Yankees-Phillies musings

Musings on the Yankees’ 6-3 loss to the Phils last night, which unfortunately I saw in person…

--Bad A.J. Burnett. BAD A.J. BURNETT!

--Hate to criticize the good people who actually pony up for Yankees season tickets, but… how do you not show up to this game?? It’s a World Series rematch on a Wednesday night! Yet the stands were only 80 percent full, and the loudest cheers of the game came from Phillies fans. There are midseason tickets to give away and midseason tickets to keep, and this game belonged in the latter category.

--Czechvar beer: surprisingly good. Price tag of $11: not so much.

--I really should stop being surprised by Jamie Moyer. Every time I watch him pitch, I see his first 81-mph fastball of the night and think, “He’s about to get shelled.” And sometimes he does. But more often than not, he infuriates hitters with his Greg Maddux-like accuracy and the sadistic late movement on his pitches. Other than solo home runs by Robinson Cano and Jorge Posada, Moyer didn’t allow a baserunner until two outs in the seventh inning. At 47, the southpaw is the oldest pitcher to get a win against the Bombers in MLB history. There’s a reason he’s still out there pitching for a World Series contender while most of his contemporaries have been on the links for a decade.

--Best celebrity sighting: Simon and Garfunkel (though poor Art is looking more like Bea from “Grandma’s Boy” every day.)

--Worst celebrity sighting: Kathy Griffin. No comment.

--Not only is Cano leading the majors in batting average and hits, he’s seeing a lot more pitches than at any point in his career. After blasting a looooong home run to right field his first time up, the Yanks’ second baseman struck out in his second at-bat. But he worked the count from 1-2 to 3-2, a rarity for the former free swinger. Just another reason that Cano should be hitting third in the lineup and Mark Texeira should be hitting fifth.

--Again: ROBINSON CANO SHOULD BE HITTING THIRD AND MARK TEIXEIRA SHOULD BE HITTING FIFTH

--Heard in the crowd: “Texeira has one of the worst swings in baseball. He uppercuts at the ball every time from the right side.” Disclaimer: This was said by a Mets’ fan.

--I can look past Burnett’s pathetic performance (3 1/3 innings, six hits, four walks, six earned runs). The guy’s a mercurial head case, and you have to expect 4-5 starts a year where his stuff just isn’t there. But his failure to cover first base on a shot down the line that Teixeira stabbed is unforgivable. A.J., I don’t care that you’re pissed off because you’re playing like crap and gave up an RBI single to a guy hitting .143. Cover the damn base.

--Fielding roundup for Posada: Failed to stop a “wild pitch” from Burnett, let 38-year-old Raul Ibanez steal on him, dropped a pitchout when Chase Utley was actually going, and soft tossed a throw intended for Burnett into the ground five feet in front of him. The Jesus Montero era cannot come soon enough. As for Jorge… take the designated hitter role. Please. For all our sakes.

--One more time, with feeling: NO! NO! BAD A.J.!!!!

Quote of the Day, 6/15/10

I think you can pencil [Robinson] Cano in for .340 average, 20-30 homers and 100 RBIs from here until the end of his career.

-John Kruk, Baseball Tonight analyst and former MLB first baseman

The last player to consistently put up those numbers was Ted Williams. Even Albert Pujols doesn't meet that standard (his career average is "just" .333.) And Cano has been playing up to his admittedly vast potential for all of two months.

In the immortal words of George Costanza: "Easy, BIG FELLA!"

Phil Hughes' Remarkable Run

Remarkable storylines abound on the 2010 New York Yankees. Ageless wonder Andy Pettitte is 8-1 with a 2.46 ERA! Robinson Cano is leading the team in nearly every offensive category and is the runaway AL MVP so far! Alex Rodriguez has a minor injury that requires an impromptu news conference and hundreds of mentions in the press!

(OK, the last is more irritating than remarkable. But what else would you expect from A-Rod?)

The fans and media must be saturated with “Yankee X is on fire!” stories. At least that’s the only explanation I can think of for why Phil Hughes’ superlative start has gone relatively unnoticed.

