Seriously, spare me the ‘excuse’ that Hughes’ poor game last night was due to the “Hughes Rules“, OK?

Much is being made about Phil’s poor outting and how his 10 day layoff is the main reason. Let’s not deflect all of the responsibility from Hughes to Cashman & Girardi. The kid didn’t have it last night. And AJ Burnett has had a terrible June and many want to blame this on Eiland’s absence. Javy had a horrible April & May when Eiland was around and has been much better in June. Guess what, Eiland was back last night and Hughes was bad. So is Eiland to blame for AJ’s slump (when he was missing) but also to blame for Javy’s early season slump and Hughes’ outting last night (when he was in the dugout)? That’s absurd. If Eiland has this much of an impact, he’s ridiculously underpaid.

Sometimes, believe it or not, pitchers go through slumps, too. Let’s stop the excuses.

ESPNNY’s Andrew Marchand seems to dance on both sides of the aisle on the subject:

That cautionary tale aside, the anti-Hughes Rules screamers got a pretty strong Exhibit A on Tuesday night. After Hughes had looked like an All-Star all season, the Yankees had him skip a start and take a 10-day siesta before facing the Seattle Mariners’ Cliff Lee.

Hughes came out and gave up seven runs (six earned) on a career-worst 10 hits and couldn’t make it through six innings. The runs were the most that he has given up all season and his most ever in the Bronx.

(click “view full post” to read more)

The Yankees’ return to the Bronx featured an intriguing pitching matchup as Cliff Lee faced off against Phil Hughes.  Lee gave the Yankees’ front office something to think about in the offseason, going the distance and stumping most of the New York lineup (but not Nick Swisher).  Hughes, who has had an excellent year, had one of the worst games of his career, as the Yankees lost 7-4.

Nick Swisher gave the Yankees an early lead, hitting a solo homer off Lee in the bottom of the first inning.   A double by Jose Lopez, followed by a RBI singly by Franklin Gutierrez tied the Mariners and Yankees at 1-1.  Seattle went ahead for good in the third inning, when Michael Saunders started the inning with a double and scored on Ichiro Suzuki’s single.

(click “view full post” to read more)

The following story was written by Justyna Cardello. I chose to post this because of my long running stance on the dangers of shattered bats (just click here for all postings on the subject). It should be noted that if this invention ever gets adopted, the Rauso Brothers will donate a percentage of the proceeds, for the life of the patent, towards the Sickle-Cell Foundation and the Children’s Cancer Hospitals. All of the graphics and videos (at the bottom) are mine, not Justyna’s.

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Great entrepreneurial story of Two Brothers, a MLB invention, and overcoming Sickle Cell Anemia*

Brothers Invent Safety Device For MLB In Gold Canyon, Arizona

By Justyna Cardello

Injuries due to broken and shattered bats have become a serious concern not only in Major League Baseball but also within the Minor Leagues. When a solid-wood bat breaks during game-play it literally turns into a deadly spear type weapon that can boomerang and fly into the stands or on the playing field. The rate of serious injuries has escalated over the past decade and will become more serious and life threatening to players, umpires and fans if MLB continues to balk at solutions they are now aware of.

(click “view full post” to read more)

Let’s pull all the Brett Gardner news and analysis together in one spot for today!

Up first: Just a bruise:

X-rays on New York Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner’s right wrist came back negative on Monday, and the Yankees say he is day to day.

[...]

Gardner has been excellent all season long for the Yankees. Besides playing a strong left field, he his hitting .321 and has a team-high 24 stolen bases.

That’s a relief!

And, from Mark Simon: Brett Gardner is better than you think:

(click “view full post” to read more)

There’s a growing debate around the game (you can check out some of it here, and here) about whether Stephen Strasburg, he of just four career starts to date, should be selected to the All Star Game in two weeks. Here’s the root of this debate and the question we must answer before we answer the Strasburg question:

What’s the goal of the MLB All Star Game?

