Joba Chaimberlain suspended 2 games

MLB suspended Joba Chaimberlain for his 9th inning “wild pitches” in yesterday’s Yankees/Red Sox game. He will serve the 2 games tonight and tomorrow against Tampa Bay.

The NY Yankees have the Wild Card Lead

While my esteemed collegue John will most likely post a game recap for the Thursday Sox/Yankees finale in the AM, I just felt it necessary to post this fact, since it is the FIRST time this year it can be said…

THE NEW YORK YANKEES HAVE THE WILD CARD LEAD

Seattle lost their game today, leaving the Yanks atop the Wild Card race ALONE. The Yankees control their own destiny now. They need to put away Seattle when they come to town next week to really take a strong lead.

That’s all for now…. game recap in the morning!

Yankees 4 Red Sox 3: Rocket Wins Texas Showdown

The Yankees beat the Red Sox 4-3 last night at Yankee Stadium. New York has clinched a win of this three game set against the archrival Sox. Now the Bronx Bombers have a chance to sweep. The Yanks are within 6 games in the East and are tied for the Wild Card lead again. The team seems to have left its sluggish play behind in Detroit. Through the first two contests in this series, New York has played like the team that stormed through the gates out of the All-Star break.

Roger Clemens was the star of the game. The ageless righty gave up only 1 run on 2 hits in 6 innings. Roger fed off the crowd, the magnitude of the game, and the memory of his lousy start in Detroit to deliver his finest outing of the season. Many Boston fans mocked the Yankees for signing Roger, calling him too old and washed up (of course, these fans were hoping the Sox would sign him). Clemens is probably never going to contend for a y Young ever again in the American League, but he is still an above average pitcher capable of dominating now and again. He has done a great job keeping his team in the game, which means success with an offense this good. Sending him to the hill in September should certainly beat putting Jaret Wright or washed up Randy Johnson every fifth day.

The offense hung a loss on Josh Beckett. The Texan had to scrap and claw just to hold the Yanks to 4 runs in 6.2 innings. New York put a runner on in every inning and picked up 14 hits against Boston’s ace. Beckett battled to keep his team in the game, but the Red Sox have to be concerned. The Yanks have hit Beckett hard this year. Josh has demonstrated a mastery over the rest of the American League, but he has given up 4 earned runs in all 3 of his starts against the Bronx Bombers in 2007. While the postseason is an entirely different animal from the regular season, this is cause for at least some worry in a potential ALCS matchup.

Kyle Farnsworth did everything he could to pitch his way out of a prominent relief role by giving up 2 runs on 3 hits in 0.2 innings. A homer by Kevin Youkilis was the big blow, cutting a 4-1 lead to 4-3. Kyle had pitched well before that, but Joe Torre needs to stop going to him in close games. Any runs of success that Farnsworth has are always fleeting. He has no mental toughness and extremely inconsistent command. Despite his fantastic natural ability, there is a reason that he still has not gained any kind of consistency by age 31. That is unlikely to change. It will always be a roller coaster ride with him. Edwar Ramirez and Chris Britton are much more stable options for prominent relief roles in games Joba Chamberlain has off. Fortunately for Kyle and the Yankees, Mariano Rivera picked up a 4 out save with ease, but going to Mo in the 8^th is something this team should avoid whenever possible.

The Yankees have a chance to sweep Boston today. In most cases winning a series is sufficient, especially at this time of year. This is a different story, though. The Yankees were so far out of first place that they needed five of six in their remaining games against Boston to have a realistic shot at taking the East. Winning this game is going to be much easier than sweeping at Fenway Park in a few weeks. New York sends Chien-Ming Wang, the co-ace of the staff along with Andy Pettitte, to the hill. Boston sends Ketchup Sock Boy himself, Curt Schilling. As the Schill has aged and his velocity has lessened, he has become a punching bag for the Yankees’ offense. The Wild Card is still in play no matter what, but this is a golden opportunity to put some pressure on the Red Sox and send WEEI into full meltdown mode.

Yankees 5 Red Sox 3: Andy and Johnny Deliver

The Yankees beat the Red Sox by a 5-3 score last night at Yankee Stadium. The win gave New York an early edge in the opener of a three game series. Boston’s lead in the division now stands at seven games. The Yankees are a longshot to win a tenth straight division title, but the team at least kept its faint hopes alive with this victory.

