Nothing has been made official as of yet, but it is looking like Carl Pavano will be the team’s choice to start Saturday night’s game in Baltimore. It seemed like his candidacy was in doubt when the Post’s George King, the man who has most reviled Pavano during his time as a complete waste of the Yankees’ money and dubbed him the “American Idle”, broke this story about Carl suffering from a stiff neck the day after his Sunday start in Trenton.
He skipped his bullpen session on Tuesday, which seemed to be another red flag. Was Pavano again asking out of major league duty due to a mysterious injury?
It would appear, however, that the severity of his stiff neck and his skipping a bullpen have been clarified. Not just by GM Brian Cashman’s quotes that he was “fine” and was experiencing normal stiffness. No, Carl Pavano declared himself ready, as hard as this may be to believe, through his actions, namely walking up the mound and throwing in Trenton on Wednesday. He threw a bullpen that was described in this story as being “perfect” by Trenton’s pitching coach. I can only speculate what his definition of perfect is: perfect because Carl didn’t tweak his left ear while compensating for his stiff neck? Perfect because Carl showed up not reeking of booze from an all-night binge session of boozing and shacking up with a random New Jersey floozy? Perfect because he didn’t crash his Lamborghini on the way to the ballpark and break every bone in his pitching hand?
All jokes aside, Carl is currently the hands-down best choice for Saturday’s start. Considering Phil Hughes’ struggles in his recent Scranton outing and, well, the other choice being Victor Zambrano, I’d much rather see what Carl has to offer. For some reason a rotation that includes Sidney Ponson, Darrell Rasner and Victor Zambrano seems like it should be featured in the International League playoff race, not the American League Wild Card chase.
My perception of Crash-Test Dummy Carl, however, is a little different even in spite of all those “injuries” and all those frustrating days spent doing something other than pitching for my team. The few moments he’s been healthy in his career, he hasn’t been a terrible pitcher. So the question will be how his still-recovering pitching arm and arsenal will adjust to again facing major leaguers on Saturday. Baltimore has an extremely potent offense, so it will be an extremely tough test for Pavano. My guess is he will have a short leash, both in Saturday’s game and in general in terms of having a rotation spot. No string of good starts can really erase the 3 years of unbelievable frustration he caused, but it really will be must-see television when he toes the rubber in Camden Yards Saturday night.
I don’t mean to draw undeserved and unnecessary levels of attention to one game, because honestly it may not mean anything in the long run of the season. The game’s importance and Carl’s potential impact on the season will first and foremost depend on what happens over the next two games.
The Yankees are facing one of their (and the entire American League’s) biggest antagonists this season in Roy Halladay, and they have been awful in the first games of series all year long, so Friday in Baltimore is no sure thing, even if the O’s are throwing an erratic and hittable young starter. That could get balanced out since Friday’s starter for the Yankees, The Moose, has been knocked around by his former team this year. Granted, most Yankees starting pitchers have gotten knocked around by the Orioles this year, but hopefully that trend ends in Charm City this weekend.
So, by the time Carl takes the mound on Saturday, a lot of bad could be swirling around the team…and I don’t know how that is a good environment for one of the central harbingers of Yankees fans’ sorrows in recent years to make his triumphant return. But, then again, a lot of good could have happened once Pavano returns. A win tonight against Halladay would be a dream come true considering how easily he’s throttled the Bronx “Bombers” this year. That, following the tidy, clean win last night would be the perfect way to erase the bad taste left from Tuesday night’s fiasco, and it would give the team a lot of confidence as they head south to a ballpark where, historically, they’ve hit well and won a lot of games.
