Last night's Yankees game against the Diamondbacks was U-G-L-Y. No doubt about that one. The Yankees were gifted opportunities because of a plethora of walks and some basehits but they weren't able to turn them into runs due to baserunning errors, great defensive plays by Arizona, GIDPs or just bad "clutch" hitting. It was a game the Yankees had no business winning...but good teams win games like that and they gained a game on Tampa Bay and Boston. Let's look back at the week that was in Yankee land:
An Ugly Game, Indeed. Bronx Banter's Emma Span has a title that knocks mine out of the park (and has some good suggestions at the bottom. The key stat: 10 hits and 13 walks for the Yankees. Yowza! Joe Pawlikowski from FanGraphs writes about Derek Jeter's propensity to hit into double plays (which he did twice last night and the team did 5 times!). Jay from Fack Youk has many more of the gory details. But the New York Times' Ben Shpigel put it best: "The first inning of the Yankees’ game against Arizona on Wednesday night included five walks, four hits, three runs, two base-running blunders, two caught stealings and one wild pitch, and the mayhem was only starting. To the exasperation of both managers, an evening of ragged baseball and mediocre pitching dragged on and on at Chase Field, all the way into the ninth inning and beyond."
Mariano Rivera Walked A Tightrope...and Won. Bases loaded. No one out. One-run lead. And on the mound where his most replayed, most famous, and most scarring collapse occurred. But is there a man you would rather have on the mound than Mariano Rivera. After most of us on the East Coast had gone to bed, the Sandman sent the D-Backs to bed with a pop up, a pop up and a strikeout. Goodnight. LoHud's Chad Jennings writes about Mo's long and strange night but it went beyond that. It reminded all of us how good Mariano has been at the Houdini act for so long and Mark Simon of ESPN reviews Mariano's best. It will be a sad, sad day when this man decides to hang it up. As Joe Pawlikowski writes for River Ave Blues, we should thank Mo. The same with Andy Pettitte who Bobby Valentine wrote about on Tuesday.
I Think They Can Still Play Better. After reading this blog post from Rebecca of This Purist Bleeds Pinstripes, I can see I'm not the only one. This year they're 45-27 through their first 72 games with the best run differential in baseball (last year they had 40 wins and were 4 games out of first). The last time they had more wins through 72 games was 2004 (46). Although the Yankees have been getting great production from certain parts they've been getting less than expected from the top 4 in their Opening Day lineup considering Derek Jeter is nowhere near last year's numbers, Nick Johnson occupies the DL, Mark Teixeira has not figured out April has ended and Alex Rodriguez looks like a less-powerful version of himself. That doesn't even begin to factor in a sub-par bullpen, Curtis Granderson's struggles, Jorge's injury, a bad start for CC Sabathia, or the fact that A.J. Burnett has been awful lately and, as Matt Imbrogno of TYU writes, his K-rate has begun to disappear thanks to a lack of a good out pitch. So I think this team still has room to improve. Scary as that is for the rest of the American League.
Patience At The Plate From An Unlikely Source. Quick, who leads the Major Leagues in pitches per plate appearance? It's not Mr. Three-And-Two, Nick Swisher. It's not the AL batting leader, Robinson Cano. It's not Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, A-Rod, or Posada. It's Brett freaking Gardner. And how about this stat from ESPN's TMI blog: Brett Gardner leads the majors with 4.53 pitches per plate appearance. That would be the highest average since Rickey Henderson’s 4.55 in 1997. After a 4-4 night on Monday and going 2-5 last night, Gardner is now 11th in the AL in hitting (.322), 4th in SB (24), 6th in runs (49), and 5th in OBP (.402). Not too shabby for the guy most people thought was nothing but a fourth outfielder.
Well we talked earlier about how the San Francisco Giants went out and got Brad Penny for their rotation. Well the Colorado Rockies and Los Angeles Dodgers couldn't allow the buck to stop there. The deadline was tonight to add players who would be eligible for the postseason and like Weeds tonight, there needed to be a little fireworks before a season finale.
Dodgers got: Jim Thome from the Chicago White Sox, Ronnie Belliard from the Washington Nationals, and John Garland from the Arizona Diamondbacks
Rockies got: Jose Contreras from the Chicago White Sox (who lost out on Garland and Penny)
I like the Dodgers moves a lot more, but I wonder how exactly they're going to use Thome in the National League. That is SOME bat bench there (all 564 HRs).
