Game 5

I missed the 19 inning epic as I didn't have my DVR set for a non Yes network game.

1-4 is not a good start especially when they are against Toronto and Boston so Sundays game is a little important or as important as the 6th game of the season can be.  I would rather not be 4 games back with another loss; Tanaka needs to out dual Buchholz.

The part of the year that has surprised me the most so far is how poor our defense has been.  JR Murphy has two passed balls and throws one into CF on a horrible throw allowing a run to score.  ARod drops a throw at first base and I could care less if he hasn't played there...catch the ball.  Later on ARod barely came off the base on a throw that I could see happening if you are not comfortable at where to be on the base to ensure you stay in contact if you can (probably could have if he stepped up on the base).  but even Tex didn't know what he was doing the other day.  Headley, who has a good reputation for defense has been bad so far this year and Garrett Jones allowed 3 runs to score on what was a bad play in RF and one where he looked really slow.

I hate our 2nd base situation as I mentioned in my first blog.  Petit looks decent on the turn, but he can't hit and doesn't seem like a gem at 2nd base.  The fact he is 30 doesn't show much upside either, but maybe he is a late bloomer?  Doubtful.  I also don;t like that our two middle infielders are Gregorius and Gregorio; too confusing.  My guess is Gregorio won't be on the squad too long.

Last year Beltran was one of the huge disappointments so the hope was he would get back to closer to teh back of his baseball card; but he is off to a bad start.  headley needs to get going as well especially when his defense is so poor.

All the above said, it is REALLY early and a 1-4 run will not be the worst run we have all year (most likely)

I will feel better if we win Sunday; not only because it is Boston and not only to save us from being down 4 games, but I hope Tanaka pitches well; I think he will.

Game 3

Overall, I was not that impressed with CC.  I know the results say the same thing, but I was more concerned that the velocity was 88 most of the day on his fastball.  I know it was cold (so let's not get too crazy yet) so he may be 2 or maybe even 3 off, but for him it is huge because his change was consistently at 83 and 5 MPH is not enough of a difference especially when he did not have his downward fade at the end of the pitch.  If he threw 91 then 83 is right in line (still needs more sink though).  CC's slider was his best pitch last night if you ask me.  He also was a little unlucky, but at the end of the day he didn't get the job done.  If CC can't get his velocity up he is going to need to adjust his grip on his change and slow the pitch up a few MPH.

ARod hit a HR as he jumped all over a high 88 MPH fastball and then later in the game couldn't catch up to a 95 MPH (was way behind).  I think the good fastballs will be hard for Alex unless he is sitting only on it and he sells out to catch up to it.  I was impressed that he went from 1st to 3rd on a "double" into LF by Beltran that was not right down the line.  ARod is not slow now, even if he is not fast either.  It was good to see and also allowed Beltran to get his double.

After this 2nd and 3rd nobody out situation, the Yanks ran into the key point in the game.  Down 4-0, tex ripped a line drive right at the 3rd baseman.  If you had a youngster next to you this was a classic teaching moment because Beltran "froze on a line drive" and this allowed him to get back to 2nd without being doubled off.  If he took one step toward 3rd and immediately tried to get back he would have been out.  It was a very good running play, but one that should happen more often.

The next hitter was Headley and he was ahead 3-0 in the count but ended up taking the 3-0 for a strike and then swinging through a hittable pitch (on the outer 1/3 of the plate) and then watching a good changeup for strike 3.  After Chris Young popped out we blew a huge chance in the game.

A couple of other points.

Toronto got a run after an infield hit then a seeing eye ground ball some how avoided Petit's glove at 2nd base and Beltran threw a one hopper that deflected off the runner and CC (who is the laziest pitcher and never covers first) wasn't backing up 3rd base.  First, CC needs to get his head out of his lazy rear and second, Headley blew the throw because I have no idea why he was on the left field side of 3rd base waiting for the throw. You have to make sure you're in front of the runner (infield side) when the throw is coming from RF and thus it won't/can't hit the runner.  Throws from CF are much trickier for a 3rd baseman but from RF he was in the wrong spot (this was not mentioned on the broadcast?)

Losing 2 of 3 at home to Toronto isn't good, but the weather and the first few games of the season is hard to get too anxious over.

Game 2!

Man, very rough weather to play in.  The worst baseball weather; windy, cool and wet.  But, it made for a very enjoyable game to watch.

