Sweatin' With The Oldies: Yanks 7, Blue Jays 4

No one ever said that having an All-Star team with a geriatric starting rotation would be easy.

The latest Yankee Savior, Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, gets pulled after two innings with a "tight left hamstring". El Duque was huge in his last start against the Jays and Ted Lilly, blanking the Canadians through seven innings and striking out ten.

El Duque is followed in this start (again, against ex-Yank Lilly) by Juan Padilla, The Run Fairy, Brett Prinz, and Scott Proctor.

$184 Million you say? Where?

To their credit, the wage slaves of the Yankee bullpen did a creditable job: Padilla allowed one run in two and two-thirds innings; TRF (the highest paid guy of the bunch) only allowed one run thanks to Gary Sheffield and Jorge Posada (the bullet homer TRF gave up Eric Hinske showed why Heredia is useless as a LOOGY -- "[Hinske's] first homerun against a lefty this season," Singleton announced); Prinz and Proctor did a pretty good job holding the Jays down after Toronto feasted on TRF's pitching stylings.

Of course, the overworked money players in the pen were there to back the salarymen up. Only Tom Gordon was summoned to finish it up, but the 9th inning was a farce -- an object lesson on the silliness of using your closer according to the save rule. As the Yanks padded their lead, and then as Gordon experienced varying levels of adversity in the ninth, Mariano Rivera kept getting up and sitting down in the bullpen. Ultimately, even though Flash had a really rough spot there and it ultimately became a save opportunity for Rivera, the Sandman's services weren't needed.

But the fact is, the Yanks have about $38 Million on the disabled list, and that doesn't even count $14 Million worth of Jason Giambi, whose situation becomes more and more uncertain, but who isn't currently on the DL.

There is no timetable to Mike Mussina's return. He's 35. Kevin Brown is supposed to make one more rehab start, after taking on the NY-Penn League. He's 39. Jon Lieber's healthy right now, but he's been on the DL with groin problems already this season. 34. El Duque had his not-quite-back-from-shoulder-surgery DL stretch, and now this hamstring problem. He's 38, even if some sources still list him as being 34. Jose Contreras has had to spend time in the minors this year because his brain ... is not good. He's 32, but them's Havana years.

Javier Vazquez (waitforit), 27, is the only one that's made all of his appointed starts this season. Go figure.

Meanwhile, in the 'pen, we have a number of persons who -- how do I say it? -- lack gravitas. But aside from that, you have The Trio. Paul Quantrill, 35, has had leg problems and effectiveness problems this season. Tom Gordon, 36, is one of the most notoriously fragile relievers in baseball. A possible contributing factor is the fact that he usually declares himself ready to pitch after a handful of warmup throws. He's already had a "dead arm" period this season.

And then there's Mariano Rivera, who has looked tired blowing two consecutive save chances on Saturday and Monday. Mariano, like Gordon and Quantrill, is a "warrior", he's not likely to let on if he's hurting or complain that Joe Torre's pitching him (what feels like) every single game.

So that's the problem, in a nutshell. Building the way the Yankees have over the past few years consistently leads to one end result: old players with high salaries and the not-so-occasional injury.

The 2004 Yankees are a lot like the 2002 Yankees. Their fate in the playoffs doesn't really depend on their opposition, but on the state of their pitching come October. If the pitching is in the same state it's in right now, any of the current contenders will be able to tee off, and you'll have a series of high-scoring, highly-entertaining crapshoots like what we saw last weekend in Fenway, or July 4th weekend against the Mets. That's not good news.

NOTES:

With homers in back-to-back games, Jorge Posada's power drought might just be over.

Want weird deliveries? Check out Mike Nakamura, who seems to have revived the Dale Mohorcic straight sidearm pitching style.

Hard game for the YES Network, Kay's made a bunch of mistakes, and even the camera guys are having a hard time following the action.

Congrats to Sheffield on his 400th dinger, to Alex Rodriguez on his 29th birthday, and to Enrique Wilson on his 31st, 28th, and 42nd birthdays.

Disjointed Thoughts

Re: Jose Contreras

I've spent too much time thinking, hoping, praying that Jose's turned a corner.  There's simply no predicting what this guy's going to do, so I'm not going to bother.

