Cliff Lee pitches complete game as Mariners spank Yanks

Cliff Lee wasn't in vintage form, but was still dominant. He pitched a complete game, allowing only 9 base runners. The Yankees managed 4 runs against the lefty (only 3 of them earned) but it wasn't enough to offset the damage of Phil Hughes' bad night. Coming back from his skipped start Hughes allowed 7 runs (6 earned) in only 5.2 innings of work. He left the Yankees in a 7-1 hole that the team didn't have enough to overcome.

Yankee fans knew it was going to be a rough night hitting against Cliff Lee. The guy's unhittable. Coming into the game he led the A.L. in ERA with a 2.39 mark and all of baseball in WHIP with a 0.92. Most impressive, Lee had allowed only 4 walks and 3 homers in 86.2 innings of work.

Surprisingly, Lee actually gave the Yankees their chances. He didn't have his best stuff in the game. He allowed two home runs to Nick Swisher (oh yeah!) and walked Jorge Posada. Those occurrences may seem pedestrian, but against Lee they're exceedingly rare and serve as evidence that he wasn't as dominant as he could have been.

Unfortunately, Phil Hughes was atrocious. He allowed one of baseball's worst hitting teams to score runs in each inning he pitched except the first. Although he managed to give the Yankees length, and left after having thrown only 94 pitches through 5.2 innings, he struggled to get the third out the entire game, and was lit up in the 6th for 3 runs. Joe Girardi turned to Boone Logan and Chan Ho Park to stop the bleeding. They kept the Mariners from scoring for the remainder of the game, serving as evidence that it was Hughes who was off and not necessarily the Mariners who were on their game (unless you think Park and Logan are two of the Yankees better relievers).

The timing of Hughes' meltdown was unfortunate. Phil was supposed to pitch Friday against the Dodgers but was intentionally skipped as part of his innings limit on the season, the first time the team had held its burgeoning star back to protect his arm. Naturally fans and the media are going to speculate as to whether or not the skipped start threw Hughes out of his rhythm. Only Phil will know for sure, but it warrants mentioning that at roughly this time last year Joba Chamberlain had an ERA of 3.81, not far off the 3.58 mark Hughes currently sports. Yankee fans will have to wait until Phil's next start to know if this is a one-time event, or if the team's focus on innings limits is the wrong way to protect its young pitchers.

As bad as Hughes was, the real story of the night was Lee. Even when he's bad, he's still really good. Two thing stood out about his performance. First, the dude just pounds the strike zone with all his pitches. If the worst to be expected from him is a single walk then it will be difficult for a team like the Yankees to drive up his pitch count. He won't give hitters many favors and will give his team length in ball games. Second, he works unbelievably fast, just throwing pitch after pitch. This must throw batters off-balance, particularly since Lee has 4 legitimate pitches.

The net effect of Lee's performance was that on a night when he wasn't at his best (a walk, 2 homers, only 2 strike outs) he still threw only 115 pitches in a complete game. He looked in complete control. The only time he may have been vulnerable was in the 9th, when the game was all but won.

Felix Hernandez goes against Javier Vazquez in Wednesday's game. King Felix hasn't been as dominant this year as he was last year, but that's not saying much. He still leads the A.L. in innings pitched with 112.2 and sports a nifty 125 ERA+. Vazquez, on the other hand, will be looking to bounce back from his rough outing against Arizona. If the Yankees aren't careful they could easily lose this one too. In related news, small-market, injury riddled, eternal underdog Boston beat Tampa Bay, cutting the Yankees division lead to a single game.

Yankees vs. Mariners series preview and historical results in the unbalanced schedule era

Hooray for Interleague Play being over! I realize there are certain aspects of Interleague that are enjoyable to fans, but unless they revamp the schedule so that every team in baseball plays every other team there's always going to be a certain level of imbalance/unfairness to the proceedings. I for one am more than happy to return to our regularly scheduled slate of American League teams.

And what better way for the Yankees (47-28, 1st place in the AL East, 2 games up) to come back to the AL than to face the utterly punchless Mariners (31-44, last place in the AL West, 14 GB)? Granted, having to face two of the best pitchers in baseball in future Yankee Cliff Lee and Felix Hernandez is a painfully tall order, but even if both aces fire blanks they'll still need to plate some runs, which has been a problem all season long.

While many were extolling the virtues of Seattle GM Jack Zduriencik's and Boston GM Theo Epstein's newfound focuses on pitching and defense this past offseason, as we saw yesterday Epstein still had plenty of firepower to back up this supposed change in philosophy. Unfortunately for Seattle, Zduriencik apparently lost sight of the fact that no matter how strong your pitching and defense might be you still have to score runs to win baseball games.

Outside of the 1995 ALDS, which we won't get into here, and the glorious 2000 and 2001 ALCSes, the Yankees and Mariners don't exactly dredge up a ton of memories for me, at least not in recent years.

Here's how the Yanks have fared against the Mariners in the unbalanced schedule era:











Though they dispatched of the M's rather handily at home in 2008, for the most part Seattle has played the Yankees pretty competitively during the past decade. Probably the most shocking moment between the teams last year was Ichiro Suzuki's walk-off against Mariano Rivera in late September, in a game the Yankees led 2-1 and with Mo only needing to record one more out for the win. Despite the Yankees having all but locked up a playoff spot at that point, I seem to recall quite a bit of hand-wringing in the aftermath in RAB's comment section.

In tonight's opener, Cliff Lee (2.39 ERA; 1.97 FIP(!!!); 3.09 xFIP) takes on Phil Hughes (3.17 ERA; 3.25 FIP; 3.86 xFIP) in what will certainly be the most compelling match-up of the three-game set. Lee is leading the galaxy with a mind-meltingly awesome FIP, not to mention the 2nd-best xFIP in the AL and a jaw-droppingly outrageous 19.00 K/BB ratio. To give you an idea of just how phenomenal that number is, the next-highest is Roy Halladay's 6.00. Hughes hasn't exactly been a slouch himself -- per Yankees.com, in five starts since the Mets dealt him his only loss on May 22, Hughes is 5-0 with a 3.86 ERA -- although for as well Phil's pitched he'll probably need to be near-perfect to outduel the best pitcher in the American League. Phil should also make a point of introducing himself to his 2011 rotation-mate, so that they can bond quickly in Spring Training next year.

