The ups and downs of the early season for the Yanks have been epitomized by two pitchers.  Last night Chien Ming Wang stunk out the joint.  His sinker would not sink, and he paid the price:  one inning, eight runs.  The Yankees were embarrassed by the Rays 15-5.  The game got so far out of hand that Nick Swisher pitched the last inning.  Swisher is quickly becoming the Yankees’ go-to guy in all situations, no matter how absurd.

Tonight was a completely different story.  AJ Burnett (formerly AJ Pavano) was lights out against Tampa.  He pitched six no-hit innings before he weakened in the 7th and gave up two runs.  But the Yankees came back to get him the lead, and he set the Rays down 1-2-3 in the eighth.  Girardi had Swisher ready to close it out in the ninth, but when Jeter hit a three run homer to blow the game open, he let Bruney finish.

So far Burnett has been everything promised.  Twice he has stopped two game losing streaks, and he appears to be a solid number two.  Whether he can stay healthy remains to be seen, but right now Cashman looks like a genius for signing him.  Since I was one of the many skeptics about bringing Burnett in, I have to admit I may have been wrong.  There’s a first time for everything.

As for Wang, it’s not yet time to panic.  His problem apears to be mechanical, not physical.  The sinker can be a tough pitch to control, and he has had similar meltdowns in the past, only to rebound and prove highly effective.  Wang is 46-15 over the last three years (including an injury shortened 2008).  Not many pitchers have proved so effective during that time.  There is no reason to think he won’t come around.

And if he doesn’t, Philip Hughes waits in the wings.

A recurring theme of this blog will be my ever growing conviction that Joe Girardi is not a major league manager.  My sons may offer conflicting opinions, but I find Girardi to be inadequate.  On Sunday, he once again demonstrated his penchant for making the wrong decision at the wrong time.  The result was a loss in a game the Yankees should have won.

The Yankees led 4-3 going into the 8th inning.  Brian Bruney had set the Royals down 1-2-3 in the 7th.  In the 8th, Girardi brought in Damaso Marte.  Marte is supposed to be the 8th inning guy this year, so this move appeared to be the right one.

Marte was not super sharp, but he got the first two hitters, both left handers.  The Royals then pinch hit Billy Buter, a right handed hitter.  Since Marte is supposed to be the 8th inning guy and not just a left handed specialist, you would think he would face Butler.

But Girardi decided it was time to overmanage.  He brought in Jose Veras.  Simultaneously, he told Phil Coke to get loose.

Veras threw five pitches, four of them balls, putting Butler on first.  Now Girardi panicked.  He yanked Veras and brought in Coke, even though Coke was not ready.  Naturally, Coke was shelled.  By the time the smoke cleared, the Royals led 6-4, a lead they did not relinquish.

Girardi has demonstrated a repeated propensity to make the wrong decision at the key moment in the game.  Today was just the first occasion in 2009.  In 2008, I counted at least 6 games where a Girardi blunder cost the Yanks a win.  Had they won those six games, they would have had 95 wins and tied the Red Sox for the wild card.

Girardi may be the Andy Reid of baseball.  Reid has built some fine Eagle teams, but he is a horrible game coach.  So is Girardi.  If the Yankees insist on keeping Girardi as manager, they need to find him a strong bench coach to call the game.

Mark this down as blown game number one for 2009.  I’ll keep track as the season progresses.

The Yankees have won two games in a row and have reached .500.  Strong starts from AJ Burnett (formerly AJ Pavano) and Andy Pettitte have helped, but the key difference between the losses in games one and two and the wins in games three and four can be summed up in one word:  Swish.

Not swish as in girlish; Swish as in Swisher.  Nick Swisher.  The guy Xavier Nady supposedly beat out for the starting RF slot.

In two games, Swisher is 4 for 9 with 3 runs scored and 6 rbis.  Yesterday he had 3 hits and 5 rbis.  Today he had the key hit of the game, a double fourth inning that drove in a run and put Swisher on second, where he subsequently scored on Jeter’s ground out.