I’m excited by this wondrously bizarre development, but I can’t really get myself to focus totally on it until I see some more good results tonight and tomorrow. Suffice is to say, I’ve circled Saturday in red on my calendar.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Games 125-127
at Toronto Blue Jays
Pitching Match-ups
Tonight, Tuesday August 19
Darrell Rasner (5-9, 5.18) vs. A.J. Burnett (15-9, 4.67)
Wednesday, August 20
Andy Pettitte (12-9, 4.30) vs. David Purcey (2-3, 5.93)
Thursday, August 21
Sidney Ponson (7-3, 4.20) vs. Roy Halladay (14-9, 2.64)
Prognostications
Toronto features its two best starters in this series, who have both dominated the Yankees in their starts against them this season. The third guy, David Purcey, is a soft-tossing left hander that the Yankees have never faced before, which has meant that the offense got shut down and the guy had a career game, regardless of how bad his ERA was coming in. Looking at just the pitchers, you assume the Yankees are going to have a tough time in this series.
Then there is the fact that Toronto is red hot as a team, coming off a sweep of Boston in Fenway and a 3 out of 4 game swing through Detroit earlier last week. Alex Rios has been killing the ball, and he is a perpetual thorn in the Yankees’ side. Vernon Wells returned and has swung the bat well, and he too has a strong career track record of clobbering Yankees pitching.
And then you have the Yankees, puttering along after a terrible road trip and a mediocre yet effective enough 3-game homestand against Kansas City. Pessimism envelops the Yankees at this point based on the difficulty of their schedule and the depth of the hole they’ve dug themselves. The feeling is that they will finish behind Tampa and Boston, and could even finish behind Toronto considering the teams are now only separated by 2 games in the standings, and that could swing Toronto’s way by the end of the night on Thursday.
A.J. Burnett is 2-0 this year against the Yankees and has overpowering stuff, Halladay absolutely dominated them for a CG shutout the last time he faced their lineup, and they’ve never seen Purcey so he’s due for his best game in the majors. All this seems to add up to the Yankees being lucky to win one of the three games, with the potential for a Blue Jays sweep as evident as ever.
Do I believe any of this doom and gloom, and do I admit that this 2008 Yankees season will go out with a whimper in Toronto in late August?
No I don’t, not for one second. It’s all about the Yankees’ offense, and what a lot of people are saying is: “If the team hasn’t been able to hit for the first 124 games, why will they suddenly flip a switch and start now?”
I can’t answer that question directly, but I will say that it shouldn’t be a matter of flipping some type of hypothetical switch. The team has been putting itself in positions to succeed offensively all year long. If they begin to build up some consistency in delivering in those potentially productive situations starting tonight and carrying through the rest of this week, and actually win some tough games and show some resiliency and some determination, then it won’t be a matter of “the light bulb has gone on, the switch has been flipped”. It will be a team playing like a team, a team of highly talented individuals figuring out how it works to feed off each other and collaborate to win baseball games. Something that they were great at for the last 2 years they were together, but have inexplicably forgotten how to do this year.
I say that, considering the reputations and abilities of the players taking the field for the Yankees, it is not impossible that they will start playing winning baseball again. No, their offense will not reach those storied heights that pundits expected them to reach, there will be no 1,000 run season. But to say the offense can’t do enough to win games in the major leagues, to me, is silly.
Granted, it will be difficult to take these types of steps if the pitching struggles, which puts a lot of pressure on the shaky Darrell Rasner tonight. But winning this evening’s first game, no matter how ugly it is or what kind of effort it takes, would do a lot for this team. It means beating someone they haven’t been able to solve all year, and it means beginning to make the case that “Oh yeah, rest of the American League, we are the Yankees and we still do have all these big-name players. So maybe we’re not completely out of the race, just yet.”
I personally think tonight will go a long way towards deciding if the pennant race happens in New York this September or not. This is the type of game that needs to swing the Yankees’ way, because it simply has not all year long. I don’t know how it will happen or if it will actually happen, but I am certainly optimistic that it will. Call me crazy, call me unrealistic, call me a pinstripe glasses-wearing buffoon, but I think it is possible.
NOTE: Hideki Matsui has been activated from the 15-day disabled list. Justin Christian was optioned to Triple-A Scranton to open up the roster space for Godzilla. Japan's power hitter is in the lineup tonight, batting 7th and DHing.
