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PSA Comments of the Day 8/12/14: Winning would be nice

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It would behoove the Yankees to win today against the Orioles.

Comment of the Game

Yesterday's COTG and HMM are both perfectly in this screen cap right here, with Elcruzter55 getting the COTG and Matt Ferenchick getting the HMM. They made LTL LOL which is a feat in itself. Also Matt, I don't know what you're implying!.

Best GIF of the Recap

We have a tie for Best GIF of the Recap between MinigunMadness and ShaunRunDMC, as both got rec'd equally. Congrats!

Best Comments of the Day

There weren't a lot of comments yesterday, so I thought I'd use this to point out how efficient your Pinstripe Alley staff is with their almost flawlessly matching article photos of Chris Capuano

Fun Questions

  • Do you think the Yankees can still take first place? If not, who's their main competition for the Wild Card?
  • Favorite Robin Williams movie/moment?
Song of the Day

Friend Like Me by Robin Williams

R.I.P. Robin Williams. Thank you for all the joy you brought into so many people's lives, including my own. As always, link us your Song of the Day!

Well yesterday definitely could have gone better. To say the Yankees need to win this game would be silly, as they need to win every game. However, it'd really really really be nice if they did beat the Orioles tonight. If the weather holds up, that is. Shane Greene gets the start in Camden Yards against Wei-Yin Chen.

Let's Go Yankees

FINAL: Blue Jays 8, Yankees 7 - Back of the bullpen can't hold tie, Yanks drop third in a row

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Twenty years ago today, Major League Baseball players went on strike, putting the once-promising 1994 season on hold. It never resumed.

The once high-flying Yankees have hit a bit of a skid lately in their goal to reach the playoffs for the first time since 1981. They lost their third straight game yesterday afternoon in a hard-fought battle with the Blue Jays, who have struggled most of the season but are still the two-time defending World Series champions. We can only ponder if the Yankees might be headed to a second straight late summer swoon--tied for the AL East division lead with the Jays last year as late as Labor Day, they eventually lost the title by seven games. For captain Don Mattingly's sake, we can only hope that this is not the case, though a larger threat looms to ruin the Yankees' season than mere games.

The dispute, centering on the owners' demand to create cost control by putting a limit on player payrolls, was so severe that negotiators for the two sides didn't even bother to meet and barely spoke to each other yesterday.

There were early reports, later denied, that some owners had made suggestions intended to generate movement on their side. Barring a change in the owners' position, which has occurred in previous shutdowns, or a collapse of the players' solidarity, which never has happened, the strike threatens to wipe out the last 52 days and 668 games of the regular season and, for the first time, the playoffs and the World Series.

The charismatic Melido Perez took the hill for the Bronx Bombers today, and he was as unpredictable as ever. After a refreshingly quick top of the first inning in which Toronto went down easily on three straight grounders, the Yankees' nemesis of the day, Ed Sprague caused some havoc in the second. Last year's batting champ John Oleurd had lined a one-out single right and Perez lost outfielder Mike Huff to a walk on a full count. Perez fanned Darnell Coles, but Sprague laced a long fly to center over Bernie Williams's head for two RBI and extra bases. Although the former catcher is not normally fleet of foot, he made it all the way to third with a triple. Pat Borders grounded out to end the frame, but the Jays were on the board.

The two-run deficit wasn't large, but with Toronto's burgeoning young ace Pat Hentgen on the mound, it seemed like it might be a challenge for the Yankees to catch up. Indeed, Hentgen breezed through the lineup on his first try. However, the second time the league's leading offense faced him, they solved him. The third inning one-out rally started with an unlikely source--ninth place hitter Pat Kelly. The second baseman reached on a perfectly placed drag bunt toward the third base side, hit so slowly that Sprague could only pick it up. Leadoff man Luis Polonia followed with his 20th double of the season, a smash down the left field line played well by Darnell Coles, who kept Kelly from thinking about coming home.

It was all for naught though, as Wade Boggs brought Kelly in with a sacrifice fly. That brought the league's leading hitter, Paul O'Neill, to the plate. The former Reds right fielder has been even better this year than he was in his Bronx debut season of '93, and he carried a formidable .364 average into play today. In this scenario though, O'Neill's admirable plate discipline (and then-.465 on-base percentage) was on display, as he worked a walk against Hentgen to pass the baton to the slugging Danny Tartabull. "The Bull" has taken a small step backward since his 31-homer '93, but he squared up a 2-1 mistake from Hentgen and crushed it well over the left field wall to give the Yankees a 4-2 lead.

"There is no doubt in my mind the players are united, as always, and the owners are united this time for a significant series of reasons," Bud Selig, the acting commissioner, said. "But having said that, now we have to figure a way to solve this thing."

No one had a clue how to do that yesterday, as the 10 games on the schedule slipped past and brought the players closer to their strike deadline.

Perez cruised through the next two innings with hitless frames, but a leadoff single by Paul Molitor in the sixth began to unravel him again. He struck out Joe Carter, but caused further problems by walking Olerud and falling behind 3-1 on Huff. In a favorable count, Huff belted a double to center field, scoring Molitor and sending Olerud to third. Coles then lifted a fly ball to Polonia in left field. Olerud tagged up to score the tying , and Polonia's throw went wild, bringing Huff home as well with the go-ahead run.

Facing a deficit again, the Yankees did not wait long to rally. With two outs in the home half of the sixth, Hentgen walked backup catcher Jim Leyritz, who entered the game when hard-hitting Mike Stanley had to depart due to injury in the middle of the fifth. Williams grounded a single up the middle, and Hentgen inexplicably walked Mike Gallego to load the bases. Once again, the unsung hero Kelly came up with a big hit, lining a single to center to score Leyritz and Williams, putting the Yankees back on top. Hentgen was uncharacteristically shaky this afternoon, surrendering six runs on seven hits and three walks in six innings.

The Mets approached the strike with a 15-inning 2-1 loss at Philadelphia last night. The game at Oakland between the Athletics and the Seattle Mariners, which ended at 12:45 A.M. E.D.T., might have been the last in a season of remarkable individual performances, including Tony Gwynn's pursuit of a .400 batting average (he's hitting .394) and a core of sluggers chasing home-run records.

If the dispute were to be resolved in time only to play the post-season, the new expanded playoffs would start with Montreal at Los Angeles and Cincinnati at wild-card Atlanta in the National League and in the American League the Yankees at wild-card Cleveland and the Chicago White Sox at Texas.

After a strikeout and back-to-back walks in the seventh, Perez's day was done as well. Buck Showalter called on the reliable young starter-turned-reliever Bob Wickman to strand the runners, and the sinkerballer did what he does best. The likely future Hall of Famer Molitor could only muster a weak grounder to second, and Carter lifted a lazy fly ball to left-center to end the inning.

An inning later though, Wickman was immediately touched up for another booming triple to center, this time by Olerud. He had to stay put on a grounder, but Coles hit the next pitch for a ground-rule double to score Olerud an tie this see-saw affair at six runs apiece. Wickman and Blue Jays reliever Danny Cox kept the game tied as the game moved to extra innings.

In Washington, President Clinton urged both sides to find a way to get back together and finish the season.

"There are a lot of little kids out there who want to see this season come to a close," he said, "and there are a lot of not-so-little kids out there who know that this is the most exciting baseball season in 40 years."

In the tenth, Toronto threatened after a leadoff single by Carter knocked Wickman out, bringing closer Steve Howe into the game. He struck out Olerud, but allowed Carter to get into scoring position on a single to right. Fortunately, the veteran worked out of trouble by retiring Coles and Sprague in order to end the inning. A couple innings later in the 12th though, Carter victimized him again, this time in a more serious manner. The '93 World Series hero crushed a homer down the left field line, much like his series-winning blast, and Toronto was back on top by one.

The Yankees weren't finished yet. Cito Gaston asked Darren Hall to close out the victory, but the Yankees were uninterested in going quietly. Polonia led off with his second double of the day, and Boggs beat out a slow roller to shortstop for an infield single as Polonia moved to third. Although O'Neill grounded into a double play to halt the rally, the tying run scored and the see-saw affair soldiered on to the 13th inning, as if begging the baseball season not to end.

At Yankee Stadium, Steinbrenner offered mixed views on the dispute. Referring to Ravitch's contention that a salary cap is needed to maintain competitive balance between wealthier clubs and poorer clubs, the Yankees' principal owner said, "It's difficult to argue competitive balance in view of Montreal having the second-lowest payroll but the best record in baseball."

But he added: "The thing is to enable them to keep some of those players, to have the financial wherewithal to do it. We don't want to happen to Montreal what happened to Pittsburgh, where they couldn't afford to keep those players."

Showalter did not have many reliable relievers rested and ready to go, so in came Joe Ausanio and his ERA north of five. Sure enough, Sprague took his third pitch deep to left field for a solo homer to lead off the top of the 13th. Ausanio got the next three Toronto batters in order, but the Yankees were yet again in a hole.

