettitte hasn't looked good, hopefully KC can snag a few more runs off him. 88 pitches with 2 outs in the 6th for Pettitte.

[Optimist]

Pettitte should be in our bullpen. Neither can hold a lead.:thumbdown

[The Dustball]

Sweeeeeet! Grandslam against Pettitte. 10-6 Royals.

[a700hitter]

If Joba were not in the rotation, he would have been in the game in the 7th inning at some point. Instead, Girardi had no choice but to let Pettitte get into and try to get out of trouble. He had to pitch to Guillen with the sacks full after he had already homered once.

[ORS]

Pettitte's line....

 

[table]IP|H|R|ER|BB|K|HR

6.2|10|10|10|2|3|2[/table]

 

Billy Bob gives that A-TEYUN, A-FUKIN-TEYUN, A-TEYUN!!

 

http://www.73-87.com/7387_Novelties/TV_movies/vb01.JPG

[yeszir]

Pettitte's line....

 

[table]IP|H|R|ER|BB|K|HR

6.2|10|10|10|2|3|2[/table]

 

Billy Bob gives that A-TEYUN, A-FUKIN-TEYUN, A-TEYUN!!

 

http://www.73-87.com/7387_Novelties/TV_movies/vb01.JPG

 

Ahahahahaha

[Optimist]

Geeze, what a game.

[The Dustball]

Damon's been a beast today. 5-5? damnnnn. Well it's going to be a battle of the bullpens.

[Jayhawk Bill]

Damon's been a beast today.

 

Cave man.

[Optimist]

What the hecK? Baseball is weird.

[a700hitter]

DeJesus with a homer against Mo for the go-ahead run in the 9th.

[Optimist]

What the hecK? Baseball is weird.

 

Yeah, that about sums it up.

 

Tied game...again.

[The Dustball]

Holy f***. Can the Royals hold a f***ing lead?

[a700hitter]

Holy f***. Can the Royals hold a f***ing lead?

That's why they are a sucky team.

[a700hitter]

Johnny Damonic tryng for a 6 for 6 day to win the game

[Optimist]

Damon gets his sixth hit of the day to win the game!

[a700hitter]

Michael Kay calls it "Unbelievable" and "Bedlam in the Bronx". Not bad for a last place team.

[The Dustball]

Andddddddddd f*** you KC. Damon wins it with his 6th hit of the game. Yanks back at .500, the Royals had this game too.

[YAZMAN]

Michael Kay calls it "Unbelievable" and "Bedlam in the Bronx". Not bad for a last place team.

 

He obviously was talking about the pitching.

[yeszir]

Michael Kay calls it "Unbelievable" and "Bedlam in the Bronx". Not bad for a last place team.

...over Kansas City

[26 Reasons to Hate Us]

Michael Kay calls it "Unbelievable" and "Bedlam in the Bronx". Not bad for a last place team.

 

TIED for last thank you very much

[Gom]

Michael Kay calls it "Unbelievable" and "Bedlam in the Bronx". Not bad for a last place team.

Why, are you first place Red Sox worried? :thumbsup:

 

You wouldn't be scared of the little old Yankees, now, would you be?

[Jayhawk Bill]

Why, are you first place Red Sox worried? :thumbsup:

 

You wouldn't be scared of the little old Yankees, now, would you be?

 

Coming into the season, the New York Yankees had cause for optimism. Alex Rodriguez had been re-signed, they had a fresh face in the dugout in Joe Girardi, and a youth movement of sorts was underway. Add all of that to a deeply talented roster, and PECOTA tabbed the Yankees for 96 wins and the best record in baseball. As it turned out, reality has provided something else entirely. Presently, the Yanks are in fifth place in the AL East and six-and-a-half games behind the much-loathed Red Sox. If paces hold, then the Yankees will miss the postseason for the first time since 1993, and finish with a losing record for the first time since 1992. Needless to say, there's plenty of time for them to reverse their fortunes, but will they?

