Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Bright Lights, Big City
The Yankees edition of home run derby last night, a display that in franchise history has only been matched by possibly the greatest team of all-time (the 1939 outfit), was just another reminder of how wild this roller-coaster ride has been. Volatility has been the name of the game for the stock market this summer, and the baseball team in the Bronx has followed suit.
Things may be shifting, however, as the Yankees are showing a glimpse of the kind of consistency they’ve been looking for all season. One thing can be said, the Yankees have been consistently winning at home for one month now. If they can hold onto a 6-1, 6th inning lead tonight, they will move to 12-4 at Yankee Stadium since Monday, July 2. In addition to that, they are now consistently scoring a ton of runs at home. In their last five home games, including 2/3 of tonight’s game, New York has scored a staggering total of 68 runs.
Obviously, they’re not going to be able to keep this pace up for the final two months of the season; the offensive onslaught of July, which has carried over into the first night of August, was the major reason New York was a MLB-best 19-9 this past month. So, tonight I’m wondering: what about the pitching?
While the Yankees were clearly the best offensive team in the sport in July, their pitching left something to be desired. Some A.L. rankings for July:
ERA
1. Toronto 3.40
2. Boston 3.66
3. Texas 3.95
4. Baltimore 4.13
5. Minnesota 4.15
6. New York 4.16
BAA
1. Baltimore .241
2. Boston .246
3. Toronto .253
4. Minnesota .255
5. Seattle .262
The Yankees were 10th in the AL at .278
OPS
1. Boston .692
2. Toronto .700
3. Texas .721
4. Cleveland .729
5. Baltimore .732
The Yankees were 9th in the AL with a .753 OPS against.
K/9
1. Baltimore 7.76
2. LA Angles 7.56
3. Tampa Bay 7.18
4. Detroit 7.07
5. Boston 6.96
The Yankees were 7th at 6.72.
The Yankees’ pitching, in their best month of the season, was on the fringe of being decent, but not much more than that.
In terms of comparison to the first three months of the season, the numbers were in-line to what the Yankees did from April-June
BAA
April: .263
May: .258
June: .271
July: .278
OBP
April: .349
May: .330
June: .344
July: .337
SLG
April: .426
May: .425
June: .390
July: .416
If the Yankees are going to score 10 runs/night at home like they’ve been doing lately, and 6 runs/night on the road, then it doesn’t matter who you’re throwing out there on the mound. Of course, there will be an offensive cool-down at some point, whether it’s next week in Toronto, or the following weekend in Cleveland. And it will likely last longer than the three days like last week.
At some point, the pitchers are going to have to bear a bigger share of the burden of getting this team to the post-season. And it goes without saying that if they do get to the post-season, they’re going to have to pitch better than a .278 batting average-against.
The first steps in upgrading the pitching staff have already begun. Kei Igawa has been shipped to Siberia, or some other such location where we don’t have to think about him again until Spring Training 2008. Phil Hughes, fresh off a final and dominating rehab start in Scranton, will start Saturday against Kansas City. It will mark the first time this year, the Yankees have been able to string together their desired starting rotation together for one complete cycle: Mussina – Pettitte – Clemens – Wang – Hughes.
There will be much asked of Hughes, but that comes with the territory of being the best pitching prospect in baseball. However, the Yankees need more from the starting staff on the whole than what was delivered in July.
Mike Mussina threw 28.1 innings over five starts, giving up 35 hits, and pitched to a 5.08 ERA. For all the abuse that’s been heaped on Mussina this year by Yankee fans (yours truly included), Andy Pettitte was even worse than Moose over the past month. Much worse:
Six starts, 32.1 IP, 48 H, 6.96 ERA. Ouch.
Overall Yankee starters threw to a 4.78 ERA in July, giving up 190 hits in 165.1 innings of work.
They’re unlikely to get away with another sub-par month from their starters like the last one. Fortunately, the team had one of the great offensive months in the history of the franchise to compensate. As good as this offense should be on a night-in, night-out basis, you can’t keep asking for half-a-dozen home runs every night.
The bullpen is another story . . . Although they’ve stabilized (for now) the 8th inning spot with the emergence and resurgence of Luis Vizcaino, the bullpen remains a rickety, rollicking ride into god-knows-where on a nightly basis. Some of the peripherals of the bullpen were o.k. in July. As an example, the .323 OBA they posted is better than league average by a bit. But they still gave up too many home runs (10), and they still don’t strike out enough batters; they remain dead last in K/9 among bullpens in the American League.
There are two resources the Yankees have at their disposal to address the last point. Their names are Joba Chamberlain (13.5 K/9 in the minors) and Edwar Ramirez (16.3 K/9). Will it work bringing these kids into a playoff race atmosphere? Will Torre let them languish on the bench for weeks on end, as he did with Ramirez during his first call-up in July? Is it the right decision moving Chamberlain from the starting rotation to the bullpen so abruptly, and then thrusting him into the Yankee Stadium lights?
No one knows for sure, but I for one am eager to see what happens. It is a very un-Yankee-like move to be passive at the trade deadline and then turn their fortunes over to young pitchers that they’ve been grooming in their farm system. It’s hard to imagine them being much worse than what Kyle Farnsworth has been doing all season, and what Scott Proctor had been doing over the past few weeks.
The pieces are starting to fall into place for not only a great playoff push, but with the potential impact of Hughes and the restructuring of the Pen, this could turn into a team that is more postseason-ready then they’ve been in several years.