This time, Hall did not let them rally. He walked Mattingly in what might be the Captain's final at-bat of the season, but the Yankees were unable to do much else, even with the faster Gerald Williams pinch-running for the 13-year veteran who has yet to play October baseball despite a brilliant career. Pinch-hitter Daryl Boston and Bernie Williams went in order, leaving the game up to another pinch-hitter, Matt Nokes. If the catcher had found a Hall pitch he liked, the Yankees might have won on a walk-off, but alas, he flew out to center to end the game. The Yankees fell to 70-43, though they are still six and a half games up on the Orioles in the AL East. There might still be hope yet for Donnie Baseball's first playoff game and, perhaps with some luck, a run to his first World Series. We can only imagine what kind of ovation he would receive from the Yankee Stadium faithful.

And yet we can only hope that we even see baseball again in 1994.

Despite the prospect of having no more games this season, Bill Giles, the Phillies' managing partner, left his team's game before it was over, walking out in the 11th inning with the game tied, 1-1. Giles explained, "I have to get up early and drive to Vermont to go fishing."

With the two sides in baseball's labor dispute far apart and rigid in their positions, major league players went on strike after last night's games, shutting down the season with the eighth work stoppage in 23 seasons.

***

The 1994 Yankees never got to play in the postseason. The promising Montreal team never played in a playoff game for the rest of their history, a sad story expertly told by Jonah Keri in his book. The recently deceased Gwynn never got to finish his run at .400. Matt Williams and Ken Griffey, Jr. never got to finish their runs at Roger Maris's single-season home run record. This game was the last Yankees game my dad would read about in his life. It was the middle of August.

May Major League Baseball and the Players' Union never let such an embarrassing atrocity happen again.

Italics text is excerpted from Murray Chass (yes, he used to be good) at theNew York Times, August 12, 1994.

Robin Williams and a baseball film he never made

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"Thank you very much. You're on your own. Good night." -- Robin Williams, 1978.

I fervently wanted Robin Williams to play Casey Stengel.

A long time ago, I wrote a book about the Hall of Fame manager based upon what I believed to be the central conflict of his life: That he was a very funny man who also wanted to be taken seriously. I don't mean that Stengel liked to take off his comedic mask the way Charlie Chaplin or Jerry Lewis did, walking into walls when in character and costume and then discoursing about the high seriousness of their art when off camera and in mufti. There was no mask. Stengel loved making people laugh too much to stop and yet was too smart not to need to be respected for his intelligence. Those instincts did not coexist well in the public perception of him, could not be rationalized by sportswriters and baseball executives of the time who were brought up to think that managers should be like John McGraw or Joe McCarthy -- drunk and  disorderly much of the time, sure, but also imperious Leaders of Men and publicly humorless.

As I wrote the book, I fantasized, as many authors do, about the film adaptation that might follow. From the very beginning, I imagined Williams playing Casey. He could inhabit that man as well as he inhabited Popeye (in a bizarre misfire of a Robert Altman film at once more true to Elzie Segar's original strip than any cartoon adaptation, a live-action cartoon itself, and a runaway train of drug-addled writing, direction and performance -- but Williams is very good in it), Parry the traumatized homeless savant in The Fisher King, the psychologist in Good Will Hunting, or even the villains in One Hour Photo and Insomnia. A large part of Williams' public persona, particularly as a stand-up comic, was antic, and as brilliant as his stand-up material could be, some of his worstperformances in films came when directors indulged his stage/talk show persona. Good Morning Vietnam and Dead Poets Society were two of his more acclaimed performances (he was Academy Award-nominated for both), but watch those films again with fresh eyes, see how they stop dead while Williams morphs out of character and into his stage persona, and then how artificial the rest of his performance seems once he eases back out again.

Those films simultaneously pander to Williams and the audience, but betray their stories. That seemed avoidable when it came to Casey Stengel. Stengel could be antic when he was young, but my book attempted to capture the process of his maturing and moderating himself. These other roles, the ones when Williams stayed in character and didn't suddenly erupt into a John Wayne imitation regardless of the context, showed that he could dial it down enough to delineate a moment in Stengel's life when he could be cutting, but also endearing; cantankerous, but also compassionate.

Williams had never made a baseball film and, as it turned out, he never would. He had a long speech about the 1975 World Series in Good Will Hunting, and in Good Morning Vietnam he taught the Vietnamese to play the game (with a casaba melon or something; I've never been quite sure, and the forced joyousness of the scene is as hollow as those melons and the dysfunctional version of baseball they require -- come to think of it, maybe that's a good metaphor for our involvement in Vietnam after all), but even better, he had one of my favorite baseball-oriented comebacks while arguing with the humorless sergeant-major played by the late J.T. Walsh:

Sgt. Major Dickerson: [Pointing to his rank insignia] What does three up and three down mean to you, airman?

Adrian Cronauer: End of an inning?

That was all the baseball Williams had in him, at least that I'm aware of, but mine was only a harmless fantasy, one of a hundred ways of staying motivated while trying to finish a book. I could rationalize: I knew he was friends with Billy Crystal, a regular (sometimes with Williams in tow) at Yankees games who spoke lovingly of Mickey Mantle and would direct 61* for HBO in 2001. I thought maybe there would somehow be some kind of positive influence there.

Robin Williams and Billy Crystal, 1994. (Getty Images)

As I said, it was just an author's fantasy, though I came closer than most writers to seeing it happen. A producer of many fine films optioned the book, believed in my Crystal-to-Williams daydreaming, and efforted to get the thing turned into a film. As happens more often than not, it wasn't to be, but in my heart I wasn't disappointed because I knew the odds were incredibly long. (I mean, they were going to film Forging Genius before they figured out how to do A Confederacy of Dunces? That would have been an injustice.) Only a few baseball movies get financed because they don't translate into French or German or Chinese; aliens and super-lizards are portable because their appeal isn't limited to North America, chunks of South America, and the Caribbean and screaming doesn't require subtitles. And yet, I have always held that image of Williams as Stengel somewhere inside of me and retained the tiniest hope that someday it might happen. As of Monday, that dream will never be realized.

I clung to Williams as Stengel not because I wanted to have the ego-fulfilling experience of seeing my book filmed, and it's not just that I thought Williams suited the part, though I think he could have been very good and I would have enjoyed seeing him do it very much. It was about a feeling of empathy. Though I never met Casey Stengel -- he died when I was roughly 5 -- as I learned about him, I came to like him and that moved me to write the book. Though there are many stories of his being a hard, harsh man, I also heard or read many of his being a good and kind one. Similarly, I never met Robin Williams, but I liked him. As with Stengel, I know he wasn't perfect, and in some situations it was said his ethics were not the strongest, but his performances conveyed kindness. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't, I'll never know, but I knew he could bring that quality to a role.

Perhaps somehow I sensed that we had something in common as well. I have never made much of a secret of the fact that depression has been a lifelong problem for me. It would creep up on me from time to time as a child, lay heavily on me as a teenager, knock me to the floor for days in my 20s. If you've had it, you know that it feels like a 200-ton weight is sitting on your spirit and there is nothing you can do to lift it. Some sufferers stop eating, others binge. Some stop sleeping, or find it impossible to get out of bed. Either way, forward movement seems not only impossible, but futile.

Until I was in my mid-30s I would go through long periods of remission interrupted by episodes of deep blues. These were always transient, so I was never medicated. I would sink, rise again, and go on. It was just something I dealt with, the way one deals with a cold. And then what Winston Churchill, a fellow sufferer, called his Black Dog came to stay. My brain chemistry had altered as I had grown older, and the old resiliency had gone forever. I sank, but did not rise. Medication became a necessity. From time to time I have since tried to wean myself away from it, but it is always a mistake; off of the pills I feel good, liberated even, for a few weeks, but in reality I am steering toward a seemingly bottomless pit, and despite having endured the withdrawal symptoms and the "brain snaps" and all the other hardships of quitting drugs, I go right back on them, taking a higher dosage than I had when I had quit. Brilliant.

The medications have unpleasant side effects. They also sometimes suddenly stop working, or are overwhelmed by the hard knocks that life offers everyone, and one can be kicked off balance and transported back to that dark place. Formulations and dosages that have worked for years have to be recalibrated or done away with altogether. As a result, there have been so many discontinuities in my life that I am no longer who I was before the Black Dog. I sometimes quote a line of Elvis Costello's to a close friend who met me after all of this had taken place: "I wish you'd known me when I was alive."

And yet, in many ways I am better off now than I was before I began warring with depression. In retrospect, in all the years prior to the problem being recognized and treated, I suspect that something like 80 percent of the decisions I made in my life were in some way influenced or dictated by that demon. Some of those decisions were wise, others very poorly thought out, but all of them were made either in the thrall of the beast, in fear of awakening it, or in hopes of placating it. I shrank from challenges I should have accepted and fought too stubbornly to win those I should have refused.

Williams with Matt Damon in "Good Will Hunting," the film for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He was nominated three other times. (Getty Images)

We have been told that Robin Williams took his own life. I'm not a spiritual person, and so I've mostly been too afraid of dying to think seriously about doing myself any harm even when at my lowest. There are also many people in my life I love too much to hurt them that way. A close relative killed herself when I was a teenager, and I remember what that sudden disappearance felt like. And of all the stories I have written or played in part in creating, I most want to know how that of my children turns out, and to be here to help them when I can.