Meanwhile, Girardi’s choice for RF, Xavier Nady, is batting .231 with a .286 on base percentage, and 1 rbi.  Today he was where he belongs – the bench.

Nick Swisher is not going to win the batting title, nor will he hit 60 home runs, but he is a solid player who has helped jump start the Yankee offense.  He should play every day.

While I, like my father, am disappointed in the Yankees 0-2 start – and to a Baltimore team which, despite its proud history, is widely picked to finish last in the competitive AL East this year – there are two significant upsides to the first two games that should not be overlooked.

First, as my father point out, the bullpen looks sharp.  Both Wang and Sabathia got shelled early.  But the bullpen came in and stopped the bleeding.  This is significant.  Despite their less than impressive starts, the fact remains that these starts were anomalies for Wang and Sabathia.  Both pitchers – assuming they don’t get injured, and if the past 3 seasons are any indication of how they will perform this year – will likely win 15 games this year, if not more, and carry the staff.  So, with that in mind, the Yankees’ pitching is really not as bad as the first two games would indicate.

Second, I was impressed with the way the Yanks continued to battle despite going down by 5-runs or more in both games.  They took a 6-1 deficit going into the top of the 6^th inning in the first game and narrowed it to 6-5 (and may ultimately have won the game if Johnny Damon had not been interfered with by that meddlesome fan in the bottom of the 8^th, which would have been an out instead of a two-run homer … revenge for Game 1 of the 1996 ALCS, I suppose).  And then last night, they were down 7-1 since the 4^th inning – 7-2 going into the 9^th – and scored 3 in the 9^th, and had the tying run at the plate when the game ended.  And they did all this without A-Rod. 

This type of battling is not the sign of a team that is floundering right out of the gate, but rather is a trademark of character and focus that is common to championship teams. 

So don’t be fooled by the 0-2 start.  With a deep starting rotation, a bullpen that is off to a good start, and a lineup that is showing character and resilience despite the absence of its best player, the 2009 Yankees look promising. 

It’s only the second game of the season, and it’s way too early to panic, but so far the 2009 Yankees look an awful lot like the 2008 Yankees.  Contrary to popular belief, the big problem with the 2008 team was not the pitching.  It was the moribund offense.  The Yankee bats were old and slow, and they look old and slow again this year.

As game two winds down to another ignominious loss to an Oriole team that would be better placed in AAA, it is depressing to note that the Yankees are 2 for 16 with runners in scoring position.   Up to now, the clutch single with men on base remains missing in action, just as it was last year.  Aside from Gardner and Damon, the team is extremely slow, and hence, must rely on the long ball.  It is tough to win consistently when you can’t put together three or four hits in a row.

The ability to score  has not been helped by the complete lack of offense from its two big men, Teixiera and Arod.  Tex was 0 for 8 before a ninth inning double tonight after the game was out of reach, and looks like he will live up to his reputation as a slow starter.  Arod, of course, is not even playing.  No one knows when he will be able to contribute.

Wang was awful, but his failure is less worrisome.  The weather is unseasonably cold, and Wang’s sinker is not yet sharp.  He should be fine.  And aside from Bruney, the bullpen has looked sharp.

The Yanks have scored ten runs in two games, but most of the scoring has occurred when the games were out of reach.  Reminds me of Graig Nettles, a fine player, but a guy who was renowned for hitting two run homers in the ninth inning of 7-2 games.

The offense was MIA last year, and continues to be absent when it matters so far in 2009.  The Red Sox and Rays have terrific teams.  The Yankees better get moving.

The season has begun. A few misguided souls may think the season began last night, but those of us who bleed navy blue know that it began at 4:20pm eastern standard time when Derek Jeter stepped to the plate. A few notes on the opener follow.

