Yankees Sign Pitcher With Six Fingers!

Got this off of the <LoHud Yankee Blog> run by Peter Abraham which really has all the stuff you need to know about the Yankees with occasional updates from the minor leagues and about draft picks as well. Really feeds the inner closet fan in me to read that blog daily.

So it turns out that new Yankees pitcher Oneli Pérez is polydactylic.

What does that mean, you ask? He has six fingers on each hand. I had no idea before I was sent to his Wikipedia page by Mark, an alert reader.

Perez was claimed off waivers today from the Indians (see the Game 72 post) and sent to Trenton.

When asked about Perez, Brian Cashman smiled. “I got the pitcher from Cleveland you’ve all been expecting,” he said.

I’d like make a funny remark about the Yankees cheating and picking up a guy with six fingers on each hand but I really wanna see this guy succeed and possibly pitch in the Majors… what a story that would be.

By the way, can the Blue Jays suck a little more? The only team in the AL East to have a sub-.500 record and 2.5 games behind the “lowly” Baltimore Orioles. The Jays have averaged scoring ONLY 2.4 RUNS A GAME FOR THE PAST EIGHT GAMES! That’s only 19 runs scored in their past 72 innings. Fantastic!

The Streak Comes To An End

So it took a month and nearly three weeks (44 games) into the season but my streak came to an abrupt halt this past Saturday when the first game of the Subway Series took place. I had every intention to catch the end of the game because I was scheduled for an Actuary Exam from about 12:30 to 3, which would have left just enough time for me to get back from the test to see the last inning or two. As it turns out, the examination site had a few technical difficulties which had threatened to delay the test to another day – which would have meant my streak was still intact. However, after an hour of just waiting and seeing when I can reschedule or who knows what, they informed me I had to take the test then. Granted, I wasn’t thinking at the time that since the test now began at 1:30 instead of 12:30 and is scheduled to finish at 4:30… there was no way that I would be able to see/hear the game.

As it turned out, I took nearly the entire 3 hours to take the test and as I was walking out of the facility, I still hadn’t gotten a text message telling me a score from the game. I still had hopes that the game might have gone into extreme extra innings that by the time I would get back, somehow someway the game would still be on. That hope however, was quickly dashed when I got a text message telling me that the New York Mets had defeated the New York Yankees by a score of 7 to 4.

Well it was good while it lasted and ironically it comes a day or two before I head off to Norway. At the end of the streak, here is where everything is so far…

36 games on YES (81.82%)
3 games on RADIO (8.82%)
2 games on ESPN (4.55%)
1 game on MLB.TV (2.27%)
1 game on FOX (2.27%)

After catching yesterday’s game, I currently stand at 44 out of 45 games (97.78%) which isn’t all too bad in itself. Hopefully, it’ll stay that high over the course of the year – especially with the next two weeks guaranteed to take a toll on that mark.

As for the Jays, I’m at 31 (67.39%) out of 46 games with 28 of them on MLB.TV (60.87%), 2 on YES (4.35%) and 1 on ESPN (2.17%).

Red Hot Toronto Blue Jays

The Toronto Blue Jays have been on some streak here. In their past 9 games (6-3) they have only allowed12 runs in that stretch – that is a 1.33 ERA. They have won their past 5 even though this streak started off pretty badly. Here is the 9 game stretch:

4/26 – Royals – Loss – 1-2
4/27 – Royals – Won – 5-2
4/29 – Red Sox – Loss – 0-1
4/30 – Red Sox – Loss – 1-2
5/1 – Red Sox – Win – 3-0
5/2 – White Sox – Win – 2-0
5/3 – White Sox – Win – 5-2
5/4 – White Sox – Win – 4-3
5/5 – White Sox – Win – 1-0

In that stretch, take a look at the Jays starting pitching staff going 7-1 in the 9 games:

Roy Halladay (1-1): 16 IP and 1.13 ERA
Dustin McGowan (2-0): 14.2 IP and 0.63 ERA
AJ Burnett (1-0): 7.2 IP and 0 ERA
Shaun Marcum (1-1): 12.2 IP and 1.48 ERA
Jesse Litsch (2-0): 14.1 IP and 1.91

As if the starting pitching wasn’t impressive enough the bullpen has been even better. They have pitched 13.0 innings in the 9 game stretch allowing only ONE (1) earned run. In that stretch they have lost 1 game while picking up 6 saves. You can do that math (or I can do it for you) that is a 0.69 ERA.

