Yankees record in May: 14-12, with two postponed games. That’s not terrible, but it’s not good either.

Big night tonight at the Stadium. Joba Chamberlain makes his debut as a starter. Originally, I was against moving Joba to the rotation. I thought, “Who’s going to replace him for the 8th inning? Kyle Farnsworth?” Yeah, we saw how that’s worked out so far. With Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes out for a while, the Yankees need another starter. It’ll be interesting to see how Joba fairs tonight. He’s on a 70-75 pitch limit which means he’ll probably only go 4 or 5 innings. And with Mike Mussina starting tomorrow, who’s a 5-6 inning pitcher, the bullpen better be ready to record a lot of outs.

Speaking of Mike Mussina, he leads the Yankee pitchers with 8 wins. It’s great to see the Moose have a nice rebound season. Changing speeds and locating the ball can go far, right, Moose?

Mariano Rivera: The Sandman. What’s there to say about this guy? For a 38 year old relief pitcher, he’s having the best start of his career. He’s 15 of 15 in save opportunities so far. Strikeouts: 24. Walks: 2. Oh, and his ERA? 0.36. Forget Sandman, his nickname might as well be God. Kidding!

Really, things could be worse for the Yankees. The Tampa Bay Rays could be in first place. Oh, wait…

And just for fun: I had a hit, and also scored a run in my softball gym class today. For someone as athletically challanged as I am, I felt pretty good about myself today.

I know, I know, I haven’t updated this thing in ages. I figured it was time to do an early evaluation on the Yankees season so far.

The Yankees finished April at 14-15. That’s not bad, considering all that’s happened so far.

1. Injuries: The Yankees were bitten by the injury bug early this season. Andy Pettitte was out early with back spasms, but he’s rebounded from that. El capitan Derek Jeter was out 6 games with a strained left quad. Jason Giambi had a left groin strain (not that it matters since he’s playing pretty terrible right now, on offense and defense.) Jose Molina had an injured left hamstring. Joba Chamberlain had a left hamstring injury. Wilson Betemit has pink eye. Jorge Posada and Alex Rodriguez are both on the 15 day DL. Posada has a right shoulder strain, and it out until around the All-Star break. A-Rod has a grade 2 right quad strain and is out for at least 15 days.  Brian Bruney has a right foot fracture, and is most likely out for the season. This is a huge blow for Bruney who has pitched very well so far this season. And finally, we find out what’s wrong with Phil Hughes. He’s got a cracked rib. He also needs glasses, which makes a lot of sense because in his last start he had trouble reading the signs off catcher Chris Stewart. Hughes will be out also until the All-Star break.

2. Pitching: Chien-Ming Wang, Pettitte, and Mike Mussina are a combined 17-6 with a 3.72 ERA so far. Hughes and Ian Kennedy are a combined 0-6 with a 8.69 ERA. With Hughes on the DL, Darrell Rasner will take over his spot in the rotation. Lets hope he pitches better then Hughes has. As for the bullpen, there’s nothing to be said about Mariano Rivera. He looks as good as he’s ever been. In 11 games, he has a 0.00 ERA in 12 innings, allowing only 4 hits, walking none, and striking out 12. Opposing batters are only hitting .103 off him. Wow. Joba on the other hand; in 11 games, he allowed 2 runs in 12.1 innings, 3 walks compared to 14 strikeouts, with an ERA of 1.46. Just another reason to keep him in the bullpen for the season.

3. Run Support: It’s a surprise, especially with how deep the linup is, that the Yankees are only batting .245 with RISP. The Bombers are batting a miserable .218 with RISP and 2 outs. But they’re batting .265 with the bases loaded. That’s kind of a good sign. Sort of. Overall, they’re batting .254. Things are looking up though. Hideki Matsui has 12 game hitting streak and is batting .313. Johnny Damon has raised his average to .275. Bobby Abreu has been fantastic. He leads the team with 33 hits, and is batting .284. Melky Cabrera has started off great this year, also batting .284 with a team high 5 HR’s. Giambi also has 5 HR’s…but is batting .160. Note to Giambi: stop trying to pull the ball. Hitting to the opposite field = a GOOD thing. And I bet Robinson Cano misses Larry Bowa. He’s batting a team low .155. Robbie just needs to get some confidence in him. He looks completely lost at the plate. He fouls off a lot of pitches he should be able to hit.

Note: Some of these stats don’t include the game that was played today at Yankee Stadium v.s the Mariners. Websites are slow with getting stats updates.

I’m not sure when I’ll be updating this thing again, so I’m going to say this now. I’m heading out to the Stadium May 7th (my 18th birthday) v.s the Indians. Hope the Bombers are able to pull out a win, considering I’m 0-2 at Yankee games in my life.

Why is everybody getting so worked up over Joba Chamberlain and his celebratory fist pump? There is nothing wrong with what he did. He was pitching for the first time since that awful bug-ridden ALDS game v.s the Indians last year. It was his first time pitching on Opening Day, and need I remind you, the final Opening Day at The House That Ruth Built. His father was in the stands. The game was exciting since the score was 3-2 in favor of the Yanks.

The media and other players are blowing this way out of proportion. There are other players whose celebrations are worse than Joba’s. For example, Manny Ramirez. No disrespect for Manny here, because he is a great and talented player, but the way he stands on the plate as he watches the ball leave the park is very disrespectful to the other team. What Joba does doesn’t even compare to Manny’s antics.

It’s good to see emotion out of the players. Reminds the fans that these guys are human and not robots who have no feeling.

Keep on fist pumpin’ Joba.

Everybody knows the suspensions Shelley Duncan, Melky Cabrera, and Jonny Gomes got handed to them last Friday. Duncan and Cabrera were suspended for 3 games, going into effect opening day. Jonny Gomes was only suspended for 2 games. The question I’m asking is this: are the suspensions unfair?

What Shelley did was wrong, no doubt. You don’t go slide spikes high aiming at a player’s cahones. What Melky did was wrong too, even though nobody even noticed he hit Evan Longoria in the back of the head while watching the game.

But why do Duncan and Cabrera get 1 more game then Gomes? He was just as aggressive as they both were. Gomes was the one that started the bench clearing. If he hadn’t gone after Shelley like he did, there would have been a brawl in the first place.

Gomes should have gotten the same suspension. Period.

Source.

When Mike Mussina does well, he gets the mooooooose call from the adoring fans. When Mike Mussina does bad, everybody wants him off this team.

Yes, he didn’t have the type of year we as fans expect from Moose during the 2007 season. Nobody can make excuses for what happened last year. But 2008 is a brand new year. He’s lost weight, he’s in good shape (for a 39 year old pitcher), and he knows his situation. He knows if he blows it like last year he’s not going to be in the rotation. I don’t expect to see big numbers from him. He’s an innings eater this year. If he has an ERA at most in the high 4’s, with a decent SO to BB ratio, with a WHIP below 1, and can give 5-7 innings per game, I’d call it a good year. (Win-loss records don’t mean anything.) You don’t have to agree with me, but that’s what I’d like to see out of Moose.

But from 1 spring training game, his first start IN spring training this year, fans are already saying he’s “done.” You can’t call him done just because he didn’t do so hot in a spring training game. Isn’t the point of spring training for a pitcher is to find location, to get their arm strong, and to finesse the different pitches? That’s what Moose is doing. He’s still finding himself. So to all Yankee fans saying he’s done, relax. Spring training games are meaningless. Now, if he still pitches like he did against the Astro’s near the end of spring training and into the regular season, then I’d be worried. But for now, just relax and enjoy this season. It’s going to be a special one.