The Mets Miss The Lincecum Memo And Other Stories

• Mets 7-Giants 0:

While they said all the right things about being impressed with Tim Lincecum's stuff and how bright the

diminutive righty's future is, the Mets apparently missed last week's issue of Sports Illustrated because they knocked him around pretty good on the field. Carlos Delgado sending one of Lincecum's fastballs deep into the Flushing Meadows night was impressive in and of itself considering how Delgado's had such trouble catching up to power fastballs this year; I would hesitate to think this is a renaissance for Delgado because the pitch was up and out over the plate; he still can't get around on a power inside fastball at all which indicates a location mistake on the part of Lincecum. Mike Pelfrey and his reliance on his power sinker is starting to make him look like a young Kevin Brown.

• Yankees 5-Rays 0:

Andy Pettitte was masterful against a hot hitting and tough lineup in the Rays. In looking at Pettitte's numbers----stats----if he hangs around for two or three more years and can win between 13-15 games each year in addition to this

year's likely 16 wins, he's going to make the Hall of Fame. A winner; a gutty innings-eater; honest about his brief PED usage; and a post-season record of 18-7 (as of now) plus around 240 wins will make Pettitte more of a no-brainer for the Hall than Curt Schilling. Another thing about Pettitte that many people may not know is that he wasn't even drafted; the Yankees signed him as an undrafted free agent in 1991. That's some pretty good scouting, luck or both.

• Did the Dodgers owner nix a deal for C.C. Sabathia?

The Pasadena Star-News reported on Monday that Dodgers owner Frank McCourt nixed a deal that would have brought C.C. Sabathia, Casey Blake and Jamey Carroll to the Dodgers for a package of youngsters----Story----the main reason is implied to be financial. McCourt may receive criticism for this after the fact especially if Sabathia pitches the Brewers into the

playoffs, but McCourt has every right to do what I see as the right thing for his franchise by stopping his GM from mortgaging a big chunk of his team's loaded farm system to win right now.
Dodgers GM Ned Colletti is already under fire for the team's underachieving and the huge money contracts he doled out to Andruw Jones and Jason Schmidt with literally no return. If the Indians, a smart organization that knows how to scout prospects, were trading three players with expiring contracts who are in demand, there would probably have been at least five prospects going to Cleveland including the likes of Matt Kemp, Andy

LaRoche and lots of young pitching. The Dodgers are getting their injured players back and with manager Joe Torre's history of hot second half finishes, along with the way the NL West is looking like it might only take 85 wins to take the division, why make such a desperation move? Add in that McCourt may be keeping an eye on the Brian Cashman/Yankees situation with the possibility that Torre and Cashman will be reunited on the West Coast after the season and there was no reason to allow Colletti to make this move.
Despite McCourt's attempts to win within a budget and create a clone of the Oakland Athletics when he hired Paul DePodesta to disastrous results, he's spent a load of money and allowed Colletti to be very aggressive in trying to win immediately over the past three years; he shouldn't receive criticism when he finally says enough's enough.

• Is there an agenda in place here?

I don't know the circumstances with Keith Law's departure from the Blue Jays in 2006, but reading between the lines in the comment about Chad Gaudin in the Rich Harden trade, and

you have to wonder if there's a bit of sniping going on underneath what masks itself as an opinion:

Chad Gaudin is an outstanding second player -- hate to call him a "throw-in" here -- for the Cubs, as a short reliever who could be dominant in that role in the NL. His fastball/slider combo has produced over 300 innings of above-average pitching since Toronto discarded him after a grand total of two big league starts, and his career-long vulnerability against left-handed batters has vanished this year, in large part because of his improved control.

If Law's letting personal biases enter into his judgments (intentionally or not), he should try and put them aside if he intends to be a credible media voice. For the record, I wouldn't have touched Rich Harden unless I was getting him for nothing because he's completely unreliable health-wise from one day to the next.

Decision Time Is Looming For The Yankees

• Red Sox 7-Yankees 0:

Even the most hardcore, ardent and irrationally arrogant Yankee fan has to be concerned

by what he's seeing from this team. The argument will naturally be that they're still within striking distance of the Red Sox and the Rays are a young and inexperienced challenger without the pennant race experience of a team like the Yankees. The major concern right now should be that they're not doing the little things to win games. The Rangers beat them two out of three and would have swept them if Rangers manager Ron Washington hadn't put an ill-equipped and inexperienced rookie to pitch in relief; the Red Sox came into Yankee Stadium reeling from a sweep at the hands of the Rays and five straight losses overall and manhandled the Yankees "big game" pitcher in Andy Pettitte as Jon Lester dominated them easily. They're in serious trouble if this continues.There will also be references to the Yankees teams of years past that came back from stunning deficits because of their experience fortitude and...their manager. That's one of the keys that will determine whether or not the team is going to go on a run to the playoffs.
Joe Torre and his calm, confident and historically successful demeanor is no longer there;