You're right that Jose's been unbeaten in his last 5 starts (since his not-so-bad loss in L.A. a month ago) , but that also forgets Home Run Derby day at Shea, when Jose got a no-decision despite giving up seven runs in 5 innings.

If the Yanks didn't have an 8 game lead over Boston, the idea of Jose Contreras and Tanyon Sturtze starting two out of three games at Fenway would be horrifying.

Re: The Yankees Training Table

Again, an 8 game lead helps stave off lots of worries that might normally turn our hair gray.  Jeter's got a broken hand; Crazy Eyez Killa still isn't back from his bad back and case of worms; Moose is still suffering a stiff elbow; Gary Sheffield's shoulder is still killing him (not that his pain stopped him from unleashing big flies against the Jays last night); Giambi's still feeling weak, to the extent that he's worried he might have cancer; Kenny Lofton and Bernie Williams are never quite 100%.

It's a double-headed problem.  If the Yanks can just glide into the postseason, the highest priority has to be getting no-nonsense diagnoses of these guys, with an aim of having everybody healthy for the postseason, and getting replacements for anyone who will not be healthy in that time frame.  If the whole roster was actually healthy, I don't think that the Yanks would need to make any major improvements to the roster -- Cairo's performing well enough to be the weak link in the lineup, the Yanks would have 6 starting pitchers, 3 ace-type guys.  

If making the playoffs, or even winning the division, turned into a dogfight, the need to bring in some depth would be more apparent.  Which brings us to the next topic...

Re: Randy Johnson

Do I want the Unit in pinstripes?  Yeah, the same way that I want to spend the night with Jessica Alba.  Jessica Alba is flat-out gorgeous, probably pretty well-heeled, and ... she's flat-out gorgeous.  If you got a 2:00 AM phone call from Jessica Alba -- and if you're a heterosexual male -- you have to at least consider answering the phone.

Do I go sending Jessica letters, ask her out on dates, do the stuff that would generally get you thrown in jail for stalking?  No, of course not because 1) I'm in a great relationship with a girl I love very much, and 2) I don't feel any need to do anything stupid in pursuit of a less-likely-than-Lotto pipe dream (and, of course, a stalking conviction is a real pain in the butt).

But it's the same covetous nature that leads us to look longingly at Ms. Alba that leads us to fantasize about Randy Johnson in pinstripes.  He's the best lefthanded pitcher I've ever seen.  Unlike the righties, where you can have a decent-sized argument between Clemens and Maddux and Pedro, there really isn't much competition for the Unit: Tom Glavine gets in the picture, but is clearly inferior.

The question is Johnson's availability.  The Diamondbacks really shouldn't trade Randy Johnson -- it's virtually impossible, at this point, for them to get equal value in return.  Jerry Colangelo may balk at Johnson's contract, which is huge, but he's not exactly poor, and having Johnson on your team is not exactly something of "no value".  I'd hope that Arizona fans make it out to the ballpark in order to see one of the best pictchers ever, even if his teammates suck.

The biggest reason that the Diamondbacks would want to trade Randy is because the expectation has been put in the air that Randy Johnson is available.  Enough reporters ask about a trade, sooner or later you start to feel like you must make a trade.  It's a lousy situation.

Now if the expectation becomes reality, and the D-backs decide they must trade the Unit, I want the Yankees in there, and I'd rather he wind up in pinstripes than anywhere else in the American League.

But right now, as things stand, I'd rather Randy just stay where he is: safely on a last place team, neither pitching for us nor killing us in the playoffs.

Roger & Randy

So, unless you've been hiding under a rock, you've heard rumors about the Unit and the Rocket, and which East Coast destination -- Boston, Bronx, Flushing -- would best accommodate an extremely veteran great looking to leave a sinking ship in Houston or Arizona.

Supposedly, neither man has actually asked for a trade. Supposedly, both guys are working out of their respective posts to be closer to their families.

I don't think the Rocket's going anywhere -- he's not costing Drayton McLane so much money, and supposedly the Astros get a full house everytime he pitches at home.

