Giambi's fantastic start is, IMO, inspirational. To see him overcome the massive obstacles of the last 36 months and continue his hot '05 second half through the first month of '06 is astonishing and improbable.

Erasmus wrote: "The most difficult battle a man must face is with himself." It appears that Giambi has done everything right for the last 2 years while dealing with the unfortunate consequences of his actions.

That being said, if he is still using PEDs I hope he is exiled to the uncharted island where McGwire is currently hiding.

I hope not. I hope Giambi is demonstrating that redemption is possible. Even in New York.

In a game where both managers were ejected by home plate umpire Adam Douty, the Yankees had a little bit more timely hitting and clutch pitching to take two of three from the Jays by winning Sunday afternoon 4-1.

The Jays got a run early as Mussina nemesis Frank Catalanotto lined a double over the head of Bernie Williams to stake the Jays to a 1-0 lead. The Yankees got the run back in the fifth when Andy Phillips hit his first homerun of the season. The Yankees got another run on a bases loaded walk to A-Rod to force in a run. This was the call that got John Gibbons tossed by the umpire. Previously, Joe Torre got tossed for arguing in between innings on calls which Mussina looked like he clearly threw for strikes.

Jason Giambi extended the Yankees lead to 4-1 with a two run shot of Pete Walker off the facing of the upper deck. Kyle Farnsworth worked the seventh and two outs in the eighth looking very impressive. He only surrendered a two out double to Lyle Overbay. He hit 100mph on the radar gun and the fans went wild!

Rivera entered with two outs in the eighth and got Greg Zaun to end the inning. Mo then worked a perfect ninth to earn his 4th save of the season.

The Yankees now head to Beantown starting tomorrow night for a two game series vs. the Red Sox. Chien Ming-Wang will face Tim Wakefield in the opener.

auburnpub.com has a story about Steinbrenner and some kindness he recently showed an Auburn, NY family:


Via Steve.

Randy Johnson didn't bring his best stuff to the Bronx earlier today, but it didn't matter as the Yankees just toyed with Blue Jay pitching as they lit up the scoreboard en route to a 17-6 victory to improve their record to 12-10. Johnny Damon went deep twice and Jason Giambi launched a moonshot into the upper deck in the 1st inning for his 8th dinger of the year. Jorge Posada homered as well. The only Yankee starters without hits were A-Rod and Derek Jeter, who went 0-4 to drop his average to a dismal .388. Johnson lasted only six innings as he gave up six runs on six hits while striking out just two. The Yankees' bullpen was solid today, as a tandem of Tanyon Sturtze, Ron Villone, and Matt Smith pitched a total of four scoreless innings.

Is it me, or does Randy Johnson really seem to have a problem facing the Blue Jays? He was lit up for 7 at Rogers Centre in his last outing against them a couple weeks ago, and I can't back this up at the moment, but I do believe he had a number of rough outings against them last year as well. Could just be me, but either way it doesn't really matter. We didn't really need him anyway. He was just a prop today with the way they were hitting. I think a team of James Varghese, David Williams, Michael Black, Jason O'Connell and Patrick O'Keefe would've done just fine today.

Mike Mussina will look to continue his good start to the season at 1:05 tomorrow against Gustavo Chacin. Chacin somehow is 4-0 this season despite an E.R.A. of 5.11. With the way Mussina's been pitching lately, I have the feeling that Chacin isn't going to be 5-0 after tomorrow if he allows five runs.

Former Yankees Reliever Steve Howe died in a car accident today. He was 48.

I'm not sure how I missed this but apparently Phil Hughes has been promoted to AA. (Update: The NY Post says the same - scroll to the end.)


Update 2: NJ.com has Hughes making a few more starts in Tampa before being promoted around May 4.


I knew it was coming soon but wow, that was quick. Now, get my buddy Brett Gardner up there (as soon as he can start cutting down a little bit on the Ks) and I'll be even happier. Mike A. points out Gardner now has an 11 game hit streak, and leads the league with a .403 BA (leads by over 40 points) and .545 OBP (88 points). Not bad for your speedy CF/leadoff hitter, huh?

