Summer Saturday Ladybugs: Grandy & The Trop, Ike & The Subway Series

Shortly after I started this blog in 2007, I began a series of posts called Summer Saturday Ladybugs, After spending weekdays blogging about the Yankees, I devoted these weekend posts, filled with pictures of cute little ladybugs, to other teams around MLB. While I'm not ready to commit to it every Saturday (and I'm too lazy to include the ladybug pics) I have decided to bring the Ladybugs back, and to include some Yankees topics as well. So, here's the first installment:

* I don't think I've ever been as bummed out about a player injury as I am about Curtis Granderson's. Eight games after returning from that broken wrist he sustained in spring training he breaks the knuckle on his left pinkie finger? So many injuries. Up until now I took each one in stride. Now I just want to punch somebody.

* It sure sounded as if John Sterling wanted to punch somebody last night. Sterling was his usual annoyed self as he did the play-by-play of the game against the Rays at the Trop. I get it, the noise at the Trop is infamous, but Sterling is supposed to be a professional. Acting like a diva and complaining about it for several innings is just wrong. Come on, John, act like you have the experience everyone knows you have.

* Does Ike Davis have enough experience?  The Mets first baseman, whom everyone knows has been playing like a little leaguer, is hitting just .143 on the season. He struck out four times in last night's game against the Braves and has made a couple of shocking defensive blunders this season. What's going on with this guy? Some are saying he has a vision problem, but most people think he just needs to be demoted to triple A to work out his problems.

* A demotion to triple A before Monday will spare him the derisive chants Yankee fans are sure to throw his way during the Subway Series. Yes, it's that time again. This year's installment is a home-in-home affair (two at Citi Field and two at the Stadium), which I like much better than the long, drawn out six game sets of previous years. With the exception of the game Matt Harvey will pitch on Tuesday, this looks to be an easy series for the Yankees.

* Will you be watching the Subway Series at home or will you travel to Citi Field or to the Stadium?  If you decide to go the one of the games, it is actually cheaper than it has been in a very long time. In fact, with a combined average price of $116, this is the cheapest Subway Series over the last four years. Keep that in mind if you are purchasing Yankees tickets for this upcoming series.

That's all I have for today. Everyone enjoy the games and have a happy and safe Memorial Day Weekend!

Adams Has A Winning At Bat In A Losing Effort

On Wednesday night rotation stalwart Hiroki Kuroda had an injury shortened and ineffective outing, and rookie reliever Preston Claiborne finally showed some vulnerability as the Yankees fell to their A.L. East division rivals, the Baltimore Orioles. On a good note, however, David Adams, the rookie 3B, provided a spark of optimism.

The Yankees had seven hits last night, half that of their opponents, but the most satisfying of those came in the top of the ninth inning: a home run by Adams. The scene was depressing enough, with the Yankees down 6-2 and rain coming down, sending the fans in Camden Yards scrambling for cover. All fans, that is, except the hardy group that started a loud and cheerful "Yankees Suck" chant that came through clearly on the YES Network telecast. For a ballpark that can be mistaken for Yankee Stadium South, especially in the summer, the chants made for painful listening. With a 6-2 lead and side-winding, sub-2.00 ERA lefty Darren O'Day on the mound, the Orioles fans were clearly looking forward to a comfortable victory.

Adams dug in and initially looked uncomfortable against O'Day, taking some awkward swings. Five pitches later, however, he was jogging around the bases after slugging a homerun to left, the second of his career and his second of the series. Adams has been impressive through his first six games with the Yankees, hitting over .300, playing solid defense and showing that the Yankees farm system has players that can come up and produce in a pinch.

There's little chance that Adams sticks in the majors once Kevin Youkilis and certainly Alex Rodriguez come back from their respective injuries, but he has made an impression. His Wednesday night homerun momentarily silenced all chants and, when they returned, they were "Let's Go O's!" chants instead. With the homerun, a sliver of doubt crept into the stadium. Baltimore closer Jim Johnson started warming up and the fans began imploring the team to just seal the deal.

With 13 games remaining against the Orioles, the Yankees showing that they can get to the Baltimore bullpen is an important factor. On Wednesday night, the Orioles prevailed as O'Day settled in after Adams's homerun but, thanks to Adams, the Yankees at least put up a fight.

Looking To Kuroda Takes The Sting Out Of Last Night's Yankees Loss

Ah, what a comfort it is to know that, after a tough extra inning walk-off loss last night in Baltimore, the Yankees have their ace pitching in the rubber game tonight.

