I Really Didn’t Want to be Right About This
I can’t believe that John Yoo was never arrested for issuing the memo giving Jose Valverde permission to pitch playoff games against the Yankees. And I assume that Michael Brown was temporarily sitting in as Tigers manager when the decision not to bring in Smyly to face Ibanez* was made.
At least it’s an exciting game for the 300 people remaining in Yankee Stadium.
*197/246/246 against LHP in 2012. 211/232/353 against LHP in 2011.
UPDATE: It was never in doubt! Raul Ibanez is no Delmon Young.
…Jeter with fractured ankle. In all seriousness, not the way anyone would want his playoff to end.
SEK’S UPDATE: I’m glad Jeter fractured his ankle. I thought he’d popped his MCL/ACL, which at his age would’ve effectively ended his career … and I want his career to end Beltran vs. Wainwright style, staring at a dagger of a curveball in an elimination game. Painful, but in the field of play.
I asked last time- if Ibanez comes up again bases empty with a chance to win it, do you walk him to put the winning run on? Logically of course not, but what he’s done this week isn’t logical.
No. Just bring in a fucking left hander, and the worst he’ll do to you is an opposite-field single.
Unless the lefty is named Matusz.
I’ll take my chances.
Looks like he’ll get another swing.
Sweet, sweet vindication.
completely insane not to have brought the lefty in to face ibanez in the 9th.
Smyly=rookie 6th starter/long reliever. Bringing him in to replace the closer with a lead in the bottom of the 9th in a playoff game is not a solution that would occur to Leyland.
Leyland likes to give his players defined roles and sticks with them, sometimes beyond all reason.
Anyone who thinks baseball is boring should consider that this game would’ve been de facto over about two innings early in another sport.
“It ain’t over til it’s over”: the Yogism that perfectly captures baseball’s superiority.
This. That’s all.
While I generally agree, the problem here is that this game was made unusually exciting by inept coaching on both sides and overpaid stars not delivering at the plate. I’d rather watch a somewhat duller but better-played game.
+1
A-fucking-men. Astonishing a team competing at this level can have him as a closer.
Raul should run for mayor of NY, he’d win in a landslide.
I’d argue that Ichiro’s HR was every bit as clutch, if not more so. But nobody’ll remember it.
Leyland must have gotten shitfaced between the 8th and 9th innings. Leaving Valverde in after Ichiro’s homer was inexcusable.
I still like Detroit, much as it pains ms to admit it. A lineup with Cabrera, Fielder, Jackson, and Young, plus Verlander on the mound, should get to the WS. A team that relies on late-inning magic I think should fall apart when the rubber hits the road. But then again this is the Yanks we’re talking about.
Well, he can’t smoke during the game so he’s probably got some bad cravings by the 9th.
To be fair to Leyland, it’s pretty late in the evening. Maury Seinfeld wouldn’t have been alert enough to make a pitching change either.
I’m sure he will never tell us, but I wonder what Leyland was really thinking.
He was plotting ways to get Jeter out of the Yankee line-up.
Unlike the rest of us, ‘You Fucking Asshole’(as Leyland is referred to affectionately by baseball fans in Detroit), a true baseball genius, realized that if he extended the game a few innings by inexplicably leaving ‘Fucking’ Valverde (as he’s referred to affectionately by baseball fans in Detroit) in to pitch to Ibanez, Jeter would suffer a season ending injury fielding a routine groundball.
really who expects Jeter to field routine ground balls anymore
It’s not over yet …
Much as I didn’t want the Yankees to come back in the ninth, I wanted them to come back in the ninth for the forty thousand people who”d left early.
I don’t think there was more than 35,000 at any point. Tons of empty seats everywhere.
4000 unsold tickets according to what I heard.
Probably more on stub hub too
Was it cold or raining or something? What’s the deal with that?
Attending games at New Yanker Ballpark costs a lot of money and they’re in the playoffs so often there’s no pent up excitement or novelty of the expierience among the “fanbase.” Of course by “fanbase” I mean rich New Yorkers who like being seen at Yanker games and laugh at the 99% who were priced out.
