Yankees Defense Fails Pettitte

Andy Pettitte didn't get any help from his defense the past inning. With a runner on first and no one out, he got a ground ball to Jeter who flipped it to Robinson Cano for what looked like an easy double play. But instead of completing the throw to first for the double play, he sort of sailed it over to first and Aaron Hill was safe. On the next play, a groundball to Derek Jeter was not able to be converted into a force out. Alex Rios then sent one deep to left field. Instead of getting back and climbing the wall, Melky Cabrera decided to try to jump instead and jump missed the ball for a homerun. If he had gotten back to the wall and climbed it, that may have been caught.

Meanwhile, Scott Rolen has robbed the Yankees twice and Jose Bautista has made a nice running catch. Bautista almost just threw out Nick Swisher at 2nd base on a two out double attempt, but Nick Swisher's...um..."acrobatic" slide somehow missed Aaron Hill's tag. That gift was short lived, however, as Mark Teixeira's struggles continue as he gets struck out by Ricky Romero. I know they're trying to "rest" him by DH'ing him, but I think Tex could use a full day off sometime next week. With Swisher and Hinske and Posada all able to play first, I think you need to do this sooner rather than later. 4-0 Jays.

 

1-0 after 2

Andy Pettitte got 5 quick outs and then walked Kevin Millar (.236/.308/.368) on 4 pitches. Then a single got by Jeter. Jetes has been much better with positioning himself so far this year as Joel Sherman noted, but there he had not chance to get that ball when it seemed like he should have had it. Rod Barajas followed by just squeezing a ball inside the foul line for a very, very long single as he didn't hustle out of the box (ESPN's live scoring put it as a double...even they thought he should have made it to second). 

Yankees followed by a little bit of a weak inning, going 1-2-3 against Ricky Romero (though he's now up to 41 pitches). The last batter was Eric Hinske in his first AB as a Yankee (and he put a charge into the ball but hit it to the deepest part of the park). Not sure why Hinske is just playing for the first time today, against a lefty. Although his splits are slightly better this year against a lefty, it's in a very small sample size. This guy is much better against righties over his career according to the B-R splits:

 

I	Split	G	GS	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	TB	GDP	HBP	SH	SF	IBB	ROE	BAbip	tOPS+
	vs RHP as LH	877		2688	2360		622	154	16	89	313	47	18	295	540	.264	.347	.456	.803	1075	55	17	0	16	20	16	.305	108
	vs LHP as LH	393		735	652		144	42	0	17	97	13	2	68	180	.221	.298	.363	.661	237	18	7	0	8	0	9	.274	72

 

Will get more into Hinske later...

Derek Jeter Gets Joe Girardi Tossed

Well Joe Girardi lasted all of about 15 minutes in today's game before getting tossed defending Derek Jeter. Jeter usually is very smart on the basepaths, but even if he was safe at third, I don't think that steal, with no one out, was a smart move. But Girardi's ejection once again is followed by a hit. I think this is the first time it wasn't followed by a homerun. Tony Pena to take over for Girardi who gets a very early exit this afternoon in the Bronx. Mark Teixeira's struggles continue: he came into this game hitting at a .174/.387/.304 clip the last 7 days and hasn't homered in a LONG time (since June 12th). Here's his odd monthly splits (not counting today) courtesy of B-R:

Split          G GS  PA  AB  R  H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO   BA  OBP  SLG   OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB ROE BAbip tOPS+ sOPS+ April/March   19 19  90  70 11 14  3  0  3  10  0  0 17 12 .200 .367 .371  .738 26   1   2  0  1   2   1  .196    61    96 May           28 28 128 115 25 38  9  0 13  34  0  0 10 24 .330 .391 .748 1.138 86   2   2  0  1   0   0  .316   136   196 June          25 25 115  95 14 25 10  0  4  16  1  0 17 12 .263 .391 .495  .886 47   3   3  0  0   4   2  .266    90   141 July           5  5  23  19  2  6  1  0  0   1  0  0  4  2 .316 .435 .368  .803  7   0   0  0  0   0   0  .353    78   124 

Jorge Posada strikes out and the Yankees end the first without a run. Jeter's caught stealing was a big part of that first inning, but Teixeira and Jorge Posada failed to get runners home as well. 27 pitches for Romero through 1. Yankees need to keep up the pressure and hope to knock him out early and get to an overworked Toronto bullpen.