CC Sabathia was awful. He threw two wild pitches in the first inning and generally demonstrated an inability to hold runners on. He was shelled for three runs in the third. His velocity was low, and the anemic Oriole lineup teed off on him. He pitched 4 1/3 innings, eight hits, six runs, no strike outs and five walks, including a bases loaded walk to end his afternoon. At the end, he would not throw his fastball. He was not helped by Cody Ransom’s ineptitude in the field.

Hardly the beginning we hoped for. But Sabathia was so dominating most of last year that we tend to forget he was 1-4 with a 7.76 ERA in April. Maybe the big fellow is a slow starter.

Of greater concern is the fact that Sabathia sat in the dugout between innings with a hot water bottle on his stomach. He might have been cold, but the Yankee announcers kept saying the weather did not warrant it. The whole scene was reminiscent of Philip Hughes and his cracked rib last year. After the game he said the hot water bottle was because he had a stomach ache. Well, his performance gave me a stomach ache.

The reorganized Yankee lineup paid dividends in the third inning. Brett Gardner led off with a single. Girardi played hit and run, and Derek Jeter bounced a single through the vacated short stop hole, sending Gardner to third. Damon promptly drove him in with a sacrifice fly. Nice to see Girardi do something right.

Mark Teixiera was booed vociferously by the Oriole fans. Since Tex is a native of Annapolis, the fans had hoped he would come home and become the next Cal Ripken. Fortunately, he had better taste; he is a life long Yankee fan, and Don Mattingly was his boyhood hero. Unfortunately, Tex stank out the joint today. At the key moment in the eighth inning, he could not get the big hit. Ended up 0-4.

Posada hit a home run. Clearly the layoff has not affected his hitting. Whether he can throw remains to be seen. He had no chance to prove himself today, since none of the Yankee pitchers could hold any of the runners on base. Matsui also hit one out. He can’t run at all, but you don’t have to if you put it in the seats.

Xavier Nady had an rbi double, but with two on in the 7^th down by one run, he grounded ignominiously into a double play. Swisher, who should be starting, hit a pinch hit double. Hopefully, Girardi will come to his sense and start playing Swisher. But then again, that notion presumes Girardi knows what he’s doing.

Girardi left Phil Coke in too long and it cost him two more runs. Then Brian Bruney fell apart, and Marte had to bail him out.   But the game was lost when Teixiera failed to produce. We should trade him. Final was 10-5 for the bad team.

But the big news was the big flop by CC. Let’s hope his performance was a momentary abberation.

Dearest Bud,

I don’t understand why Opening Day is scheduled the way it is.  As you know, the 2009 season kicks off tonight – a Sunday night – with one game: the Phillies versus the Braves.  All well and good.  But then the opening game for every other team begins tomorrow – a Monday – while everyone is at work or school and cannot watch their team’s opening day.

Do you see what’s wrong with this picture?

And then, to make matters even more confusing, you schedule a Dodgers-Giants spring training game for Opening Day, just hours before the 2009 season officially kicks off.  I don’t understand that at all.  Do these teams need extra practice?  If the Dodgers-Giants game, which begins at 4:05 p.m. EST, goes past 8:00 p.m EST, then the 2009 spring training season, and the 2009 regular season, will actually be going on at the same time.  I know you may think that this is not a big deal.  But the whole thing looks disproportionate.  I’m just saying that it would be nice to know that on so-called “Opening Day,” when I’m sitting on my couch flipping through the channels, that every baseball game I come across is actually an official game.

Which brings me to my reason for writing this letter.  I realize that, as the commissioner of Baseball, you have a lot of responsibility weighing on your shoulders. As such, I have devised, and respectfully suggest, the following solution:

Simply move the entire schedule up one day, so that the season opens with one game on Saturday night, with all other teams playing their opening game on Sunday.  Either that or have everyone just start on Sunday.  It’s not clear to me why we even need to have only one game on Opening Day.  Kind of like only being allowed to open one present on Christmas Eve … and it always being pajamas. 