Yet, at the times when I have been off the drugs or simply too wounded for them to function properly, there is an intense desire for surcease of pain. At such moments I can empathize with what Williams might have felt. When I was in the deepest morass of despair a few years ago and spoke of suicide, a dear, dear friend, a well-meaning friend, quoted a cliché: Suicide, he said, is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. "No, no, you don't understand," I wanted to cry out. "This is a permanent problem!" I recently watched the documentary on Roger Ebert, Life Itself. It's an excellent film, but a difficult one to rationalize emotionally, because it contains a contradiction: It simultaneously celebrates the life Ebert made for himself when cancer ravaged his body and depicted a man who had had enough and was rapidly losing the will to live. I've had cancer too, though not in the wholly debilitating way he did, but because of my depression I understand that there can be a moment where your brain says, "Enough. I can't take anymore. I quit," and I empathized.

I'm not judging that moment. I think, as with diseases of addiction, we do people a disservice when we depict such things as purely matters of choice. I suspect the decision to take one's own life emanates not just from surface-level emotional turmoil, but also something deeper, a biological, Darwinistic impulse that calculates and says, "You're not going to be contributing anymore? OK, fuck it. For physical or emotional reasons your usefulness is at an end. Permission to release granted."

I want to be clear: I'm not judging that moment, but I'm also not saying that it's right. I am in no way endorsing it. If you have the urge to harm yourself (or anyone else for that matter), please, do what I finally did and recognize that you need help. I deeply wish that Williams had been able to take that step, to, in our sports argot, give himself a time out before taking the action he did. He had been in a kind of career doldrums in recent years, but I have no doubt he had more to give, to family, to friends, to the public -- though if he was done with the latter, the first two would have sufficed.

Williams had been a star in different settings for nearly 40 years. That's a long time to be the same person and hold the world's attention. At some point, I suspect the public saw so much of Williams that his limitations were exposed, that what had once been spontaneous and original seemed forced and contrived. Watch the linked performance, how unrehearsed it seems, how he is constantly interrupting himself with new thoughts. It's one thing to be in your 20s and, fueled by a few illicit substances, keep moving at that speed, another to do it in your 40s, 50s, 60s. Williams' later shows are clearly much more written, those ad libs seemingly artificial. At that point, what had seemed so fresh crossed the line into shtick and became wearisome.

When you choose weak vehicles, as Williams apparently did late in his career, familiarity becomes harder to overlook, and, as the old saying goes, breeds contempt. We're ungrateful bastards that way. That doesn't make us culpable in his suicide; that was his decision and his alone. It just makes life unfair. Sometimes inspiration only strikes once, then you spend the rest of your life chasing. We're not obligated to watch.

In the 1978 performance linked above, Williams finishes the main part of his set by pretending to be himself 40 years hence, an old man feeding drugs to pigeons in a post-apocalyptic future. "There are some good feelings I have to relate to you," the old man says. "From me to you, you've got to be crazy. You know what I'm talking about? Beaucoup bozo. ‘Cause what is reality? ... Madness is the only way out, to stay alive ... You're only given a little spark of madness, and if you lose that, you're nothing. From me to you, don't ever lose that, ‘cause it keeps you alive. If you lose that [nothing] ... That's my only love, crazy."

It's a funny performance, naturally, but also a moving one. In another version of that same show, the audience chants for him to do his alien character, Mork, from his hit television show of the day. "An angry mob!" he shouts. "Wait! Time out! I have to explain one thing: I ain't doing Mork because that's why I perform here, to do something different." That was 36 years ago. Given all that time maybe we run out of "something different" to do. Maybe we fall out of love with crazy.

Perhaps it's as simple as the fact that deep sadness can be overwhelming, or all of the above, or none of it. I don't know. I just know I still want to see Robin Williams play Casey Stengel, or hell, any other role he was meant to play. I wish he had had one more try in him. I wish I had gotten a chance to talk to him about it, even if he hadn't taken the part. "Don't give up," Casey said. "Tomorrow is just another day, and that's myself."

It's harder than it looks, Casey.

What should the Yankees do about third base next season?

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Should the Yankees roll the dice with Alex Rodriguez, re-sign Chase Headley, sign a free agent or promote someone from the system to play third base in 2015?

Due to the roller coaster ride that is Alex Rodriguez's life, the Yankees have been without a full-time third baseman for several years now. What is the best option for next season?

Alex Rodriguez

A-Rod's suspension for his involvement with the Biogenesis scandal will be lifted in 2015, so the Yankees could make him their everyday third baseman. On the one hand, he is signed through 2017, and it would be nice to see him make positive contributions to the team. Even through his injuries and shortened seasons, he's still been good with a bat. He only made it into 44 games in 2013, but he still hit .244/.348/.423 with 7 home runs and 113 wRC+.

The team could also decide to eat the $61 million left on his contract and just release him. After the media circus, and the fact that he filed (then dropped) a lawsuit against the Yankees team doctor, Christopher Ahmad, the team might be ready to cut ties. There's also no telling how A-Rod would play after missing an entire year. For one thing, he hasn't played anywhere near a full season since 2010, he's had multiple hip surgeries, and he will turn 40 next season. None of those things inspire confidence in his ability to play third base.

Chase Headley

The Yankees could also decide to re-sign Headley. Though his numbers are down this season, he's currently batting .232/.304/.359 with 9 home runs and 91 wRC+. He's been worth 2.5 fWAR, and defensively sound at third base, with 9.8 UZR/150, compared to A-Rod's -2.2 UZR/150. The Yankees could even re-sign Headley and still bring A-Rod back. If he shows that he is still able to hit, Rodriguez could DH and and occasionally spell Headley at third. This scenario is much better than any involving A-Rod as the only third baseman.

Free agency

If they don't re-sign Headley, the Yankees could always sign one of the other players who will be a free agent in 2015. That list includes Ty Wigginton, Pablo Sandoval, Donnie Murphy, Casey McGehee, Alberto Callaspo, and Wilson Betemit. Jack Hannahan, Nick Punto and Aramis Ramirez all have team options for 2015. Wigginton was released by the Marlins before the 2014 season started, and hasn't been picked up by another team, so hopefully not him. Murphy was released by the Rangers and is now playing in Triple-A with the Cardinals. Betemit has spent his season with the Rays Triple-A team. Of these options, McGehee and Sandoval are having the best seasons. McGehee has been great with the Marlins, hitting .300/.370/.379 with 112 wRC+. Sandoval is batting .283/.330/.438 with 14 home runs and 119 wRC+, and he has consistently put those numbers up over his career.

Someone from the system

Finally, the Yankees could decide to promote from within. This scenario is the least likely to happen, but still worth mentioning. Jose Pirela and Adonis Garcia are both hitting really well, but neither has played more than twenty games at third base, so they probably don't stand a shot. Rob Segedin has only recently been promoted to Triple-A. Zelous Wheeler is there too, and he's been hitting well (.286/.356/.450), and while he has the most experience, there's still no way that this happens. The Yankees would almost certainly trot A-Rod out there before they would ever just let someone from the system replace him.

Whether the Yankees re-sign Headley will probably come down to how he finishes the season. If he plays well, he could be the best option for third base next season. The Yankees could then either rid themselves of Alex Rodriguez entirely, or give him a shot at the DH role. If Headley finishes the season poorly, the team could go after a free agent, or promote someone from the farm. Just letting A-Rod rejoin the team and play third base is also an option. Which would you prefer?

Poll
What should the Yankees do about third base next season?

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Orioles vs Yankees game PPD due to rain - will be made up September 12th as part of split doubleheader

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If you live anywhere near Baltimore and have looked out the window today, this doesn't come as a surprise.

The game will be made up at 1 p.m. on Friday, September 12th as part of a split doubleheader.

This will not affect tomorrow's pitching matchup, scheduled to be Chris Tillman vs. Michael Pineda. Tonight's scheduled starter, Wei-Yin Chen, will pitch Friday night in Cleveland.

Tickets for tonight's game can be used for the 1 p.m. game on September 12th or may be exchanged for tickets to any other game this season on a "dollar-to-dollar" basis, which means that if it's traded for a higher price tier you'll have to pay the difference.

Yankees rearrange starting rotation and skip Hiroki Kuroda

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RIP April rotation, you were cool.

Tonight's game against the Baltimore Orioles has been postponed on account of rain, so the Yankees are rearranging their rotation accordingly. This week's starting rotation will look like this:

Michael Pineda will pitch on Wednesday, like originally expected, while Brandon McCarthy will kick off the series against the Tampa Bay Rays. Shane Greene, who was supposed to start today, will be moved back until Saturday, and finally, Chris Capuano will pitch on Sunday. The makeup game for tonight is not yet scheduled, so we'll see what happens with that and if it changes anything any further.