Because of the weather, I don't want to take too much out of the game; but here goes.

1st inning - Ellsbury walked and then got picked off, but I thought it was a balk.  Clearly there was movement before the throw to first, but the umps missed it.  BTW, I thought the ump behind home plate did a great job; very consistent.  ARod K'd on a questionable pitch, but he might have been right and that was my only complaint...great job)

Pineda started out very well in full control even breaking out a beautiful 2 seamer that he turned over that moved into a righty.  It was such a strange pitch that Ken Singleton asked what it was.  It wasn't his change as it came in at 90 but it was a fastball he took a little off of.  But, that is something Pineda can do.  He has a good feel on how to pitch.  He cut a few into lefties, he threw a 4 seam fastball and then he threw his slider.  As the game went on his breaking stuff was just spinning (no break) and that caused him to use the changeup which he used masterfully getting two huge k's back to back keeping the Yankees in the game.  Because it was cold nobody was throwing high 90's, but Pineda was throwing mostly 91 and with guys on base sometimes less.

After a leadoff double by Tex (who batted righty against the righty knuckleballer) McCann did a poor job not moving the runner over.  Headley did what McCann needed to do (at the minimum), but now with 2 outs that didn't help much (although with a knuckleballer it does put more pressure on the catcher). Unfortunately, ARod K'd on the same pitch he took for ball 3.

In the 3^rd, the Jays had a chance to break it open again with 1 run in and 1st and 2nd nobody out but they decided not to bunt Reyes.  I think this was the turning point of the game.  A fast guy at the plate and a sac that moves two bases is so logical, but instead Reyes made an unproductive out and Pineda used his changeups to K Martin and Bautista.  That was the key to the game if you ask me...poor managing by Gibbons.

There was an odd play where Tex jumped for a ball and it deflected off of his glove (not Tex's fault) that I would have liked to see Drew catch.  He got a lot of glove on it but couldn’t line it up and it cost us a run because it would have been an easy DP.  Good pitching kept us in it.

In the 6th Gardner's speed saved at least one run with a nice running catch.

Chris Martin (he is 28 and has 16 innings in the majors with Colorado) came in to pitch the 7th for us and he did a really nice job.  He was impressive in that he worked both sides of the plate showing a nice cutter going into a lefty but also being able to run the fastball into righties.  I don’t remember seeing a breaking ball, but his control and movement were very good.

Headley made a nice heads up play getting into scoring position on a fly to LF by ARod, but we stranded him.

Betances came in for the 8th but his control was off walking two guys.  McCann made a terrible play trying to throw behind the runner for a few reasons.  The pitch was a bad one and I give McCann credit for picking it clean, but he was lucky he did pick it clean (a run would have scored if it got by him.  I assume he felt the runner would take too much of a lead, but he threw low to Tex (for the 2nd time and Tex didn't block the ball.  I write it that way because the previous low throw by McCann had Tex lift up his glove to scoop it and I thought Tex got a little lucky as his entire goal is to block the ball from going into RF and left the "5 hole" open but the ball came up so he was a little lucky.  This time he did the same thing and lifted the glove and the ball went under into RF for a run.  Tex always lifts his glove high to make it look spectacular and I wish he would just make the play (which I think he only does about average compared to others).  To be fair, Tex made a good scoop to end the game and did get another one earlier as well.

Into the bottom of the 8th down 3-1.  After a bloop leadoff double from Chris Young (who pinch hit for Didi), we mount our comeback with a line bullet single by Ellsbury (on base every time tonight) and then a HBP, a walk, another HBP and then Headley hit a soft line one hopper off the pitcher that went toward SS and somehow Reyes couldn’t corral it either and it went by him scoring 2 runs and giving us our first lead of the game (and the year).

Miller came in for the first save opportunity post the genius maker and in terrible conditions looked excellent.  His fastball was spotted perfectly and his sharp slurve was very effective with nobody getting a solid look or piece of it. Miller threw 10 pitches, 8 for strikes, got 1 K and the rest was clean!

That was enjoyable!

Opening Day!

