Back In The Win Column

Do my eyes deceive me? The Yankees actually had some offense tonight. I was all set to write about a 4-1 game but then Alex and Jorge go back-to-back in the 9th. Solid game all around. Awesome pitching from Andy, Joba, and Mo. Great defense and a good amount of offense. Yankee baseball. Oh how we've missed you.

Was it me or prior to A-Rod's HR did it seem like even though they had scored 4 runs and had 10 hits that it didn't seem like they were doing that well at the plate? They picked up 1 run on a fielder's choice and the other on a double play. Two of the first 4 runs came off of hits. They still need to improve with RISP. Everyone with the exception of Cano had a hit tonight, and he walked tonight so everyone reached base. That's a good sign. Just about half the lineup had 2 hits. I have to apologize to Morgan Ensberg as I said in my last post I wasn't expecting anything from him. Thanks for proving me wrong. Jose Molina is quickly becoming one of my favorite Yankees. He had 2 hits and raised his average to .318. He's now also tied with Alex for the team lead in doubles with four. Never would have guessed that would be the case. Melky is my offensive star of the game. 2-5 w/a HR and 2 RBI. Not a bad debut hitting 2nd. I like the lineup Girardi put on the field. I'd still prefer Jeter and Giambi to Gonzalez and Ensberg obviously, but it's good to know they've got lots of options for the lineup. We just need Robbie to heat up.

Andy Pettitte owns the Royals. Counting this start he's now undefeated in his last 9 starts against the Royals. He upped the record to 7-0 and lowered his ERA against them to 2.77. His career ERA against the Royals is now 3.06. Like I said, he owns the Royals. And tonight was no different. He was pretty sharp and was especially impressive after the rain delay. Vintage Andy Pettitte. Welcome back. Good to see you.

We were about 90 feet away from learning that Joba Chamberlain is human. Things got a little hairy there in the 8th but he quickly disposed of Jose Guillen, making him look rather foolish. I was a little surprised Joba didn't give us a fist pump after that K. It was a pretty big out considering Guillen was the tying run.

I was kind of hoping after the Yankees tacked on the two insurance runs in the 9th that we wouldn't see Mo. I was thinking that it was best to save his arm for the battles in Boston. Then I took a quick glance at prior games' box scores and saw that Mo hadn't pitched since the 6th. It was probably good that both he and Joba got in some work tonight. I'm inclined to think they were pitching tonight anyway regardless of the score. It's very possible that Joba and Mo are the best back-of-the-bullpen tandem in the game. I'm confident that if Joba gets the ball with a lead....game is over.

I'm not sure why the game was delayed tonight considering they didn't stop yesterday's game when it was raining just as hard. They put the tarp on the field before a drop of rain even fell. It ended up being the right move but I'm still curious as to why they were so quick to stop play when they didn't last night. Conspiracy theory anyone?

It's good to head into Boston on a win and it's better to have won with a little offense. Finally. Was that so hard? It should be an interesting series. Neither team has done particularly well so far. David Ortiz is hitting a whopping .083! He's a Yankee killer so I'd love it if that average drops even further. If I were a betting man I'd bet that Girardi might have our guys move Papi's feet if you know what I'm saying. Manny too. Girardi seems like the type of manager that doesn't want a hitter to be comfortable in the box. It's something Torre should have had them do years ago. I feel pretty confident about our pitching staff. They should be able to keep the Sox bats at bay.

The offense just needs to put up the runs.

J-Boogie

Shake It Up

Tonight's Yankee lineup is a little abnormal to say the least. Melky in the 2-hole. Matsui in RF. Molina hitting 6th. No Abreu. No Giambi. Definitely not your typical Yankees lineup. But when things are going this bad, sometimes you need to make some adjustments. I can understand sitting Giambi and Abreu because Bale is a lefty. I know what you're going to say. Matsui is a lefty and Abreu is swinging a hot bat. Granted but Bobby hasn't had a day off and there isn't a break in the schedule for a couple of weeks. It makes sense to give him a day to rest.

The curious part of the "new" lineup to me is having Melky batting 2nd. I prefer Cano in the 2-hole but Cano hasn't exactly hit the ball this year. I think the Melk-Man is better suited for that spot at this point in time.

Alex gets moved up a spot to the 3-hole. I prefer him hitting clean-up but without Abreu in the lineup there aren't any better options to put in front of him.

I like having Jose Molina bat higher in the lineup. Since he's donned the Pinstripes he's shown he can bring it at the plate. He's also swinging one of the better bats so why not.

I'm not expecting much production tonight from our 8 and 9 hitters. Gonzalez is a very light hitting shortstop and Ensberg has never returned to the form he was in when he belted 30-plus homers. But hey, he can't do any worse than Wilson Betemit.

Finally the best part of the lineup is the return of Jorge Posada. His MRI showed no structural damage and apparently he feels no discomfort when he swings the bat. His bat is a welcomed additon to the already weakened lineup. He just needs to start hitting like the rest of them.

Enjoy the game.

What To Do? What To Do?

With the recent injury to Yankees captain Derek Jeter comes a lot of speculation about who to put at SS as his replacement. People are throwing around the notion of moving A-Rod back to SS. Personally, I wouldn't be a fan of that unless Jeter will be on the shelf for an extended period of time. Unfortunately, the other options aren't very appealing. So what to do?

