Why I Like Baseball

Today’s game in Tweets! Here’s a compilation of all the tweets I posted from the game live today. If you want to follow my live tweets next games, find me at http://twitter.com/whyilikebb

Kid in front of me has NY logo shaved in his hair. #Yankees http://twitpic.com/17dylm

Phillies caps are neon red, with their bright blue jerseys looks like a college team. Now time for anthem

Must be warmer today. Umps switched to light blue shirts. Feels like about 70 degrees. Lots of phillies fans here. #Yankees

No Jeter, no Arod today. Kevin Russo 3b, Ramiro pena ss. When did we get Marcus Thames back?? He is in left field. Gardner, Swish, Teix.

Rollins whacks Vazquez first pitch for a home run. #Yankees

I know, I know. At least he threw a strike… Next batter, polanco, Cano robbed him on a soft liner.
(more…)

Okay, fans, it’s time to play that Hot stove game we call “guess the lineup”?

The Yankees lose two, probably three main starters from last year’s lineup. Matsui is gone, signed with the Angels, Melky Cabrera is gone, by trade, and likely Johnny Damon is gone, since the Yankees say they won’t meet his agent’s asking price.

With the acquisition of Curtis Granderson they fill the center field vacancy, and Nick Johnson appears to come in at full-time DH. That leaves at the moment Brett Gardner to start in left field and hit in the nine hole.

My two main questions on the batting order are who hits behind A-Rod? And how to the lefty-righty splits of some of these players affect things? Does Jeter keep the lead-off job?

Let’s say that he does. How about this against right-handed pitching:

Jeter
Granderson
Teixeira
A-Rod
Posada
Cano
Johnson
Swisher
Gardner

This way against left-handed pitching:

Jeter
Johnson
Teixeria
A-Rod
Cano
Posada
Granderson
Swisher
Gardner

Posada slugs better against righties, whereas Cano is better against lefties. Granderson has meager numbers against lefties, something that hitting coach Kevin Long will supposedly be working on fixing this off season and in spring training, but don’t expect a complete makeover.

I do wonder if we’ll see Swisher blossom into more of a force, given the adjustments he made during the World Series last year, and according to MLB.com has continued to work on.

Some numbers from Baseball-Reference.com:

Curtis Granderson L/R Splits 2009:
Split     G  PA   AB   H   2B 3B HR RBI SB CS  BB SO  AVG  OBP  SLG  OPS  TB  IBB BAbip
vs RHP   144 511  451  124 19  8 28  62  0  0  57 99 .275 .358 .539 .897 243   4  .295
vs LHP    86 199  180  33  4   0  2   9  0  0  15 42 .183 .245 .239 .484  43   0  .226

Jorge Posada L/R Splits, Career
Split            G   PA    AB   H   2B 3B  HR RBI SB CS  BB  SO  AVG  OBP  SLG  OPS  TB  IBB  BAbip
vs RHP as LH  1454 4484  3774 1013 228  5 179 685 16 13 629 909 .268 .378 .474 .852 1788 26   .307
vs LHP as RH   874 1827  1591  475 114  4  64 279  0  5 208 369 .299 .381 .496 .877  789 30   .351

Robinson Cano L/R Splits, Career
Split           G    PA    AB  H  2B  3B HR RBI SB CS BB  SO  AVG  OBP  SLG  OPS  TB IBB BAbip
vs RHP as LH   667 2105  1995 617 144 13 64 273 11  9 84 212 .309 .338 .491 .829 979  14 .319
vs LHP as LH   446  931   860 258  55  4 23 121  1  5 45 123 .300 .341 .453 .794 390   0 .326

What think? Or really… what do you think Joe Girardi is going to think? Since ultimately he’s the one who makes out the lineup card, not me.

There’s a lot of great postseason footage and coverage out there to look at. But I really liked this short video from the Star-Ledger. Let’s see if I can get embedding to work: (more…)

The moment Mark Teixeira’s home run left the field, the party atmosphere at Yankee Stadium was restored. Up until then the atmosphere was tense and the crowd, which had been largely clammed up by the cold weather and Cliff Lee’s dominant pitching the night before, continued to be uncharacteristically quiet in the face of Pedro Martinez. Only once had the “Who’s Your Daddy” chant greeted him in the first three innings.

I decided to start my night off right, which meant getting a good luck hug from Mickey Rivers outside Stan’s Sports World, where he was autographing. (more…)

I got an email this morning with an amusing lead in:

“The Yankees had an interesting game last night, but to highlight the ’softer side’ of Jorge Posada, I wanted to send over some information that may be of interest to some of your readers around Charitybuzz auctions that are ending tomorrow, September 17, 2009 benefiting The Jorge Posada Foundation.”