Hello Yankee fans!  I hope this email/blog reaches you all safely

I will review the entire more in depth as we move forward but I do want to say while this team is flawed we have a better team than last year...and that team won 84 games, even if they probably should have been closer to .500.   I see many people picking the Yankee for last place in the division and I don't see that at all; the pitching and defense is too good.  Of course our offense will really struggle unless we get good performances from every question mark...and there are a lot.  I do see Beltran playing much better offensively, I think ARod will be a much better DH than we put out there last year and I would think Ellsbury should be a little better.   I feel that Headley will give us solid 3rd base production (probably around .760 OPS) and McCann will at least do what he did last year (considering it was his worst year in the majors at a .692 OPS) and I could see an increase in his production as well.  These are all pluses so far.  I hate our 2nd base situation, but it is virtually impossible for Drew to be worse than last year...right?  We lose a lot oat 2nd though as Prado  did well when he came over.  Gregorius may not hit like Jeter, but honestly I would be disappointed if he didn't.  Last year Didi had an OPS of .653, Jeter had an OPS of .617.  Defensively he is a big upgrade over Jeter and that should be an overall plus.  That leaves us with Tex.  His "stubborness" gives me no reason to see a big uptick, but if you look at his career, at 34 he should not be done.  His OPS was .807 in 2012 and 2013 he barely played and was injured so I won't count that.  Last year he had an OPS of .711.  He shouldn't be much worse than that and could be better.  Gardner, should give us an OPS around .750 with some SB help.  I don't know what happened to the guy who averaged 48 SB's with only being caught 11 times on 2010 and 2011, but he still is a positive on the bases stealing 21 and being caught 5 times last year, so that adds to his OPS.

So the weak offense should be better this year IMO.

Our pitching could be very good.  We will miss the genius Maker coming out of the pen (and no I won't change the blog name...at least for awhile), but we have a lot of arms and the best starting team we have had in some time.  of course, we need to stay healthy but that is very hard to predict.   I don't understand all this talk about Tanaka though and his velocity may be down?  Not sure what that is about, but his control was not great today and I didn't think his breaking pitches were sharp.

Let's use that to transition into the game...

Like I said before, I didn't see Tanaka being sharp with his command.  His pitches were inconsistent and then the game got out of hand when he walked the number 9 hitter with nobody out and a guy on first base (being held there by an excellent play by Gardner.  When Reyes came up with 1st and 2nd and nobody out it was an obvious bunt situation but the Yankees were not smooth on their defense as Headley (while playing in) didn't charge immediately or at full throttle and Tanaka almost got to it screening Headley and he threw a little wide of 1st for an error.  This opened up the flood gates , especially after Tanaka through the wrong pitch in a bad location to Encarcion.  Going back to the wild throw by Headley...I think Tex made a terrible play and should have at the minimum knocked the ball down and with a very good play could have scooped it for an out.  his problem was he missed teh base when he went to the bag and actually had his right foot on the bag instead of against it and then never strode/stretched toward the throw.  it was as if he stretched to soon and therefore could not move for the ball.  In actuality he just fell over and did a very poor job.

The only other comments on this bad start to the year were that ARod looked good at the plate and what the heck was Didi thinking in the 8th inning with 2 guys on and 2 outs getting caught stealing 3rd base?  I have no idea if Girardi had any comments in the post game, but if there was ever a don;t steal sign, this was it.  It was a horrible play and what made it worse was it was right after a pitching change so we had time to discuss any strategy.  FWIW, it was not a double steal (runner on 1st didn't go) so I would assume Didi went on his own.  Ugh.!

Considering Toronto is the team most people think will win the division, it would be good to start out the year taking them, but it is a long year as we know.

If we can stay in the race, we could add a 2nd baseman to help us later in the year...or maybe Drew can actually recreate his career .747 OPS.   For me, I am interested in a lot of the pitchers and also to see if Didi can develop into a .700+ OPS guy with excellent defense and I am intrigued to see how ARod does (I am not a hater like most).  Headley also seems like a good guy so I am glad he is on the team.  Oh, one last thing, it was good to see McCann try and bunt when the heavy shift was on.  The next time up they brought the shift back some and on the pitch they moved toward third so it is important to do that and he will get some easy hits that way (ARE YOU WATCHING TEX!)

Jeter...RE2PECT

Very worthy tribute by Nike to Jeter. 


http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/24620379/fans-athletes-celebrities-pay-tribute-to-derek-jeter-in-awesome-new-ad

The Genius Maker 7-12-14

I am am finally in my new home and getting settled in so the last few days I have watched a little more of the Yankees.  Outside of being too busy to watch and post in depth, this Yankee team isn't all that exciting and the moves the Yankees have made have not been very good.  That being said, I felt that today's game was an important one if the Yankees have any hope.  They really need to win the division games.  Of course, even if we can somehow win the division, the A's, Detroit and Angels are far more talented.  This is not a reason to stop trying, but it is a reason to not mortgage ANY future for present deals.