You tell me 40,000 people attended this game.
They had less than 24 hours to know there even would be a game.
In Baltimore it would have still sold out.
So they had no idea there might be a game on Saturday until the moment the Yankees won Game 5? There was no room for contingency planning?
Sorry, that’s bullshit.
Jeter: “I’m too old for this shit!”
Well Scott, by your estimates the Yankees just improved their chances with that injury.
Baffled by that injury. Didn’t look like anything on the replay, but he was clearly in pain.
His ankle was already apparently injured. That looked pretty ugly.
Nevermind. They just showed that he turned the ankle
Fractured ankle, out 3 months.
?
Aren’t you always saying how overrated he is, especially in the playoffs?
“Excessively fawned over” sure as hell doesn’t mean “not good,” let alone “not by far the best SS on the Yankee roster.” I’m baffled that so many Yankee fans have trouble grasping this simple concept.
ah, but to clarify the point (which i usually don’t even bother with any more), it’s not jeter’s fault that he’s excessively fawned over, but it’s jeter and not the fawners who takes the rap here at lgm….
You don’t think Derek Jeter bears some responsibility for Derek Jeter’s public image?
in the direct sense for which people here dis him?
no.
Hey, *I’m* not the one who doesn’t think Jeter is a Hall of Famer. ;)
that’s ’cause i think it’s possible to evaluate jeter honestly without either needing to fawn nor to dis: he’s been an outstanding player for a long time but he’s not a good enough fielder for me to think he’s a hall of famer.
Yeah, that’s an honest evaluation.
I hate the fucking Yankees as much as anyone, and am aware that Jeter has Gold Gloves he doesn’t deserve, but if you think his fielding is bad enough to keep him out of the HoF you’re just the flip side of the folks who fawn over him excessively.
Every baseball discussion needs a guy like you, just so that there is something to argue about even when the point, e.g., Jeter going into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot, isn’t really arguable.
the fact that jeter is going to go into the hall on the first ballot is neither here nor there to me: i’m not that obsessed with who is and isn’t in the hall of fame in the first place.
but insofar as the question arises, i think the hall has too many players, and even while i can certainly acknowledge that jeter will go into the hall justifiably by the standards that exist, i’m not onboard with those standards (to quantify, by about 20%; i think the hall should more or less be the top 1% and instead it’s more or less the top 1.25%).
specifically, there are those who in this very space would argue that jeter is the worst shortstop in major league history (which i don’t agree with) defensively and yet think he should be in the hall. i don’t follow the logic at all.
i think if you’re going to have the limited range at shortstop that jeter has, your offensive contribution should be more like that of ernie banks (career ops+ 122, 6 seasons with ops+ above 140) than jeter has been (career ops+ 117, 2 seasons above 130).
ymmv, but it’s a considered opinion, not either a prediction or a knee-jerk anti-fawning response….
Hating Jeter is negative fawning. The only way he can have the appropriate amount of fawning is for us to hate him.
walt, that may be the best argument i’ve heard on the whole subject!
BADABING!
are you guys sure there isn’t another statue on the Yankee roster who can play better defense than Jeter? Is there any way Jeter can play pain free, since Jeter with a broken ankle has to be as mobile as Jeter with 2 good ankles
Young hit a rocket, for sure. But any outfielder worth his salt has got to make that play. Don’t know what Swisher was doing. Credit to the Tigers–they’re just grinding it out, not giving up at all.
That’s two catches swisher didn’t make tonight.
I am willing to believe it was in the lights.
no one has ever confused swisher with paul o’neill (not to mention, just to show my age, roger maris) out there.
Ichiro is a better alternative in RF for the Yankees. I’m glad he was in LF.
Swisher’s a damned good RF-er, and certainly good enough for that park, but it does say something about the Yankees’ problems in LF that their best LF-er is an aging RF-er who wasn’t even expected to be a regular started when they got him.
I’m inclined to write off Swisher’s error as a rare mistake that happened at a very bad time.
Damn good? Nah. Mediocre at best.