For the first 5 and a half innings of last night's game, I'd say that most Yankees fans probably had that feeling of impending doom. Each inning that went by without a run from the Yankees against Mark Hendrickson, he of the career 5.07 ERA, was probably promptly greeted with a swallow of the Pepto. Luckily, Shawn Chacon was up to the task of matching Hendrickson pitch for pitch until the fifth when Damon Hollins doubled and a single by Joey Gathright sent him home.

In the sixth, the Yankees were finally able to get on the board, using a walk from Jeter, an error by Russell Branyan on a Sheffield grounder and an A-Rod walk to to load the bases with one out. A Jason Giambi grounder got Jeter home and then Hideki Matsui (in a 6-for-43 slump) came through with a seeing-eye 2 RBI single right up the middle (in the highlight, the shortstop and second baseman both dive for the ball, just barely miss and slide pretty much into each other's gloves; hilarity ensued - okay, maybe not).

Mike Myers and Kyle Farnsworth provided 2 innings of relief and then Joe Torre tried to use a rock to put the nail in the coffin. It didn't work as Sturtze gave a hit so he brought in the hammer, which worked a lot better.

Derek Jeter was 3 for 3 with a walk and is now hitting at .408 for the month. His OBA sits at .511 and he's slugging .667 with a dozen extra-base hits and as David Pinto at Baseball Musings pointed out, it looks like Jeter will end up with the best April of his career. His previous high in BA was .378 (31/82) in 1999. On another positive in their last five games, Yankees starters have allowed five runs over 34 1/3 innings, a 1.31 ERA.

Oh, and before too many people start gloating about the Red Sox's new starter being lit up by the Indians, such a thing has happened before in NY. (Man, was that painful).

Just a quick note/plug to a site that I stumbled upon recently that I feel compelled to share with the rest of you, YankeesProspects.com. The webmaster does a great job of aggregating a lot of information on the Yankees minor league system.

I love The Baseball Cube for the wealth of minor league stats that it offers but it's far easier to go to Yankees Prospects and see all the kids in one place. On top of regular stats, there are some extras which I enjoy. For example, not only can you see that Melky Cabrera is hitting .333 for the Clippers this year but it shows his XBH% and K% as well (yes, you can calculate it yourself but hey, I'm lazy). There are game logs, draft class reports and my personal favorite, a daily report of what happened in the minors the night before. I'd encourage anyone who is interested to go check the site out - its value will speak for itself.

The Yankees left 16 men on base, were 2-15 with runners in scoring position. Who do you think won based on these stats?

The Yanks came up empty last night based on the weight of their bats, and lost 4-2. The only shining moment came in the 5th with a Gary Sheffield home run to tie the score 2-2. It stayed knotted at 2-2 into the 10th. Rivera came into the game during the 9th, but gave up 2 runs in the 10th. It was Rivera's second loss of the year.

I would imagine this is a game we should just forget about, and look to the next game. But how can you forget about this game when they lose to the Devil Rays? They walked 14 of our men last night. None of these walks amounted to any runs on the board.

Tonight Shawn Chacon (2-1, 5.59 ERA) takes on Mark Hendrickson (1-0, 0.00 ERA) 7:05pm ET at Yankee Stadium.

I've been to a few Yankee games in my life. 3 in all. The Yankees have yet to lose in my presence. But, they haven't won them all, either. 2 of them at Fenway Park. Only once in my life have I attended a game at Yankee Stadium. Retrosheet is a cool site. A couple weeks ago, I went to find the only game I've attended and it didn't take long, since I knew what I was looking for and knew various details about the game. I was 10 at the time. The game was on July 17, 1995 and it ended in a tie, 1-1, between the Yankees and White Sox.

The White Sox outhit the Yankees 9-2 (5 walks for the Yankees, 4 for the White Sox), but Pettitte pitched well, keeping the Sox from scoring. A Mike Devereaux RBI groundout scored Ray Durham for the Sox only run while a Mike Stanley homer to left (one of the few specific moments I actually remember) put the Yankees on the board. My favorite player, Don Mattingly, started and led off the bottom of the 7th with a double. And then Randy Velarde walked. But, then, I remember the pitching coach coming out and ... the game was delayed for rain. We left before it was officially cancelled, but hours later, it was.