Andy Pettitte once against stepped up in a big way with his team’s back against the wall. The lefty gave up 3 runs in 7 innings, holding the Sox down for most of the night. Pettitte did hand an early 2-0 lead back Boston and gave up a 7^th inning homer to Jason Varitek, allowing the Sox to tie the game at 3. However, this outing was exactly what the Yanks needed. Pettitte delivered big pitch after big pitch when he had to, never leaving the mound with his team trailing. Starting pitching has become an issue for this club, but Pettitte has been the exception. He is doing everything he can to keep this team in the pennant race. Lately he has been taking the mound a lot with the team in a losing streak. He seems to thrive on the pressure that comes with being a stopper. Everybody knows how A-Rod, Jeter, and Posada kept the Yanks afloat through their first half struggles. Pettitte has delivered an August no less heroic. The lefty has won 6 games this month. He keeps getting better as the games get bigger.

Johnny Damon was the game’s biggest offensive star for the Yanks. His 2 run homer off Daisuke Matsuzaka provided the winning margin. He also make a pair of nice running catches in leftfield. Everybody knows Jason Giambi’s track record. He is one of the most dangerous hitters in the game. However, this shows why he was relegated to part-time status. Yes, Jason should still get a decent number of at bats, but Damon brings too much to the table to sit on the bench and do nothing else. Johnny is a catalyst at the top of the order. He grinds at bats by fouling off and taking pitches. He bugs pitchers into making mistakes and has decent enough pop to take advantage of the short porch in right. He covers far more ground than Hideki Matsui in the outfield, improving the team’s defense, and since most throws are shorter from leftfield than from center, his weak arm is not as much of an issue as it once was. Johnny is finally healthy, and it is showing. His big game experience makes him a valuable part of this club down the stretch.

Derek Jeter hit a homer in the 5^th and later drew a walk. Overall his at bats were much better in this game than they have been recently. He looked more selective at the plate. Derek is finally showing signs of busting out of the slump in which he has been.

Joba Chamberlain received his baptism by fire to the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. The righty pitched a shutout inning. It was clear that he had nerves at the start as he did in his Major League debut in Toronto as he walked the first hitter he faced. From that point, he dominated. Chamberlain got through the 8^th only further allowing a single to Mike Lowell on what was a great piece of hitting by Boston’s third baseman, not a mistake by Joba. Lowell knew that Chamberlain is too tough to drive the ball on so he shortened his swing and softy lined a single to center. That might be the best contact that anybody has made on Chamberlain so far. Joba struck out a pair in the frame. With that first outing against Boston out of the way, the prized prospect now can relax and realize he has the stuff to dominate the Sox as easily as he has dominated everybody else.

The Yankees look to win their second in a row tonight as a pair of Texas fireballers square off. Roger Clemens will make his first start against the Red Sox since Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS. He will be up against Cy Young contender, Josh Beckett. On paper Boston appears to have the edge. Still, Roger is not apt to have consecutive bad outings, and the Yanks have hit Beckett hard this year. This will be anybody’s game.

Ian Kennedy to take Mike Mussina’s next start

As predicted, the Yankees made a move very early today to let Ian Kennedy have a start this weekend, while Mike Mussina sits out at least one start. With EVERY GAME counting from here on out, this was a very smart move on the Yankees part. If it were earlier in the season, Mussina would most definitely been given time to work out of his funk, but there is no time at all right now. Kennedy has been highly touted, and was drafted right behind Joba Chamberlain. The two are good friends, and one can only hope that Kennedy can help the team get into a post-season position. With tonight’s win against the Red Sox, and Seattle’s unglueing at the hands of the Angels, the Yankees find themselves a mere game out of the Wild Card lead.

More on the Tuesday game later from my esteemed colleague, and founder of this wonderful site, John Butchko… He’ll be reviewing and recapping the entire Boston series. Take it John….

Tigers 16, Yankees 0

Mike Mussina, again, brought nothing to the ballpark for Monday’s game vs the Tigers. He was rocked, regardless of some OUTSTANDING defensive play. He gave up 6 runs before being pulled in the 3rd inning. Sean Henn did no better, giving up an additional 9 runs. Not much to comment on this game. It was the second straight loss, and the 3rd out of 4 in this series. All of this coming at a time where the Yankees are not in the playoffs with only 30 or so games to go.

This week will decide if the Yankees are a playoff team or not. The series’ against Boston and Seattle mean everything, and we cannot afford to see Mike Mussina again any time soon. He’s a great guy, but no one can stop age, and it’s very obvious that Moose’s tank is now empty. Make adjustments and move on. Let’s see what Ian Kennedy has to offer. We won’t need him often, because with OFF DAYS coming up, the Yankees can mostly go to a 4 man rotation for most of September. Bringing in a rookie certainly worked with Phil Hughes (yes, regardless of what you MAY think, he IS a success) and Joba Chaimberlain. As for Sean Henn, he’s worse than Mussina. Here’s a thought – we’re paying a ton of money for Kei Igawa – make HIM the lefty guy in the bullpen!