In Wednesday's game Felix Hernandez (3.28 ERA; 3.37 FIP; 3.48 xFIP) faces Javier Vazquez (5.16 ERA; 5.07 FIP; 4.61 xFIP). This looks disastrous on paper -- though Javy's actually had a fine June, King Felix is a monster and almost always seems to have his way with the Yankees. While the M's could very easily take the first two games of this series behind their two-headed ace, this is probably the game they most need to have.

And in the finale, Ryan Rowland-Smith (6.18 ERA; 6.74 FIP; 6.01 xFIP) gets to face CC Sabathia (3.49 ERA; 4.01 FIP; 3.92 xFIP). As you can see from his numbers, Rowland-Smith's 2010 has been a horror show, and it's not as if he's gotten unlucky -- 6.74 FIPs don't generally lie. He's allowed opponents to hit .308 and owns a 1.70 WHIP. Not sure how the Mariners don't have a better rotation option than this, but I guess them's the breaks. Meanwhile, on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, CC has a 2.19 ERA over his last five starts while limiting opponents to a .191 batting average. It would seem the M's have little chance of winning Rowland-Smith's start, which means they'll probably figure out ways to lose the first two and somehow pull this one out.

Here are the two teams' offense and pitching numbers:






We've already discussed Seattle's offensive ineptitude, but man, somehow it looks even worse when you put it in table format. A .295 team wOBA, as Mike Axisa noted, means the Mariners are essentially fielding a squad of 25 Yuniesky Betancourts. Yikes.

Pitching's obviously the Mariners' better half, but not by much. On the whole Seattle's staff is basically putting up the same numbers as the Yankees. Without Lee, King Felix and Doug Fister, this team would incredibly be even worse.

Ordinarily calling for the Yankees to take two out of three against a last-place squad that has less punch than my fifth grade little league team would be a no-brainer, except of course when said team trots out two of the finest starting pitchers in Major League Baseball. Still, as dominating as Lee and Felix are, the Yankees will probably find a way to take at least one of those games, presumably through the Seattle bullpen. Combine that with the gimme win on Thursday, and the Yankees should be able to win this series, while Boston and Tampa hopefully beat up on each other.

How are the Red Sox doing it?

After stumbling out of the gate to a 4-9 start, the Red Sox (46-31) have turned their season around and are right in the thick of the AL East hunt, two games behind the first-place Yankees (47-28), exactly where we all should have expected them to be.

That the Red Sox have the third-best record in MLB is really quite something, considering how many of their key players have succumbed to injury this season. Starting outfielders Mike Cameron and Jacoby Ellsbury both hit the DL in the beginning of the season, and Ellsbury is still apparently a while away from returning. Josh Beckett's been out of the rotation since mid-May and won't be back until after the All-Star break at the earliest. Jeremy Hermida and Mike Lowell are both recovering from injuries. And this past weekend the Sox were dealt a trio of highly unfortunate injuries, as Dustin Pedroia hit the disabled list with a fractured foot on Friday, phenom Clay Buchholz hyperextended his knee running the bases on Saturday and starting catcher Victor Martinez left yesterday's game with a broken thumb.

According to Pete Abe, the Buchholz and Martinez injuries may not be as serious as they initially appeared, although Pedroia's probably going to be out for six weeks.

So how is Boston doing it? After an offseason heralded (and derided) by many as a return to a focus on pitching and defense, the Sox are busting out a familiar calling card: bludgeoning opponents to death on offense. After trailing the Yankees for much of the season in team wOBA, the Sox overtook the top spot a few weeks ago and currently lead the Majors with a robust .359 mark.

In 2009, they posted a .352 mark, good for second in all of baseball. Were they to finish the season at their current wOBA, it would be the club's highest since the ridiculously potent 2003 squad, who posted a .364 mark (for a frame of reference, the 2009 Yankees were actually the best offensive team of the decade, with a .366 team wOBA). The equally dangerous 2004 World Champion Red Sox were a .358 wOBA club.

Boston is enjoying a career year from the ridiculously dangerous and talented Kevin Youkilis (.433 wOBA, 4th-best in the AL), a massive rebound year from Adrian Beltre (.401 wOBA, his highest mark by far since his 2004 breakout year), a season from Pedroia on par with his 2008 MVP campaign, as well as the fearsome return of David Ortiz, whose SLG is at its highest since 2007.

Toss in respectable performances from minor league fill-ins Darnell McDonald (.337 wOBA) and Daniel Nava (.369), who weren't expected to provide much of anything, Marco Scutaro (the second-most valuable shortstop in the American League) and even Bill Hall (.336 wOBA), and the fact that the Sox were supposed to have a softer offense this year becomes even more laughable. Shoot, even Jason Varitek has a .374 wOBA in limited duty.

And while the pitching staff hasn't been quite as dominating as the front office had hoped, the Sox are receiving dual Cy Young-worthy performances from ace Jon Lester (2.86 ERA; 3.01 FIP) and Buchholz (2.45 ERA, 3rd-best in the AL; 3.47 FIP). Beckett and John Lackey have been disappointing, but Daisuke Matsuzaka's emerged as the staff's third-best starter.

Where Boston's really gotten burned is in relief -- Sox relievers have the 2nd-worst FIP (4.73) and 4th-worst ERA (4.50) in the American League. Daniel Bard's been mostly great, even if he does seem to have a penchant for occasionally coughing up a game, but outside of Bard the 'pen has been pretty wretched, with closer Jonathan Papelbon's struggles the most noticeable. Papelbon's career FIP is 2.87, and right now he's sitting at 5.06 -- definitely not something anyone would ever have expected from the previously near-unhittable closer.