As I look at this box score, the first thought that strikes me is: "John Kruk played for the White Sox?!" We went by Monument Park before the game and Wilson Alvarez (who started the game for the White Sox) walked right by me. We had seats near the railing in the deck above the ground level on the third base side (for some reason, I'm thinking this was called Lower Tier). Both Alvarez (6 IP) and Pettitte (7) were given a complete game and the game was not picked up from where it was delayed. Instead, the stats counted, but the game didn't. They replayed the game from square one and the Yankees won. Retrosheet has the game that I went to marked as a tie. So, if you look at the 1995 page, you'll see a 1 in the T column. That's my game.

Just playing around with some numbers earlier and thought that I would take a look at Jason Giambi's resurgence. We all know the story. In 2005, after an offseason of being vilified in the media, Giambi started out badly and stayed that way. Through the first 47 games (6/12/05), Giambi posted a .234/.383/.340 line with just 7 XBHs...and then it all started to click.

6/14/05: NY starts a series with the Pirates. Jason goes 1 for 2 with a double and from this point until the game last night, Giambi’s line has been .298/.478/.668/1.146 with a HR every 9.29 ABs. His full line is actually .298/.478/.668 with 74 R, 15 2Bs, 35 HRs and 92 RBIs (not to mention 99 BBs compared to 78 Ks). All of this in 325 ABs (108 games started). Holy moley, that's...wow. He's hit in pretty much every situation too.

-Lefties: .278/.451/.565. Righties: .310/.493/.724.
-Home: .333/.481/.721. Away: .263/.476/.613.

Pretty much the only time he didn't hit as well was as the DH, .222/.454/.500 in 90 ABs, compared to a blistering .329/.490/.735 (234 ABs). Oh, and in 94 ABs with RISP, he's merely hit .337/.476/.716 with 9 HRs. I hate to throw all these numbers at you since you can see that the guy is on fire but what the hey, I thought it'd be interesting to see just how hot he has been. In any case, between 1996 and 2003, Giambi has averaged 540 ABs so I'm looking for to seeing what he can do in the next 200 ABs or so and what his final "yearly" line looks like.

Tom Verducci talked with Moose about his hot start:

Jason O'Connell is the latest addition to our staff here at YanksBlog.com. You may recognize him as commenter Jason O. Welcome aboard. :)

That's how much of the season is now over. The Yankees stand at 9-8, 2 games back in the AL East (and 1.5 back in the wildcard). There are 145 games left but what the hey, here are some of my thoughts so far.

-The Yankees work the count (some long games), can outhit anyone (.303/.391/.497/.888 as a team) and have a real shot at 1000 runs.
-The pitching, while inconsistent, has been better (overall) than people expected.

-People love the come-backer...especially when they are raking everything in sight (see Giambi, Jason).
-A-Rod's defense has been amazing so far.
-The same cannot be said about the rest of the infield which could be troublesome for the rest of the year (see Wang, Chien-Ming & Wright, Jaret)
-Johnny Damon might not have the strongest arm but he sure does cover a LOT of ground out there.
-Mike Mussina, a smart man in a contract year = very good season.

-Bernie Williams is done.
-Tanyon Sturtze is just about there.
-Jaret Wright never even started.
-Loyalty will force Joe Torre to use the the first two as often as he can and dollar bills dictate that Wright will be trotted out there many more times this season.

-If Carl Pavano ever actually pitches in a major league game this season, there will be much rejoicing.
-The Yankees are the best team in the American League.

Throw in what you've seen in the comments - as always, I'd love to read them.

The New York Daily News has an interview with Mr. Steinbrenner:


Via Mike A..

Randy Johnson returned to his old form on Sunday afternoon by pitching eight strong innings and beating the Orioles 7-1. The win enabled the Yankees to take two of three in the series and move over the .500 mark.

He allowed only three hits, all to Miguel Tejada including a home run to lead off the second inning. The Yankees came right back in the bottom of the second with Jason Giambi slugging the first of his two homers to tie the game. Andy Phillips followed later in the inning with an RBI single to right center field. Giambi connected again in the third with a man on to extend the Yankees lead to 4-1.