Changes need to be made or the Yankees will NOT be making the playoffs – not with play like we saw this week in Detroit.

Tigers 5 Yankees 4: A Hughes Loss

The Yankees lost to the Tigers yesterday afternoon by a 5-4 score. The defeat guarantees that New York can do no better than a split in its four game series at Comerica Park. The Yanks are playing lousy baseball at an inopportune time. This team is on the verge of falling out of the division race if it has not already.

Phil Hughes took the loss for the Yanks. The rookie gave up 5 runs on 4 hits in 6 innings. He surrendered 3 homers to Detroit. The first was to Curtis Granderson, the first hitter he faced. Granderson hit a flare to leftfield that Hideki Matsui missed. The ball rolled to the wall, and Granderson rounded the bases, beating a lousy relay throw by Wilson Betemit at shortstop. Derek Jeter nails the runner at the plate. While the first shot was just bad luck, the other two were crushed by Carlos Guillen and Marcus Thames. Phil’s dominant stuff is evident. There were innings where Detroit looked helpless against him. He only gave up 4 hits, but the mistakes he made came back to haunt him. Hughes is still adjusting to the Majors. His injury troubles hurt the team beyond all the starts he missed that lesser pitchers had to make. Almost every rookie starter goes through growing pains. They need to learn by experience that they cannot get away with things they did against minor league hitters. Big leaguers put mistakes into the seats. Instead of learning those lessons early and adjusting for the stretch run, Hughes is suffering his growing pains when the Yankees can not afford them. The few mistakes he made were all it took to lose the game. The team has no other option than to pray he is a quick learner because there are no better options available right now.

Detroit starter, Jair Jurrjens, left the game in the 2^nd inning hurt after a Jason Giambi homer, but the Yanks failed miserably to take advantage of Detroit’s bullpen. Outside of a 3 run homer by Robinson Cano, nobody could deliver the big blow. The Yanks could never get the critical tying run home against Chad Durbin, Bobby Seay, Joel Zumaya, and Todd Jones. Struggling against Zumaya can be excused. He is one of the game’s elite relievers, but this offense should have pounded the other three who had pedestrian stuff at best.

Tonight’s game is enormous for the Yankees. This team is already much further than it wanted to be out of first place with a series against Boston beginning on Tuesday. A loss would send this team reeling into that showdown. The Yankees also desperately need Mike Mussina to step up. Moose has been dreadful lately. This team cannot make the postseason unless he turns things around. The Yanks cannot keep handing opponents a win every fifth day. The only alternative would be to pull Mike from the rotation and throw another rookie, Ian Kennedy, into the pennant race on the fly and hope he does not suffer growing pains of his own. That is not an attractive option.

Yankees 7 , Tigers 2 : Redemption in Detroit

Last night was easily the hardest loss for me to sit through all year. I stayed up until the last out – somewhere around 3:30 am, only to go to bed distraught over the second extra inning loss in the same week. The little solace I had was knowing that Yankee Ace Chien Ming Wang was taking the mound in just a few short hours…

Wang was, without doubt, THE player of the Saturday game. He went 8 innings, and game up only two runs. He got plenty of run support from his offense, in the form of a Matsui double, a Damon HR, and a base-clearing triple by Melky Cabrera. All runs came off of Bonderman, who just didn’t have it tonight.

What Wang gave the Yankees tonight was more than just a win. He gave the bullpen, who was well worked on Friday night (Saturday moring?) a well-needed day off. They will be fresh for the final 2 games of this series. This is one hell of a week coming up… two more with Detroit, and three with Boston. Lets hope to see more play like today, over the next few days…

Tigers 9 Yankees 6 (11 Innings): No Heroes at the End of the Night

The Yankees suffered an absolutely heartbreaking loss early this morning to the Detroit Tigers. Detroit won the game, which did not finish until around 3:30 A.M. by a 9-6 score in 11 innings. The end of the contest came almost 8.5 hours after the regular start. The Yankees endured a marathon game after a marathon rain delay only to go home losers.

