He's in, He's out, He's Over

This was the scene back on December 22, 2004. Carl Pavano, a Yankee for the next four years at a price of $40 million. And here we are today, Pavano's career with the Yankees is over after getting the green light to get Tommy John surgery.

There are many ways to define a bad free-agent signing. Some players are signed and completely underperform thereafter. Some players are signed past their prime and paid for their past performance. Some are signed on a fluke season. The list can go on and on...

For the Yankees this was a signing where they believed Pavano's now likely fluke season in 2004 in which he won 18 games was a strong indicator that he'd pitch well in the AL East. More than a bad free-agent signing, this seems to be one of bad luck at first glance--or maybe not, read on.

I couldn't remember why the Yankees signed Pavano when I thought back to that offseason. What other free agents did they pass up, what was the pitching situation, and how was this a logical signing?

Then of course I remember this was right after the greatest comeback in baseball history when the Red Sox made everyone believe there was no curse and won it all.

And then I remembered some of the pitchers the Yankees had back then which included: Javier Vazquez, Kevin Brown, Estaban Loaiza, Jose Contreras (who was traded for Loiza), Jon Lieber, and El Duque. All of these guys with the exception of Kevin Brown were either traded (Vazquez) or signed to a different team. So going into 2005 the Yankees had a rotation of Brown, Mussina and then three open slots.

There were other starting pitchers out on the market that year, most notably: Pedro Martinez, Derek Lowe, Kevin Millwood, Odalis Perez, and Kris Benson--all of whom at the time could be considered a #1, 2, or 3 starter. I remember Pedro meeting with the Boss, but still came to New York with the Mets--other than that I don't think the Yankees pursued anybody else as intensely as Pavano (and Jaret Wright. On a side note as Doug would point out, Pavano was the "player to be named later" when the Red Sox got Pedro back in 1997. Just a tidbit there.). Pavano was coming off of a solid 18-8/3.00 ERA/220+ IP season, was 29 years of age, and a Cy Young candidate going into September 2004. He also probably impressed the Yankees back in the 2003 World Series going 8 innings strong and giving up one run in Game 4 of that series. But even before his '03-'04 seasons, Pavano was always a pitching prospect. So given the Yankees need for a decent starter and the way the market shook out Pavano was signed.

I've dug a little deeper into Pavano's past though, and if I did a "Hindsight and Foresight" on Pavano back in 2004, I may have uttered the words Tommy John Surgery.

Before 2003, Pavano had not pitched a full season in the majors. After his 1997 trade to the Expos, he began having tendinitus in his--you guessed it, his pitching elbow. That was in 1999. Going back to my Baseball Prospectus readings here's what was said about Pavano's health in 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003*:

2000: "... persistent elbow problem put Pavano on the shelf. The Expos have been very careful, getting second and third opinions to make sure that the elbow only requires rest and not surgery."

2001: "Expect to find Pavano’s picture under the definition of "tendinitis." He’s had it in both his shoulder and elbow, and it has kept him from a full season in each of the last three years."

2002: "Pavano’s medical history reads like a script from ER minus the incestuous frolicking by an ethnically diverse cast. Although he managed eight late-season starts, he hasn’t thrown without a burning sensation in his elbow in at least five years."

2003: "Pavano looks very pitcher-ish on the mound, but he’s been beaten like the Washington Generals since his pitching elbow was surgically reattached in 2000."



* By the way, as an aside, if anyone can find a website that keeps track of player's injuries through their careers, please send it to us (rivalryredux@gmail.com). It's ridiculous that I couldn't find a site that shares this. And thanks a bunch if you find it! *





"They finally did it. They killed my fucking car."
Here's the other type of bad free-agent signing: ignoring the injury track record. I believe now that's what this has turned into. Pavano's elbow held up 534 and then some innings since 2003 and that's what finally killed his elbow.


