Afternoon Baseball

First, in reply to Mike's comments, he's right: Farnsworth is highly unlikely to become untradeable, if for nothing else than some team would bite at a reliever who brings his fastball and stuff at a relatively young age. That being said, he's been a disaster, so the Yankees may not have as much leverage.
Given how quiet the trade talks surrounding anyone have been, that's not going to help the Yankees' position. Worse-case scenario, no one gets Eric Gagne or Brad Lidge, and instead of throwing themselves at the Yankees' feet to get anyone (i.e. Farnsworth), they all decide to stand pat. This, of course, assumes the Yankees think to trade him at all.

But last night, apparently the formula for avoiding Farnsworth is having Mo Rivera get five outs. It also involves nearly every other pitcher (except Edwar Ramirez, because Joe Torre hates him or something) in the bullpen. Maybe Luis Vizcaino is the answer in the eighth inning, although I'd be surprised. Why? I haven't forgotten how awful he was (although that was partly due to Torre using his in nine of the first 13 games).
Pitching Mariano more often isn't such a bad thing, actually, although much of that will happen just with the Yankees playing better ball. He's converted 15 saves without fail in 29 games with a 1.36 ERA since April 27. He's got 31 K in 33 innings and has allowed but 30 baserunners. He's also regained the 94 mph fastball, the absence of which most of the year really had me thinking he had lost something, even if he was still better than a 5.00 ERA pitcher.
Torre is awful with most relief pitchers, and so that's why Mike Myers continues to face lefties, Scott Proctor is overworked, and many other debacles occur. Granted, he doesn't have a ton of options. But the eighth is still a concern.

During the Yankees' magical 1996-2001 run of playoff brilliance, the team had 24 come-from-behind victories. Only three times did they trail after eight innings and still win -- two of those being back-to-back games in the 2001 World Series. The Yankees, improbably, had a better-than-.500 record (24-21) in games in which they trailed because they tattooed middle relievers in the sixth and seventh frames (and also because Jeff Nelson, Mike Stanton, and unlikelies such as David Weathers shut the door in return).

Since 2001, they've consistently run into teams whose strength lay there (Anaheim being most prominent), and those comebacks have returned to more of a mean (i.e., not often). Not learning from these facts, I think, has been the most disappointing and avoidable part of the Series drought these last several years.

Labels: Yankees