The noticeable absence in all this is, of course Hiroki Kuroda, who hasn't necessarily struggled, but does seem to be laboring a bit. Batters have hit .318/.378/.568 off him once he throws between 51 and 75 pitches and he recently claimed that he wasn't operating at 100%, making the decision to skip him look like a good idea. Hopefully, Kuroda just needs a breather, but if he's injured it will be hard for the Yankees to fill in for him over the rest of the season. Either way, this is the end of the Yankees Opening Day starting rotation, though Pineda is on the verge of a return. RIP to the all-ending in A rotation, you were nice while you lasted.

Five ways the Colorado Rockies can better celebrate their history

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Let's play some old music, wear some old jerseys, relive some old moments, and retire some old guys numbers in tribute to the history of a game and a city of great beauty.

I have, once or twice, accused the Colorado Rockies of having an inferiority complex. A manifestation of which, in this writer's opinion, has been a failure to adequetly celebrate the history not just of the Rockies themselves but of baseball in Denver.

To feign a rich and long-lasting history would honor no one, but to pretend there is nothing in Denver's history with this great game worthy of tribute would be to dishonor both the city and the game.

Speaking of feigning and pretending, I should not purport myself some scholar Colorado Baseball folklore. For that, I highly reccomend checking out Matthew Repplinger's book, Baseball in Denver.

But therein lies the beauty of my ignorant suggestion; the Rockies should be doing a better job on a day-to-day basis informing the general public of the surprisingly expansive history of our amazing city and this perfect game. But as someone who speaks with no authority on such times, I would still like to get the ball rolling on a few pragmatic things i think the organization can and should be doing to better celebrate their history.

5. Old-timers musical tribute

Silly. Simple. Costs you nothing. Gives people those nostalgic tingly thingies. Those are the ingredients for a good tribute to your past.

This could work in a lot of different ways. Maybe the Rockies pick a month and every home game each hitter is given a walk-up song from an old Rockie great in lieu of their own. Or maybe every player just picks a particular homestand before the season. "And this week Troy Tulowitzki will be walking out to Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel in tribute to Dante Bichette!"

"That's right, and next homestand it'll be Justin Morneau with a nod to the old #33 and walking out to Crazy Train!"

4. No humidor special events

Hat tip to Purple Row's friend and yours Andrew Martin for planting this idea in my head. While he might take it farther than this, I would suggest the Rockies find some way to celebrate the absurd home run totals of the nineties. It would just be too much fun.

Maybe you play some spring training games at Coors Field using balls that were stored outside over night. Or you could do a home series where you promote batting practice with non-humidor balls. C'mon ... who wouldn't want to see that?

It's time for the Rockies to stop being embarrased about this period in their history and start emracing it with a wide smile and the loud smacking of bats.

3. Wearing real throwback jerseys

We ain't talkin' no '93 grays. We ain't talkin' "blackouts" (how are those throwbacks anyway?) but real old-timey throwback Denver baseball uniforms.

Hell, the Tampa Bay Rays just made some stuff up. The Rockies don't even have to do that. How about sporting some Denver Bears jerseys? Or Denver Denvers? That would be hilarious and still awesome. There is no way it would be more embarrasing than the baseball on the field right now.

The Denver Nuggets even managed to pull this off by sporting some pretty slick "Dnver Rockets" jerseys. So yes, it can still work if the team didn't have the same name and even played in a different league. Cool old baseball jerseys are cool ... and old. DO THIS.

2. Releasing the 21 Days documentary and/or financing Ryan Spilgorghs

I was lucky enough to run into Ryan Spilborghs at a charity event for the Carlos Gonzalez foundation at Lucky Strike in Denver. He was kind and humble -- even asking for an honest review of his work -- and seemed as engaged by this topic as I was.

I had remembered watching "21 Days: The Rockies Run to the Pennant" over and over again when it first aired. I couldn't figure out why this documentary hadn't been made available to the public until I did some research for this piece and realized it was done by FSN and not ROOT.

I am not a businessman. In fact, what is the opposite of a business man? A chimpanzee in a rubber raincoat with a typewriter? Yeah, I'm closer to that than I am to being a business man. But here is the thing: we have money, you want our money, and we want that damn movie on DVD already! It sure beats watching actual games right now.

You will make back whatever it costs to buy the rights, Mr. and Mr. Monfort. Please give us 2007 again. We were all so happy then. Remember?

If it really is a super grudge thing and "to hell with that doc!" then produce a better one. I have confirmation from a source I trust on this that he still has a ton of footage that he shot himself that season. The other thing is, there were so many great stories that the FSN one even missed. Go big or go home.

Everything from Jason Hirsh's leg, to sweeping the Yankees at Coors, to Kaz Matsui's grand slam, to Willy Tavares' walk-and-point-to-the-dugout ... and it can even have a poignant ending.

The "21 Days" doc, mostly skipped through the playoffs and focused on the incredible run to get there. But why not end this one with Aaron Cook coming all the way back and pitching one of only four World Series games in Colorado history. No, we didn't win. But he did.

That team is worth remembering completely.

1. Retiring numbers.

As you are likely aware, the Rockies will be retiring No. 17 next week. The greatest Rockie in history will be the first to have his number retired when Todd Helton returns to Coors Field on August 17th. As it should be.

But once the deed is done, the floodgates need to open a bit.

Justin Morneau has paid a fitting tribute, but No. 33 must go up on the wall. And No. 9. And No. 10.

I could be talked into more, but Larry Walker, Vinny Castilla, and Dante Bichette deserve to forever be enshrined at Coors Field.

I'm sure there are tons of other suggestions out there. Please share them in the comments.

Around the Empire: New York Yankees News - 8/13/14

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Pinstripe Pundits | Chris Mitchell: Trying to find a comp to Bryan Mitchell to figure out what the Yankees might have in them.

Heels on the Field | Matt Kardos: Jacob Lindgren talks about his success and the possibility of a 2014 call up.

MLB Daily Dish | Jasper Scherer: When looking at what teams should have done at the deadline, the Padres shouldn't have given up Chase Headley for so little.

MiLB.com | Craig Forde: Greg Bird has achieved his goal to make it to Double-A Trenton in 2014.

It's About the Money | Brad Vietrogoski: Brett Gardner, Mark Teixeira, Carlos Beltran, Stephen Drew, and Martin Prado are on in a slump at the same time.

NJ.com | Brendan Kuty: It's hard to believe that the Yankees can turn around their offensive woes at this point in the season.

Washington Post | Scott Allen: Buck Showalter apparently wants to give Derek Jeter a picture of the Jefrey Maier home run, because he's Buck Showalter.

Double G Sports | Matt Kardos: Greg Bird was named the Eastern League player of the week after an impressive showing with the Thunder.

CBS Sports | Matt Snyder: Remembering the time Chuck Knoblauch argued with an umpire in the middle of the play and it cost the Yankees dearly.

New York Daily News | Michael O`Keeffe: There have been more arrests of people that were involved in the Biogenesis scandal.

Batting Leadoff | Matthew Provenzano: Yankees catching prospect Luis Torrens continues to make adjustments as on and off the field.

Fangraphs | Jeff Sullivan: A look at how the Yankees' strength of schedule look in comparison to other teams.



Baby Bomber Recap 8/12/14: Manny Banuelos gives up two hits over five innings

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Recapping the Yankees' minor league affiliates' results from August 12th.

Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders:W 6-1 vs. Louisville Bats

LF Jose Pirela 1-3, triple, 2 RBI, 2 BB, K, OF assist
2B Rob Refsnyder 2-4, BB, 2 K - batting .304 w/ SWB
CF Zoilo Almonte 3-5, RBI
1B Kyle Roller 2-3, 2 doubles, RBI, HBP
SS Zelous Wheeler 1-4, double, 2 K, E6 - throwing error, 7th of the season
DH Corban Joseph 1-4 - batting .260 this season
C Francisco Arcia 0-3, BB, K
RF Taylor Dugas 1-4, double, K
3B Rob Segedin 1-4, double, RBI, K

Manny Banuelos 5 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, WP, hit batsman - 42 of 67 pitches for strikes
Branden Pinder 1.1 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, WP
Tyler Webb 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, WP - 2.70 ERA w/ SWB
Diego Moreno 1 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 2 K

Double-A Trenton Thunder:L 2-3 vs. Altoona Curve

RF Jake Cave 0-4, BB, K
LF Ben Gamel 0-5, 4 K
C Gary Sanchez 0-3, BB
DH Tyler Austin 1-4, HR, RBI - ninth homer of the season
1B Greg Bird 1-3, double, BB, K - batting .300 since promotion
2B Dan Fiorito 0-4, K
3B Dante Bichette Jr. 1-4
CF Mason Williams 2-3, BB
SS Ali Castillo 2-4, double, SB

Joel De La Cruz 5 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, WP - 41 of 68 pitches for strikes
Phil Wetherell 0.0 IP, 1 H, 1 ER, 0 BB
Jacob Lindgren 0.2 IP, 1 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, K
Francisco Rondon 2.1 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 2 K
Nick Goody 0.1 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 0 BB