As for today's game.  I was annoyed when Jeter got thrown out early in the game when he was on 1st and 2 outs and Tex doubled.  Jeter running to 2nd turned and watched to see if the ball was fair and ended up just barely getting thrown out at home to end the inning.  He also fixed his helmet while running which might have slowed him a tiny bit as well.  But, why isn't he just off with 2 strikes, why stop and watch the ball?  That is very poor on his part.

Ichiro came up with 1st and 2nd and nobody out; if the game is close he should be bunting almost every time in that spot; not sure why he isn't?

As stated numerous times our infield defense is atrocious; Jeter didn't make a play last night that cost us that game and today Johnson made a terrible play that didn't cost us.  tex isn't even playing as well as normal at first base.

It is pretty clear that since year 1 of Girardi's hiring of our terrible 3rd base coach I have been all over him, but today we had two guys thrown out at home (I had no issue sending Jeter, but sending Ellsbury was absurd) and we lead the league with 16 guys thrown out at home this year...16!  Robby Thompson is a terrible 3rd base coach and Girardi should be fired for keeping him all these years; seriously.

I would also can our conditioning coach...whatever we are doing isn't working; crazy how many injuries again , especially with the pitching staff.  Not sure who is to blame, but the fact that it has been going one for a few years is enough of a trend for me.

On a positive note, Green looked great today and has been good in his 3 major league starts.  he didn't start the year well, but he has good command of a curve and a very good slider against righties and a fastball that he can turn over to sink at 92-94 and he can throw a 4 seamer when he wants to throw a little harder.  very impressive; hopefully he can stay sharp.

I won't be able to write as often but I will pop in from time to time.  Hope everyone is enjoying their summer!

The Yankees and Pineda should have been much smarter about using pine tar or whatever substance Pineda wanted to use.  Even the coach of Boston said before the game I would hope he is more discreet about it.  After what happened last time with the same team, it was just stupid to do what they did.  The announcers (which I normally don't normally hear too much of the way I watch) were spot on in their comments.  It makes sense to have a legal substance for all pitchers to have grip.  They have a rosin bag for a reason when it is hot, so why not something that helps when it is cold?  Most pitchers do something in the cold to help with grip, but Pineda and the Yankees were just thumbing their noses at the rules and doing so against the same team they just had an issue with...

As for the game, I was disappointed that Lackey looked very good.  His slider was very good as usual, but he had great run on his fastball and was spotting pitches well.  Pineda was not as bad as it looked but credit Boston hitters for good AB's.  After Pineda started out throwing a consistent 93 in his early starts he has been consistently at 91 of late but getting it up there at 93 when he wanted a little more.  He has good movement though and his off speed pitches move as well.  I would like his changeup a little slower, but I like the way the Yankee pitchers are taking something off their fastballs at times and then bringing it harder when needed.  Tanaka did a great job of that the other night having a range of 91-95 on his fastball and it looked to me that there was a great plan of when to mix it up.  Of course, his breaking ball and fork ball were excellent and I was thrilled to see that.  I thought he was the great the other night!

Nova probably getting Tommy John surgery is a big blow; it is amazing how a guy is throwing and then shakes his arm and the next thing you know he needs Tommy John surgery. I shake my arm like that after every throw when I play softball...

A few other comments:

Jeter's defense has really been ugly.  He hurt Nova by messing up a fairly easy play up the middle on a ball that did have a lot of spin but he should have fielded the ball very close to the last hop to avoid the spin. In fact, on that play his first step was toward 3rd which made it even worse.   Then later on a routine grounder he threw it in the dirt and Tex couldn't scoop it.  Tex has played very poorly in the field this year as well.  In fact the Yankee defense has been pretty poor.  Even Gardner struggled yesterday in RF, but that does take some getting used to as the spin goes the opposite way and Gardner misjudged the ball down the line; even if he was afraid of the wall; he should have gone full speed and slid.