So after all the hype about pitching and defense, the Red Sox are doing it the old-fashioned way. It'll be interesting to see if they can continue to hit at such an elite level without Pedroia for the next month and a half -- I imagine the overall offensive output will take a slight hit, but there's no reason to expect Youkilis not to keep raking, and as long as he continues to be backed by star performances from Beltre and Ortiz (I also forgot to mention J.D. Drew, whose numbers may be slightly down but is still contributing a fine .361 wOBA), and elite pitching from Lester and Buchholz, Boston will remain right in the thick of it.

Photo courtesy of the AP.

Yankees stage biggest ninth-inning comeback since April 2007, beat Dodgers 8-6

I'm not embarrassed to admit that I had thrown the towel in on this game once the Yankees fell behind 5-0. Prior to last night the biggest deficit the team had overcome was three runs. In fact, I even started drafting my game recap while the game was still underway, focusing heavily on the 2010 Yankees' seeming inability to rally this year. Feel free to read it; it's quite amusing in light of the surprise Yankee win. Needless to say, I'm not unhappy to have to have scrapped it and start over.

So back to that 5-0 deficit. Dodgers' starter Clayton Kershaw had been cruising, and the only blemish on his record was a two-run bomb off the bat of the suddenly resurgent Alex Rodriguez. Kershaw tossed seven innings and struck out five, while walking zero -- this was especially surprising, given that Kershaw had led the NL in BB/9 prior to this weekend's action.

Despite allowing five runs, Andy Pettitte wasn't terrible and really only had himself to blame. Though he was only docked for two earned runs, he was responsible for both Yankee errors, so in a way it almost feels like he should've been charged for all of them. Funny how baseball works sometimes. Andy was also only able to get through five innings, and basically turned in the less-than-stellar start he'd been long overdue for. If this is the worst Andy gets this year, I'll gladly take it.

Joba Chamberlain coughed up a big insurance run in the eighth, enabling the Dodgers to increase their lead to 6-2, and all but putting the game out of reach. Then the ninth inning happened. Joe Torre, who burned the Yankees countless times over the years through his disastrously poor bullpen management, brought his closer, Jonathan Broxton in, to protect a four-run lead. This in and of itself wasn't a terrible move, as Joe obviously wanted to seal the victory without any shenanigans, and Broxton is in the midst of another outrageously good season, leading all National League relievers in WAR.

Of course, as we've seen firsthand with our own untouchable deity of a closer, even the best falter every so often, and last night was fortunately one of those nights for Broxton. After Mark Teixeira unsurprisingly led the inning off with a strikeout (speaking of Tex, what are the chances he can bring his season numbers even close to respectability? Never in my wildest dreams did I think he'd be hitting .229/.344/.408 on June 28. Tex has posted 0.6 WAR and has been worth $2.3 million, according to Fangraphs. Ugly, ugly stuff), A-Rod hit a single and scored on a Robinson Cano double. Jorge Posada followed with a single, and Curtis Granderson drew a huge walk to load the bases for rookie Chad Huffman. Huffman improbably came through with the biggest hit of his young career, blasting a two-run single to bring the Yankees within one. At this point, the insurance run surrendered by Joba loomed rather large.

Colin Curtis came to the plate and put together an incredibly impressive 10-pitch at-bat, before grounding out to James Loney at first base. However, with Granderson at third and only one out in the inning, Loney got greedy as he stepped on first and then tried to nail Curtis at home. Granderson just slid in under the tag, and this was one of those instances where having speed on the basepaths was huge, as almost anyone else on the roster would probably have been dead to rights at home.

With the game now tied at 6-6, the Yankees improbably having come back from a four-run deficit in the ninth inning against the top closer in the National League, they pretty much HAD to find a way to win this game.

Big time kudos to Joe Girardi for tossing stubborn, old-school managerial conventional wisdom completely out the window and going with Mariano Rivera in a tie game on the road in the bottom of the ninth for the second time in a week. I'm pretty sure that Joe Torre did not do this one time in his entire 12-year tenure at the helm of the Yankees. Despite getting burned countless times, Torre never learned that you have to go with your best reliever in the highest leverage situation, regardless of whether it's technically a save situation.

Rivera took care of business in the bottom of the ninth, paving the way for Robinson Cano's huge go-ahead two-run home run in the top of the 10th off George Sherrill, who he had previously been 0-11 against. This was also classic Torre bullpen mismanagement, going for the lefty against Cano, despite the fact that (a) Cano hasn't exactly struggled against lefties this year (.301/.362/.612) or really at any point in his career (.300/.343/.470); (b) Cano's in the midst of an MVP-caliber season and hasn't really had trouble hitting anyone; and (c) Ramon Troncoso had just recorded an out and seemed to have the situation reasonably under control.

Mo nailed down the save in the bottom of the 10th, which also saw another Dodger -- Russell Martin -- get tossed from the game, making him approximately the 8,000th Dodger to get thrown out this weekend for arguing balls and strikes. I understand their frustration, but it still seemed pretty disrespectful and childlike for these guys to be slamming their bats and chucking their helmets at every call that didn't go their way.

So the Yankees overcame a five-run deficit for the first time in 2010, winning 8-6. This was also the first four-run deficit they overcame in the ninth inning since April 19, 2007 at home. The 2010 Yankees improved to 3-1 in extra inning games, with all three of those victories impressively coming on the road, where it always seems like it's going to be impossible to win.

The Yanks also improved to 3-3 all-time against Los Angeles in Interleague Play, and picked up their first ESPN Sunday Night Marathon Heartbreaker victory of the year, improving to 1-2 in that horrifyingly annoying category. The 2010 Yankees ended up going 11-7 in Interleague overall, which is a pretty sterling record, and 5-4 in National League ballparks. They also were able to maintain a two-game lead over Boston, who just keeps winning despite losing seemingly half the team to injuries, and picked up another game on the still-reeling Rays.

Photo courtesy of the AP.

There is a "Good" A.J., right?