Is it:

1. To promote the game, in general
2. To promote the game’s best players
3. To promote this year’s best players
4. To promote the most popular players
5. To determine the home field advantage for the World Series
6. An exhibition
7. A game that counts
8. All the above
9. None of the above
10. Something else

Now, if you think the All Star Game is a wonderful exhibition in which MLB can showcase it’s best talent, this year or otherwise, that’s great. That’s how I tend to view the game. EXCEPT: You have a selection process fit for an exhibition but MLB has decreed that the game counts. That’s a conflict; a perfect example of trying to have this one vehicle do too many things. It’s not a Swiss Army Knife. It’s just the All Star Game. The days of Rose pancaking Fosse are behind us. Like black and white TV, poor graphics and no HD. Older doesn’t always mean better (sidenote: though the broadcasters were a heckuvalot better in ye olden days). This game doesn’t necessarily need to be what it was; perhaps what it is (a fun exhibition) is enough. Or is it?

(click “view full post” to read more)

AJ Burnett’s career has always been a little Jeckyll and Hyde-y, but this is ridiculous. As Yankee fans know, June has been an unkind month for the big righthander. After his first 11 starts, Burnett sat at 6-2 with a 3.28 ERA, and seemed poised to have perhaps the best season of his career. Since the start of the month, however, AJ has completely unraveled. In five June starts, Burnett has gone 0-5 with an 11.35 ERA and has averaged fewer than 5 innings per start. What happened? Where did Burnett go? And, most importantly, is he coming back?

(Click “Read More” to keep reading…)

With seven walks through three innings, Edwin Jackson didn’t look like he was on the brink of history. Six, one-walk innings later, he had notched yet another no-hitter for pitchers this season. Of course, when one walks eight batters, the pitcher is likely to have thrown a lot of pitches, and Jackson had hurled 149 toward home plate. But was it a good idea to do this? What did anyone really gain?

The first thing that must be talked about is the actual value of his performance. If we’re going off of “historical”, this one gets written in the history books because he gave up zero hits, but let’s be honest, this was no work of brilliance. This was not on par with the perfect games unleashed by Roy Halladay and Dallas Braden, and even if the hit against Galarraga had been legitimate, Jackson’s start wouldn’t approach Galarraga’s one-hitter, either. In fact, Johnny Cueto’s one-hitter with 8 Ks and 0 BBs on May 11^th that no one seems to remember is much more impressive than a guy who walks EIGHT in one game while giving up zero hits. In terms of Game Score, Cueto notched a 93 while Jackson got an 85. Why do we focus so much on hits? Now, don’t get me wrong. What Jackson did is impressive. It’s really hard to get that many guys out, and luck or not, a no-hitter demonstrates good stuff. But it is not worth an entire webpage, at least no more than Cueto’s.

And that brings up Jackson’s 149 pitches. I think we could debate all day about whether it’s a good idea to allow a pitcher to throw 149 pitches in one game. On one hand, sticking strictly to a 100 pitch count is a terrible idea as pitchers are obviously built differently and can handle different workloads, but on the other hand, 149 pitches is A LOT of pitches. When most people talk about letting pitchers go past 100, they generally mean 110-120, which seems reasonable. 149 wasn’t really on the radar. Regardless, if Jackson gets hurt in his next start, I won’t be blaming the 149 pitches anymore than the hundreds of thousands of others he’s thrown in his career, and I’m not here to quibble over the pitching strategy. But I will criticize AJ Hinch. How can I do that? Unwritten rules.

(click “view full post” to read more)

The Yankees west coast road trip ended in exciting fashion, facing off Joe Torre and the Los Angeles Dodgers for the series win Sunday night.  Andy Pettitte, who has been automatic this season, had a rare outing where he looked just awful, and the Yankees’ offense did little early in the game to keep things close.  Yet, late-inning heroics by some of the young Pinstripes and veterans alike got New York the 10th inning 8-6 victory, and a much more enjoyable flight back east.

Pettitte struggled in the first, but stayed out of trouble and came back to pitch a 1-2-3 second inning before an ugly third resulted in an early Dodgers’ lead.  Reed Johnson doubled to right and scored when Clayton Kershaw’s sac bunt resulted in a throwing error by Pettitte, putting Kershaw on first.  Rafael Furcal followed with a singled and Ronnie Belliard followed with a sac bunt and once again a throwing error by Pettitte let the Dodgers score and left runners on second and third.  A sac fly by Andre Eithier plated Furcal and the Dodgers took a 3-0 lead.