A bunch of nights ago, Ichiro was thrown out stealing on a play he beat the throw but ended up being tagged out because he has to have the worst slide of any very good base stealer in the history of the game.  He literally digs his front foot into the ground and it slows him up a lot, let alone the possible injury risk if he digs in too hard.  Next time you watch him steal, you will see a player that slows himself up sliding more than any player I have ever seen.  It is amazing he has stolen 473 bases with a success rate of 82%; if he knew how to slide I bet it would be closer to 90%.  That being said, he has played far better than we could have hoped so far and I hope he keeps it up (I doubt it though).  The crazy thing is he is hitting lefties at a .915 OPS and righties at .722.

McCann has started to go the other way with some power and that is very good to see.  I like that he is adjusting to the shift...take note Mark Teixeira!  I hate that mark says that he would not consider laying down a bunt or going away from his strength; I think it is absurd.  It doesn't mean he should change his entire approach, but what it means is if you get a fastball out over the plate or you wait on an outside breaking pitch you can serve it into LF and take a hit.  or lay a bunt down once in awhile and take the easy base?  The fact Tex has 1 extra base hit and has a pathetic .555 OPS makes you wonder why he is being so stubborn?  He will hit better regardless if he listens to me, but why not maximize your chances?

Kelly Johnson has done a nice job at the plate for us getting some power and being able to hit both ways so far (a little better against righties).

I am not sure how much longer we will keep the Brian Roberts experiment going?  He should not be playing against righties as I thought he was going to platoon with Johnson when we got him...that probably should still happen.  Of course, that is assuming Solarte can keep it up.  I can't get a good read on Solarte because he is such a free swinger.  Usually, that will lead to lower OPS based on not walking and getting himself out too much, but he has shown a good ability to make contact.  He appears to be much better from the left side of the plate than the right as his swing is quicker to the ball.  I just looked up his numbers and Solarte has an OPS of 1.076 against righties and .577 against lefties; I didn't realize there was such a large discrepancy, but I do like his swing and approach from the left side a lot more.

Scott Sizemore will probably platoon against lefties as he looks good so far.  I think he has had some tough AB's, meaning the pitchers have made good pitches against him and so far in only 8 AB's against lefties he has 4 hits (2 doubles).

Let's get this last game against Boston!

Before I get into last night's game and then a more thorough view of the team to date, I was looking through this site and down the right side of the page.  I was looking at my archive of posts and noticed that if I were a ball player the trend would be that peaked in 2010.  My posts started low in 08 and then increased to 29 in 09 until my peak of 2010 where I had 156 and then down hill to 111, 91 and only 40 last year. The way this year started and I am in the process of moving (only around the corner), I may need to work to get to 40...hopefully I can have a bounce back year!

Last night's game (Sunday):  Nuno did a nice job stepping in and mixing things up and seemed more comfortable starting than in relief where he might not "pitch" as much as throw strikes.  His stuff is not great, but yesterday he did the job for us.  In a 1-0 game I was surprised Girardi took Phelps out after only 1.1 innings and he had just struck out Myers to lead off the inning?   He wanted Thornton to face a lefty (Loney),  but when your starter is out after 5 you need to get some length out of someone who is looking decent.  Unless it is a key situation you should not be matching up so much in a tight game with 8 more outs to go; because it could be a lot more outs and in this case it was as it went into extra innings.

Speaking the obvious, our defense in the infield is pretty bad.  The one guy you expected to be your best, Tex, has been bad with 3 errors in limited time.  Even Dean Anna, who has been very good defensively blew one yesterday.  Roberts, who has been awful at the plate and weak defensively, had a poor call error against him as he clearly caught the ball on the attempted DP and then moved the ball toward his throwing hand and lost the ball in the exchange.  I am not sure why Girardi didn't review it as I thought it was clear?  It ended up costing us as we would have been out of the inning with no damage, but instead they tied the score.

Staying on defense; Jeter's lack of range has been extremely evident all year as many times I was very surprised he didn't get to a ball.  In this same 7th inning a rocket was hit to his right (in the hole) and Jeter was only able to dive similar to what a 3rd baseman would do on a rocket shot, but if Jeter could have taken a half or a full step he would have made the play.  I looked at the play in slow mo and other player did take a step; the reaction is just not there for Jeter.

