Manny's Gun and other Sox Observations

I see this several times a season. An ill-fated opposing runner thinks that he can catch Manny Ramirez day dreaming only to find himself gunned down. Saturday's game provided another example of why you can't sleep on Manny's arm, and it came at a critical point in Saturday's 12-4 victory over the Rays.

The Sox were trying to hang on to a 5-3 lead in the top of the fourth. Josh Beckett looked like he was sucking wind as he proceeded to load the bases with one out. Nathan Haynes lined out to Manny. Carlos Pena tagged and tried to score, but Manny's quick release one hopped the ball perfectly to the third base side of home plate. Pena was out by at least two steps. Inning over. The first two pitches in the Sox half of the fourth resulted in a double for Pedroia and a double for Ortiz scoring Dustin. Those hits completed just about the best sequence of events I've witnessed this season. After that Josh settled down, and the Red Sox outscored the Rays 6-1 over the next 5 innings.

Sunday's game completed the sweep and a pretty great weekend for the Sox. Jon Lester put together his second solid start in a row. I think he will come along a lot faster than the other young pitchers in the Sawks/Yanks mix. He has more experience, and if not for being derailed by cancer treatment, he would already be a firmly entrenched starter.

It will be curious to see what Curt Schilling's possible return later in the year will do. I guess the more arms, the better. He can mentor Buchholz and Lester. But I don't want the Sox to flinch in their commitment to the young pitching. I also wouldn't want Curt's presence to disrupt any good chemistry the team may have going at that point. Although, he could help bolster the bullpen later in the year as he's done in the past. I'm looking at you Manny Delcarmen.

Three down, three up

How quickly things can change. At the end of the Detroit series the Yankees were down trodden and defeated. They were hurt and it looked like they wouldn't be able to right the ship. Oh what one series can do. The Mariners aren't exactly a juggernaut, but they did throw the top of their rotation at the Yanks and thanks to some awful Seattle defense they dropped Erik Bedard, Felix Hernandez and Carlos Silva in succession.

Now the Yankees defeating Silva is nothing special. He has a career ERA over eight against them. But defeating a lefty as good as Bedard and knocking off King Felix is pretty impressive no matter how badly the Seattle defense was. The starting pitching was solid from the Yankees and that's all they need. We also saw some good work from the bullpen. Farnsworth has actually been decent. Not spectacular, but there are good signs in what he is doing like his strike outs, which are up from last year. Edwar has been solid so far and Joba and Mo have been filthy as usual.

And who would have thought that on May 4, Melky Cabrera would be leading the Yankees in home runs and be second in slugging percentage to Johnny Damon of all people. Thank the gods the Yanks never moved him for Mike Gonzalez.

The Moose is Loose

Looks like Mike Mussina has found a new formula for success at the big league level. Throw that 85 mph fastball on the inner half and drop those off speed pitches below the speed limit. Some of those curve balls came in at a Casey Fossum like 63 mph. This is probably going to be the standard results from Mussina for the rest of the season. He'll get shelled in some starts and he'll have some hot streaks that even things out. If he can provide the team with 10-12 wins for the season I think the Yankees will be ecstatic.

Moose has used this new strategy before, but it seems now he is getting enough confidence to throw the ball inside again. He has to challenge hitters on the inner half because his breaking stuff is just to easy to hit when it is over the outside half and the batter doesn't have to look anywhere else. It was good to see the bullpen come through too. Edwar was a little shaky in the eighth but he battled through and if they can find him more consistent playing time then he will an asset and possibly even Joba's successor.

Hopefully Darrell Rasner can channel some of the Moose's success tomorrow. I was glad when the Yankees managed to get him back on a minor league deal last off season after they had let him hit the free agent market. I will also glad him he brings some of that 0.87 ERA he had in five starts at Scranton to the majors.