And put a rule in place requiring that all spring training games be completed no later than 11:59 p.m. EST the day before Opening Day.  This is only fair.  The California teams will just have to endure the deprivation like the rest of us. 

That way, baseball fans can all enjoy the benefit of watching Opening Day on Sunday, their day off, without confusion, and without wondering how their team’s best pitcher performed on Opening Day because they couldn’t watch the game because they were at work/school because the people who scheduled Opening Day were smoking crack or were otherwise asleep at the wheel.    

Lastly, whatever happened to that bill you were going to push through which would dissolve the Boston Red Sox once and for all?  You haven’t returned my calls on this issue.  Or your application to have your last name officially changed to Green?  (Or was it Love?)  I suppose we’ll deal with those issues in a separate letter.

Anyway, thank you for considering what I hope you will view as a sensible solution to what continues to be a nagging national problem.  Hope you are well.  Love to the family.

Regards,

gormanb

Official NY Yankees bloggers

www.majorleagueblogging.com

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The New York Times ran an article the other day discussing the possible retirement of long-time Yankee Stadium announcer, Bob Sheppard. Given the gravity of this moment in Yankee history, a few blog words need to be said.

Sheppard, aged 98 years young, has been the Yankees’ announcer since April 17, 1951 when, the Times reports, he announced “a lineup that included Phil Rizzuto, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra.” It also bears noting, if only for old times’ sake, that in 1951 the Yankees were smack dab in the middle of their 5-championship run from 1949 to 1953. And since 1951, every Yankee player, mortal and otherwise, has been introduced by the purportedly flawless elocution of the great Bob Sheppard.

I say “purportedly flawless elocution” because, to be perfectly frank, I don’t know anyone who talks like Bob Sheppard. Sheppard, who was a speech professor for years at Columbia University, supposedly speaks absolutely perfect English. Anyone who has ever been to Yankee Stadium knows that Sheppard delivers each syllable of a player’s name with slow, almost painstakingly deliberate execution – doubtless the product of hours of endless practice in front of the mirror and the 1950s tape recorder he still uses at home. Sheppard’s voice stands out all the more when one considers he’s doing all this in the Bronx, a corner of the world in which the English language, in the areas in which it is still spoken, is regularly butchered beyond recognition by visitors and the local populace alike. Amidst the drunk and belligerent rabble that fills a stadium during a typical baseball game, Bob Sheppard’s voice rings out like a voice, not so much from the heavens, but almost from outer space.

Still, while basic forms of communication in the Greater New York–New Jersey area have continued to mutate and decline over the last 50 years, Bob Sheppard kept the spoken word at a premium at Yankee Stadium, leading by example, and even becoming a hallmark of Yankee Stadium itself – almost as if his voice were now a physical part of the Stadium itself, rather than just the echoes of a man doing a job better than anyone else in the game.

In that respect, it may be fitting that Mr. Sheppard not follow the Yankees into their new ballpark. If he can’t live forever, then what better age for a Yankee legend to retire at than 98? Ninety-eight, as we all know, is indicative of year 1998 – the year World Civilization peaked, and the year that baseball saw the greatest team in its history go 125-50. Before Mr. Sheppard retires and merges with the Infinite, the Yankees need to give him a baseball number so they can retire it. I can’t think of a more appropriate number for this great legend than the number 98.

The new Yankee Stadium opened tonight with an exhibition game against the Cubs.  Presumably the Cubs were afforded this honor because of the storied rivalry between the two teams.  After all, the Yankees and Cubs battled in the 1932 and 1938 World Series, both won by the Yanks in four straight.  Come to think of it, the Cubs never won a game at the old Stadium, a record that will stand forever, since they are tearing it down.