The 23-year old flamethrower is an astounding 9-1 with a 3.11 ERA after picking up the win in Sunday’s 9-5 victory over the Quadruple-A Astros (not really, but they certainly didn’t belong on the same field as the Bombers this weekend.) Hughes has a team-leading 74 strikeouts against just 22 walks and is neck-and-neck with Pettitte and Tampa Bay’s David Price in the AL Cy Young race.

By itself, Hughes’ start is noteworthy. To appreciate how truly extraordinary it is, let’s wind the clocks back four months.

Back in spring training, Hughes wasn’t just a back-of-the-rotation pitcher—-he hadn’t even earned a starting spot yet. Battling with fellow young phenom Joba Chamberlain for the No. 5 spot, Hughes was just as likely to start the season in the bullpen. The media provided daily coverage of the back-and-forth battle, and SportsCenter ran side-by-side graphics throughout March comparing the duo’s spring training numbers. On the strength of an improved strikeout-to-walk ratio and strong outings in late March, Hughes got the fifth rotation spot. But a hamstring tweak here or a dismal performance there, and Joba gets the nod while Hughes languishes in the bullpen.

Instead, a guy who’s never thrown more than 86 innings in a season and had only 13 wins in his career blossomed into the pitcher the Yankees always hoped he would be. And Hughes’ consistency is almost more impressive than his stats. He’s thrown at least 99 pitches and gotten through the fifth inning in all 12 of his starts, mixing a slew of standout appearances with a couple mediocre outings. Not once has he looked like the pitcher who gave up eight runs in 1.2 innings in one start next year.

In short, Hughes has gone from back-of-the-rotation question mark to elite MLB starter almost literally overnight. And despite his mediocre outing on Sunday, he shows no signs of slowing down.

Hughes’ torrid start may not survive the summer, and even if it does he’ll most likely hit his de facto innings limit of 160-170 by the end of August if he keeps pitching every five days (the latest iteration of the Joba Rules, which translates nicely to ‘Hughes Rules’.) But until then, don’t overlook one of the most incredible stories of the Yankees’ season so far.

Introducing The Daily Denizen!

When most people think of famous figures in New York sports lore, they inevitably arrive at the same names, legends like Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, and Lawrence Taylor (to name a few). Younger fans will go for today’s household names: Jeter, A-Rod, Eli Manning. But in the 164 years since Alexander Cartwright organized the world’s first baseball game at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, an endless list of characters left their indelible mark on Big Apple sports. These men and women may not be as well-known as Jeter or the Babe, but their lives were no less extraordinary.

So here, on The Back Page, we will pay homage to them with a recurring feature called The Daily Denizen. The word ‘denizen’ is best defined as ‘inhabitant,’ and while those honored here did not garner the headlines and attention of some of their peers, they most certainly inhabited New York and its sports scene. Enjoy.

Today’s Denizen (our first ever!) is EDD ROUSH One of baseball’s brightest stars at the beginning of the 20th century, Roush played for five teams in his Hall of Fame career. Like the other greats of his day, Roush hit for average and played with speed, finishing his career with a .323 career batting average and 182 triples, tied for 15th all-time with the equally immortal Ed Konetchy.

On the surface, Roush is unusual Denizen material. He made his biggest impact on another city, spending the prime of his career with the Cincinnati Reds. Fellow Hall of Famer Joe Morgan, Cincinnati’s second baseman during the “Big Red Machine” years, called Roush “the best of us all,” high praise from a guy who played with Pete Rose and Johnny Bench. And Roush only spent four years playing pro ball in the New York area.

But it doesn’t matter, because Mr. Roush had too many things going for him. For one thing, his name was “Edd,” presumably because he was cool enough to pull off the second D. Or maybe it was because he swung a gargantuan 48-ounce bat, which is more than enough to earn him my posthumous moniker “The Lumberjack.” Remember when Yankee fans were fawning over Alfonso Soriano for swinging such a heavy bat? That was 34 ounces. Babe Ruth? Though he began his career using a 54-ounce bat, the Bambimo had dropped down to 40 ounces by his 60-homer season in 1927. So whether Roush spoke softly or not, he carried a bigger stick than the Sultan of Swat in his prime.