But in Yankee stadium, you want the corner OF with the most range in left. Girardi’s positioning makes sense.
actually, defensively, the best alignment is gardner-granderson-ichiro, but since gardner can barely swing a bat, that’s not in the cards.
if they wanted to move ichiro to right they didn’t have a leftfielder, since gardner had already come in for granderson.
Oh no the Tigers already wasted their closer in a tied inning!!!!
I lol’d.
Ironically, Valverde was properly brought into a low-leverage situation, only he’s the kind of PROVEN CLOSER who can turn anything into a high-leverage situation.
No, see, it’s because a 4-run lead isn’t a “save” but a 3 run lead would have been a meaningless stat and having a meaningless stat gives you more adrenaline. John Smoltz says so.
I am convinced that the “save” stat was invented by agents.
since i miss few chances to plug jim brosnan’s first-hand account of the 1961 reds season, “pennant race,” written from his position as the team’s top reliever.
those were the early days of the save, and while i’m not going to track down the precise reference now, brosnan is very clear that the way he viewed the “save” was as a negotiating point in those dim, dark, reserve-clause days.
wasn’t it invented by a sportswriter
and of course there’s no way that john smoltz would know anything about what goes through a reliever’s mind: i mean, that would just be crazy talk, right?
Speaking as a dedicated Atlanta Braves fan for over two decades (my adopted team when I moved to GA), I know full well that John Smoltz is in possession of some odious qualities as a human being. He’s ultra-right-wing. He stumped for Ralph Reed when Reed ran for Lt. Governor. I would, without hesitation, run over Ralph Reed if he ever walked in front of my car. True dat. Seriously, take that to the bank.
Nonetheless, I’ve listened to Smoltz in the broadcast booth for about 3 years. He’s terrific. He was an outstanding pitcher and knows more about pitching than anybody I have ever heard on national broadcasts. I would trade him for Tim McCarver any day of the week, even if McCarver was out phonebanking for the Obama campaign.
i actually didn’t know that about smoltz (that is, that he’s a crazed right-winger), but i have to say that although he seemed to tire in the extra innings, i have really enjoyed his insights into pitch selection.
And an unabashed homophobe as well
Meanwhile, Cal Ripken is possibly the most useless game announcer I’ve ever witnessed.
Good comment — good baseball and baseball announcing is separate from b.s. ideological sentiments. I’m sure various players I like have opinions I don’t like. But, that’s different from not respecting their talents.
Having perspective is worth a shout out.
I’d trade Zombie Gerry Coleman or almost anyone but Hawk Harrelson for McCarver.
Joe Morgan?
Hah!
Win 1 of 4.
I was at the game. The stadium was never more than 2/3 filled, and it’s possible that’s being generous. Lots of empty seats. Last time I was at a playoff game it was games 1-2 against Seattle in 2000, also an ALCS opener, and the feeling was electric. Nothing of the kind tonight, until Raul did his thing. And yeah, tons of people had left, obviously. I stayed to the bitter end, and given that my home is in Staten Island, had to subway down to the 2:30 ferry to get home. I walked in the door at 3:10. That’s the price you pay for being a die-hard. A really sick part of me wants to be able to say I was at the last game Derek Jeter ever played. And yeah, the Swisher play looked ugly — I was in foul territory in RF, so right behind him, and it looked like the ball went *through* him. Blarg.
if jeter fractured his ankle the day after the last day of the season in an accident while packing, we’d have essentially no doubt that he’d be back next spring, and while i don’t know much about the severity of the injury, i have little doubt that he’ll be back next season and you didn’t see his last game.
as for the tix, i don’t know what to make of it: it’s not like yankee stadium attendance fell off massively this year, i guess the short notice to people who could actually afford the tix, but who knows?
but as for the atmosphere, i said in the other thread and i’ll repeat here that the yanks had 180 at bats in the oriole series and by their season norms, they’d have had 7 fewer strikeouts and 4 more homers, and yet i wasn’t surprised that they didn’t. this is a team that appears to be especially susceptible to ks against good pitching, and the number of pitches that a number of hitters are chasing out of the strike zone is sickening.
which tends to put a damper on things, i must say, not to mention that there is no youthful excitement on the yanks because there is no youth: this is a very old team.