 

This Day In Sports Histroy

Via RealClearSports once again:

Bjorn Borg wins his fifth consecutive Wimbledon title, July 5, 1980: Bjorn Borg wins his fifth consecutive Wimbledon title, but not before being stretched to the limit by John McEnroe. In the fourth set, McEnroe fought off five match points - four on Borg's serve - during the tiebreaker, eventually winning 18-16 to force a fifth set. McEnroe later acknowledged that the strain of the tiebreaker cost him in the final set, which Borg won 8-6 while losing only three points in his last seven service games.

Ted Williams dies, July 5, 2002: Ted Williams dies in Inverness, Florida at age 83. The last man to bat .400 in a season, Williams's ambition was to be the greatest hitter who ever lived, and his claim to the title is as good as anybody's. His death set off a legal battle that lasted nearly two years, with two of his children fighting their older half-sister for the right to have his remains cryogenically frozen at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona. They won, thanks to a hand-written note signed by Williams in 2000 that superceded a will written in 1996.

A congratulations go out to Roger Federer for winning his 15th Grand Slam title today. What an epic match that was against Andy Roddick (who looked devestated afterwards). With Pete Sampras and Roger Federer to go along with John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg, and Andre Agassi, I feel privileged to have seen some of the greatest male tennis players of all time.

Happy July 4th

Wanted to wish everyone a happy Independence Day from beautiful Ipswish, Massachusetts where we've gotten some sun between the clouds. I'll be out boating this morning and then Boston Pops and fireworks tonight. And I'll be checking the Yankees on my Blackberry the entire time :)

Have a great day!

-Andrew

There's Pujols and Then There's Everyone Else

I don't care what he says, Albert Pujols is a machine. His June was ridiculous. He led the Majors in homeruns (14), RBI (35), and OPS (1.283). He had 14 homeruns, 14 strikeouts and 7 singles. His last 7 days, he's had a run-of-the-mill 1.797 OPS with 7 out of 10 hits for extra bases, 4 HRs and 7 RBIs. He's on pace for 61 homers and 157 RBIs.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau (via MLB.com), Pujols is the seventh player to have 30 homeruns before July 1st. He now has 30 homeruns in each of his nine major league seasons (a record to start a career). 

Baseball-Reference wrote two days ago that Pujols last 162 games look like this: 52 HR, 153 RBI, 113 BB, 1.160 OPS. Then he went out yesterday and got two hits and was intentionally walked twice. Unfortunately, I think you'll see a lot more intentional walks to Sir Albert as he chases 60 homeruns and beyond.

Speaking of the chase for 60, the 30 home runs by the end of June mark was hit 6 times between 1998-2001. If we throw those out, we have Babe Ruth twice, Ken Griffey Jr. once and now Pujols. I'm not anointing him as some sort of steroids savior, but without a failed test or any credible steroids rumors to his name, Pujols shot at 60 in an open steroids testing era marks about as close a shot at legitimate as we can get. If he ends up hitting 62, what asterisk can you put next to his name? Would he become the new "clean home run champ"? I don't think so, but it'll be interesting to see how him hitting 60+ would be received in light of the McGwire/Sosa/Bonds post-record-breaking revelations.

The craziest part, according to Big League Stew, is that he doesn't even think he's swinging the bat well:

"Yeah, I've got 30 home runs, or whatever, but I don't think I have that consistency that I had like I was the first two months in '06. It felt in '06 that every swing that I was taking, I was hitting the ball hard. I was seeing the ball so good. This year, yes, it's been great. It was a great month. So far, great season. But I felt that it's kind of like up and down."

For the sake of the rest of the National League, let's just hope he's being modest.

Lastly, if you're a pitcher facing Albert Pujols, and you decide not to talk him, do yourself a favor and don't throw him fastballs. Via Buster Olney on Wednesday:

Albert Pujols has 30 homers and 32 strikeouts, which is ridiculous. Some more on Pujols from Trevor Ebaugh of ESPN Stats & Information: Pujols's homers and strikeouts during the 2009 season, by pitch type:

Fastball: 21 HR, 11 K
Slider: 7 HR, 13 K
Curveball: 0 HR, 7 K
Changeup: 2, 1 K

If this man isn't the best player in baseball right now, I don't know who is. I truly hope that no failed steroids (or other PED/illegal drug) test ever comes out for him because he could be the man to help change baseball's image, even if just a little bit. In the meantime, he'll just continue to mash.