Not only can Pavano be looked at a bad free-agent signing now, but he has been at the root of the Yankees starting pitching woes since 2005. If anyone thinks this year is bad, in 2005 the Yankees brought in Aaron Small and Shawn Chacon, two guys who fortunately did well, but made everyone nervous at first. Last year it was Small and Chacon again as well as guys like Scott Erickson, and Sidney Ponson. It has made the rotation unstable and uncertain.

But now we can say with absolute certainty that Pavano's days are over.



History Repeats Itself--sorta
Before I conclude here though, what's happened with Pavano made me think back to when the last time the Yankees ended up with a starting pitcher they were hoping could complete the rotation who then faded away due to injuries. I remember this guy well because I saw him pitch a 2-hit shutout in 1990 after they traded away Dave Winfield for him. This pitcher was Mike Witt.


Witt's career looks a little different than Pavano's because he got injured after some successful seasons with the Angels. However, after the Yankees signed him to a nice contract after 1990 (which I couldn't find the length of and other information, but he made totals of $2.4 million in '91, $2.9 million in '92, and $2.1 million in 1993) after which he pitched 11 more games for the Yankees and ended his career in 1993.


Pavano's signing will go down as one of the worst for the Yankees, that's for sure. I think if anything, the one good thing that's come out of this is that the Yankees know Pavano will never pitch for them again, and we can move on from the drama he created the last three seasons.

Ugh

So...

Schill did not thrill and Pettite pitched like that Rocket's pet tonight.

The Sox looked punchless (despite the game-by-game success they have, I still haven't seen an offense I can get excited about) and the Yankees offense... well, it rumbled on the same way it's been rumbling all season.

Schill seems to be putting more effort into his blog than into his effort to get one more big payday next season. He's become the '04 Pedro on this club - the once-proud ace who can get it done, but no longer the stopper of the rotation.

While Andy Pettite is not Lefty Gomez, Whitey Ford, or even Ron Guidry, he's had a nice little season for himself this season. Based on how he pitched in the NL the last few seasons, he'll have a 5.00 ERA in the second have (adjusted from a 4+ ERA in the NL), but this being the Yankees, the rules of baseball gravity don't apply.

I'm still worried about the Rangers being a trap series, and while the Red Sox still have the best record in baseball... the words "Here come the Yankees" will always have currency with me.

Past Memorial Day weekend, be ready for some $#!^

Splitsville

So far the series is split - In Game 1, Wakefield came down to earth and Chien-Ming got his Wang back. In Game 2, Julian Tavarez inexplicably outduelled Mike Mussina.

What with the LOBs the Yankees piled up, it seems like Tavarez was just as adept at working his way out of jams as he was working his way into them. Tavarez has always pitched to contact, and his 4 BB/2 K line (making it 19 BB/23 K on the season) isn't exactly a great indicator of things to come. Of course, if I was a Yankees' fan, I'd be worried about Mike Mussina in the starting rotation. Matt Clement worried.

Tomorrow night will bring us the rubber game and the ensuing bragging rights to what mlb.com billed as Yankees-Red Sox III, as though it was a Hagler-Hearns fight.

Neither Schilling nor Pettite are shutdown aces - though only one of them ever was. Pettite has been the superior pitcher this season, but I expect their to be a lot of squirming in and out of jams on both sides. So I guess Tavarez was good preparation.

I imagine that the starters will leave withe game tied at something like 4-4, and from there it will be up to the respective bullpens. Even though Okajima's scoreless streak ended at 20 and 2/3 innings, and Papelbon walked two along with his two punchouts, I still have to give the Red Sox the advantage there. Of course, UMass alum Ron Villone pitched a scoreless inning for the Yankees, so I guess there's hope for the Bronx Bombers.

That said, it's the Red Sox-Yankees, so nothing can be taken for granted.

One thing that was striking to me about tonight's game was Abreu and Giambi batting 6th and 7th - which wasn't the usual case of the Yankees' lineup being so stacked that great hitters are dropped down in the lineup, but that Abreu and Giambi are underperforming so spectacularly.

