| Tampa Bay Rays | New York Yankees |
| Desmond Jennings, LF | Derek Jeter, DH |
| Ben Zobrist, SS | Nick Swisher, 1B |
| Evan Longoria, DH | Alex Rodriguez, 3B |
| B.J. Upton, CF | Robinson Cano, 2B |
| Jeff Keppinger, 3B | Russell Martin, C |
| Ben Francisco, RF | Andruw Jones, LF |
| Chris Gimenez, C | Curtis Granderson, CF |
| Carlos Pena, 1B | Steve Pearce, 1B |
| Elliott Johnson, 2B | Eduardo Nunez, SS |
| David Price, SP | CC Sabathia, SP |
The first pitch is scheduled for 7:05 p.m., on YES and MLB Network. Let’s go Yankees!
The Yankees open a nine-game homestand against the Rays, Jays, and A’s (hey that all rhymes!). If you want to go to the Bronx, look no further than TYA and TiqIQ. You can look right here for all your ticket needs.
Tickets for this weekend are as low as $14 tonight; $16 tomorrow; and $7 Sunday. For the Jays and A’s, we’ve got prices as low as $4.
Can we get this kid some swings in a different set of pinstripes? Courtesy of Paul Hasdall
(The following is being syndicated from An A-Blog for A-Rod)
There wasn’t much reaction to the Yankees calling up Melky Mesa on Monday. With expected to miss 2 weeks and there being plenty of position player depth on the active roster, the move looked like nothing more than adding a warm insurance bench body to cover for the loss of Teix and rewarding an upper-level prospect with a long MiL history for a job well done in Double- and Triple-A this season. That’s pretty much how the move has played out so far, with Mesa staying glued to the bench over the past 2 games despite there being instances where his skill set could have helped, but I think there might be something more to this move.
Stick with me on this, because this theory is admittedly out of left field (or right). It also operates under the assumption that the Yankees will make the postseason, an assumption that has become decidedly more gross since the Yankees started to morph into a baseball version of a beat up military platoon. But it does make a little bit of sense, at least to me, if you consider it with an open mind. Methinks that the Mesa promotion is more than just filling the bench during September, and it is actually the Yankees sneaky giving him the chance to audition for ‘ postseason roster spot.
Think about it. What does Jones bring to the table? Power, the ability to mash left-handed pitching, and some good outfield defense. At least that’s what he’s supposed to bring to the table, but for the better part of this season and the overwhelming majority of the 2nd half he hasn’t brought any of that. Jones has 13 HR on the season, but has hit only 2 since the pre-ASB series in Bahhston and 1 since August 16th. His walks are down (9.9%), he’s got a sub-.500 OPS since the start of August, and he’s seemingly lost his ability to hit lefties (.302 wOBA in 179 PA). And as for that defense, I think we all know that Jones is a shell of his former outfield self. His Gold Glove days seem like ancient history, he’s damn near a liability at this point when it comes to covering ground quickly, and only the eye test is needed to confirm that.
Looking at Mesa’s season, there’s plenty of overlap between what he’s done and what Jones isn’t doing that makes him a good fit as a replacement for Jones. Mesa clubbed 25 HR in the Minors this year, and hit for more power in Triple-A than he did in Double-A (.294 ISO in 133 PA). Like Jones, he had a reverse platoon split against lefties, hitting just .202/.256/.357 in 84 AB against LHP in Trenton, but Mesa picked it up with a .250/.276/.750 slash against LHP in Triple-A with 4 HR. Admittedly that was in a very small sample size, and it’d be ludicrous to expect Mesa to replicate that at the Major League level, but it’s not out of the question to think he could do better than Jones’ .209/.291/.411 clip. Defensively Mesa is a center fielder by trade, but he has plus speed and there’s no doubt that he could cover more ground out there than Jones at this point. And with his center field experience, transitioning to a corner spot shouldn’t be a problem.
Mesa doesn’t walk much, and he’s going to accumulate his fair share of strikeouts, but isn’t that what Jones is already doing? He has an offensive skill set identical to Jones’ and a potentially higher ceiling for production because of his younger age. What we’ve seen from Jones lately is likely what we’re going to see for the rest of the year. What we could see from Mesa could be a step up from that with the added bonus of better defense, an ability to play all 3 OF positions if needed (something Jones can no longer do), and speed on the basepaths. We know the Yankees value flexibility, especially on their postseason bench, and Mesa brings more of it than Jones.