How Many People Actually Showed Up That Day?

Well it seems we have a discrepancy. Baseball-Reference's Bullpen says something a little difference about the attendance at that game on this date in 1941 (than what I wrote before): "On a sweltering day in front of 52,832 fans at Yankee Stadium, Joe DiMaggio breaks Wee Willie Keeler's 1897's major league record consecutive game hit streak of 45 with a three-run homer off Red Sox hurler Dick Newsome."

So is it 8,682 or 52,832? That's a little bit of a difference there. B-R's schedule for 1941 shows 8,682 for that game but also does not show any attendance number for the game before that. So I went to the New York Times on July 3rd, 1941 to figure it out (description by Times writer John Drebinger and picture above from the same article):

Sweeping majestically onward with a thunderous smash that soared deep into the left-field stands, Joe DiMaggio yesterday rocketed his current hitting streak beyond the all-time major league record.

For with that home-run clout, boisterously acclaimed by the 8,682 sweltering fans in the sun-baked Yankee Stadium, DiMaggio the Magnificent extended his astounding string to forty-five consecutive games in which he has connected safely.

This surpasses by one the major league mark of 44 games set forty-four years ago by the famous mite of an Oriole, Wee Willie Keeler, who gained renown for his skill in "hitting them where they ain't." Yesterday DiMaggio shattered that mark by the simpler expedient of hitting one where they just couldn't get it.

So it was 8,682 (and the temperature, according to the Times on that day, was 94.4 degrees). Much more interesting to me: how awesome was the writing for that article? No one writes like that anymore. No wonder newspapers are a dying breed.

More On Rivera

A few more Mariano Rivera facts as he continues to rack up saves and chase Trevor Hoffman for #1 all time.

• According to Baseball-Reference, 110 of Rivera's first 500 saves were more than one inning. So for those ignorant people who feel like he never pitches more than an inning, you're wrong; more than a fifth of his saves are of the 4+ out variety. Trevor Hoffman, on the other hand, only has 55 saves of more than one inning. The last one came in 2004 and he has only 3 such saves since 2001. And it's not like Rivera has slowed down in his old age. Since 2005, Rivera leads all players with 37. The next closest is Jonathan Papelbon with 24 and J.J. Putz with 22. No other player even has 20 in that span.
• River Ave Blues revisits that almost-trade that would have sent Mo to the Tigers in 1995. Supposedly, as the story goes, Gene Michael was about to trade him and then all of a sudden found out that his fastball had jumped from the low 90s to the mid-upper 90s and he decided to keep him. Good thing for the Yankees. Imagine where they would have been without Rivera. And George Steinbrenner tried his darnest to trade him. When he couldn't trade Mo to the Tigers for David Wells in 1995, he tried to trade Rivera AND Jorge Posada to the Reds in 1996 for David Wells. Good thing that never happened
• The two players the Tigers and Reds got instead for Wells? C.J. Nitkowski and Curtis Goodwin. Ouch. Wells would end up joining the Yankees after the 1996 season as a free agent.
• FanHouse noted that the MLB All-Star rosters are expanded this year to include another pitcher. If Mariano Rivera is not in St. Louis, there is something seriously amiss.
• Back to B-R: Mariano Rivera has had 224 perfect saves (no baserunners) over his career. That's a little under half of all of his saves. Of those 224 perfect saves, 38 (17%) were of more than one inning. 
• Lastly, via Play Index, Rivera has had 11 saves of one inning where he struck out the side, 4 saves of 2/3 of an inning where he's struck out both batters, and 7 saves of 1/3 of an inning where he got the K, but that save against Atlanta last week was the first time that he's ever struck out the side with more than one inning pitched.

Even in his old age, the Great Mariano Rivera continues to do things he's never done before.

This Date In Sports History and Joltin' Joe

Via RealClearSports:

Joe DiMaggio breaks the major-league hitting-streak, July 2, 1941: Joe DiMaggio's fifth-inning home run off Dick Newsome of the Boston Red Sox extends his hitting streak to 45 games, breaking the all-time major-league record of 44, set by Willie Keeler in 1897. A crowd of 8,682 at Yankee Stadium saw the record-smashing hit. After the game, DiMaggio posed for photographs atop the shoulders of teammates Tiny Bonham and Tommy Henrich.