Very astute stuff. Thanks.
Howard,
This beautiful new stadium ain’t the old one – which was the refurbished of the even older one.
Not by a long shot.
The place is a shopping mall with a ball game in the grassy parking lot in the middle of it.
I hate it, beautiful as it is.
For those who’ve never been, it would have fit right into Nazi Berlin.
When I first walked in, there’s a large marble atrium with huge banners of great Yankees of the past, draping down.
Babe.
Lou.
Joe.
Mickey.
All I could think of that first time, was substitute those banners for those of Adolf, Herman, Rudy (Hess, not that Italian Fascisto, Guliani), and I could be watching a Lani Reifenstahl film taking place in a stadium Albert Speer designed.
“Triumph of the Payroll!”
The seats are rediculously expensive. And, as I said earlier, the ambiance leaves a lot to be desired – for real Baseball fans.
I’m sure it’s fine for casual ones, or corporate @$$holes and other rich pricks whose Mommies birthed them on 3rd base.
My friend had tickets to the first WS game against the Phillies. I had been to Playoff and WS games before, thanks to other friends, and the new stadium just doesn’t get anywhere near as loud as the old one.
Maybe it’s the padded seats for the rich fannies, or more space in between them, or the fact that many people are buying Yankee sh*t, or non-hot-and-beer/soda-peanuts related food in the courts.
Or the fact that Vinnie from Queens, LaRoy from Brooklyn, Sylvester from Staten Island, Moshe from Manhattan, and Abdul from Bronx, CAN’T AFFORD A TICKET, and are watching or listening at home.
FSM, I miss the old stadium!
Funny. I’ve often joked that I don’t want to attend any Nuremberg rallies in the Bronx.
“Triumph of the Payroll” is one of the best lines I’ve read in a long while…
FSM, I miss the old stadium!
Nobody named Moishe is a Yankee fan. We always root for the underdog.
Seriously, I didn’t watch the game, but saw a clip afterward. When Jeter went down, my first thought was “I can hear gulag’s heart breaking, all the way from here…”
Ok, you can all hate on Jeter all you want.
But you can’t deny he’s one of the handful of all time great SS’s with a bat – ever.
And a tough-assed SOB. Mentally AND physically.
3,300 hits don’t grow on trees – and especially not in the cement-paved pressure cooker that’s the NY Yankees in Da Bronx!
And he’s one of the very few players in history whose post-season stats mirror his regular season ones.
Average players don’t do that. Hell, even most of the great ones don’t.
Is he a great defensive SS?
No.
He never was a GREAT fielder.
But he was always a very solid one – one who would make any play he could reach, and NOT make any silly errors.
And he could go back on a pop-up or flare behind him as few at that position ever could. At SS, he was ‘death to flying things.’
Remember the play that Jeter made, diving into the stands between 3rd and LF, catching a pop-up in a regular season game against the Boston Red Sox? What other SS would have dove in, running full-speed, head-first, IN A REGULAR SEASON GAME?
This may signal the end for Jeter – or certainly the beginning of it.
Not that he won’t put in the effort to recover. That man never ever backed down from any challenge.
But the reality is, how much range will a soon to be 39 year-old, already range impaired, SS lose coming back from a broken ankle? And how can he compensate for that. And no, PED’s will not be involved.
As I said earlier, hate on Jeter all you want.
But I don’t think a single one of you wouldn’t be thankful to whatever deity it is you believe in, or chance, or whatever, if he had been the SS on your favorite team for the last 16+ years!
I told my 18 year-old baseball-loving nephew a long time ago to enjoy watching Jeter and Mariano while he can, because we’ll never see the likes of Yankees like that ever again.
As a Yankee fan, I’ve had a string of great hero’s.
As a boy, the GREAT Mickey Mantle.
As a teenager and young college student, Thurmon Munson.
As a young adult growing into full manhood, I had Don Mattingly,
And in my decline, I’ve had Derek Jeter.
Now, after watching Jeter break his ankle last night, and my mid-50′s, I feel old.
Very old.
Really old.