But wait, you might be saying, CC Sabathia pitched in the first game of the series, right?

Yes, but who said CC was the ace of the pitching staff? If you really think CC Sabathia is the Yankees ace, you've been asleep since the season began. The real ace of the Yankees pitching staff is Hiroki Kuroda. 

As he proved last season, making the transition from pitching in the NL West to pitching in the AL East doesn't have to be as hard as everyone says it is. Since he began his Yankee career he has put up better numbers than he did with the Los Angeles Dodgers.  His record after four years with LA was 41-46 with a 3.45 ERA. Since last season with the Yankees, he is 22-13 with a 3.04 ERA. Really, it's supposed to be the other way around, but Kuroda has bucked that trend.

When Kuroda  arrived for his first Yankee Spring Training last year, I remember raising my eyebrows when I heard he requested to wear number 18, a number reserved for staff aces in Japan. However, he lived up to that number last year and is well on his way to doing so again this year.

So everyone relax and chill. The ace is pitching tonight, which means there is a good chance that the Yankees will win.

Lyle Overbay: The Biggest Yankees Surprise To Date

On Friday night, while Hiroki Kuroda was shutting down the Toronto Blue Jays, I had the opportunity to be the guest on Sportswire Entertainment's live broadcast. Vinnie Apicella, the show's host, started in with a couple routine questions-- "How did you get started?" "How about those Yankees?" Then he asked a question I had to think about, "Which Yankee player has been the biggest surprise for you?" I gave it some thought. Hasn't the entire team been a surprise? They're in first place without their star players! Though I would have liked my answer to have been Francisco Cervelli, he hasn't been in the running for much of anything since his injury at the end of April. Before I knew it, the name Lyle Overbay slipped out.

There is not much that is memorable about Lyle Overbay's career. He's not a physical stand out and, for a fan base that's used to seeing Mark Teixeira's web gems, Overbay's defense seems average at best. He spent time with three Major League clubs before landing with the Yankees. Since his best offensive year in 2006, his performance has been a bit of a roller coaster. Decent offensive seasons have been followed by duds, and while parts of any particular season have showed a glimmer of talent, the other parts were forgettable.

Now with the Yankees, Overbay finds himself well liked by fans known for not warming up to new guys too quickly. With a .259 BA, how is he doing it? Just check the Yankees' RBI stats. Take a look at who's second only to the beloved Robinson Cano. Compared to other American League first basemen, Overbay's 24 RBI is not a grand statistic, but taken in the context of it being the second most RBI on the AL East's first place team, those 24 RBI bump Overbay up to being a pretty significant player. When the crowd's on their feet waiting for the magic, Overbay has come through with whatever hit or sacrifice out gets the team to score, or at least, closer to scoring.

Let's be honest: no one expected Lyle Overbay to be a significant player. For that, he is the sweet, pleasant surprise, so far, of the 2013 New York Yankees, and I'm not ready to spoil it by wondering what will happen when Teixeira comes back. Not yet.

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Podcast Update: Due to computer issues, this month's podcast will not take place. Look for the next one sometime during the middle of next month.
--BP

Yankees Lose A Series And Potentially Two More Players

The Yankees lost Thursday's rubber game against the Seattle Mariners (just the second series loss of the month) and potentially lost much more. Andy Pettitte left after just 4.2 innings with a tweaked trapezius muscle and Chris Stewart, forced into starting catcher duties after an injury to Francisco Cervelli, limped off the field with a left groin strain. While the severity of Stewart's injury is unknown, Pettitte's was deemed not too serious. 

To a weary Yankees team and fan base this injury refrain is all too familiar. At some point, these injuries will stop. It can't continue at this ludicrous pace because not even the baseball fates can still be enjoying this stream of injured Yankee after injured Yankee.

The pre-season injuries were bad enough as they spurred questions of how the Yankees would survive the first month of the season in a loaded A.L. East without Derek Jeter, Curtis Granderson, Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez and Michael Pineda.  After opening the season losing four of their first five, the patchwork Yankees responded in surprising and gratifying fashion with steady and workman like play propelling them into first place.  Therefore the questions subsided albeit briefly.

Even when Jeter suffered a major setback and Teixeira's return was pushed back from sometime in May to early June (if all went well) things seemed to be okay because the fill-ins were holding their own. Then even they began to fall to the injury bug: Cervelli, in the midst of an extremely productive season as the de-facto starting catcher, broke his hand. Eduardo Nunez, the fill-in shortstop, went down with a sore ribcage. Kevin Youkilis, the fill-in at 3B, battled unsuccessfully through a lumbar spine sprain before succumbing to the discomfort. Ivan Nova, the inconsistent but promising fifth starter, strained his triceps and reliever Joba Chamberlain went down with a right oblique strain, which unfortunately, left his mouth just fine. All five are currently on the disabled list.