Every Yankee fan is familiar with the "Good" and "Bad" A.J. Burnett meme. Unfortunately for the Yankees, "Good A.J." has been on the side of a milk carton for nearly two months now. We're used to stretches of ineffectiveness from Burnett, but this is getting ridiculous. He's not even giving the team a chance to win every five days. Clearly the Yankees are going to let him work his struggles out in the rotation, and you have to figure he'll come around eventually, but it really needs to be sooner rather than later.

How ugly has it been? Burnett hasn't made it past the 4th inning in his last three starts, giving up 6, 7, and 6 runs, respectively. Burnett hasn't tossed a quality start in nearly a month, with the last one coming on May 30 against the Indians, also known as the worst team in the American League. Since May 4, when he shut Baltimore out for 7 1/3 innings, he's surrendered four runs or more in seven of 10 starts. Burnett currently owns a 5.25 ERA with an equally ugly 4.99 FIP. That is the definition of not getting the job done.

In last night's latest suckfest, Burnett couldn't hold on to the 3-0 lead the Yankees jumped out to in the top of the 1st on Mark Teixeira's three-run bomb, giving two runs back almost immediately. The rest of this game isn't even worth recapping, as the Dodgers beat the Yankees 9-4.

Sabathia, A-Rod and Mo fuel 2-1 Yankee win over Dodgers

CC Sabathia continued his marvelous June run, throwing eight innings of one-run, seven-strikeout ball (lowering his ERA to 3.49); Alex Rodriguez drove in both Yankee runs -- including a booming go-ahead solo home run that would prove to be the game-winner; and Mariano Rivera struck out the Dodgers' 4-5-6 hitters -- including perennial Yankee killer Manny Ramirez -- in order, leading the Yankees to a big 2-1 win over Los Angeles.

Vicente Padilla pitched quite a game himself (&IP, 2ER, 7Ks), keeping the Yankees off-balance all night with a ridiculous 55mph curveball in between pounding the plate with 94mph fastballs.

And to cap it all off, Boston lost to San Francisco, while the Rays were no-hit for the second time this season! The Yankees now hold a three game lead on both AL East rivals.

Baseball's missing power stroke

Yankee fans everywhere (Larry and myself included) have paid a lot of attention to Alex Rodriguez's and Mark Teixeira's lack of power in 2010. A-Rod has less than 10 homers on the season so far, and Brett Gardner is out-slugging Tex. Their struggles deserve attention. What hasn't gotten as much attention so far, in the Yankee blogosphere at least, is that many of baseball's brand names are not hitting for the same power this year.

These are the current home run leaders in either league:

In the AL, Miguel Cabrera and Josh Hamilton are household names (maybe), but the rest are some real head-scratchers, especially league leader Jose Bautista (BALCO All-Star alert?). The NL is no different. Perennial best player in baseball Albert Pujols isn't even in the top 5 right now this year. Ryan Howard is missing. So is Prince Fielder.

To put the change taking place in baseball's home run hierarchy into perspective, here's the list of last year's leaders:

The NL leaders in particular read as a who's-who of baseball's biggest sluggers. Only Adrian Gonzalez and Mark Reynolds make the cut this season.

Here's a list of players, all of them big names, who haven't hit the ball with the same authority this year:

It's depressing to see that Tex and A-Rod have seen the sharpest decline from their career power numbers, but, to the extent that misery loves company, they're not alone on that list. Many of baseball's biggest names have suffered from an unforseen power outage this year.

Jason Bay only has 4 homers so far this year. Joe Mauer has totally dropped off from his MVP form. He's batting only .309 and has only 3 bombs after hitting 28 in limited duty in 2009. Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder combined for the deadliest 3-4 punch in the NL last season. This year Nick Swisher is out-slugging both of them.

Aside from Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols is the biggest name on the list. Make no mistake, Phat Albert is having a great season. He's on pace for 30 homers and 100 RBI. His OBP is .428. But his power numbers are down, materially. The difference between a hitter with a .624 SLG and a .549 is the difference between a player competing to be the best hitter in baseball, and one who's in the top ten.

None of this excuses Alex and Tex. The only reason the Yankees have a 2 game lead on the division, instead of a 10-game lead, is because these two are having bad seasons. But they're not alone. Many of baseball's biggest names have been knocked down a peg or two thus far in 2010.

Yankees vs. Dodgers historical results and Series Preview

Despite a long and storied history between the New York Yankees (45-27, 1st in AL East) and Brooklyn Los Angeles Dodgers (39-33, 3rd in NL West, 3 GB), the two teams really haven't had much interaction since I started paying attention to baseball in the late '80s. They last met in the World Series the year I was born -- 1981 -- in a Fall Classic that saw the Yankees win the first two games at home only to lose four straight, falling to LA in six. And of course, four years prior saw the Yankees beat the Dodgers in 1977, with Reggie Jackson belting three home runs in the decisive Game Six.

The Yankees and Dodgers have also only somehow met once in Interleague Play -- back in 2004, also at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers remain the only National League team that hasn't played the Yankees at Yankee Stadium in the 13 years that Interleague Play has existed. Weird.














I don't remember these three games at all, other than that I'm sure I was annoyed that the Yankees dropped two.

The media's going to make a big deal out of this weekend's series because the Yankees are facing Joe Torre for the first time since he left the team after the 2007 season. However, this particular series is no more important than any other three game set on the schedule. Given that Boston had its way with the Dodgers last weekend, I'd like to see the Yankees also embarrass Los Angeles.

CC Sabathia (3.68 ERA; 4.10 FIP; 3.95 xFIP) lines up with every Yankee fan's favorite pitcher, Vicente Padilla (6.67 ERA; 5.62 FIP; 4.17 xFIP) in tonight's opener. After a rough May, Sabathia's been on a roll in June, with a 2.48 ERA and 3.13 FIP. Padilla is not a very good pitcher, has a penchant for plunking Yankee batters, and all things considered the Yankees should destroy him.