High-A Tampa Yankees: Off

Low-A Charleston RiverDogs:W 3-2 vs. Hickory Crawdads

LF Michael O'Neill 1-5, RBI, K
2B Gosuke Katoh 0-3, BB, K
3B Miguel Andujar 2-3, BB - batting .259 this season
1B Mike Ford 1-3, double, RBI, BB
DH Jackson Valera 0-4, 2 K
RF Yeicok Calderon 2-4, HR, RBI - second homer of the season
C Eduardo de Oleo 1-3, BB
SS Abiatal Avelino 1-3, BB, K
CF Brandon Thomas 1-2, 2 BB

Luis Niebla 5 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, K - 51 of 71 pitches for strikes
Angel Rincon 2.2 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, WP
Eric Ruth 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, K

Short Season-A Staten Island Yankees: Postponed for rain

Gulf Coast Yankees 1:W 4-2 vs. GCL Phillies

SS Billy Fleming 3-5, 2 doubles, K
RF Alexander Palma 2-5, double - batting .285 this season
3B Drew Bridges 2-4, double, E5 - fielding error, 8th of the season
1B Dalton Smith 0-4
DH Leonardo Molina 1-4, RBI, 3 K
CF Dominic Jose 1-4, double, K, SB
C Alvaro Noriega 1-4, E2 - throwing error, 3rd of the season
LF Miguel Mojica 1-4, double, RBI, SB
2B Derek Toadvine 0-4, 2 K

Austin DeCarr 3 IP, 2 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, WP, hit batsman, pickoff - 3 GO/4 AO
Hayden Sharp 3 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, WP
Deshorn Lake 1 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K
Jonny Drozd 2 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 4 K

Gulf Coast Yankees 2:L 1-4L 0-2 vs. GCL Braves

Game 1:

CF Jose Augusto Figueroa 0-3, K
SS Yancarlos Baez 1-3
1B Jake Hernandez 2-3
3B Allen Valerio 1-3, K
DH Chris Gittens 0-2, BB
LF Frank Frias 1-3, double
C Jesus Aparicio 1-2
2B Jake Anderson 0-3, 2 K, E4 - fielding error, 1st of the season
RF Jordan Barnes 0-3, 2 K

Elvin Perez 4 IP, 3 H, 2 R/0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K - 8 GO/1 AO
Mike Noteware 2 IP, 1 H, 1 R/0 ER, 1 BB, K, E1
Alex Polanco 1 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 0 BB

Game 2:

CF Jose Augusto Figueroa 2-4, K
SS Yancarlos Baez 1-3, 2 K
DH Jake Hernandez 0-3, K
3B Allen Valerio 0-2, BB, K, E5 - throwing error, 9th of the season
1B RJ Johnson 1-2, BB, K
RF Frank Frias 0-3, K, E9 - fielding error, 2nd of the season
C Jesus Aparicio 0-2, K
LF Griffin Gordon 1-3, K
2B Graham Ramos 0-3, K

Nestor Cortes 4.1 IP, 2 H, 2 R/0 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, WP - 5 GO/4 AO
Hector Martinez 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 3 BB, E1

Yankees Prospects: Kyle Roller is hitting to all fields now

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A new man! The same man!

For a long time Kyle Roller has been on the fringe of the prospect picture in the Yankees organization. Never really someone expected to do much, but not a guy you could totally ignore. Limited to first base, and with a tendency to strike out a ton, Roller never got much attention from anyone really, but he came into 2014 with a new approach and has seemingly change the way he hits the ball.

Since 2010, Roller has been a .275/.366/.472 hitter with a career-high of 18 home runs, but now in 2014, he's hitting .303/.392/.561 and has a grand total of 24 dingers. While he's certainly been impressive this year, he's still a 26-year-old first base minor leaguer. Kyle Roller is still Kyle Roller, but he's a better Kyle Roller than he was before. Known mostly as a pull hitter, he's reportedly spent a lot of time learning to hit the ball the other way.

"I think early in my career I was definitely more of a pull hitter. People were getting me out by just throwing balls over the outer half of the plate. Knowing I could hit the ball the opposite way whenever I needed has helped me mentally. It's a big part of my game."

The change in approach seems to be working out pretty well for him:

Screen_shot_2014-08-13_at_12.38.59_am_mediumScreen_shot_2014-08-13_at_12.38.08_am_medium

As you can see, the left-handed bat is not just bashing the ball to right field anymore. Now in 2014, he's hitting the ball considerably more to left and is even turning his control of pitches into power. He's hitting a lot more ground balls to the right side of the infield, but he's also more than making up for that with solid hits to every part of the ballpark. While a left-handed pull hitter is exactly what a hitter at Yankee Stadium wants to be, growing up to be someone who can hit the ball everywhere is much better for his career overall.

With Mark Teixeira unable to stay healthy for very long, some thought that Kyle Roller could find his way onto the team this season in order to fill in at first and provide a boost to the offense. Despite his success this season, the Yankees seem to know better, like they do with Jose Pirela, and have not brought him up as of yet. September is just around the corner, and though the Yankees have plenty of major league options to play behind Tex, you can't rule out someone with his kind of power, even if he just ends up as a pinch hitter down the stretch. His transformation as a hitter in 2014 is bound to change his situation somehow.

PSA Comments of the Day 8/13/14: The Return of Pineda

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Tonight's game features the return of Michael Pineda. Feel free to use this thread to get all the pine tar stuff out of your system

Comment of the Game

There was no game, therefore there was no Comment of the Game

Best GIF of the Recap

Ditto for the Best GIF of the Recap.

Honorable Mod Mention

The mods didn't do anything really noteworthy or honorable. Although, rumor has it that Caitlin singlehandedly slayed an army of Kobolds to defend the realm of Pinstripe Alley. More on that story as it develops.

Best Comments of the Day

Strangelove123 makes a compelling argument for why the Yankees have not offered David Robertson an extension.

In Andrew's post remembering the 1994 MLB Strike, Burferd mentions a whole slew of possibilities of what could have happened in baseball had it not happened.

Finally, both waw and HighFlyers28 discuss the idea of releasing Alex Rodriguez because of the circus that is likely to ensue, bringing up fair points about how much of a circus his whole Yankee career has been.

Fun Questions

  • What do you expect from Michael Pineda tonight?
  • Over/under on how many times the YES booth and/or MASN booth bring up the Pine Tar thing tonight?
Song of the Day

Birdland by Weather Report

Figured this was appropriate, being in Birdland and all. As always, link us your Song of the Day!

I don't suppose it's too much to hope that yesterday's deluge in Baltimore washed away the Yankees' offensive woes. Hopefully, it's not too much to hope that Michael Pineda comes back and pitches lights out baseball against the Orioles tonight.. He will be facing off against Chris Tillman.

Let's Go Yankees

Tempering expectations for Michael Pineda's return to the Yankees' rotation

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I'm as excited for Pineda's return as anyone, but there are still some concerns.

Yankees fans haven't had to wait quite as long for Michael Pineda's return to the starting rotation as they did from when he first injured his shoulder in spring training 2012, but the four months since his last start have felt like quite some time. Ivan Nova had just hit the disabled list with a torn UCL. CC Sabathia was still in the rotation and half of the fourteen players who appeared in Pineda's last start are injured or no longer with the team. Likewise, five of the eleven Red Sox in that game are gone. The Rangers had the the best record in the American League and have since plummeted to the worst record in baseball in a miserable, injury-filled 33-64 stretch. Such are the common developments of baseball's lengthy 162-game season.

Now, the once-promising starting rotation the Yankees began the season with is all but gone. The rotation Pineda departed has just one healthy starter remaining, and that man, Hiroki Kuroda, is being skipped this week to get some extra rest. Pineda returns to the rotation tonight in Baltimore with the Yankees playing some of their least inspiring baseball of the season of late. Since winning six out of seven, they've dropped three games in a row with the offense scoring just two deserved runs in the past three games. The pressure is on Pineda and his fellow surprising rotationmates of Kuroda, Brandon McCarthy, Shane Greene, and Chris Capuano to keep the opposing teams off the scoreboard while the struggling offense tries to scratch out some runs. It's not an easy situation to return to, and yet the Yankees will ask Pineda to come back against the Orioles, one of the league's best offenses, which has homered more times than any other team in baseball.

Some people might expect Pineda to be just as dominant as the guy who wowed fans so much in spring training and the first three starts of the season. Joe Girardi's "Big Mike" was incredible, pitching to a 1.00 ERA in 18 innings, striking out 15 and walking just three batters. He seemed to be getting stronger, and then that embarrassing night in Boston happened on April 22nd.

Pineda slathered pine tar on his neck and was thrown out of the game in the second inning for this blatant mistake. It was already a bad day for him, as he had already surrendered a pair of runs on four hits with no strikeouts in a mere inning and a third, and Pineda departed in shame. He was suspended for 10 games, but that hardly seemed to matter, as while throwing a simulated game during his suspension, he suffered a Grade 1 lat strain. A month later, his rehab had to be shut down again with back inflammation, then yet again in late June with shoulder inflammation.