I am glad to see Girardi not be afraid of taking Jeter out and in this game he took Jeter out after a leadoff single in the 11th to use Ichiro as a pinch runner.  It didn't work as Ichiro got thrown out and then Anna ended up batting in a key spot (not the way you would draw it up), but Anna did come through with the key AB in the game working a walk in a good 8 pitch AB where Anna was down 1-2 before working the count back and fouling off pitches before he held up on a breaking ball away.  This forced in the go ahead run after Maddon intentionally walked Ellsbury to load up the bases.  Maddon is not afraid to go the unorthodox way and I think he is an excellent manager.  I think he turned the game around in this series when the Yanks were up 4-0 and had a threat going when Jeter stepped to the plate in the 4th inning.  He decided to make a move early because this was the one opportunity to try and stop the bleeding and keep the game in check.  He yanked his pitcher early and brought in a righty to face Jeter...he got Jeter out and then Tampa came back and ended up blowing us out.  That was a key point in the game and Maddon knew it.

Two quick things and I will go through the players later tonight.  I hope Nova will be fine.  His stuff is good, but he just needs to get it under control as he hung far too many pitches, but give Tampa credit as they took advantage when he made a mistake.  I am very interested to see Pineda pitch again.  His first game I commented on him throwing a consistent 93 and getting up to 95.  This last outing he started about the same and then the rest of the game he was at 90.  I am not sure if anyone else said anything as he was very effective, but it was clear his velocity dropped a lot.  he was getting a lot of movement and that is probably better, but still showing the 93+ MPH makes the other pitches that much better.  He has done a great job of throwing strikes, walking only 3 batters in 18 innings.  I am interested to see how his velocity is though...it is possible the cold weather does impact this, but when he started at one speed and then it changed a lot I have concerns.  Like I said though, he can still be effective changing speeds, having good movement and hitting spots without walking many guys; and he has done that so far.

Hey, we are in 1st place!

I watched game 5 and I thought Pineda looked pretty good.  His slider was clearly very good and his fastball was a consistent 93, but my hope is that fastball becomes a consistent 94+.  I liked that he is not walking many batters.

One item I wanted to discuss in the earlier games was when McCann got hit on a foul tip off his hand. I have had an issue about this for some time and after Cervelli went out last year (much after I already complained about a bunch of times) you would think the Yanks would be all over this?  Well McCann still was leaving his hand out in the open in that game.  However, since then he seems to be hiding it a lot more and that is a good thing.  It will not impact anything as you can take the hand out if you need to if a guy is running or even take chances in times like that, but with nobody on you surely can hide your bare hand...Hopefully we will see all the catchers do this.

In the 3rd inning there was a play at the plate and Cervelli was called out when the catcher was blocking home plate without the ball. As it turned out the umps reviewed the play and upheld the call.  Kay thinks it will be a big issue but I think it is the right thing that they are trying to do.  Of course, being an ex catcher I have a bias, but I never understood how a runner could just plow a catcher over even if the catcher was giving him the plate.  I once got hit by a linebacker running full speed and he came up with forearm to my lip and I literally went flying a good 5 feet (explains a lot).  They also were saying the catcher had to go get the ball and that is why he drifted to block the plate.  I do not agree with that at all, he didn't have to drift, he did what catchers always had done which was position himself to catch the ball and block the plate.  He could have just drifted over in front of the plate instead of drifting back and over to block the plate?  I have no idea how Kay harped on the wrong thing?  Of course, the other part that Singleton did mention was that I thought Cervelli was simply touching the plate before he was tagged and I don't know hwy Girardi didn't challenge that as he was safe.

the Yankees offense was just baffled by the knuckle baller today.  I skimmed a lot of the AB's so I do not have enough opinion on the hitting strategy today, but it clearly didn't work.  Without Tex the lineup is toothless.  They will need to win with pitching because their IF defense is not strong.  In fact, the first AB of the game Melky grounded a routine ball to Jeter who stayed back on the ball and then didn't have the arm strength to throw Melky out and bounced the throw and Melky just barely beat it out.  It was a terrible play by Jeter and I don't know how Melky got a hit when the fielder stayed back on the ball and then threw in the dirt even though it was picked.  It was an error and a play that should be made at least 90% of the time.

BTW, look at the previous blog regarding the first 4 games

Hello Yankee fans; yes I am still doing this! 

Let me get right to some predictions. 