The most amazing part of this, for me is the crowd: 8,682. The Yankees would lead the American League that year with 964,722 seats sold that year, an average attendance of 12,368 (via B-R). The Yankees were in the midst of a huge divisional comeback (they were down 7.5 games on May 17th and would be up 20.5 on September 9th), Joe DiMaggio was breaking hit streak records, they were in the middle of a 14 game winning streak, and the Yankees were playing the Red Sox.

And DiMaggio was in the middle of this amazing hit streak which started on May 15th, right before the Yankees started taking off. Over that 56-game hitting streak, DiMaggio would bat .409 (91 out of 223) with 56 runs scored, 16 2B, 4 3B, 15 HR, and 55 RBI. But on the day that DiMaggio set the Major League Record, 8,682 people were there.

Amazingly, 134,788 would see the first two games of the World Series in Yankee Stadium that year.  

My favorite part of DiMaggio's batting line from that season: 76 walks to 13 strikeouts. That factors out to one K every 42 ABs. This year's leader is Alberto Callaspo at a 14.5 ABs per K. And DiMaggio came in 2nd in that category in 1941.

With a .357 average, 30 HRs and a league-leading 125 RBIs, DiMaggio captured his second MVP trophy, narrowly edging out Ted Williams and his .406 average (and .553 OBP).

ESPN's "Ultimate Team Rankings"

ESPN recently debuted the latest version of its Ultimate Team Rankings. The goal of this "study" is, in ESPN's own words, "to measure how much MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL franchises give back to the fans in exchange for all the time, money and emotion the fans invest in them."

I put "study" in quotes because I feel that these rankings are a bunch of crap. It's a great concept -- if people love Power Rankings, they're going to love Franchise Rankings! -- but the criteria that go into these rankings are simply impossible to quantify. My opinion is that ESPN produces this garbage because it draws a lot of clicks and ad revenue. But that doesn't make the product legitimate or worth your time to read.

Anyway, ESPN uses 7 categories to measure a franchise's value, including bang for the buck, fan relations, ownership, affordability, stadium experience, players, coaching, and title track. For a more detailed discussion of these criteria, such as how they are defined and calculated, see here.

I have so many problems with this "study" that I'll just conclude right away that it's a joke and then offer just a few thoughts in support of that statement.

First, any Ultimate Team Rankings that puts the St. Louis Blues at #10 while placing the New York Rangers at #93 are flawed.

Second, ESPN polled 1,000 fans to determine what the categories should be. Based on those results, ESPN assigned a weight to each factor based on the amount of interest the fans had in that category. Somehow, "Title Track" wound up 1/2 as important as "Ownership" and 1/4 as important as "Fan Relations." Who are these fans? Why would anyone care 4 times as much about how fan-friendly your team is if the on-field product sucks? If no title is in sight, nobody should care about free parking, 2-for-1 hotdogs, and kids-run-the-bases promotions!!!

Third, the survey is too current. Meaning, teams that have enjoyed a recent resurgence on the field also enjoyed a resurgence in these rankings. Examples include the aforementioned Blues (#10), Washington Capitals (#6), Orlando Magic (#16), Chicago Blackhawks (#21), and the Arizona Cardinals (#33).

Meanwhile, teams with established fan bases and long histories of championships were shafted. Examples include the New York Yankees (#107), the Montreal Canadiens (#100), Dallas Cowboys (#76), and Detroit Pistons (#64).

Look, I know the Yankees (and other similarly-situated teams, like the Cowboys) are not very fan-friendly because their tickets, food, beverages, and the like are way overpriced, but what other complaints are there? Great ownership (loves to spend money on acquiring winning players). Definitely on the title track, perhaps even to a fault! Stadium experience these days is off the charts. Players and Girardi are popular, for the most part. Affordability and "bang for the buck" (whatever that is) is their real achilles heel, but is that a reason to drop them all the way to 107 out of 120?

I just don't buy this whole process. Take 2 groups of fans: those who root for the #107 Yankees and those who root for #16 Tampa Bay Rays. I can't believe that Rays fans have a better fan experience than Yankees fans. Horrible stadium, horrible ownership, and no guarantee of future on-field performance corresponding to last year's Cinderella run. Fan-friendly manager and cheap tickets seem to be the big advantage there. But any team whose stadium is mostly filled with fans of the other team cannot possibly be so amazing as to merit a top-20 ranking, while the Yankees are stuck with #107. This....is just crap.