At any rate, let us note a few firsts in the new stadium.  First run given up – Chien Ming Wong, who looked shakey.  First Yankee batter – Derek Jeter, as it should be.  First Yankee hit – Derek Jeter, a double leading off the game.  First Yankee strikeout – Mark Teixiera.  Bleh.  First Yankee home run – Robinson Cano, in the second inning.  First Yankee RBI – Robinson Cano.  His home run scored two.  First pitch – Reggie Jackson.  Reggie Jackson?  He wasn’t a pitcher.  But he’s a Yankee great and a friend of George’s.  Besides, Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Maris and Muson are dead, Mattingly is with the Dodgers, and Jeter and Rivera are still on the roster.  Of course, they could have brought in Whitey or Yogi, but the Yankee sense of history seems skewed of late.

How else can you explain the choice of Wang to open the new stadium tonight and Sabathia to pitch the home opener?  If the Yankees had a true sense of history, there was only one choice to start these games – Andy Pettitte.  Andy is a true Yankee.  He was part of the great class that came up at the end of 1995 – Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Sterling Hitchcock, and Andy.  These players formed the nucleus of the last great Yankee dynasty from 1996 through 2001 (Hitchcock was traded at the end of 1995 for Tino Martinez).

Andy was an essential part of that dynasty.  He was the constant in the starting rotation.  Cone, Wells, and El Duque may have had better individual season, but Andy was the steady number two guy year in and year out.  If George had not let him go at the end of 2003, the Yanks would have won the 2004 pennant.

Andy Pettitte is a true Yankee in the tradition of Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Mantle.  He should have been afforded the honor of opening the new stadium.  In the past, George Steinbrenner showed a strong understanding of Yankee history.  His sons blew this one.

But that aside, the team looks ready and the new stadium looks great.  Aside from the obnoxious ads that line the outfield fence, the new stadium looks remarkably like the old House That Ruth Built.  The Yankees have clearly taken great pains to duplicate the old stadium.  Hopefully they will christen her with a twenty seventh world championship.

The Yankees have announced that Derek Jeter will lead off this year, with Johnny Damon batting second.  The stated reason for the change is Damon’s performance in the two hole during Spring Training.  For much of the early Spring, Jorge Posada led off, presumably so he could get his at bats early in the game.  Damon was so effective batting second that he will hit there during the season.

Or so Girardi says.  The real reason may be more subtle.  The switch at the top indicates that, as predicted here for most of the Spring, Brett Gardner has won the starting job in center field.  Gardner is a left handed hitter and will bat ninth.  Damon is also a lefty, while Jeter bats right handed.  Jeter and Damon are switching spots so that the batting order will go LH-RH-LH when the 9-1-2 spots are up.  Batting two lefties back to back would weaken the lineup against left handed pitching, especially in the late innings.  The Okajimas of the world would give the opposition a decided advantage.  Switching Damon and Jeter will eliminate that problem.

The switch may also signal a change in Girardi’s thinking about the middle of the lineup.  From the day Teixiera signed, the Yankees have intimated that he will bat third and Arod will bat fourth.  Given Arod’s speed and Tex’s lack thereof, this configuation always seemed dubious.

But with Damon batting second, Arod can now move up to third in the order.  Tex can bat clean up (he is a switch hitter).  Therefore, 9-1-2-3-4 will run LH-RH-LH-RH-LH.  If the Yankees go this way, Posada (switch hitter) might bat 5th with Matsui (LH) 6th.  Plus Arod is unlikely to hit with his usual power when he first returns from the DL.  It will take time for him to get to full strength.  Until he is all the way back, Tex will be the main power threat, and hence, should bat clean up.

Of course, I may be giving Girardi too much credit.  Nothing to date indicates he is the second coming of Casey Stengel.  But no other explanation makes any sense.  Jeter is a great base runer, but Damon has better speed and is a greater threat to steal.  Plus Jeter has better bat control,  so Damon-Jeter at 1-2 would normally be automatic.  But with Gardner in the 9 hole, switching them makes sense.