Eric Moneypenny from Fox Sports likes the New York Yankees Uniforms. According to him they are the best in baseball history. I tend to agree. The reason he loves them?



Dark blue things on a white background? Let me help him. When you see the pinstripes on any uniform in sports your thoughts go to the NY Yankees. More about the Bombers uniforms here.

Of course it goes to say that after I called Kevin Brown the worst pitcher in baseball he goes out in his next start and pitches seven shutout innings. I'm not so naive to think that a simple two-game winning streak means the Yankees are already turning the season around, but there are some good signs.

The starting pitching is starting to get into a groove. Mussina has been on for a while, Johnson and Pavano have pitched well in their last couple starts, and although Kevin Brown did run into more first inning trouble today, he did look a lot more comfortable on the mound. The two rookies (Wang and Henn) were both shaky in their last starts, but I am optimistic about Chien-Ming Wang and Randy Johnson is back now so I guess Sean Henn will be sent back down if he hasn't been already.

The hitting is also improving a bit. Alex Rodriguez hit his Major League leading 11th home run today and is looking like an MVP candidate. Also, a few of the guys who haven't been hitting well at the start of the season are starting to turn it on a bit. Posada and Tino are hitting a lot better.

Now Randy Johnson will take the mound tomorrow against his former team, a struggling Mariners team that has lost seven straight. Let's hope the Yankees can take advantage of this and get something going here.

Back to back shutouts by the Yankee pitching staff. Back to back no error performances from the Yankee defense. Good stuff.

Kevin Brown delievered today with a 7 inning, 0 R, 5 H, 1 BB, 4 K performance. He retired the last 9 batters that he faced. Flash worked a 1-2-3 8th and Sturtze a scoreless 9th. All told the pitching staff allowed 7 hits, walked 1 and struck out 5.

The Yankee bats only mustered 1 more hit than the A's (and 4 more walks), but put 6 on the board. A-Rod led off with a solo homer in the 4th. In the 5th, Matsui added another with an RBI single that scored Womack. It would remain 2-0 into the 8th, when Matsui walked to lead off the inning and Alex followed with a single. Tino, in the 6th spot, came up and hit a 3 run shot to deep right to put the Yankees up 5-0. But, they weren't done, yet - Posada made it back to back home runs (his 3rd of the year). Another shot to deep right.

Jeter, Matsui and A-Rod each had 2 hits.

Tomorrow The Unit takes the hill against Gil Meche and the Mariners.

I just finished watching good old fashioned Yankees baseball from the not too old glory days. Mike Mussina pitched a complete game shutout and the Yankees defeated the Oakland A's 5-0 before 52,776 at the Stadium. How do we build on this?

Kevin Brown is going tomorrow. He is 0-4 with with a 8.25 ERA. He gave up six runs in the first inning in his last start to Tampa Bay. Does he have anything left? I think we will need the bats tomorrow.

How long before we start making deals? Who is out there? Who can we use as trade bait? Right now the Yankees bench is extremely weak. Jason Giambi was not available again today. With Sierra on the DL that leaves us with Rey Sanchez, John Flaherty and Bubba Crosby. The Yankees have to strenghten their bench and soon. The Yankees announcers said that Joe Torre reported that Rivera would not pitch again until Monday. He pitched two innings last night and threw 50 pitches. Can Sturtze or Gordon close, if needed tomorrow?

I throw out the following names as possible acquisitions:

1. Mike Piazza - He has a huge contract with the Mets and really should be with an American League team where he can DH.

2. Roger Clemens - The Yankees rotation isn't strong enough to go the playoffs.

3. Bobby Higginson - We need a left handed bat (and an outfielder).

I would love to see some discussion on possible trades.

I'm going to the game next Wednesday afternoon and look forward to a good time. I hope it is good old fashioned Yankees baseball. A strong seven or eight innings from the starter and Gordon and Mo to finish it off.

Moose answered the call today as he pitched a brilliant 4 hit shutout. He struck out 3 while walking 2. The Yankees defense backed him up with a 0 error performance.

The Yanks offense only managed 5 hits (and 3 walks), but was able to score 5 runs. In the first, Sheff knocked in Jeter with a double to deep left. Tino added a solo shot in the 2nd and A-Rod added a 2 RBI double in the 3rd (with Womack and Sheffield scoring). A-Rod would add an RBI single (Sheff again) in the 8th to make it 5-0. He turned in a 2 for 4, 3 RBI day at the plate. Sheffield went 1 for 3 with 2 runs, 1 RBI and a walk. Jeter, Matsui, Posada, Phillips and Cano combined to go 0 for 15 with 2 walks and 1 run.

I didn't watch the game - but the box score tells me this was a good game for the Yankees. With pitching and defense plaguing us as it has - a shutout with no errors is just what the doctor ordered.

These are the days that I look back at the time when Mrs. Freeman, my 9th grade math teacher, called me to her desk after school. I was anxious to get out of there that day. It was a Friday, and I had the weekend before me. She said my record thus far into the semester was behind all the others. She also said that I was doing very poorly, and could do much better.

“What would it take from me?”

“Hard work and determination.”

I thought to myself, well that can’t be. I can’t be as bad as she says that I am. I’ve always excelled at math. I mean, I won the math club competition at school 4 out of 5 years. I think it must be her fault. Or perhaps it’s the schools fault.

I think of the Yankee season the same way. The time has come where the players themselves must be accountable for their miserable record thus far into the season.

What is it going to take from the Yankee players?

Hard Work. Take nothing for granted. Play each game as if you are playing the Sox in game 7. Determination.