Last night, of course, was the night Jorge got into a fistfight with a relief pitcher from the Toronto Blue Jays. Jeter is the quiet one. Jorge is the fiery one. And I’m sure he was chapped that the Yankees were losing a game they should have been winning and not playing the way the Yankees should, even if they are close to having a postseason slot wrapped up. How can you put 12 men on base in 6 innings against Roy Halladay and only plate two of them?

But anyway, yes, Jorge has another side, whether one calls it ’softer’ or not, like his wife Laura and he just wrote a book on family health and fitness, and of course his charity foundation which supports families of children with the condition that has afflicted Jorge Jr., craniosynostosis.

Anyway, check out the items being auctioned until tomorrow at http://charitybuzz.com/auctions/posada2009, including a Wilson Catcher’s Glove signed by Jorge Posada, Yogi Berra, Joe Girardi & Other Legendary Yankee Catchers or Two Tickets to the 2009 World Series.

Day Four of the SABR Convention

First up: Starbucks. Tea and coffee cake are necessary to get through the morning.
Second: Baseball’s Global Trend in Emergence of China
(Dominican) Player (Non-)Promotion in the Global Baseball Labor Market
Alexander Cartwright — mythologized much?
Awards Banquet Talk by an MLB Lawyer
Negro League Players Panel
The Rise & Fall of Greenlee Field
Grover Cleveland Alexander

(more…)

My photos and write-up of opening day at the new Yankee Stadium. Heading back to Massachusetts, will get the pics uploaded when I get there!

And now Sabathia got all stiff during the long inning and walked Jack Wilson on four pitches.Then was plodding along against the next batter but caught him looking.

The inning continues. They put Cano in to pinch hit for matsui. I guess after an RBI double and a homer they figured he was done.

The third inning is still going on. The Yankees have batter around, and there are still two on and one out.

The Yankees have knocked Virgil Vasquez from the game with three doubles and a homer (Matsui) in the third. They are playing Irish-ish music between innings.

Sabathia has now struck out 6 of 9 batters.

Coming up next inning, Jack Wilson of the Pirates will be leading off. Is he another shortstop who wears number two because he grew up idolizing Jeter? Like Troy Tuliewitsky in Colorado?

Sabathia is not spotting the fastball well tonight, but the change up is devastating!

He has struck out 4 of 6 batters faced but the Pirates did scratch a run.

At the risk of stating the obvious, Sabathia is One Big Dude.

Struck out Nyjer Morgan to open the game.

It’s the first sign of bad weather we’ve had so far on the trip. Gray clouds and a bare sprinkle of rain. It being St. Patrick’s Day, lots of folks are wearing green. The opponent tonight is the Pirates. This means I just saw a guy dressed as a pirate leprechaun.

Apologies for the duplicate posts. Also, my intention was to post live from the games and then after the game consolidate all the posts into one large readable post and delete all the small one liners.

For some reason, my web site is not allowing me to DELETE anything. Strange, no? I won’t be able to fix it until I am back in the office, and I am on the road for a few more days yet, so please bear with me and the many many posts. Perhaps at tonight’s game I will just keep adding to the one post instead of creating new ones…?

Apologies for the duplicate posts. Also, my intention was to post live from the games and then after the game consolidate all the posts into one large readable post and delete all the small one liners.

For some reason, my web site is not allowing me to DELETE anything. Strange, no? I won’t be able to fix it until I am back in the office, and I am on the road for a few more days yet, so please bear with me and the many many posts. Perhaps at tonight’s game I will just keep adding to the one post instead of creating new ones…?

Cash was on deck last inning sows grilled his pals over whether he was always a catcher, that is, did he always have those ham hocks for legs? Or as Corwin put it, “catcher’s butt”?

Apparently he was a third baseman until after he went pro. “but he always walked funny, like he’s wearing high heels.” His pal also pointed out Cash might be the only guy who has won all three World Series, Little League, College (FSU), and MLB (Red Sox).

Cash is on again on another lucky pop! Flubbed by left fielder for two bases.

It is 11-0 Yankees.

Cash was on deck last inning so we grilled his pals over whether he was always a catcher, that is, did he always have those ham hocks for legs? Or as corwin put it, “catcher’s butt”?

Apparently he was a third baseman until after he went pro. “but he always walked funny, like he’s wearing high heels.” His pal also pointed out Cash might be the only guy who has won all three World Series, Little League, College (FSU), and MLB (Red Sox).

Cash is on again on another lucky pop! Flubbed by left fielder for two bases.

It is 11-0 Yankees.

The Yankees broke it open in the 6th, sending 11 men to the plate. One of them was Kevin Cash, making our friends happy. Cash hit a pop foul on the first pitch that ended up just fair and ended up in the seats. RBI ground rule double.

With such a big lead, Igawa gets another inning.