(click “view full post” to read more)

There’s been a good deal of rumor* why Yanks pitching coach Dave Eiland has been absent, but no matter the reason, it’ll be good to have him back.

Yankees pitching coach Dave Eiland, who left the team June 4 to attend to an undisclosed personal issue, will return to the club Tuesday when New York opens a three-game series with the Seattle Mariners at Yankee Stadium.

“It’s been in discussion the past couple of days,” manager Joe Girardi said. “I talked to Dave last week and there was a time period where things had to be worked out. Dave is going through some personal things and he’s ready to come back now. It’s good to be whole again.”

“I think you’d have to have been on a deserted island with no TV and papers if you’re a baseball guy to not know what’s been going on,” Girardi said. “As much as [Eiland] could, with all the stuff he needed to take care of, he was keeping up. He was not on a deserted island. He was not with Gilligan or Skipper.”

Get it, “island” and “Eiland”? Gilligan and Skipper? Woooboy, high comedy. (/end snark)

And as I’ve said, if Eiland can fix both AJ Burnett and Javy Vazquez in one season, he’s vastly underpaid.

* You can Google and see what I am talking about, but I don’t want to get into passing along rumors about health issues, even if the source is spot on.

I’ll admit, I went through the recent Murray Chass article looking for something “Chass-like” to have some fun with, but the chuckle came via a Tim McCarver quote. Though, the Chass post-quote attribution was almost as funny (assuming Chass wasn’t being cheeky when he wrote it):

“The major reason is lack of hitting and great pitching” said Tim McCarver, the former catcher and currently the articulate analyst for Fox telecasts of major league games.

Gee, ya think, Timmy?

Of course, Timmy and Murray tag team the PED cause-and-effect, neglecting to remember that this is 2010 and that PEDs and “greenies” have been banned for a few years now:

“It’s the post-steroids era,” McCarver said, “but wouldn’t you have to include pitchers in that? Maybe hitters are affected more than pitchers by not taking steroids.”

If the drug-related theory has any validity, it may be that the absence of amphetamines has had a greater effect than the disappearance of steroids. Players used “greenies” for pep and energy, to sustain them over a long season. and pitchers may feel their loss less because they don’t play every day.

Maybe the drug policy is finally working, maybe the elimination of amphetimines is really hampering players over the long haul, or maybe we’re just in the midst of a relatively small sample size of really good pitching.

Join me on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight Live’s chat, won’tchya?

[This posting is a guest contribution from Brien Jackson, stemming from a discussion here yesterday.]

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With the Yankees in LA to take on the Dodgers this weekend, there’s been a disproportionate amount of the commentary on the quasi-reunion with former manager Joe Torre. There’s little that can be said about Torre, the Yankees, and George Steinbrenner that hasn’t already been said, but Torre himself seems to be a lightening rod of sorts with some fans in the Yankee blogosphere.

First of all, let me say that I think managers generally get too much credit/blame for their teams success/failure. The nature of the sport and a baseball team’s roster just don’t present enough independent variables under the manager’s control for them to exert that much control over the outcome of a game. And it seems like a bad manager can have more impact on a game than a good manager can. And, so far as the circumstances of Torre’s departure go, I think both sides handled themselves poorly. Steinbrenner probably shouldn’t have said anything about Torre’s future during that fateful ALDS with the Indians (although, on the other hand, it’s somewhat hard to blame him for being steamed after watching his manager sit idly by while his dominant set-up man was being attacked by a swarm of midges in a crucial moment of a must win game), but Torre began leveraging the situation for sympathy on his way out before the series was even over, ultimately acting as though an offer to return with the highest salary of any manager in the game was some sort of grave insult. So while I think the Boss may have stirred up more drama than he needed to by publicly calling out his manager, I still can’t feel much pity for Torre.

(click “view full post” to read more)

Our own intrepid reporter, Tamar, made her radio debut today on KFIR Sports/ KFIR720am.com‘s “The Sports Geek” with Adam Loghides show! Tamar got over her intial nervousness and delivered a solid performance. Loghides asked her a bunch of questions from some of my posts from earlier today and yesterday, not realizing that she didn’t write them, but she handled the questions with aplomb.

Way to represent, Tamar!

Click here for the SportsGeek Chalker Interview