A.J. Burnett (4.83 ERA; 4.96 FIP; 4.67 xFIP) gets Hiroki Kuroda (3.06 ERA; 3.46 FIP; 3.68 xFIP) on Saturday. Burnett's finally due for a good outing, right? I don't know anything about Kuroda, but those are some pretty gaudy numbers. According to this scouting report, Kuroda doesn't have overpowering stuff. However, this is listed in the "Flaws" section, even though we all know this is an incredible asset against the Yankees, who for reasons that remain unexplained just cannot hit slow-pitch slop.

And Andy Pettitte (2.48 ERA; 3.67 FIP; 4.04 xFIP) faces Clayton Kershaw (3.24 ERA; 3.30 FIP; 4.14 xFIP) in the ESPN Sunday Night Marathon Heartbreaker. Both pitchers are having fine years, although Kershaw leads all of MLB in walks, which seems like a disaster waiting to happen for LA given that he'll be facing the AL's top OBP squad. Andy has had a season for the ages -- he has only surrendered more than two earned runs twice in 14 outings! -- and at this point picking against him seems crazy, even if the nature of baseball suggests he'd be due for a clunker at some point.

Here are the two teams' offense and pitching numbers:






On the surface the Yankees and the Dodgers appear to be pretty evenly matched. LA's offensive attack is led by Andre Ethier (still 2nd in the NL in wOBA, despite cooling down in June to the tune of a .294 wOBA) and Manny Ramirez. Manny has of course been their hottest hitter this month, and as always will likely annihilate Yankee pitching this weekend. LA's pitching appears to be roughly middle-of-the-pack, while the Yankee pitching staff continues to do excellent work.

The 2010 Yankee offense has been carried by Robinson Cano, Nick Swisher and Brett Gardner thus far, though this past week Alex Rodriguez finally started to show some signs of shaking off the offensive malaise he's been mired in for much of June, while Mark Teixeira has also started to pick his game up some (.250/.368/.450 in June), though still not to the lofty standards we're accustomed to. MJR will be taking a more in-depth look at the team's continued lack of power later this afternoon.

Going primarily on the pitching match-ups, the Yankees should take two of three this weekend, but as I've said in many of these series previews, it could certainly go either way. Two wins would give the Bombers a winning road record in Interleague this year, and an overall Interleague record of 11-7.

As an aside, the overwhelming sentiment of late among Yankee fans about the team has been shock that the team has been playing as well as it has while getting less-than-optimal contributions from three of its primary offensive cogs -- namely A-Rod, Tex and Derek Jeter. The team needs those three to start picking it up to balance out the inevitable regression by Cano, Swish and Grit. I said this to a few folks the other day, and I still believe that if the Yankees end up missing the playoffs this year, it certainly won't be because of the pitching.

For what it's worth, 'Rod seems convinced he's on the cusp of breaking out. Per LoHud, “Sometimes you take four or five days off and it takes you a day or two to get back in sync,” Rodriguez said. “Kevin Long and I are spending long hours in the batting cage and we both feel pretty good about what’s about to happen.”

Hopefully "what's about to happen" is the home run tear we've all been waiting for.

The Giambino!

I turned this one off in the 4th and hit the sack after Javier Vazquez gave up the lead as a result of yet another Adam LaRoche RBI base hit (speaking of which, I am totally on board with NoMaas' plot to bring LaRoche to New York. Make it happen, Cash!).

Not that I didn't think the Yankees couldn't come back from a mere 4-2 deficit against the Diamondbacks' putrid bullpen, but moreso because (a) I was exhausted and didn't have the patience for another see-saw contest, (b) I figured if the Yankees did come back they didn't need me to do so, and (c) if they did battle back I'd have a nice present to wake up to upon checking my BlackBerry for the score during my usual 3am bathroom trip. As it so happens, the Yankees did come all the way back, beating Arizona 6-5 in 10 innings, for a huge extra-inning road win.

Despite the late-inning heroics of Alex Rodriguez (game-tying sacrifice fly), Curtis Granderson (go-ahead solo home run) and of course, Mariano Rivera (escaping a bases-loaded no-out jam in the bottom of the 10th!!!), I'm still happy with my decision, as I'm pretty sure I would've destroyed my television at some point during the remainder of this game.

As an aside, I sure hope people aren't still upset about the Granderson trade. I know his overall line (.246/.321/.455) is a bit down from where we'd like it to be (although how about that SLG?), but so far this season he's sure had a penchant for timely home runs -- the go-ahead solo shot against Boston in the third game of the year, the go-ahead bomb against the Mets last Saturday, and now last night -- not to mention the fact that Austin Jackson (.307/.353/.413) has finally cooled down and likely still has even more cooling to do (Jackson's ZIPS ROS projected wOBA is a mere .304, which would have him finishing the season at .322).

And so, in the immortal words of RAB's Mike Axisa, the Yankees won a game they had no business winning, and managed to take the series 2-1 over Arizona. That the Yankees walked 13 times in this game and only scored six runs is mind-boggling, not to mention the fact that Dontrelle Willis issued seven(!) free passes in his 2 1/3 innings of work. Speaking of which, how do you knock the opposing starter out in under three innings and somehow manage to trail the game after four?

Perhaps even more important than the Yankees stealing a game were the late-inning heroics of former Yankee Jason Giambi up in Colorado. Much to my chagrin, presumptive Cy Young Ubaldo Jimenez completely unsurprisingly had his worst start of the season against the Red Sox, and I figured Boston was a lock for a victory. But the Rockies would have none of that, as they hit two home runs off Jonathan Papelbon -- including Giambi's walk-off two-run bomb -- to send Boston to a second straight loss for the first time in nearly two weeks. THANK YOU, GIAMBINO!

Not only that, but the Rays continued their downward spiral, losing for the 11th time in their last 19 games. There's still so much baseball left, and I fully expect the Yanks, Sox and Rays to be battling it out until the bitter end, but it's still nice to see Tampa Bay in particular stumble a bit.