(As a result of me just writing the above, Abreu and Giambi will now finish 1-2 in all 3 Triple Crown categories)

The hot rumor today is that the Yankees' disenchantment with Giambi might lead to him being traded to the Angels. Given Giambi's notorious image as a party boy, this is something like deciding that Hitler might do a little less damage in Hell.

I imagine the negotiations between New York and Anaheim are going something like this:

CASHMAN: OK, we'll give you Giambi in exchange for Howie Kendrick, Erick Aybar, Brandon Wood, Ervin Santana, K-Rod, Vlad Guerrero, and the right of Prima Nocte with the female cast members of "Laguna Beach". And you guys pick up the tab for everyone's salary.

ARTE MORENO: Where do I sign! Where do I sign!

I'm still cautiously optomistic that the Sox will end the month of May strong, but I'm worried that the other shoe will drop in the form of a two-month, win-one/lose-one stretch while the Yankees steadily gain ground.

Hindsight and Foresight: Yankee Review May 13th - May 27th

I'm going with what I promised even if I'm dead tired from 7 hours of travel to Tulsa, Oklahoma today for work. After watching what was a very disappointing season of 24 (which they subsequently said Season/Day 7 would "promise to be the best season of 24 yet") I switched on the Yankees/Red Sox game and watched the Yankees take the first game 6-2 which lifted my spirits some. I also haven't read Doug's posts here so we'll keep the Hindsight and Foresight fresh and raw, the way I like my sushi.

Hindsight May 13th to May 20th:
This was my first week not watching any Yankees games on my MLB TV subscription (I'll explain why), but what I saw in the box scores was ugly. To put it mildly, the Yankees played poorly. Losing both series this week to the White Sox and then to the Mets, the Yankees fell further behind the Red Sox in the AL East. There was even this nice little three game losing streak in the middle of the week before the Yankees pulled off a win Sunday, side-stepping a Mets sweep in the first 2007 Subway Series. Wang has come around, as I was hoping, winning a 8-1 over the White Sox before handing it over to Farnsworth and Mo who somehow held down any sort of rally. Then after the Chicago Series, Jason Giambi gave that interview to USA Today which pretty much took the fun out of the series. A-Rod continued to make April look like the fluke month of his season and was in a 2 for 25 slump at one point I read.


Weekly Stats (which you can safely say are always from ESPN and Baseball Prospectus)
W-L: 2-4
RS/RA: 23/25
Offensive Numbers (BA/OBP/SLG): .274/.342/.517
Pitching Line (ERA/Whip/K per 9/BAA/SLG): 3.96/1.30/5.4/.255/.440
Who's Hot: Hip-Hip Jorge! Posada going .476 3 HR 4 RBI who going into tonight had a 15-game hitting streak
Who's Not: Jason Giambi who has one hit since May 6th, but whose comments about taking steriods have caused a MLB investigation and refueled the Yankees pursuit of getting out of their contract with them.
My Yankee of the Week: I'm going with Jorge Posada who is quietly putting together an amazing season as a catcher. Jorge has always been a great catcher in an age when Piazza, I-Rod, and Joe Mauer, just to name a few, have taken the spotlight.


Foresight May 21st to May 27th:
My concern this week (and for subsequent weeks), is not only the Red Sox series, but the number of distractions facing the Yankees right now. Let me put a nice little list together for you: Giambi made comments on steriods and the Yanks want out of this contract again, Joe Torre is still on the hot seat despite what Steinbrenner may have said, Farnsworth made his comments about the Clemens treatment, and yes, the Yanks start the week off playing the Red Sox who they are 11 games behind (the most games behind ever under Joe Torre). Now it's easy for players to say or think they can just play through the distractions and win, but that's gotta be hard when you have the NY sports media with its harshness and critical eye. Not only that but 67% of ESPN viewer believe the Yankees are not going to make the playoffs. The whole world's against us!

If you keep reading, I'll keep writing...