This whole thing hinges on the Yankees actually peeling Mesa off the bench and putting him on the field, something Joe hasn’t shown a whole lot of interest in doing just yet, but if/when they do they could be doing themselves a big favor. At age 25 and in his 7th Minor League season, Mesa is a fringe prospect at best. But he still has value as an upgrade over Jones, has skills that fit the Yankees’ needs, and he’s cheap. With any luck, the Yanks could have found themselves an under-the-radar boost to their postseason roster and a potential piece to their payroll-cutting plan, even if it’s just as a 4th OF. I know it’s a longshot, but I’m holding out hope that we’re going to see the new Melkman’s name on a lineup card soon.
(AP)
Remember when Hughes was having an ugly season? Well he’s posted a 3.46 ERA (153.1 IP) since losing the cutter, a 3.17 ERA (96.2 IP) since lowering his arm slot, and a 2.84 ERA (25.1 IP) since adding the slider.
is showing why he’s a great pitcher. He was once a top 10 prospect overall, he looked great in his first few starts, but he never lived up to the hype. He struggled with injuries that severely hurt his development, and for a while we weren’t quite sure if he was a starter or reliever. The right hander and inconsistency were one in the same, and that doesn’t exclude parts of this season.
The 26 year old opened 2012 with 5 starts, totaling 21.2 IP and a 7.48 ERA. Throughout all the struggles, the Yankee stuck with him. For an organization that is notoriously impatient with prospects, their persistence in starting him is unique for how they typically handle prospects. Something about Hughes set him aside from all the other prospects that have come and gone.
When Baseball America ranked him the #4 prospect in 2007, his command and stuff was at the forefront of their writeup. His four-seam fastball and curveball played spectacularly through the minors and into his first few starts in the majors. After a hamstring injury in 2007, Hughes never felt the same. Over the following four years, he faced injuries, he was moved from bullpen to rotation numerous times, and battled inconsistency. The promising starter lost his luster.
I don’t think many people expected him to come back from his awful April this year and produce 15 wins with a 3.96 ERA In mid-September. That’s because us fans forgot about his greatest asset. Hughes showed an advanced feel for pitching at the age of 21. He had command, he had velocity, and he had movement, but he also had the rarest tool in baseball, an extreme ability to adapt.
When he was drafted in 2004, Hughes demonstrated a brilliant fastball and slider. It was the Yankees organization that asked him to try and throw the curveball instead, in order to protect his elbow. He did so with ease.
When he was reaching an innings limit, he showed that he had no problem switching from the bullpen to the rotation.
When he struggled in 2009, we saw him quickly add a dominant cutter.
When he lost considerable velocity on his fastball in 2011, he came back with a vengeance in 2012 by spending his winter working out vigorously.
But this season was the greatest demonstration of him as a pitcher. When he struggled against lefties, he added the changeup, and when he struggled against righties, he added the slider. When he was getting hit around in April, he lost his cutter. When he was giving up too many homeruns, he lowered his arm angle. Now he’s pitching like a #2 starter in hitter’s ballpark that shouldn’t favor him in the slightest.
Hughes has seen his fair share of trouble throughout his career, and he’s done nothing but overcome. Results aside, he’s shown that he can acclimate to an ever-changing game. When scouts talk about players being pitchers or throwers, Hughes is by far a pitcher.
On extending him, there are plenty of pro’s. He’s still very young, his price won’t be extravagant, he’s shown improving numbers, and he’s already succeeded in New York. There are of course the con’s. He’s an extreme flyball pitcher with a bad home/away split, he’s had an inconsistent career, and he’s been injury prone. What outweighs all of this, in my opinion, is his make up. You don’t see many players that can so simply change their mechanics and add pitches like Hughes does, and this is a game that demands adaptation.
Forget his first 5 awful starts to open the season, and look at his numbers from when he started adapting. As a 26 year old pitcher in Yankee Stadium, and in the American League East, that number is remarkable. There’s plenty of reason to think his improving trends will continue. With the price of young pitching skyrocketing in recent years, the Yankees would be smart to offer Hughes an extension before he produces a dominant statistical season. Sure, an extension is always a gamble, but the way he’s improving, the team would still be buying low. In my opinion, it’s a risk worth taking.