According to Pete Abraham's blog, it looks like Yankees farm hand Alberto Gonzalez is on his way to New York. I think this is the smartest move as a short term fix. The Yankees won't gain much from him offensively but his defense is probably a little better that DJs when you consider his range is likely better. His offense can't be much worse than that of Wilson Betemit, who in my opinion won't be around much longer. His defense is questionable and offensively he's been a nightmare, unless you prefer a guy that will hit around .200 with more strikeouts that balls in play. sure he'll run into an HR every now and then but he's more of a liability. Short term they should go with Alberto.

In the event Jeter is out for an extended period of time, I think Girardi and crew need to explore other possibilities, one of which is moving Alex back to where he started. He might be a little rusty at first but a player with Alex's athletic ability wouldn't take long to readjust. I'd worry more about how he'd do moving back to the hot corner. When Alex was asked about his thoughts, he was quoted as saying:

"I haven’t thought about it. But whatever Joe wants I will do. I haven’t taken a groundball over there in five years, not even playing around. It would definitely be a challenge. But if Joe thought that were the best combination, I will let it fly.”

It's been 5 years since Alex has taken grounders at short. There would definitely be a period of adjustment but it's probably best to move Alex's bat and glove to short and move a guy to 3rd than it is to leave Alex at 3rd and put a weak bat at short. The Yankees have a natural 3B in the bench in Morgan Ensberg. If given the option of playing Betemit at short or Ensberg at third, what would you do? I'd go with Ensberg every time. Can you tell I'm not a big Betemit fan? I prefer him to Scott Proctor but he's really a waste on this ball club.

Hopefully, this discussion is all for nothing and our captain returns to the lineup for this weekend's Boston series. It doesn't bode well for the Yankees offense to have 2 of our best hitters (DJ and Jorge) on the shelf, especially when you consider how poorly the offense is performing. Jeter is a gamer and he won't sit any longer than he has to. That's one of the reasons why we love him so much. I just hope that the injuries to Jorge and Derek aren't anything serious and their time missed is minimal. Keep your fingers crossed.

J-Boogie

Johan, Morgan, And The Moose

It's been about a week since my last post. I'm still having too much fun doing the "dad" thing which is why I haven't been around a lot in the offseason. But pitchers and catchers report in 2 weeks and I plan on blogging more regularly.
So Johan is virtually a Met. All I can say is Amen to that. I'm so glad that the Yankees held onto their money and their prospects. It made no sense to give up all those guys and then on top of it, drop $150 million or so on a pitcher. It made sense to me to roll the dice and hope that he hit the free agent market in 2009. Now he may be the best in the game today but you can't throw away all that money and all those prospects to pick up a handful of wins each year. Kudos to Cash for standing firm and getting the Steinbrenner boys to see the light. Most importantly, it means Phil Hughes is still a Yankee!
The Yankees signed Morgan Ensberg to a minor league deal? Why? I'm confused. I know he's cheap. I know he hit thirty-some-odd HRs 2 years ago. But why? The Yankees have plenty of candidates to play 1B/DH. I guess Ensberg is expected to be this year's Josh Phelps. Assuming he makes the team, I guess that would make Shelley Duncan the 4th/5th OF behind Damon/Matsui, Wilson Betemit the utility IF, and Ensberg the backup 1B to Giambi. I feel like I'm forgetting someone. The reason I don't think he's needed is because of the versatility of the backups. Duncan and Damon can play 1B in addition to DH'ing or playing in the OF. Betemit can play 1B in addition to playing in the IF. I guess they're hoping to hit lightning in a bottle. I just don't think bringing in a "flash in the pan" and moving him from 3B to 1B is the best move. If anything, they should go out in resign Doug Mientkiewicz. He's not the greatest hitter, but has decent pop and his glove adds so much value.
My friends and I had so much fun last weekend on our road trip to Mike Mussina's Fan Club dinner. It was a blast. The first hour was Mike fielding questions from the fan club members. He's quite funny. It was so cool to see Mike in his element. I asked him if he could pick any 4 guys that he's ever pitched with to join him in a starting rotation, who would they be. Randy Johnson was one of the answers and Moose added he wasn't one of the funnest guys to be around. He threw out Roger's name and then he got all cerebral on me, saying he's pitched with a lot of great guys, including in All-Star games and things like that. I had a follow up question and that was where Carl Pavano was on the list. that got a laugh from the peanut gallery. Moose replied that he wasn't and even cracked that Pavano was still on the team, making it sound as that was unbelievable, which it is. After the Q&A was dinner. The entree was some delicious chicken parm. It was so good. As dinner was ending they raffled off some prizes. They gave away 20-30 signed Moose baseball cards, 3 signed baseballs, a game model glove, a game model bat, and 2 tickets to Opening Day at The Stadium. There were probably 200 or so people there so i thought maybe 1 of us would win something. One guy at our table won the bat. Another at the table won the tickets. We struck out. After the raffle there was an auction. They gave away a game used hat, game used glove, game used bat, and 2 tickets to Opening Day. I had about $300 on me and thought I might have a shot at something. The hat was auctioned off first and that went for about 2 bills. I knew right then I had no shot at anything. The glove went for $1200. The bat went for $600. And the tickets went for $900. I may have my amounts wrong but they went for a lot. After the auction was the autograph session. Mike sat a table and signed up to 2 items for everyone. I had him sign a ball and one of the older batting jerseys with his # on the back. And that concluded the evening. We all felt it was well worth the $35 we dropped on the ticket. How often can you spend $35 to hang out with a major leaguer for 4 hours? I'm looking forward to next year's event already.
13 days and counting......
J-Boogie