So we've had a couple of comments left on this blog, but I'm still not sure how many people (if anyone) is actually reading this. Now, I'll keep writing if only to try and outwit Teddy, but if you have any feedback, please leave us some comments, or email us at rivalryredux@gmail.com

Since I've already spent considerable time on the meat of this blog earlier tonight, I'd like to touch on the flotsam and jetsam from throughout baseball.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb has a nice little feature that lets you see expanded standings, including Wild Card standings. This is more significant in August and September than it is in May, but it's still fun to look at.

If the season ended today:
AL East - Red Sox
AL Central - Indians
AL West - Angels
Wild Card - Tigers

NL East - Mets
NL Central - Brewers
NL West - Dodgers
Wild Card - Braves

This seems about right - except for the absence of the Yankees' in the AL and the presence of the Brewers in the NL. The Indians appear to be emerging from Mark Shapiro's 7-year plan, and the Tigers aren't going anywhere. I think it will be a Boston/New York/Detroit scramble to claim two playoff spots.

The one team that is noticably absent from this discussion is the Oakland A's.

They're currently 4 games out of the West, and 5 games (behind the Tigers and the White Sox) out of the Wild Card.

Ranking behind the defending AL Champ Tigers is understandable, but considering that even Chicago GM Kenny Williams is ripping on the White Sox these days, any team that's serious about contending should not be lagging behind.

The A's do seem to be flailing - I mean, I won't argue with releasing "Hot Toddy" Walker, but the fact that they traded for Ryan Langerhans on 4/29 and flipped him to the Nats on 5/2 certainly doesn't present a portrait of stability.

The A's need stability in a corner outfield position, and the biggest story about them doing something about that is the possibility of signing Rickey Henderson to a 1-day contract in September so that he can retire as an Athletic.

If Billy Beane is serious about doing that, why doesn't he do that now? Rickey is only 4 months older than the current oldest player in the league - Julio Franco - and that's only if you actually believe Franco's birth certificate.

In Rickey's last seasons, '02 in Boston and '03 with the Dodgers, he batted .219/.357/.339 - not the numbers dreams are made of, but the Shannon Stewart's and Travis Buck's of the world aren't doing much better this season. I say, put Rickey in, Rickey's ready to play.

One of the tangents that faded into the ether in my phantom blog post touched on Clemens and my recurring theme of Hall of Fame plaques. I don't really care who Clemens goes in representing at this point, but now that he seems to be trying to make good on his promise to the Boss to go in as a Yankee, there's this to consider...

The groundwork to bring back Clemens was laid out this past offseason on two fronts. One was the triumphant return of Andy Pettite to the Bronx. The other was the dispatch of Randy Johnson and Gary Sheffield. Both these moves are defensible in the practical sense - Johnson was ineffective and expensive in New York. Sheffield was redundant with Matsui and Abreu in the outfield corners and Giambi at DH. I suppose you could argue that Giambi could have played first and Sheff could have DH'd, but arguing that Giambi is an everyday first baseman is like arguing that Rosie O'Donnell could have played the lead in "Showgirls".

I have seen it pointed out that the Yankees needed to rid themselves of Johnson and Sheffield because they could not have gotten away with showing Clemens' the level of preferential treatment they're prepared to heap upon him with two other stars of the same age, experience, and Hall of Fame caliber in the same clubhouse.

(As an aside, those three plays feed into my earlier clunky-Hall-of-Fame-plaque post. If they retire after this year, their plaques will look as follows:

Clemens: BOS (AL) '84 - '96, TOR '97 - '98, NY (AL) '99 - '03, '07, HOU '04 - '06

Johnson: MTL '88 - '89, SEA '89 - '98, HOU '98, ARI '99 - '04, '07, NY (AL) '05 - '06

Sheffield: MIL (AL) '88 - '91, SD '92 - '93, FLA '93 - '98, LA '98 - '01, ATL '02 - '03, NY (AL) '04 - '06, DET '07)

In terms of the NL East, there's nothing to argue with - the Mets and the Braves are right where they're supposed to be. The only person who might disagree with this is Phillies' SS Jimmy Rollins, whose mouth is currently overflowing with black feathers.