At last, he's making his return to the mound, but it would be wise for Yankees fans to exercise some restraint in their hopes for him. Although his repertoire is dynamic, he did only make three legitimate starts earlier this year, quite a small sample size. Teams obviously knew about him before from his pre-shoulder injury days with the Mariners in 2011, but getting three regular season games of footage with the post-injury Pineda this year likely makes him a little bit less of a mystery to opposing hitters. They were an exciting trio of starts, but remember that Chase Whitley also had an exciting trio of starts earlier in the season as well. Although there's obviously a big difference between Whitley and Pineda in terms of potential, Whitley's initial success remains a reminder about small sample size.

Pineda's surgically repaired shoulder also offers cause for concern. He had major shoulder surgery in 2012 that is very difficult for pitchers of any age to recover from, and both the recent lat injury and subsequent setbacks should make people at least a little uneasy putting too much trust in his right arm. I love what Pineda has to offer, but you can bet that I will be praying on every pitch he throws that his arm doesn't blow up. Also keep in mind that he's still building up stamina--in his two rehab starts with Triple-A Scranton, he threw 58 and 72 pitches, respectively and only went 4 1/3 innings in his last start. With some luck, he'll stay healthy and reach full strength soon, but who knows how close he is to there yet?

I will gladly take it if Pineda can give the Yankees five productive innings tonight (and avoid the pine tar). Anything more that that is gravy, and fans shouldn't be disappointed if that's all he can muster. It won't be a long start, but since Dellin Betances and David Robertson have each received at least four straight days off with an off-day coming tomorrow as well, they should be ready to help pick up the slack. Here's hoping that Pineda can return in style and that the offense can wake up to support him.

Brandon McCarthy has been better in NY this season, why?

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Did the Yankees see something in McCarthy that Arizona missed?

When Brandon McCarthy was traded from Arizona to New York, there were two questions. One, how would his inflated HR rate react to the short porch in Yankee Stadium? And two, would better defense help the ground ball hurler find better results? We have since learned a third question, were the Yankees right in thinking that a change in his pitch usage would make him more effective?

Brandon McCarthy brought an ugly 3-10 record and 5.01 ERA to the Bronx. He had made 18 starts in Arizona and the traditional numbers told us that he was having a terrible season. Of course, looking deeper, advanced stats people knew that his xFIP was only 2.90, suggesting that McCarthy had run into some tough luck in Arizona. His 20% HR/FB rate would surely regress. As would his .345 BABIP. As a ground ball pitcher - his GB rate ranks 13th among qualified starters this season - eventually positive results would come.

TeamGSWLIPK/9BB/9BABIPGB%HR/FBERAxFIP
ARI18310109.27.631.640.34555.3%20.0%5.012.90
NYY64136.28.841.470.33649.6%10.0%2.212.69

Sure enough, in six starts in New York, McCarthy has pitched to a 2.21 ERA (2.69 xFIP) while cutting his HR/FB rate in half from 20% to 10%. The improved performance largely credited to the Yankees promoting him to use his cutter more often. By throwing his sinker less and cutter more, the logic is that he has become less predictable, and thus, more effective.

We can see the difference in McCarthy's pitch usage between the four-seam, sinker, and cutter using PitchF/X data. In his first 18 starts with Arizona, he barely used his four-seam at all, relying on his sinker the most, and his cutter only 16.4% of the time. Since changing to pinstripes, he is throwing his sinker less, and both his cutter and four-seam fastball more.

Brooksbaseball-chart

In order to see how effective McCarthy has been due to his varied pitch repertoire, we can use something called pitch values, which are assigned by FanGraphs. Pitch values are based on pitch type linear weights. Essentially, each pitch is measured in terms of run expectancy. If a fastball is thrown for a 1-0 count versus an 0-1 count, there is a difference in run expectancy. If a sinker is punished for a home run instead of becoming a weak ground ball, obviously, there is a difference in run expectancy. Adding up the run expectancy on the results of each pitch gives us pitch values.

While it is not entirely telling, given the sample size, we can look at McCarthy's pitch values while in Arizona versus New York to see if there is a difference in each pitch's effectiveness. Remember, the run value of each pitch is used to calculate how many runs are saved by each pitch. A positive value is good; a negative value is bad. And in order to standardize for the different usage of pitches, we can look on a per-100 pitch basis.

Mccarthy_pitch_values

It looks like the Yankees are onto something. The table above shows that while pitching in Arizona, McCarthy threw his sinker -14.97 runs below average on a per-100 pitch basis. In New York, he is still throwing the pitch below average, but nearly average, saving more than 14 runs compared to the start of the season. Meanwhile, his cutter is twice as effective as it was in Arizona, saving nearly one run on a per-100 pitch basis.

The question of whether the Yankees were right in thinking they could make McCarthy more effective by changing his pitch usage seems to be right.

When Brian Cashman acquired the tall right-hander, the belief was that with better defense, continued success inducing ground balls, and a bit of luck, McCarthy would see his numbers slowly improve. It's hard to say that he has better defense in New York - depending on if you use DRS or UZR, neither Arizona nor the Yanks have particularly strong middle infield defense this year. And since joining the AL East, McCarthy has seen his ground ball rate decline. Ironically, he is giving up more fly balls; just less are falling for home runs. Something not entirely expected knowing that Yankee Stadium augments home runs 7% more than Chase Field.

Brandon McCarthy is not pitching better in New York because the defense is improved (he was greeted in his first game with a costly error by Mark Teixeira) or because he moved to a more favorable park to keep his long flys from turning into home runs. He is pitching better because the Yankees saw something the Diamondbacks didn't. He was becoming too predictable with his pitch selection.

. . .

All statistics courtesy of FanGraphs and Brooks Baseball.

Jeffrey Bellone is an editor and featured writer at Beyond The Box Score. He can also be found writing for the saber-slanted site Inside the 'Zona, and about the Mets at Amazin' Avenue and Mets Merized Online. He writes about New York sports at Over the Whitestone. You can follow and interact with him on Twitter @OverWhitestone.

Orioles, Yankees lineups for Wednesday night

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The Orioles and Yankees resume their series on Wednesday night. The forecast is good. Chris Tillman starts for the O's, while Michael Pineda returns from the disabled list to start for New York.

Rainouts are a bummer, but look on the bright side: We were momentarily spared from having to have Wei-Yin Chen pitch against the Yankees in this series. That might have ended badly. Actually, it may have been more about giving Chen an extra rest day, which is important for him, rather than any expected performance for him against the Yankees as opposed to Chris Tillman, who's actually starting Wednesday's game.

Anyway, the Orioles go into tonight with a 6.5 game division lead. That's a real thing. This is the world we live in.

Pitchers

RHP Michael Pineda, Yankees
2014: 4 GS, 19.2 IP, 1.83 ERA, 15 SO, 3 BB, .233 BAA, 1.02 WHIP
First MLB start since April 23

That whole thing where Pineda was ejected for having pine tar on his neck feels like a lifetime ago. It was, in some ways. Certainly a darker time, one where the Orioles were just an OK team, rather than a first place team for a month and counting. That's who he'll have to face tonight. Not that it's the same Orioles lineup, and not that he's seen this lineup yet this year in any case.

Pineda had a strained lat muscle while pitching to stay fresh during the suspension he received for the pine tar incident. As such, it's his first MLB action in over three months. Hopefully for the Orioles, he's on the rusty side.

RHP Chris Tillman, Orioles
2014: 25 GS, 149.2 IP, 3.73 ERA, .241 BAA, 1.29 WHIP
Last start (vs. Cardinals): 6.2 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 1 HR, 1 BB, 7 SO

Tillman has recorded a quality start in six of his last seven starts. One of those came against the Yankees just before the All-Star Break, in a game where the Orioles did not score any runs. It is indeed tough to win when the offense gets no runs.

You can usually tell from the first inning whether it's going to be a good Tillman night or a bad Tillman night. He struggles early. That's just what he does. If tonight is one of the struggle nights, then the O's will find themselves in an early hole. Keep it as small as possible, Chris. You know these hitters can come back.

Today's Lineups

NEW YORK YANKEESBALTIMORE ORIOLES
Brett Gardner - LFNick Markakis - RF
Derek Jeter - SSChris Davis - 3B
Jacoby Ellsbury - CFAdam Jones - CF
Mark Teixeira - 1BNelson Cruz - DH
Carlos Beltran - DHDelmon Young - LF
Chase Headley - 3BSteve Pearce - 1B
Stephen Drew - 2BRyan Flaherty - SS
Martin Prado - RFJonathan Schoop - 2B
Francisco Cervelli - CNick Hundley - C
Michael Pineda - RHPChris Tillman - RHP

Yankees batters with over .800 OPS in at least 10 PA vs. Tillman: Ellsbury, Jeter, Teixeira, Drew. That does sound like a recipe for a possible short night for Tillman and long night for Orioles fans.

Think the Orioles lineup is a bit weird? That's what injuries to both Manny Machado and J.J. Hardy will do to you. Davis at third base - well, maybe it won't be that bad, but as Buck Showalter likes to say, the baseball will find you out there.