I get the feeling CC will struggle opening day followed by a decent performance by Kuroda who will surprisingly have Mark Teixeira (our only good infield defender) fail him as Tex will fail the other pitchers as well, in the first few games.  The Yanks will lose the first two games before rebounding to equal their record after 4

Seriously, my comments through the 1^st four games…This was written BEFORE game 5

I was glad to see the Yankees keep Dean Anna and Solarte for a few reasons.   I had written this about Anna in December, “may platoon with lefty Dean Anna (27) who is a guy the Yanks picked up as part of a trade with SD who couldn’t keep him on their 40 man roster.  This is a deal that could be an excellent one.  He had very good stats in the minors last year (.929 OPS against righties but in the hitting friendly Pacific Coast League), however, he has been a career minor leaguer.  I have no idea about his defense, but this deal is one that appears to be a good one.”  He is a guy who gives us flexibility and I did like that he played SS in game 4 so he can support the infield in many places.  If he can give us an 800+ OPS against righties I think he will be playing 2^nd base a lot for us.  Anna, seems to have a good eye at the plate and I like high OBP guys.  Solarte was hot in the minors and I would rather give him a shot than Nunez who, as you know, I was never a fan of his defense.  It is early but Solarte has been our best player so far so let’s ride it out!

Game 1:  As I wrote earlier, CC didn’t look any different than last year as his command is not where it needs to be.  He needs to be spotting his pitches far better.  We were sleep walking at the bat most of that game. There was very poor defense as well.  McCann threw one away, but the ump was in the way.  tex was bad as well.

Game 2:  Kuroda did look pretty good but our defense didn’t help again and our bats were pretty silent again.  Kuroda won’t pitch to the same ERA as last year but he will be good; in fact, I am very excited about our starters and want to watch Pineda pitch because if he pitches well our starting staff is as good as almost anyone’s; CC may be our weakest pitcher.  I am very hopeful about Pineda and was one of teh few people in favor of the trade to get him and trade away Montero.

Game 3: Nova’s stuff looked good, but he had poor command with 5 walks (4 too many), but got through with the help of double plays.  We got just enough hitting to take our first game of the year.  Solarte did the heavy lifting for us and Robertson did his job.  Probably the most popular question I received in the off season was about Robertson and how he would do.  I don’t expect him to be Rivera, but his stuff is good enough where he shouldn’t be an issue.  He will blow 3-6 saves which is in line; hopefully it is close to the lower end. I am more worried about our infield defense and now Tex being out as he is important to our power of the team.   I do hate that Tex refuses to go the other way with the shift, even if it is to lay down a bunt.  I find the arrogance/stubbornness to be self-defeating.

Game 4:  I liked what I saw from Tanaka.  I was very interested in watching him and I liked that he was consistently at 93, and showed a good slider and a solid splitter and very good control.  I love the fact he doesn’t walk many batters (the same reason why I like high OBP guys on the offensive side).  It was a little uncomfortable to see the first batter of his Yankee career go deep on him, but it was a hanging split and Melky jumped on it.  The next inning Tex blew it by not taking the out at 1^st, but after that Tanaka was sharp and honestly could have easily pitched the 8^th inning as he had retired the last 12 batters he faced.  He had thrown 97 pitches, but he was in complete control and he is used to throwing complete games.  It was game 1 but I would have let him go until a batter got on.  Ellsbury and Solarte had great games and Robertson did his job; 2 for 2, even if this one was not a save.  I have to say that Girardi really ticked me off.  Why in the world would he leave Betances in to start the 9^th just because we scored another run to make it a 4 run lead and not a save situation?  I mean it is absurd that he manages differently because of the save rule.  I honestly believe he would manage the 9^th inning differently if they changed the save rule; which makes no sense to me.  Tex commits 3 mistakes in 4 games (I think he only got 2 errors as the throw home was a fielder’s choice), and now pulls his hammy again.  This really stinks as he needs to be at least solid for us.  If he is out for a long time, I wonder if we can try Soriano over there?  They did move Kelly Johnson to 1^st and he made a nice diving stop.  Without Tex our offense may be very weak...of course that assumed Tex would be hitting well.

One other comment was when Ichiro was up against a touch lefty, with a runner on 3^rd and one out with the score 5-3 in the 7^th inning, it was a perfect opportunity to squeeze bunt.  Ichiro is not a good sac fly guy, he is also a good bunter so why not do it then?  Girardi refuses to EVER try a squeeze; I honestly don’t believe he has tried it yet, if anyone can refute that please do.  I would bet it didn’t happen more than once in his managerial career with us. 

Instant replay was very helpful for us as changing the call at first base allowed us to get 2 runs we would not have had.  I like it in baseball as the game is not bound by time like other sports.  Also, momentum is not as big a deal as other sports as well.

I will update the Pineda game after I watch it