Prior to tonight’s game, had been terrible at Fenway Park. It’s the ballpark he’s had the most trouble in so far in his career. So, of course, Hughes would come out and lead the Yankees to a 2-0 win over the Red Sox.
Hughes pitched into the eighth inning, gave up only five hits, walked one batter and struck out seven. He earned his 15th victory of the season and helped the Yankees remain in a first place tie with Baltimore atop the AL East standings.
The Yankees problem with runners in scoring position reared its ugly head again – they finished 2-34 RISP for the series – but thankfully Hughes, along with the bullpen, kept the Red Sox off the board.
Their first run was scored on an sacrifice fly in the fourth inning off Red Sox starter . Their second run was scored when hit a bloop single to center in the seventh. It was the 3,283th hit of his career, tying him with Willie Mays on the all-time list.
Rounding out the offense were and Eduardo Nunez who finished with two hits apiece. had a rough night at the dish, finishing 0-4 with three strikeouts and leaving five men on base all by himself.
earned his 38th save of the season and combined with and to pitch 1.2 scoreless innings in relief of Hughes. Hughes’s season ERA is now sitting at 3.96.
Sorry ’bout that. Enjoy the game, guys and gals!
I cringe when opposing managers bring in their lefty relievers in big spots. For one, a lot of the Yankee left handed batters appear to be slumping against same side pitchers lately. When it comes to guys like though, you can always forecast Joe Girardi going to his bench. Ever since last year, was expected to be that guy, but thus far, his platoon splits are far from acceptable. He’s hitting just .209/.287/.411 against these lefties, which is far from ideal when he’s given big opportunities to pinch hit in.
Over his career, Jones has demolished lefties, just last year he hit .286/.384/.540. With ‘s early season ending injury, there was some speculation that Andruw Jones and might not be able to handle all the playing time. Up until July, the veteran combination looked like a brilliant pickup from Brian Cashman, but as of late, neither have hit a lick. In particular, Jones not only looks tired, but he looks completely lost at the plate.
There were quite a few recent hits from Jones where it looked like he was completely guessing at pitches. If the 60 games in the outfield truly exhausted him to the point where he has to guess on everything, perhaps his bat speed has taken a hit. In this case, one way to determine a decline in is by using his batting average on the fastball.
Looking at the graph above you’ll see that his batting average on the fastball spiked in May, and just about half his fastballs put in play where good for hits. While June and July certainly showed a drop, the numbers were still favorable. Things absolutely collapsed in August, where he only had 4 hits on 26 fastballs put in play. Although this correlates with the all the playing time he received and the likelihood of overuse, the sample size is far too small to make a claim yet.
Using the batted balls from fastballs put in play, I added expected BABIP to the graph above. April, May, and June all show a consistent xBABIP of right around .290-.300. Once July and August hit, his xBABIP plummeted to .231 and .257, respectively. This was primarily due to a line drive rate of just 10.3% in July, and 11.5% in August, which you can compare to 20% throughout the beginning of the season.
Adding the xBABIP definitely helps prove that bad luck on batted balls didn’t occur with his decline. Just because he wasn’t squaring up the fastball doesn’t mean he lost bat speed though. Let’s take a look at some video to see if there’s any noticeable difference.
Here are two homeruns, one from May 11th and one from August 16th. As you can see, his hitting mechanics are identical.
Now that it’s slowed down, you’ll see that the homerun he hit in August is slightly different. The GIFs here are matched up to meet at the point where he makes contact with the ball. If you look at when each swing begins, Jones from August begins his swing right around 3 frames before the one on the left. That equates to a difference of 1/10th of a second. Obviously, a hitter wants to wait on a pitch as long as possible so that they can determine movement, but when you consider that it takes a 90 mph fastball .424 seconds to reach homeplate, a possible loss of .1 seconds is massive.
This evidence shows that he’s both struggling with the fastball lately, and showing less bat speed. But even with the ability to check xBABIP, the sample size available is much too small to make any definitive conclusions. The GIF above also falls into that same category, since we’re dealing with just two at bats. With the way he’s looked on the field and at the plate, I think Jones is simply burnt out. If so, a few weeks of rest is long overdue for the outfielder. It isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he can recover at least some of the stamina before a possible playoff run.