Are the 2014 Rays the greatest collection of strikeout pitchers in history?

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Yes. Or maybe the 2001 Yankees were. Or perhaps it's the 1977 Angels.

So far this season, Rays pitchers have struck out 23.5% of the batters they've faced. That's the highest rate ever, which I'm defining as the American League since 1973 (the introduction of the designated hitter). Please pardon my limited definition of "forever."

Is it fair to say, then, that the 2014 Rays are the best strikeout pitching staff in history? Well, that's a surprisingly complex question. Let's take a look at the top ten by strikeout percentage.

TeamYearK%
Rays201423.5%
Tigers201323.3%
Rays201223.1%
Indians201422.7%
Indians201322.4%
Angels201422.3%
Mariners201422.0%
Yankees201422.0%
Tigers201221.8%
Yankees201221.7%

The 2013 Tigers weren't half bad either, and that rotation has now been bolstered by our own David Price, who was a big part of both the 2014 and 2012 Rays. What you should notice, though, is that every one of those teams is from the past three years. That's not a coincidence. Strikeouts, league-wide, have been rising steadily, and are now at an all-time high.

Kpercentage_medium

The worst strikeout team in the American League this year, the Minnesota Twins, would have been average as recently as 2006. I don't think Twins fans are especially consoled by the fact that they would have been average eight years ago, and we Rays fans shouldn't be unduly impressed by the fact that we're unhittable compared to the past, either. Instead, let's compare each team's strikeout rate to the average for their year.

TeamYearK%AverageTeam-Average
Yankees200120.5%16.5%4.0%
Rangers198918.1%14.3%3.8%
Rays201223.1%19.4%3.7%
Red Sox200120.1%16.5%3.6%
Angels197616.0%12.4%3.6%
Yankees198115.7%12.1%3.6%
Red Sox198817.8%14.3%3.5%
Mariners198216.0%12.6%3.4%
Rays201423.5%20.1%3.4%
Tigers201323.3%20.0%3.3%

This list paints a different picture. The top three teams from the first list, the 2014 Rays, the 2012 Rays, and the 2013 Tigers still make the cut, but they're in a different order. And the top spot is now held by the 2001 Yankees. That should come as no surprise to anyone who remembers that team. Their rotation was made up of Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Mike Mussina, Orlando Hernandez, and Ted Lilly.

There's one more way to approach this question, though. Being above the average is impressive, yes, but it's perhaps more impressive to be far above the average while everyone else hovers around it. If the spread between teams is high in a given year, that means that some teams are surging ahead in the strikeout race, while others haven't figured out the new environment. But if everyone's strikeout rate is pretty much the same, right near the league average, while one team is far above the clump? Well, that makes that team really exceptional. I've gone ahead and normalized the strikeout rates for each year. A score of zero means that a team is average, one means that the team is one standard deviation above average, and so on. Here are the top ten.

TeamYearK%Normalized
Angels197715.7%2.52
Yankees198115.7%2.48
Angels197616.0%2.27
Mariners198216.0%2.23
Angels197515.6%2.21
Indians200019.0%2.20
Red Sox198817.8%2.13
Angels197316.2%2.12
Rangers198918.1%2.10
White Sox198516.4%2.07

Now the Rays are no longer on the list. The 2012 version comes in 18th, and the 2014 version 27th. The most recent team to make the list was the 2000 Cleveland Indians led by a 27 year old Bartolo Colon. The most striking characteristic though, is how much the mid-70s Angels were ahead of their time. The 1973, 1975, 1976, and 1977 versions all make the top ten. Unsurprisingly, that rotation was lead by a pair of greats in Nolan Ryan and Frank Tanana.

So yes, the 2014 Rays are really good at striking batters out. No one has ever been as good. I'm not entirely sure, though, if they're actually historic.

All data is from FanGraphs. If you want to play around with the numbers yourself, you can download the spreadsheet here.


Yankees lineup vs. Orioles - Hiroki Kuroda back in the rotation; Masahiro Tanaka feels no more pain

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Michael Pineda finally returns to the mound tonight in order to take on the Orioles and hopefully save this team from the brink. The Yankees designated Chris Leroux for assignment in order to place Pineda onto the 40-man roster.

Brett Gardner, Derek Jeter, and Jacoby Ellsbury are at the top of the lineup, like always. Mark Teixeira and Carlos Beltran follow, while Chase Headley plays third base, Stephen Drew plays second, and Martin Prado is in right. With Brian McCann on the disabled list with a concussion, Francisco Cervelli remains behind the plate and bats ninth.

Just one day after announcing the week's starting rotation, it appears that things have been changed again. Hiroki Kuroda was due to be skipped over the next time his turn to pitch was up, but now he will be pitching Sunday against the Rays. Chris Capuano now seems to be out of the rotation for the time being. This is all very weird. Not sure why they wouldn't announce this yesterday or why Girardi specifically stated he would be skipped if he was just going to be put into the rotation after the fact.

Masahiro Tanaka was again playing catch in the outfield before today's game and it appears he no longer feels any pain in his right elbow.


Yankees 3, Orioles 5: This is not a playoff team

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Welcome back Big Mike, sorry you have to play on this team

The Yankees and Orioles faced off in the last game of their series at Camden Yards in a game that New York needed to win. Slipping further and further away from the division, the Yankees needed to beat Baltimore tonight and hopefully beat up on a few bad teams in the coming days, unfortunately it didn't work out that easily, despite Herculean efforts from Michael Pineda and Dellin Betances.

The Yankees broke through in the third inning on a Stephen Drew double when Delmon Young could not make a diving catch in left field. They finally ended their RISP slump at 0-24 when Francisco Cervelli came up and hit a breaking ball on the outer half over the left-center field wall to give New York a 2–0 lead. It was starting to look like a good day for the Yankee offense, but that was really it. We should all be used to this by now.

Pineda returned to the mound for the first time since April and it was like he never left. His fastball was in the low-mid 90s, like he was hitting before his DL stint. He sent down 12 straight to start off the game, striking out four and working efficiently though the first four innings. Then in the fifth, Pineda gave up his first hit, a double to Nelson Cruz, and lost his command as he hit 50 pitches. He got Delmon Young to ground out, but then ran into a bit of bad luck when Steve Pearce flared a bloop single into left-center to cause some trouble. He gave up a fly ball that allowed a run to score and cut the Yankees' lead in half, but Pineda finally managed to get through the fifth with the lead intact thanks to a great diving grab made by Chase Headley. Pineda ended his night allowing one run on two hits in five innings. I think we'll all take that from him after so much time away.

Dellin Betances pitched 2 1/3 innings tonight, coming in for the sixth for the first time since mid-June. He gave up a hit on the first pitch he threw, but came back against the next three hitters to strikeout Nick Markakis, Chris Davis, and Adam Jones. Betances breezed through his second inning of work, collecting another strikeout on only eight pitches. However, his third inning is where things finally fell apart. After getting one out in the eighth, he surrendered a home run to apparent Yankee-killer Jonathan Schoop to tie the game and boot him from the game.

Shawn Kelley entered and allowed a hit and a walk to put the go-ahead run in scoring position. Jones then came up and launched a three-run home run to put the O's up 5–3 and push the game out of reach. The Yankees challenged in the ninth inning when Mark Teixeira walked and Carlos Beltran hit a double down the left-field line. Headley brought in a run on an infield single, but with two outs, Drew grounded out to end the game.

Overall, the Yankees collected only six hits with Brett Gardner, Mark Teixeira, and Chase Headley adding to the tally throughout the game. This wasn't really on the pitching. Pineda and Betances were outstanding (sure, Kelley not so much), but you can't win games against playoff-caliber teams by scoring only three runs.

It's becoming painfully clear that, despite all the upgrades Brian Cashman was able to make, this just isn't a playoff team. Maybe the pitching is, but the offense, for whatever reason, hasn't clicked all year. The Yankees needed this game and they ended up barely putting in enough effort to keep the game interesting. The next week might be the end of the line depending on how it goes for them.

Orioles complete two-game sweep of Yankees on eighth-inning home runs from Jonathan Schoop and Adam Jones

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This game looked doomed, until it didn't. Is this real life?

The Orioles staged a late-inning comeback against the Yankees tonight, scoring four runs in the eighth inning thanks to home runs from Jonathan Schoop and Adam Jones. The comeback gave the Orioles 5-3 win and pushed the Yankees even further down in the A.L. East standings.

O's starter Chris Tillman got off to a good start with six up, six down, but fell apart briefly in the third and fourth innings, allowing the Yankees to score twice. To start the third, Stephen Drew hit a fly ball to left field that Delmon Young raced a long way to get to, but as he slid he just couldn't make the catch. Drew ended up on second base, but not for long. Two batters later Tillman let Francisco Cervelli, of all people, get the better of him. Cervelli it a curve ball into the left field stand for a two-run home run. Tillman let the next batter single as well, but Derek Jeter did us all a favor by grounding into a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning.

