The Yanks have just had their second or third major injury. I feel badly for Mo, Joba and Pineda. The landscape has certainly changed for us as Yankee fans. Where do we stand and what do we need to happen?

Starting pitching does not look like a riduculous strength now. We need some improvement. CC is on track and barring (Knock wood) injury should continue to lead the staff. I wrote previously that I'd like the Yanks to treat him as if he were not an infinite resourse, but he is very impressive. Kuroda seems to be getting on track. Unfortunately we need 3 more starters.

Nova has been third best, but not good enough. He is allowing too many baserunners and that will hurt him. He was bad last time out. He has been getting good run support His confidence and fighting spirit have pulled him through some tough spots, but.. Hope for improvement.

Hughes has tried our patience. He has been a slow starter. Not as many runnners as Nova but too many fat pitches and long balls. Does not show the heart we love... Hope for improvement.

Garcia isn't throwing the ball well. Velocity down, stuff diminished. He has heart and knowledge but cannot overcome the diminished stuff. To be effective he needs to improve. Hope there is some little injury to heal, or mechanical flaw to find. Freddy could be getting to the end.

Andy Pettitte is coming. HOPE.

Boys from AAA. David Phelps and D. J. Mitchell have promise but if they start in the bigs this year there will be more growing pains. Hope we don't see them much. Still the starting pitching seems deep enough to power a great season.

To me the bull pen still looks like a strenghth. Robertson, Soriano and Wade are a good core. I'm not a fan of Logan or the rest but we can recativate the "Scranton Shuttle" (Empire State Shuttle?) and just find hot hands to ride. I think we'lll be OK!

Watching the team play without Swish and GGBG is scary. Get well soon boys. But our depth seems adequate at this point,

If this team is going to get into trouble it will be from continued injuries. I think we'll still win the AL East. I'm not yet prepared to back off the projected record of 102-60.

The rest of the AL East WILL cool off. Tampa is on pace to win 114 games, Baltimore 105, Toronto 96, NOT going to happen.

I'm sure we each had a story written for how it would happen-

The great man would throw one last strike as the stands unleash a wave of camera flashes and cheers. It would come at the end of a long season of cheers. At stadium after stadium, as he is called to the mound for the last time in that city, fans- other team's fans- might stand and offer the polite applause given to a bitter, but not hated, rival. There might even be ticker tape involved, in the finale.

Isn't baseball cruel?

Baseball does this to me in some way every season: changes something I considered immutable, dashes my daydreams.

The human body is a magnificent thing. The grace necessary to turn a double play, to catch a curveball on the fat of the bat and rifle it into the opposite corner, to slide into home around the catcher's tag when just the tips of the fingers graze the plate- that grace is the old fashioned kind of grace, the manifestation of the divine among us.

But we have poured our devotion into human beings, and bodies break. One terrible torque of knee, and ligaments give.

I see the irony of Rivera's injury during batting practice. For years we've regaled each other with stories of Rivera as the supreme athlete, and we've pointed to his flawless outfield performances as proof. Somewhere within Buster Olney's Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty a player says he's sure Rivera would have reached the majors as a center fielder if he hadn't been the greatest closer of all time.

if he hadn't been. We can use the past tense now, can't we?

This is where baseball is cruelest: the story doesn't ever end. We add Rivera to a collection of stories. To Cobb and Ruth and DiMaggio and Musial and Williams and Mantle and Aaron and Rose and Schmidt and Griffey and, now, Rivera. Because we are fans and because this is baseball, we never get to forget; we never get to let the moment's hype obliterate our view of the past.

But this morning, someone new is learning to fall in love with baseball, like we all did. And that means that this morning we are all a little older, because now we are the ones who must say, "If you had only seen the great Rivera."

Now that I've had a little sleep after some heavy drinking, I've got some of my thoughts about the season-ending injury Mariano Rivera sustained yesterday in some coherent-ish order. (I don't know how you writers do this every day. I'm mentally pooped after just this one.)

There have been plenty of rumors flying around about 2012 being Mo's last season. Naturally we all thought he'd go out in a glorious fashion, hopefully in October taking home another ring. We absolutely did not expect something like this possibly ending the brilliant career of the greatest closer of all time.

Ever since I was a kid we had Mariano as the Yankee closer and as Yankee fans we've lived with the near-certainty of a win anytime we see Mo enter the game in the 8th or 9th inning with a lead. Such is the skill of Mariano Rivera who could shut down most people he faced with just one pitch. They know that pitch is coming every time yet they still have an impossibly difficult time hitting it. We all thought we had this entire season to start dealing with a future Yankee team that didn't include Mo and that we'd all be able to say goodbye to the Yankee legend with standing ovations and much cheering and chanting in October. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this will be happening this year. Even more unfortunate is the possibility of it never happening as Mo might retire this year regardless of the injury.

