Hindsight and Foresight: Yankee Review June 4th to June 17th

I'm a bit better now, just exhausted still after yesterday. I got me some new clothes from Walmart (ugh) and my luggage arrived here. Who knows how things will go on Thursday when I return. The Yankees are doing much better than me though.

I can finally report the Yankees had a good week and it started to look like things were coming together. As in winners of six straight type of coming together. Clemens also made his 2007 debut, Bobby Abreu's bat is waking up, and Alex Rodriguez looked like his was back in April form. The team is now one game under .500 and still 10 GB the Sox, but it was a week of progress.

Hindsight: June 4th to June 10th

After taking 2 of 3 from the Red Sox at Fenway the Yanks headed to Chicago and made a disappointing showing in the first game. Technically Clemens was supposed to make his debut, but he had been pushed back with a "fatigued groin". During the game there were some ugly errors by A-Rod and a hiddious one by Josh Phelps to screw up a potential double play, which lead to the early demise of Matt DeSalvo (a former "My Yankee of the Week" on here). The game was 6-1 going into the top of the 9th and the Yankees scored three before Jeter grounded out to end the game. At this point I figured it would be another underperforming week, but the next six games were a great combo of solid offense and starting pitching. Clippard did well, a complete game by Wang, the 3 and 4 hitters A-Rod and Abreu's bats (5 HRs, 24 RBIs combined this week), and even two saved games by Rivera made it an all-Yankee effort. Clemens made his debut Saturday and pitched well enough to get the win--nothing dominant though albeit against the Pirates--who the Yankees swept quite easily.

Weekly Stats

W-L: 6-1
RS/RA: 53/26 (best run differenctial since doing this!!)
Offensive Numbers (BA/OBP/SLG): .336/.407/.514
Pitching Line (ERA/Whip/K per 9/BAA/SLG): 3.12/1.27/6.43/.242/.297
Who's Hot: Welcome back, Bobby Abreu. Off to a slow start he went .500/.586/.792 this week. I'm not sure what's happened to Abreu who's been in the 30/30 club twice in his career, but ever since that HR Derby a couple years back he sometimes looks like an old man. But apparently he's not seeing like one.
Who's Not: Kyle Farnsworth. I'll never like the way he pitches, since he has a flare for the dramatic (aka putting runners on). But unlike a magician, he can't make runners disappear off the basepaths all the time.
My Yankee of the Week: Alex Rodriguez who after the whole "mine" and hooker incident (plus a slow May) in Toronto, looked back in the zone. A bit more on this below.

Foresight: June 11th to June 17th

Interleague continues against the a good young D-Backs team and then the Subway Series all at Yankee Stadium. Arizona's staff is pretty good this year and the Yankees face last year's Cy Young winner Brandon Webb, Livan Hernandez and Doug Davis. Interestingly the Yankees will face Livan and Orlando Hernandez this week, who are half brothers. Anyways, we'll see Wang pitch twice this week and he's been nothing but efficient his last five starts (3-1, 36 IP, 2.50 ERA, 19 Ks, 71 GB vs 25 FB outs). The Yankees rotation is now Wang, Mussina, Pettitte, Clemens and Clippard in case you're wondering. Hughes apparently could be done for the year because his ankle sprain is a grade 3, the worst kind of sprain. And I can tell you sprains like that are nasty (just ask a guy named Brett I know who still feels it in his ankle after a year) and the effect on Hughes' pitching could be negative if he comes back too quickly from it. But what's important is that the Yankees got on a roll and all of a sudden they are back in serious discussions for the playoffs.

The other item that is starting to come up is A-Rod pulling a JD Drew and opting out of his contract after this year. Apparently this is a Scott Boras strategy--and if A-Rod has a huge year, even an MVP caliber year, analysts are saying he'll be looking for a new long-term, huge deal, possibly somewhere else. At some point this year, I'd like to share my thoughts on salaries in baseball and how the Yankees, Red Sox (and a couple other teams) have been a part of that but most important, how agents like Boras are a big part of the problem for many outragous contracts the past 15 years of so.

• My apologies to the Savannah design school who I mocked without knowing what Doug knew. Shoulda done my fact checking on that, which I've been lazy about of late.

• Also what a game by Justin Verlander--a no hitter. Throwing 102 mph in the 9th is really sick. What's interesting from hearing the analysis is that everyone's comment is that his stuff was sooooo good tonight that he was bound to throw the no-hitter. In my baseball memory, I have never heard analysts, broadcasters and baseball commentators say as early as the 5th inning they could just feel a no-hitter was inevitable.