Sunday, May 13, 2012

The Genius Maker 5-12

Seattle has a pretty weak hitting team, but we took care of business and got a big 3 run dinger from Ibanez for half the scoring.  But the play that drove me crazy was once again Robby Thompson gets a runner thrown out at home with nobody out!!!  It shouldn't happen more than once a year, twice at the tops if he does everything else perfectly.  There is really no excuse.  The announcers also missed the point as they analyzed how ARod slowed up before touching 3rd and that little hesitation caused him from being safe.  While that was true, ARod who has excellent instincts slowed down (just for a split second) thinking he should not be sent but at that moment Robby Thompson who was well down the 3rd base lien had not started moving his arm waving him home yet.  So Thompson hadn't mind his mind up yet to send him until after (or it could have been simultaneous) and then waved him around.  When in doubt YOU DO NOT SEND THE RUNNER!!!  This was a 1-1 game at the time (4th inning) and we had bases loaded with nobody out against Felix Hernandez.  Instead we had 1st and 2nd with one out as the runners didn't even move up on the throw.  Then Swisher and Ibanez didn't get the job done, but ths swas yet another horrible (and late) decision by Robby Thompson.

The Yanks won the game as it turned out but Thompson just fails to get "it."

After letting up a leadoff HR, Kuroda did a nice job of working in his pitches and only allowed another solo HR.  Rapada, Cory Wade and Logan handed the ball with only 2 outs to go to Robertson who closed it out.

Rapada has allowed a .593 OPS against lefties so far so he has done his job.

Wade, of his part, has been outstanding so far this year limiting the almost 60 batters he has faced to an OPS of only .487!  Last year, Wade was better against righties (.540 OPS) than lefties (.730 OPS0 and still should be used that way as a match-up, but he has gotten lefties out this year too.

Saturday's game

Same team same result, a 6-2 win.  Hughes made a lot of mistakes missing spots, but the poor Seattle offense did not take advantage of some of those mistakes.  His stuff started out strong with a 94-95 MPH fastball but he dropped down to 92 after the 2nd inning and that concerned me.  I was hoping to see him throw hard at a key time later as maybe he was saving it but that never happened.  His curve was very effective and he mixed in his slider to mix up the speeds on his breaking pitches.  He threw some change-ups but he was missing his spots with them and in fact hung a few for taken strikes.

The key part of the game was with 2 outs and a man on 2nd, our sluggers row of Ibanez, Martin and Nix came through with a double, double and HR respectively.

Ibanez is now slugging great and I hope he can keep up 85% of what he has done as he now has an OPS of .921.  The short porch has been kind to him and he has had some big early hits.

Martin has made an adjustment in his swing similar to Jeter to keep him back and hopefully he can get going at least reasonably productive

Nix is now 29 and has never hit well in the majors (career .646 OPS) and had an anemic .554 last year with Toronto so it is hard to hope for anything more than mediocrity at the plate, but he supposedly plays good defense and can play everywhere, but doesn't play much at CF or SS (even though he played there for us last night).  Not sure he is a good solution, but maybe Kevin Long can do some magic with him as he runs well and was a former 1st round pick (44th overall in 2001).

Pettitte will pitch today and I am sure we are all excited to see him, but I would have let Phelps get another start and allow Andy to build up a little more.  I honestly think they wanted Andy to have some success and at home for his first game which is why they are starting him against a weak hitting Seattle team...in the Bronx.  Phelps stuff kind of reminds me of a raw/young Kuroda.  In 2010, Andy pitched as well as ever, but if he can give us what he did on 2009, I would be happy, a low 4 ERA.  I am not expecting much so I hope I am pleasantly surprised.

No comments:

Post a Comment