Results tagged ‘ Sergio Mitre ’
The sky is falling Part II
Oh my goodness. The Yankees dropped their third straight last night and are now a whole game out of first. Guess what folks? It’s a long season and three game losing streaks sometimes happen. Sometimes it even gets to four. Again, I repeat, this team will bounce back and they will be just fine. They will be very tough to beat in the post-season again this year. Will they win it all again? Who knows? What I do know is that this is a very good team that has hit a bit of a bump in the road. And oh, by the way, the three losses happened against some pretty good pitching.
My only issue with this one was Girardi leaving Moseley into the game into the eighth inning. He had done a solid job through seven and it was still a two run game. He had no business in the game to give up that home run in the eighth. I would have started the eighth with Joba and hoped the Yanks could generate some offense. Kerry Wood just came off the DL and is not sharp yet. He doesn’t belong in these situations until he gets a few innings under his belt. Ditto Sergio Mitre. Just off the DL and no location. Who knows if the Yankees could have come back from a 4-2 deficit. What we do know is that coming back from 8-2 in the eighth is virtually impossible. Nice job Joe.
And how could anyone in their right mind expect A-Rod to hit a home run in these circumstances. They stop the game and change the baseballs every time he comes up. If that isn’t enought to psyche someone out, I don’t know what is. It is very hard to hit a home run as it is, but with the added drama, it is virtually impossible. Let’s hope he gets it out of the way soon so that we can all put this nonsense behind us.
Girardi snatches defeat from the jaws of victory
In a classic case of over managing, Joe Girardi managed to turn a 10-4 lead into a 12-10 deficit in the 7th inning today. You can’t fault him for the first move as Robertson got hurt, so he had to bring in someone. However, if you’re going to bring in Mitre are you really only going to let him throw 2 pitches because Russel Branyan was pinch hitting? Guess so, because he brought in Marte to face Branyan and Marte got him out. After this is where he blew it. Instead of leaving Marte in to get one more out, he just couldn’t resist showing how smart he was by bringing in Joba to face the righty. That move was one too many and it blew up in his face. He deserved it, but the team didn’t. There was absolutely no need to bring in Chaimberlain in that situation and he clearly wasn’t ready. This loss goes to Griradi and it will hurt them in the standings at a time when they can ill afford to be beaten after having a 10-4 lead in the seventh inning. Griradi needs to stop trying to show how smart he is and just let the game unfold sometimes. This one really will hurt this team. I am expecting them to bounce back tomorrow, but there are no gurarantees and when you have that big of a lead, there is no need to match up for every hitter. Bad managing and it cost them the game.
Chan Ho Park and Olympic Hockey
I woke up this morning to the news that the Yankees had signed Chan Ho Park. At first glance, I love this signing. Watching Park out of the Philly bullpen in the WS last year, I thought his stuff was nasty. He should be a nice addition as a seventh inning kind of guy. He had great numbers out of the pen in Philly last year and I think he makes the Yankees bullpen that much stronger. Of course this probably means that either Chad Gaudin or Sergio Mitre is headed out the door. At this stage, my bet is on Mitre as Gaudin pitched much better last season. It adds another bit of intrigue to spring baseball and it will be fun to see how it plays out.
On another note, it was a pleasure watching the U.S. Men’s Olympic Hockey team humiliate Canada on their home ice last night. I am an American living in Newfoundland and I take a tremendous amount of heat for being American. Hockey in Canada is like a religion and my guess is that about 90% of the country watched that game here. The stadium was full of red Team Canada jerseys and the crowd was extremely hostile, booing the Americans at every turn and cheering every move the Canadians made, particularly the hard body checks. The Canadians outshot the Americans by almost 2 to 1, but Ryan Miller was tremendous in net all night long. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed watching this because the Canadians are very arrogant about hockey being “their” game. They tend to be very smug about it and in general they detest anything American, mostly out of jealousy I think. Great game by the U.S. and too bad it was relegated to standard definition on MSNBC in the states. It was on CTV in High Def here in primetime and drew a huge audience.