The Big Unit, however, has got lots of money left on his contract -- and would want even more to waive his no-trade clause. There are also signs that being in the cellar is wearing thin on Randy. He's getting into fights at school, and has finally admitted that he'd be interested in coming to Boston or New York.

Although some people consider such a thing a moral wrong, I'd love to see Randy in pinstripes. The guy's absolutely murdered us over the years, yet I've never grown to hate him.

Does it suck that a team might have to trade a future Hall of Famer because of money? Sure. But it also sucks that the Diamondbacks gave Johnson a contract they knew they couldn't afford. Arizona turned their pockets inside out while begging for revenue sharing money at the same time they signed Johnson and acquired Schilling, which is kinda like buying a Plasma TV while you're on the dole. They spent their way to a World Series victory and right back down to the bottom of the standings. Now they're sellers, and they don't get my sympathy.

Roger? He'd help the Yanks, but I always felt that moving on from Roger Clemens this off-season was a positive thing. It underscored the need to get younger, which the Yanks did with Vazquez. I appreciate that Roger might want another payday, another world series ring, another retirement tour, but there's no reason the Yanks have to be the ones to give him those things.

That's my take. What do you think?

A Bigger Tease Than Brittany Spears

When we picked out our games for the season ticket plan, tonight's matchup was an illogical must-see. La Chiquita, my non-baseball-lovin' significant other, is from Detroit, and so we chose this weeknight game as her introduction to Yankee Stadium.

The decision having been made over the off-season, with the Tiggers coming off a historically awful season, I just hoped she'd get a decent game to watch. Y'know, that maybe the Tigers could keep it close against the big, bad Yankees.

Be careful what you wish for.

It started innocently enough. Brad Halsey was scheduled to start tonight, but Joe Torre decided to give Mike Mussina the ball instead. Moose gets ornery if you disrupt his precious routine, so Torre didn't want Mike to have a week's worth of downtime due to next week's All-Star Game. Juggling the rotation means Mussina can start on Sunday, and stay on four or five day's rest after the All Star Break.

And for three innings, it looked like a great idea. Mussina struck out the side in the first. The Tigers couldn't touch him -- literally. In the second, Mussina allowed Rondell White to reach on an error (ruled a single and an error, as Mussina threw the ball away) but Mike stayed in complete control. Two more strikeouts.

I was so excited about Mussina's born-again stuff that I barely noticed that the Yanks didn't do anything with Jason Johnson -- Jason Friggin' Johnson! -- in their half of each inning.

Mussina pitched a scoreless third, but now the Tigers were making contact. As Detroit has a .285 team batting average, contact is a bad idea. Then, in the fourth inning, Mussina looked completely different. He treated Omar Infante to a four-pitch walk. Infante's erased on a double play grounder, but it's a hard grounder. Mussina looks OK in the fifth inning, right up until he gives up a two-run shot to Bobby Friggin' Higginson.

That's Bobby Higginson's fifth homer of the season. The guy's slugging .405.

As I would have to explain to La Chiquita, that's not good.

Still, Mussina racks up a couple more Ks. No need to worry, right? Just a bump in the road, it looks like. And things look even better when the Yanks break up Jason Johnson's perfect game, and score a run on three hits. Sure, it's disappointing that the Yanks let Robertson off the hook after getting men on first and second with no outs.

Then Mussina took the mound in the top of the sixth inning, with absolutely no stuff. Rope single to Sanchez. Infante flies out, hard, to right. Another single, hit on the screws, by Pudge Rodriguez. Then Bernie Williams butchers another hard hit ball to the outfield -- he makes a false move in, before realizing the ball's hit over his head and to one side of him. That's a double.

Moose ain't fooling anyone, but no one comes out to the mound, no one's up in the pen. Another single. Mike might as well be throwing batting practice. No help, and no discussion, until Rondell hits a moon shot to left field.

It's now 7-1, game basically over. Thanks, Moose! Sure pays off to keep you on your schedule...

So here's the question: halfway through the 2004 season, Moose has an ERA over 5.00 -- is this an ace starter? Are Mussina's useful days in the rearview mirror?