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That's all you can call it. Since the 2012 season began the New York Yankees have been plagued by bizarre roster management. It is becoming harder and harder to comprehend, forget about trying to defend them. Some of it is to be expected. If you've been following the Yankees in the post-George Steinbrenner/Rise of Brian Cashman era, you know how the Yankees handle their roster. That is not the surprising part. The surprising part is new to 2012 and it needs calling out like Russell Martin needs an extra base hit.

To cut to the chase, the Yankees need to call up an outfielder, yet they still haven't. Gardner is on the DL, Swisher is hurt and Raul Ibanez is Raul Ibanez. Solution? More pitchers! The problem is having to get someone like DeWayne Wise onto the 40 and then onto the 25. Lets look at how the Yankees have gotten into this predicament in the first place.

Continue reading this post »

A quick report card on where we stand at the end of April.

I published a month by month target record for us to get to my target year of 102 wins and 60 losses. To get to this point I asked for an April record of 14 wins and 9 losses. This was based on winning 70% of our games with most teams, and 55% of our games with contenders. At the end of April we stand at 13 and nine. Because of the rain out in Boston we are short 1 game. To be right on target we need to win the makeup. But, I consider the performance in terms of wins and losses to be on target.

How did we get here? I projected us to win 102 calculated by pythag based on scoring 867 runs and allowing 645. 22 games is 13.5% of 162. So I’d guess we should have expected 118 runs scored and 88 runs allowed. What we got was 120 runs scored and 102 runs allowed.

A pythag calculation on our actual results comes out as a .573 winning percentage. For 22 games that’s 12.6 wins. Eh, we have 13 so maybe a little lucky.

The point of this is that, even with our pitching problems, the Yanks are about on target for our great year. April was a very tough schedule. Go Yanks, time to fatten up on the middle and bottom of the AL!

Poll

Are you satisfied with the Yankee's April performance?

30%

Absolutely

18 votes

57%

Not so much

34 votes

11%

Heck no, They stunk, aren't in first place.

7 votes

59 votes | Poll has closed

Michael Pineda will under go an arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn labium. Most predict he will be lost for a year. Curt Schilling maintains it will be more like 6 to10 months. He bases this on his own recovery experience. No matter what, he is gone for 2012. Time will tell when and how he returns.

We have heard the talk that Pineda showed up for spring training some 20 lbs overweight. The Yankees and their trainers, put him thru their fat farm and shed off those pounds. Sound familiar? Just like they did Phil Hughes. Hmmm he had shoulder problems as well and still is not up to his 2010 standard. Coincidence?? Who knows?

Then all Joe Girade ever said all spring is"We have a competition for the last three spots in the rotation." Joe coming from the Midwest (Peoria area), how much competition did you see for your catching position? Not much did you Joe? Yet, Joe kept throwing that competition word out there. "Just do your job." another famous Joe line. Dam he is still saying it. Is this his form of motivation? Not working so far Joe maybe try another approach. (Just look at Freddy Garcia and Phil Hughes 2012 stats, if you need a reason to change your approach)

I watched the first Spring training game that Pineda pitched. He looked awful good. All we heard about was that he was only throwing in the low 90's. Sure been a lot of pitchers in the big leagues who have thrived with a 90 mph fastball. On his third start he impressed again averaging around 92 mph on his fastball. Headlines everywhere coined a new word "Velo". This occurred when Michael tried to explain that his "Velo" would return to the 95 mph range. Russell Martin even chimed in and said it would rise when he hit the mound in a real game situation.

Funny thing was my son (a devoted Braves fan) and I watched his third start. My son stated. "No wonder the Yankees did not trade for Jair Jurrjens, this kid is good." I simply laugh and stated. "Looks to me like he is trying to over throw the ball. If he keeps that up he will be lucky to make it out of spring training." Once again the word "Velo" appeared across the sporting news. Everyone was questioning "Where is the "Velo"?

From the first day the kid arrived he was bombarded by the sporting media circus. Comments were made that he maybe only saw 2 or three reporters at his locker at any point and time last year, playing for the Mariners. So Brian Cashman did his best to try and relieve some of the pressure. Good move on his part but, the media paparazzi would not let up. He was hounded. Every reporter kept pounding home the"Velo" problem. Pineda responded by tell all that it would improve. No reporter ever seem to believe this 23 year old kid. They kept right on pushing. He kept trying his best to impress the sports media and coaches. That blazing fastball was still just hitting 94 mph a few times. Wow and that was not good enough to satisfy the media sharks. It was almost like a constant cheer of "Where is the Velo?" (Just like that old saying of "Where's the beef?")