Ugly in every way
So where do I start with this one? First of all, why is Sergio Mitre starting games for the Yankees? He obviously is not ready to pitch at the major league level yet. He is still building arm strenghth after Tommy John surgery. He does not belong in this rotation. This team had so many other options of pitchers that were out there. They had Brett Tomko who is 4-1 as a starter since Oakland picked him up with an ERA of 2.95. The other day he threw a complete game shutout. And he wasn’t even good enough to keep on the roster? They never even gave him a shot after he pitched lights out in the spring. They have got to do a better job of evaluating talent than that. I for one, liked his stuff when he was with the Yankees, but he never got much of a chance to show what he could do. And now we have Sergio MItre getting knocked around every fifth day. That’s just not good enough. And then there’s the brawl. You will hear a lot about how Posada was in the wrong, but he was definitely provoked and Jesse Carlson had no business being in his line when he crossed home plate. Carlson should have been behind home plate backing up. He was there for one reason and that reason was to start something. Well he got his wish and has the knot on his head to prove it. I am not condoning what Posada did, because Girardi is right. There is too much at stake to risk getting suspensions and injuries, but Posada is a man and his manhood was challenged. He responded exactly like I would expect Jorge to do. It is his fire that has made him the player he is and this is just him being true to himself. He was not going to be shown up. Sure it is a macho thing, but Jorge is a Latino after all. That is part of the culture, you just don’t challenge someone’s manhood and not expect them to respond. Having said that, it will be a shame to lose him as I expect he will be suspended. Regardless, I will take Jorge and more like him on my team any day of the week. By the way, yesterday I said I expected the Yankees to sweep these two games. Guess I forgot who was pitching. Tonight it’s Gaudin and who knows what we will get. Let’s hope he shuts them down and the team bounces back. They have been playing a bit flat the past few days and have lost three of four.
Blowout
Great job by Sergio Mitre. One hit into the seventh inning is a great performance for anyone. For Mitre, it may signal a turning point in his recovery. He has always had good movement, it’s location that has been the problem with him. Not so yesterday. He was dominant and very effective. Chad Gaudin did the right thing by taking his time warming up. He was equally impressive in relief. And what can you say about the offense? When you put up a ten spot, you are going to win most of the time. Let’s hope Mitre isn’t hurt too badly as it would be a shame for him to miss his next start after his performance in this one. This team just keeps chugging along, winning games and winning series. Can”t wait to see them in the post season. Game three today as they try to break out the brooms and sweep Ozzie Guillen and the Sox out of town. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Guillen is buddies with Hugo Chavez and most Venezualans hate him.
Great Start in Beantown
Well what a way to start the series in Boston. 20 runs! The Yankees are clearly the better team right now. Everyone played well with the possible exception of Bruney and Mitre. Bruney just couldn’t throw a strike to save his life and Mitre got knocked around a bit. Pettitte’s night was better than his numbers suggested. A couple of those runs Bruney allowed to score after Andy was gone. Regardless, they are now up 7 1/2 games and Boston will have a hard time catching them. With CC and Burnett going today and tomorrow, the Yanks have a shot at another sweep, but 2 out of 3 will not be too bad either. Great game for the Pinstripers.
Nice Start to the Road Trip
Well you can’t ask for much better than that. A long flight to the West Coast after an extra inning game and what a result. Nicely pitched game by CC and 11-1 without A-Rod or Posada in the lineup. On top of that, Mo gets an extra day’s rest. This team is playing great right now and they certainly look like they can match up with anyone in the League. Still a long ways to go, but certainly Yankees fans can’t have anything to complain about at this point. So it’s Pettitte tonight and he’s been pitching lights out for about a month. Hopefully that trend can continue, because the starters for Saturday and Sunday could be a bit shaky with Mitre and Gaudin scheduled to go.
One that got away
Well you can’t win them all, so I guess it was about time for a loss after seven straight wins. Still this one was one the Yankees could have and should have won. The blown DP that led to three runs cost the team this game. Whose fault was it? I think both Mitre and Cano were equally to blame. The throw sailed for sure, but it was definitely a catchable ball and if Cano had put forth a little more effort it could have saved at least two of those three runs. Not to worry, they still played a pretty solid game otherwise and I expect them to continue to win in the long term. This is a very good team and I expect nothing but good things from them from here on out. Of course they won’t win every game, but I expect that they will continue to play well and have other winning streaks the rest of the way. I think the biggest news to come out of this game is that Mitre will make his next start. He has crazy movement and looks like he could be very good at some point, but right now, it looks like he still isn’t 100%.
Day Off
Well the Yanks managed to bounce back and scrape out one win out of four in Chicago. Let’s hope the day off energized them a bit as they were looking tired and not playing good baseball in Chicago. They need to turn things around in Toronto and play well this weekend against Boston. This has the potential to be either a great week for them or a disaster. Let’s hope it’s the former. This team can look like worldbeaters one day and then stink up the joint the next. I would like to see more consistently well played games. I still believe not getting fifth starter is going to bite them in the rear end. There must have been somebody out there who is a better option than Sergio Mitre. Time will tell whether they made a mistake, but judging by his last two starts, Mitre certainly doesn’t look like the answer. On another note, way to go Melky. Great game on Sunday. I believe Melky will stick around as the left fielder next year and he will continue to get better. Too bad about Jesus Montero. He was progressing nicely and could have started out next year at AAA. Now it looks like he will be back at Trenton and will still be two years away from major league duty. He gives every indication that he will be a solid major league player. Can’t wait to see him in the bigs. More later after the game tonight.
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