The Yankees edition of home run derby last night, a display that in franchise history has only been matched by possibly the greatest team of all-time (the 1939 outfit), was just another reminder of how wild this roller-coaster ride has been. Volatility has been the name of the game for the stock market this summer, and the baseball team in the Bronx has followed suit.
Things may be shifting, however, as the Yankees are showing a glimpse of the kind of consistency they’ve been looking for all season. One thing can be said, the Yankees have been consistently winning at home for one month now. If they can hold onto a 6-1, 6th inning lead tonight, they will move to 12-4 at Yankee Stadium since Monday, July 2. In addition to that, they are now consistently scoring a ton of runs at home. In their last five home games, including 2/3 of tonight’s game, New York has scored a staggering total of 68 runs.
Obviously, they’re not going to be able to keep this pace up for the final two months of the season; the offensive onslaught of July, which has carried over into the first night of August, was the major reason New York was a MLB-best 19-9 this past month. So, tonight I’m wondering: what about the pitching?
While the Yankees were clearly the best offensive team in the sport in July, their pitching left something to be desired. Some A.L. rankings for July:
ERA
1. Toronto 3.40
2. Boston 3.66
3. Texas 3.95
4. Baltimore 4.13
5. Minnesota 4.15
6. New York 4.16
BAA
1. Baltimore .241
2. Boston .246
3. Toronto .253
4. Minnesota .255
5. Seattle .262
The Yankees were 10th in the AL at .278
OPS
1. Boston .692
2. Toronto .700
3. Texas .721
4. Cleveland .729
5. Baltimore .732
The Yankees were 9th in the AL with a .753 OPS against.
K/9
1. Baltimore 7.76
2. LA Angles 7.56
3. Tampa Bay 7.18
4. Detroit 7.07
5. Boston 6.96
The Yankees were 7th at 6.72.
The Yankees’ pitching, in their best month of the season, was on the fringe of being decent, but not much more than that.
In terms of comparison to the first three months of the season, the numbers were in-line to what the Yankees did from April-June
BAA
April: .263
May: .258
June: .271
July: .278
OBP
April: .349
May: .330
June: .344
July: .337
SLG
April: .426
May: .425
June: .390
July: .416
If the Yankees are going to score 10 runs/night at home like they’ve been doing lately, and 6 runs/night on the road, then it doesn’t matter who you’re throwing out there on the mound. Of course, there will be an offensive cool-down at some point, whether it’s next week in Toronto, or the following weekend in Cleveland. And it will likely last longer than the three days like last week.
At some point, the pitchers are going to have to bear a bigger share of the burden of getting this team to the post-season. And it goes without saying that if they do get to the post-season, they’re going to have to pitch better than a .278 batting average-against.
The first steps in upgrading the pitching staff have already begun. Kei Igawa has been shipped to Siberia, or some other such location where we don’t have to think about him again until Spring Training 2008. Phil Hughes, fresh off a final and dominating rehab start in Scranton, will start Saturday against Kansas City. It will mark the first time this year, the Yankees have been able to string together their desired starting rotation together for one complete cycle: Mussina – Pettitte – Clemens – Wang – Hughes.
There will be much asked of Hughes, but that comes with the territory of being the best pitching prospect in baseball. However, the Yankees need more from the starting staff on the whole than what was delivered in July.
Mike Mussina threw 28.1 innings over five starts, giving up 35 hits, and pitched to a 5.08 ERA. For all the abuse that’s been heaped on Mussina this year by Yankee fans (yours truly included), Andy Pettitte was even worse than Moose over the past month. Much worse:
Six starts, 32.1 IP, 48 H, 6.96 ERA. Ouch.
Overall Yankee starters threw to a 4.78 ERA in July, giving up 190 hits in 165.1 innings of work.
They’re unlikely to get away with another sub-par month from their starters like the last one. Fortunately, the team had one of the great offensive months in the history of the franchise to compensate. As good as this offense should be on a night-in, night-out basis, you can’t keep asking for half-a-dozen home runs every night.
The bullpen is another story . . . Although they’ve stabilized (for now) the 8th inning spot with the emergence and resurgence of Luis Vizcaino, the bullpen remains a rickety, rollicking ride into god-knows-where on a nightly basis. Some of the peripherals of the bullpen were o.k. in July. As an example, the .323 OBA they posted is better than league average by a bit. But they still gave up too many home runs (10), and they still don’t strike out enough batters; they remain dead last in K/9 among bullpens in the American League.
There are two resources the Yankees have at their disposal to address the last point. Their names are Joba Chamberlain (13.5 K/9 in the minors) and Edwar Ramirez (16.3 K/9). Will it work bringing these kids into a playoff race atmosphere? Will Torre let them languish on the bench for weeks on end, as he did with Ramirez during his first call-up in July? Is it the right decision moving Chamberlain from the starting rotation to the bullpen so abruptly, and then thrusting him into the Yankee Stadium lights?
No one knows for sure, but I for one am eager to see what happens. It is a very un-Yankee-like move to be passive at the trade deadline and then turn their fortunes over to young pitchers that they’ve been grooming in their farm system. It’s hard to imagine them being much worse than what Kyle Farnsworth has been doing all season, and what Scott Proctor had been doing over the past few weeks.
The pieces are starting to fall into place for not only a great playoff push, but with the potential impact of Hughes and the restructuring of the Pen, this could turn into a team that is more postseason-ready then they’ve been in several years.