Even with Granderson making his return earlier this week, there are ten members of the Yankees 40 Man Roster on either the 15-Day or the 60-Day DL. The New York Times keeps a running tally of the value of all the players each Major League team currently has on the DL. The Yankees are easily leading the pack with $85.6MM, or 37.5% of their payroll, on the DL. A distant second on the list are the Los Angeles Dodgers with $67.2MM.

Despite those losses, somehow the Yankees kept rolling using timely hits and stellar pitching to continue winning series. At some point, however, all these injuries just might catch up to them. The team has been hanging on for dear life, just waiting for the injured players to come riding in for some relief but at this rate it might not be in time.

Joe Girardi toed the expected line after the game, telling the YES Network, "You've [got to] move forward. That's the bottom line...No excuses, you've [got to] get it done" but what else can a major league manager say, especially one at the helm of the team with the highest payroll in the majors? Not too many will sympathize.

With 10 of the 14 remaining May games against division rivals, these next 15 days will be very important. It would be nice to have a healthy team ready for that gauntlet but that's not the reality and won't be for quite some time. The baseball fates aren't done laughing quite yet.

In Yankees Latest Loss, The Woeful, The Wonderful & The Weird

As baseball games go, Wednesday night's Yankees game against the Seattle Mariners was a disaster, at least for the Yankees and their fans. With a final score of 12-2 in favor of Seattle, it's clear that things didn't go according to the Yankees plan. It was a tough loss but there were still some positives.

The Woeful

Just over 15 minutes after the game started, before most viewers, and those with Yankees tickets, had even settled into their seats, Seattle had batted around, the score was 7-0 in their favor and New York Yankees starter Phil Hughes was sitting in the dugout after recording only two outs. With a game ERA of 94.50, a WHIP of 12.00 and another loss, Wednesday's game was just another example of the sometimes maddening inconsistency of the Yankees homegrown starter. Hughes did nothing to silence his legion of doubters or answer the question of whether the Yankees should offer him the sizable contract he's likely to pursue this offseason.

Yankees fans now know precisely how Baltimore and Detroit fans felt watching Raul Ibanez, the Yankees erstwhile postseason hero, slug homeruns out of Yankee stadium with his unconventional swing. Watching his first inning grand slam soar off to right field was painful and he added another one before the night was complete giving him three in the first two games of the series. It's safe to say that the love affair is over and the Yankees won't be sorry to send Ibanez on his way after tonight's game.

The Wonderful

A player making his major league debut is always a special thing. Certainly David Adams, called up earlier in the day to play 3B after Chris Nelson was released, would have preferred a different outcome for the team but, from a personal perspective, it was a good experience. He went 1 for 3, getting his first major league hit (a single) on his 26th birthday and played representative defense at the hot corner. Good day for the rookie.

He wasn't alone as Brett Marshall also made his major league debut. He gave up five earned runs, including the second Ibanez homerun, showing some control issues and only striking out one but the 23 year old righty reliever threw 108 pitches in 5.2 innings and saved the Yankees bullpen on a night when their starter went only 0.2 innings. He did the job asked of him, something that is often easier said than done for a rookie, and the remaining Yankee faithful gave him a nice hand as he exited the game.

The Weird

By the top of the ninth inning even the most optimistic fan had to concede that a comeback was likely out of the question. With Marshall having delivered all a manager could ask, Girardi needed just one more out. A glance over to the bullpen showed that it was quiet, and it was clear Girardi didn't want to waste an arm. So it was that the defensive alignment for that final out included Alberto Gonzalez, the light hitting shortstop, on the mound featuring a high 70s - low 80s fastball, Vernon Wells once again playing an unfamiliar position in the infield at 2B and Jayson Nix slotting in at shortstop. Gonzalez got Robert Andino to pop up to Ichiro Suzuki in right field, and walked off the mound with a slight smile.

As John Sterling is fond of telling his broadcast partner Suzyn Waldman, "You can't predict baseball." Wednesday's game was a great example of the truth in that statement. In the end there will be some justifiable concern over Phil Hughes as well as fears of a carryover to Thursday from the deflating loss. However, two well performing rookies and an unexpected pitching performance should serve to mitigate the loss.