Roush also carries a badge of honor held by only 28 men; he played for the Newark Pepper. The Federation League team played in Newark for only one year, 1915, when they sported perhaps the best baseball team name of all time. I mean, the Pepper? Anytime you come up with a name that encapsulates the whimsy of baseball and rolls snappily off the tongue, you’ve struck gold.

So for his two Ds, 2,376 hits, three-pound bat and Federation League affiliation, Edd Roush is The Back Page’s Denizen for the day. Now get out there and play some pepper.

Link'd Up: Nets hire Avery Johnson

Apparently the Phil Jackson-to-New Jersey rumors (dispelled by Jackson himself, and possibly started by Jackson himself) were simple hearsay. ESPN's Marc Stein is reporting the Nets have agreed to terms with Avery Johnson to fill the team's head coaching vacancy. Terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed.

Johnson, who was 194-70 in three-plus seasons with the Dallas Mavericks and led them to the 2006 NBA Finals, will be reunited with point guard Devin Harris, who averaged 16.6 points per game last season but shot a career-worst 40.3 percent from the field.

A former point guard who played 16 NBA seasons, Johnson's earned a permanent place in New York sports lore when he sank a championship-winning jump shot for the Spurs against the Knicks in Game 5 of the 1999 Finals. Now, he has a chance to steal the Knicks' thunder again--this time from just across the river.

Comeback Time

Hey all. So I've been, shall we say, lax in posting the last couple months. In my defense, I still had a better spring than Mark Teixeira.

But seriously, folks, I'm back. I'm once again living in the Big Apple and ready to bring you the best of my hometown sports. Let's get it re-started with a rundown of the New York teams.

NEW YORK YANKEES: You can’t help but be impressed by Javier Vazquez. After starting the year so bad he was temporarily moved to the bullpen, Javy is 3-1 with a 2.81 ERA in his last four starts. As leery as I am of the Vazquez bandwagon, a couple more starts like Sunday’s gem against Toronto (seven innings, two earned runs, a no-hitter through six) will get at least one of my feet on it.

NEW YORK METS: The sordid sage of Oliver Perez is on hold—for now. The mercurial pitcher—who’s been dismal of late—had refused to accept a temporary demotion to the minors, where he could have worked on his mechanics and, you know, gotten better. So the Mets stuck him on the DL with “right knee tendinitis,” the cure for which is undoubtedly a healthy dose of contrition.

NEW YORK JETS: Darrelle Revis has employed the “better late than never” philosophy, joining the team just three days before the end of voluntary workouts. Revis and the team are “far apart” in contract discussions, an ominous sign for Jets fans who watched the league’s best defensive player (deal with it, Charles Woodson) shut down one elite receiver after another last year. Nice to see Revis show up, but it doesn’t change the sense that this dispute could drag on into the summer.

NEW YORK GIANTS: Little to report. Osi Umenyiora's still on the team and has said he won't be a "distraction" despite the G-Men essentially drafting his replacement in Jason Pierre-Paul. So that's nice.

NEW YORK KNICKS: LeBron James isn't a free agent until July 1. Neither is Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, or anybody else. Let's all take a chill pill until then.

NEW JERSEY NETS: See above. Or, if you're looking for a good laugh, check out this profile of new owner Mikhail Prokhorov.

HOCKEY: When a New York-area team gets out of the first round, we'll talk hockey.

COLLEGES: Cornell lost the architect of its Sweet 16 run when Steve Donohue bolted for greener pastures (literally) at Boston College. The Big Red also lost seniors Ryan Wittman, Jeff Foote, and Louis Dale to graduation. Let's just say expecting another Sweet 16 appearance might be a tad optimistic.

HIGH SCHOOLS: Far be it from me to make a shameless plug for my alma mater, but... how 'bout those Collegiate Dutchmen! Not only did the hoops teams win its third straight New York State Federation Class B title, but coach Ray Voelkel was named All-Manhattan boys basketball Coach of the Year by the New York Post. That's how you get a program "untracked."