A look at the 2009 and 2010 Yankees after 71 games

With the Yankees' victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks last night, the team now stands 1.5 games ahead of both the Tampa Bay Rays (slumping fast) and the Boston Red Sox, in first place in baseball's toughest division. At the same time last year the Bombers were 39-32, five games behind the Sox. For those who don't remember, it was roughly this time last year when the Yankees had lost two of 3 to both the Nationals and Marlins, prompting an emergency therapy session from Brian Cashman in Atlanta to help right the ship.

The 2010 Yankees are off to a better start than last season's World Champions. Fans may gripe (I know I do), but numbers don't lie. The Yankees have emerged as the best team in baseball. The Pinstripes have the best overall record in the Bigs and have the largest run-differential. Even Baseball Prospectus' Hit List, which is meant to be a statistically informed measure of how good a team is, has the Yankees in first. None of this means the Yankees will hang onto first place. Their competition is good. But, the team didn't really burst into first last year until late July, after the All-Star break.

In spite of all this evidence, I've been feeling worried about the 2010 Yankees in a way that I don't remember being worried about the 2009 team. This year's success (to date) has rested heavily on the unexpected. Phil Hughes is a frontline starter, not Joba Chamberlain redux. Nick Swisher and Brett Gardner deserve serious All-Star attention, something no one predicted. Andy Pettitte isn't just defying age, he's getting younger! And Robinson Cano is baseball's VORP leader (and he'll win a batting title someday, too).

I've been more nervous following this year's team because the heroes aren't named Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and Derek Jeter. That's a name-brand group of players I can trust. Right now my perception is that many, but not all, of our best players are due for a statistical correction that will torpedo the team. I wasn't worried this way about last year's team because even when those guys were laboring against the dregs of the NL they were getting contributions from the players we expect ... right? To answer this question I've done my best to present this year's and last year's offenses this far in the season. The data say my memory is wrong.

A-Rod is the biggest data point standing out, to me, followed closely by Jeter. I had no idea Alex's slump had become so bad by this time last year. I do recall that Rodriguez sat for a couple games in Florida to rest, but I would not have guessed that his OPS was actually worse at this point in the season last year. Obviously Alex had missed almost half the team's games this time last season, which diminishes the poor performance somewhat, but that doesn't change the fact that the 2009 Yankees were getting a weaker performance from their cleanup hitter than the 2010 Yankees. It also means that when Joe Girardi was quoted on YES during last night's game saying that he would not at all be surprised if Alex hit 30 home runs, he was serious.

I remember Derek Jeter's 2009 as an unmitigated tour-de-force. The numbers above indicate otherwise. I recall Derek starting slowly in 2009, but I would have guessed that he was batting above .300 by this point last year. I would have been wrong.

Derek is obviously not repeating his 2009 season, at least so far, but he's not as far off his pace as I would have thought. For example, given that Jeter hit .334 last season we then know that he needed to pick up .035 points on his average from this point last year onwards. If Derek were to repeat that performance this year he would raise his average to .317 for the year, which is exactly what his career average was coming into this season. My guess is his OBP and SLG wouldn't be far off.

Once again, my memory served me wrong. Derek isn't keeping the pace he did in 2009, but he's not as far off as I would've guessed at this point in the season. 2009 is the best predictor of 2010, meaning that it is entirely possible Jeter's numbers at year end will be what we've come to expect.

Derek and Alex aside, the numbers between the two teams don't align perfectly. Teixeira is horribly off his 2009 pace (in other news, water is wet) and this year's team isn't as strong offensively as last year's team was after 71 games. The 2010 Yankees have only five players with an OPS above .800 versus eight (!) for the 2009 Yankees. Still, the numbers show that the 2010 team isn't as far off the 2009 pace in offense as I would have suspected, and has a better record.

That record, of course, is due to pitching. Here memory serves and the numbers confirm.

Four of the five Yankee starters are better this year than they were last year. CC Sabathia is slightly better this year than he was at the same point last year, which gives me goose bumps, because he torched all of baseball in the 2nd half in 2009. Phil Hughes is pitching better than Joba Chamberlain did last year. Javier Vazquez has been a roller coaster, but he's pitching better than Chien-Ming Wang. And Andy Pettitte is dazzling. Even Mariano Rivera has stepped his game up from the same point last season. Only A.J. Burnett has been off his game from the pace he set in 2009, and not by as much as analysts are making it out to seem.

Taken as a whole, the 2010 Yankees have a better record this far in the season than the 2009 Yankees because the entire team has played better. The offense is not as strong, to be certain, but the team's offseason moves emphasized pitching and youth. Curtis Granderson is the only position player new to the team not on the DL. His bat hasn't quite been what I'd hoped, but he combines to give us a stronger defensive outfield than the team has had in years.

It was right about this point that last year's team took off and never looked back (except for that awful three game sweep in Anaheim). The question is if this year's team keeps pace. That depends largely on Jeter, Tex and A-Rod. If Derek and Alex have comparable upswings to what we saw last season, and Tex rights the ship even a bit, then the offense will be firing on all cylinders, hopefully complementing a pitching staff that continues to dominate.

Good for what ails ya

So, how about that Andy Pettitte?

Seriously, is there anything he can't do these days? Andy, have you thought about giving curing cancer a try? Pettitte has been a near-lock for seven innings of two-runs-or-less ball this season, and true to form he gave another seven strong innings last night in the desert, surrendering two runs on seven hits with seven strikeouts as the Yankees beat the Diamondbacks 9-3. Dan Haren was the tough-luck loser this time around, going seven innings himself and giving up only three runs, all of which were driven in by Alex Rodriguez.

Speaking of Alex, he finally hit a home run last night! And not only that, but he looked pretty good in the remainder of his at-bats on the evening. Hopefully last night was the start of A-Rod returning to his usual locked-in self.