Let’s keep all this in perspective. Yes the Jays have won 5 straight but they are still 16-17, 4 games back of Boston Red Sox and 1 of the Yankees. It is still only the 5th of May and playoffs start in October. There is a long ways to go but certainly if the pitching can keep things rolling (certainly you won’t expect a staff to keep a 1.3 ERA although that would be amazing), the Jays offense really needs to start clicking. They can’t afford to lose games 2-1 and 1-0 in the AL East. They Jays are currently 4-8 in one run games and 1-2 in extra innings which will need to improve if they Jays want to contend down the stretch.

Speaking of pitching and the AL East, it was nice to see Darrell Rasner who got roughed up in the first inning to settle down and shut out the Marines the rest of the way. He can provide the Yankee staff quite the boost if he can provide quality starts every now and then with Wang and Moose clicking. Also, keep an eye out for an absolute pitching dandy on Wednesday when Chien-Ming Wang (6.0 – 3.00 ERA) of the Yankees goes up against Cliff Lee (5.0 – 0.96 ERA) of the Indians. That is going to be just a great game.

Baseball Season Goal

Well we are a month into the season and here is where I stand on my (revised) goal. There is a constant update on the left sidebar about the Yankees and Blue Jays but I just thought I’d give you guys an update so far with yesterday being a month gone by.

For the Yankees I have caught all 29 games so far and here are some random stats. 23 (79.3%) of those games I have caught on the YES Network which at times I agree can be a bit painful to watch but maybe they are growing on me since I am such a fan of their team. I caught 2 (6.9%) games on radio (one when our apartment had no TV and the other one was the night I was driving down to DC with my roommates for the Cherry Blossom Festival), caught 2 games on ESPN (one vs. the Jays in the opening series for the season and one against the Red Sox in Fenway), there was one (3.45%) that I watched on MLB.TV from Silver Spring, Maryland which is quite unique since I live here and don’t often get a chance to go out of the viewing area during the season and just the other day against the Indians there was a game on TBS. I don’t remember if that game was blacked out on TBS and I watched it on YES but I have it on TBS in my sheet.

For the Blue Jays, it had started off real well when I had watched 8 of the first 9 games but since then it has only been 11 out of 19 games. Overall percentage is down to 67.86% and I still have 62 more games of theirs to catch to reach the goal. Obviously MLB.TV has been the dominant viewing preference because they aren’t on tv much here but I did catch them twice on YES (7.14%) and once on ESPN (3.57%). They have to find ways to start scoring runs again in this tough AL East. I knew New York (even with their injuries), Boston and Tampa would be tough but Baltimore really surprised me this month. Two losses in a row for the Jays where they only scored 1 run on the Red Sox but on the other hand, only allowed 3 runs total in the two games. The pitching has been solid (Halladay with 4 straight complete games but only one win to show for it)… so the offense really needs to start picking this up soon.

Adding Fuel To The Fire

So here I am talking about fascination with the lovely New York Yankees yet again. My brother has a mlb.tv account which is an awesome feature offered by Major League Baseball that allows you to watch all the games (not in your local market) online. Granted you have to pay a chunky amount of money for the subscription, for any enthusiastic baseball fan (of more than just one team), it is really worth the money. It really is.

So I am 5 games into the season for both the New York Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays and here is where I stand.

Games Watched: New York Yankees (5) and Toronto Blue Jays (4)
Games Watched means I caught a portion of the game that given night.

Here is my goal for the season. Just because I live in the tri-state area and it is more convenient for me to watch the Yankees, I plan to catch at least an inning (or more) of all 162 (plus postseason if they make it) games. So far I have caught 3 full games and 2 partial games but I am 5/5. For the Blue Jays, I caught all 3 games versus the Yankees but only 1 of 2 so far against the Red Sox. As for the Jays since I will have to catch most of their games online, I am hopeful to watch at least 81 games (half the season).

Continue reading “Adding Fuel To The Fire”