Joe Girardi is and despite Girardi's impressive managerial attributes, he's still very inexperienced with only a year and a half as a manager at any level and no real success other than a surprising 78-84 with a Marlins team that was expected to lose 100 games. (With each passing day that a similar Marlins team plays well under Fredi Gonzalez, Girardi's accomplishment becomes less

and less impressive.) Torre always had his veteran cachet and championships to fall back on; Girardi doesn't. Another important thing that Torre had that Girardi may not have is even more important to a team trying to rebound from a slow start----personnel.
This is quite possibly the weakest Yankee team in recent memory top-to-bottom. Their starting rotation is short due to the injury to Chien-Ming Wang and even when Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy were pitching, both looked like they were inches away from being sent back to the minors. Their bench is atrocious and their bullpen, other than Mariano Rivera, is filled with journeymen and youngsters. Players they were counting on like Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera haven't done their part and

Derek Jeter is starting to show the age in a player who is in his mid-thirties and plays clean. Even with that, their lineup is formidable, but not formidable enough to make up for guys like Darrell Rasner and Dan Giese being part of the starting rotation; or for Joba Chamberlain's strict pitch count that precludes him from pitching longer that five or six innings in most of his games. It's always been dangerous to count out the Yankees when they've had mid-season struggles and large deficits to overcome, but this might be the year that they finally do miss the playoffs because not only are they short on talent, but there's a hungry Rays team that isn't going away.
The Yankees still have their financial advantage and they're lucky in that the Wild Card is there for the taking if they have a hot streak. Teams that were expected to be in contention----the Indians, Mariners and Blue Jays----have fallen back, so the Yankees still have that possibility very available to them; but what are they going to do? GM Brian Cashman was reluctant to deal any of his young prospects to try and get Johan Santana, so how's it going to look if he reverses course and gets a lesser pitcher for an equal or greater package than what the Mets gave up to get Santana?
There will be pitching available. The Mariners will likely be perfectly willing to move Les Miserables, Erik Bedard, but will Cashman want to bring Bedard (standoffish and nasty with

the media and even teammates; let's see him try his attitude with the New York media) into his clubhouse? Bedard is starting to appear to be the epitome of the old football term, "coach killer". Would he be worth what it would take to get him? Presumably the likes of Melky Cabrera and a young pitcher or two? How about the reeling Braves and Tim Hudson? Would Cabrera and Robinson Cano get that done?

Would Cashman be willing to do it? Or possibly Roy Oswalt? Then there are the massive risks like Rich Harden; would Cashman ante up to get the ultra-talented and ultra-fragile righty who's going to be traded? Or maybe a guy who'll go out there and leave his guts on the mound like Joe Blanton; perhaps even the Reds would be willing to deal Aaron Harang for a massive package of youngsters.
The Yankees are smart enough to have known that this was going to be a year in transition for them and that the young pitchers were going to experience growing pains. I saw Kennedy last season and wasn't impressed even with all the propaganda; I felt Hughes would contribute

his 12 wins and Chamberlain would be solid in whatever role he was placed; but Wang was going to have to win his 17-19 games; Pettitte was going to have to come up big in games like tonight; and Wang's injury and Pettitte's loss tonight leaves the Yankees wondering what to do next. Mike Mussina can't possibly be expected to pitch as well in the second half as he did in his surprising and resurgent first half; what are they going to do? Will they bite the bullet and surrender a package similar to that they refused to part with to get Santana on a lesser pitcher? Or will they take the heat; sleep in the bed they made and hope everything works out? That's a question they're going to have to answer within the next few weeks because as the calender turns, there's not the guaranteed spot in the playoffs, nor the weak teams in their division to brutalize. There are deals to be made for immediate help; will they make them?

• Does anyone care about Roger Clemens's DNA at this point?

I get the impression that people had completely forgotten the whole Roger Clemens fiasco and moved onto the actual doings on the field, but now there's the story asserting that Clemens's DNA will be found on drug paraphernalia provided by trainer Brian McNamee. Does anyone even

care at this point? Does the point have to be proven that Clemens was lying in front of congress? To Mike Wallace? To everyone? All this will do is dig Clemens's baseball grave another foot deeper; any further and he'll almost have completed a journey to the center of the earth. Maybe the Mole People or the C.H.U.D. will believe him because no one up here does anymore.