 

Third-order wins isn't especially fond of the Yankees' body of work in 2008, so in the peripheral sense there's nothing out of sorts about New York's struggles. Certainly, the offense (which had been respectable enough, ranking ninth overall in team EqA) figures to improve now that Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada are healthy, and Robinson Cano is sorta-kinda hitting again. Of course, the offense hasn't been the problem.

 

What's likely going to undo the Yankees this season is their inability to keep runs off of the board. Presently, the Yankees rank a mere 24th in Defensive Efficiency, which is certainly part of the problem. The infield defense is a more specific concern. In terms of fielding, the Yankee infielders are either thoroughly inept (Derek Jeter and Jason Giambi), measurably sub-optimal (Robinson Cano), or merely average (Alex Rodriguez). That's a troubling state of affairs for a team that has one of the most groundball-inclined pitching staffs in the American League. As currently constructed, the Yankee defense and Yankee pitching staff don't figure to dovetail any better as the season goes on.

 

Speaking of the Yankee pitching staff, it has other issues. The rotation has been a liability thus far, and that's why Yankee brass has opted to make Joba Chamberlain into a starter. As Joe Sheehan wisely notes, deploying Chamberlain as a starter maximizes his value and puts him in a role in which he's succeeded in the past. The rotation will be better for it. But the bullpen? It'll be a mess without Chamberlain, and it's likely to get worse as time goes by.

 

The Yankees rank second in the AL in relief innings, and second in the AL in pitches thrown by relievers. For the most part, this is a consequence of Yankee starters' inability to go deep into games. This season, Yankee starters have averaged just 5.3 innings per start, while the AL average is 5.9 innings per start, so the Yankees are comfortably below average in this regard. The result is an overworked bullpen. This was a genuine concern before Chamberlain was removed from the mix; now that Chamberlain is in the rotation, the bullpen becomes that much more of a trouble spot. In particular, succor in middle relief is sorely lacking.

 

Take a gander at the Relievers' Expected Wins Added report, and you'll find that the top-rated Yankee reliever not named Mariano Rivera or Joba Chamberlain, Kyle Farnsworth, who checks in at 72nd overall. So Farnsworth is now the Yankees' front-line middleman. That's what he was originally signed to be, and as hard experience proved, it didn't turn out so good. Once you remove Chamberlain's numbers from the calculus, Yankee middle relievers have a cumulative ERA of 4.62. Specifically, they're going to have to find better setup options from the right side than Farnsworth, Brian Bruney, and LaTroy Hawkins.

 

So, in the pen they're without Chamberlain and they're fatigued, and save for Chien-Ming Wang no one presently in the rotation seems capable of consistently going deep into games. (That last will remain the case, even after Ian Kennedy and Philip Hughes return, whenever that may be.) As bad as the Yankee middle relievers have been thus far, they're likely to fare worse going forward, barring personnel changes. They'll fatigue more, and they'll be working more high-leverage innings now that Chamberlain is no longer among them. Certainly, it's possible for teams to overcome weak setup men, but let's keep in mind that the Yankees are working from behind, and they're in baseball's toughest division. Under such circumstances, there's no such thing as an insignificant flaw.

 

Let us remember that, on the whole, the Yankees have the oldest hitters and the oldest pitchers in the AL. Generally speaking, that's not an arrangement that lends itself to improvement. While the decision to move Chamberlain to the rotation is eminently sensible in a vacuum, a team like the Yankees is particularly ill-suited to absorb such a division-of-labor shift. Good lineup, bad defense, bad middle relievers, suspect rotation... that describes this year's Yankee model, and that's why they're not going to get back in the race in the absence of drastic changes.

 

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7631

[ORS]

That analysis falls a bit short, IMO. The offensive bump isn't just going to be Rodriguez and Posada. Damon, Matsui, and Giambi have all been playing light years above what anyone would have reasonably expected given recent trends, but certainly within their talents. I think the offense will carry the dead weight that is their pitching staff to a few more wins, certainly enough to keep them in contention.