Well I guess I can't begin talking about the Yankees without acknowledging their struggles early on this season. After tonight's loss (their 3rd consecutive against the Devil Rays), the Yankees are now 11-18 and tied with Tampa Bay for last place in the AL East. In fact, the only two teams in baseball at the moment with worse records than the Yankees are the 7-21 Royals and 6-19 Rockies. They are also in a virtual tie with the 10-17 Reds.

Typically at this point in the season you'd be more likely to see the Yankees at 18-11 and in first place, not 11-18 and tied for last. So what has been the Yankees problem so far? Well if there was only one problem, the Yanks would not be where they are right now. There are a number of issues. You are obviously going to run into trouble when you have rookie call-ups pitching on consecutive days. The worst thing that could possibly happen while trying to break out of a slump is for Randy Johnson to have to miss a start. Of course the Yankees' pitching woes cannot be simply attributed to injury. Performance has also been an issue. Jaret Wright was pitching awful before he got hurt. Moose gets the job done but has not shown enough consistency. Kevin Brown might be the worst pitcher in baseball so far this season, especially in the first inning or two. Also, although this hasn't seemed to be a problem so far, Mariano Rivera needs work. It's not Torre's fault, but I don't think it's good for a closer to be going a week at a time without an appearance because there aren't any leads for him to hold on to.

Pitching obviously hasn't been the only problem for the Yankees. You can't blame Randy Johnson for a 2-0 loss to Toronto. Some say that the problem with the Yankees' lineup so far has been a lack of consistency this season, evidenced by a 12-3 win over the Angels followed by a 5-1 loss. I don't think it's consistency. I think it's overall performance. The Yankees have only 3 hitters who have been getting the job done at all this season (Jeter, Sheffield, and Rodriguez). Those three guys all hit in the top half of the order (Rodriguez being the exception, who bats 5th). The games in which the Yankees score a lot of runs tend mostly to be games in which one of these three hitters, or all of them hit so well where their performance alone has been enough to put them in the "W" column, such as A-Rod's three-homer, 10 RBI game against Tampa Bay. That's not to say that there isn't the occasional game where one of the other players steps up, but Jason Giambi, Tino Martinez, and Bernie Williams are hitting .208, .257 and .247 respectively. It is so bad at the moment where it's almost as if the Yankees only have 6 innings to score as many runs as the opponent, because there have been so many 1-2-3 innings when the 6-9 part of the order were up.

I do believe that the Yankees can and will eventually turn things around. Hideki Matsui is obviously much better than .236 and 3 homers through 29 games. Jorge Posada has shown some good signs recently. The Yanks still have the best pitcher in the game as well as the best closer. It's only a matter of time before they start coming around.

How did it get this far in the process for a judge to say that there was a lack of evidence of disorderly conduct?

According to this story, the Boston Police Department used High-Definition TV to determine that Chris House was doing everything BUT reaching for the ball when he made contact with Sheffield last month while at Fenway.

Granted, I don't think what House did was malicious. He appeared to be just another drunk fan reaching for the ball in play. But for the police department to rule that it was disorderly conduct, they had to have had something to go on. I guess the real question is, what is "probable cause?" To me the definition would be,reaching into the area of play and interferring with the player or ball.

As diehard Yankees fans did we ever expect after twenty-eight games to be 11-17 and 7 1/2 games out of first place. In fact we are only one game out of last place. We can't beat Tampa Bay on a regular basis. Last night was truly pathetic. To give up eleven runs to a last place team is truly awful. The strength of our championship teams has always been our pitching, both starting and relief. Randy Johnson has pitched better than his record but missed last night's start as a precaution. Pavano is so-so. Mike Mussina has looked better of late, but is still not close to being an ace. Obviously, Jaret Wright has been a huge disappointment, even before he got hurt. But the worst of all is Kevin Brown. Do the Yankees need to just release him and eat the rest of his salary for 2005?

I now turn my thoughts to the bullpen. Even Rivera started awful but has been great the last few outings. He has lowered his ERA from over 10 to 2.70. Our big problem however, is getting to him. Tom Gordon came in last night to try and keep the deficit at two runs and on the first pitch gave up a homerun to a player that was just brought up from the minors. Did the Yankees pitch him out last year? Paul Quantrill hasn't been much better. Felix Rodriguez simply can't throw strikes. Buddy Groom has been for the most part a pleasant surprise. Last night while watching the game they showed Rivera warming up in the bullpen hoping the Yankees could rally and least tie, but they couldn't get it done again.

As fans we should still be hopeful. Sturtze will be back soon along with the Big Unit and Ruben Sierra. There is simply too much talent on this team to look this bad. The old baseball adage goes... Your never as good as you look when your on a hot streak and vice versa your never as bad as you look when your continually losing. Keep some good thoughts and look for positives. We need a win tonight and a good homestand. We were only 3-6 on the last homestand. We simply have to start putting the hitting and pitching together. The best case scenario is we win tonight and go to 12-17. We come home and win all six to go above .500 before our west coast swing.

Welcome to YanksBlog.com, an unofficial New York Yankees blog.

I have been blogging about the Yankees at my personal blog since it launched in April of last year, but for almost as long I have planned to launch a blog dedicated to the Yankees, my favorite baseball team. Today, 05/05/05, that becomes reality as YanksBlog.com becomes the latest iFroggy Network site.

Blogging alongside me will be David Williams (from MarianoRivera.com), Michael Black and Seamus Molloy (from SportsForums.net and MarianoRivera.com).

We will blog from a diehard, supportive Yankees fan's perspective. We're huge fans of these guys... we love these guys... and we won't try to hide this.

Our banner (which may or may not be final - small tweaks may be made) was designed by my friend Bryan (of Oybro and PhotoshopForums.com). Special thanks to him.

Thank you for stopping by - I hope that this will become a popular stop for true and diehard Yankees fans.