Another W for Wang

There isn't really much to say about last night's game. Chien-Ming Wang was dominate yet again and for the seventh time this season the Yankees won when he took the mound. He struck out five in six innings. He has 32 Ks in 45 innings for a very respectable 6.4 K/9. His slider has really developed into a formidable weapon and if he stays this consistent then he could definitely add some hardware to his mantle.

It's disconcerting that almost half of the Yankee wins come when he takes the mound. I start getting flashbacks to 1972 when Steve Carlton won 27 of the Phillies 59 games. I don't think the Yankees will be that bad but I am starting to think this might be the year they need to take a step back in order to go forward. Youth movements are tricky things. It is foolhardy for Yankee fans and ownership to want to move toward youth and expect to win the Series at the same time.

Cashman has the Yankees moving in the right direction and if you look across the way to the Red Sox, it is easy to see how successful you can be if you recognize what has to be done to rebuild. Theo Epstein rebuilt the infrastructure of the Red Sox minor league system and it seems like everyday they can call up a new prospect when they need too. The Yankees are on that path right now, but right now they appear to be about two years behind the Sox circa 2006. It was a rough year for they Sox but the moves to focus on the development of the younger players paid off immediately.

It's not fair to assume that the Yankees will achieve success at the same rate. The Sox also helped the young kids by spending $100 million on a fancy Japanese import. The Steinbrenners shouldn't panic. If they want to develop the kids this is the time to do it. They will be competitive even if they aren't the best and they are going to sell tickets no matter what for the rest of this year and the first year at the new stadium. If the Yanks win, great, but if they falter a little, at least we know that every five days we will be entertained.

Red S 0 X

1,0,1,2,0... No that's not the number of times that President Bush told the truth in each of his first five years in office. It's the number of runs the Sox have scored in each of their last five games. Four runs in five games! Hopefully they will get some vengence tonight against the Rays. Can their success really last? It's like being in an alternate dimension.

Looks like I spoke too soon about Roger Clemens being out of our lives (see post 'No Rest for the Weary' from April 25th). In fact, it's just gotten worse. But my guess is that we haven't seen the worst of it. Just wait until he's Hall of Fame eligible.

Sox Pitching Stellar Again

When you think of the Red Sox you think of them smacking balls off the monster, but that has not been the case over the past five games. In those games, the bats have gone dormant, but the pitching, unbelievable. (I know they are only 2-3 in that stretch but I am still impressed by the starters)  

Each member of the rotation has shown exactly what they can do when they are making their pitches. #1-4 could easily shutdown a line-up on a given night. #5 Wakefield, can keep the Sox in most games and can throw about 500 innings a year. At this point, it seems Epstein made the right call in keeping Lester instead of pulling the tigger on the Santana deal.

Now, I can't think of many teams who are that strong #1-4, have a solid closer and a catcher to keep everything together. Can you? The bats will come around. No one can score 7-10 runs every game, but with good starting pitching the Red Sox may not have to.

Mystery Yankees Theater

So I guess the Yankees are going to use the DL for extra roster spaces now. Today the newest piece added to the injury pile was Phil Hughes. Far be it from me to accuse the Yankees of dishonest practices, but it seems like every time they need to make a move but don't want to demote the player who is on the fence, they take the easy way out and slide the player onto the disabled list with a fabricated or exaggerated injury.

Wilson Betemit went on the DL as soon as they needed an extra catcher the first time Posada went down and when they needed Alberto Gonzalez to come up for the injured Derek Jeter. Now far be it from me to call the Yankees or Betemit liars, but he has been on the disabled list with conjunctivitis since April 14. Now I'm no medical expert but as someone who has had the misfortune of experiencing pink eye, I can tell you that it takes far less that 17 days for it to clear up. I suppose the Yankees are not the first team to use the DL as a glorified holding place for spare parts but I still think it's pretty lame how often they have used it this year.

I don't expect the Yankees to give full disclosure about every player all the time. I just don't expect a Bill Belichick hostility towards telling reporters about injured players.

I guess Girardi took George Constanza's words of wisdom to heart when he told Jerry that, "It's not I lie, if you believe it."