I respect the hell out of jeter, and I sure as hell did not enjoy watching a first ballot hall of famer get hurt. Great player and a hard-nosed player as well. What I hate is the bullshit fellating of the man for qualitative nonsense such as “intangibles”, “leadership” and “clutchness”. It’s nothing more than Yankee-marketing bullshit manufactured to sell a Paul Molitor caliber player to the fans as if he’s in the class of the all time greats such as mantle and mays. If the media and the Yankee fans would rest their case for his greatness on his quantative achievements, there would be no jeter haters. But they instead choose to buttress their case with nonsense while refusing to acknowledge his defensive deficiencies, and then wonder why there is a backlash against their idol.
As for the catch against Boston, you’re absolutely right. No other shortstop would have made that play look so difficult.
Sherm,
Only johnnny-come-latey Yankee sycophants, and fools (but I repeat myself), put Jeter up there with Mantle and Mays and Aaron.
What he is, is a remarkably durable SS who is a very good and consistant hitter.
He was an ok to good fielder in his youth – less so now. Still, having said that, how many slick-fielding SS’s entered the game before him, with him, and after him, and where are they now?
And the fact that he plays in NYC, in a key defensive position, under the harshest microscopes in his sport, and doesn’t fade, but makes the hits that are needed, and make the plays that he has to in the field, is a remarkable achievement.
Is he clutch?
Well, if you define “clutch” as playing the same way in pressure situations that you do in the course of the rest of the game/season, then yes, he’s clutch.
Too many player DON’T play the game the same way. They let the situation and its pressure get to them, and they either fall short and under-perform, or try to raise their game, and under-perform.
And there’s always an element of chance. Mantle had some great WS’s, and some god-awful ones. Mays, if not, THE, certainly amongst the 5 greatest all-around players of all times, had some pedestrian stats as a hitter when he played in the Playoffs and WS. Of course, he didn’t play on a team that made the WS almost every year, like Mantle did.
Jeter is a great player. PERIOD.
He is not the greatest of all time.
But he IS amongst the handful of greatest SS’s of all time.
He ain’t Wagner. NO ONE IS!
He ain’t even A-Rod in his prime.
Jeter ain’t Vern Stevens when he was in his prime – but Jeter’s had a longer and, hence, more productive career.
Jeter ain’t any of the above.
But in my book, he’s up there with the great Cal Ripkin.
He’s a more consistant hitter with less power – and I think in their primes, Ripkin was a slightly better defensive SS.
And say what you will about Jeter, but being in ‘Mr. Ripkin’s Neighborhood’ ain’t a bad place to be.
I’d actually say that he’s better than Ripken, and I’m a well-known jeter hater in the eyes of many, which only further highlights how ridiculous the jeter lovers are.
Sorry about the injury. I’d rather see the Yankees lose with than without jeter. :).
Thanks.
It’s a very sad day for me.
This is the first time since my late 30′s that number 2′s not out there playing 6 in the Playoffs.
Maybe I’d throw A-Rod out there at SS for the rest of the series.
Maybe he can remember how great he once was, by playing the position that he once played better than anyone but Wagner.
It’s worth a shot.
What does he, and the team, have to lose?
I’m hoping Girardi will talk to A-Rod and see if he thinks he can still play the position.
He hasn’t exactly been Terry Pendleton in his prime at 3rd lately – so I’m not exactly sure, or if it’s even fair to him, to ask him to play Short.
See my answer to you in the previous thread.
I have seen Ozzie Smith play in person many tens of times. Jeter is not on that level but he has earned respect for everything else he has done for that club. An important intangible is that Jeter is “not a prima donna” as my mom would have put it. He knows how to handle the media and have a private life, which added to the atmosphere of calm and Zen Torre was trying to promote.
i regard consistency as jeter’s greatest attribute: look at his month-to-month career numbers and they’re virtually all the same.
look at his postseason numbers, with north of 700 plate appearances, and they’re slightly better than (but essentially consistent with) his regular season numbers.
look at his career stats vs. lefties and righties and they’re surprisingly close; look at his career home-road numbers, same thing.
to go out and do that game in and game out is a remarkable achievment and a great anchor for your ballclub (especially given that he’s long been surrounded by a variety of streak hitters).
