Home Grays

Very gray in New York today, fittingly synonymous with the aura that surrounds the team in the Bronx these days. Showers are possible all throughout the evening, so the nasty conditions that persisted throughout last night’s game might be repeated tonight. Rain might be a blessing, considering notorious Yankee-dominator Erik Bedard takes the hill for Seattle, his first start in the Bronx for his new West Coast club.

Looking at Bedard’s numbers against the Yankees for the past 2 seasons, and considering how badly the lineup has done against lefties and against everyone this year, there is little hope to hold on to for ending the current 3-game losing skid. Here’s his compiled performances against the Yankees for the ’06 and ’07 seasons:

5 GS 3-0 W/L 33 IP 20 H 9 BB 35 K 1.77 ERA 0.96 WHIP .179 Opp. AVG

Bedard has been dominant across the board, and the only solace one might take is that he’s battled injuries and his control thus far this year. He missed a few weeks with an inflamed hip, but upon his return he threw up a strong performance of 6.2 IP 2 H 0 ER 4 BB/4K against Oakland. The walks might be the one thing the Yankees floundering lineup can exploit.

On the other side, Chien-Ming Wang comes in completely cemented as the ace of the Yankees’ rotation. His 5-0 start has been impressive, and he’s only had 1 truly bad outing (against Boston in the Bronx). Otherwise, he’s been the model of consistency and, even occasionally, greatness. Runs most likely will be at a premium, especially since the recent history of Wang vs. Seattle is almost as impressive as Bedard vs. New York:

4 GS 4-0 W/L 29.1 IP 21 H 5 BB 11 K 1.87 ERA 0.89 WHIP .202 Opp. AVG

The recent history says runs will be at a premium for both sides. Most likely, anyone could have guessed that by just looking at the names of tonight’s starters. Regardless, I like to turn to the numbers at least once in a while, so as to not form my opinions on nominal value alone.

Turning back to last night, the Ian Kennedy situation looks as though he’ll be skipped his next turn in the rotation. If they’re going to do that, then he should go down to Scranton to at least stay on schedule and try and work through his problems (be they mechanical, or approach, or whatever). The interesting thing is if you send Kennedy down to start at Scranton and go with a 4-man rotation, he can be re-inserted should Darrell Rasner prove horribly ineffective this Sunday. Likewise, if Rasner is successful, then you can just bring Ian (or whoever pitches the best from Scranton’s rotation in the next week or so) back up when a 5th starter is needed again.

It keeps all parties covered: Kennedy continues to get his work in, Rasner gets his audition for the rotation, Kei Igawa can tell himself that he’s got a shot of getting called up even though every Yankee fan shudders at the mention of his name, and so on. My hope is that Kennedy doesn’t get outright demoted and told that he’s out of the rotation, considering that the team still needs him to be successful if they are going to cover for the loss of Hughes. You need one of the two rotation components of the youth movement to fight through their horrible struggles this year, and if Hughes isn’t going to resume the fight until the middle of the summer, then it would help if Kennedy kept throwing punches through the spring months.

But, then again, Joe Girardi seems convinced to not follow any consistent train of thought. He’d rather not lay out any plan, or make any clear statements regarding his team, his players, his rotation, his lineup, his diet, his anything…something that’s quickly annoying the members of the New York press corps. I think both major tabloids referred to him as “Belichik-like” in terms of secretiveness and sneakiness. Not exactly the kind of guy you want the media comparing you to, unless it means you’ve done nothing but win championships, something Girardi seems extremely far away from doing as it stands this year.

It’s amazing that he’s used 27 different lineups through the team’s first 30 games. Injuries have something to do with it, but so does a manager’s uncertainty in both himself and his players. I’d imagine tonight will be #28, and I highly doubt that this time around the results will suddenly be better.