Observations From The Subway Series

• Andy Pettitte's return from a rain delay:

You have to wonder if Joe Girardi was having flashbacks to when, as manager of the

Marlins, he allowed Josh Johnson to return to the mound after a rain delay and was blamed

for Johnson eventually needing Tommy John surgery. Now managing the Yankees, Girardi allowed Andy Pettitte to return to the mound after a rain delay of a little less than an hour. Coincidentally, both situations were in games against the Mets.
Of course there are differences between the two circumstances; Pettitte is a veteran who should be allowed to have a strong say as to whether or not he's fit to go back out to the mound after a delay;

Johnson was a rookie who shouldn't have had any say at all in whether or not he returned to the game. Girardi's been blamed by Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria for the injuries incurred by their young pitchers, so it would be natural for him to be reluctant to take the risk of returning a pitcher----any pitcher----to the mound after any kind of delay, but it showed Girardi's fortitude and was a good sign in

his managerial future that he didn't let the Johnson incident cloud his decision and sent Pettitte back out there. There's still no evidence that Girardi's handling of Johnson in that one incident precipitated the injury one way or the other, but most managers would have figured it was better to shield themselves from criticism by removing the pitcher. It's a good attribute for a manager to have when he does what he feels is necessary rather than what's safe in the eyes of the media.

• Why do they play the Superman theme song when Fernando Tatis comes to bat?
  

If there's any player in the big leagues who personifies the exact opposite of Superman, it's

Fernando Tatis. Does he choose to walk to the plate to the theme song from Superman? If he doesn't and they're looking for something more apropos, they should try to play the song backwards to signify the opposite of Superman----Bizarro Superman----because that's about where Fernando Tatis is in comparison at this point in his career.

• Carlos Delgado and Darrell Rasner:

Critics are pointing to the weak pitching that Carlos Delgado used to fatten his homer/RBI total this weekend, but it's unfair to rip a 36-year-old, clean-playing first baseman for what he can't do in the twilight of his career. Delgado can't catch up to the power fastball anymore, especially inside; nor is he suited to being one of the main RBI threats in any team's lineup.

The injuries to Ryan Church and Moises Alou have put Delgado into a position that he can no longer handle and he's relegated to hitting his homers against mediocre-to-poor pitching, and there's nothing wrong with that. If anyone's to blame for Delgado's exposure for what he is, it's the Mets front office for leaving him stranded as the lone second tier power threat after David Wright and Carlos Beltran, especially since they know the injury history of Alou and weren't sure what to expect from Church in his first opportunity to play every day.
Darrell Rasner received great credit when he arrived from the minor leagues and had a series of solid starts rescuing an injured and beleaguered pitching staff, but he's also shown that he's more of a journeyman than a legitimate starter for a team that has designs on contending for a championship. His fastball

is eminently hittable and he occasionally loses command; for a pitcher with such limited stuff, Rasner has to be perfect or hope that the Yankees score a bunch of runs; when that doesn't happen, he's vulnerable.
The Rasner situation reminds me of when Jon Lieber was pitching for the Yankees against the Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS and had pitched brilliantly in game 2 outdueling Pedro Martinez. All we heard was how Lieber worked fast, pounded the strike zone and challenged

the hitters; the accolades lasted until game six when Lieber gave up four runs in 7.1 innings and was outpitched by Curt Schilling as the Red Sox tied the series. With pitchers who don't have dominating stuff, their results depend on many factors including the umpire's strike zone; whether they're able to get their breaking balls over or have enough movement on their fastball to prevent it getting hit into space like Delgado's crushed shot off of Rasner. He's a fifth starter at best and the Yankees need to beef up their pitching if they're even going to make the playoffs because if they don't hit with guys like Ranser on the mound, they don't win.

• Oliver Perez turns another corner, or does he? Or maybe he doesn't; or maybe he does; maybe...maybe not?

I wouldn't get all excited about Oliver Perez's performance today; he's historically pitched his best (while with the Mets) in high-pressure games against the Braves and Yankees or in playoff games. Much will be made about the mechanical adjustments made by new pitching

coach Dan Warthen, but Perez's problems don't have anything to do with his mechanics to any great degree; his problems are in his spacious head; he's like an expensive sweater that would unravel completely with the pulling of one strategic thread and he's just as likely to fall apart in his next start as he is to pitch as well as he did today.
The departure of Rick Peterson and his constant harassment of Perez and harping on little details ad nauseam probably helped the pitcher feel less claustrophobic while working, but that doesn't have anything to do with five days from now. More than any other pitcher, Perez is truly a guy who's a variable from one start to the next.

• Jose Reyes throws a tantrum when Carlos Delgado drops his throw:

I'll be in the minority in saying this, but Reyes had a right to be irritated about Delgado dropping that throw. It was a bit high, but not so high that it should have clanked off of

Delgado's glove and given Reyes an error. Reyes shouldn't have thrown his glove and the buffoon Michael Kay harped on it in the Yankees post-game, but it's not that big of a deal. Delgado has veteran cachet in the Mets clubhouse and if it bothered him, he'll let Reyes know it. Reyes needs to tone down his overt displays of anger when things don't go well for him on the field, but this wasn't such a big deal that people like Kay should act so indignantly about it in what was more of a customary dig against the Mets from a broadcaster who hates them than any reaction over a player's emotional display.