Later in the game Giambi came up again with two men on base and hit a double to the wall in left field to score both runners. Johnson breezed through the game only walking one and striking out five on the day.

Mariano Rivera worked a scoreless ninth despite the game not being in a save situation. He gave up a two out single to Miguel Tejada, his fourth hit of the day, before retiring Jay Gibbons on a fly ball to center to end the game.

The Yankees are off today and will face the pesky Tampa Bay Devil Rays starting tomorrow night at the stadium. Mike Mussina will be on the mound and will face Tampa's young left hander Scott Kazmir.

The Yankees old nemesis reared its ugly head again, the lack of clutch hitting, especially by A-Rod. Rodriguez struck out twice with runners in scoring position, the second time in the ninth with runners on 1st and 2nd and only one out.

Chris Ray the Orioles closer made every attempt to let the Yankees tie or win the game, but the Bronx less than Bombers couldn't take advantage of the opportunitiy. With the Yankees down by one run at 6-5 to start the bottom of the ninth, Damon was retired before a walk to Jeter and a single by Sheffield put the tying and potential winning runs on base with only one out. A-Rod struck out for the second out. With Giambi up the Yankees ran the baserunners and moved up on defensive indifference. Giambi eventually walked to load the bases but Hideki Matsui looked at a called third strike on the corner to end the game.

Chien-MIng Wang was getting mostly ground balls but they eventually found holes and the Orioles took the lead at 3-1. With the bases loaded Derek Jeter fielded a grounder off the bat of Brian Roberts but threw high to Andy Phillips at first and the runner was called safe. With the runners going on the pitch, two runs scores. The replay clearly showed that Phillips came back down on the bag before the runner reached, but the Yankees were the recipient of poor umpiring again. Remember a few days ago, Rivera had both Castillo and Mauer struck out before they reached, but a check swing and a called third strike were not called in the Yankees favor.

The Yankees came back to take the lead on a two run homer from Cano and a RBI single by A-Rod but gave it right back when Scott Proctor gave up a bases loaded walk when he was clearly upset by not getting a call from the umpire. He then gave up another run to extend the O's lead to two runs.

The Yankees got one back in the eighth but it wasn't enough as the O's held on to eventually win the game 6-5. The Yankees are now 7-8 on the season and in their losses have not looked good at all.

First, taking a look at the minors, Steve L. posted about someone that I've been following for the last couple of days: Jose Veras. 13 to 1 K:BB ratio in 8.2 innings isn't bad but I'm not going to get interested just yet as this guy doesn't have a great track record. Outside of two decent-good years (2002, 2005), he's been quite mediocre and sports a career whip of 1.49. Still, he's a young (25) power arm (career 8.2 K per 9) so if he can keep it up, he could be of some use later on in the season either as a filler for the Yankee bullpen or as a chip in a trade (apparently he's under a one-year contract so if he can fetch something that the Yanks can use, great.)

And for more Phil Hughes, Brian Cashman says that he should be promoted to Trenton soon.


In my humble opinion, Brett Gardner should also be considered for a fast track promotion. He's doing very well at Tampa and is a hell of a smart player who knows how to use the tools he has (read legs; on the scouting scale of 20-80, his speed has to be at or near 80). Moving in the opposite direction unfortunately is Tim Battle who cannot buy a hit right now (3 hits in 46 ABs, 3 BBs, 21Ks!) . We'll have to see how long this is allowed to go on.

Speaking of prospects, John Sickels posted a prospect retrospective of Gary Sheffield. If you don't know the man's history, I'd give it a read. Finally, I'd also take a look at the Q&A that MLB.com recently did with Scott Proctor. It's pretty interesting, especially the following answer as Proctor has historically been an extreme flyball pitcher:

Obligatory catchphrase.

The Yanks are money. That's a fact. They are now worth, on paper, more than one billion dollars.

I would take the time to read the article, especially if you are a Yankee fan. Read it and remember what it says so that the next time some uninformed "fan of baseball" says that the Yankees are bad for baseball, you can refrain from violence and recite it to them.


Evil empire indeed.