The Yankees and Red Sox both got some speed insurance for the stretch run as well: Joey Gathright for the Red Sox and Freddy Guzman for the Yankees. Both of these teams just got pinch runners to use in September.
The weather is getting cool but the race is heating up!
Arizona and San Diego just finished an 18-inning marathon. The most amazing part of the contest: The Padres were held hitless through nine extra innings by four relievers. Their only baserunners in extras came on three walks. So the Diamondbacks' relievers threw a 3 walk, 9 inning, no hitter in extra innings. Not too bad, right? But this was after the Diamondbacks relievers gave up a 5 run lead in the 9th inning! So much for the importance of set-up men and closers, right?
And the guy with the game-tying 3-run homerun in the 9th? That would be David Eckstein, who had NO homeruns in 2009 before today and who has 32 homeruns in his career, and, according to Baseball-Reference, he had only ONE game-tying homerun before today. And his only other game-tying homerun was the first homerun he ever hit in the major leagues (off of Tim Hudson in 2001) over 8 years ago!
At least we can take solace that one of the relievers who pitched well in extras for Arizona was our man, Clay Zavada
But this game certainly proved that every time you go to the ballpark, you'll probably see something really unique and interesting. This was no difference. They got to see two games of innings (18) for the price of one game. Though I do wonder how many people stayed to see the end; the game took 5 hours and 45 minutes.
Clay Pflibson Zavada is not exactly a household name. And his mustache isn't exactly one you see every day either. But his story is two-fold: there is the mustache, but the story of the man is equally compelling as well.
The New Times of Broward-Palm Beach describes his first outing (H/T Jorge Says No for the article and the picture): "It's the worst kind of brutality: swift, unforgiving, and ushered in by a waxed, turned, well-spun piece of man hair. If you didn't see it [May 21st], the Marlins lost to the Diamondbacks 4-3. And the winning pitcher only appeared in the seventh inning. It was also his first time to pitch in the big leagues. Most notable though, was the man's incredible facial hair. That's right, Clay Zavada rocks the Rollie Fingers-esque handlebar womb broom...It seems this fantastic 'stache symbolizes something bigger than baseball--something about the perseverance of the blue collar American, and all his facial fuzziness."
As that article seems to suggest, there is something more to the mustache than just hair; something about the man as well. Well, as the New York Times wrote back in December, the 24-year-old Zavada lost his father in December 2006 following his first year of professional baseball. So he gave up baseball for a time to tend to the family farm in Streator, Illinois (practicing by throwing to the assistant principal of his old high school), before he returned to the Arizona Diamondback organization in 2008. But the road back was not as easy at it seems:
"Zavada’s mother, Linda, had died when he was 3; his older brother, Dustin, was serving in the Navy. Suddenly, [after his father's death] Zavada found himself responsible for looking after his family’s property, a mix of farmland and forest that was his father’s pride and joy. 'That’s when the wheels kind of came off the track,' Zavada said. 'He was my life. My brother and him, that’s all we were. The three of us.' Zavada failed to report to spring training in 2007 and lost touch with the Diamondbacks, who dropped his contract later in the summer...That fall, Zavada decided to honor his father’s wishes by completing his bachelor’s degree at Edwardsville. He also took a part-time job delivering furniture"
At that point he was pretty much done with baseball until a friend urged him to try out for an independent league team. Although he started slow, he soon got his momentum back, was resigned again by the Diamondbacks and started his unlikely journey to the big leagues.
But after being called up from AA, he's been lights out. Zero runs in 6 appearances, 5 innings pitched with only 3 hits and zero walks to 7 Ks. He has a win and two holds and looks like he could be sticking with this team for a long time to come. His 'stache has been seen on all over ESPN's programming from Baseball Tonight to First Take (video below where they talk about his "Lip Sweater")
“You got to do what you got to do,” Zavada said in that New York Times article. “It’s how I grew up, you know. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
And because of who he is (and what he looks like), we here at No, You're A Towel have decided to sponsor our first Baseball-Reference page for Clay Zavada. Let's hope him and his mustache have a long and distinguished career in major league baseball.
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