Jeter failed as a leader when he didn’t vacate SS when A-Rod joined the Yankees.
Maybe yes, maybe no.
But Jeter wasn’t the one coming to NY to try to get a WS Championship ring – Alex was.
A-Rod had more power, and he belonged at a corner position more than Jeter.
The Yanks were, justifiably, high on a kid named Cano in the Minor’s to play second.
So, unless Jeter wanted to move to CF, there really was no place for him to go, since he didn’t have the HR’s you’d traditionally expect from a 3rd Basemen.
Now, people may argue. ‘Who cares who plays SS or 3rd, since the production from that side of the IF, would be the same?’
But the fact of the matter was that it wasn’t Jeter coming to the Yanks after a deal with the Red Sox got shot down, it was Alex.
So he really wasn’t in a position to bargain – Jeter had 4 rings, and A-Rod had zippydeedoodaa.
I don’t know, but if the Yanks didn’t have Cano in the minors, Jeter might, might, have moved to 2nd.
But I don’t think so – Alex had insulted Derek in a magazine or newspaper article a few years before, despite the fact that they were friends at that time.
Jeter had 4 rings, and he felt that after Alex insulted him, and still wanted to come to his team, that he’d make Alex his Beeyotch.
I’m not saying that’s the right thing to do. Or the best thing for the team. But take a look at this year: a 38 year-old Jeter had a much better and more productive year than a 37 year-old Rodriguez.
I can’t argue with you, since what you say has the ring of truth. But I can understand why Jeter may have done what he did, rather cede SS to A-Rod.
Jeter had his rings.
Offensively, 3B Jeter+SS A-Rod=3B A-Rod+SS Jeter. Defensively, A-Rod was a better SS, meaning the team Jeter captained would have been better with him changing positions.
This is a really dumb argument for the reasons BobS lists. You don’t, in particular need HR from 3rd base. The only question that matters is whether Arod at 3rd and Jeter at SS is better defensively than the alternative. And given that Jeter’s range is his primary defensive limitation and Arod being a better defensive SS at the time, it’s hard to believe the Yankees were better off without the switch.
All the talk about Jeter not being responsible for his inflated image falls down when you encounter this example. I don’t particularly hold it against him, but then I don’t really care that he’s a prima donna.
Valverde’s deal is up after the season, and I think any questions about re-signing him have been answered over the past few days. Al Alburquerque (whose slider is very nearly as good as his name) is the obvious replacement, but that would leave the middle relief pretty thin.
Note to SEK.I heard a rumor that Beltran’s hanging around somewhere in MLB.
Can’t let it go alert: SEE always use Dotel!
Giraldi announced Jeter’s injury in the postgame press conference in a way fans should appreciate — simply noted he was done, matter of factly. The follow up question about how Jeter felt was tres lame. Guess it was one of those “have to ask it, man, it’s in the handbook” things.
However tempting, a person can’t feel sorry for pure evil. A person can feel sorry for Derek Jeter as an individual. There is nothing wrong with Jayson Nix except that Derek Jeter had the intangible ability to save them year after year and time after time.
(If you wanted to skip a month at Balloon Juice, it wouldn’t be this one, because voting rights in Ohio are clearly very important. I am sorry it took me two days to think of that.)
Go for the politics, stay for the dirty pics?
Kay usually doesn’t do those.
I don’t really think of any of the photos of John as dirty. Eros would never look that uncomfortable in front of a camera.
David Phelps took the loss in both extra-inning games. We could almost say that he is as cursed as Valverde.
(After the Ibanez HR I gave up and told my husband, “Let’s go home.” I read a Gwyneth Jones story and went to bed.)
(Scott is right, 4-0 should be a low pressure situation, but I was still too scared to eat the no-hechsher apple pie (no lard AFAIK) and gave it to my dad.)
i said yesterday that i thought scott was overrating the yankee offense in a post-season context of better pitching, but sheesh, even so i didn’t think it was going to be this bad!
hard for the tigers not to win this now, and they certainly deserve it.
You will all forgive me if a indulge in a brief “WOO! HOO!”