Too many times we have seen a gifted young athlete burst on the scene. They have shown skill and ability above and beyond their years of age. Every word, out of their mouth and action is published and dissected. They are not allowed to be what they are, an outstanding young prospect. A kid who will make mistakes and learn from them.

Simple put no matter what you call the sporting or news media--Circus, Paparazzi, Reporters or Sharks---The blame lies at their door step for potentially ruining the career of another outstanding young prospect. So who are they going to ruin / injury next time during their reporting frenzy?

Somewhere along this road to a young man's injury and trying to impress all. Common sense was just not around.

Just saw an article on Yahoo! that says that Tigers OF Delmon Young was arrested. The article didn't state whether it was today or yesterday and it isn't known if he'll play tonight.

It happened outside of the Hilton New York near Times Square. According to the article, a group of tourists from Chicago was approached by a yarmulke-wearing panhandler and as the tourists were heading into the hotel, Young started yelling anti-semitic remarks. A member of the group and Young started pushing and shoving each other and one of the group called the police. Young was arrested but first taken to the hospital because they thought he was drunk.

Unbelievable. I'm beginning to think that most professional athletes need a handler at all times...

Simple, keep doing what you've been doing since 1996. Work every count and do not swing at any of those crappy pitches. I have not been impressed by any of his starts so far. I have that MLB extra innings so I have watched all his starts. The Tiger's game jumped out. He had them chasing a lot of breaking pitches out of the zone. So I hope the Yanks listen to what you learned in little league/babe ruth leagues. If it's high let it fly, If it's low let it go. Google Prince Fielder vs Yu you'll see. This is an important game tonight. When it comes down to the playoffs and we have to see Texas in it,this is the series they will look back on. I know it's April but last night they beat Derek Holland. He is right now their ace. There is no Cliff Lee or even a C.J Wilson. Derek Holland had terrible numbers against the yanks even before lat night. They want Yu to be their number 1. Tonight the Yanks have to show him AL east baseball and make him have 100 pitches by the 5th. Make him learn that he is facing the New York Yankees not the Han-fighters. Make him make adjustments and throw him off his game.

and, game winning blow landed for his brothers, and for himself, for sure. There may not be a happier, more prideful, exhilirating feeling than rising from the dirt at second in memory than that. To the announcer's call that "Good ol' Smurf has done it again," my heart beating slightly less, my smile, doubtless as broad as it has ever been, fading in the gloaming. Hearing the opposing manager behind home plate, yelling at the unfair announcer.

That's what John Kruk sounded like, condemning Swish's thumping, which was as natural in the circumstance as breathing, criticizing it as showing the pitcher up. He was hiding inside anyway, Mr. Sour Grapes.

Don't Fear The Red Sox by IGYAR - A parody of the Blue Oyster Cult song Don't Fear the Reaper

Oh, their time has come.

Yeah, they're finally done.

Yankees don't fear the Red Sox

Nor do the Rays, the O's, or the Jays

(You can be like they are)

Pinstripe Alley

(Don't Fear The Red Sox)

Come and watch them play

(Don't Fear The Red Sox)

You'll be able to laugh

(Don't Fear The Red Sox)

Since they really suck

La, La La La, La

La, La La La, La

Valentine is done

Fans, they want him gone

Youkilis and Shrimpy

Are together in their unity

(Youkilis and Shrimpy)

30,000 men and women every day

(like Youkilis and Shrimpy)

30,000 men and women every day

(Redefine misery)

Another 30,000 cursing Valentine

(You can be like they are)

Pinstripe Alley

(Don't Fear The Red Sox)

Come and watch them play

(Don't Fear The Red Sox)

You'll be able to laugh

(Don't Fear The Red Sox)

Since they really suck

La, La La La, La

La, La La La, La

Red Sox fans are done

Here, but now they're gone

Came the last year of sadness

And it was clear that they couldn't go on

Then next year was open and then hope appeared

Some trades were made and hope disappeared

The curtains flew and IGYAR appeared

(Saying, "Don't be afraid!")

Pinstripe Alley

(And they heard this song)

And they laughed at him

(Then they started to cry)

They looked onward and closed the thread

(We had become like they are)

They had seen their bullpen

(We had become like they are)

Pinstripe Alley

(Don't Fear The Red Sox)