I wrote almost all of this last night late and forgot to send it
Quickly back to Sunday...It was great to see what happens when you get to
the middle relief quickly in Baltimore.
For those of you who don’t like the patient guys, it is one of the things that
can get pitch counts up and then blow games out against weaker middle
relievers...
Tuesday against Boston
was a close game because the Yanks could not take advantage of SEVEN walks in
5.1 innings by Lester. The Yanks also got hits, but Granderson got with
the bases loaded in the first, Jeter killed the rally in the 2nd with a DP, in
the 3rd we had two men on with nobody out and then 2 K's and a Granderson
ground out ended that threat. The Yanks did get two on a bloop double by
Jeter (which I believe was their only hit with RISP).
The Yanks had the lead but Kuroda missed badly and Pedroia lined a homer
that just cleared the wall.
In the 7th, they got a check swing hit that Jeter simply didn’t move
for until it was too late. The other day
I wrote about the slow motion showing how slow Jeter is to react to balls hit
and this is why his range is a lot more limited than people think. This one I watched in slow motion as well and
Cano got 3 steps to Jeter’s first step.
If Cano were at SS he would have made the play. After an error by Martin they had two guys on
and nobody out. Kuroda struck out Aviles and then Girardi messed up IMO by going to Logan. Not because Logan is a bad matchup against Ellsbury,
actually he is a good matchup, but because Kuroda was fine and could have
thrown another 20 pitches if needed.
Logan did his job (getting a grounder to 2nd base, but Logan forgot
to cover first base at the same time Swisher messed up by going too far to
field the play. Michael Kay, who doesn’t
know better, blamed Swisher, but if Logan
did his job it wouldn’t have mattered. Now
Girardi had to go to Joba…who did a great job getting out of the mess that was
created on not a single well struck ball that all stayed in the infield.
Sarcasm alert…
Because Joba looked so strong and threw only 6 pitches, Girardi felt the need
to bring in Robertson for some crazy reason, with the score tied at 3? I would have left Joba in there and let him
go until he showed some signs of tiring, but Robertson did the job in the 8th
and on 13 pitches struck out the side.
He was not awesome with his stuff, but he mixed his curve in and that
made the 91 MPH fastball look better…With the score still tied, Girardi must
have felt he had to stay with Robertson because in that ONE inning the score didn’t
change and that must have caught Girardi off guard. At this point, I would have tried to get
another one or 2 outs of Robertson too as he was looking good and at 13
pitches, he could go to 20-22 and I would be OK. Robertson got the first guy, but threw a
fastball at 89 and didn’t look as sharp, although his curve looked good in this
AB. The 2nd AB he got unlucky
as Ciriaco reached out and pulled a low and outside pitch and grounded it threw
the hole on the left side, because we were guarding the line. He had now thrown 6 more pitches so he was at
19, but I was OK leaving him in to face Aviles
at this point but I would have been OK going to Soriano as well. The lefty Ellsbury was on deck so using Robertson
for one more batter and then using Rapada before turning to Soriano was the way
I would go. Robertson looked tired as he
threw two balls but rebounded to throw 4 straight strikes before Aviles reached on an
infield hit to SS on the 5th strike.
Now with 26 pitches, he was shot so Rapada (or a lefty) needed to come
in against Ellsbury as obviously Girardi saw how important it was to use Logan before against
him? This time he sticks with a very
tired Robertson inexplicably. I was
beside myself…As you know, I feel a guy like Rapada should pitch almost every
game for one batter because that is how he stays sharp and when he was used
that way he was great. Girardi had used
for only two batters for the 11 days of September so far…Simply idiotic. The job of the manager is to put your players
in the best position for success and Girardi left a fatigued Robertson in
against a lefty (who is worse against lefties but not by much) rather than use Rapada
and his .187 BA off of him with an OPS of .536??? Predictably, Ellsbury gets the walk off hit…C’MON
JOE, GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER!
Wednesday, Joe used Rapada and he got the job done! We barely hung on in this game as the bullpen
gave up 3 runs in 3.1 innings, but we got out of it. We better hope our starters can get us 6 and
I think we see how important the matchups are with the lefties. It would appear Joe will go with Robertson
and Soriano for the 8th and 9th so we need Joba to hold
down the 7th with the help of the other guys.
OK, now please stick with me on this last piece that has been driving me
crazy. On the radio I heard talks about
MVP. Last night, I guess Kay was talking
about Jeter being the “undisputed MVP of this Yankee team.” Let me be the first to stand up and say…
I DISPUTE THAT!
I am going to try and use something that appears to be missing and that is …logic…
On what planet is Jeter more valuable than Cano?
Before we get into the offense, Cano is a stellar defender, perhaps the best
in baseball at 2nd base. Jeter, at best is average and in my own
estimation has poor range and his hands are not quick, but he doesn’t make a
lot of errors on the balls hit close to him.
While defensive statistics are not that great, they have Jeter as a
negative defender. This mean he is below
average and I would agree with that. He
has nine errors and a .980 FP. Cano is
considered a plus fielder and has made 6 errors for a .991 FP.
Offense:
Jeter .324 .368 .449 (.817) 30
doubles, 0 triple, 15 HR’s 646 PA’s
Cano .300 .368 540 (.908) 38 doubles, 1 triple, 30 HR’s 603 PA’s
The main difference is that Cano has a lot more power as their OBP is the same
and this is why Cano has 25 more RBI’s than Jeter. Cano hits in the middle of the lineup which
does give him more RBI chances, but he also has only 3 less runs scored than
Jeter and Jeter has more PA’s. So Cano is
the undisputed better offensive player and the undisputed better defensive player
according to facts, stats and logic. But
Jeter is the undisputed team MVP if you listen to Kay? You may want to go www.factcheck.org to find the real truth…although
they don’t do baseball stats, they just show us all the “undisputed facts” we all here from both sides.
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