After Haren departed, the floodgates opened courtesy of the D-Backs' bullpen. Going into the series, everyone knew this was Arizona's Achilles' heel, and it certainly lived up to the hype, as the awesomely named Esmerling Vasquez came into the game with Zona down 3-2 and immediately coughed up five runs, including Colin Curtis' first Major League hit and RBIs. Curtis appeared to wearing Joe Girardi's #27 jersey from last season, as the MLB logo at the back of the neck had red trim as opposed to the gray that the 2010 Yankee uniform has.

We as Yankee fans (and bloggers) tend to gripe about any and every negative thing that turns up during the course of a given season, which is only natural when one obsessively follows a baseball team to the point of writing game recaps and authoring comprehensive statistical analysis for absolutely no compensation whatsoever.

That being said, next time I start griping about the Yankee bullpen, I will do my best to remember that it could be far, far worse. I can't imagine being a Diamondbacks fan last night, seeing Vasquez come in to try to hold the game at 3-2 and basically knowing that the game was about to be blown wide open. The Yankees have certainly had their share of volatile relievers over the years, but man -- a 7.36 bullpen ERA, 5.70 FIP and 5.17 xFIP is just not going to help a team win games.

Great win last night, and the Yanks look to take the series tonight behind Javier Vazquez.

The Yankees in Interleague Play in National League stadiums

The Yankees' uninspired play in Arizona last night reminded me of Interleague 2007, when everyone was up in arms over the Yanks getting their rear ends handed to them by the then-mediocre Colorado Rockies and San Francisco Giants. This subsequently made me wonder how the Yankees have fared during the last few years at National League ballparks.












There aren't really any conclusions to be drawn from this, as I imagine most American League teams fare worse on the road in NL cities, but it is somewhat noteworthy that the Yankees -- despite their frequently cited overall Interleague success -- do not tend to play very good baseball against the National League on the road.

Burnett awful for second straight start as Yanks lose to D-Backs 10-4

A.J. Burnett was horrendous for the second straight outing, digging the Yankees a 5-0 hole in the bottom of the 1st inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks en route to a 10-4 loss. After quickly retiring the first two batters he faced, Burnett gave up six(!) straight hits including three home runs, all three of which were absolute bombs, although perhaps none as impressive as Justin Upton's shot to dead center.

Speaking of Justin Upton, last night Yankee fans got a glimpse into 2016, in which Upton will almost certainly be patrolling some portion of the outfield at Yankee Stadium when his deal with Arizona finally ends. Upton put on some kind of show, going 3-3 with two home runs, four runs scored, four RBI, a walk and a stolen base.

Burnett's final line of 4 IP, 9H, 7ER, 2BB and 4K was made even worse by the fact that all seven of the runs he surrendered came with two outs! Every time Burnett tried to get ahead in the count he was grooving what must have looked like batting practice fastballs right over the heart of the plate, and the D-Backs made him pay. Adam LaRoche in particular looked like he knew exactly what was coming when he took a ginormous uppercut at Burnett's very first offering, crushing a monster three-run shot that basically ended the game right then and there in the 1st inning.

After Burnett gave up his seventh run I'd seen enough. As much as I love the Yankees and hate to ditch a game early even when they're losing, a six-run deficit in the 5th inning at 11:30pm EDT is pretty tough to rationalize staying up for.

It looks like I didn't miss much, as Chan Ho Park surrendered Upton's second home run of the night, while Alex Rodriguez continued to become the highest-paid doubles-hitter in history. Don't get me wrong; I'd obviously rather see A-Rod hit for extra bases than not at all, but the whole one-home-run-in-June thing is really starting to get to me, and frankly I'm shocked Alex hasn't started getting killed for his lack of power in the media. Not that I want that to happen by any stretch of the imagination, but I doubt A-Rod's ever had a month in his entire career where he hit only one home run and it seems surprising that this would fly under everyone's radar.

Derek Jeter in his contract year

Amid the ongoing struggles of Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira it has been convenient to overlook Derek Jeter's poor performance at the plate. TYU has been all over this (and deserve credit for helping inspire this post), but few if any analysts have pointed out that Derek's current wOBA of .337 would be the lowest for his career since he first debuted in 1995. His career mark is .374.

Broadly put, Jeter is having a bad year because he is walking less than usual and has the lowest BABIP for any season of his career, ever. At the moment Jeter's career IsoD is .070 even. This season that has fallen to .053. He's drawing walks at a 6.3% clip, well below his career 8.9% rate. Although he's been more patient of late, and may well be getting free passes at his career average by season's end, he leverages himself to his batting average so long as he's being less disciplined. As for BABIP, Jeter is currently hitting .307 on balls in play, versus .358 for his career. Some of this is bad luck, and some may be because he's reaching for balls he shouldn't swing at and bouncing them to 2nd.

The result is that Derek is on pace to have the worst season of his career, in his contract year. Jeter is a career .316/.386/.458 hitter. This season he's batting .283/.336/.423. It's too early to make predictions about where Jeter's numbers will be come September, particularly for a contact hitter like Derek who can easily hit .400 in any given month. That said, a quick glance at these kinds of figures helps demonstrate why Brian Cashman has such a tough job managing veteran Yankee talent.

Forget for a moment that this is Derek Jeter. Instead, imagine it is a high-end shortstop who is showing this kind of decline in his age 36 season. Would you want your team to re-sign this expensive, aging middle infielder for a plus salary, probably to a multi-year deal, if his numbers don't recover? If you answered yes then you didn't pretend we were talking about someone other than Derek.

Of course, it's impossible to imagine Captain Clutch donning another team's uniform. Lost in these bad numbers are several strong arguments for keeping Derek right where he belongs. History jumps out at number one. Jeter is currently on pace to have 198 hits this season. If this is the case then Derek will be roughly 50 hits shy of 3,000 entering the 2011 season. It will be worth millions of dollars to Derek and the Yankees to have him pass that milestone in pinstripes.

In addition, Derek may be having a bad season (so far) relative to his own incredibly high standards, but he remains one of the best offensive shortstops in all of baseball. Jeter has the 6th highest wOBA among all players at his position. In the American League, only Alex Gonzalez is having a better year so far, and it's difficult to imagine these two not swapping places in a few months. Using WAR, which takes defense into consideration, Derek is having a strong all around year at short. His 1.7 WAR is also 2nd-best in the AL, and really a virtual tie with Marco Scutaro, who scores a 1.8.

