TwitterTuesday Night Observations
28 Aug 2007
Daisuke Matsuzaka works incredibly slowly. He pitched into the 7th and took 2 3/4 hours, and that was a fast night for him. It has been a painful thing to watch all season especially when compared to Tim Wakefield.
Matsuzaka hit ARod and almost hit Robinson Cano (who gave him his best menacing glare). Prediction: Roger Clemens does something about it Wednesday night. Prediction: Josh Beckett answers the call.
Eric Hinske isn’t, never has been and never will be a match for Jaba Chamberlain.
Given the Yankee offense, if they had any consistent pitching, this wouldn’t be a contest.
If anyone in the Yankees organization cares, it might be a good idea to not use Chamberlain as much as Scott Proctor was used. Proctor was probably never destined to be an elite reliever, but he might have made a few million as a pitcher. Now, I’m not sure he’ll be in baseball in 3 years. I know, he made a major league minimum at worst, but still. Maybe Joe Torre will cut him a few checks in a few years.
JD Drew might as well come up with one of his 20 game injuries as he isn’t helping this Red Sox team at all. He has been terrible. A .756 OPS at $14m a year. He best figure this problem out soon or he will not be a happy man for the next few years (despite his wealth…after all, money doesn’t buy one happiness).
Mike Lowell will probably wind up with 115-120 RBI this year. Not bad for a throw-in. My guess is he is gone next year as Boston won’t want to offer more than 2 years and he’ll probably get a 3-4 year deal at $11-$12m per.
Tuesday was the toughest match-up in the series for Boston as Andy Pettitte is a good pitcher having a good year.
With both Manny Ramirez and Bobby Kielty going down with injuries, get used to Eric Hinske for a day or two. Yikes.
Despite the lead the Red Sox have over the Yankees, there is still a buzz in the air when these 2 teams go head-to-head.
Aug 28, 2007 @ 23:31:12
Andy, the Joba rules are explicit. 1 IP, 1 day of rest. 2 IP, 2 days of rest. I think Cashman is well aware of value of Joba and the pitfalls of trusting Torre with arm management. Too bad they couldn’t save Proctor and I’m sure Viz will wish he never wore pinstripes. Joba is off tomorrow and available for game 3 now.
I seriously doubt the Yanks can afford to get into a HBP war. They are 2 games out of the wild card (forget division) the last thing on they need is to give away free baserunners. Maybe if its a blowout but I really don’t see it being a priority.
Aug 29, 2007 @ 08:47:34
Tim, you are probably right about any beanball war. It’d be too costly.
Good to hear that Joba is being held in check. With him, Hughes, Kennedy and others, the Yankees have a decent string of pitchers moving on down the line and it’ll be important that they proctect these kids. Then again, I’m fairly certain Torre won’t be around next year to handle them anyway.