I wills say that the Mets' and Braves' GMs are suspect - Omar Minaya made a series of bad deals in Montreal to move along the contraction attempts, and the conspiracy theorist in me believes that MLB rewarded him by giving him the Mets' job. Anybody can look that good with a $180 million+ payroll. As for John Schuerholz alleged genius in Atlanta, this is the same guy who once traded Jermaine Dye for Michael Tucker and also once traded Ryan Klesko and Bret Boone for Wally Joyner and Quilvio Veras.

(Disclaimer: the Red Sox just signed Michael Tucker to a minor league contract. To me, he's either a poor man's Reggie Sanders or a rich man's Todd Hollandsworth. Either way, you're short in right field. If J.D. Drew goes down I'd rather see a Hinske/Pena platoon in right and an attempt to bring Sweet Lou Merloni, the Framingham Kid, out of retirement)

In the NL Central, the question isn't whether the Brewers are for real, but if there's really any team there that can catch up to them. The Cardinals backed their way into a World Series Championship last year, but without Pujols, Edmonds, and Rolen hitting, they're a very normal team. And Chris Carpenter's injury shouldn't surprise anyone whose followed the AL East in the last decade - his frequent arm problems while with the Blue Jays is what made him available to the Cards in the first place.

The Astros would not have been significantly improved had the Rocket come back. Hell, if Babe Ruth came back to the Astros at the top of his game as both a pitcher and a hitter, it's hard to see them making the playoffs.

The Cubs are... well, I've heard really nice things about Wrigley. I wonder how high ticket prices have had to go to pay the contracts of Lee, Soriano, Ramirez, Marquis, and Lilly.

The Pirates and Reds are the National League versions of the Tigers - proud original members of the original 16 MLB teams that have fallen on hard times. I root especially hard for the Pirates (who have UMass Alum David Littlefield at the helm), but they are still a long way from respectability.

The Reds are a little more confusing. They've become the Island of Misfit Toys - last year resurrecting one-time blue-chipper Brandon Phillips, and this year doing the same for Josh Hamilton. Even Bronson Arroyo inexplicably became an All-Star in Cincy.

They've made some confusing decisions, though. The Kearns/Griffey/Dunn outfield was supposed to be the future of the franchise only a few years ago. Guys weren't able to stay healthy, so sluggers like Jose Guillen and Wily Mo Pena were worked into the mix.

When Kearns was shipped off to Washington for a couple of set-up men last year, it seemed like Jim Bowden was still the guy making bad decisions for the Reds, rather than the one fleecing them.

As for the NL West, the Dodgers are on top almost by default.

I've been a big fan of Padres' GM Kevin Towers for a number of years, but a closer examination reveals that he failed to capitalize on Phil Nevin and Ryan Klesko's brief flirtations with greatness, traded for Brian Giles too late (at the cost of Jason Bay) and struck out with alleged phenom third baseman Sean Burroughs, and is in the process of doing the same with Kevin Kouzmanoff.

The Diamondbacks, with their young talent, will be next year's Brewers.

As for the Giants... well, whoever replaces Brian Sabean will be cursing the Barry Zito contract.

There's still three-quarters of the baseball season to go, so there are a lot more games to be played and deals to be made - the complexion of the season will likely look different in a few months, but this is where we are right now.

Let's get this mess over with...

Here we go again:

I had written 90% of a very long blog post on Thursday night prior to being betrayed by an inadvertent mouse click, losing my work. Hopefully I can work some of that material back in here, but there's more pressing matters.

That matter at hand, which I'm writing in lieu of a full-fledged look back/look ahead post, is the whole purpose of this blog.

Starting tomorrow, the Red Sox and the Yankees face off. Again.

I was somewhat surprised that this is only the third Yankees-Red Sox series of the year (and that even a Yankee sweep will keep the Sox ahead 5-4 in the season series), as it seems that the Sox and the Yankees do little else than play each other.