Taking this into consideration, it is unlikely that the Yankees could upgrade on Jeter's performance via free agency, even if his numbers don't recover to career norms. The only thing the team can do is find a less expensive player, but odds are that player will be worse than the Captain.

I predict that Jeter's numbers will improve by year's end, but they may still come in a bit below his career norms. I also both predict and want Derek to remain in pinstripes as long as he's a viable option at short. The big question this offseason doesn't appear to be if Jeter will be such an option next season (he will). Instead, it appears to be whether or not Derek and and the team can agree on how long he will be such an option, and at what cost.

Yankees vs. Diamondbacks historical results and Series Preview

The Yankees are in the desert for a three-game set starting tonight against the franchise that beat them in seven games in the heartbreaking 2001 World Series. The 2010 Diamondbacks are obviously a completely different ballclub, but it's hard not to think about a trip to Phoenix without dredging up that painful memory.

A.J. Burnett (4.33 ERA; 4.62 FIP; 4.60 xFIP) faces longtime Yankee punching bag Rodrigo Lopez (4.70 ERA; 4.90 FIP; 4.58 xFIP) in the opener in the battle of who can suck slightly less. Did you know Lopez was still kicking around the Bigs? I sure as heck didn't. It seems like ages ago Lopez was the "ace" of the Orioles, and while he would occasionally author a shutdown game against the Yanks, I seem to recall the team getting the better of Lopez more often than not. The numbers would appear to support this, as the Yankees have a .294/.358/.524 career line in 126.2 career innings against Lopez, which is the second-most innings he's thrown against any team in the Majors. Burnett was horrendous in his last outing, and after a spectacular start to the season is now pitching like most of the preseason projection systems expected he would. Despite Burnett's struggles, I like the Yankees in this one.

In the middle game Andy Pettitte (2.47 ERA; 3.79 FIP; 4.06 xFIP) takes on D-Back ace Dan Haren (4.71 ERA; 4.10 FIP; 3.43 xFIP). Haren doesn't appear to be having quite the kind of season we've come to expect from him, although it looks like he's been much better in June (2.96 ERA; 2.91 FIP). As you know, Pettitte's been ridiculous for the Yanks this year, although as far as the pitching matchups go this is Arizona's best bet to pick up a win.

And Javier Vazquez (5.01 ERA; 5.14 FIP; 4.52 xFIP) -- who has quietly been pitching rather well for the Yankees over the past month -- opposes former wunderkind Dontrelle Willis (4.20 ERA; 5.80 FIP; 6.20 xFIP), who has battled a wide variety of struggles during the past few seasons and hasn't really been an effective starting pitcher since 2006. This of course means he will dominate the Yankees. Kidding aside, Willis has been so-so for Arizona in three starts although hasn't given much length. I'm always concerned about Home Run Javy against a home run happy team, but if he can keep the ball in the park there's no reason to expect anything but an effective outing from Vazquez.

Here's how the Yanks have fared against the Diamondbacks historically:














Not a ton of regular season history between these teams, although I'd be surprised if our wonderful YES broadcasters didn't remind us at least once that Marcus Thames hit a home run on the first pitch he saw in his first career Major League at-bat against future Hall-of-Famer Randy Johnson back in 2002, even though neither player will be active in this series.

And here are the two teams' offense and pitching numbers:






Both teams can hit, even if the Yankees haven't quite flexed their offensive muscles the way we're used to during the past week. Falling behind Boston (.359) in team wOBA is particularly distressing, and it'd be great to see cleanup hitter Alex Rodriguez finally start hitting some home runs again.

The decisive factor in this series is pitching. The Yankees continue to be in the top third of the AL in most of the major pitching categories, while the D-Backs' arms are terrible -- as evidenced by their worst-in-the-NL HR/9, BAA, ERA and FIP -- and the bullpen has been the worst in baseball.

I know the Diamondbacks can hit, but on paper this appears to be a gift three-game set. The Yankees really have to take two of three in Arizona, especially since Boston's going to go 91-0 the rest of the way.

Tex slam lifts Yanks into first; BoSox right behind

Mark Teixeira hit his first grand slam as a New York Yankee en route to a 4-0 win over the Mets, as the 2010 Subway Series ended in a draw for the sixth time. The Yankees' win combined with another Tampa Bay loss gave the Yankees sole possession of first place for the first time since April 21. However, the Red Sox won their sixth straight -- during which time the Yankees went 3-3 -- and are now tied for second with the Rays and one game out of first place themselves.

I'd just like to go off on the National League for a quick second: Boston is now 10-2 against you on the year, and in typical Boston fashion is not going to lose again for the rest of 2010. Thanks for coming out, Arizona and Los Angeles. Really spectacular work you're doing over there in the NL West. And you know the Diamondbacks are going to come to play against the Yankees this week despite completely rolling over and dying for the Sox. /Rant

Getting back to the recap at hand, CC Sabathia was spectacular, hurling eight innings of shutout ball and paying the Mets and Hisanori Takahashi back for Friday night's shutout. Tough-luck loser Johan Santana gave up the aforementioned slam to Teixeira but little else. Thankfully it was all the Yankees would need.

I hate to keep harping on Alex Rodriguez, but he had another ridiculously weak 0-4 day at the plate, and I can't help but wonder if he's playing through pain. He only has one home run this month, and that came more than two weeks ago on June 3. I know he's missed a couple of games, but the lack of home run power remains alarming. Hopefully I didn't jinx him.

I posed this question on Twitter yesterday but no one replied -- I was wondering whether A-Rod and Tex had hit both hit home runs in the same game this year? If I have a chance I'll check B-Ref myself, but I'm going to guess the answer is no, and that's either disheartening or a scary proposition for the American League, given that the Yankees' 3-4 hitters still have yet to really kick it into gear.