The first pitch of the game came at 11:05 P.M. Eastern Time. This was due to a 4 hour rain delay. The umpires deserve a lot of credit for getting in this game. It would have been so easy to call the game before skies cleared. That would have likely forced a doubleheader today, which would have created a major issue for the Yankees. The team would then either would have had to send Roger Clemens or Chien-Ming Wang to the mound on Wednesday against Boston on short rest or found a spot starter. The umpiring crew did everything possible to maintain the integrity of the pennant race. It had to be a brutal experience for fans who sat through all that rain and had to stay through the wee hours of the night to watch baseball. I certainly can empathize. I sat in Yankee Stadium last year for 7 hours on Old Timers Day and saw half an inning of baseball. However, the most important thing was to not put the Yankees at a disadvantage if it could be avoided. The integrity of the race is more important than even the fan experience.

While the crew deserves credit for getting in the game, the men in blue also earned themselves some heat through the uneven way they called the game. They made a conscious decision to play this game well into the night by not postponing it. That did not give them the right to try and expedite the game by going outside the rulebook. Both teams were hurt by bad calls, none bigger than a called strike 3 on Jorge Posada that was roughly a foot outside the zone. Posada was ejected for arguing the call. These umpires wanted to get home, but this game was too important to manipulate the rules. The umps protected the race’s integrity by playing the game and did everything to undermine it in the way they called it.

Roger Clemens was miserable. The righty gave up 6 runs in 5 innings. Curtis Granderson in particular was a thorn in his side with a pair of run-scoring triples. Roger has no excuses. A pitcher with two decades of experience should know how to handle a rain delay. He did not seem comfortable on the damp mound, but again he has been around enough to pitch through the adversity. Clemens had nothing. Even Detroit’s outs were loud.

Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada were the biggest offensive stars. A-Rod hit his 43rd homer of the year in the 3rd, a statement 2 run shot to answer Magglio Ordonez’s 2 run 1st inning blast. It was as if Ordonez tried to stake his claim to the MVP award, but Alex was there to answer and show who the real MVP is. Posada had a 2 run double in the 5th before his ejection and scored a run to wipe out a 6-3 deficit. This pair again carried the load for the Yanks, again underscoring the need for the team to get deals done with both prospective free agents. It is frightening to imagine where this club would be without either.

The bullpen did a brilliant job in holding the Tigers down. Edwar Ramirez, Joba Chamberlain, Mariano Rivera, and Luis Vizcaino all pitched scoreless innings. The Yanks got a good outing from all of their reliable relievers. Kyle Farnsworth also pitched a shutout frame. The game ended on a 3 run walkoff homer by Carlos Guillen off Sean Henn. It was Henn’s second loss this week in extra innings. His ERA is now 6.10. Sean has some nice stuff, but it is clear that the team cannot keep relying on him in such critical games. Chris Britton, a guy with a proven track record in the division, has dominated AAA all season. Henn needs to go back to Scranton, and Britton should be a Yankee as soon as possible. Ron Villone went on the DL yesterday, making Henn the lone lefty reliever on the roster. However, keeping a bad lefty on the roster over a quality righty just to have a left-handed bullpen option is self-defeating logic. Britton brings more to the table. He can make this rebuilt relief corps even deeper while taking an increasingly useless guy out of the equation.

There is no silver lining. There are no positives in losing games at this time of the year after spending so much time in the ballpark. The Yankees are starting to fade. This team needs to get its act together in a hurry or it will fall hopelessly out of the race. That is easier said than done in the wake of such a deflating loss. The Yanks could really use a big effort by Chien-Ming Wang tonight to pick up their spirits.

NY Yankees / LA Angels recap

The Yankees lost 2 out of 3 to the LA Angels of Anaheim. The Angels have had the Yankees number for a few years now, and took yet another series. In Monday’s opener, Phil Hughes was ok – he was fine for the first 6 innings, but got roughed up in the 7th, and the game unfolded. The Angels took the game in the tenth, off of Sean Henn. Even though it was a one run game, it was harder to take than the Tuesday blowout in which Mike Mussina brought absolutely nothing to the table. The Angels dominated the Yankees all night long and won the game 18-9. It should be noted that even while being blown out, the Yankees came alive in the 9th, and scored 4 runs. They never gave up. Andy Pettite won the Wednesday series finale, pitching a gem – only giving up one run in the 6th. Joba and Rivera closed out the game – final score was 8-2.

The Yankees have tonight off, and face Detroit for 4 games, then come home to face Boston for 3. This next week will tell us if the Yankees are a playoff team or not. LAst night, Detroit, Seattle, and Boston all lost games, so the Yankees are 5 behind Boston, and 1.5 behind Seattle for the wild card. Detroit is 3 full games behind the Yankees. The Yanks can put Detriot away this weekend….