I keep waiting for Fox and ESPN to go to Bud Selig and suggest that instead of just having the Sox and Yankees play each other 18 times and the other three teams in the AL East 18 times, that they just play each other 72 times a season. I imagine Selig responding by saying, "Why not round it up to an even 81?" This way, the Sox and the Yankees would play half their regular season games against each other instead of wasting time with the rest of the league. Maybe they should still play the O's, Jays, and Rays a few times - just exempt them from interleague play to accomodate things.

Of course, if anyone goes into Yankees-Sox withdrawl after this series, they play each other again, in Boston 6/1-6/3. This of course leaves us with the titillating prospect of having Clemens' make his 2007 debut for the Yankees against the Red Sox in Fenway.

This is of course a horrible idea, as the possibility of Red Sox Nation deploying a suicide bomber against the Rocket is not outside the realm of possibilty. Words like "devoted", "rabid", and "homicidal" can be used interchangably when it comes to Red Sox fans. I'd be curious to know how many UMass alums attend Fenway on any given day.

Of course, I'm still unclear on whether or not Clemens' will pitch on the road for the Yankees' this season. Does he just skip road trips for trips he isn't going to start? Or is he a Bronx-only pitcher? What if he's scheduled to pitch on the road against the Rangers?

And while I won't argue with his ability and willingness to educate young starters, what kind of example is he really setting for them? I can see Phillip Hughes thinking, "Hey, cool - so if I'm good enough, I can pull a Hamlet routine for the first two months out of the season and then get wildly overpaid for the rest!"

The Sox went 2-1 against their "regional rivals" the Braves, while the Yankees went 1-2 against the Mets. As someone who has attended reunions of Boston Braves players, I can appreciate the idea of this rivalry still existing on some primitive level. For many years my father echoed the "wrong team left town" sentiment. By that token, shouldn't the Yankees be playing the Dodgers and the Giants? Historically, identity with those fan bases in New York is stronger than Yankees vs. Mets ever has been.

Onto the chore of assessing the Sox-Yankees series...

Before I break down the pitching matchups, I'd like to broadly address the two teams offenses:

Right now, the Red Sox offense is a mystery to me, while the Yankees' is not.

To clarify my position in reverse order: the Yankees' can flat out mash. They've been hitting all year (Abreu and Cano's current funk nonwithstanding) and once there's a healthy quintent of Clemens/Wang/Mussina/Pettite/Hughes, watch out. All of a sudden the Yankees are going to be winning a bunch of 8-3 games.

As for the Red Sox offense - Ortiz is hitting like he should, Kevin Youkilis is hitting like only Billy Beane ever imagined, and Mike Lowell's bat is making up for his mystifying miscues with the glove... and that's it.

Every time the Sox put up 7+ runs in a game, I pore over the team's individual stats, and I just don't see it. They seem to be the beneficiaries of fluke moments of brilliance by underperforming hitters (read: Jason Varitek's bases-loaded 1st-inning triple today), which is not a terribly sustainable way to run a team.

I keep insisting that the offense will morph into the juggernaut that's it's supposed to, but how that will happen is not yet apparent. The idea that the team will trade for a bat at the trading deadline doesn't really fit, either. They're set at all 4 corners (due to a combination of production and contractual obligations), Alex Cora takes any heat off of Pedroia and Lugo up the middle, and Jason Varitek's ability behind the plate makes up for his production at the plate - as evidenced by the pitching staff's utter meltdown when he got hurt last year. David Ortiz is out of the discussion altogether.

Which brings me to Coco Crisp. The Man Who Would be Johnny has been a disappointment, but it should be noted that the Red Sox do not need to be a rotisserie team, and Coco is not killing them bouncing between the top and the bottom of the order and throwing up Web Gems in Center Field.

Besides, who would the Red Sox get? Andruw Jones or Torii Hunter? Andruw Jones has never seen a white, spherical object hurtling in his general direction that he didn't hack at, and Hunter is not the next Willie Mays, never will be, and has recently changed his middle initials to "D.L.".