I will mention, by the way, that the Tigers’ starters have now given up 5 runs in 48 postseason innings.
there have been some truly wide strikes called, but they’ve been called both ways, and what has really impressed me about the tigers starters in the yankee series is the number of first-pitch strikes: i’d love to see the count, but it’s amazing how many yanks are 0-1 or even 0-2.
against baltimore, compared to seasonal per-at-bat norms, the yanks had 7 “extra” strikeouts and were “short” 4 home runs.
in 2 games against detroit, they now have another 5.5 “extra” strikeouts and are now “short” another 1.5 homers.
and that’s pretty much all you need to know about how well the yankee offense has been functioning.
p.s. i did take a look at the 3 yanks with large enough sample sizes – jeter, posada, and williams – and they all did show an increase in k-rate in the post season compared to regular season, but not to this degree.
and that’s pretty much all you need to know about how well the yankee offense has been functioning.
Or, perhaps more to the point, about how well every Tiger pitcher but one has been functioning.
this pretty much takes us to my key point about the yanks this season (and recent seasons in general): this is a lineup full of guys who like to work counts and to drive the ball.
that’s fine in the regular season and is as good a way as any to accumulate 800 runs.
but in the post-season, if the other team really has its pitching on, that can be a weakness, as we’ve especially seen in the arod, swisher, and granderson at bats, but others as well: the tigers are hitting their spots wonderfully and the yanks are overswinging and missing.
i can only say thank goodness for a day off and arod looked like he got some better swings the last two at bats, because verlander stands an excellent chance of extending the shutout streak….
I’m not sure that working the counts is the Yankees’ problem. If you are facing a team with lights-out starters and a shaky bullpen, you have to work the counts and run up the starters’ pitch counts.
i’m all for the yanks working the counts; the issue here is that that gets you in a take mentality on the first pitch, and the tigers are hitting that first pitch called strike time and again, so suddenly the hitter is in a hole (there’s roughly a 200-point ops difference for the eventual outcome between starting 0-1 and starting 1-0, and the gap gets way bigger between 0-2 and 2-0), and once they’re in that 0-1, 0-2 situation, it becomes much easier to take advantage of the overswinging.
there’s not much the yanks can do about it: it’s who they are as hitters. since arod, swisher, granderson, and cano are all much better than they have looked, it’s at least possible that they will start having better at-bats, but falling behind in the count and overswinging is a great way to get shut out!
Well, they won’t be facing Fister or Sanchez on Tuesday, so maybe things will go better for them . . .
just for the record, when the yanks start with an 0-1 count, their ultimate ops is .663; when they start 1-0 it’s .889.
when they start 0-2, it’s .460; when they start 2-0, it’s 1.064.
as man 0-1 and 0-2 counts as detroit has hung on them, it’s no surprise what’s happening….
I don’t buy that the Yankees style is the problem. I think it’s been effective in the playoffs in the past. The problem probably is that they are experienced veteran players who probably are better at feasting on the weaker pitchers they face over the course of the season. Now they are a little more worn down at are suffering against better pitching. But I think a group of older veterans might have a similar problem regardless of their approach.
mpowell, actually, with the exception of 2009, the yanks have had problems in post-season hitting since game 4, 2004 against the sox.
if you look at arod, swisher, texeira, cano, and posada, you see a lot of (admittedly small sample size, but not surprisingly) the same problems in the yanks brief 2010 and 2011 postseasons.
there actually isn’t a single hitter on the yanks as comfortable flicking the ball the opposite way as cabrera.
now, age is also part of this, without question – this is a very old team.
I’ve been seeing the same strike zone called in every post season game I’ve watched.
Am I just a die-hard homer, or does the TBS announce team pull pathetically heavy for one team over the other?
There certainly seems to be an assumption that the Yankees are what’s important, and every other teams is just a bunch of extras in the Yankees’ movie.
One TBS announcer said about Jeeter’s broken ankle, “It transcends baseball”. Not kidding.
Yeah, that’s idiotic. I say that as a Yankees fan.
Just think how much better the Tigers would be if they had Mike Cameron.