Oscar Acosta, the manager of the Gulf Coast Yankees of the Rookie League, and Humberto Trejo, the Yankees' field coordinator in the Dominican, were killed in a car accident in the Dominican Republic.

Everyone here at YanksBlog.com would like to send our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Acosta and Mr. Trejo.

Mike Mussina saw the Yanks bleeding and wanted to put an end to it. He held the Blue Jays to just one run over 7 1/3 innings.

It was a beauty to behold, as Moose and former Yankee Ted Lilly went inning after inning with no score. The blanks on the scoreboard ended in the 5th, when A-Rod connected off of Lilly for his 5th homerun of the year. Another run was added in the 5th, although Posada got caught off guard and got tagged out for the inning ending play, Matsui was able to cross home before the tag, so the run scored.So, bad baserunning by Posada...then good baserunning by Posada to avoid the tag.

Rivera finished the game for his second save of the year.

I'll have to say that I didn't expect such a masterpiece by Moose today, although I will admit he has been pitching like the Mike Mussina of old. I'm definitely looking forward to Moose's next outing.

The Yanks are off tomorrow. They return home for a Friday night game against the Baltimore Orioles. Chien-Ming Wang (1-0, 4.08 ERA) faces Kris Benson (1-2, 3.32 ERA) face each other for a 7:05pm ET start.

I don't care...I'm drooling already and he's only in Tampa. TINSTAPP all you want - I'm in favor of irrational exuberance in regards to your team's prospects!

Phil Hughes went 6 innings, gave up 2 hits, walked none, struck out 8...and lost. Of his two hits, one was to the leadoff hitter in the first inning, who promptly stole second base and scored on the only other hit Hughes gave up. Talk about tough luck. Still, another dominant performance and the growing anticipation/fervor of Yankees' fans everywhere continues to grow.

Eric Duncan has put together a couple of two hit games at Colombus and has pulled his average up to .234. When he starts hitting the .260s-.270s and starts hitting with power, I'll get excited. Until then, maybe Carlos Pena can enlighten him on some slick fielding. Also, Tyler Clippard had a decent outing last night though he took the loss and goes to 0-3 for the year. Clippard is one of my favorite prospects and I fully expect him to continue to make adjustments as the season goes on - he'll be one to watch.

Melky Cabrera is still turning some heads and here's a question: Does this remind anyone of what happened to Cano last year? No one expects that much of either player (both are considered fringe prospects) to begin the year, both hit solidly in winter-league play and both got red hot in Colombus to start the year. Robinson put up a line of .333/.368/.574 in 108 ABs in his age 22 season. Contextually, this was somewhat out of place with his career minor league numbers of .277/.329/.424/.753 though he had started to hit with more authority the previous year. In Melky's case (and man, I love that name), he's hitting .380/.448/.540 in his first 50 ABs (and struck out once) in Colombus in his age 22 season. Obviously, there will be cooling off but I'm just using this to illustrate that he's still very young and is showing he can handle AAA pitching. His career minor league numbers are .285/.339/.409/.748 (better plate discipline - less power than Cano so far) so yes, this would be an outlier just like with Cano. One of the differences between the two is that Melky didn't show much improvement the previous year. In 2005 at AA Trenton, he hit .267/.310/.413 (not exactly awe-inspiring) but was promoted to AAA anyway and responded with a .324/.425/.647 line in 9 games. Then came the call up to the majors (ouch), being sent back to Columbus where it looked like his confidence was shot and then all the way back down to Trenton again. He finished 2005 with a .275/.322/.411/.733 at AA Trenton. Not horrible numbers for someone his age but not exactly eye-popping. That being said, I think it will be pretty exciting seeing how long Melky can stay this hot and where that might lead.

The Yankees fell under the .500 mark once again after Randy Johnson blew a 4-0 first inning lead in the Yankees' 10-5 loss to the Blue Jays. The Yankees jumped out early with four runs in the first inning, including back to back homers from A-Rod and Giambi. The Blue Jays responded with three in the first and three in the second, as the Jays scored seven off the Big Unit before he was pulled in the 4th. Derek Jeter and Gary Sheffield had two hits, although Sheffield dropped a routine liner off his glove in the 7th inning. Troy Glaus went 3-4 with two homers, one of whic