Besides, despite what WEEI callers may think, these teams are also trying to reach the playoffs, and their first priority is not to trade their assets to Boston to make the Red Sox better.

I suppose their are options within the division - most notably Carl Crawford and Rocco Baldelli in Tampa Bay. Crawford is certainly athletic enough to play center, but would cost the Red Sox blue chipper Clay Bucholz at the very least. With Schilling likely gone (through free agency or retirement) the Red Sox don't need to trade starting pitching prospects. As for Baldelli, who has been on the trading block since he left Bishop Hendriken, the guy just can't stay healthy.

Ultimately, I hope that Theo practices some discretion and sticks it out with Coco. Again, the guy's not killing the Red Sox, and hot prospect Jacoby Ellsbury is the Center Fielder/Leadoff Hitter of the future in Boston.

In terms of how this series goes down, the Yankees' will hit (unless they don't - the Red Sox seem to be the ony team preventing this thus far this season, though Josh Beckett is noticably absent this time around) and the Red Sox offense - well, your guess is as good as mine.

Game 1: Wakefield vs. Wang
This matchup is nothing but wild speculation. Wakefield is only as good as his knuckler - which is a little like saying that Superman is only as good as the presence or absence of kryptonite - and has been pitching over his head thus far. Wang, the surprise ace of last year's Yankee staff, has been underachieving this year. The Sox benefitted from a split fingernail the last time they faced him, but the real Wang may show tomorrow.
Assessment: Too Close to Call

Game 2: Tavarez vs. Mussina
This should be easy, but Mike Mussina has not been pitching as well as his 2-2 record indicates, and Tavarez as been shockingly effective his last couple of starts. Apparently, once Joel Piniero took over his gasoline-artist-in-the-bullpen role, Tavarez decided to assume the mantle of Bronson Arroyo. Hopefully without the folk act and canoodling with underage coeds, though. The real Moose and the real JT may stand up on Tuesday, but it's not the slam dunk for the Yankees' that it should be.
Assessment: Too Close to Call

Game 3: Schilling vs. Pettite
Now that I've reached this point of the series, I realize that I can't make a prediction one way or another on any of these games. Unless Joe Torre decides to use Pettite in relief on Monday and Tuesday, that is. Schilling is no longer the '04 Schilling, but he isn't the '05-'06 Schilling either. He wins games with lousy peripheral stats (paging Derek Lowe! paging Derek Lowe!), but still, he wins games. Pettite's reputation has always been enhanced by pitching with the Yankees, but he's been the best they have this year.
Assesment (Surprise): Too close to call.

Other thoughts:

To take the obligatory look back on last week, the Sox took 3 of 4 from the Tigers - which sounds a lot more impressive now than it would have a few years ago. It's nice to see that one of the original 16 MLB teams is back out front and on top again, but I don't want to see them do it against Boston.

The Braves' series was something of an embarrasment - prior to Friday night's rainout, the scheduled Saturday matchup was a marquee duel between Matsuzaka and Smoltz. Instead, each team through out a last-minute-call-up-minor-league-schlub against the other team's ace.

Today was a nice surprise, though, as Tim Hudson (who was bound to fall to earth eventually) was outduelled by Kason Gabbard.

It's hard not to root for Kason Gabbard. There's the uniqueness of his name for one, and the fact that he was an 18 year-old 29th round pick by the Sox in 2000. He was called up last year when Dr. Charles Steinberg was floating a proposal to let the 500th fan into Fenway Park start that night's game. He was 1-3 (his lone win was also his best start, against the Yankees), with a 3.51 ERA. His 16 BBs against 15 Ks left a lot to be desired, though.

Tonight he got dinged when a couple of inherited runners scored, but the lefty struck out 7 and walked only 1. I don't know about his long-term upside, but I have more confidence in Gabbard making it happen than, say, Lenny DiNardo.