You know what would be delightful? An easy game. But no, the Yankees don’t ever allow their fans to sit through easy games anymore. Their fans always have to be sitting in their living rooms or at their computers, watching the ninth inning through their fingers.
was the hitting star of the night thanks to two home runs – in the first and in the seventh. He now has 37 home runs on the season and has 102 home runs with the Yankees. He seems to be heating up at the right time. Granderson finished 2-5 with three RBI.
Another guy heating up again is . Swisher has five hits in his last two games including two doubles tonight – he finished 3-5. added two doubles of his own before being lifted for pinch hitter who worked a walk in his lone at bat of the night.
was 1-5 but the one hit was a two-run home run in the fourth inning which put the Yankees up 3-0 at the time.
got the win. He gave up one run on five hits in 5.2 innings.
The bullpen pitched 3.1 innings and gave up three runs on five hits – including a solo run by in the ninth which cut the Yankee lead to 5-4.
That’s what I meant at the top of the recap. They can never make it easy. Luckily , settled down, sort of and was able to close the game and the Yankees – thanks to a win by Baltimore over Tampa – remain tied for first.
Some notes:
- The Yankees now have 213 home runs this season. They lead the league.
- In a scary moment, pulled up lame after a double play to end the eighth inning. It’s been diagnosed as a bone bruise in his left ankle. He finished 2-5 with a run scored.
- The Yankees were 0-13 with runners in scoring position tonight and are now 1-25 so far this series.
- Tonight was the second time this season that Soriano recorded a four out save against the Red Sox.
| New York Yankees | Boston Red Sox |
| Derek Jeter, SS | Jacoby Ellsbury, CF |
| Curtis Granderson, CF | Pedro Ciriaco, 3B |
| Alex Rodriguez, DH | Dustin Pedroia, 2B |
| Robinson Cano, 2B | James Loney, 1B |
| Nick Swisher, 1B | Cody Ross, RF |
| Raul Ibanez, LF | Jarrod Saltalamacchia, C |
| Eric Chavez, 3B | Daniel Nava, LF |
| Ichiro Suzuki, RF | Scott Podsednik, DH |
| Chris Stewart, C | Jose Iglesias, SS |
| David Phelps, SP | Aaron Cook, SP |
The first pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m., on YES and ESPN. Let’s go Yankees!
I was originally going to post part 1 of my fall top-30 prospects today. Unfortunately, my busy schedule and the need to redo a bunch of graphics put a hold on that. So I’d like to share a thought that I’ve been having lately.
The Yankees are teetering on the edge of collapse. It wasn’t that long ago that they were 10 games up on the division, and set to cruise to the playoffs. The Red Sox and Rays were collapsing, and no one really gave Baltimore credit. Then, the wheels came off. Alex Rodriguez got injured. The bullpen went from bulletproof to vulnerable. The bench stopped overperforming. The Yankees have been below .500 since the All Star break. You know all of this.
We should not be surprised. The Yankees have had the worst luck that a team could possibly have this season. Major injuries to our #3 starter, hall of fame relief pitcher, #4 starter, 3rd baseman and left fielder have combined with minor injuries to our 1st baseman, #1 starter, third best relief pitcher, LOOGY, and much of our high-end minor league depth.
After all of those injuries, it would take a miracle for any baseball team to be in first place. And yet, that’s right where the Yankees are. They have a very good chance of making the playoffs. They aren’t doing what the Red Sox have done in the face of all of their injuries and giving up.
It doesn’t seem that way, because they are the Yankees. We expect them to be the unbeatable best every single year. But they aren’t, can’t, be invincible. Bad luck and old age are a pretty nasty combination. The Yankees were artificially bolstered by otherwordly performances from Eric Chavez, Andruw Jones and Raul Ibanez, but those faded as quickly as you would expect them too. Much of the Yankee roster is back to being a loose collection of above-average replacement players, because that’s exactly what a team like the Yankees can put out when their top players are on the shelf.
That’s how we should approach September. A rag-tag group of wounded Yankees, plus the occasional overstretched Curtis Granderson, Derek Jeter, and Robinson Cano, are trying to cap off an improbable end to an improbable season. Joe Girardi and his staff deserve a lot of credit – Manager of the Year type credit – for getting them this far.
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