Tag: Yankees

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Switch Hitter vs. Switch Pitcher

Well the Yankees just seem to be on a roll drafting unique pitchers. Yesterday I had the story of the Yankees signing the pitcher with six fingers. Now here is Pat Venditte, a pitcher they drafted in the 45th round who can pitch with both hands. So obviously this was bound to happen as he faced a switch hitter as neither side could decide which side of the plate the batter wanted to bat from and then which hand the pitcher wanted to pitch from. Chaos ensues.

As one blogger stated perfectly and sums up my thoughts exactly.

This story doesn’t deserve a 30 second blurb at the tail end of Baseball Tonight. This story deserves a 5-minute ‘Tim Kurkjian recites baseball history’ voiceover that we get with every other monumental baseball milestone. This story deserves further footage.

Here is the SportsCenter clip: [0:35]

Here is the live SNY clip, chaos as it unflods in front of your eyes: [5:29]

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What To Watch For: A Must!

If you’re remotely a baseball fan, try and catch tonight’s game between the New York Yankees and Cincinatti Reds at 7 PM on MY9 (should be channel 9 for those of you in the tri-state area) or MLB.tv for those out of the region. This is the first time the Reds are visiting Yankee Stadium since swept the Yankees in the World Series a little over 30 years ago. That team had a lineup that featured Pete Rose, Ken Griffey Sr., Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan. What a lineup that must have been but let’s not forget that team went up against the likes of Mickey Rivers, Thurman Munson, Lou Pinella, Graig Nettles and even Willie Randolph.

That was in 1976, this is 2008. This time the Reds team which is a sub .500 team still packs plenty of talent. Rookie Jay Bruce who tore the cover off the ball once he got called up and before his 7 for 39 slump which now has him hitting .318 on the year in almost 100 at bats. This team also has the pitching in Edinson Volquez who has a 1.64 ERA in 14 starts with a 9-2 record (one of those losses came in relief in an 18 inning game). He has allowed more than 2 earned runs only once all year long and has 105 strikeouts while only issuing 44 bases on balls. His team is 11-4 in games that he has appeared in, just goes to show what kind of pitcher he is.

Finally, the Reds have Ken Griffey Jr. Here is a player who is on the tail end of his career, only hitting about .240 or so on the season but gets to visit Yankee Stadium once again. He is a career .296 hitter at Yankee Stadium with 18 HRs and 50 RBIs. Hopefully he can put on a show once last time at the Stadium. Heck, this might not even be his last visit since the Tampa Bay Rays are interested in acquiring which would be another great move by that franchise. He has his summer home in Orlando – an hour away from where the Rays play. He can certainly bring some more veteran leadership to a team that just swept the best team in the Majors and really is proving that they are the real deal this year.

One can only hope.

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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!

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Say It Ain’t Mo!

So every now and then, Mariano Rivera goes through a stretch where he gets roughed up a little. I remember a couple of years ago when he blew two saves against the Red Sox to start off the season and people started questioning whether he was done for good that year. Well that year he bounced back with 43 saves and a 1.38 ERA. This year, after allowing only 1 earned run in his first 26 innings pitched, he has now allowed two 9th inning homeruns – both of the games which were tied when he came in.

This is the first time since August of 2003, that Mo allowed two HRs in a span of 3 or less appearances. The last time it happened against the Orioles when he allowed 4 hits and 2 solo HRs while facing 10 batters in the 2 innings of work. This time around, in the two blown games, he faces 8 batters in the 2 games allowing 2 solo shots again and those were the only two hits he allowed. However, today was the first time in the 4 games that it ended up costing the Yankees the game. The previous 3 times, the destructive Yankees offense came through to bail him out.

Is this something to worry about for the Yankees? They have moved Joba out of the bullpen because they figured Mariano can still last them another couple of years… but is he losing his edge? Where will the Yankees turn to if they need someone as a closer now? Everytime it seems that the Yankees are finally ready to turn the corner and move away from being just a .500 team, they fall back and fail to capitalize on the momentum.

Here is a good stat to know about this Yankee team this year: Through 66 games this season, the Yankees have been either at .500, or plus or minus 1 game of .500 for 50 of those days.

Days at .500: 22
Days at one game under .500: 17
Days at one game over .500: 11

Maybe it’s just me but it could be that the Yankees are just that… a middle of the road .500 team.

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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%).