Boston underwent a flurry of transactions this weekend. Beckett went on the DL, Hansack was called up, Hansack pitched a game, Hansack was sent down, Gabbard was called up, Gabbard pitched a game, Gabbard was sent down, Manny Delcarmen was called up.

This leaves the Sox with (at the moment) a 4-man rotation. Ideally, Lester will be ready (or Gabbard will be called back up) by the time that 5th spot comes up. It is a little discouraging, however, that the Sox feel the need to have an 8-man bullpen against the Yankees.

Manny D. was a nice success story for the Sox last year - though he, Jon Lester, and Craig Hansen all imploded around the same time Tek went on the DL and Al Nipper returned the duty of coaching the pitchers to Dave Wallace. Still not convinced that was a coincidence.

I'll always have a soft spot for Manny D. - I worked with a High School teammate of his at a summer camp in '02, shortly after he'd been drafted, and I knew his name before a lot of others did.

And the fact that he and Hansen combined to squander a 9th-inning 8-run lead a few weeks ago is mitigated by the fact that a Padres' farm team recently beat a Sox farm team 30-0.

The scrub/ace matchups on Saturday seemed almost collusive - as though Bobby Cox and Tito Francona got together for drinks on Friday night and decided to just concede a doubleheader split. The fact that the Sox won today was a gift. Hudson has been the best pitcher in the NL thus far this season, and rather than matching him up against their best (healthy) pitcher, Tim Wakefield, whose turn in the rotation was up, they went with Gabbard.

The rationale is that they wanted to save Wake for the Yankees' series. Based on W-L record, the Braves are the better team, so it seems disrespectul to me that Boston didn't want to waste Wake against him.

To round this post out, I'll touch on the "other" games the Sox have to play this week.

The Red Sox are going to Texas, where they'll have to play the seemingly incompetent Rangers.

This series reeks of a reverse lock. The Sox haven't lost more than 2 games in a row this season, and other than Sammy Sosa's completely uninspiring drive for HR #600, there's no reason to pay attention to the Rangers at all. I won't even bother with matchups on either side of the ball - I just smell a Rangers' sweep.

On a final note, I will crow about the Red Sox being the first team to 30 wins this year. With their .698 winning percentage, they are on pace for 113 wins. I don't think this is sustainable, but it's nice to see.

And yes, I know that 113 wins would still be one less than the Yankees in '98.

Giambi Reflects

I'm not a big fan of Jason Giambi, but I thought what he said about his steriod use today was maybe as open as I've seen a current major league baseball player who used steriods say about them in the game.

"I was wrong for doing that stuff. What we should have done a long time ago was stand up -- players, ownership, everybody -- and said, 'We made a mistake.' We should have apologized back then and made sure we had a rule in place and gone forward. Steroids and all of that was a part of history. But it was a topic that everybody wanted to avoid. Nobody wanted to talk about it. " -- Jason Giambi, DH New York Yankees

I really don't want to get to deep into my thoughts on steriods here in this post, but it's a good thing to see Giambi, a former MVP award winner, reflect about baseball's dark side more competently. I think his statement can be viewed as him blaming everyone in baseball and him getting caught up in steroids, but I also agree everyone involved in the game just let steriods and performance enhancers be accepted as part of the culture of the game (we all see how anyone could have been involved as with that former Mets clubhouse staff person who distributed the juice). Everything going on from Canseco's book to the Mitchell Panel investigation are just scratching the surface on what happened and continues to go on. And honestly, we'll ever know the whole story.

However, Giambi took the equivalent of the Mark McGwire way out of not talking about the past when asked why he took steriods saying, "Maybe one day I'll talk about it, but not now." And perhaps, and I seriously wonder this, McGwire had something to do with Giambi's useage since they played together 1995-1997.

But this may be as good a statement as you can get from a former user on the sad state of affairs in the game. Should MLB apologize about steriods? Well, first it needs to rid the game of them. Baseball can't apologize when players are still using because it still hasn't cleaned up it's culture.