Tillman played with fire in the fourth as well, allowing a single and a double to put runners on second and third with two outs, but a weak groundout by Drew kept the Yankees from scoring. After that he settled down and recorded three straight 1-2-3 innings to end his night. The final out of the seventh also came courtesy of Stephen Drew, who hit a nubber in front of home plate and then ran inside the base line, preventing Nick Hundley from making a good throw. The home plate umpire Gerry Davis correctly ruled him out, which of course didn't sit well with Joe Girardi. As the Orioles ran off the field and ESPN went to commercial, Girardi whined to Davis until he was tossed from the game. Because of course he did.

In Michael Pineda's first start back from the disabled list, he shut down the Orioles over five innings pitched. Pineda was working on pitch count of 85 in his return, but he needed only 67 to hold the Orioles to just one run and two hits. He retired the first 12 batters he faced before Nelson Cruz doubled to lead off the fifth inning. Cruz moved to third base on a bloop single to left field (he had to hold up to make sure it wasn't caught), then came in to score the Orioles' first run on a sacrifice fly by Ryan Flaherty.

When Pineda finished five innings with a 2-1 lead, Girardi went straight to shutdown reliever Dellin Betances. Betances normally doesn't come into the game until the seventh or eighth innings, but I imagine Girardi didn't want to risk his bullpen blowing the one-run lead (spoiler: they did). The first batter Betances faced, Hundley, singled, but after that Betances made the O's look silly. He struck out Nick Markakis, Chris Davis, and Adam Jones to end the inning, then quickly retired Nelson Cruz, Delmon Young, and Steve Pearce in the seventh. Time was running out for the Orioles and they looked hopeless against Betances. Until they didn't.

Despite the fact that Betances hasn't pitched more than two innings this season, the Yankees sent him back out to start the eighth inning. It didn't seem like a bad idea to me, from the Yankees' standpoint. He had looked totally dominant and the 7-8-9 batters were up to bat. He go Ryan Flaherty to pop up for the first out, but couldn't get the job done against Jonathan Schoop.

Schoop has struggled with the bat this season, but not against the Yankees. Going into this game, Schoop had gone 10-for-26 with 3 HR, 2 2B, and 10 RBI against the Yankees. He had smoked a ball in his previous at-bat that third baseman Chase Headley made a good play on, but this time he got the ball up. Betances missed his spot with a curve ball and Schoop made him pay with a home run to left field. It just barely got out of the part, but they all count the same. He tied the game and is now hitting .379 against the Yankees for the season. It was Schoop's second home run in as many games, the firs time he has done that in his young career.

Betances was pulled from the game at that point, one batter too late. Shawn Kelley replaced him, and it was on for the Orioles.

Hundley grounded out but a Markakis single and Davis walk on a 3-2 count brought up Adam Jones. Well, you know what happened then. Jones only needed one pitch to deposit the baseball into the Orioles' bullpen for an Earl Weaver Special that gave the Orioles a 5-2 lead. The crowd of over 37,000 erupted in cheers and as Jones crossed the plate, the Yankee fans in the stands began streaming for the exits. Thanks for coming, guys! See you next time!

Zach Britton made it interesting in the ninth inning as he struggled with his control. He walked one batter and was missing the strike zone all over the place. He gave up a double to Carlos Beltran that went past a diving Chris Davis at third base? Would Machado have made that play? We'll never know, but it doesn't matter. With one out and runners on second and third, the Yankees scored their third run of the game on a ground out. Stephen Drew then came up to bat, representing the tying run and the Yankees' last chance. He grounded out to Steve Pearce at first place, and the game was over! O's win! They completed the mini-sweep of the Yankees and pushed them eight games out of first place. Fantastic.

The Orioles will enjoy an off day tomorrow as they travel to Cleveland to take on the Indians in a weekend series.

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Around the Empire: New York Yankees News - 8/14/14

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Beyond the Box Score | Jeffrey Bellone:Brandon McCarthy's change in pitch selection is what led to his improvement this season.

New York Post | Ken Davidoff: Hal Steinbrenner expects Alex Rodriguez to return to the team next year.

Baseball America | J.J. Cooper: Is Adam Dunn a good comp for Yankees outfield prospect Aaron Judge.

The Star-Ledger | Brendan Prunty:Masahiro Tanaka continues to make progress in his rehab.

It's About the Money | Brad Vietrogoski: A look back at what we saw from Michael Pineda in April as he makes his return to the mound.

New York Post | Ken Davidoff: A look at what the Yankees have to do the rest of the way in order to make the playoffs.

It's About the Money | Katie Sharp: The 2014 Yankees are one of the least clutch teams in baseball history.

NJ.com | Brendan Kuty: The Yankees will skip Hiroki Kuroda's next start, but what this means for the rest of the season has not yet been determined.

Newsday | David Lennon: With Michael Pineda back, the Yankees need him to give them a boost if they want to survive.

Breakfast & Baseball: Buxton, Mauer, Gibson, Hughes, and more

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Happy Thursday, folks. Here are your morning nuggets of Twins-y-ness.

Lots of cool stuff to share with you today, and most of it is good news. Let's get started.

On Byron Buxton's injury

If you've seen the article on the front page, or if you've seen the video, you know that Buxton had one hell of an ugly crash in a game on Wednesday evening. As he was streaking into the right-center field gap, he dove for a ball - it's unclear whether he called anyone off or if right fielder Mike Kvasnicka didn't hear him or what the circumstances were - and collided with Kvasnicka's leg.

Buxton was unconscious for ten minutes. When he was stabilized he was moved to the hospital, along with Kvasnicka. Kvasnicka left the field under his own power, but it was a big collision. Both players were going full pelt.

The good news is that Buxton appears to be fine. He returned to the team following the game and was fully alert, although he has been diagnosed with a concussion. Buxton and the Twins will follow the prescribed procedures, but eventually he will be cleared to play.

2014 has been a season to forget for Byron Buxton. No doubt we'll be following up on this as time goes on.

Joe Mauer

Mauer continued his recent surge with a big night at the dish yesterday, collecting two hits and a walk in five plate appearances. His first hit was the 1,500th of his career, and the second was a solo homer in the sixth to put the Twins up 1-0 in a lead they'd never surrender. That homer, by the way, came right after a great defensive play that saw Mauer dive to his right to snare a sinking liner just inches off the ground.

It should also be noted that Trevor Plouffe made his own great play at third last night, making a throw across the diamond from his knees after diving towards the line to snag a grounder.

Mauer, riding a 15-game hitting streak, is 5-for-12 in his return to the Twins, including a home run, double, two walks, no strikeouts, and two runs batted in. His OPS is up 56 points over the course of the hitting streak.

Kyle Gibson

There are no in-between performances for Gibson this season, or at least that's been the narrative. And it's been true. He went seven and two-thirds yesterday, holding the Astros to one run. His ERA is back below 4.00 again, giving him a 3.96 mark over 134 innings.

Going back to that narrative, 13 of Gibson's 23 starts have seen him allow two runs or less across at least six innings. A 14th start was a seven-inning, three-run effort, which constitutes about as middle-of-the-road as he's been this year. In eight of Gibson's remaining starts he's allowed at least five runs. There was also one four-run appearance, a six-inning outing in Milwaukee.

The takeaway is this: Gibson has either allowed two runs or less, or five runs or more, in 21 of his 23 starts in 2014.

Borrowing from Bryz, we'll now hit a lightning round.

  • There's a great article at FanGraphs from a couple of days ago, where Eno Sarris talks to Phil Hughes about what has or hasn't changed in 2014. There are the usual stats associated with the site (park effects, performance versus league average, etc), but there's also some great scouting detail. It turns out that Hughes' down stretch could be attributed, at least in part, to a broken nail that has affected his breaking balls.
  • Target Field has the ninth-best assortment of beer in baseball. I have to be honest - I'm a little shocked we're that low on the list. But Cincinnati and Cleveland and Seattle look like pretty good places to go. I want to try some of those "World Class" beers.
  • Joe Nathan has had a struggle in Detroit this year, but he's been pitching better lately (0.96 ERA in his last ten games) and has still converted 24 saves for the Tigers. But last night was another Joe-esque shakey outing, walking two before finally recording the final out. The Detroit faithful were all over him, booing the walks and giving "Bronx Cheers" for strikes, but it looks like Nathan let it get to him last night with a pair of unsavory gestures towards the crowd. Bless You Boys has more.
  • The Yankees are eight games out of the AL East, but that hasn't stopped the New York media from talking about what it will take to get into the playoffs. The Angels appear to have the first Wild Card spot locked up, with both Detroit and Seattle tied for the second spot five-and-a-half back. Toronto his three games behind for that second Wild Card spot, and then come the Yankees at three-and-a-half games behind. You know they're going all-in for Derek Jeter's last ride, but they're in a dog fight with at least three other teams for one spot. Ken Davidoff thinks 89 wins will do the trick, which would mean a 28-15 (.651) record down the stretch. Think they can do it?
  • The infamous baseball strike of 1994 kicked off twenty years ago on Tuesday. There was a solid conversation about this fact on our Facebook page earlier this week. Head over to see what everyone remembers, and then leave your own memories in the comments.
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